Chapter 48

Chapter 48

For some reason, Bai Xue suddenly remembered something Mu Yunshu had once said.

“Go see the world outside. There are beautiful clouds in the sky, cheerful fish in the water, and all sorts of people. You may meet bad people and bad things may happen to you, but you will certainly meet even more good people. Then you will create happy, joyful memories, and when you wake from a sleep, you will realize that when you look back, the only memories left in your mind are the happy ones.”

“Bai Xue, the mortal world is a good place. It is worth your while to walk through it.”

“One day, you will fall in love with this world.”

Bai Xue felt that Mu Yunshu had been wrong. Even now, she had not fallen in love with this world.

It was only because this was the world she protected that it had taken on a different meaning.

Bai Xue’s gaze fell on the bead in her hand, and she murmured, “I’m sorry. I nearly destroyed the thing you protected.”

With her own power, she repaired the cracks on the bead and mended the souls within. Then she loosened her hand, and hundreds upon thousands of white, ghostly lights formed from souls broke free from their confinement, each following the path by which they had come and departing.

The collapse grew more violent, yet she felt increasingly calm.

When she lifted her face again and looked at the young man who had bowed with her in marriage, she reached out and touched a fingertip to the spot between his brows, slowly transferring the last trace of warm power into him.

From the very beginning, she had approached him with a purpose.

Yet in this deception, he had given her his true heart.

But he was one of the Zhao family members, so she did not need that true heart.

And so, she returned his soul to him.

“Zhao Zhiyi, don’t be so easily deceived again in the future.”

The bright moon hung high in the sky, only making the night wind feel colder.

Ming Caihua looked at Zhao Zhiyi, who had appeared out of nowhere, and jumped in fright. “Zhao Zhiyi, you actually got out!”

Zhao Zhiyi knelt on the ground. He had yet to recover, his expression dazed and ignorant.

Ming Caihua leaned closer. “Hey, Zhao Zhiyi, you’re a grown man. Why are you crying?”

Qiao Ying suddenly tugged at Shen Qingyu’s hand. “Zhao Fanhua and Song Zhenzhu were sent out too.”

Not far away, Zhao Fanhua clutched Song Zhenzhu’s incomplete corpse tightly in his arms. His hair hung loose, his back was hunched, and he kept murmuring the same thing:

“Yunshu… Yunshu…”

Qiao Ying said, “He looks very wrong.”

Even big fool Ming Caihua could tell that Bai Xue had not spared Zhao Fanhua because she had gone softhearted. Letting the great hero once revered by everyone live on like a walking corpse was far more interesting than simply letting him die quickly.

The corners of Shen Qingyu’s lips lifted. “I sense something very interesting.”

Qiao Ying asked, “What is it?”

Shen Qingyu did not answer. Instead, he walked over. The night wind was too strong for them to hear what he said to Zhao Fanhua. They only saw Zhao Fanhua’s crazed figure stiffen, then raise his head to look at him with hope.

Then Shen Qingyu cut his finger and gave him a drop of blood.

Zhao Fanhua accepted it as though he had obtained a priceless treasure, light blooming in his clouded eyes.

When Qiao Ying sneezed from the cold wind, Shen Qingyu strolled back at an unhurried pace.

She pressed him. “What exactly did you say to him?”

Shen Qingyu smiled. “I told him my blood could preserve a trace of the soul of the person in his arms. If he can find some other method, then reviving her may not be impossible.”

Qiao Ying frowned. “Is there really a way to bring the dead back to life?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what wicked idea are you playing at by telling him that?”
Shen Qingyu said, “Humans are always so fond of going from one extreme to another. Before tonight, he was a hero who prided himself on being on the righteous path. But after tonight?”

Qiao Ying did not understand.

Shen Qingyu, however, said no more. He only smiled in silence.

Qiao Ying knew she would get no answer out of him. She looked toward the surface of the water. It remained calm and undisturbed, as though nothing had ever happened beneath it.

“Shen Qingyu, will Bai Xue die?”

“She is only a sword. How can life and death apply to her?”

Once her power scattered, she would simply return to her original form: a rusted sword, sleeping forever at the bottom of the water with her master.

And the beautiful tale of Qingshuang and Bai Xue from all those years ago would cease to exist. Only one would remain in the mortal world, forever incomplete.

But Qiao Ying said, “Bai Xue is not just a sword.”

Shen Qingyu had been about to argue with her a little longer. A sword was a sword-how could it be anything more? But Qiao Ying had already taken his hand and wrapped a handkerchief around his bleeding fingertips. All at once, he lost interest in debating with her. He only focused on the feel of her touch.

“You clearly promised me before that you wouldn’t hurt yourself so easily. You broke your word,” Qiao Ying said. “Shen Qingyu, you failed at being human today.”

Shen Qingyu pressed his lips together slightly. An emotion he did not know how to describe rose in his heart. After a moment, he found his voice again. “There won’t be a next time.”

Qiao Ying could not beat him in a fight. More accurately, among all the people present, Qiao Ying was the weakest one. She could not beat anyone.

And yet it was precisely this weakest person who, at that critical moment, had spoken the truth everyone had ignored all those years ago.

And it was still this weakest person who actually dared to lecture even him.

“Master! Madam!”

The people of the Zhao family were the former people of the Song family. They hurried over, bringing fresh noise to the quiet waterside. This opera that had stretched across forty years finally seemed to be nearing its curtain call.

The next day, the sun rose as usual. The neighbors came out to work, to look after their children. A city that had been deathly still for so long once again had the warmth of ordinary life.

Qiao Ying was hanging laundry when she heard frightened voices talking by the door.

“Have you heard? Overnight, everyone in the Zhao family died!”

“You mean the Zhao family with Old Master Zhao?”

“That’s right. I heard Old Master Zhao first dismissed all the servants and only kept the old servants from the Song family back then. Then he killed everyone in the manor. He didn’t even spare his own son. Only Young Master Zhao was left alive, but both his legs were crippled. After that, Old Master Zhao took the Old Madam’s corpse and disappeared. Everyone is saying Old Master Zhao and his wife were deeply in love, and he couldn’t accept her death, so he went mad and killed everyone. I went to take a look at the commotion. The bodies were carried out one after another, and every one of them died so horribly!”

“He must have been possessed by some demon to do something so terrifying!”

Qiao Ying lifted her face and looked at the young man sitting on the roof eaves, basking in the sunlight.

His hands were propping up his chin, and the white silk blindfold covered those eyes of his that never saw the light. Strangely, it always gave her the feeling that he was looking at her. That he had been looking at her all along.

Perhaps from behind her. Perhaps from some corner she did not know about. Like a beast lying in wait, the more docile its posture, the more ferocious it was.

Now, meeting her gaze, the young man’s lips curved. He gave a faint smile, as if to say:

See? Sometimes, humans can also become the bloodthirsty demons they speak of.