Chapter 34 Chapter 34 Survive.
"The Tianshan sect has been established for three hundred years. Countless people have died in the traps over these three hundred years. There has never been a precedent for using the Mountain Guarding Jade Plate for a single individual!"
The long corridor leading to the Bodhi Pavilion is winding and secluded. Gu Zhi walks forward quickly, the hem of his clothes gently fluttering in the wind.
Song Yaojie hurriedly followed, barely catching up. Following behind Gu Zhi, her dress fluttered like a misty mountain fog. "You're actually going to use the Mountain Guarding Jade Plate for a woman, Gu Huaijin, are you crazy?"
Gu Zhi said coldly, "Senior Sister, are you going to sit back and watch someone die?"
"I watched someone die? The mountain is dangerous, don't wander around casually. Didn't anyone on the mountain warn her? She overestimated her own abilities, wandered around, and fell into the Hidden Dragon Pond. What could I do? You're willing to break the mountain rules for such an outsider?!"
Gu Zhi said nothing, but hurried forward.
"You've broken so many mountain rules for a woman these past few days. Don't you realize it, Gu Huaijin?" Song Yaojie pressed on. "As the young master of this mountain, you've repeatedly broken the rules, bringing her up the mountain, living with her, giving her the Huiyuan Pill, and the mountain-guarding jade token!"
"For her, you contradicted me. Look at Li Xuanbai. His nose is not a nose, his eyes are not eyes. What do the people on the mountain say about you? How do the disciples talk about you behind your back? Are they not discussing you in front of you because they care about your face? Don't you have any idea in your heart?"
Gu Zhi's face turned pale. No matter how Song Yaojie bombarded him with venomous words, he just pursed his lips and said nothing.
"Gu Huaijin, speak!" He drew his sword and ran out of patience.
Gu Zhi stopped and turned around. The sharp edge of the Xuepo Sword was just against his throat. He lowered his eyes, and a sword light was reflected in his eyes.
"Sister, I have my own decision." He didn't even raise his eyes, his expression did not waver at all. "I will discuss this matter with the head of the mountain and hold a meeting in the mountain. Don't trouble you, senior sister." He turned around coldly.
Song Yaojie was so angry that her lips trembled and she couldn't say a word for a long time.
After a while, he hurried over, "Are you using your status as the Young Sect Leader to pressure me, Gu Huaijin? You know you're the Young Sect Leader! You've worked hard for this position all these years, winning over people's hearts and accumulating prestige and credibility. Whether it was easy or not, you know best! Are you going to let all those years of hard work go to waste for an unrelated outsider?!"
"Even if you, as the Young Master, defied all the opposition today and forced all the elders to bow their heads, after this incident, how much of your reputation and goodwill you have built up over the years among the disciples and in the hearts of the elders will remain? Don't you realize this?"
He knows.
But at this moment, no matter how he weighed the pros and cons, he could only remember the night she rowed the boat to pick him up, and how she smiled in the light, "If this is truly wrong, then the one who's wrong...maybe it's the mountain rules."
"Everything, just want to have no regrets and a clear conscience."
Yes.
No matter what others say or think, all I want is to have no regrets and a clear conscience.
She can like Li Xuanbai, or maybe anyone else, it doesn't matter.
But he couldn't lose her.
Gu Zhi let Song Yaojie scold him without saying anything back or paying any attention, but just hurried to Bodhi Pavilion.
Entering the Bodhi Pavilion, Master Huide was leaning on his couch, reading the sutras. He looked up and saw his normally steady and prudent nephew rushing in, not even having time to properly lower the bead curtain in front of the door. A handful of beads clattered against the door frame.
He looked up from the curling incense, "Why are you in such a hurry?"
"Uncle Master, there's a person imprisoned in the Hidden Dragon Pool below the Hualong Pond. I'm requesting the Mountain Guarding Jade Plate to open the Hidden Dragon Pool."
Huide frowned slightly. "It's common for someone to be imprisoned in a facility. Why bother using the Mountain Guarding Jade Plate to force it open?"
