Chapter 22

Xie Zhefeng stiffened.

The grip he held on the scabbard of the Chunhua sword loosened slightly. His gaze turned vacant, and his lips pressed into a thin, tight line; he looked, for all the world, bewildered.

He had stood upon the high platform between the two realms for over a thousand years; everything that existed in the world was under his dominion. Yet now, because of this single, simple sentence, he was at a total loss.

An Wuxue recalled the way Xie Zhefeng had acted at the Thorny River after his death—a display that looked much like a funeral lament. If he had not inexplicably become Su Xue, he would never have seen a single tear from this man, not even until his very soul was extinguished.

He chuckled softly, and with a look of indifference, whispered, "If the Immortal Venerable does not strike soon, those fellow Daoists from the Yun Sword Sect and I will surely perish here."

Turbid energy surged, but the black wind could not penetrate the frigid spiritual energy emanating from around Xie Zhefeng. The mirror-image demon art cast from all four directions closed in; above the small courtyard, row upon row of mirrors connected, reflecting this broken corner of the world.

The demon’s voice drew closer. "That fellow Daoist at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, since you are here, why stay with such eyesores of cultivators?"

Xie Zhefeng regained his composure in an instant.

Only then did he realize he had been lost in a trance while staring at An Wuxue’s face, having mistaken him for another. His pupils shifted, his hand tightened once more around his sword, and that expression—which could almost be called fragile—vanished in a heartbeat.

He glanced at An Wuxue, who was propping himself up with his sword, his expression now betraying nothing unusual.

"You know quite a lot," he said. "There is no third time for drawing my sword."

In the next moment, Xie Zhefeng rose into the air and vanished from the ruined courtyard. Frost scattered, rising with the wind like a blizzard blowing from the ground up. The turbid energy, lacking any momentum against the frost and snow, retreated with a thunderous roar.

An Wuxue remained still. He leaned on his spiritual sword, his gaze cast downward, heavy with exhaustion.

Yun Wan and the others finally recovered their senses and hurried to An Wuxue’s side to help him up.

"Young Master Su!" She nearly emptied her satchel of all the medicinal supplies she had for external injuries, pressing them into An Wuxue’s hands. "Why did Senior Xie... this... right now..."

Seeing her and the other Yun Sword disciples looking panic-stricken and helpless, An Wuxue’s eyes curved, and he offered a comforting smile. Even with several hundred years of cultivation, these were, after all, young disciples who had never truly entered the world. In the span of a few months, they had faced the destruction of their sect and witnessed a battle of the Tribulation Transcendence stage. That Yun Wan could still look after him was already a sign of great responsibility.

"It is fine," he said.

He had long known that Xie Zhefeng would be angered—the man had nearly killed him last time. If he hadn't been in such a rush to awaken Xie Zhefeng, he would not have taken such a risk.

"Just now, Senior Xie..."

"Nothing happened just now."

"Yes..." Yun Wan gritted her teeth, hesitated for a moment, then changed the subject. "What now? Did Senior Xie go to fight that mirror demon? That demon is also at the Tribulation Transcendence stage; it was the one that killed our Sect Master and the elders. Will Senior Xie be in danger? Can we help?"

How could Xie Zhefeng possibly be in danger?

It was simply that the avatar the man was using was only at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, and he had not brought out his cold sword. He had to fight the mirror demon while simultaneously preventing other lesser demons from approaching, which naturally required some time.

Hearing her question, An Wuxue thought of something else. "It took this mirror demon a quarter of an hour just to break through the barrier earlier; it is at most at the early stage of Tribulation Transcendence. Your sect has several cultivators at the Great Perfection stage; they should have been able to hold out for a while. Even if it wanted to exterminate the sect, it could not have done so without alerting the Zhaoshui City that lies so close by. How did it manage to slaughter your sect in such silence, and how did it gather all the resentment and turbid energy here?"

Yun Wan’s eyes reddened instantly. She shook her head, tears welling up. "I do not know. I have been wondering the same thing. The day it happened, we saw nothing before our Martial Uncle sent us here to hide. Our Martial Uncle never returned, and the sect became a place of demonic creatures. The resentment of the fallen disciples did not dissipate, and the turbid energy grew ever thicker. We have been trapped here ever since."

An Wuxue fell into deep thought.

Outside the courtyard, the turbid energy collided with the cold spiritual power. Before long, a piercing, heart-wrenching shriek from the mirror demon echoed across the firmament.

Xie Zhefeng had the upper hand!

The countless mirrors embedded like iron walls across the sky shattered simultaneously. The fragments rained down, mingling with the frost and snow stirred up by the spiritual energy, resembling a lethal storm of wind and rain.

Yun Wan’s expression tightened. She formed a seal with her hands to erect a barrier. "Stay behind me! Don't move around!"

An Wuxue was already behind Yun Wan. He watched with a vacant, wandering gaze.

But the fragments were everywhere, drifting and falling, flashing rapidly before his eyes. The copper mirror shards reflected light and shadow. Through the barrier Yun Wan had erected, a pair of familiar eyes and brows were reflected on one of the shards.

This is...

This is!??

For a moment, he forgot how to breathe. He widened his eyes, his hands trembling, and he reached out to grab the shard.

The disciple nearest to him grabbed his arm. "Are you mad? You’ll get hurt!"

He violently shook the disciple off and grabbed the copper shard. The falling shards sliced through his sleeves, instantly drawing several cuts across the arm he had extended past the barrier.

This pain was nothing compared to the agony of the ice spike entering his shoulder bone earlier. He did not even frown, staring blankly as he pulled his hand back, clutching the shard.

The mirror had shattered near the point of the battle in the sky, and it was still coated with cold spiritual energy, which cut his hand. Blood blurred the mirror’s surface.

