Zhu Xian: They've all been reborn

Behind the Jade Purity Hall on Tongtian Peak is the "Hall of Nourishing the Mind" where Dao Xuan Zhenren practiced meditation.

The air was filled with the wafting scent of sandalwood, a musty aroma that blended the scents of books and herbs.

Dao Xuan Zhenren sat cross-legged on the cloud bed, closing his eyes to rest. His face looked older than it had been a few months ago, and his brows were filled with a lingering melancholy.

Cangsong betrayed his sect, Puzhi was seriously injured, the Bloodthirsty Pearl was lost, and the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox appeared in the world... One thing after another weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Light footsteps sounded outside the door and stopped at the entrance. Then, the respectful voice of the disciple on duty said, "Sect Leader, Martial Aunt Shuiyue from Xiaozhu Peak requests an audience."

Dao Xuan opened his eyes, a hint of weariness flashing within them before quickly concealing itself. "Please invite Junior Sister Shuiyue in."

The door was pushed open, and Shuiyue walked in.

He wore a pale white Taoist robe and had a cool and aloof expression, but his eyes were slightly red, as if he had been crying or hadn't slept well.

She looked at Dao Xuan with a complex gaze, filled with anger, sadness, and a sense of disappointment and questioning after being deceived for so long.

"Sect Leader, Senior Brother," Shuiyue said, her voice somewhat hoarse.

"Junior Sister Shuiyue, please sit down." Daoxuan pointed to the futon beside him.

Shuiyue didn't sit down, but stood there, staring at Daoxuan, and asked, word by word, "Senior Brother Wan, is he still alive?"

Dao Xuan's body stiffened for a moment.

He remained silent, meeting Shuiyue's gaze.

The Yangxin Hall was so quiet that you could hear the incense ash falling.

After a long while, he slowly sighed, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders, or as if a deeper weariness had welled up inside him.

"You...saw him?"

"Yes." Shuiyue nodded, her voice trembling with suppressed emotion. "In the ancestral hall. Sweeping the floor, missing an arm, so old... I almost didn't recognize her."

Dao Xuan closed his eyes, then opened them after a moment, his eyes filled with unfathomable weariness and a pain that Shuiyue could not fathom. "He's still alive. But, it's almost the same as being dead."

"Why?" Shuiyue took a step forward, her voice rising. "Why did you keep it from all of us? For a hundred years? What exactly happened back then? Why did you announce his death to the public? Why did you leave him alone... in that kind of place..."

Her questions came one after another, like knives, dissecting the bloody truth that had been buried for a century.

Dao Xuan remained silent for a long time.

He got up, walked to the window, and looked at the misty sea of ​​clouds outside. His back looked somewhat hunched.

The earth-shattering event a hundred years ago, the backlash of the Immortal Execution Sword, his master Tian Chengzi's demonic possession, his decision with Wan Jianyi... each scene is still as clear as yesterday, a nightmare that has haunted him in the dead of night for the past hundred years.

"The events of that year were far more complex than you can imagine." Dao Xuan's voice was soft, carrying the vicissitudes of distant memories. "My master... did not simply perish. And the Zhuxian Sword... was not merely a sword."

He paused, not elaborating, and then said, "Junior Brother Wan did indeed commit a grave mistake back then. But he also... paid the price. Keeping him alive was my personal choice, and also... a secret that the Qingyun Sect must keep. Some truths, once revealed, could bring a disaster far more terrible than Cangsong's betrayal. Junior Sister, do you understand?"

As Shuiyue listened to his vague yet incredibly heavy words, she recalled Wan Jianyi's hunched and aged figure with his severed arm sweeping the ground, and the unfathomable stillness in his eyes, and felt a sharp pain in her heart.

She didn't understand the whole truth, but she could feel the suffocating weight in Dao Xuan's words, and the loneliness of Wan Jianyi bearing all of this alone for a hundred years.

"So, you're just going to let him spend a hundred years atoning for his sins alone in the dark and gloomy ancestral hall?" Shuiyue's voice was choked with sobs.

"That was his own choice." Dao Xuan turned around, looking at Shui Yue with a calm yet unwavering determination in his eyes. "It was also the best choice. For him, for Qingyun, and for the world."

