totem
The wind continued to howl, and the other two voices were long gone from Jiang Yingyue's side; they couldn't hold onto the vines and couldn't keep up.
The silence was eerily profound; even the wind seemed less harsh, as her ears had likely long since grown accustomed to it. She couldn't help but think: if Ji Yinglei had come this far, her ears certainly wouldn't have been able to handle it. She was also somewhat grateful that Ye Qingzhu hadn't stopped her; Jiang Yingyue hadn't misjudged this person.
The higher she went, the more chaotic her thoughts became, as if her body was awake but her mind was dreaming. All sorts of illogical memories and thoughts swirled in her mind. She knew that there would only be one outcome today: either she would reach the Nine Heavens, or she would bleed to death.
Her current "thinking" might just be a revolving lantern. But even so, she didn't loosen her grip on the vine, nor did she slow her pace.
She walked mechanically, like a puppet. What she saw before her was no longer the road beneath her feet, but the stone steps of Qiyun Mountain. The sound of pattering rain filled her ears. She wanted all of this to come back, even if only for a moment.
After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Yingyue suddenly felt herself lose her balance. All her thoughts were immediately pulled back, and then she fell heavily to the ground.
Even the pain seemed amplified several times over. Jiang Yingyue tried to ignore the feeling, but she had no strength to get up. She closed her eyes tightly, and just then, she suddenly realized that she had just fallen, and had completely lost her balance.
With a ringing in her ears, Jiang Yingyue jolted and opened her eyes.
There is no wind.
It looked like an altar, with nothing around her. It turned out she had reached the top of the mountain. She had just tripped over a stone step, and she couldn't even remember how she got there.
She looked around and found that there was only an altar, but no divine bow.
Jiang Yingyue dragged her weak body forward. The altar was empty, with only the golden crow pattern on it. Could it be that someone had already taken Jiuxiao? Had all this journey been in vain?
Thinking of this, she angrily slammed her fist down on the altar, blood seeping from her hand.
"Click".
A crisp sound came from inside the altar.
Looking at her right hand again, Jiang Yingyue immediately understood that her blood had flowed into the grooves forming the Golden Crow totem. Having already come this far, she had no reason to regret it.
She clenched her right fist tighter and tighter, squeezing out a lot of blood from the wound that had almost stopped bleeding. The pain was excruciating, and Jiang Yingyue's legs could barely stand, her arms trembling uncontrollably.
But she had to do it. In her heart, Jiang Yingyue was almost begging for Jiuxiao to appear quickly.
"Aren't you a divine artifact...?"
"If you really have your own ideas, then hurry up and show yourself!"
She was on the verge of a breakdown, unable to even open her eyes to see how much the Golden Crow totem had been watered. Perhaps she really couldn't hold on any longer.
Jiang Yingyue's world seemed to fall silent again. When she opened her eyes, she found that apart from the altar in front of her, all that was around her was white.
“Your heart is not calm or sincere. Even if you fill the entire totem, I will not acknowledge you as my master.”
A voice, seemingly from nowhere and ethereal, appeared. Jiang Yingyue immediately recognized it as Jiuxiao's: "Are you speaking?...I can hear you?"
"You should thank that incomplete soul, so that we can communicate."
"Please tell me, what does it mean to be neither calm nor sincere?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
