Chapter 39
The sun has set, the moon has risen. The wind on the top of the mountain was rustling. A burst of sand and stones came at her from somewhere. The raindrops hit Ling Xi’s body and her clothes rustled because of the wind.
She stood on the top of the mountain. She opened her eyes blankly and looked blankly in the direction of the moon through the hazy light.
It was already the culmination.
- Culmination in astrology means the reaching of the meridian by a celestial body.
“Nan Zhi, can you promise me one thing?” She could always perceive the direction of Nan Zhi accurately and looked at him with a faint smile.
The surroundings were quiet. There was no response.
“No matter what, don’t hurt Cangjia Mountain, alright?” Ling Xi said softly.
She was glad that she couldn’t see at this time, but she could hear clearly. Whether it was the wind or the moving of the grass or the clamoring of the demons and devils hidden in the dark, she could hear them clearly.
Hence, Nan Zhi’s “alright” sounded very clear in her ears.
At the same time, a loud voice rang in her ear, “Ling Xi!”
It was Qing Kui’s voice. She didn’t know how many times she had heard him call her like this during many crises.
Three auras attacked at the same time from different directions. Ling Xi’s intuition told her that it was Qing Kui, Qing Lian and Qing Nian. There was a burst of warmth in her eyes. To this day, there were still people who protected her like this, worry about her and was willing to risk their life for her. How lucky was she?
However, before the three auras could get close, they disappeared without trace. Ling Xi thought that she lost her five senses again, but she was clearly able to feel that the surrounding air suddenly turned cold and there was murderous intent.
Her heartbeat also accelerated with the soaring murderous intent. She tried to open her eyes as wide as possible, but there was only haziness in front of her eyes.
“Nan Zhi, Nan Zhi…,” Ling Xi called urgently. “Don’t hurt them.”
She could only hear her own voice. There was no response.
Ling Xi’s heart tightened. She gathered the small amount of spiritual power that she still has left and focused them all in her eyes.
She wanted to see, see what had happened, see Nan Zhi’s face, see if tonight would be truly like the illusion where her soul would be tore away and drove out of this body by Nan Zhi.
The black veil finally disappeared, and the colorful world appeared again.
The full moon hung high like a bronze colored jade plate. The rare and clear moonlight enveloped Cangjia Mountain under a piece of silver and white light. The shadows of the trees moved back and fro. The wind destroyed the clouds.
The top of the mountain where she was at was shrouded by a barrier as if being surrounded by a silver circle. Qing Kui, Qing Lian and Qing Nian were isolated outside and tried to break through the barrier, but all was in vain.
When Ling Xi saw that the three were unhampered did she sigh from relief.
Then…the murderous intent that just soared?
She looked up in front of her.
Nan Zhi’s black hair and black clothes fluttered in the wind and was like a black curtain covering the starlight behind him. He raised his sword. The silver sword light was cold and sharp and pierced the darkness of the night.
The tip of the sword pointed at the place between her eyebrows.
When she saw all of these clearly, Ling Xi’s nose suddenly itched. The cold air of the sword made people hardly being able to open their eyes, but her eyes felt warm.
It turned out…to be true.
She thought of that day when she looked at the painting Nan Zhi painted of her.
Eighteen-year-old her.
In the painting, she smiled broadly and a pair of dimples appeared with that smile and made it brighter. However, even the bright smile couldn’t compare with the jacaranda in her hair. The pretty purple jacaranda blossomed strongly and willfully. It easily snatched the focus of the whole painting.
That was her, but also not her.
Nan Zhi’s brush once stopped on her hair once and said that something was missing.
Nan Zhi’s hand once pulled her hand, put it on his heart and said that a piece was missing.
It turned out that the painting was missing a jacaranda.
The heart was missing a jacaranda demon.
As early as that moment, she understood. Understood Nan Zhi’s intention, understood his and Chen Xi’s past, understood…the really low place she had in Nan Zhi’s heart.
