Chapter 37
——"We don't live in facts, but in stories we believe."
The world seemed to dissolve in an instant.
Light and darkness are intertwined, the morning light is not bright, and the evening light is not dark.
The sudden invisible wind rolled up the petals in the flowers, like bubbles floating up from the bottom of the water, like dandelions carried by the breeze, swirling upwards with a roar.
Dressed in plain purple, Zhe Qingzhu stood in a sea of colorful flowers. The wind blew up the purple headband in her hair, fluttering in the air, and her black hair also danced with the wind.
She stretched out her arms lightly, touched the ground with her toes, and her fingertips swirled with her slender waist, drawing one invisible melody after another in the air. As her clothes fluttered, a group of butterflies came from nowhere and circled around her.
Dance with butterflies and flowers, dance with the world.
"The stars hang low over the fields for eternity, the fireworks of the human world are dazzling, the real and the imaginary intertwine, the cycle of reincarnation never ends.
The poet writes about the fantasy, and the prodigal son asks the sky with a drunken smile.
We follow the legend and paint in the clouds.
Pick the stars, embrace the bright moon, travel the world, and climb thousands of mountains."
She tried to put on a smile and looked up at the sky. Her gaze seemed to penetrate time. She seemed to see her youthful self and her lover from many years ago, bright and cheerful, clear as the morning sun, and unstained by the early morning sun. Life was so good back then.
This was the last dance Zhe Qingzhu presented to Rao Jingyi. She didn't know if he could see it. She thought that when this world disappeared, he would be able to get the peace he had always wanted in his heart.
So, she wanted to happily perform this dance for him as a farewell.
Zhu Qingzhu's dance moves are elegant and sad, and her hairband flutters with the dance.
She slowly raised her hand, and a blood-red butterfly landed on her fingertips, then circled around her wrist, her toes moving in unison. Her slender waist and purple skirt spun rapidly, and the skirt spread out like waves. The butterfly's wings trembled and flew away, dancing around her body in a sky full of fluorescent light.
Her toes crushed the falling butterfly powder, startling the scattered petals. They rose with her dance and formed a flowing veil under the guidance of the wind in the constantly shattering world.
The crystal blood-red phosphorus fluttered in the wind on her sleeves and tangled into her loose black hair.
She suddenly bent her back and her movements slowed down, and the butterflies began to disperse.
She stared down, her eyelashes casting a shadow on her face like a butterfly's wing. A teardrop fell silently, swirling among the petals and butterflies, and finally plummeting into the abyss like a collapsing sky.
"Neon lights flash to interpret joys and sorrows,
Silence is only due to the entanglement of love, hate and resentment.
If life is compared to a firefly, the years are but a fleeting glint of splendor.”
Finally, a butterfly landed on her outstretched fingertips. She fixed her gaze with a faint smile, breathing softly. The wind whimpered, and countless blood-red butterflies suddenly flew upward from the flowers, gathering in the empty space for a moment into a giant butterfly mound before scattering abruptly.
In the moment when the butterfly flew away, the purple-clothed figure leaned back like a butterfly with broken wings, and turned into tiny butterfly powder that rose into the sky with the wind.
In the sea of flowers, only a lonely and cold pistil remained, burning into red embers in the collapsing world.
Only a half-torn white gauze, wrapped with a few strands of black hair, was hanging on the dead thorns and fluttering.
As if chanting the last whisper.
"If the world is all a theatre, then life and death are but the beginning of a new painting."
Rao Jingyi slowly sat up in the wilderness. He looked blankly at his hands and everything around him. The whistling wind seemed to still ring in his ears.
The severed pain in his heart seemed to still be there, as if something invisible was caressing the wound in his heart, erasing all traces of his death, and finally gently caressing his face, leaving no trace.
He just sat on the ground, and then he raised his head and looked into the distance.
Little butterfly...as long as you are still alive and well, there is nothing to fear about separation.
"If the mortal world is all a butterfly dream, then joy and sorrow are but the tip of Zhuang Zhou's finger."
The sky brightened, and this dream of reality and illusion finally came to an end.
*
"Come to think of it, Xiaobai, when did you know there was a boss? Did you figure it out from the beginning?!"
"Well, I was just suspicious at the time, not sure. Do you remember the boss's name?"
"The boss's name..." Jiang Wan thought for a moment, "Zhe...Qingzhu."
