The Last Journey
The snow on Cangmin Mountain has been falling for seven days straight without stopping for a moment.
Yun Qian's anxiety was rising like a tide, growing stronger with each passing day. Her emotional fluctuations were so obvious that even her junior brothers could clearly feel them.
Bai Ji and Qin Wu stopped arguing over trivial matters. Even Bai Chuan, who usually loved to run down the mountain, stayed in the mountains all day, silently taking care of his herbs.
The entire Cangmin Mountain was shrouded in an invisible, oppressive, and gloomy atmosphere. This excessive calm, like the suffocating stillness before a storm, foreshadowed some unbearable event that was about to occur.
late at night.
Yun Qian tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep no matter what she did. The anxious premonition in her heart kept tugging at her reason, growing stronger and stronger.
She simply got up and dressed herself.
She pushed open the door, and the wind and snow outside continued. Instead of using her spiritual power to ward off the cold or to fly, she chose to walk step by step through the ankle-deep snow towards the direction where Bai Yan was in seclusion on the back mountain.
Strangely enough, despite the heavy snowfall on Cangmin Mountain, the sky was unusually clear tonight, with a cold moon hanging high, casting its clear light on the white snow and creating a desolate glow.
Yun Qian walked for a long time, and in the distance, she saw a familiar figure sitting on the jade platform.
Bai Yan remained dressed in immaculate white robes, sitting upright in the center of the stone platform. A faint, ever-flowing golden light enveloped him, and before him, several ancient copper coins floated in the air, connected by golden spiritual threads, outlining a mysterious and eerie pattern.
Yun Qian couldn't understand the divination, but her ominous premonition suddenly surged to its peak.
"Master!"
She couldn't help but call out, and her pace quickened unconsciously.
However, Bai Yan seemed to be immersed in his own world, showing no response to her calls and approach.
This is extremely unusual. Bai Yan never does this.
Splash!
Just as Yun Qian was about to step onto the stone platform, the floating copper coins suddenly lost all their spiritual power and fell to the ground. They scattered on the cold stone surface, clinking and jingling, yet strangely arranged themselves into a completely different, more complex and incomprehensible pattern.
Yun Qian no longer cared about etiquette and rules. In a flash, she appeared on the stone platform.
As the distance closed, she could finally clearly sense that Bai Yan's aura was as faint as a candle flickering in the wind, as if it would be completely extinguished at any moment!
Why is this happening?!
The wind and snow had not stopped, but Yun Qian's body began to tremble uncontrollably. She had long since shut down her five senses and should be immune to heat and cold, but at this moment, a chill originating from the depths of her soul was spreading wildly along her heart meridian, almost freezing her blood and mind.
She was afraid. An unprecedented fear gripped her.
"Master..."
She slowly squatted down, her voice trembling uncontrollably, and reached out her hand, wanting to touch him, but not daring to, "Master, look at me... look at me."
Bai Yan slowly raised his head, and the golden aura around him dissipated rapidly like the receding tide, revealing a face beneath a silver mask that still showed signs of extreme haggardness.
"You...have come?" His voice was so soft it was almost drowned out by the sound of the wind and snow.
"Master!" Yun Qian knelt down beside Bai Yan, frantically raising her hands, and her pure Nascent Soul stage spiritual power poured into Bai Yan's body without reservation, like a dam breaking.
But it didn't work.
Her spiritual power sank like a stone into the sea, unable to stir even the slightest ripple in his nearly depleted body, let alone hold back his rapidly fading life force.
Yun Qian's eyes instantly reddened, and scalding tears welled up uncontrollably, falling one after another onto the cold stone surface. Helpless, she could only call out in vain, her voice filled with desperate sobs, "Master... Master!"
Bai Yan's lips twitched slightly upwards, as if trying to offer her a reassuring smile. He raised his hand, a hand so pale it was almost transparent, and gently placed it over Yun Qian's hand, which was still channeling spiritual energy. He slowly but firmly shook his head.
"Such is fate." His voice was broken, carrying a weariness of having seen through life and death. "There's no need... to waste your spiritual power any more."
"No! You can't!" Yun Qian stubbornly shook her head, tears blurring her vision, still refusing to give up as she urged her spiritual power.
This time, Bai Yan seemed to lack even the strength to interrupt her. He lowered his head, his gaze falling on the final divination image composed of scattered copper coins on the stone surface. He remained silent for a long time, so long that Yun Qian thought he would not speak again.
"Yun Qian..." he finally spoke again, his tone carrying the solemnity of entrusting a heavy responsibility, "Give the sect leader's token to Qin Wu."
He paused, as if using his last bit of strength, and looked at her with a deep gaze, his questioning almost unwavering: "You... know what to do next, right?"
She must have known. She was always different, the only variable in this deadly game. Bai Yan thought to himself.
