Chapter 128 Ruyan, go to sleep, go to sleep.
Yun Jiu walked slowly through the room, curiously looking around at everything. Her eyes, which used to be like deep pools of water, now seemed to be reflecting the moonlight from the sky. Xia Zhu felt that she looked somewhat unfamiliar, as if she was no longer the Yun Jiu she knew from head to toe.
She circled Feng Mian's bed once and finally stopped at the foot of the bed, slowly fiddling with the silver pendant on her ear, and looked at Yun Yi, whose face had turned pale, with a smile.
"I didn't expect that anyone would still remember me."
The middle-aged man supporting Yun Yi asked her with a puzzled look, "Who is Yun Huan?"
Yun Yi shook her head in a daze, her mouth slightly open, but before she could say anything, she was startled by Feng Feng's sudden outburst.
Feng Feng rushed to Yun Xuan's side and grabbed her collar.
"No matter who you are, can you save Feng Mian? Use that One-Line Gu to save him!"
"Didn't I just say that the First Line Gu only has one chance, and I've already used it?" Yun Xian chuckled softly from her nose, brushed away Feng Feng's hand that was holding hers, and smiled, revealing a shallow dimple on one side of her cheek. She glanced lightly at Feng Mian on the bed and said, "That person is beyond saving."
"Is she beyond saving?" Feng Feng's hand fell limply. She stood there with her back hunched over, just moments before like a lit firecracker, but now it was as if all her life force had been drained away in an instant.
Ying Ya walked to her side and gently took her hand with his skeletal hand. He didn't know how to say anything to comfort her, but he gently stroked the back of her hand with his finger bones.
Feng Feng looked up at Ying Ya, his voice so soft it was almost inaudible.
She said, "Feng Mian is dead."
Xia Zhu stood rooted to the spot, almost unable to move. Her feet seemed to be nailed to the floor. Feng Feng's words were like a thin, sharp needle, piercing deep into her flesh from her fingertips. It wasn't very painful, but it itched along her veins all the way to her chest.
So she had to move around to shake off the discomfort. She tried to walk toward Feng Feng, past Ying Huo and Ji Yinxiu. As her gaze wandered, she spotted a face in the crowd.
An hour earlier, she had come out of Fengmian's room and seen the same face in the courtyard.
The old woman who was muttering "How is that possible?"
At this moment, he was staring intently at Feng Mian on the bed.
In a short while, all the pain and itching in Xia Zhu's body disappeared. She walked straight over and pulled the old man out of the crowd.
"I just saw you."
The old man's eyes flickered the moment he touched Xia Zhu.
"Why are you standing downstairs from Fengmian's building? What do you mean by 'how could it be'? What do you know? Is there anything else suspicious about Fengmian's death?" She asked a series of questions, and the tangled mystery brought from the thick fog seemed to have found its starting point at this moment.
"What?" Feng Feng's voice rang out from behind.
The old man and Xia Zhu exchanged a glance, then the old man shook his head and said, "It was impossible when he was alive, but now that he's dead."
"What do you mean?" Feng Feng walked over.
The room was dimly lit; there had been moonlight just moments before, but now dark clouds covered the sky outside, casting deep and shallow shadows on the old woman's face under the dim light. Xia Zhu heard her sigh almost imperceptibly.
“The thing that killed him was the demon god Ru Shou. Ru Shou carries out heavenly punishments, and once he makes a move, what he destroys is not the physical body but the soul, or rather, the cause and effect of fate.” She looked at Feng Mian, who was lying quietly on the bed. “So the appearance of this young man in Nan Huo means that his predetermined death has arrived. That’s why I was very surprised when I saw that he was unharmed. The thick fog in Nan Huo Mountain… Ru Shou has been wandering near our Yun family for ten thousand years. He must have been injured by this demon god.”
"Those injured by the harvest cannot survive."
"Nanhuo is his final resting place."
"It is a death that cannot be reversed no matter what."