She and the woman he loves deeply looks exactly the same.
Despite seeing her soul being expelled from this body in the illusion and despite having persuaded herself to accept this fact countless of times, but when she looked at him pointing the sword at her, confirming her previous speculations and suspicions and her faint hope was extinguished, her heart still couldn’t stop from hurting; hurting so much that it shivered in pain.
But she couldn’t cry.
She stared fixedly at the person holding the sword. She saw that his eyes flickered slightly. The point of the sword got a bit closer.
She kept staring at him fixedly, trying to see some holes in those familiar eyes. However, the affectionate eyes of the past only had the word “cold” tonight.
“Nan Zhi…” Ling Xi couldn’t resist calling his name after all.
In the past, she would call him when she missed him and when she was in danger. She didn’t expect that one day she would call him when facing each other with a sword.
“Nan Zhi…” She wanted to say something, but she paused. She remembered that in the illusion, Nan Zhi also faced her with the sword like this and said, “Today, you must die.”
Fortunately, she wouldn’t hear that with her own ears today.
She put all her spiritual power in her eyes and couldn’t hear anything.
Nan Zhi’s lips seemed to have moved and said something. Then, the cold tip of the sword pierced her forehead without hesitation. Once, twice.
Ling Xi knew that he made a cross to facilitate the entry and exit of the souls.
Afterwards, he would use spiritual power to cast a spell, tear her soul and drive it out from the cross opening. He would use that ray of soul of Chen Xi as the guide, use the Soul Attractor and Soul-Locking water to call back Chen Xi’s soul and then use the Soul-Suppressing pearl to seal her (CX) into this body.
From then one, the one alive in this world would be the person who he had loved deeply for a thousand years…Chen Xi.
His heart would be complete then and her (LX) heart would be lost forever.
Ling Xi had never hated someone so much.
Right, she hated her.
Hated herself.
Why did she had to look exactly the same as Chen Xi? Why did she had to fall in love with the person that Chen Xi had loved? Why even when knowing that this man would kill her, would expel her, she didn’t even have the courage to flee or to question him?
Suddenly Ling Xi grabbed the sword with both her hands. The blade that was being pulled out stopped and cut through the palms of her hands.
The blood stained the eyes red. What she could see was only a blood red world and Nan Zhi who she had outlined out of thin air.
“Nan Zhi, I don’t want to die.” Her voice choked and tears stained with blood fell down. “Nan Zhi, I don’t want to die.”
She couldn’t hear her own voice, but she knew what she was saying.
She didn’t want to leave this world.
“Nan Zhi, wait some more…wait a bit more, alright?” Ling Xi grasped the sword tightly as if, if she didn’t let go Nan Zhi wouldn’t cast the spell to change the souls, “Wait till I can’t see you at all anymore, can’t hear you at all anymore, can’t feel you anymore; wait till my soul dies from being weakened. I will return this body to you then.”
She was selfish after all.
When she saw Chen Xi being drawn to the Soul Attractor, she vaguely predicted today’s outcome. So, she selfishly convinced Chen Xi to stay in the Soul-Suppressing pearl.
She wanted a bit more time. Just a little bit. She pretended to be a fool and ignored her weakening body. She ignored the illusion that appeared in her dreams countless of nights. She pretended to not know Chen Xi’s existence and pretended to not know Nan Zhi’s and her past. She only wanted to cherish the days with Nan Zhi and peacefully walk the rest of her life. In the end, she would release Ling Xi, take out the Soul-Suppressing pearl and let the pair of lovers…have a good ending.
“You have already waited for ten thousand years. Wait a bit more…perhaps one month, perhaps two months. Wait, wait after I died…Nan Zhi…wait a bit more, alright?”
Ling Xi didn’t know how much she had raised her voice to say these words. She couldn’t hear. She could only see the blood in front of her eyes and feel the coldness that pierced the bones inside of this seal. She also didn’t know whether Nan Zhi answered “alright” or “no”.
