Chapter 29 What right do we have to love or hate? The dead don't need to speak.
In Yu Wan's memory, she and Shen Zhou did not have much contact.
Hua Deng only saw some fragmented scenes, such as Shen Zhou's solo victory over hundreds of disciples, and Shen Zhou's defying the rules of the Ten Thousand Swords Sect, cleaving the gate of the Punishment Hall in two with a single sword strike.
Until Shen Zhou was seventeen or eighteen, Yu Wan never spoke to him again. She would occasionally keep an eye on this junior brother and witness his rapid growth along with everyone else.
Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Deity Transformation... realms that are unattainable for ordinary people, Shen Zhou easily traversed.
In her correspondence with Yu Heng, she mentioned the name "Xue Wu" many times. She would even memorize the boy's sword moves and then reproduce them for Yu Heng to see, even though he only used some of them once and then discarded them.
Finally, one day, Yu Heng came to visit her at the Ten Thousand Swords Sect. Encouraged by Yu Heng, she stopped Shen Zhou, who had just come off the training ground, and hesitantly began to speak.
"Junior Brother Xue... could you please give me some pointers on my swordsmanship?" she said.
Shen Zhou glanced at her once before looking away, and said listlessly, "I can't teach you."
"……Why?"
"Your aptitude is too poor."
Yu Wan, who was praised as a genius for having only one spiritual root: "..."
Hua Deng also: "..."
Although Shen Zhou is undoubtedly a genius compared to anyone else, his tone is just too irritating.
Looking at it this way, when Shen Zhou taught her martial arts for the sake of spirit stones, he probably cursed her for being stupid in his heart.
In her memory, Shen Zhou was even more arrogant than he was later. He left after uttering a single sentence, and Yu Wan blurted out, "Junior Brother Xue."
Shen Zhou stopped, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly: "Is there anything else?"
"Don't you remember me, Junior Brother Xue?" Yu Wan asked.
"Should I remember?" Shen Zhou said calmly.
"..." Yu Wan was speechless and watched him walk away.
Yu Heng, who had been hiding behind the tree, jumped out and said angrily, "What kind of attitude is this? Little sister, let's ignore him! Who does he think he is? So what if his cultivation is a little higher!"
"No, it's nothing..." Yu Wan lowered her head and said softly, "Junior Brother Xue is devoted to the Dao, I shouldn't disturb him."
No one could have imagined that it would be her last conversation with Junior Brother Xue.
The following March, the young Xue Wu betrayed the Ten Thousand Swords Sect for unknown reasons and his whereabouts were unknown.
Later, a bounty was issued and spread throughout the cultivation world.
"Xue Wu, real name Shen Zhou, formerly a disciple of the Ten Thousand Swords Sect, stole the sect's secrets, fell into demonic possession, and fled. We are now offering a reward for his capture. Reward: 30 million spirit stones!"
Shen Zhou reappeared on a bright and sunny morning when Yu Wan received an order from the Ten Thousand Swords Hall—
"All disciples of the Myriad Swords Sect, heed my command! Regardless of the means, kill the evil cultivator Shen Zhou!"
That day, she saw Junior Brother Xue again.
He stood before the entrance of the Ten Thousand Swords Hall, wearing a worn bronze mask, a sword in his hand, and the corpse of Master Xue lying at his feet. The body was mangled beyond recognition, as if it had been painstakingly pieced together.
He stood there, not looking at anyone, his whole demeanor cold and aura fierce.
Hua Deng realized that from this moment on, he was no longer Xue Wu, but had truly become the Shen Zhou she knew.
There was something else that Yu Wan hadn't noticed at the time, but now she noticed it almost instantly—Shen Zhou's hand, which was used to holding a sword and had killed countless people, was trembling uncontrollably.
Dark clouds loomed overhead, a sudden gust of wind arose, and more and more disciples gathered here.
They saw the dead Master Xue, and also saw the corpses scattered all over the floor of the Ten Thousand Swords Hall—those were the elders and masters who had taught and nurtured them.
