Encounter (Part 3)
"You do know!"
Heshu instantly jumped up from the couch, his brows furrowed, and in two steps he came to Chengguan's front. His voice rose slightly with urgency.
"Qingshan's illness must not be caused by ordinary reasons! What is going on? Why is that old mandrill unwilling to tell me anything and even swears that Qingshan's next life will definitely be..."
"Hey, don't worry, don't worry..."
Chengguan quickly stood up and patted Heshu's shoulder soothingly with his broad hand, interrupting his excited questioning.
"This matter... can't really be blamed on Xuan Tongzi. When Qingshan died in his previous life, he was in Heaven. If he hadn't devoted all his energy to divination, how could he have immediately known of this incident?"
Chengguan sighed, his expression becoming serious:
"But this matter... is indeed quite thorny. Although I understand some of the underlying reasons, I am unable to help Qingshan recover his damaged mind. This problem concerns the very foundation of his soul, and I'm afraid we must wait for Xuantongzi's return before we can find a solution."
"How could this be..."
He Shu seemed to have lost all his strength. His body softened and he fell heavily back onto the couch.
He had originally thought that all his karma had been eliminated. Even though he felt a thousand kinds of reluctance and attachment, at least Qingshan's fate had been completely liberated, returning to the peaceful trajectory it should have been, no longer tormented by him...
But I never expected that it would end up like this.
The hairpin and elixir that hadn't been found, the message that hadn't been delivered to Fu Qingle, and now, Qingshan's mental impairment...
Countless chaotic thoughts, like a tangled ball of thread, suddenly filled his mind, with no beginning or end in sight.
They wrapped around him from all directions, tied his hands and feet, and strangled his throat, tightening more and more until he almost suffocated.
A deep feeling of powerlessness spread throughout my limbs, with no outlet to find. My internal organs ached dully, and I could only let out a suppressed sigh.
"Then why is Qingshan...sick?"
Chengguan lowered his eyes, watching the tea leaves floating in the cup:
"To be precise, it's because of my incomplete soul."
"Although you have recovered your past memories, you still don't know that before each of Qingshan's reincarnations, he would always beg Xuantongzi desperately, hoping that he could cast a spell to temporarily retain his soul in the world, so that he could maintain a chance of survival..."
When he said this, he suddenly stopped, raised his eyes and glanced at He Shu quickly. His eyes were complicated, as if he had something to hide.
"Xuan Tongzi knew this was against reason and law, and he had never agreed to it in the past. However, in this life, he was not present... yet Qingshan still came up the mountain... By the time I realized something was amiss and wanted to stop him, it was already... too late."
"I don't know what he is—ah…"
Chengguan sighed deeply, his tone filled with regret and helplessness:
"In this life, of Qingshan's three souls, the human soul and the celestial soul still exist, barely maintaining life and spirituality...but the earthly soul, which holds memories and the past, has dissipated and disappeared completely."
"This foolish and ignorant state is only the most superficial impact. If the soul that has left the body cannot return to its place for a long time and wanders for a long time, I am afraid that..."
Chengguan's words came to an abrupt end here, with the unfinished words hanging heavily in the air.
But He Shu already understood in his heart.
If a mortal loses any soul, their body will gradually weaken, eventually plunging into a state of eternal sleep. Although they may still be breathing, they are no different from being dead. Worse still, even re-entering the cycle of reincarnation may become extremely difficult.
“Why did he do this…”
He Shu murmured, unable to accept such an outcome.
He politely declined Chengguan's offer to stay for lunch, said goodbye in a hurry, and returned to the mountain hut in a daze.
He sent a message to Heqi, asking him to borrow some immortal books on the secret art of the soul from Yuji Taishi, who was in charge of the classics. He forced himself to stay awake and buried himself in the books, trying to find a glimmer of hope from them.
But he was not the type to study classics in detail. In addition, he had been searching for the hairpin for days without closing his eyes to rest, and his mental and physical strength had been exhausted to the limit.
The night was dark outside the window, and there was only a single lamp in the room, casting a dim and quiet glow on the pages of the book, but it could not dispel the blurriness in front of his eyes.
"Soul-splitting...fractal: This is a punishment... used by the Heavenly Court. It is specifically used... to punish those who secretly practice evil arts, defy the laws of Heaven, or have lost their minds and minds, becoming possessed... by demons..."
He Shu's attention began to drift uncontrollably, and the words in the book seemed to be covered with a layer of mist. The originally clear meaning became fragmented, and he needed to chew it over and over again two or three times before he could barely understand the meaning.
"...forcibly stripping away... its soul..."
His eyelids felt as if they were weighed down with lead, becoming heavier and heavier. Each blink became more and more difficult, and it took all his remaining strength to barely open them a crack.
His head unconsciously drooped slightly, his chin hitting his chest several times, and then he suddenly woke up. He subconsciously raised his head higher, forcing himself to refocus his scattered gaze on the densely packed lines.