In the past, he would only say “alright” to her, but that was in the past.
Perhaps, her Nan Zhi had already disappeared two years ago at Donghua Mountain and would never return again.
The Nan Zhi of now is Chen Xi’s Nan Zhi.
But…
“Nan Zhi, I…can’t bear (to part with you)…”
- 舍不得:I can’t bear to/ unwilling/ reluctant. I don’t think the English translation do this expression justice. This expression is used to describe when people love each other so much that they can’t bear the thought of being apart and will miss each other very much. When LX say it, it is very heartfelt and sad.
Ling Xi felt that her tears were hot and warmed her cheeks even when her bones were cold, so cold that she was shivering. She was cold and afraid. She wasn’t afraid of the death. She was afraid that she would never be able to see him again in the future.
She couldn’t bear to part with his occasional smiling face, couldn’t bear to part with his slightly tender eyes, couldn’t bear to part with his cold and broad chest.
Such couldn’t bear to part with engulfed her entire body and mind when she realized that Nan Zhi was really going to kill her. So, she pleaded Nan Zhi to wait a bit more…
Even though, she clearly understood that the seven years that they were together couldn’t be compared to his and Chen Xi’s thousand years with each other. Perhaps, he was good to her in the beginning just because she coincided with the shadow in his heart.
In any case, for her, seven years was half of her life and Nan Zhi was her everything.
She just wanted such half of her life to end a bit later and a bit more later, even if with was only minutes and seconds later.
She couldn’t bear to part with such a man even if another woman lives in the heart of this man.
Fresh blood slid down her palms. Her arms were wet. Suddenly, there was a huge pain. The long sword crossed her palm. Amidst, the red blood, she vaguely saw herself surrounded by a silver aperture.
The wind blew very hard like a crying ghost and a howling wolf.
She shouldn’t be able to hear, but when the long sword left her hands, she heard. Nan Zhi said, “I can’t wait anymore.”
The last string in the bottom of her heart finally broke with a “bang”.
He had already waited for ten thousand years.
In the long and endless ten thousand years, her seven years with him was like a drop in the ocean. It was so small that it was invisible.
That was right. How could she be so stupid? Let him wait a bit more, how could he wait any longer?
When the soul left the body, Ling Xi didn’t feel pain. She had lost her five senses. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell and couldn’t touch.
With the leaving soul, there were also the memories that she had cherished of many years.
When she was still a child, she lay on the back of Nan Zhi who had changed into an eagle and let him go rescue senior brother Qing Kui. She scolded him turtle, turtle, big turtle, useless big turtle!
At Xuwang Cliff, he broke through the barrier and took her to watch the sunset and travel above the Eastern Sea. She lay on his back, shouted and laughed joyfully.
At Donghua Mountain, he watched the falling jacaranda by the window and asked her what love was.
In the netherworld, before he went to take the Soul-Locking water for her at the bottom of the River of Forgetfulness, he kissed her gently. He had been injured by the water of the River of Forgetfulness so badly that he was unrecognizable. She cried and begged the heaven and earth in the gap of the two levels of hell.
In the mortal realm, he accompanied her to watch a play, saying that he would cultivate into a human and stay at her side; saying being a devil, he would lock her by his side.
They watched the clouds rise and fall. They had seen flowers bloom and wither. They have tasted sweetness and bitterness.
Perhaps, this was enough.
In the end, she was too greedy and demanded for too much.
Ling Xi felt very light as if she could be blown away by the wind. At the end of the darkness, she seemed to be able to see a shattered beam of light. It was bright and beautiful. She flew towards the brightness and vaguely heard someone shout “Ling Xi” as if his heart was torn and his lungs cracked.
- Torn heart and cracked lungs: in much pain/ heart break
It was senior brother Qing Kui again.
Senior brother Qing Kui, sorry.
Senior brother Qing Kui, take care.
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