Chapter 68: So Many Separations in the World
The two of them fell to the ground, hugging each other. Wei Ci's heavy body pressed on top, but he did not forget to protect her lower back with one hand and cushion her head with the other. Cang Ming's mind was blank. After a long time, she finally understood and grabbed Wei Ci's shoulders tightly: "Brother Wei Ci."
Wei Ci's lips had turned pale, but he still spoke softly, "Cang Cang, did I hurt you?" He propped himself up with his arms, turned over, and lay on his back on the snow. Cang Ming knelt beside him, desperately holding up his head and shoulders: "Wei Ci! Wei Ci!"
Everything around was in chaos. Figures were running around, trying to catch the guardian deity nailed to the ground, cleaning up the mess of corpses under the Wangxiantai, and someone else ran to Cang Ming, seemingly asking her what was going on.
Cang Ming knew nothing. Her cool hands caressed Wei Ci's face, tears falling on him as she kept saying, "Wei Ci, Wei Ci, Wei Ci." Unprecedented fear and despair nearly crushed her heart. As if in a dream, she said, "How could this happen?"
The leaf amulet was still securely around his neck, carefully tucked away inside his underwear. She clearly remembered how, at the final moment of the decisive battle, she had trapped Wei Ci with a magic circle, ready to die alone. As long as she had the leaf amulet, the exploding magic field at the moment of her collision with the guardian deity would never have harmed Wei Ci.
Wei Ci raised a hand with great effort, gently wiped the tears from her face, and said with a smile: "You gave me the amulet, and you still want to hold me back, right? Cang Cang will protect me, but I will also protect you." His hand slid down, and Cang Ming grabbed it, saying fearfully: "Wei Ci!"
He gently hooked his fingers into a lock of her hair and said, "The hair crown... not only lets me know where you are... but also allows me to come to you in an instant and save you from danger, no matter where you are, no matter how many obstacles there are..."
Tears blurred Cang Ming's eyes. She wiped them hard, trying to see Wei Ci's face clearly. Wei Ci's voice was already too low to be heard: "In the past, I always wanted to stop you from becoming a god, wanted to lock you away... Fortunately, it's all over now. Nothing can hurt you anymore."
"Brother Weici, I only want you." Cang Ming hugged him crying, "Let's go back to the ancient building, please don't leave me, okay, please don't go..."
"I won't leave you." Wei Ci's eyes were already blurry, but he still stared at her without blinking, as if he wanted to remember her last appearance. "You left me for a thousand years, but you finally came back to me, didn't you? When I recover my strength, I will come back to find you... I am a demon, remember, the reincarnation of a demon is different..."
A heavy snowfall fluttered down. Cang Ming fell on him, weeping, filled with regret. He wanted nothing more than to go back to the night before and take Wei Ci away, even if it meant living just one more night of spring breeze and blossoms.
Countless seagulls flew slowly around them, becoming increasingly transparent, until they were almost hidden among the snowflakes. Wei Ci said, "Don't cry, Cang Cang."
With that, he vanished along with the flying gulls. Cang Ming's hands grabbed nothing. She knelt in the snow, dumbfounded, watching the white snow whirling between heaven and earth in the north wind. Wei Ci vanished, and the Weiyang Crown on her head suddenly shattered, turning into fragments on the snow.
Not far away, a group of people were arguing. The Guardian God was tied up, the ice blade sword still stuck in his chest, rising and falling with his lingering breaths.
Wu Lu ran over and asked, "Sister Cang, what should we do with this thing? Didn't you say that Grandmaster Wei Yang would come to help?"
Cang Ming looked up at him, speechless. Xi Sheng and Wei Qiang stood behind Cang Ming, shaking their heads at Wu Lu. Wu Lu suddenly felt something was wrong: "Hey, where's Brother Huo? Did he go back? Tian Xinshu left the embroidered shoes on the ground and left without a word... She destroyed Old Gui Lian's embroidered shoes and buried her body on the spot. Oh, it's really..."
You Xiao's considerate eyes were filled with tears of sympathy. He said to Wu Lu, "Brother Huo has been reincarnated."
Cang Ming closed her eyes. She was still thinking about Wei Ci's words. Would he come back?
At that moment, the morning sun broke through the clouds, illuminating the earth. In the dazzling slanting light, a golden ladder stretched from the sky down to the earth. A group of heavenly soldiers and generals descended, heading straight for the Protector of the World. Terrified, the Yunxia Sect members retreated to their boats. You Xiao hurriedly boarded and waved goodbye to the others. The ghost ship sailed towards the Central Plains, disappearing into the snow.
Xunyan and Mixia hid behind Wulu. Having drunk enough medicine, they could still disguise themselves as humans for the time being. After they came down from the clouds, their smiles faded. Now, they finally lost their welcoming smiles and looked at Cangming anxiously.
Wu Lu was clamoring to verify the identities of the heavenly soldiers and generals. A clear female voice came from the ladder: "I'm here, do I still need to verify?"
Cang Ming raised her head and saw her master running down the ladder and pulling her up: "Master, I'm late! Sigh."
Wu Lu and Xi Sheng were surprised to see Xue Jie Wei Yang, whom they hadn't seen in years. Although they had been prepared, they were still surprised. Their Grandmaster said, "Don't I also hold a civil service position in Heaven? There are constant meetings, both large and small, taking advantage of my position to hold these meetings along the path the Guardian Gods must take to return to the Heavenly Palace. Cang Ming's plan is truly brilliant!"
Xisheng asked, "Did he really go back?"