"Zhe... means red, and bamboo is pronounced the same as Zhu, which is also red." Lin Xubai flipped his folding fan nimbly up and down between his fingers. "The banners at the tavern and the inn are all red butterflies..."
He did not go into details about the usage of colors, the legends passed down through the ages, and so on.
Although the boss reconstructed the new story just to let the other party survive, deep down, he also hoped that his lover would discover these details and remember him. Unfortunately, Rao Jingyi did not notice anything wrong, but instead let them discover the clues.
"So...it was that time..."
"The 'Nanzhou Yiwen Jing' records: There is a red-striped black butterfly named Blood Ripple. It is extremely chaste. It will pursue a single mate throughout its life, and will not stop even if its wings are broken. If it loses its mate, it will weep blood and dance until it dies."
Blood Ripple Butterfly...that is the eternal pursuit of love until the end of life.
After completely leaving 'Evergreen Township'——
Chu Yingluo pinched the flesh on Wu Hualin's waist and said, "You are so good, Wu Hualin, tell me, did you know this a long time ago?"
"Gentle, gentle!" Wu Hualin pretended to beg for mercy, rubbed his nose and admitted, "It wasn't that long ago."
He couldn't say that he wanted to use the "Scroll of Ten Thousand Souls" to detonate all the soul-devouring marks he had left, turning this place into a pool of blood and sealing Rao Jingyi into the scroll, but he realized it when he found that the "Scroll of Ten Thousand Souls" was unusable.
You must know that the prerequisite for using the "Scroll of Ten Thousand Souls" is to sacrifice a living person.
Wu Hualin glanced at Master Baili in front of him without showing any expression. If he told the truth, he would be beaten to death by this sword cultivator who looked more like a demon cultivator than him. He was not that stupid.
"What should we do with this Soul Devouring Orb?"
Jiang Wan, once again the focus of everyone's attention, said, "Hmm? Well... the Soul Devouring Orb's power was all used to support the secret realm. After the collapse of 'Eternal Shu Township', the Soul Devouring Orb became useless. Now it's just a simple black glass bead."
Jiang Wan took out the Soul-Devouring Pearl and tossed it twice casually.
"Although it has few abilities, it does retain its dream-creating power. However, it can only cause nightmares to those who have entered 'Eternal Glory Village'. It's not very versatile, but ignoring that fact, it can still be used as a decoration. Who wants it?"
Chu Yingluo: “…”
Wu Hualin: “…”
You Sheng: “…”
Tu Changxing: “…”
Tianyu Palace: "......"
Who wants to repeat his own dark history... Suddenly he has no interest in this Soul Devouring Orb.
-
"Don't I look smart? You don't even know! After she tricked me away, she was so blunt in her divisive words to me, as if she was afraid I wouldn't understand!" Thinking back on it again, Jiang Wan was still very angry. With a cold face, she complained angrily, "She actually told me that there was something wrong with you, that you were hiding your true identity and disguising yourself."
A dark glint flashed across Lin Xubai's eyes: "Oh?"
"Right, you think it's ridiculous too!" Jiang Wan's mouth twitched, his eyes full of incomprehension of this behavior.
Lin Xubai lowered his eyes, his long eyelashes covering the color beneath them. "But she's not wrong, is she? I... am indeed suspicious. Even Senior Sister Chu... why don't you doubt me?"
"I believe you." Jiang Wan didn't understand why she was doubting him.
"Why?" Lin Xubai didn't understand where Jiang Wan's seemingly unconditional trust came from.
"Why? You're just a newbie! And isn't trusting your friends the most basic thing?" Jiang Wan pouted, puffing up his right cheek as if he couldn't do anything to you, looking cute like a kitten with its head tilted and sticking out.
"I'm not crazy to doubt my friends just because of what others say. Only a fool would do that."
Lin Xubai: “…”
"But she said I was too fussy and had hidden a lot from you. My cultivation was too low, so I always hid behind you and asked you to take risks for me." Lin Xubai's tone darkened. "She was right. I did hide some things from you. My identity..."
"People like me are useless and a drag, and truly unworthy of trust. Do you truly understand me? What kind of person am I?"
Jiang Wan:!
Of course I know there's something wrong with your identity, and you're hiding a secret from me!
after all--
You are half human, half demon!
It's such a big secret, I'm not prepared for you not to tell me in the finale!!!