In an instant, everyone was enraged, and countless sharp blades were drawn.
Yu Wan arrived on her sword and shouted, "Junior Brother Xue, you have already made a grave mistake. Don't make another one!"
The next sentence was almost choked with emotion: "How could a heretic like you be a disciple of my Ten Thousand Swords Sect?!"
He ignored it all during the day.
He looked at Xue Zifei's body and said, "I just want to take him with me."
He raised his eyes again: "Those of you who withdraw will live."
It wasn't that no one wavered, but Yu Wan stood in front of everyone with her sword drawn, and said sternly, "Anyone who dares to back down is unworthy to be a member of the Ten Thousand Swords Sect!"
Someone nearby quickly chimed in, "The Wan Jian Tang's orders are infallible. Xue Wu has betrayed his master and ancestors; his crimes are unforgivable, and everyone has the right to kill him!"
"Execute him!"
The crowd was inflamed; a major battle was about to begin.
"Wait a minute, everyone! I still don't understand, why would he kill Uncle Xue?" someone suddenly shouted.
The crowd turned to look at him. The young disciple swallowed hard and forced himself to finish the sentence: "He has a very close relationship with Uncle Xue. I don't believe my senior brother is that kind of person!"
After he uttered his last word, he suddenly froze, a sword piercing his chest.
The patriarch of the Ten Thousand Swords Sect appeared behind him at some point, drew his blood-dripping longsword, and said with a gloomy expression, "You're wrong, he's no longer your senior brother!"
"Xue Wu, whose real name is Shen Zhou, is a disciple of an evil cultivator. He colluded with the Demonic Sect and murdered nine elders of the Myriad Swords Sect! It was my poor judgment that led me to let the tiger into the mountain, which is why I have ended up in this predicament today!"
"You must not be misled by him. If you let him leave, you will be enabling him to bring disaster to the world and make the Ten Thousand Swords Sect a sinner!"
"Disciples, listen to my command! In today's battle, we must capture Shen Zhou alive! We can only advance, we cannot retreat!"
Despite his impassioned words, Shen Zhou didn't even blink.
He held a sword in his hand, its blade extremely black, like an eternal night; yet upon closer inspection, it seemed as if he had fallen into an illusion, with the Milky Way cascading down around him and countless stars shining brightly.
He did not raise his sword; the tip hung downwards. He repeated the words: "Those who retreat can live."
No one retreated; the Wan Jian Sect members approached him menacingly.
He remained unmoved and repeated for the third time: "Those who retreat voluntarily may live."
No one responded; only the whistling of the wind could be heard.
He finally raised his sword, and in an instant, the blade transformed like lightning.
Yu Wan gripped the scabbard tightly, only to find that she couldn't draw the sword.
Not only could she not draw it, but her sword and her hand were trembling!
Never having encountered such a situation before, she looked around in panic and found that everyone else shared her shock.
Including our ancestors.
Under the oppressive force of Shen Zhou's sword.
Three thousand cultivators and three thousand immortal swords trembled, unwilling to draw their sheaths!
Suddenly, everything went dark.
Hua Deng waited in the darkness for a while, and when he saw the scene again, Yu Wan had already fallen to the ground, casting one last glance at Chen Zhou.
Snow fell heavily at the Ten Thousand Swords Sect, and lightning surged in the sky.
Shen Zhou stood alone amidst the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, holding a celestial sword and gazing up at the sky.
Blood dripped from the tip of the sword, flowing into the blood river at his feet. The blood was indistinguishable between cold and hot, and all that could be seen were corpses lying everywhere, which no amount of snow could cover up.
The mask peeled off his face, and a few snowflakes drifted down, landing on his cheeks and behind his bloodshot eyes. The snowflakes melted along his skin and slowly fell, like a teardrop falling from his eye.
Yu Wan didn't know what he was looking at, nor did she understand why he could remain unmoved despite all the things that had happened and so many people being killed, as if nothing in the world could shake his cold and hard heart.
She closed her eyes, but the lanterns woke up.
