Chapter 71 The pond was filled with a waning moon...
Unfortunately, the boy didn't answer her question for a long time, to the point that Meng Chiwan began to doubt whether he had even heard her question clearly.
His body was trembling.
It was a tremor she couldn't quite describe, like a tiny snail hiding beneath swaying grass and trees in a wind and rain, the snail trembling slightly along with the grass and trees.
It was a helpless tremor, connecting the roots of plants and sustaining that heart that knew the road ahead was uncertain yet still had to crawl forward, a heart that could never truly settle down.
At that moment, the question in her mind swirled and spun, like a wildflower swaying uncertainly.
Finally, that voice, symbolizing her feelings, fell from the sky and crashed into the boy's heart, leaving a deep, heavy crater.
She asked, "Yun Xianqing, are you scared?"
The boy's tightly pursed lips were gently pried open, and the tip of his scarlet tongue obediently crawled out from between them. His body was still trembling, and he still looked like a fallen leaf that had been swept away by the autumn wind and had nowhere to return to.
The boy couldn't answer her. Just like her previous question, it all scattered in the wind and buried in the earth.
But the answer lies within his body.
"Xiao Zhuo, your tongue has recovered very well."
The Yun family patriarch's voice remained gentle, but Meng Chiwan always felt that every time he spoke, it was like a snake flicking its tongue, sending chills down her spine.
This statement is truly puzzling.
Was Yun Xianqing's tongue injured?
The head of the Yun family gently lifted the boy's chin, his fingertips casually stroking the boy's cheeks.
A hint of a smile appeared in his eyes, but beneath that surface, one could see a cold, scrutinizing gaze hidden deep within, like a block of ice that had never melted in a secluded paradise.
Suddenly, the boy whimpered, a surge of uncontrollable soreness welling up in his nose, and his eyelashes became slightly moist.
Pain is like the tide, rising and falling, but eventually it will completely engulf that loose shore.
"Could it be a coincidence? How about we pull it all out today and see if it can recover as well?" The Yun family head smiled innocently, his already handsome face now blooming like a hibiscus flower, bright and radiant.
He had clearly done the cruelest thing, yet his hands were clean, his pale fingers didn't tremble at all, and his forced smile seemed exceptionally sincere.
The pain traveled through the boy's body into Meng Chiwan's soul, and then abruptly ended, like someone blowing out a candle with a breath, extinguishing both her vision and the pain.
...
This is a body that is not intact. It is crippled, unbalanced, and ugly.
Everywhere was filled with a fine, dense itch, as if thousands of ants had been tamed in the flesh and blood, crawling, biting, and devouring, driving people crazy and helpless wherever they went.
The boy huddled in the corner, his body covered in scratches, but he couldn't stop the agonizing itch no matter what he did.
People will stop at nothing to survive. People will also stop at nothing to torment others.
The Yun family patriarch pulled out the boy's tongue and threw it into the pond. He then lightly disassembled the boy's two arms, ignoring the dripping blood and the boy's desperate screams. He inch by inch crushed all the boy's pride into bone powder, and then scattered it into the pond to provide nourishment for the world.
"From today onwards, your name will be Yun Xianqing."
"The reward is these hands."
The Yun family patriarch smiled gently, his tone light and airy, like a petal slowly falling into a pond.
Meng Chiwan heard the boy's deafening heartbeat.
"My name is... Yun Xianqing." The boy's bloodless lips parted slightly, his voice tinged with shallow panting.
Yun Xianqing.
This name represents the future.
It is the future that the boy eagerly anticipates.
It was uttered by an unknown soul within his body, and then became proof that he possessed a future.
Meng Chiwan suddenly smiled.
So this is what Yun Xianqing is like.
Such a... pathetic creature who would place his hopes on a vague and ethereal soul and name.
"Yun Xianqing, in the future, you will live a very, very miserable life, so miserable that you will feel you shouldn't have been born. But no one in the world will sympathize with you, because you are hateful and shameful. You will die at someone's hands, no matter how hard you try, you will die there. All your efforts will be in vain. Even if you abandon morality, love, and even humanity, you will not achieve your goal. You will never be able to ascend, never be able to take revenge. Even if you change your name, your soul will forever be branded with the mark of filth. You are filth, you will always be that dirty, worthless filth who can't get anything you want."
Meng Chiwan's voice resonated through his body, clear and venomous.
People in this world are all different. Some regard kindness and compassion as the natural order, while others regard themselves as the natural order. Yun Xianqing regards himself as the natural order and does everything only to please himself. In front of Yun Xianqing, Meng Chiwan also regards herself as the natural order and searches the vast sea of consciousness for the words that can hurt him the most, all just to please herself.
The boy finally responded: "Do I owe the person who killed me?"
Meng Chiwan replied, "Perhaps in your eyes later, everything will seem like a matter of course, and you will no longer think of the word 'owe'; you will have forgotten those words."
