Chapter 36

Qin Wei’s expression faltered.

He seemed somewhat at a loss, his fingers continuously stroking the scabbard of his natal sword. His gaze landed on An Wuxue; he wanted to look at him, but the moment their eyes met—An Wuxue’s gaze filled with confusion—he abruptly looked away, as if he dared not meet his eyes.

He rushed to explain, "I have no ulterior motives..."

An Wuxue frowned.

No ulterior motives? He felt a bit lost.

The moment the Zhaoshui Sword met with an accident, he had already braced himself for the worst. The fact that Qin Wei knew his identity felt like a sword he had long assumed was hanging over his head. Now that the sword had not yet fallen to take his life, he found himself unable to comprehend the situation.

He recalled everything that had happened beneath the Zhaoshui Sword before he lost consciousness... Perhaps Qin Wei wanted to understand the details of what happened back then, and that was why he was temporarily keeping his identity a secret.

He asked, "Are you trying to talk to me about the past?"

Qin Wei nodded hurriedly.

An Wuxue sighed. He pointed to the soul bell hanging by the door and said, "The soul bell I hung there is connected to my spirit. If Elder Qin wishes to find me, ringing the bell is enough. Frost Sea is the Immortal Venerable’s cave dwelling, and I am the Immortal Venerable’s cultivation vessel. For an elder to linger outside my door for two days will only invite trouble."

As he spoke, he turned and led Qin Wei inside, failing to notice the fleeting, desolate look on Qin Wei’s face. He only heard Qin Wei saying in a rush, "Within the Zhaoshui Sword formation, Xie Chuhan saw Shui Ming and Lady Lou. He guessed the truth of that year, and his state of mind became unstable. He has been in seclusion to suppress it since returning—" He paused.

An Wuxue said, "I know he has a heart demon."

"...He went into seclusion to suppress the heart demon as soon as he returned. After you fainted, I told him that the injuries on his body were caused by my own slip when I discovered his heart demon flaring up. He is currently preoccupied with his own affairs, so you may rest assured."

Every word and sentence was, surprisingly, an attempt to shield him.

It felt too strange. It was nothing like the uninhibited, impulsive Qin Wei from his memories before his fall.

Within a few sentences, they had reached the hall. Seeing them approach, Yun Wan, assuming they were old friends, prepared immortal tea and stoked the fire in the hearth. With great tact, she closed the door and retreated.

An Wuxue looked at the bubbling steam rising from the hearth. Not wanting to waste Yun Wan’s kindness, he simply invited Qin Wei to sit across from him and drink tea. Perhaps because his actions seemed quite gentle, the tension in Qin Wei’s expression eased slightly. With a look of anticipation, he said, "A-Xue..."

An Wuxue’s hand, holding the teapot, faltered, and water nearly spilled.

"You should still... call me Su Xue," he said with a wry smile, "or An Wuxue works too, just like before."

"I..."

He did not want to chat with Qin Wei for too long. "Let’s keep it brief. Regarding what happened back then, I don't actually have anything else to say. What Lou Shuiming said two days ago beneath the Zhaoshui Sword is everything I know."

He poured two cups of tea and said in a low voice, "At that time, the child was brought back by you, and it would have taken hundreds of years for him to open his eyes. I thought that, in the end, he was innocent. Whether it was being born with a death pulse or having that pulse opened by Lady Lou with the sword formation’s spiritual power, none of it was a choice he could make.

"So, I couldn't speak of it. Part of it was because that was the last thing I promised Lou Shuiming, but the primary reason was that I didn't want that child to spend his entire life living in the shadow of his parents' past."

Qin Wei had not expected him to take the initiative to say so much, yet every word remained detached, as if he were truly recounting the past of someone who was already dead.

He said, "A-Xue, I am sorry."

An Wuxue’s gaze paused. He took a light sip of the warm tea, his eyes falling on the poorly stitched spirit pouch at Qin Wei’s waist.

