Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Han Zhaoye was more of a handful than I had expected.

He was injured, yet his mouth never stopped moving. Halfway through our flight on my sword, he complained that I was flying too high and the wind was too cold. When we landed in the mountain forest, he complained that the cave I chose for a hiding spot was too small. As I pulled the remaining needles from his shoulder, he even tilted his head to look at me, asking if the Chief Disciple of Clear Sky Peak usually served people like this.

I truly wanted to throw him back into the Spirit-Locking Prison.

But the Shared Life Lamp chose that exact moment to flare up.

Whenever his old chest wound throbbed, my heart would feel heavy and stifled. If my spiritual energy strayed even an inch, the Lamp Mark on his wrist would flicker erratically. By the third day, both he and I understood that if we didn’t find the source of the Life Lamp soon, we would either be hunted down and killed or burned hollow by this lamp first.

“Go to Floating White City,” Han Zhaoye suddenly said.

I looked up at him.

“That lamp was lit in Floating White City.” He leaned against the cave wall, his face pale but his eyes clear. “If we want to break the bond, we have to go back to where it started.”

I remained silent for a moment before finally nodding.

The ruins of Floating White City weren’t exactly close to Clear Sky Peak. Along the way, we evaded three groups of righteous path pursuers and two ambushes from the Demonic Sect, finally arriving outside the city at dusk on the fifth day.

Fourteen years had passed, and Floating White City was nothing but broken walls and scorched earth. When the wind blew, the entire city was filled with ash.

Standing before the old city gates, I suddenly found it difficult to take a step forward.

Han Zhaoye didn’t rush me. He simply pressed that blackened copper coin back into my palm. “Go in. Everything you want to know is inside.”

Following the ruined streets of my memory, we walked to the ancestral hall in the north of the city. Most of the floor had collapsed, but Han Zhaoye moved a stone slab with practiced ease, revealing a cellar blackened by fire beneath it.

The lamp in my chest suddenly gave a violent jolt.

When we reached the deepest part of the cellar, a half-burnt red string was still hanging on the wall.

I reached out to touch it, and the Lamp Mark on my wrist instantly lit up. Green fire spread along the cracks in the wall, illuminating an old array in the center of the cellar. A box sat at the eye of the array, containing a charred register and two broken pieces of a Lamp Wick.

I flipped open the register, and a line of text was written on the very first page.

“Sacrificial Record of the Heavenly Balance Array.”

Below it, the page was densely packed with names and birth dates.

The final two lines read clearly:

Jing Guichen, legitimate son of the Jing Clan of Floating White City.

Han Zhaoye, Young Master of the Crimson Abyss Palace.

My knuckles slowly turned white.

Han Zhaoye spoke from behind me, his voice low and heavy. “Neither of us is a survivor. We were the chosen sacrifices.”

Footsteps suddenly echoed from outside the cellar.

Someone clapped softly in the darkness.

“The Young Master is indeed clever.” A tall, slender figure stepped out from the ash, wearing black robes with silver patterns and a gloomy expression. “Unfortunately, you’ve realized the truth too late.”

The newcomer was Wu Linyuan, Han Zhaoye’s most famous Left Protector.

My sword was already out of its sheath.

Han Zhaoye, however, pressed down on my wrist.

“Don’t move,” he said, staring at Wu Linyuan. “He’s on our side.”

I froze.

Wu Linyuan looked at me and said only one thing: “Young Master Jing, your Master and the Old Palace Master of my house… the people they teamed up to kill back then weren’t limited to just this one city.”