She was still in that cave, the moonlight pale and thin, and in front of her was Yu Heng's distorted face. She opened her mouth in a daze, her eyes unable to focus for a long time.
Seeing the tears that flowed unconsciously from her eyes, Yu Heng's expression became even more delighted. She gently wiped away her tears and laughed loudly, "See that!"
Hua Deng's pupils twitched slightly as he slowly met her gaze.
Yu Heng said, "Now you see how sinful and heartless Shen Zhou is, right?"
"No." Hua Deng closed her eyes, tears dripping from her chin. "I saw that he was in great pain."
Yu Heng's movements suddenly froze.
She slapped Hua Deng with her backhand, but the slap missed and was bounced back by the defensive magic artifact.
She grabbed Hua Deng's clothes and asked frantically, "What did you say? How dare you say that? You clearly saw it all, saw how much he deserved to die! Why didn't you help me?!"
As Hua Deng swayed, she said numbly, "I can't help you. Go and take revenge on him yourself."
Yu Heng gritted her teeth: "What feelings do you still have for him? He can even kill his own master, who knows if he won't kill you one day too!"
“No, you’re wrong,” Hua Deng suddenly said, staring coldly at her. “He didn’t kill Master Xue. It was those people who caused Master Xue to self-destruct. He only wanted to take his master with him. That’s all I saw.”
"How could that be? After the battle that day, the Immortal Alliance received the news and came to punish him, and also to retrieve the body of True Man Xue from his hands. Among them were your Medicine Purification Sect's grandmaster, my Qingyang Sect's sect leader, and Qiu Ce, the Sword Venerable of the Swallowing Cloud Pavilion!"
"But what happened? He burned Master Xue's body on the spot and left alone. He has no feelings at all! He hates the people of our Immortal Alliance to the core. Do you think he can really let you go?" Yu Heng said viciously.
“Hate?” Hua Deng paused for a moment, then asked her, “Those people you mentioned—my grandmaster, the head of the Qingyang Sect, and Qiu Ce, the Sword Master of the Tunyun Pavilion—are they dead?”
Yu Heng's anger faltered at her question, and she quickly replied, "That's because Shen Zhou couldn't kill them—"
“You’re talking nonsense,” Hua Deng interrupted her. “The Qingyang Sect Leader fears Shen Zhou like a tiger. It would be incredibly easy for Shen Zhou to kill him. The only reason he’s not dead is because Shen Zhou didn’t want to kill him.”
"Because he was afraid, he gave up the pursuit of Shen Zhou, so Shen Zhou also let him go, even though those people had turned their swords against him and wished they could kill him."
She looked at Yu Heng and said each thing clearly: "Why do you think you're alive? Why are you still standing here talking to me? If he harbored even a trace of hatred, you would all be dead!"
Those eyes, those eyes she knew all too well, always calmly gazed upon the world, their gaze like a lifeless, deep sea, never rippled, never warm, devoid of any notion of love or hate. Yet she still remembered that on the day they first met, he was clearly penniless, yet he still wanted to buy a sword sheath, just so that he wouldn't harm anyone in the arena later on.
So despite her trepidation, Hua Deng still said those words to him: "Be my Daoist partner."
Yu Heng remained silent for a long time, a cold light flashing in her eyes, and murmured, "Since you are a righteous person, why are you speaking up for Shen Zhou?"
"A righteous person?" A righteous person who treats her like an object and fights over her without ever asking for her consent?
She smiled calmly: "If I collapsed on the roadside today, injured, poisoned, or being chased, would you come to save me?"
Without waiting for Yu Heng's reply, she continued, "You wouldn't, but he would."
As if her sore spot had been hit, Yu Heng suddenly stood up and roared angrily: "Then you can just wait for him to come and save you!"
She plucked the icy purple flower from the wall, pinched Hua Deng's cheek, and sneered, "Didn't you want to know what the Heavenly-grade magic treasure in this secret realm is?"
The streetlights fixed their gaze on that flower, and a bad feeling rose in their hearts.
