Chapter 185
Chapter 185
When Taoxi found Yunxi Rock, she indeed saw Bai Qingyan seated upon the boulder beside the stream.
He meditated in the rain, his gaze lowered to his nose and his attention settled inward.
Rain soaked his hair and robes, yet he remained utterly motionless.
The moment she saw him, Taoxi felt all the anxiety and unease that had accumulated in her heart over the past several months melt away.
That day, she too stood in the rain for a very long time.
Only as darkness approached did Bai Qingyan slowly open his eyes.
The sight of her brought no surprise to his face. As if everything had unfolded exactly as expected, he said lightly, “This is not a place you should have come.”
Taoxi spoke with equal candor. “I wanted to see you. I have wanted to see you every day for the past several months…”
Shivering, she walked to his side. Her body trembled in the rain, but her eyes held an attachment she could not sever.
Then she reached out and touched his robe, unable to restrain the urge to draw nearer, to press herself against him…
Bai Qingyan lowered his eyes coldly and watched as she slowly pressed her face against the hem of his robe in the rain.
Dull thunder rolled through the sky. He did not push her away. He merely smiled in silence.
After that, Taoxi stayed beside Yunxi Rock with him.
She was no Daoist cultivator and could not withstand the mountain cold. While Bai Qingyan meditated, she hid in a nearby cave and built a fire for warmth.
When thirsty, she drank from the stream. When hungry, she picked wild fruit and occasionally caught stream crabs to fill her stomach.
She remained with him through this incomprehensible existence for twenty-one full days.
Those twenty-one days together drove Taoxi into a nearly pathological state of infatuation. Looking back now, it all seemed deeply uncanny…
After Bai Qingyan left Yunxi Rock, she followed him like a shadow.
He descended the mountain to catch ghosts, then climbed it again to cultivate. His days repeated in an endless cycle.
And she happily remained at his side.
Half a year later, Taoxi’s parents discovered where she was and came to Mount Yunhe to take her home.
They cursed Bai Qingyan on the mountain. He endured their accusations without explaining himself.
Only after they finished did he say to Taoxi, “You truly should return. We walk different paths, and this is not where you belong.”
Taoxi naturally refused to leave, but her parents dragged her away together and forcibly brought her back to Kaiming County.
They thought the matter would finally end there.
But after returning home, Taoxi suffered unbearable wrenching pain in her chest every day. No medicine or treatment brought any relief.
Though alive, she resembled a walking corpse and grew thinner by the day.
Only thoughts of that Daoist surnamed Bai offered her the slightest respite.
She knelt and begged her parents to let her return to Bai Qingyan.
Her parents were heartbroken, but they could not bear watching her suffer this way. Helpless, they finally relented and took her back to Mount Yunhe.
When Taoxi saw Bai Qingyan again, the wrenching pain in her chest inexplicably vanished as well.
He was like medicine to her…
“Qingyan, from this day forward, I never want to be separated from you again…”
Bai Qingyan no longer refused her. Instead, he gently stroked her cheek and asked, “Are you truly willing to stay with me forever?”
Her answer was unwavering. “I am!”
“If there were a place with only you and me, would you be willing to remain there?”
Taoxi answered without the slightest thought. “Of course! I could ask for nothing more!”
Bai Qingyan nodded in satisfaction, another silent and eerie smile spreading across his face.
Soon afterward, he gave her a lozenge-patterned mirror.
Taoxi naturally treasured it and carried it everywhere.
From then on, she often dreamed that only she and Bai Qingyan remained in all the world.
They lived together on Mount Yunhe, inseparable from dawn to dusk, loving and trusting one another like a married couple in the mortal world.
Everything was just as he had described…
She immersed herself in the dream, which grew longer and more real with every passing day.
Gradually, she could no longer distinguish dream from reality.
She could not even tell whether she was alive or already dead.
On the rare occasions when memories of the past surfaced, her present contentment quickly buried them again…
Until two souls entered and shattered both the Illusionary Realm and its peace.
“If no one had come in and broken the illusion, I fear I would never have awakened…”
As Taoxi spoke, the hatred in her eyes grew even more intense.
Yan Zhengchu had never known that such a bizarre event had taken place on Mount Yunhe. He also wondered who had entered the Illusionary Realm.
He asked “Ren Yao,” “Why have I… never heard about this?”
“Ren Yao” explained, “Mount Yunhe lost many disciples after the battle in Shangjing. Though the sect gained renown, the number of disciples continued to dwindle…”
“There were even fewer by the time you came to the mountain. Once Senior Brother became sect leader, such a disgraceful affair naturally became a secret.”
He turned toward Master Tianji. “Senior Brother, the curse you placed on Miss Taoxi must have been the Nine-Turn Soul-Seizing Curse, correct?”
The name alone told Yan Zhengchu that it was most likely a forbidden art.
“Ren Yao” continued, “The consciousness of anyone afflicted by this curse falls under the caster’s control. That is why Miss Taoxi began dreaming of Senior Brother so often after she fell ill…”
Taoxi found this even harder to accept. “You mean… none of that was truly what I wanted?”
“Ren Yao” analyzed the matter. “Senior Brother saved you. It was possible for you to respect him, admire him, or even develop feelings for him…”
“But think carefully. Is it not suspicious to develop such an inseparable attachment to someone you had met only once?”
A chill of revulsion went through Taoxi.
At the time, she had spent every day in a daze, thinking only of seeing him. She had been trapped inside the situation and unable to see it clearly.
Could this truly be the truth?
Yu Lang could not resist interjecting. “So Miss Taoxi… kept trying to follow him because he had bewitched her mind?”
“Ren Yao” looked at Master Tianji again. “Senior Brother, after all this, do you still refuse to admit the atrocities you committed?”
Master Tianji sneered once more and stubbornly refused to answer.
Deceived yet again, Taoxi’s resentment and Yin-Sha Qi grew denser. Her blood-red eyes became more terrifying still.
Unable to suppress her thirst for vengeance, she suddenly reached out with another hideous ghostly hand.
But Master Tianji gave a strange laugh and caught it directly. “You think you can kill me?”
He chanted an incantation, and wrenching agony once more seized Taoxi’s chest…
“You may have become a ghost, but your life remains in my hands. As long as the curse is unbroken, you will remain under my control.”
“Had you obediently remained inside the mirror forever, you could have enjoyed yourself for a while longer.”
“Learning the truth does you no good at all. Would you not agree?”
Yu Lang could bear no more. “How can this old Daoist be so sinister?”
Still disdainful, Master Tianji continued speaking to Taoxi. “There is one more thing even my junior brother may not know.”
“The Soul-Seizing Curse will not break when I die. Instead, your soul will vanish with mine, leaving you no chance at reincarnation.”
“If you want to remove the curse from your body, then obediently…”
Before he could finish, excruciating pain struck his chest and nearly suffocated him.
He looked down and saw a ghostly hand plunged into his chest without the slightest hesitation.
When it emerged again, it held a bloody human heart.