As Shang Can stepped onto the charred ground, she felt a moment of disorientation.
The scenery around her was both familiar and strange; the images in her memory had become blurred, leaving only the towering flames. Thus, when she saw this scene, which could only be described as lifeless, after so many years, she found her heart calmer than she had expected, remaining silent.
“You’re really early.”
A teasing voice came from not far away, causing Shang Can to stop in her tracks without looking up.
“I thought you’d come by sword; I didn’t expect a certain cultivator to pass by instead.”
The unpleasant voice was undeterred by her indifference, instead coming closer. Shang Can lowered her eyes, her hand purposefully resting on the hilt of her sword at her waist, instantly exuding an aura of coldness.
The person opposite her chuckled lightly and finally stopped a few steps away, as if unaware of the hostility in Shang Can’s demeanor. With a beaming smile, they said, “Are you trying to conserve energy to kill me?”
Shang Can didn’t answer. She quietly lifted her eyes and saw surprise suddenly crack the facade of false cheer on the other’s face, her lips curling coolly.
“That’s something I should be saying,” Shang Can replied in aæ·¡æ·¡ (dà n dà n) tone. “There are still several days until the agreed date. Why are you here so early? Are you eager to die at my hands, Qin Yi?”
“…”
Her tone was calm, lacking any sarcasm, as if they were just having a normal conversation. However, Qin Yi, unable to focus, widened her eyes in astonishment. After a while, a laugh rolled out of her throat, escalating into exaggerated laughter that made her shoulders shake uncontrollably.
“… I didn’t have a chance to take a good look back then,” Qin Yi finally wiped away the tears from laughing and said, “So you have… such a pair of eyes. You’ve hidden them so well usually, haven’t you?”
Shang Can remained silent. Since Qin Yi started laughing, she had appeared very calm, her face betraying no emotion, like a tranquil lake without ripples. Yet, Qin Yi could not stand her composure and relentlessly poked at her, “I really didn’t expect—how did you manage it? Whether it’s Qingyu or Tianwaitian, there should be barriers. Someone like you…”
She paused, her gaze unreservedly sweeping across Shang Can’s face, then laughed, “—A non-human, can actually mix into the Celestial Sect. Have you really not been detected all these years?”
But Qin Yi’s provocation didn’t yield any results. Shang Can didn’t even spare her a glance, quietly standing there, her eye-catching white robe billowing in the wind, the sword at her waist also familiar and striking, making Qin Yi suddenly lose interest in continuing this topic.
“I’ve got nothing better to do anyway.” Qin Yi’s smile faded slightly as she sighed dramatically, “All the demons from the Azure and Yellow Springs are looking for me—so is Tianwaitian. It’s all so annoying; I might as well come here early and wait for you.”
“I thought you wouldn’t come.” Her tone was suggestive, but her eyes weren’t smiling. “After all… you seemed pretty comfortable staying in Yun City with your junior sister.”
Only now did Shang Can finally pause, her breath hitching. When she spoke again, her tone returned to normal, and she avoided the question, “What about the Heart Lotus?”
Knowing that no matter how many questions she asked, this person wasn’t going to listen, Qin Yi felt a surge of irritation and laughed, “Why are you so anxious? Since we agreed back then, I certainly won’t deceive you.”
Shang Can’s lips curled into a sarcastic smile, but in the end, she said nothing.
This was the secret agreement between her and Qin Yi made under the night sky of Yan Yang.
At that time, she had been driven to the brink by the surging spiritual power and killing intent. Qin Yi had almost died at her hands, but at the last moment, her terrified, high-pitched scream had brought some rationality back to her.
“The Heart Lotus is still in my hands! Don’t you want it?!”
Once her sanity returned, all the negative feelings retreated like the tide, replaced by an overwhelming sense of powerlessness flooding her limbs. Shang Can knew she no longer had the strength to kill Qin Yi. She could only grit her teeth to hold up her shattered body. When Qin Yi proposed today’s appointment, she nodded. She watched Qin Yi flee in panic and silently turned to leave, wandering in an unknown direction for a long time before finally collapsing under a tree, utterly exhausted.