"Cause and effect, fate? You mean, Feng Mian is destined to die here?" Feng Feng was shocked. She couldn't believe in these unfounded things. Her gaze drifted to the side, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper, her face turning ashen. Then, she slowly met Xia Zhu's gaze, her voice trembling, "But...but..."
Xia Zhu looked at Feng Feng's face, her gaze slowly moving down until it stopped at her waist, where a small cloth bag was hanging. The bag was embroidered with strangely shaped chicks, and the feather ornaments next to it had become dull and lifeless.
She remembered that when she was still in school, the seeds of the climbing rose seemed to have been taken from this bag, and the little chick with its claws outstretched on it now looked like a crow.
Feng Feng followed Xia Zhu's gaze downwards and looked at the feather as well.
“But… Ru Shou’s tail thorns came at me too, why, why did only Feng Mian die…” She murmured to herself, clutching the cloth bag, her lips trembling.
Xia Zhu felt her heart skip a beat, and her throat felt like it was stuck with something sticky that she couldn't swallow. She bent down and grabbed the feather from the knotted rope of the cloth bag, asking Feng Feng, "Did Ying Ya give this to you?" The chick was actually a crow, so naturally, she assumed the feather also belonged to that boy.
"Ying Ya?" Feng Feng raised his large, lifeless eyes, in which Xia Zhu could see her own blurry reflection. "No, it wasn't Ying Ya. It was Feng Mian who gave it to me, a long, long time ago..."
"It was a gift from him when he was a child..."
Xia Zhu exhaled in one breath, like a balloon that had been inflated to its limit and finally burst. The feeling of something stuck in her throat disappeared, and all the clues from the past came together.
She remembered what Feng Feng had reminded her before she went to Sun and Moon Mountain. He said that when using the Wind Chaser Path, she must pronounce the name of her destination clearly, otherwise she would end up like Feng Mian when she was a child, mispronouncing the name and going to the wrong place, disappearing for a while and causing everyone great anxiety.
They were also going to Riyue Mountain to participate in the Nine Heavens Assembly at that time, so where did Fengmian go when he mispronounced the name?
"Qingku Peak, Qingwu Peak".
"What did you say?" Feng Feng grabbed her wrist tightly.
Xia Zhu raised her head and looked at her dimmed eyes. Her voice was a little hoarse as she said, "Feng Mian went to Qingwu Peak that time. It was the territory of the Jiang family in Weishui. He was one of the other two extinguished candles. He had also seen the Five-Colored Bird."
"Xiao Feng, Feng Mian, encountered a fortuitous opportunity."
She stroked the feather at Feng Feng's waist with her hand.
"If I'm not mistaken, this is a feather from a divine bird. For some reason, the Five-Colored Bird gave one of its feathers to Feng Mian, and the feather's purpose was to save him from a destined death. But Feng Mian..."
“But he gave it to me!” Feng Feng excitedly grabbed the feather that had lost its luster and turned gray. Xia Zhu noticed that her whole body was trembling uncontrollably. “He gave me the thing that saved his life? So, so it should be me who died, not Feng Mian, right?”
"Xiaofeng, I... these are all just my guesses, they may not be true. Please calm down..." Xia Zhu pressed on her shoulder, and could clearly feel the body under her hands disintegrating like shattered glass. She subconsciously used some force, trying to press her firmly to the ground so that she wouldn't become a wandering soul and drift away with Feng Mian.
"That's how it is, that must be how it is. It's all my fault. It's all my fault for insisting on coming to Nanhuo. If I hadn't come here, Fengmian might not have died. It's all because of me. Why did he die? Why not me?"
Xia Zhu moved her fingers helplessly, perhaps she used too much force, so that not only did she fail to hold onto Feng Feng, but she also shattered into a pile.
She withdrew her hand, and Feng Feng's heavy breathing seemed to press an invisible weight on the back of her neck. She couldn't lift her head and could only whisper, "I'm sorry, it's not your fault."
"It's all because of me."
Perhaps Feng Feng didn't hear the second half of her sentence, because she stopped talking to herself and went back to Feng Mian's bedside.