Shuiyue opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but looking into Daoxuan's unfathomable eyes, which seemed to carry too many secrets and burdens, all her words stuck in her throat.

She knew that asking any further wouldn't yield any more results. Perhaps some truths are better left unknown.

She took a deep breath, suppressing her turbulent emotions, and changed the subject: "What about Cangsong? What do you plan to do with him?"

Upon hearing the mention of the pine tree, Dao Xuan's eyes instantly turned cold, filled with regret and icy anger.

"His crimes are beyond redemption, even by a hundred deaths. He colluded with the Demonic Sect, harmed his fellow disciple (Puzhi), coveted the Blood-Devouring Pearl, and even attempted to use the Divine Sword Thunder Control Technique to silence him... Any one of these crimes would be enough to kill him."

"Death?" Shuiyue sneered, her eyes filled with undisguised hatred and a hint of pleasure.

"That's too lenient on him. For a mere conjecture of 'justice,' he'd betray his sect and harm the innocent? He thinks he's seeking justice for Senior Brother Wan? Ridiculous! He doesn't even know if Senior Brother Wan is truly dead, yet he presumptuously falls into demonic depravity!"

Dao Xuan frowned slightly as he looked at the intense hatred in her eyes: "Junior Sister, you mean...?"

"Tell him," Shuiyue said through gritted teeth, enunciating each word clearly.

"Tell him that Senior Brother Wan is still alive. Tell him that his so-called 'pursuit of the truth,' 'enduring humiliation,' and 'avenging his brother' over the past hundred years were all a joke! Tell him that the demonic cult he served and colluded with was one of the real culprits who might have harmed Senior Brother Wan back then! Let him live, let him clearly and plainly know how stupid, how pathetic, how... deserving of death he is!"

Her voice echoed in the quiet Yangxin Hall, carrying an almost cruel coldness.

Death is too easy for Cang Song.

The greatest punishment for him would be to let him live, to live in endless regret, self-denial, and the torment of the truth.

Dao Xuan remained silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Very well. Then... let him go to the Ancestral Shrine. Let him properly repent for his sins before Junior Brother Wan. When he repents, then... we'll talk about it later."

Behind Tongtian Peak, in a forbidden area, lies a prison cell.

It was dark and damp, with only a small amount of sunlight letting in through a small vent overhead.

The air smelled musty and faintly of blood. The pine tree, its collarbones bound by thick, dark iron chains, its cultivation sealed, slumped on the cold stone ground.

His hair was disheveled, his face was withered, and his eyes were empty. He had long lost the majesty of the former chief of Dragon Head Peak and looked like an old man on his deathbed.

Footsteps approached.

It was very faint, but exceptionally clear in the deathly silent cell.

Cangsong slowly raised his head, his cloudy eyes looking towards the prison door. The person who entered was Shuiyue.

The moon-white Taoist robe looked particularly dazzling in the dim light.

"Shuiyue..." Cangsong spoke hoarsely, his voice like a broken bellows, "You've come to see me make a fool of myself?"

Shuiyue stood outside the prison door, coldly watching him. There was no pity in her eyes, only a cold scrutiny and a hint of... mockery that was almost pitying.

"A joke? Cangsong, do you think you're ridiculous?" Shuiyue's voice was calm.

"For a 'truth' you imagined yourself, you betrayed your sect, harmed your fellow practitioners, and made yourself into something neither human nor ghost, ending up locked up here like a stray dog... It's really quite ridiculous."

Anger flared in Cangsong's eyes as he struggled to stand, but the chains rattled, binding him tightly. "What do you know! Senior Brother Wan..."

"Senior Brother Wan is still alive." Shuiyue interrupted him, her voice clear, like an ice pick piercing Cangsong's heart.

Cangsong trembled violently, his eyes widening as he stared intently at Shuiyue, his lips trembling as he stammered, "What...what did you say?"

"I said, Wan Jianyi, Senior Brother Wan, he's still alive," Shuiyue repeated, emphasizing each word.

"Right here on Qingyun Mountain, in the Ancestral Hall, I sweep the floor every day. I'm old, but I'm still alive."

"Impossible...impossible!" Cangsong roared, struggling frantically. The iron chains dug deep into his flesh, drawing blood. "You lied to me! Daoxuan said it himself! Senior Brother Wan is dead! His body is gone! It was you! You all conspired to deceive me!"

