Chapter 11 The world is bustling and noisy...
No matter what answer the boy wanted, her answer would always be the same.
Everything and everyone in the world is for the sake of living.
"Do you think I'm wrong? But I don't think so." Before the boy could respond, she continued.
"Then let me try to persuade you."
“I have never been someone so righteous as to risk my life for the sake of all living beings, nor have I ever been so kind as to put the lives of others above my own. But does that make me wrong? Must I let morality override my life and instincts?”
"I'm willing to save you because if I don't, your sister will kill me. And I'm willing to go to the trouble of persuading you now because you disregarded my wishes and put me on the battlefield. I want to live, I don't want to go anywhere else. You've clearly taken full advantage of my desire to live. I need to guess what answer you want, but do you really need an answer that I have to guess?"
"You want me to understand, but do I really need to understand? You put a child next to me, and I know she's going to die. Can I just stand by and watch her die? It's my instinct to live for myself, but it's also my instinct not to bear watching such a young child die in front of me. I'm willing to kill the enemy on the battlefield because I want to live, because if I don't kill the enemy, the enemy will kill me."
"Yes, all of this can be explained and preached through morality. You can say that I fought and died for the sake of all living beings, that I couldn't bear to see the weak being bullied. But how many people in this world are not afraid of death?"
"I cultivate immortality and become stronger, all for the sake of living."
As her weariness gradually subsided, her slow, deliberate tone suggested she was deep in thought, yet she spoke without pause, weaving a worldview of her own with her words.
Finally, she swallowed the hoarseness in her throat and said, word by word, "I did nothing wrong."
Candles were lit one by one.
The young man remained standing there, a hint of surprise on his face.
He chuckled softly, the sound flickering with the candlelight before being swallowed up by the gradually disappearing imagery.
He said, “It’s dawn. Thank you, my savior.”
The image faded away little by little. Then, when I opened my eyes, I saw the familiar bed curtains.
But something was different. The room, which had been deathly silent, now seemed quite lively.
He seemed very tired, as if he hadn't slept all night.
A few rays of sunlight shone through the window, illuminating her face, carrying with them a touch of the chill of the morning light.
Then she turned her head to the side.
The girl with sword-like features stood in the shadows, holding the hands of two or three children. She stood there, clearly without features, yet one could sense that she was looking at Meng Chiwan.
Meanwhile, the children nearby were chattering away, their voices sounding like birdsong in the early morning.
The children's faces were blurred.
But there was one child she recognized.
The child was dressed in a Taoist robe, with several talismans tucked into her belt, and held a long sword that matched her height in her hand.
She had three holes in her body that were still bleeding.
What Meng Chiwan shielded the child from were three long swords.
In Meng Chiwan's written history, she shielded the child. But what about in real history?
Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears. It turned out she hadn't been able to save anyone.
As warm tears streamed down his face, the child's features gradually became clearer.
In those innocent, childlike eyes, one can see the rising sun, and the years yet to come.
The child's innocent smile made her heart ache. Holding her friend's hand, the child said, "Thank you, sister."
She called her sister.
But if she could grow up well... perhaps...
She laughed too, her cheeks wet and sticky, like a warm bed at the bottom of water: "Does it hurt?"
It hurts. It definitely hurts.
But she asked anyway. Because she didn't even know what else she could say.
The child looked down at the wounds on her body, her voice tender and youthful: "It doesn't hurt anymore. And, sister, I'm about to be free."
A few more beams of sunlight shone in, squeezing out the small patch of shadow.
"Goodbye, sister."
Before she could say the next word, the child spoke again.
Then, step by step, his body merged into the light of the sky, and along with the blood color, it became transparent until it could no longer be seen.
Only then did she realize with horror that the child who had vanished along with that child, even younger than that child, had a landscape painting drawn in blood on his white robe.
now.
Together, they returned to the mountains and rivers, and to the world.
The world is bustling and noisy, yet fireworks bloom everywhere year after year. All those things we didn't have time to witness, we will have the chance to see in the future.
She closed her eyes and suddenly felt a wave of suffocation. But this time, her neck felt empty, almost desolate.
It was that unspeakable loneliness that was slowly binding her, causing new mud and sand to cover that warm bed once more.