Seeing that her uncle-master had the same opinion, Song Yaojie became even more upset and turned her face away.
When Huide saw the expressions of the two men, he knew that this matter was serious. He sat up straight and counted the beads on his rosary one by one. "Who is being held captive?"
Song Yaojie said quickly, "That's the one he forced to go up the mountain a few days ago."
Gu Zhi turned around and glanced at her, without saying a word, and remained silent with his head lowered.
Huide raised his eyelids, and looked at him deeply with a pair of small and sharp eyes under Changshou's eyebrows.
Said to Song Yaojie, "You say it."
Song Yaojie reported everything in detail, but Huide spoke slowly, "Huaijin naturally knows the situation on the mountain. Hidden Dragon Pond is groundwater. Now that spring has arrived, the glaciers on the mountain have melted, and the groundwater is abundant. In previous years, even if Hidden Dragon Pond was to be opened, it had to be after autumn. Once spring has begun, the Hidden Dragon Pond cannot be opened."
"Uncle Master, I've already thought about this. If we want to open the pond, there's a way, but it's more troublesome than opening it in the fall."
Huide chuckled. "Have you thought about it?" He lowered his eyes and turned another page in the scripture. "Well. Why do we have to open the pond?"
Gu Zhi remained silent, his lips tightly pressed into a straight line.
The traps on the mountain are easy to open but difficult to close. Every year, there are disciples who stray into them, but the mountain-guarding jade token will never be frequently moved for the sake of a single individual, and is almost always left to fend for itself.
Gu Zhi was not unaware of this unwritten rule. Over the years, he had long been unable to bear it and wanted to abolish this mountain rule of not helping someone in danger.
However, his uncle treated him so harshly that even if he tried his best, he seemed to have only the empty title of young master. Sometimes, he did not have the courage to set this precedent.
In recent years, although Yamauchi has gradually given him real power, this has been Yamauchi's habit for hundreds of years, and he has never made up his mind to carry out bloody reforms.
Until, there is someone who must be saved.
No matter how unbearable it is, it is indeed a case of watching someone die without helping.
Gu Zhi clenched his fists, his palms almost bleeding, and hesitated for a long time, unable to give an answer.
The incense in the incense room burned out a little and fell down.
After a while, he said with difficulty, "Miss Chu...is not from this mountain, she was just an innocent victim of the disaster. I can't bear to hurt innocent people..."
Huide smiled and turned a page. "Are the other disciples who died in the trap not innocent?"
Gu Zhi stopped talking again, his voice stuck in his throat.
Huide said slowly, "Huaijin, why are you so panicked? There's a secret door in the underground palace. If someone is clever enough, they might find their way out."
"That secret door..." Gu Zhi said anxiously, "That secret passage has collapsed due to years of disrepair. The last time the pool was opened, the secret door was sealed. There is no other way out of the underground palace of Canglong Pool except for that secret door that is blocked. Uncle Shi is not unaware of these things!"
Huide raised his eyes, glanced at him lightly, and then looked back at the pages in his hand.
Gu Zhi knew that he had said something wrong and lowered his head respectfully.
Huide sighed, "Well, judging by the situation, Yaojie has already done all the persuasion she needed to. So, I don't have much to say."
He looked at the scriptures and slowly turned his rosary beads. "You're old enough now, and you've been the Young Master for many years. You have your own decisions. I may be a little harsh on you on ordinary days, but since you're so determined on this matter, I won't force you. However," he said in a calm voice, "this matter must be carried out according to the rules of the mountain. A general meeting must be held, and the decision must be unanimously made by all the mountain leaders before it can be implemented. Do you understand?"
Song Yaojie asked anxiously, "A meeting within the mountain? Right now, all the elders are either in seclusion, leaving the mountain, or retiring. And yet they're actually holding a meeting within the mountain just to save such an insignificant person?"
Gu Zhi remained silent.
Without even looking up, Huide said, "Since the Young Sect Leader is so inclined, then so be it." He waved his hand, adorned with rosary beads, and said, "Pass the word down, inviting all the elders to come out of retreat and return to the mountain."
