章節 99: Chapter 99: Shizun's Third Weapon
That night, Mo Ran slept leaning against the haitang tree.
There were many places at Sisheng Peak that had traces of Chu Wanning having lived there; if he wanted to pay his respects, there was no place more suitable than Red Lotus Pavilion. But only leaning against this tree dulled the ache in his heart, only here could he feel a faint connection to the world of the living.
He had once thought that taking Chu Wanning as his master was the greatest misfortune of his life, that it was a mistake from the very start.
Only now did he finally realize that the unfortunate one wasn't him, wasn't Mo Weiyu, but the one standing beneath the flowers that day, head lowered and lost in thought. The unfortunate one was Chu Wanning.
"Xianjun xianjun, pay attention to me." Vaguely, he seemed to recall that being the first thing he had said to Shizun.
Maybe not those exact words—it had been too long ago, and he no longer remembered too clearly.
But he could still clearly remember the look on Chu Wanning's face when those eyelashes flickered up, bewildered and startled.
And how gentle he had looked.
Lying beneath the flowering tree, Mo Ran thought that, if time could flow backwards to the day he chose his master, that he absolutely, no matter what,
shouldn't cling to Chu Wanning to accept him as a disciple again.
Because the price for the flicker of those eyelashes in that instant was the endless entanglement to follow, was Chu Wanning's very life.
Two lifetimes.
He had been ruined in his hands.
For two lifetimes...
His throat moved in a swallow as he closed his eyes against the rising threat of a sob. A long, long time passed in an agony that felt like a million ants gnawing at his heart before he finally drifted off into a light slumber.
And then, in his dreamscape, that segment of memory that he hadn't dared touch since his rebirth struggled free of its chains, raised its knife, and carved out his heart.
The him of that time had stood at the very top of the human realm, and Chu Wanning, spiritual core abolished, was imprisoned in his palace.
But he had been targeted by several assassination attempts in a row, the last of which had been perpetrated by Xue Meng and Mei Hanxue. Mo Ran was too powerful to yield to them his life, but he did sustain grave injuries from it and had to stay in his palace and recover for more than a month before he got his strength back.
Shuzhong was a rainy place; even more so during those days, pitterpattering without stop.
Fingers pale as jade clutching the edge of the heavy brocade cloak draped over his shoulders, Mo Ran stood beneath the stoa, gazing at the grey skies above, the expression on his face one caught between mirth and madness. He didn't speak, but anyone could feel the twisted nature radiating from his person;
he had been born with such a handsome face, but the light in his eyes was dark and ruthless, devoid of any warmth.
And the longer he sat on that throne, the darker it became.
Footsteps sounded from behind him. Without looking back, he said, "You're here?" "Are you going to lay waste to Kunlun Taxue Palace?" Chu Wanning's voice rang out faintly in the grand hall.
Mo Ran replied, "And what if I am?"
"...Have you forgotten what you promised me? That you wouldn't go after Xue Meng's life anymore." Mo Ran's voice was calm and even as he spoke, "Shizun came all this way and didn't even stop to ask how my injuries are doing, or whether I'm cold standing out here in the wind; all he cares about is who I'm going to kill." "Mo Weiyu, I came to tell you to stop doing things that you'll end up regretting." "Heh, regret? Shouldn't you be the one regretting? Your core is already shattered from our fight back when you tried to stop me from razing Rufeng Sect; you're just an ordinary person now, without the strength to oppose me now that I'm going to raze Taxue Palace. Don't you regret not minding your own business back then?" Mo Ran turned to look over his shoulder at him, a flicker in his eyes and a cruel smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Chu Wanning, you worthless cripple, what exactly do you hope to stop me with?" Chu Wanning couldn't find any words for a long while, maybe because he really did have nothing left.
A loud clap of thunder suddenly split the skies and rain poured forth,
streaming down the roof and spilling from the eaves.
Finally, Chu Wanning closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, all that he said was a quiet, "Don't go." Mo Ran turned around with a flutter of black robes.
Framed by the ashen skies behind him and torrential rain amidst freezing winds, he looked at Chu Wanning within the hall. "And why shouldn't I go? I've already given Xue Meng his chance. That year, when you willingly gave yourself to me for his sake, I kept my word and spared his life in exchange for you—— But now he's the one after my life, so, tell me, why shouldn't I go?" "..." "Well? Nothing to say?" Mo Ran scoffed. "Go on, berate me, curse me out,
say something. Chu Wanning, where did all that might of yours go? I already know Xue Meng's your favorite, your best disciple, you think he's earnest and sincere, and I'm just the mud on the bottom of his boot." "That's enough." Chu Wanning's brows were knitted tight on his pale face, as if trying to hold something back.
"That is not enough! How could it be?" The sight filled Mo Ran's heart with a savage glee, anger, ecstasy, hatred, and jealousy scorching his heart with their intensity.
His eyes glinted as he paced back and forth.
"There's no second chance, Chu Wanning, there's no second chance for him. I'm going to kill him, and I'm going to skin him for a rug, drink wine from his skull! I'll scoop out his insides, chop him up, and stew him! You can't stop me!
——Chu Wanning, you can't stop me!" Eyes reddened, he grew more enraptured the more he raved, frenzied and crazed.
When suddenly a hand fisted the collar of his robes and another landed on his face.