The master said, "That's not the case. However, this way I knew he was still in the human world, so I thought of a plan. I said that the northern part of the mortal world has been too desolate in recent years. During the meeting, a floor tile was opened openly, and through the hole, you can look down at the outside of the pass. This is when you see the guardian deity doing evil and getting involved with you. The gods used their thousand-mile superb ears to listen and heard every word."
Wu Lu was confused: "Then...then why did you come only now?"
The Grandmaster stamped his foot and said, "Just mentioning this makes me angry. Isn't it because the gods have to hold a public meeting first, nagging and nagging, waiting for everyone to express their opinions before sending the heavenly soldiers and generals. Some of these old guys are probably on the side of the World Protector God, and they are disrupting the situation unbelievably! Fortunately, no matter what, the Heavenly Realm has caught the World Protector God in the act, and he can't deny it. You will not be held accountable for assassinating him."
Wei Qiang suddenly blurted out: "Are you really a god? These golden figures... are all heavenly soldiers and generals?" His eyes were wide open and his face was full of shock.
The master smiled at him, then turned to ask Cang Ming: "What's wrong? Do you look like you've lost your soul?"
Cang Ming opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a word. The heavenly soldiers and generals had already tied the Guardian God to the prison cart, and the Ice Blade Sword was back in Cang Ming's hand.
Cang Ming, holding his sword, stared at his master in a daze, saying incoherently, "Master, the Weiyang Crown is broken. It was cursed, and I spent too much mana to get it to move to my side, so it exploded."
The master was stunned for a moment, then he felt relieved: "Master, that thing has finally been destroyed. From now on, the martial arts world has one less thing that stirs people's hearts. I hope there will be peace from now on."
Cang Ming nodded absentmindedly. The Grandmaster said, "I'm leaving again... Alas, returning to Wang Xianyuan is filled with mixed emotions. Master, perhaps we'll meet again."
The master led the prisoner cart up the ladder, but soon became a tiny dot in the sky, and then the ladder retracted. Snow fell heavily, and only a few old friends remained on the Forget Immortal Terrace, along with Li Xianzhen, who knelt on the ground.
Xisheng said, "Go back. He'll come back for you." She pulled a yellow teleportation talisman from her sleeve. Wu Lu, Xun Yan, and Mi Xia stood up, while Wei Qiang said, "After this battle, I feel so empty inside. I'm going back to the mountains to see my parents. I'll visit you in the Central Plains soon."
So they said goodbye to each other. Xisheng and Wulu each held Cangming. The strong wind summoned by Huang Fu swept up the five people and sent them back to Xiyuan Sanfang safely.
Everything in the three courtyards of Xiyuan remained unchanged; the tables, chairs, and benches were still clean and shiny, untouched by dust. Xunyan and Mixia opened the inn's door and every window. It was late spring in the Central Plains, the blossoms had fallen, and the trees were lush and green. Soon, it would be the Grain Full season.
Cang Ming stared blankly outside the door, thinking in her heart, Xiaoman, Xiaoman, everything is small and perfect at this moment, but her heart will never be full again.
The others looked at her cautiously. Wu Lu asked tentatively, "Well... isn't Brother Huo the Demon King? We've already seen that... he should come back, right? Well... will the Demon King die too?"
Xisheng hit him on the back of the head without mercy, almost making him roll his eyes. Cang Ming said, "I don't know either."
Wu Lu kindly suggested, "I think you should find his original body. Didn't Old Ghost Lotus die completely after Li Xianzhen stabbed his true body?"
He said in a stern voice, "Don't say the word death again."
Cang Ming stood there for a moment, then suddenly realized what Wu Lu had said. She rushed out the door, desperately running towards the antique shop by the river. She thought, antique shops have everything, everyone can find what they want there, and Wei Ci's true body must be hiding there too, perhaps on a shelf, or perhaps in the wide sleeves of the fortune teller Li...
However, when she ran to the river, she found that the forest was empty. The ancient building had disappeared.
Cang Ming's heart was filled with endless fear. She felt her stomach tighten, as if being pierced by countless needles. She ran around aimlessly, finally catching a fisherman on a fishing boat by the river. "Excuse me, where is the antique shop in Fengyan City?"
The fisherman asked, "Oh? Ah, an antique shop. Why don't you go look on the street?"
"No, I mean, what about that ancient building by the river?" Cang Ming pointed in the direction of the antique shop. "It's the ancient building in front of the forest, the five-story building..."
The fisherman asked curiously, "What ancient building? There are no buildings in that part of the forest, and even pedestrians are rarely seen."
Cang Ming felt his legs go weak. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead. But Xisheng and Wu Lu could see it, Xun Yan and Mi Xia could see it, and so could the guests... Cang Ming vaguely thought, perhaps with the Demon King gone, this building would cease to exist.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck. Cang Ming recalled the first time she arrived in Fengyan City, by this very river, the embers of the embroidered shoes singing strange songs to her. A sheet of silver light, like a page of paper, flew over, shattering those songs. But she mistook it for an accomplice of the demon, and with a swipe of her sword, she shattered it into fragments. It was the white gull that hadn't left, but she had never thought of it.
Cang Ming abandoned her fishing boat and ran like crazy to the spot where she had been that day. She dropped to her knees and began searching inch by inch. She was looking for the scraps of paper she had torn to pieces that day. If she could find even a tiny bit and piece them together into a small piece of paper, that would be Wei Ci's true form.
However, there was nothing on the wet land by the river. Cang Ming stood up in despair, and Fortune Teller Li appeared before her.
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