The boy gently placed the small insect that had crawled on his body onto the ground, his expression blank, and watched the insect gradually disappear into the corner of the wall.
"I will not forget." The boy's voice was distant, like a long, drawn-out promise.
Meng Chiwan calmed down inside his body, cleared her mind, and cleansed away those harsh words, allowing her soul to be refreshed.
...
The cycle repeats itself.
The body is like the moon, waxing and waning, never truly perfect.
The pond was filled with the waning moon.
I've heard that the head of the Yun family is named Yun Yuandai.
Yun Yuandai would always ask the boy if the moon was beautiful, but the boy would never answer. He would always look at the moon with an indifferent gaze, as if he shared the moon's joys and sorrows.
But the moon is far away, unable to hear the boy's heartfelt words, nor can it see the boy's perpetually red and incomplete body.
And so, the days passed by in their waxing and waning, like shooting stars falling from the sky.
The pond slowly lost its clarity, and it was draped in a layer of sunset glow. That sunset glow originated from the boy's body.
The boy gradually stopped crying out in pain and slowly became numb.
He thought this would take him to the ends of the earth, and he thought he would never see the person the girl said wanted to kill him.
Until one day, he heard a tearing sound coming from inside his body.
The brain is tearing apart, the memory is tearing apart, the body is tearing apart.
He heard the girl inside his body ask him, "What's wrong with you?"
He was confused. But then he heard a voice that belonged to him yet also didn't: "Am I truly going to become Yun Xianqing?"
The sound quickly detached from his body, carrying flesh and blood.
He looked up and saw a face exactly like his own.
For a moment, he panicked. Would he scare the girl inside him?
Almost immediately, the girl inside her body exclaimed in astonishment, "You...can...split?"
The boy frantically searched his memories in his mind, but in an instant, he froze.
That memory seemed to have been extracted and transferred into a completely new body. It was a body that had absolutely no memories related to the girl.
The boy was bewildered and at a loss, but the girl inside him knew clearly that his dark eyes already resembled "Yun Xianqing".
It turns out that the Yun Xianqing who cried and told her not to climb the tower, saying she would take her home, may not be the same Yun Xianqing who later killed her to prove her Dao.
But amidst the truth and falsehood, love and hate, where could she find the peace she craved?
No wonder he acted like nothing had happened when they met again, no wonder he was somewhat bewildered.
Many thoughts raced through her mind, and for a moment she thought of the funeral banners fluttering in front of the mourning hall before she climbed the tower.
"Xiao Zhuo... no, Xiao Qing, would you do me a favor?"
The moonlight shone on Yun Yuandai's face, making his smiling eyes look just like the stars hanging high in the sky.
He looked at the two identical boys without the slightest surprise, only a bulging sense of satisfaction.
The boy's body began to tremble again.
Meng Chiwan guessed that he was trembling because of Yun Yuandai.
But the boy himself knew that he was trembling because of the future he had guessed.
This girl who told him he could define the word "dust and turbidity" himself, this girl who clearly hated him but still felt compassion for him when he was being tortured, perhaps he didn't have a good future with her.
He felt terrified. Perhaps he would truly lose his Daoist heart, perhaps he would truly become inhuman, perhaps he would truly never be able to achieve the revenge and ascension he so desperately desired.
"I do."
"...I don't want to."
The two boys spoke at the same time.
The two people with differing opinions exchanged a glance. In one's eyes was a panic that the other could not fathom, and in the other's eyes was a winter shrouded in fog.
Meng Chiwan suddenly realized that if there were two Yun Xianqings, wouldn't she have to fight two against one when she took revenge on him? That wouldn't be right.
This time, her heartfelt words did not reach the boy's heart. That separation severed the channel connecting her to his heart, and he could no longer capture that vibrant version of her.
“Father is wrong,” Yun Yuandai said slowly. “Xiao Qing must do me a favor. Right now.”
The boy never had a choice; everything was moving in the direction of Meng Chiwan's venomous words.
The moon slowly sank below the horizon, and ripples spread across the water once more.
The boy was locked in a cage, and Meng Chiwan stopped speaking.
She remembered that during her time at the Lin residence, she had once perused an ancient book.
In ancient times, there was a practice of exorcising demons by diluting one's own body to exchange for the Great Dao and longevity.
I can't remember the context in which I read that ancient book, but I do remember that one day Yun Xianqing handed it to me with his usual faint smile. He didn't tell me that I had to read it or how important it was. He just looked at my tired eyes, then gently stroked under my eyes and said softly, "Rest early. There's plenty of time. You'll read it all eventually."
The sunlight was gentle that day, and she had a good dream all night. In her dream, there were no monsters or spirits, only a warm moon hanging high in the branches.
Author's note: Sweet dreams.
I'm completely drained by work, hahaha [milk tea emoji]
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