ATAVID CH48

The wind and snow suddenly stalled.

At the edge of the horizon, two figures approached, stepping on the wind.

One was dressed in ink-colored robes, fluttering in the air—it was Wei Xun, the subject of everyone’s heated gossip in the outside world. The aura around him was piercingly cold, merging with the snow-filled sky as if he were an icicle grown directly from the elements.

Beside him followed a soul-form in the likeness of a youth.

The youth walked lazily behind, lagging by half a step, his gait dragging as if he hadn’t fully woken up. Having possessed Wei Xun for too long, even though he had now reverted to his soul-form, Jiang Qunyu still felt listless.

“I’m not possessing your body again next time,” Jiang Qunyu muttered gloomily.

Wei Xun glanced at him faintly, his tone cold: “That’s not up to you.”

“…?” Jiang Qunyu asked, “You don’t really want me to take over your body (possess you permanently), do you?”

Wei Xun continued walking. Upon hearing this, he pondered carefully. He tilted his head slightly, as if seriously considering the proposal. After a long while, he said, “If you want to, it’s not impossible.”

“Huh?”

Jiang Qunyu was truly stunned. He didn’t know if, as an inner demon, he should be overjoyed upon hearing this. He looked at Wei Xun strangely and retorted with sarcasm: “You’re certainly generous.”

“It’s alright,” Wei Xun curled his lips.

Jiang Qunyu declined: “I’ll pass. At least for now, I don’t have that idea.” He laughed, adding jokingly, “Besides, maybe you’re doing it on purpose—tricking me into possessing you, only to come up with some way to kill me when the time is right. If I truly disappeared, wouldn’t that be ‘losing the bait to kill the hen’? I don’t do losing business.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Wei Xun paused; the air pressure around him sank instantly. He lifted his eyes, turned to look at the youth, and asked coldly: “Will you disappear?”

“Well,” Jiang Qunyu laughed, even leaning close to Wei Xun, deliberately trying to disgust him: “Of course I won’t. Wei Xun, you’re so pitiful; you’ll have to be stuck with me for the rest of your life.”

Wei Xun’s fingertips, hanging by his sides, curled slightly. His thin lips were pressed into a tight line; he looked very angry.

Jiang Qunyu was satisfied with his reaction. Get disgusted, get disgusted—it’s good to be disgusted.

However, Wei Xun remained silent for a long time. Jiang Qunyu assumed Wei Xun had returned to his reticent persona. While passing through a plum blossom grove, he casually plucked a branch of red plum blossoms and held it, tossing the petals one by one into the stream flanking the wooden bridge.

He counted the petals absentmindedly, but then heard Wei Xun speak again. His tone was not as cold as before, and his voice sounded clearly through the plum grove: “Then don’t say things like that.”

Jiang Qunyu’s hand stopped. “Which things?” he asked, not immediately reacting.

Wei Xun’s footsteps crunched on the accumulated snow. He didn’t turn back, just continued forward. But his voice still reached him, calm and composed: “I won’t kill you.”

“Oh, oh,” Jiang Qunyu didn’t listen carefully.

A wind from nowhere blew the plum branch from his hand. The red plum branch fell into the stream, swirling as it drifted further and further away. Distracted, he nodded mindlessly.

Wei Xun looked back at him: “And you won’t disappear.”

Jiang Qunyu finally shifted his attention away from the floating branch. He was stunned, and after a while, he inwardly refuted: Won’t disappear? Won’t disappear my foot! Does Wei Xun want me to work overtime for another lifetime?

He looked up and collided straight into Wei Xun’s gaze. The youth’s eyes were healed, clear and tranquil, yet harboring something else.

Jiang Qunyu felt an instinctive rejection. Ignoring the faint, strange feeling in his heart, he averted his gaze from Wei Xun’s, pressed his palms together, and bowed mockingly: “Then I truly thank you for your great mercy.”

Wei Xun was so infuriated by him that he let out a low laugh. Without another word, he turned and walked away.

Jiang Qunyu stood in place, watching Wei Xun’s retreating back. The ink-colored robes made the figure appear somewhat melancholic.

Jiang Qunyu muttered softly: “Dog temper.” Then, he hurried to catch up.

They walked for a while longer, but Jiang Qunyu, not wanting to walk anymore, stopped and couldn’t help but complain: “Why can’t we fly on our swords as soon as we step into the Lingxiao Sect’s territory?”