He remembered this pouch; it was the first one Lou Shuiming had made. It was not well-crafted, yet Qin Wei had worn it ever since. At first, it was because he had been too drunk and muddled, but later, because he enjoyed teasing Qin Wei about it, Qin Wei simply stopped taking it off.

This pouch felt like a microcosm of those dozen years in Zhaoshui City, and Qin Wei had worn it to this day. But in the end, it was nothing more than an object.

He looked away and noticed that Qin Wei had not touched his tea at all. Qin Wei seemed to have no heart for drinking tea with him. He began to feel perplexed.

"I am sorry."

It seemed that beneath the Zhaoshui Sword, the remnant soul of Lou Shuiming had also said similar words to him. Yet he didn't feel happy at all; instead, he felt profoundly exhausted. He thought about it and suddenly realized: Qin Wei felt guilty toward him.

This only left him more bewildered. "Is it because of Shuiming’s sacrifice?"

Qin Wei gripped his own sleeve with one hand, the fine, neat fabric of his dharma robes becoming crumpled. He said somewhat helplessly, "Yes... no, that's not it either."

If one were to truly trace it back, the relationship between him and An Wuxue had not reached its final state only after Zhaoshui. After Lou Shuiming died, he had lost a close friend and was grieving, but he had ended up venting all that sorrow onto An Wuxue. But he had forgotten at the time: he was miserable, so how could An Wuxue be happy?

He had stubbornly clung to his own convictions, and once the rift was formed, everything that followed—the incident with Shangguan Ran in the North Underworld, the total annihilation of the Lihuo Sect, and countless other trifles—had piled up, step by step, leading to where they were now.

"I have thought a lot over these two days. I can't even remember when I started thinking you were becoming increasingly heartless, to the point that..."

To the point that when An Wuxue was surrounded and hunted by the myriad sects, he only felt that An Wuxue was reaping what he had sown, and he had never reached out to help.

His voice was hoarse. "You said you didn't use the soul bell... because I stood outside your door waiting for you to wake up. Every time I saw the soul bell hanging by the door and wanted to ring it, I would remember the night you spent ringing that bell, while I..."

And he hadn't ignored it because he hadn't heard; he had ignored it because he chose not to respond.

Thinking of this, he dared not ring it.

An Wuxue sat quietly to the side, saying nothing.

Unable to gauge his thoughts, Qin Wei continued, "Rest assured, I will not ask about anything you don't wish to discuss. If you don't want to expose your identity, I will help you cover it up from Xie Chuhan. As for the matter of the cultivation vessel, if there is anything you need me to do, I will do my utmost. Also, your cultivation—"

"Elder Qin."

An Wuxue could not listen anymore and interrupted him.

Qin Wei froze.

An Wuxue said, "I have just woken up and my body is still quite weary. If you have no urgent matters, I will not play the host. Now that you know my identity, I truly do not wish for it to be exposed; I admit that this is a handle I personally placed in your hands."

He said candidly, "So, if you use this leverage to threaten me, I will indeed compromise as much as I can. As for the rest..."

He chuckled lightly.

"That is all a matter of An Wuxue, the former Chief of Falling Moon Peak. My name is Su Xue, a nameless mortal from near Zhaoshui City."

Qin Wei’s eyes turned red. "How could I ever threaten you at this point? How could you—"

*How could you think that of me.*

He instinctively wanted to say those words. But halfway through, he suddenly remembered every word he had spoken to An Wuxue a thousand years ago, and what he had said after An Wuxue spent the entire night ringing the soul bell.

What had he thought of An Wuxue back then?

He suddenly stopped, his lips trembling, unable to speak for a long while.

Eventually, An Wuxue escorted him to the door and said, "Elder Qin, the words I spoke to City Lord Lou beneath the Zhaoshui Sword were not meant for the City Lord alone."

He could tell that Qin Wei wanted to settle the past with him, but he had no desire to count the rights and wrongs.