Jiang Wan thought about it, and her expression of holding her breath tightened. She took a few steps forward, stood in front of Lin Xubai, and looked at him seriously.
"The succubus's words of sowing discord are not credible. Besides, everyone has secrets, right?
Even Elder Xiong has this little hobby of not washing his feet or taking a bath. The senior brothers from the neighboring peak force the senior sister to stay in their dormitory every night!
Don't I know what kind of person you are? You studied runes day and night to help me. Even though you drew them... well, you always helped me, didn't you? And I was always lost, but you never abandoned me and returned to Yuanzong on your own. And even though you didn't say anything about my small shop, you always took care of it for me.
You don't like people to make close contact with you, but every time I pulled your sleeve, you never refused, and you even changed to wider sleeves to make it easier for me to pull you!
You've done so much with me! How can you say you're useless and holding me back?
You know, your existence itself is the greatest miracle to me!"
Lin Xu held his breath the moment his eyes opened slightly.
Jiang Wan didn't notice Lin Xubai's subtle changes. She continued to talk and dance.
"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have joined the Guiyuan Sect and become a renowned swordsman prodigy on Guiyuan Sect's Songding Peak! A natural swordsman, ahem, a swordsman!"
Forgive her, she really can't say the word "Jian Gu".
"Don't underestimate me!" Jiang Wan nodded his head. "I'm not as smart as you, so what? Between good friends, one smart one is enough!"
"I'm determined to be your best friend!"
Lin Xubai was a little touched, but not much: "Wait... didn't you say something extraordinary just now?"
What had he just heard? Forced...?
Jiang Wan blinked and forcibly pressed Lin Xubai's hand down: "Oh, that's not important!"
Fang Qiandu said that generally when you are really sincere in your confession, you must make the other person feel that you are being chosen without hesitation and with determination.
"If it's not you, it's totally impossible!"
Lin Xubai looked up at Jiang Wan and suddenly chuckled, like the moonlight falling on the ice lake in the evening breeze, crushing the slightest chill, and still carrying with it an unconscious tenderness of spring.
and--
"Xiaobai, you have to believe in yourself, you are very powerful!"
“You’re awesome!”
"Look, if it weren't for your reminder, how could I have seen so many things? This time in Yongshu Township, I was able to accidentally break Gong Mei's dangerous situation and instigate the rebellion of the Soul Devouring Orb. It's all because of you!"
"In my opinion, you're amazing, okay? Have some confidence in yourself."
"I feel so safe having you by my side all this time!"
"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't know what I would do!"
“You are great and excellent!”
"You didn't abandon me when I was in danger!"
"Have confidence in your own excellence, Xiaobai!"
"I trust you, isn't it natural? Don't you trust me?"
Jiang Wan hugged Lin Xubai's sleeve and shook him. Lin Xubai lowered his head and turned sideways, looking as if he couldn't do anything to her, which made Jiang Wan shake even harder.
"Hey, hey, hey! Why don't you answer? How am I untrustworthy?!"
Jiang Wan: Finger pointing to his own doubts.JPG
What Jiang Wan didn't tell anyone was that the succubus actually came back to find her once after disappearing from the world.
In the all-white mirrored space, two people stood facing each other—
"Your good senior brother may seem weak, but he's actually quite cunning. You rushed into my trap for him. This time, I misjudged you, which is why you escaped unscathed. But, you love him so much and have done so much for him. Is it really worth it?"
"Do you really understand your good senior brother and what kind of person he is?"
Jiang Wan looked back with her usual expressionless face.
Her expression was indifferent, and her dark pupils seemed to be frozen with a layer of frost. A deadly coldness emanated from her body silently, and she instantly pulled this pure white space into the icy plains.
Jiang Wan was puzzled: "Like?"
"From the beginning to the end, everything I did was for myself."
As for what kind of person Lin Xubai is...
How could she not know and understand this for so long?
After all, he was the type of person who seemed gentle and easy to get along with on the surface, but was actually quite difficult to get close to. He used his gentle smile to build a high wall towards everyone in the world, isolating everyone from this high wall!
Her goal was very clear from the beginning. Whether she was in a hurry to leave to find Lin Xubai or stick to him all the time, she was just worried that this nephew would develop a relationship without her knowing, thus bringing the plot that she had worked so hard to disrupt back on track.
"You're mistaken."
From beginning to end, the only person she cared about was herself.
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