"Lie to you?" Shuiyue sneered. "Do we need to? Cangsong, don't you understand? Your hundred years of obsession, your so-called 'pursuit of the truth,' all the price you paid, all the people you betrayed... it's all built on a lie. A lie that you thought Senior Brother Wan was dead and wanted to avenge him. But the truth is, he's not dead at all. Everything you've done is meaningless, even... utterly foolish."

Looking into the pine tree's eyes, filled with despair and madness as if faith had collapsed and the world was being destroyed, she felt no pleasure, only a cold desolation.

"By the way, let me tell you, the events of that barbaric time were inextricably linked to the Demonic Sect. And yet you colluded with them, using their power to 'avenge' yourself? Ha, how ironic."

The pine tree stopped struggling and sat there blankly, like a clay sculpture that had instantly lost all its vitality.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out; only tears, murky tears, welled up without warning and slid down his deeply lined cheeks.

A hundred years of perseverance, a hundred years of enduring humiliation, a hundred years living in hatred and darkness... In the end, it was all for nothing? A joke?

He suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, his shrill laughter like that of a night owl echoing through the cell, tears and snot streaming down his face, until he curled up on the floor, convulsing uncontrollably.

"Haha...hahaha...I was wrong...I was wrong...all wrong...Senior Brother Wan...I'm sorry...I'm sorry Qingyun...I'm sorry...everyone...haha...I deserve to die...I deserve to die!!!"

He suddenly slammed his head against the stone wall beside him! "Bang! Bang! Bang!" The muffled thuds were particularly chilling in the cell. Dark red bloodstains quickly appeared on the stone wall.

Shuiyue watched coldly, offering no intervention. Only when Cangsong was battered and bleeding, barely breathing, did she speak indifferently: "Want to die? That's too easy for you."

The pine tree lay sprawled on the ground, its forehead a bloody mess, its eyes unfocused, only emitting a hoarse, bellows-like sound from its throat.

"My senior brother, the sect leader, has decreed," Shuiyue's voice was like a pronouncement, "Considering your past as the head of Qingyun Sect and your great contributions, you are spared the death penalty. From this day forward, you are to be confined to the Ancestral Hall, sweeping and cleaning the courtyard to repent for your sins. There is no time limit. We will discuss this further when you truly repent."

She paused, looking at the pine tree lying on the ground like mud, and added, her voice soft but carrying a chilling coldness: "There, you can see Senior Brother Wan every day. Take a good look at what you've been doing for the past hundred years."

After saying that, she didn't look at Cangsong again and turned to leave. The heavy footsteps faded into the distance, leaving only the strong smell of blood in the cell and Cangsong's faint, desperate sobs.

Soon after, two expressionless disciples entered, unlocked the chains binding Cangsong, and carried him, who was like a walking corpse, towards the ancestral shrine on the back mountain.

Dragon Head Peak, Tian Shu Pavilion.

The atmosphere was heavy. Cangsong had betrayed his sect and been imprisoned; Dragon Head Peak could not be without a leader for even a day.

After discussions between Dao Xuan and the other chief disciples, and with the consent of several senior elders of Dragon Head Peak, it was decided that Qi Hao, the eldest disciple of Cang Song, would temporarily assume the position of chief disciple of Dragon Head Peak and preside over the affairs of the peak.

Qi Hao, the chief disciple of Cangsong Peak, was nearly a hundred years old and had already reached the eighth level of the Jade Purity Realm. He was calm, capable, and fair in his dealings, and enjoyed high prestige among the disciples of Dragon Head Peak. He had long been recognized as the next chief disciple. However, no one expected that this day would come in this way.

At this moment, Qi Hao stood in the main hall of Tian Shu Pavilion, looking at the empty seat of honor, his expression complex.

There was the weight of being entrusted with a critical mission, the heartache and incomprehension of what his master had done, and even more worry about the future of Longshou Peak.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the chaotic thoughts in his mind.

Right now, the most important thing is to stabilize morale, reorganize the affairs of the peak, and help Longshou Peak recover from this upheaval as soon as possible.

As for his master… his eyes dimmed for a moment.