At this moment, the thousands of mirror fragments finally fell to the ground, and the rain of glass ceased.

"...Young Master Su!?" Yun Wan dropped the barrier and turned to see that An Wuxue had added new wounds to his unhealed injuries.

An Wuxue ignored her. He held the sharp shard in his hand, looking at the pile of debris covering the ground. He looked bewildered, stumbling as he stepped onto the fragments.

Yun Wan seemed to be calling him; even the other Yun Sword disciples looked worried. They seemed to be saying something, asking something.

But he heard none of it.

He lowered his head, watching the reflections in the fragments scattered in every direction. He saw, in one shard after another, from different angles, a reflection that moved exactly as he did.

And that face—a face no one knew better than he did himself.

He gently touched his own brows and eyes. The reflection in the mirror followed suit.

Amidst the thousands of fragments around him, he saw himself in green robes embroidered with gold thread. His shoulder was soaked through with blood, his sleeves were ragged—wounds caused by Xie Zhefeng’s ice spikes and the cuts from grabbing the shards in the mirror-rain.

That face was quite thin. His brows and eyes were like an unfurled scroll, possessing a sense of gentle narration, complemented by a pair of peach-blossom eyes that were not particularly docile, much like the falling petals within a painting.

He had never seen Su Xue’s face before.

He was a man who had already died once; he had no interest in his own appearance. Cultivators could condense water into a mirror, but copper mirrors were rare. Unless he sought them out, he never saw what he looked like.

Only at this moment did he see this face for the first time.

This face, which was almost identical to his own in his previous life.

No wonder.

No wonder that day, when he was leaving the Fallen Moon Peak and bumped into Xie Zhefeng at the mountain gate, Xie Zhefeng and Xuan Fang had worn such inscrutable expressions the moment his veil fell.

No wonder Qi Xun had reacted so strangely when he saw him.

No wonder Xie Zhefeng had acted so abnormally time and time again...

No wonder Xie Zhefeng clearly did not treat Su Xue as a cultivation vessel, yet still kept him by his side...

Su Xue was nothing but a mediocrity who had relied on spiritual medicine to reach the Inedia stage. By what right could he enter the Burial Frost Sea, which stood at the very pinnacle of the two realms?

Was it because of this face?

And just now, when he had propped himself up with his sword and looked at Xie Zhefeng, was that "Junior Brother" that had slipped from the man’s lips also because of this face?

Ha.

Hahaha.

"...Hahahahahaha!!!" He burst into loud laughter.

What was the meaning of all this?

Xie Zhefeng.

Xie Zhefeng!!!

"...Young Master Su? Young Master Su?" Yun Wan grabbed him. "What is wrong with you?"

He instantly stifled his laughter, closed his eyes, and opened them again. The corners of his eyes were red, and he murmured, "I am fine."

"You always say you are fine..."

Above the sky within the illusion, the dark clouds were nearly frozen by the frost. The shrieks of the mirror demon grew ever more frequent. Other demonic creatures, long since disturbed by the commotion, had gathered, only to be slaughtered by the ice falling from the sky.

He looked up at the fierce battle.

His own spiritual pouch suddenly trembled. He paused, his mind wandering as he opened the pouch. It was the sound-transmission talisman he kept between himself and Yun Zhou that was vibrating.

The talisman floated out, carrying a voice only his soul could hear: "Su Xue! Are you nearby?"

The sound-transmission talisman he shared with Yun Zhou was not a high-level one; it could only be used within a certain range. But soul-transmission could not be faked—at the very least, the person on the other end was truly Yun Zhou, not the mirror demon in disguise.

Was Yun Zhou also on this mountain?

He asked, "Where are you?"

"I saw Fellow Daoist Xie fighting that mirror demon! I haven't been able to find you since I came in yesterday. There are demons everywhere, and I didn't dare move around. It wasn't until just now, when Fellow Daoist Xie started fighting, that I realized you were here."

"I'm hiding to the east of the only courtyard on this mountain. I’m not sure where you are or what the situation is in the courtyard, so I didn't act rashly. What is going on with you and Fellow Daoist Xie? Where is Fellow Daoist Jiang?"

An Wuxue listened quietly to everything Yun Zhou said.

He was not a man without experience; he knew the urgency of the situation and had to push those chaotic thoughts aside.

He replied via soul-transmission, "Stay where you are. I will come to find you."

"Su—"

He directly put away the sound-transmission talisman.

Because he and Yun Zhou were communicating via their souls, Yun Wan did not know what he was doing, only watching him with confusion. The other disciples stood not far away, looking at each other, at a loss.

He said to Yun Wan, "I am going out for a moment. That Senior Xie of yours... although I do not know why it took him so long to deal with a mirror demon, with him here, nothing will happen. Stay here and do not move."

He started to walk away, then paused, turned back, and said, "I just saw you practicing your swordplay and sparring with each other. There is one piece of advice I hope you will take to heart."

The words were so strange that Yun Wan did not understand, her face showing confusion.

An Wuxue did not explain, saying directly, "In your sect’s movement techniques, there is a blind spot three inches to the right of the dantian. If you strike with your sword from the rear, you can break through this opening."

Having finished, he had no energy left to care about the bewildered Yun Wan. He said to another disciple, "Lend me your spiritual sword."

The other party nodded blankly. He placed the spiritual sword into his pouch and walked toward the east.

The barrier had been broken, but fortunately, Xie Zhefeng was clearing out the demons heading toward this area as he fought, so there was no immediate danger around the courtyard.

He walked out of the courtyard, and after taking only a few steps to the east, he ran into Yun Zhou and Yun Yao, who were hiding in the bushes.