"The stripped souls will either be sealed in a jade bottle to suppress them, or...they will be burned with holy fire...burned...and...annihilated..."
The fingers holding the book gradually loosened their grip, and the spine of the book quietly slipped from the palm of my hand.
He Shu's originally straight back slowly relaxed and tilted slightly to one side. Finally, all his persistence was defeated by exhaustion, and he collapsed completely on the cold desk.
His breathing became long and even, and the last bit of willpower was finally completely overwhelmed by deep sleepiness.
Outside the window, the moonlight is like water.
When the night wind blows, peach petals fall like snow, and the cold moonlight shines through the crisscrossing branches, casting broken spots of light on the ground outside the house.
Suddenly, the air under the tree stagnated for no reason, and strands of silver light emerged from the void, as if pulled by an invisible force, slowly converging and outlining.
In a short while, a man's figure gradually became darker and darker, and then solid and darker, and quietly appeared under the moon.
His long hair was untied, flowing down to his waist. His face looked unusually handsome in the bright moonlight, yet exuded a sense of illusory transparency, and a faint and profound light seemed to flow around him.
Just at this moment, Qingshan walked into the courtyard. He looked exactly like the soul condensed under the moon, like a reflection in a mirror, but he was a real entity with flesh and blood.
The silent soul seemed to sense something and quietly stepped forward. The ethereal figure slowly overlapped with the unconscious entity and merged into it in an instant.
Qingshan, who had kept his eyes closed, suddenly opened them. A trace of pain flashed across his eyes, but he did not stop and walked straight into the house.
The candlelight flickered in the room, and He Shu was still lying on the desk, soundly asleep.
His long hair was gathered up low with a green headband and hung loosely on one shoulder. He held the open book under his arm. He breathed evenly and deeply, oblivious to his surroundings.
Qingshan walked closer, but stopped half a step away. After gazing for a moment, he silently stretched out his hand, and with trembling fingertips, he touched the gray hair very lightly and softly.
The emotions in his eyes were complex and difficult to discern, and eventually turned into a deep heartache and pity, slowly spreading in his eyes like soft waves.
He leaned over, moved slowly and carefully, and picked the person up sideways.
The person in his arms mumbled unconsciously in his sleep, tilted his head, and naturally leaned on his shoulder, finding a more comfortable position and falling into a deeper sleep.
Qingshan placed the person safely on the bed, pulled the quilt over him, and tucked in the corners carefully.
But he could not move his eyes away, lingering on that defenseless sleeping face for a long time. Every slight rise and fall of He Shu's breathing gently tugged at his heart, causing waves of silent throbbing pain.
All the bitterness and loneliness during the long wait turned into a surging but silent sorrow in the chest at this moment.
He looked so intently, so greedily, as if he wanted to engrave this peace forever into the depths of his broken soul.
For He Shu, the time of seclusion was just a blink of an eye, but for him, it was a long twenty years that had really passed.
He stayed here, watching the sun rise and the moon set, the flowers bloom and wither, the winter snow covering the mountains and then melting, the new red that he had pasted on the window frame with his own hands fade to pale, and the moss in front of the stone steps grow and wither, wither and grow again, and he didn't know how many times it had happened.
Only the light in the window was always on, illuminating that figure. He rarely moved, but spent most of his time quietly leaning against the window, looking up at the flowers blooming season after season.
The spring thunder pierced his soul, the summer rain passed over his body, the autumn leaves brushed against his body, and the winter snow penetrated his shoulders. He could not touch a real petal, nor could he leave any trace of his existence.
A cold and ethereal kiss finally fell gently, imprinted on the warm forehead of the sleeping person.
Qingshan sighed silently in his heart, pouring all the longing, guilt and reluctance that could not be expressed into this kiss that was destined to be unknown to anyone.
He gave He Shu a last deep look and was about to turn around and leave when he was accidentally dragged down by this unfamiliar body, causing his waist to scrape against an old wooden box that was not closed tightly at the head of the bed.
With a soft "click", the wooden box fell to the ground.
Although the sound was not loud, it was particularly clear in the silent night.
The sleeping person frowned and his breathing stopped, as if he was about to be awakened.
Qingshan's face changed slightly, and he made a quick decision. A barely perceptible shadow suddenly separated from his body and dissipated into the air as quickly as smoke, extinguishing the only candle on the desk.
The body, having lost its support, fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, making a dull thud.
He Shu was startled by the strange noise, his eyelashes trembled violently for a few times, and he finally opened his sleepy eyes hazily, but was not fully awake yet.
The room was dark. With the help of the moonlight coming in from the window, he saw the wooden box that had fallen to the ground and reached out to grab it.
A yellowed page slipped out of the box. He Shu pulled out the entire sheet of paper. Unfortunately, the moonlight was dim, and he couldn't make out the familiar handwriting on it. It was neatly written with a short poem:
Pink petals sway in the wind while wet clothes; a cat plays with butterflies beneath the flowers. Tree shadows half-cover the green stone; a single soul lies quietly in the moonlight.
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