*
She had to admit that she was too optimistic when she fell into the Hidden Dragon Pool.
Can't get out.
Perhaps it was because the ground was too damp and cold, and she was completely frozen by the underground river water. When she woke up from that past dream, she found that although her body was shivering with cold, she was also very hot and her mind was sticky.
Even so, he still held on and used his last phosphorus pill to search the entire underground palace.
Finally, they really found a small secret door under a floor tile under the feet of King Yama.
She opened it in ecstasy, only to find that it had been sealed from the bottom.
She was not very knowledgeable about architecture, but she had some understanding of doors. She knew that it was good enough to have a secret escape door in such a secret room, and there would definitely not be a second door.
If it is to be opened, perhaps only the people on the ground can open it from the outside.
She was soaked to the skin, exhausted, and burned out, unable to even stand. No matter how much she disliked the dusty ground, she collapsed helplessly and lay among the broken limbs of the clay statue.
Lying on the ground in the darkness, the back of her head bumped against a rolling head. She weakly pushed the head away and looked at the chaotic darkness that enveloped her completely, laughing at herself.
How could anyone save her? The only person on the ground who shared her suffering was that good-for-nothing Wu Dao.
She doesn't know who Wu Dao is?
After weighing the pros and cons, the first thing he would give up would be her.
She smiled bitterly. A man, after thirteen years of companionship, would still stand by and watch someone die without helping.
But, that's true.
If it was Wu Dao who was imprisoned in the underground palace, she might not save him.
She was very open-minded about these things. Karma, the cycle of karma, was inevitable.
However, she never expected that she would see the Avici Hell in the well in the morning and rush into hell without looking back in the evening. She thought that she would have a few more years to live.
Lying on the ground, she looked at Yama, who should be there in the darkness but whose outline was not even visible.
I'm not willing to accept this.
I really can't accept the fact that I'm going to meet the King of Hell like this.
Suddenly she remembered that day when she was taking a nap on the glazed tiles, and the little girl Sui'an jumped up with a big book in her hands and talked to her excitedly about things like the Zhaoyao Mountain and the Gold and Jade Mountain.
Yes, she had never seen the mountain of gold and jade.
Two lines of tears silently slid down from the corners of her eyes and flowed into her ears.
What does a mountain of gold and jade really look like? Is it really everywhere?
Maybe it will be particularly beautiful.
Sui'an was unable to help her bring back a piece of gold, and she was unable to help Sui'an bring back a piece of gold.
Sui'an couldn't wait any longer, and neither could she.
In the darkness, she thought quietly about how many wrong things she had done in her life in order to redeem herself.
It's not that I didn't know it was wrong, but at that time, I was too young and couldn't survive without leaving the gate of rebirth.
And if you want to survive in the gate of rebirth, you have to do those things.
Inside the gate of rebirth, there is only one path: either go or die.
Once you embark on this journey, there is no turning back.
She had been wrong for too long and there was no turning back.
She knew she had been committing sins all along, but it didn't matter. Whether it was good or bad, she would bear it all. She would go wherever she was supposed to go.
She, Nan Qiongshuang, admitted to everything she had done.
But, having done so many wrong things to redeem herself, she always thought that at least, at least, she could have a few good days in this life. She could wear ordinary clothes and walk openly in the sun like an ordinary person, buying a string of candied haws from this vendor and a piece of malt sugar from that vendor.
But why, after all these years of desperate and hysterical fighting, I couldn't even get a normal life?
She couldn't die easily. She would be frying in oil after death. If she didn't get out alive now, her lonely soul would never be free for a single day in her reincarnations. She had done so many wrong things, and in the end, she didn't even get a single day of freedom.
I can't accept this. I can't accept this. I really can't accept this.
Why.
She still wanted to... survive.
She opened her eyes, her mind was in a mess, and she just instinctively crawled out on her knees, step by step, like a dead person who had been buried but awakened by a curse. She was paranoid, stiff, and unwilling to die.
Climbing until... my knees were worn out, my palms were rubbed raw, and even my nails fell off.
You have to climb too.
Live. Live.
Survive.
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