Chapter 2: Ten Years of Retreat
On the shores of the East China Sea, the sound of a flute was forcibly brought back from the icy waters by a member of the Golden Mandarin Duck Alliance. He was drenched, his black robe clinging to his body, yet he showed no sign of distress. Instead, there was a deeper, suffocating silence. He clutched the scarlet fragment torn from Li Xiangyi's robe, his knuckles white from the strain, as if it were the last, tenuous link between him and that person.
Back at the headquarters, he dismissed all concerns and inquiries, not even glancing at the wound on his arm that had turned white from being soaked in sea water, or the hidden injuries to his internal organs caused by the forced stimulation and the huge impact.
He walked straight to the deepest part of the back mountain, the stone chamber where he retreated and was shrouded in cold air all year round.
The stone door slammed shut behind him with a resounding thud, completely isolating him from the outside world. Within the stone chamber, there was no light, no sound, only absolute darkness and coldness, like a grave prepared for him.
He didn't immediately begin healing his wounds, but instead leaned against the cold stone wall and slowly slid down to the ground. The red cloth in his palm was the only sense of existence in the absolute darkness.
He closed his eyes, and the final scene replayed uncontrollably in his mind - that strange mouthful of black blood, those broken and determined eyes, the red shadow falling into the abyss without hesitation... and the all-consuming, cold despair when he jumped in.
"Poisoned..." He uttered the word hoarsely, his voice echoing hollowly in the stone chamber. A rage of being fooled, of being trampled upon, surged again, but was quickly drowned out by a deeper sense of powerlessness. He wasn't angry at Li Xiangyi, but at the poisoner, at this damned fate, and even more so at himself! Why hadn't he noticed sooner? Why had he been forced into a decisive battle under those circumstances?
When he finally started to use his internal energy to heal his wounds, it was almost like self-mutilation.
Beifeng Baiyang's internal energy was incredibly strong and fierce, its flow like simmering oil on a raging fire. At this moment, Di Feisheng's emotions were surging, and his internal energy was even more violent and untamed. He disregarded the endurance of his meridians, forcibly mobilizing his internal energy to attack the acupoints damaged by the backlash of the green tea poison and the impact of the seawater.
Severe pain emanated from deep within his meridians, yet he seemed oblivious to it. Instead, with an almost ruthless will, he channeled an even more ferocious internal force. Cold sweat oozed from his forehead, instantly turning icy cold. Occasionally, a trace of blood would spill from the corner of his mouth, but he wiped it away carelessly with the back of his hand.
It was as if he wasn't healing his wounds, but rather using this extreme physical pain to suppress and numb the emptiness and panic within him that had nowhere to vent. Every time his inner strength lost control, the tearing sensation made him briefly forget the suffocating feeling of "There will be no more Li Xiangyi in this world."
During the long period of meditation and breathing, his mind was not clear, but was occupied by an increasingly clear obsession:
He would never believe that Li Xiangyi was dead.
How could such a person disappear so easily and so silently?
This thought became the sole motivation that kept him going in this "Tomb of the Living Dead." He had to recover his strength, even become stronger than he had been ten years ago. Then, he had to go out and find him. He had to search the four seas and nine states, dig deep into the earth, to find him!
To be alive, you need to see people.
Even if I die...I want to see the corpse!
If he were alive… If he were alive… This assumption stirred a tiny ripple in the dead lake of his heart, but it was immediately suppressed by a deeper fear – if he were alive, he was poisoned, how would he have survived the past ten years? What had become of him?
If I die...
As soon as this thought surfaced, he forcefully crushed it, and even more violent internal energy surged through his body, bringing a new round of excruciating pain. He would rather endure the pain of his meridians being torn apart than touch that one-in-ten-thousandth possibility.
Time loses its meaning in the stone chamber.
The rising and setting of the sun, the changing of seasons, to him, are nothing more than subtle changes in the temperature of the stone wall.
His subordinates would regularly place food and water at a specific location outside the stone gate, and he would occasionally take it, simply to maintain the most basic needs of this body. He ate very little, as if he had lost interest in anything.
His injuries had long since healed, and his internal strength was even greater than before. Beifeng Baiyang had broken through his previous bottleneck. But he still hadn't emerged from seclusion.
Because he didn't know what to do after he got out.
Beyond the goal of "finding Li Xiangyi," his life seemed to have lost all meaning and color. Dominating the martial arts world? Boring. Challenging masters? There was no other moon in the world. He didn't even bother to inquire about the affairs of the Golden Yuan League.
Day after day, he sat in the darkness, practicing, daydreaming, and occasionally stroking the faded and frayed red cloth. Most of the time, his eyes were empty, without any emotion, like an ancient well that had been dry for a thousand years.
