Chapter 257 — Summoning

Given his cultivation at this level, illness of any kind should have been impossible for him in ordinary times. Yet this fever burned through his whole body, leaving him scorching hot and delirious. Lu Xueling understood well enough that this grave illness was truly brought on by the agony in his heart. Bi Li's death had been the spark, but more than anything, the heart-barrier Zhang Qingyue had clung to and endured for ten years was the true root of the sickness—and no one could cure that.

And so it proved. Though Lu Xueling exhausted every method and fed him every wonder-elixir and miracle drug she possessed, it was all like a clay ox plunging into the sea—not the slightest effect. The fever raged with unimaginable ferocity and showed no sign of breaking even after ten days. Had an ordinary person been afflicted so, they would long since have breathed their last. And now, even Zhang Qingyue had grown so gaunt he could grow no gaunter, looking very much like skin stretched over bones.

Lu Xueling was frantic with worry. For ten days and nights she watched over him without rest, and she too had visibly grown thin. Perhaps Heaven, seeing her devotion, finally opened its eyes and showed mercy: on the eleventh day, just as Lu Xueling was nearing despair, Zhang Qingyue's fever at last subsided.

The fever had broken, yet Zhang Qingyue remained unconscious. Even so, Lu Xueling let out a great breath of relief. The moment her taut nerves slackened just a little, exhaustion came surging up from every corner of her body. Forcing herself to stay upright, she straightened Ming Li's collar, then leaned against his side and sank into a deep sleep.

On her lovely face rested a faint, peaceful smile, and even in sleep her hand still grasped Ming Li's shoulder. A gentle breeze drifted through the ruins of Liu Miao Village, the green grass swaying and clustering around their bodies. Heaven and earth lay still and silent, and only in this corner forgotten by the world did there seem to be a strange kind of peace and happiness.

How long she slept, she did not know. The stars wheeled, the air was full of flowers' fragrance—surely it was a dream, for she saw everything she had once dreamed of!

To be with the one she loved, for a lifetime...

And then she woke.

The peaceful, happy smile still lingered at the corners of her mouth as she softly opened her eyes. The body beside her was indeed still there—he was sleeping quietly, his breath right there beside her.

Lu Xueling did not move, as though this were the way she loved best. She leaned quietly against his side, listening to the sound of his sleeping breath.

Suddenly, at that very moment, from the direction of Cang Lan Mountain in the distance, a violent explosion burst across the sky, and then a huge firework bloomed there. Lu Xueling's expression shifted slightly; she frowned and slowly sat up, turning her head to look.

The firework slowly took the shape of a long sword in the sky and hung there a long while without fading. It was a signal the Cang Lan Sect used only rarely—sent out to summon every disciple nearby only when some grave disaster had struck the sect and the danger was desperate. Lu Xueling was silent a moment, then turned her gaze back to Zhang Qingyue and regarded him for a time. Slowly she rose, hesitated, and at last reached out to take the Tianxuan, which leaned against a broken wall nearby, and drifted off into the distance.

The wind blew on as before, and the green grass swayed to and fro as before.

Zhang Qingyue slept quietly, peacefully, among the grass. Suddenly, from deep in the grass beside him, a head popped out—a gray-furred monkey with three eyes. It turned to look around, gave two squeaks that suggested surprise at the sudden absence of Lu Xueling, then leaped onto Zhang Qingyue's chest, scratched its head, and sat down.

Zhang Qingyue slept on, quiet as before—only beside his right hand, his fingers twitched faintly.

About the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea later, a soft sound came from the entrance to the ruins of Liu Miao Village, and then Lu Xueling's white figure appeared there, walking toward the place where Zhang Qingyue lay sleeping. The little gray monkey on his chest made a face at Lu Xueling, jumped down, and squatted to one side, looking this way and that.

"Xiaofan... something terrible has happened." Her voice sounded hollow and utterly drained of strength as she murmured, "Just now I saw our sect's urgent summons for its disciples and went to look. It seems that while we have been here, great events have unfolded in the outside world. The Nether King Sect you once belonged to—that sect master, the Nether King—has somehow come into possession of some foul and uncanny treasure that can steal men's minds and bend them to his service. And worse still, they say he hides himself within a vast crimson shadow of blood-light, and wherever that crimson shadow reaches, whether common folk or cultivators who have attained the Dao, all are reduced to mindless living dead, driven at his command."

Lu Xueling's face was pale, and her hand tightened gently around the Tianxuan, but the look she bent on Zhang Qingyue was still all tenderness and aching regret, full of the pain of parting: "The righteous sects launched several campaigns to surround and destroy him, but every one of them was wiped out to the last soul. It was not merely that each sect was gravely weakened—the most terrifying thing is that most of those people... had their minds stolen by his crimson light and became the Nether King's slaves and thugs, turning to slaughter the righteous sects in their stead. By now the righteous forces of the world are in full rout, and in recent days the Nether King has advanced to the very foot of Cang Lan Mountain, unleashing his demon arts, so that every common soul within a hundred li of Cang Lan Mountain—in Heyang City and all the towns and villages great and small—has had their minds bewitched. Counting those taken before, their number must be no less than a hundred thousand, and at any moment they may storm Cang Lan Mountain."

She stared blankly at Zhang Qingyue's face, and suddenly two streams of tears slid from her eyes, falling and landing on the back of his hand.

"I wanted to cast all caution aside. Time and again I thought only of staying with you, of spending a lifetime at your side—even if the whole world reviled me and my sect punished me, I would not have cared. But now, but now..." Her lips trembled faintly and she slowly lowered her head. "But now Qingyun is in peril! The Cang Lan Sect raised me from childhood; the sect master loved and taught me—my debt of gratitude is as heavy as a mountain. If it were only a matter of us being together, I would willingly bear their scolding and their scorn. But now that they are in danger, I... I can only go back and stand with them."

Lu Xueling gazed deeply into Zhang Qingyue's face and did not look away for a single moment, as though she begrudged giving up even one glance. A breeze came, and her collar fluttered gently.

"Perhaps you do not yet know—the Cang Lan Sect has been torn by hidden strife, and the 'Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation' that was once invincible under heaven can no longer be activated. This battle is only... I fear it is truly more ill than fortunate, and I do not know whether I can ever come back to see you."

Lu Xueling drew a deep breath and reached up to wipe the tears from her face. Then a faintly bitter smile touched the corners of her mouth, and looking at Zhang Qingyue she said in a low voice: "Xiaofan, I do not know whether it is Heaven's will that we are always fated never to stay together for long. But," she paused, and a moment later went on quietly, in a low and steady voice, "but I have never once regretted it!"

With that, she bent down and gently kissed Zhang Qingyue on the lips. The warmth of that touch seemed to spread through her whole body.

Faint, and happy...