Yun Huan, who had been standing to the side, seemed to have watched a good show. She yawned leisurely and said, "Now that you all know the truth, don't bully Yun Huan anymore."
This was said to Feng Feng.
Receiving no response, she simply crossed her arms and squeezed through the crowd, swaying as she left.
Seeing her leave, Yun Yi gritted her teeth and turned to follow. With two of the Yun family members she could talk to gone, it wasn't appropriate for the rest to stay there any longer. Soon, only a few of them remained in Feng Mian's room.
Before dawn, the room felt empty after everyone left, but silence filled every corner, and Xia Zhu felt like she couldn't breathe.
She stood there, not daring to move, and even less daring to look at Feng Mian on the bed.
In that case, she would feel that nothing was different from usual, except that the team members were gathered together, strangely watching over the sleeping Fengmian.
"You guys should go back too. I want to stay with Fengmian for a while."
Feng Feng sat in the chair she had sat in before, her dark red hair obscuring most of her face.
First, Ji Yinxiu moved slightly. He glanced at Xia Zhu as he passed by, and then Ying Huo came over, grabbed her elbow, and practically dragged her out of the room.
It wasn't that Xia Zhu didn't want to leave; she even had to thank Ying Huo, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to leave that room on her own.
Once she got to the courtyard, Xia Zhu could walk on her own. She followed her senses to the ground floor of her room, and only after stepping onto the first step did she remember the person behind her.
So she turned her head, glanced quickly at Ying Huo, said thank you, and then went upstairs.
"Summer candle".
But the person behind her called out to her.
Stuck in place, neither rising nor falling.
"It's not your fault."
She took a deep breath, ran upstairs, and slammed the door shut.
Xia Zhu sat by the window, just as she had when she first arrived. Only now, the sky outside was beginning to turn white and blue, and as time ticked by, the sun was about to rise.
She sat in the chair all night, doing nothing, not even thinking.
At first, she wanted to find something to do, maybe lie on the bed and cry, but when her face sank into the pillow and the feeling of suffocation slowly crept in, she found that she couldn't cry at all.
She believed herself to be sad.
A person died right in front of her, and that person was Feng Mian.
But she just couldn't bring herself to shed a single tear for him.
So Xia Zhu could only sit in the chair until the clear chirping of birds came from outside the window, and from a distance, it was probably the sound of the Yun family members getting up early.
Her glasses were pressing against her nose and making it ache, so she lifted the frames and rubbed them.
The early summer morning was quite cool, and as usual, a thin mist rose in the mountains. Everything was fresh and vibrant, just an ordinary day.
It seems that nothing has changed; nothing in this world will stop for the passing of a life.
The wind on the cliff stung his face and gave him a headache.
His younger sister had already disappeared into the wind. Feng Mian dared not show the slightest fear, even though his legs were trembling.
"Fengmian".
His mother poked his back impatiently from behind.
"Right away, right away." He hurriedly took out the golden divine strategy and casually tossed it into the clouds.
Wait, what was that place called again?
Qing, Qing...
Oh no, it's too late.
"Qingwu Peak!"
Feng Mian mumbled a name at random.
The wind whistled past his ears; he closed his eyes tightly and even held his breath.
My heart was pounding wildly.
Only when the wind subsided and he stepped onto a soft patch of grass did he dare to open his eyes.
"Xiao Feng!"
Fengmian excitedly called out his sister's name, but the last syllable got stuck in his throat.
Before them lay a dense forest, and behind them a sheer cliff, yet Feng Feng was nowhere to be seen.
Feng Mian was frightened for a moment, but then he suddenly remembered something. His expression changed, and he turned around a few times with his hands behind his back. He looked quite calm and composed, glancing at the woods behind him from time to time.
He assumed that Feng Feng, who had arrived first, must have hidden himself, planning to play a trick on him, to see him panic and be scared, and then suddenly jump out from some corner, point at his nose, and laugh out loud.
He wouldn't give her that chance.
Although the hilltop was empty, his parents would be there soon, so he had nothing to be afraid of.