"I don't know!" Yun Qian cried out almost in tears, her voice filled with childlike stubbornness. "Master, you can't just leave like this! I haven't learned... I haven't learned the final move of the Cangmin Sword, I haven't learned your divination techniques... I haven't learned anything yet..."
Bai Yan chuckled very softly, a smile carrying a sense of relief and liberation. He slowly raised his head, gazing at the inky black night sky illuminated by the moonlight.
He wasn't the most talented disciple in Cangmin Mountain's history; he even failed to fulfill his master's dying wish. Throughout his life, he performed countless divinations, but the most frequent predictions concerned the precarious fate of Cangmin Mountain. He had desperately longed to see a glimmer of hope in the divinations, until Yun Qian appeared.
Her appearance was like a pebble thrown into the long river of predetermined fate, creating ripples that changed the destinies of many, including his. But he did so willingly.
Bai Yan turned his gaze to Yun Qian once more, the deep reluctance and longing that flashed in his eyes were forcibly suppressed and hidden beneath endless calm.
"Don't cry." His voice was weak, but it was filled with an unprecedented tenderness. He slowly raised his incredibly heavy hand, his fingertips icy cold, and gently, with utmost care, wiped away the tears from her cheeks.
Just this once, crossing the line between master and disciple, indulging in those feelings that shouldn't exist in my heart a little, should... be alright? He thought vaguely.
But why were there so many tears... so many that he no longer had the strength to wipe them away...
“Yun Qian,” he looked at her, his last words as soft as a sigh, yet clearly imprinted in the depths of her soul, “Look… the snow has stopped.”
When did it begin? How could he develop such inappropriate and transgressive thoughts about the apprentice he raised himself?
Bai Yan himself didn't know either.
He no longer had the strength to figure it out.
The hand that had been wiping away her tears finally fell limply and slowly to the ground.
Yun Qian seemed oblivious, stubbornly continuing to channel spiritual energy into his body again and again, as if doing so could preserve the rapidly fading temperature.
However, it was no use.
The lifeless body began to gradually transform from its edges into tiny, golden particles of light, like fireflies or stardust scattered by the wind, slowly rising and dissipating into the cold night sky.
No matter how much spiritual energy Yun Qian channeled, it was like trying to hold water in one's hands—a futile effort.
Bai Yan disappeared.
It vanished completely and silently right before her eyes.
On the stone platform, nothing was left except the silver mask he always wore, which now looked incredibly lonely.
At the moment he completely vanished, the few scattered copper coins on the stone surface seemed to tremble slightly, and the patterns on them underwent extremely subtle changes. However, without the diviner's spiritual power to sustain them, they quickly lost all their mystique, becoming no different from ordinary copper coins, scattered to one side, and no one paid any attention to the final divine secrets they might contain.
Yun Qian remained kneeling on the ground, her hands outstretched to channel spiritual energy, motionless. Her gaze was vacant as she stared at the spot where Bai Yan had disappeared, as if her soul had been ripped away with him.
Memories of the past ten years flashed wildly through her mind like a revolving lantern.
The first time she opened her eyes in the freezing cold and saw him.
“If you are willing to become my apprentice, just blink.”
"Even I, your teacher, do not know how you attained enlightenment."
"That's not how you hold a sword. Your wrist must be steady and your mind calm."
"Why are you still reading here so late?"
...
"Yun Qian, the snow has stopped."
Yun Qian slowly and blankly raised her head, looking at the sky where snow had stopped falling sometime ago. The cold moonlight shone on her tear-stained face.
She murmured, repeating the same sentence to the empty stone platform: "Master... the snow has stopped."
The connection between masters and disciples is terrifyingly strong.
Perhaps they all had a premonition, but in the end, they were still a step too late.
When Qin Wu, Bai Chuan, and Bai Ji rushed over, only Yun Qian remained kneeling on the jade platform, looking utterly dejected.
And beside her, there was a solitary silver mask, reflecting the cold moonlight.
No words are needed.
At that moment, a resonance originating from the depths of their blood and soul made them instantly understand what had happened.
Bai Ji's tears instantly burst forth. He stared at the empty stone platform, choked with sobs, and cried out, "Master..."
This time, no one will respond to him anymore.
Bai Chuan abruptly turned his head, clenching his teeth, but hot tears still uncontrollably slid down his resolute cheeks and fell onto the snow.
Qin Wu raised his hand, wiped his face vigorously, lifted his robe, and knelt heavily in the direction of the stone platform.
Bai Chuan and Bai Ji also knelt down.
The three knelt neatly beneath the stone platform, heads bowed, shoulders trembling slightly.
No one spoke.
Only the deathly stillness after the snowstorm and the thick, unyielding sorrow that permeated the air.
They knelt there quietly, like three stone statues, accompanying him and Yun Qian.
From the setting of the waning moon until the first faint glimmer of dawn appears on the horizon.
They wanted to do this to send their master off on his final journey.
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