"Su Xue is merely a mediocre mortal from a thousand years later; I cannot stand in for someone who died a millennium ago to settle scores with you."

Qin Wei’s face turned deathly pale.

An Wuxue closed the door and turned around without hesitation.

As he returned to the room, Yun Wan was sitting on the swing in the courtyard. Seeing that he and Qin Wei had parted on unhappy terms, she asked curiously, "Wasn't that Elder Qin a friend of yours, Young Master Su? I saw him waiting at the door for two days, unwilling to ring the bell to wake you, and I thought you were close..."

An Wuxue murmured, "We were."

"Were?" Yun Wan tilted her head.

He simply sat on the steps of the small courtyard, facing the light over the Frost Sea, and asked her, "Yun Zhou slaughtered the entire Yun Sword Sect. Yun Wan, now that you think back on it, do you hate him?"

"How could I not hate him?" Yun Wan pondered for a moment, her expression sorrowful. "But... he is dead. How much more can I hate? Whether one is a cultivator or a mortal, one must always look forward."

"Yes, he is dead..."

The Frost Sea began to drift with fallen frost, and it was unclear whether it was because the spiritual power of that Immortal Venerable Xie, who was in seclusion suppressing his heart demon, was spiraling out of control.

He raised his hands, catching the frost falling into his palms, and said, "When it comes to love, hate, and grievances, the dead always have the advantage."

He knew that everything had been getting better back then; the array was about to be completed, and Zhaoshui and the two realms were about to see peace. They had all sacrificed too much for the two realms and four seas, but Lou Shuiming had suddenly sacrificed his sword and died. Because Qin Wei could not accept it, all these grievances naturally fell upon him, the survivor.

And because of his promise, and because of Song Buwang’s existence, he could not speak, nor did he dare to.

Once the rift was formed, naturally, everything he did was an eyesore to Qin Wei. As the resentment piled up, nothing could be explained clearly.

He understood all of this. If it had been he who sacrificed his sword instead of Lou Shuiming, perhaps it would have been the same.

A thousand years later, his junior brother would miss him, Qin Wei would regret it, and Qi Xun would want to find the truth...

Was it not precisely because he had also finally become a "dead man" who held the advantage?

The An Wuxue of a thousand years ago, while alive, might have hoped that grievances would vanish with a smile, but the "Su Xue" of a thousand years later felt no such relief.

He even felt that pondering these grievances was a waste of energy—it would be better to use that effort to plant the spiritual flowers and herbs in the courtyard.

He looked at his palms, now piled with cold frost and snow, closed his hands, and crushed everything he held.

He sat in the courtyard for a while, and after clearing his mind, he returned to the room to meditate. He had only intended to meditate to recuperate, but to his surprise, the moment he checked his body, he discovered that his cultivation had leaped directly into the Great Achievement stage during his two days of unconsciousness!

How could this be!?

Cultivators start by fasting and entering the Dao, progressing from Small Achievement to Great Achievement, then undergoing the tribulation; once their state of mind is complete, they can ascend to immortality. Yun Wan had been cultivating for over two hundred years and was still only at the Small Achievement stage. Even with his talent in his previous life, it had taken him decades to reach the Great Achievement stage.

Reaching it in two days, while in a deep sleep...

He suddenly recalled that when Lou Shuiming’s remnant soul dissipated, a beam of spiritual light had flowed into his body.

Could it be that before Lou Shuiming’s soul was completely extinguished, he had gathered the excess spiritual power remaining in the Zhaoshui Sword formation and channeled it into his body, helping him break through to the Great Achievement stage in one go?

No wonder he had slept so exhaustedly.

If his state of mind and cultivation had not already been at the level of the Tribulation stage, he would likely have been a hundred times more exhausted than he was now.

The origin of the cultivation vessel mark on his body was unknown, but the only known solution was for his cultivation to surpass the other party of the mark—which, for him, meant ascending to immortality.