"I'm sorry. It's all fake. I won't really kill you. Everyone says this house is haunted, but it's just the children playing around. They didn't mean any harm." The girl spoke, her voice still as hoarse and unpleasant as ever, but this time without the deliberately strange tone.
“My brother said…” she began again.
But then there was a knock on the door.
Meng Chiwan turned her head again, and the girl's figure vanished, never to be found again. It was as if heaven and earth had taken her away.
"Knock knock knock!"
Is anyone home?
Before the door was even opened, the person outside asked.
For some reason, Yun Xianqing next door did not react at all.
She glanced again at the spot where the girl had disappeared, now filled with beams of light, before getting up and pushing open the door.
Yun Xianqing still didn't react at all. She looked at his closed door from the side, pursed her lips, and then went to open the door.
"Young lady, you live here?"
A man in his early twenties or thirties was standing outside the door. When he saw a young woman come to open the door, he first looked her up and down before speaking.
Meng Chiwan frowned: "Yes."
"Alone?" he asked again.
"No..." She felt something was off and asked, "Is there something important?"
"Don't you know this is a haunted house?" the man asked her unhurriedly.
"I know," she replied indifferently.
"Have you ever seen... the ghost in this house?"
"No. I haven't seen any ghosts, it's just a rumor." She frowned, pretending to recall, and spoke with a nonchalant air.
"Really, young lady?"
She hesitated, "If you put it that way...it seems a bit..."
"What?"
"That's strange. I'm the one living here, so why are you so concerned?" She glanced at him and said with a faint smile.
The man was taken aback, then touched the tip of his nose, as if stumped by her question: "I saw that you live here alone and I was afraid, so I came to ask you. I live nearby. If you are afraid, you can come and tell me."
"I'm not afraid. I've never seen a ghost," she said coldly. "Even if there were ghosts, could you possibly exorcise them?"
"Of course!" he patted his chest, full of confidence.
"If that's the case... then there is indeed something I need to ask you."
"What is it?"
"Don't bother me again. Especially before dawn. Putting aside whether there are ghosts here or not, even if there are, I will find a celestial being to exorcise them myself..."
Besides, there was already a sickly immortal lord sitting in the house.
The ghost wouldn't take her life at all.
She suddenly remembered what the girl had said; it turned out that all those ghost stories were about those children…
“If you have nothing else to do, then…” She made a gesture to close the door.
"You really haven't seen that ghost?" He seemed to have suddenly changed his tune, and his voice became much calmer.
She paused, then loosened her grip on the door, speaking slowly and deliberately, her voice trembling: "Never seen it before. Why do you keep hoping my house is haunted? Besides, I don't think I've ever seen a neighbor like you before."
"It's normal that I haven't seen it before. After all, I never go out during the day." He chuckled softly twice and then said some words that were difficult to understand.
Seeing his gloomy expression, Meng Chiwan unconsciously wanted to close the door.
But then he suddenly said, "If anyone else asks you this, you'd better answer the same way."
Her heart skipped a beat, and something seemed to flash through her mind, but she couldn't quite grasp it at first.
But he didn't seem to intend to answer any of her questions, only saying, "You'll know what you need to know in the end. Don't deliberately seek out the answers."
He paused, then said, "If you can, could you check on her for me and see if she's alright?"
“You actually have the answer in your heart, don’t you?” she said abruptly.
But the man turned and left, his steps hurried, his Taoist robe worn and tattered, making him look somewhat disheveled. He said nothing more, as if he hadn't heard anything at all.
Daylight finally broke. The terror of the night receded. Like a man's hurried footsteps, it stirred up only a barely perceptible cloud of dust.
In the past, it seemed strange and no one even cared.
But in the future, in an uncertain future, it seems both so reasonable and so thrilling.
"Yun Xianqing, are you alright?"
It's strange. She was clearly the one who was forcibly taken away and barely escaped from the jaws of death, but Yun Xianqing seemed more like the missing person.
His room was deathly silent. Not a sound could be heard.
She knocked on the door again and again, but received no response.
Finally, she let out a long sigh, took a deep breath, and then pushed open the door that she hadn't opened since Yun Xianqing moved in.
The door creaked open, and the interior appeared gray and hazy in the sunlight.
A note from the author:
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com