"Snap out of it!" Chu Wanning's face was so close he could see the quiver of his eyelashes and the wetness in his eyes.
"Mo Ran...wake up already, wake up…"
"I am awake!" The burn of his cheek only drove him further into madness.
Glaring at Chu Wanning's face, he felt a sudden flare of anger. "I'm perfectly fucking awake! You're the one that's asleep! Are you blind?!" He shoved him off and ripped open the collar of his robes to reveal bloodstained bandages.
"Are you blind, Chu Wanning!" He roared, jabbing at his own chest, and when even that didn't feel like enough, ripped the gauze right off to show the bloody mess beneath...
"Who do you think did this? Your good disciple! Xue Meng! If he had aimed his Longcheng just a bit more to the side, I'd be dead right now! So tell me why the fuck should I let him go!" "As far as you're concerned, his life is a life, but mine doesn't count, is that it?!" In a fit of rage, Mo Ran grabbed Chu Wanning's hand without warning and pressed it to his bloody wound. "Didn't you want to stop me? Fine, here's your chance, go on and dig out my heart then! ——Chu Wanning, why don't you just dig out my fucking heart then!!!!" "..." The tips of Chu Wanning's fingers, cold as ice, trembled.
Mo Ran glared at him, furiously, ruthlessly, the veins at his neck throbbing.
His voice was raw and raspy as he said, "Go on, dig it out." The deluge of rain against the roof was frenzied madness.
Dead silence.
Neither moved.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before Mo Ran finally let go of Chu Wanning's hand and, breaths low and harsh, declared in a deep voice, "I'm taking Xue Ziming and Mei Hanxue's lives." "..." "Go ahead and hate me, Shizun," he said, "My life's already like this anyway,
our lives are already like this. None of us can turn back now, so might as well just keep going in the darkness. I'll just drag some old friends along for company on my way to hell." That day, looking at the black robes on his back as he walked away, Chu Wanning finally spoke.
He said, "Mo Ran, if you destroy Taxue Palace and kill Xue Meng, then I'll die in front of you. I have nothing left to trade you with, but at least I can still choose death." Hearing that, Mo Ran paused before turning to look over his shoulder, a smile spreading across his handsome face against the dreary backdrop of wind and rain.
"This Venerable One will not allow you to die." "..." "Lest you forget, even when all the blood had drained out of your body, I still managed to take you back from the very gates of death. You're gonna spend the rest of this life with me no matter how much you disgust me." After venting his madness, Mo Ran's expression gradually returned to its usual calm, cold and threatening. He said, "My good Shizun, just be good and stay here at Sisheng Peak. When I capture Xue Meng, I'll bring him back here so he can get a good long look at the god that he worries over day and night, writhing under me like a wanton little slut. After all, in consideration of our shared past, it's only right that I grant him the courtesy of full comprehension before he dies." But, against all expectations, Chu-zongshi was still Chu-zongshi.
One month later, standing proudly at the summit of Kunlun Mountain, in front of the Heavenly Lake, Mo Ran did exactly what he said he would. He captured Mei Hanxue and Xue Meng and tied them to pillars of ice before using Zhenlong Chess Formation to control all the thousands at Taxue Palace to slaughter one another as they were forced to watch.
The snowy mountain, once pristine and majestic, was dyed crimson in an instant. Blood ran into the lake, seeped into the ground.
Mo Ran sat calmly before the palace gates, eating grapes brought by the servants and smiling as he watched the scene.
Looking at Xue Meng, his eyes glazed and unfocused, he asked,
"Mengmeng, do you like it?" "..." Xue Meng didn't react, as if having lost his hearing.
Pleased, Mo Ran smiled even more affectionately as he said, "Cousin staged this show just for you, are you enjoying it?" "...Spare Taxue Palace." Came a faint, abrupt murmur. Mo Ran blinked. "What?" "Spare Taxue Palace." There was no light in Xue Meng's usually bright eyes.
"Let them go, let Mei Hanxue go… I was the one who tried to kill you that time.
Just kill me, leave everyone else out of it." Mo Ran couldn't help but laugh. "Are you trying to talk terms with me?" "No." Xue Meng's eyes were hollow as he said, "I'm begging you." The darling of the heavens said, I'm begging you.
Mo Ran's eyes gleamed, the demon in his heart delighted by these words.
As if amused, he gripped Xue Meng by the jaw and forced him to look up at himself, and was just about to say something when a burst of radiant green lit up the skyline.
"What's going on?" His retinue didn't even get a chance to respond before a spiritual array,
flowing and resplendent, stretched out from high above the towering peak to cover all the thousands of miles of Kunlun Mountain.
And there, above the array, stood Chu Wanning, robes white as snow fluttering lightly amongst the clouds.
A guqin of an unusual shape hung in the air before him, pitch black all over with its tail end curving upwards into a flourish of branches blooming with dewladen haitang blossoms that glowed with a luminous radiance.
——Chu Wanning's third holy weapon, "Jiu'ge"[3].
Author's Notes:
Even though 0.5 mutt is hopelessly perverse and insane, but strangely I like writing 0.5-related plot events very much, hahahaha~ You're welcome to help previous timeline's Shizun ferociously whip this previous timeline mutt, hahaha~
[3] 九歌 Jiu'ge | Nine Songs - Songs addressed to deities and fallen heroes
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票