He is not dead, but he is not truly "alive" either. He is just a powerful body driven by obsession, wandering in the shadows of the past, waiting for an answer that may never come.
ten years.
A full ten years.
He changed from a sharp-edged and warlike overlord to a "living dead" with a desolate heart and no life.
Until the end of ten years, the obsession that supported his seclusion expanded to the extreme. He finally pushed open the heavy stone door, not to welcome a new life, but to rush to an old dream that had lasted for ten years, or... to bury it completely.
The hall was brightly lit by candlelight, yet an invisible oppression could not be dispelled. Di Feisheng sat at the head of the table, his black robe accentuating his stern features. Ten years of seclusion had left few traces of time on his face, save for his eyes, which were as deep as a bottomless pool, their every emotion suppressed beneath, not a single ray of light filtering through.
Wu Yan stood below with his head lowered, his voice respectful but unable to conceal his fear and uneasiness.
"Your Majesty, the people who went to Jiangnan have returned... We've searched all the medical clinics and pharmacies, even the itinerant doctors in the countryside, but haven't found anyone who fits the description."
"Spies from the northern border reported back...no one with a similar identity has come in or out."
"The Western Regions... have no clues either."
"All salvage records and unidentified bodies along the East China Sea coast over the past ten years have been repeatedly checked, and no match has been found."
Every reward was like a cold boulder, thrown into the deep pool in Di Feisheng's eyes, but it did not cause the slightest ripple, but only made the water colder and more silent.
He listened, his fingers unconsciously tapping lightly on the armrest of the chair. The rhythm was eerily steady, as if he were simply listening to some trivial, everyday conversation that had nothing to do with him. But if anyone dared to look up, they would have noticed that where his fingertips pressed, the hard, spiritual wood armrest had left tiny, almost invisible indentations.
At first, upon hearing "no," a surge of violent rage surged within him, nearly prompting him to blurt out, "Ugh! Look again!" But this rage was quickly suppressed by something deeper—an almost instinctive resistance. He refused to accept this answer. The lack of information might simply be due to the fact that it was hidden deep enough, or perhaps he hadn't searched hard enough. He couldn't be angry; anger would mean accepting the failure of the search.
Then, a sense of loss crept in like a damp, cold mist. Carrying the salty, icy cold of the East China Sea, it enveloped his heart, tightening ever tighter. It wasn't a sharp pain, but a slow, suffocating, inescapable heaviness. "Where could he be?" the thought surfaced uncontrollably. In this vast world, could it be that he had truly turned to ash, scattered across the heavens and earth, leaving him nowhere to be found?
With each report, the fog thickened. Over the past decade, I'd gone through countless reports like this. The initial anxiety, rage, and unwillingness had long since been numbed by the countless repetitions of "no," stagnating into a void bordering on despair.
He even began to dread the sound of his subordinates' footsteps. Those footsteps often signaled another fruitless end. He would subconsciously tense his body, as if awaiting a verdict. And when the expected "no trace" finally sounded, something inside him felt like it had died a little bit.
A deep sense of self-doubt grew in the silence: Was I wrong? Could he really have...? The moment this thought arose, a subtle disturbance in his internal energy would occur. Beifeng Baiyang's aura would become restless and icy, piercing his meridians like a backlash. He would immediately suppress the thought, sealing it with an even stronger obsession—he must still be alive!
Finally, all his emotions—anger, sorrow, fear, doubt—blended and solidified into a profound silence. It was a dead silence devoid of all hope, all ripples. It was as if he had become a dry well, bottomless and empty, without even an echo.
He would remain silent for a very long time, so long that cold sweat would appear on the foreheads of his subordinates and they would almost fall to their knees.
Then, he would speak, his voice steady and without a single ups and downs, yet more chilling than any roar:
"I understand. Go on down."
"Expand the scope."
"Keep looking."
There were no reproaches, no instructions, only these three words, repeated for ten years. It was as if they were not orders, but a spell to keep him from completely collapsing.
His subordinates bowed and withdrew as if they had been pardoned, leaving him sitting alone in the empty hall.
The candlelight stretched his shadow very long, casting it on the cold wall. The shadow looked so lonely, so stiff, like a statue that had long lost its soul. He might raise his hand, and his fingertips would touch the piece of red cloth in his arms again, which had long been warmed by his body temperature but was still cold.
At that moment, the overwhelming sense of loss would truly drown him completely. It wasn't a surging wave, but like an endless, gray sea, rising calmly until it submerged the sky, silently and without a sound, yet depriving him of all possibility of breathing.
He is still alive, still powerful, and still the feared leader of the Golden Mandarin Duck Alliance.
But a part of his heart had already been lost in the cold sea ten years ago amidst those repeated reports of "no news", and could never find its way back.
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