But Feng Mian waited for a long time, and not only did Feng Feng not appear, but her parents were also nowhere to be seen.
As darkness fell and black clouds gathered in the distance, visibility began to blur. Feng Mian finally felt afraid. He looked at the pitch-black forest and then at the bottomless cliff behind him, thinking that since there was a Wind Chasing Path here, it must be the territory of some divine blood family.
So after much deliberation, he decided to enter the woods and head down the mountain.
The further they went into the forest, the less light they could see, not even the chirping of a bird. Feng Mian moved cautiously, when suddenly he saw a glimmer of fluorescent blue light shining through the leaves ahead.
He was overjoyed and ran over quickly, only to see a ball of lightning rise out of thin air, hovering up and down. He thought it was a light coming on in the village, and Feng Mian hung his head in disappointment. But at least there was light. He decided to stay by the ball of lightning and not go anywhere before dawn.
Thinking this, he sat down on the steps of the mountain path. The light source above him emitted a relatively soft glow in the darkness. He propped his head up and was feeling drowsy when he suddenly heard some rustling sounds from the grass behind him.
Feng Mian instantly woke up. He stiffened and slowly turned his head. In the light of the lightning, he saw a pair of gray-white eyes, filled with the aura of death, looking at him through the layers of tree shadows.
He opened his mouth wide but held back his scream. After a breath, he turned and ran towards the top of the mountain, but he stopped after only a few steps.
The winding mountain path in front of him had disappeared without him noticing. If he had simply taken the wrong path in his panic, that would be one thing, but now, even the ghostly bushes around him had vanished without a trace.
It was as if he had stepped into another world.
Despairing and frightened, Fengmian squatted down, burying his head deep in his knees. His mother always said he was a strong child, so Fengmian rarely cried in front of others. Only when his body curled up like a hedgehog, like now, did he dare to let the tears of fear spill out.
"Where did this child come from?"
A clear, ethereal female voice sounded from behind.
Feng Mian's thin back trembled slightly, but the voice sounded a lot like his mother's, warm and strong, so he mustered up his courage, turned around, and raised his wet little face.
That scene remained vivid in his memory many years later. No matter what other extraordinary and mysterious things Feng Mian had seen since, none were as unforgettable as the extraterrestrial object he had glimpsed by chance in the mountains and forests.
The three-headed divine bird, adorned with colorful feathers, radiated a dazzling light, as if a celestial being had descended.
Feng Mian opened his eyes wide, and in his clear pupils, he saw three flickering candlelight hanging above the divine bird's head.
I don't know why, but one of the lamps has gone out.
Seeing Feng Mian's blank expression, Huang Niao asked again, "Whose child are you? Why are you so dull-witted?"
Feng Mian blinked, swallowed hard, and obediently replied, "I am a child of the Feng family."
"The Feng family?" The phoenix tilted its head and thought for a moment. "Oh, the family that likes farming."
The royal bird chuckled, and its two heads, one on each side, began to whisper to each other as they passed over the middle.
The phoenix raised its eyebrows and sternly stopped them before calming down and looking down at the little Fengmian.
"How could such a young child be here?" she asked Feng Mian, or perhaps she was talking to herself.
Feng Mian twisted his fingers, not daring to utter a sound. He cautiously raised his eyelids again and again to peek at the divine bird. Then he heard the middle head say, "Alright, since you've come this far, it means the opportunity is with you. Tell me what questions you can't figure out."
"A problem?" Feng Mian pointed to himself, thought seriously for a moment, and asked, "Where am I right now?"
"You are now... wait..." The phoenix paused, lowered its head to sniff Feng Mian, and asked in confusion, "Is that all you have? Nothing else?"
"Others?"
"What's there to be obsessed with, or what you want to get?"
"Important, desired."
"A bigger problem."
Feng Mian lowered his head and thought about it seriously again, then shook his head and said, "No."
The three birds exchanged glances, but the phoenix spoke first.
“Never mind, those who get to see opportunities are all…” She looked at Feng Mian’s fluffy head and put it another way, “Then let us help you see what the future holds.”