Although he could transform back into a black mist ball and cling to Wei Xun, he was currently in a unilateral “cold war” with Wei Xun. The reason was simple: the first thing Wei Xun did after they swapped back was to buy a bronze mirror to carefully examine the face Jiang Qunyu had molded, after which he curled his lips and said to Jiang Qunyu with a smile: “This face of yours is quite unique.”

Jiang Qunyu: “…Unique your grandmother.”

In short, Wei Xun showed unexpected interest in the face Jiang Qunyu had molded. Jiang Qunyu had stiffly made him remove the disguise, but Wei Xun refused. It wasn’t until last night, when he caught Wei Xun in deep sleep, that Jiang Qunyu secretly removed the disguise. Seeing Wei Xun’s own handsome face made Jiang Qunyu feel better, but when Wei Xun woke up this morning and took out that bronze mirror again, he threw the mirror away in disdain upon seeing it was no longer the face Jiang Qunyu had molded.

Jiang Qunyu was so annoyed he nearly had a heart attack, suspecting Wei Xun might have a fetish for ugliness. He resolved that even if he walked himself to death, he would not turn back into a black mist ball and cling to Wei Xun!

Wei Xun’s tone was calm: “It is simply because we are approaching the main peak of the Lingxiao Sect.”

The main peak was protected by restrictions; only elders above the rank of Sect Leader were permitted to fly on their swords. These restrictions were nothing to Wei Xun, but he hadn’t yet decided whether he truly wanted to kill Wei Lan upon seeing him again. So, walking was fine.

Wei Xun lowered his eyes, thinking quietly.

Jiang Qunyu felt that faint, perhaps describable as “sorrowful,” emotion from Wei Xun again. He bent down, scooped up a handful of snow, rolled it into a loose, lopsided snowball, and threw it at Wei Xun.

Before the snow reached him, Wei Xun lifted his eyes. The swirling snow landed on his thick, dark lashes, but he didn’t brush it off. He just looked at Jiang Qunyu: “Jiang Qunyu, since when did you become so polite?” He was referring to Jiang Qunyu’s refusal to turn into a black mist ball.

Jiang Qunyu hugged his arms and huffed: “Who’s being polite to you? I’m just angry!”

Wei Xun sighed. He truly couldn’t understand why Jiang Qunyu was angry because of that face. At the time, he saw Jiang Qunyu molding the face happily and with practiced technique, so he assumed Jiang Qunyu was molding his own original face. He had been looking forward to it for a long time.

He had always thought Jiang Qunyu was his inner demon; later, when he felt he wasn’t, he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he was. Wei Xun knew he belonged to something outside the Five Realms, so after guessing that Jiang Qunyu was molding his own face, he had always secretly peeked at him. But it seemed to be a failure—Jiang Qunyu wasn’t very satisfied.

But to Wei Xun, as long as it was Jiang Qunyu, no matter how ugly, it was extremely beautiful.

Clearly, he and Jiang Qunyu hadn’t reached an agreement on this matter. Jiang Qunyu felt Wei Xun had been provoking him.

Wei Xun apologized: “Then I’m sorry.”

Jiang Qunyu: “Oh!”

Wei Xun asked: “Do you still intend to walk yourself?”

“You’re the one begging me.”

After saying this awkwardly, Jiang Qunyu “reluctantly” transformed back into a black mist ball, floated to the top of Wei Xun’s head, grabbed a lock of his hair, and commanded like a lord: “Alright, alright, let’s go.”

Wei Xun’s eyes rippled with a faint smile as he continued forward.

The Lingxiao Sect was covered in snow. The world was a vast expanse of white, with only the occasional corner of an eave revealing a bit of gray-blue in the snow.

In a trance, Jiang Qunyu felt as if he had returned to the scene of several years ago, just as the two were leaving the Lingxiao Sect. He hadn’t expected the scenery to be like this upon returning.

Jiang Qunyu shifted into a more comfortable position, inexplicably thinking of the soul lamp Wei Xun had taken from the Lingxiao Sect back then. That lamp belonged to Lin Qing. Jiang Qunyu was certain that in the Lingxiao Sect, apart from that lamp, there was nothing else that could make Wei Xun turn back.

But since the lamp had already been taken, why did Wei Xun return?