Yes, she still needed the Heart Lotus. After all these years, finally—
Her eyes hurt unbearably for some reason, and physiological tears flowed uncontrollably down her cheeks. Shang Can trembled as she raised her hand to touch her eyelids, only to feel an incredible heat in her palm, as if she were touching a ball of fire. When she lowered her hand again, she saw some blood on her palm. She wiped it off with a nearby fallen leaf, trembling as she waited for the scorching pain to gradually dissipate. Then she tore off a strip of cloth from her sleeve and wrapped it tightly around her eyes.
Even though she had only a vague understanding of her own body over the years, in that moment, Shang Can clearly realized that even though she appeared intact on the outside, a certain part of her internal restraints had likely been completely destroyed in the earlier outburst.
She inexplicably calmed down and sat there until Yun Duan found her. Her vision was enveloped in darkness; Shang Can couldn’t tell if it was due to the cloth or if her eyes were genuinely malfunctioning, but she intended to leave all these suffocating thoughts behind, especially since she had little time left.
Being reckless once wouldn’t invite heavenly wrath; if there was any, it should wait until she finished her recklessness.
But even good dreams have expiration dates, and now she was awake.
“Ah Can.”
The sudden address jolted Shang Can out of her emotions. She blinked and looked up, only to see Qin Yi’s face adorned with a false smile.
“I think you’re about to lose patience,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the increasingly heavy expression on Shang Can’s face. “But I still want to remind you, this place—you should know—has an entrance connected to the Underworld. It was originally sealed, but your earlier commotion forcibly broke the seal. I suspect that’s why I inadvertently ended up in this half-human, half-ghost form.”
“I’ve sealed that entrance again these days.”
Qin Yi’s tone was relaxed. “And it’s sealed very firmly, connected to the other entrances to the ghost realm in the cultivation world, making it like the center of a formation. After all, I used to be the acting head of Tianwaitian, and I understand it much better than the current Pei Chen.”
Shang Can didn’t understand why she suddenly brought this up and frowned slightly. But she saw a flash of delight in Qin Yi’s eyes as she continued softly, “By the way, I’ve also placed the Heart Lotus in the seal.”
“You know what I’m talking about, right?” Qin Yi’s voice was soft. “If you want the Heart Lotus, you’ll have to open that seal. But now, every path connecting the cultivation world and the ghost realm is interconnected. If you move this, all the barriers will collapse.”
“That passage was sealed with great effort by the senior cultivators of the past…” Qin Yi’s tone feigned regret, but her face was smiling brightly. “Tell me… how many people do you think will die because of your actions once you retrieve the Heart Lotus, Ah Can?”
As her words fell, Qin Yi couldn’t see the astonished expression on Shang Can’s face as she had hoped. Soon, she couldn’t maintain her smile and scoffed, “I remember you were quite righteous back in Qingyu. What happened? Have you changed your nature now—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Qin Yi suddenly felt a searing tongue of flame rush toward her face. She hastily dodged, narrowly escaping being burned through— the flame was aimed directly at her mouth.
The scorching memories in her mind were awakened, and Qin Yi stiffly turned her neck to look, her contorted expression betraying either fear or ecstasy as she gazed deeply at that person.
“Are you finished?”
Shang Can spoke softly, her eyes chillingly calm, leaving Qin Yi unable to read any emotion.
Yet she felt the light in Shang Can’s eyes growing ever more brilliant, making her feel as if she were staring into a blazing sun—intense yet unfeeling, powerful yet indifferent.
She involuntarily trembled, her heart already prepared, but she saw the person with divine-like pupils slightly lower their eyelids, almost as if speaking to herself, continued softly, “… That name wasn’t meant for you.”
Ah, how hateful.
Qin Yi clenched her fists, allowing her nails to dig deep into her palms.
From the beginning to the end, even after leaving Qingyu, even after changing her disposition, the only person that had ever mattered to her was always that one person.
When Yun Duan opened her eyes, the sky was already dark.
Her body still felt sluggish, but a sharp pain in her head quickly brought her to wakefulness. She suddenly turned over and sat up, realizing she was lying in her own bed, with the corners neatly tucked. On the nearby table, there was a pot of tea and an empty cup; Yun Duan remembered the table had been spotless when she left in the morning.