Before Feng Mian could react, three heads appeared in front of him. He felt the candlelight above their heads making his eyelids grow heavy. The shadows of the three-headed birds overlapped and separated before his eyes. A warm feeling rose from the soles of his feet. His body felt like a piece of butter placed in front of a fire, slowly melting and emitting the aroma of dairy products and oils.
"Hey, wake up."
He felt something cold and hard poking his face, and he groggily opened his eyes.
"How strange, it can fall asleep standing up." The royal bird retracted its beak.
The phoenixes looked at the child, who was not even as tall as their claws, and found it difficult to speak.
"Demon God, what does my future hold?" Feng Mian rubbed his eyes. He hadn't forgotten what the gods had said before he fell asleep: they would help him see his future.
The three-headed bird was silent for a moment.
"May your journey be smooth and your future bright," the phoenix said softly, its gaze not falling on Feng Mian. "If you can do as we say."
"First, do not become an ignorant official."
"No way." Feng Mian blurted out without even thinking.
"What?" The royal bird seemed somewhat incredulous; he actually refuted them directly, "Why not!"
"Because Xiao Feng is going to be an unjust official."
"What does it have to do with you if she does what she wants?"
"We have to be together!" Feng Mian said excitedly, though he didn't quite understand why.
"But becoming an unidentified official is very dangerous; you might even die!"
"Your Majesty!" The phoenix interrupted her as she saw Feng Mian lower his head, his eyes flickering as if he were deep in thought.
"Death?" He asked calmly, perhaps because he was too young to understand the meaning of death. "Is that my future?"
"Everyone must die eventually," said the phoenix.
"What about Xiaofeng?"
You can only ask questions about your own affairs.
"If I'm in danger, if I die, what about Xiaofeng?" He looked up but still couldn't see the three-headed bird clearly. "We're always together."
“If you do as I say, you can avoid that future.” Luan Niao didn’t intend to argue with him anymore. She thought that she had said everything she needed to say, and it was up to the child to make his own choice.
"First, do not be an ignorant official."
"Second, don't keep a puppy."
"Don't want a puppy?" Feng Mian was only a teenager, but his curiosity seemed to have already pulled him out of his previous mood. "What about a kitten?"
The royal bird subtly rolled its eyes. "In short, don't keep a puppy!"
Her shout startled Feng Mian, who immediately lowered her head and whispered, "I understand."
The royal bird was a little embarrassed and hid behind the phoenix after closing its beak.
"Alright." The phoenix lowered its head, pecked a colorful feather from its wing, and handed it to Feng Mian. "Here, this can help you escape death once."
The feather was held in Feng Mian's palm, and it grew to the same size as the feather on an ordinary bird. He carefully stroked the texture on it, as if he was thinking about something.
"Thank you, Demon God." He raised his face, smiled at the three-headed bird, and then bowed in a proper manner.
Fengmian stared at his toes and felt that the light around him seemed to have dimmed considerably. When he got up again, he found that one of the candles on the divine bird's head had gone out.
He wanted to say something more, but he felt his eyelids were so heavy they were glued shut, and his limbs were weak. After a long yawn, Feng Mian couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed to the ground, closing his eyes and clutching the feather tightly in his hand.
In a daze, he heard a sigh that echoed for a long time in the boundless space.
He had a rare dream in which Xiaofeng grew to be as tall as his mother. She skipped and hopped beside him, her mouth opening and closing, but he couldn't hear what she was saying.
A thick fog surrounded him, and he felt some movement beside his legs. Looking down, he saw a furry head.
They walked side by side like that, and as they walked, the spring breeze seemed to blow into his heart, and a warm feeling spread throughout his body like melting butter. He unconsciously thought of that nursery rhyme.
"Flying over low walls, crossing grasslands, and returning home..."
"The plantain grows close to the ground, like two tiny shadows stretching longer and longer..."
"Sleep well, my little wild chrysanthemum, where the sun sets, lies a warm dreamland..."
Is that his future?
There's nothing wrong with that.
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