Also, when they were in Mirror Lake City, Jiang Qunyu had asked Wei Xun why he wanted the world to know he was still alive. Wei Xun had said that perhaps after they left Mirror Lake City, they would feel guilt toward him. At the time, Jiang Qunyu hadn’t understood.

But now, he understood.

When they were in the mortal world, Jiang Qunyu had felt that Wei Xun was looking for something, and it hadn’t been a misconception. Wei Xun had been searching for East Mirror Lake City from the very beginning. It was only because Cui Mingjin had withdrawn from the world, causing the city to vanish along with her, that Wei Xun had spent seven years searching the mortal realm.

Wei Xun’s intention had been to find Wei Lan’s emotional thread from the very beginning. But perhaps even he hadn’t expected that Lin Qing was still alive in another form. When did Wei Xun guess it? That Yun Shuangjian was Lin Qing?

Jiang Qunyu remembered—perhaps it was the first time at the Three Wishes Shrine, when he told Wei Xun that his eyes looked very much like Yun Shuangjian’s. But if it weren’t for the affair of Lin Qing, Wei Xun’s purpose had always been that emotional thread. After all, apart from Hua Zhen, only Wei Xun knew where Hua Zhen had hidden it.

What did Wei Xun intend to do with that thread?

He wanted Wei Lan’s guilt.

Wei Xun wanted Wei Lan to feel guilty toward him, to let the world know he was still alive, and then—

The image suddenly flashed into Jiang Qunyu’s mind: Wei Xun standing before Lin Qing, asking her if she wanted to kill them…

And then, he would return openly and kill them all for Lin Qing’s sake. Including Wei Lan.

But he had hesitated. First, because Wei Lan’s cultivation was high, and at that time, Wei Xun was only in the Spirit Transformation realm. Second, because it was highly likely that Wei Xun wanted Wei Lan to remember everything before he died. To die carrying guilt and regret.

That was why he had spent seven years searching for Mirror Lake City.

Jiang Qunyu’s mood became complex. After figuring it out, he asked: “So you came back to kill Wei Lan?”

Wei Xun paused, then laughed: “Ah, you guessed it.” The smile was very light, devoid of any discernible emotion.

Jiang Qunyu was silent for a while before saying: “But you hesitated.”

Otherwise, this “restriction” that forbade sword flight would be nothing to Wei Xun, who had also stepped into the Void Refinement realm.

Upon hearing this, the youth’s lips flattened little by little. After a long while, he said coldly: “I didn’t.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than a thick, acrid scent of blood rolled in through the cold wind, overpowering the snow-filled air.

Wei Xun and Jiang Qunyu stopped arguing. Wei Xun frowned—the scent of blood was coming from the direction of the Floating Lamp Palace. With a surge of spiritual sense, he summoned Shouhun.

“To the Floating Lamp Palace,” Wei Xun ordered.

Fifteen minutes later, the scene before them changed abruptly.

The white jade steps were shattered, the immortal palace was in ruins, and the entire mountain was covered in undried blood and cold corpses. The holy land, once ethereal and immortal, was now reduced to total silence.

Jiang Qunyu’s heart sank sharply. He transformed back into his youthful form and reached out to grab Wei Xun’s sleeve: “…What happened here?”

Wei Xun did not speak. He only lifted his eyes to gaze toward the Floating Lamp Palace, emotions churning in those pitch-black eyes. There was hatred, coldness, and a trace of slight, almost imperceptible trembling that even he hadn’t noticed.

He walked forward step by step, treading over broken bones and shattered swords, treading over the blood-stained fresh snow.

Jiang Qunyu followed closely behind, his heart growing colder with every step, until the two of them came to a simultaneous halt upon seeing the figure before the Floating Lamp Palace.

Snow fell on his shoulders, white hair frosted with frost.

Wei Lan knelt in a pool of blood, surrounded by the fragments of the soul lamp he had shattered with his own hands. The shards glinted faintly under the moonlight, mixed with lamp oil and blood—a chaotic, ruinous mess.

Hearing the footsteps, he stopped his movements.

The sword resting to the side buzzed, sensing the arrival of outsiders, its blade vibrating with entangled killing intent.

He lifted his eyes, his gaze overflowing with scarlet red. Yet, upon seeing the youth arriving through the snow, the ferocity around him rapidly faded. He stared blankly at Wei Xun’s eyes, which were uncannily similar to those of Lin Qing.