It wasn’t hard to guess who was responsible.
Yun Duan supported herself and got out of bed. Her legs felt somewhat weak, but she didn’t linger; she dashed straight out the door.
Although the events that had transpired were painfully clear, Yun Duan still held a flicker of hope as she searched through the house for a long time. She looked in every corner, behind the trees in the courtyard, as if at any moment she would see Shang Can walking out nonchalantly, smiling as she said she was just kidding and had scared her.
But this hope was ultimately shattered when she saw Wan Shao still fast asleep. Yun Duan confirmed the painful fact that Shang Can was no longer here. She didn’t have time to sort through her chaotic thoughts and hurriedly walked outside, but she was stopped at the door by a familiar resistance—Shang Can’s spiritual power.
Her hands in her sleeves clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned pale. Yun Duan repeatedly took deep breaths, but she couldn’t calm her heart, which was racing in panic.
“… Yun, Yun Zhongjun?”
A line of clarity pierced through her muddled brain, and Yun Duan looked up to see a stranger cautiously addressing her from outside the door. She caught a glimpse of the scales behind the stranger’s ear and quickly realized that this was a demon from Biluo Huangquan.
She shivered all over and blurted out, “Where did A Can—Can Zhe go? Did you see her?”
The small demon’s expression changed, and he hesitantly said, “We did see her… but Master Can Zhe didn’t tell us where she was going. She told us if Yun Zhongjun asked about it… just say we don’t know.”
All her speculations were confirmed with this sentence. Hearing from another person that Shang Can had left here of her own accord was more painful than Yun Duan had imagined. Her fingertips turned ice-cold in an instant, and her mind echoed with a single thought.
She has left me again.
Just the thought pierced her heart.
Did she ask for too much, only to receive a secret rejection? The process of wanting to hold onto Shang Can felt like desperately trying to hold water, only to helplessly watch it slip away, leaving behind an empty, cold embrace and a dampened heart.
“Um…” The small demon’s anxious voice interrupted Yun Duan’s deepening gloom. He trembled as he said, “The Demon Lord… hasn’t woken up yet?”
Yun Duan’s heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly looked up.
Wan Shao… right, Wan Shao was also affected, perhaps even more severely than she was.
If Shang Can had only left to escape her, then why…
The tangled negative emotions began to disentangle, and Yun Duan pondered repeatedly, but she could not arrive at any conclusion—how much had her A Can hidden from her? She had no idea at all.
But there was no time to dwell on this unresolvable question. Her chest felt tight, and her throat was dry and sore, but she couldn’t show it now. She could only shed tears in front of Shang Can.
Yun Duan quietly closed her eyes, went back inside to retrieve Wu You, and when she returned to the door, her steps were already much steadier than before.
“Stand back a bit.”
She spoke softly to the small demon, who hurriedly nodded and stepped far away. Just as he steadied himself, he heard a bright sound of a sword ringing from the courtyard gate, followed by a loud ripping sound.
The small demon was startled and leaned against the corner, trembling. He saw Yun Zhongjun walking out of the gate with one hand holding a sword, her face expressionless and cold, though her lips appeared slightly pale. Her white robe billowed in a wild wind that seemed to want to carry her delicate figure into the sky.
At this moment, she looked like the Yun Zhongjun from the legends—ethereal and distant. The small demon dared not approach, only watching her from afar. He saw the Yun Zhongjun, with unmatched sword force, slice through the barrier of Can Zhe, suddenly smile quietly, and her lips moved as if forming words.
“It’s just that…”
The loud noise from earlier had caused a bit of ringing in his ears, and the small demon couldn’t hear the last few words clearly. Stunned, he stared at her lips, puzzled, when he saw Yun Zhongjun turn to him and say, “When Wan Shao wakes up, tell her I went to find A Can.”
Just as he nodded, he saw the celestial-like woman rise on her sword and instantly vanish into the sky.
The small demon returned to the front of the door, sitting in a daze on the steps for a long time. In a flash of realization, he understood what Yun Zhongjun’s words meant.
Her white figure exuded an inexplicable sense of desolation and loneliness, with mist swirling in her eyes, her delicate features bearing a faint, pale smile.
‘It’s just that… it’s the same as before.’
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