“That’s right, it’s this Nine Nether Flower,” Yu Heng said softly, pressing a petal against her cheek.
The Nine Nether Flower blooms only once every five hundred years. It can help people overcome bottlenecks and instantly improve their cultivation level, making it a highly sought-after heavenly-grade herb.
Warm magic flowed from Yu Heng's palm, and the Nine Nether Flower melted under her hand, merging into Hua Deng's bones and muscles.
“Now, you are a Heavenly-grade magic treasure here.” Yu Heng smiled coldly and opened the secret realm map for her.
On the map, the Heavenly-level magic weapon appeared for the first time, a dazzling golden dot that marked her current location.
Hua Deng closed her eyes. She had indeed followed the same path as in the original story.
She could no longer suppress the growth of her cultivation, leaping from the late Foundation Establishment stage to the peak Foundation Establishment stage, and then continued to rise until she crossed the barrier and broke through to the Golden Core stage!
True energy surged within her spiritual palace, scorching her body like a raging fire.
A series of mechanical prompts echoed in my mind.
"Main quest [Advance to Golden Core within three months] has been completed."
"Side quest [Obtain a Heaven-level Magic Treasure in the Secret Realm] has been completed."
"Warning: Host's health is decreasing too rapidly. Please take immediate action..."
"So what measures are in place!" Hua Deng asked impatiently. "Tell me quickly!"
The system paused for a moment and then said, "We have a comprehensive after-sales service for reincarnation..."
"Get out!"
The system has crashed.
Just as Shen Zhou said, without his protection, Hua Deng's forced attempt to break through to the Golden Core resulted in the loss of all five senses, rendering him useless and causing him to faint on the spot.
Yu Heng had originally intended to feed her another dose of poison, but this was a pleasant surprise, saving her the trouble of doing so.
She reached out to grab the lantern, trying to take her away from the Hidden Moon Cave to the very center of the secret realm, where she would be fought over and torn apart.
However--
The moment she touched Hua Deng's shoulder, she suddenly felt a warmth on her arm.
She slowly lowered her eyes and saw her forearm fall to the ground with a thud. Strangely, no blood flowed out, and the streetlights remained clean.
After a few moments of stunned silence, she clutched her arms and screamed in agony.
She didn't even know how it all happened, and she couldn't believe that anyone could have hurt her!
Long before the secret realm opened, Sword Master Qiu Ce had personally set up a barrier to protect the Nine Nether Flowers in the Hidden Moon Cave, making it impossible for anyone to bypass the barrier and reach this place.
Unless, unless...
A slender black light appeared beside him, like a rift across time and space. A tall figure stepped out from the rift, bringing a bone-chilling wind.
He had a familiar face and a pair of eyes as serene as a snowfield.
The black light dissipated, but the sword in his hand rang out even louder, radiating boiling killing intent and an aura of rage.
Fear overcame the pain, and Yu Heng grabbed the lamp, pressing the dagger against her neck.
"Don't come any closer, or she'll die!"
The man simply looked at her without interfering.
"If you're scared, back off, or else I'll..."
*Pfft*
A hideous black lightning bolt pierced her chest from behind; there was no blood, only extreme pain.
Yu Heng's body suddenly convulsed, and she screamed in agony.
However, the streetlights were so close, she should have been injured, but she wasn't, why wasn't she...?
Yu Heng's trembling gaze stopped. She noticed that Shen Zhou's dark clothes seemed to have deepened in color at the chest area.
Something was flowing down his body, drip, drip, red blood spreading all over the ground.
His expression remained unchanged as he sheathed his black sword, walked over, gently picked up the lantern, and held it in his arms.
When I bent over, my body was unsteady for a moment, but only for a moment.
"Counterattack Curse..."
Yu Heng suddenly understood, trembling with disbelief.
"You actually...you actually..."
The next second, she met Shen Zhou's cold and oppressive gaze.
The person gently pressed Hua Deng's chest, feeling her pulse, and turned to Yu Heng, saying—
"The dead don't need to speak."
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