MO RAN WALKED down the long aisle bisecting the hall. The stones beneath his feet were polished to an icy mirror finish, reflecting the sharp lines of his image. Each footfall made a lonely echo in the cavernous space.
But Mo Ran wasn't alone. He was walking through a great crowd of Rufeng supplicants on either side—men and women, young and old, each face distinct. He was surrounded by what amounted to a small city.
On his right, Rufeng Sect's dead and those who had wronged Xu Shuanglin in life met with a series of sorry ends. They were tortured and grievously wounded, killed by every sort of gruesome method, only to be revived and killed again in an unending cycle.
The occupants on the other side of the hall looked peaceful and happy, reveling in song and dance. He spotted Luo Xianxian among them. But she couldn't be here—it must have been a body enchanted with her likeness, without her real souls, controlled by a black chess piece like the merfolk from Jincheng Lake. Luo Xianxian's hair was neatly pulled back, and she sat beside her husband, Chen Bohuan. They looked relaxed and at ease. Landlord Chen's youngest daughter was there too, sitting next to her older brother and sister-in-law, chatting cheerfully. Luo Xianxian nestled against Chen Bohuan, daintily covering her mouth whenever something amused her, eyes curving into gentle crescents.
It was a lovely illusion, but Mo Ran's back was drenched in cold sweat. He strode down the long aisle, hell on one side, heaven on the other. Good and evil were partitioned cleanly: to the left was laughter and cheer; to the right was anguish and suffering.
He continued to walk, through fire and water, light and shadow. He looked to the left. It was a tableau of merriment, a stream running with clear liquor burbling through. Next to the stream, some read in leisure, while others composed poetry. Children laughed and played, and women reclined in plush robes, flushed with drink and cheer.
He looked to the right. Flames licked at the bases of seething cauldrons. Misshapen forms were doused with hot oil, their tongues yanked out, their hearts run through. The inhabitants screeched at each other, locked in savage combat, eyes flashing with a bestial light. Among them, Mo Ran saw the previous abbot of Wubei Temple, the monk who had orchestrated Xu Shuanglin's downfall at the Spiritual Mountain Competition. Three others surrounded him, each wielding a short, rusty knife. They sliced into his face, legs, and chest again and again, every wound healing as Mo Ran watched. The old monk cried out with each cut, wretched, shapeless sounds spilling from his mouth—that garrulous tongue of his had long been ripped out.
The farther Mo Ran walked, the more chilling the scenes became. He hardly wanted to look at either side any longer, to bear witness to the tears and laughter, the fury and joy.
On the left, a woman's gentle voice rang out: "Parted by life and death, O lonely fate—a lover unable to rouse his love's reply…"1
To the right, another woman was being ripped apart by a dog, her sharp screams rending the air.
The corners of Mo Ran's vision were bright on one side and dark on the other. Both were unequivocal and absolute, like pawns upon a chessboard, black versus white, a stark line drawn down the middle. He felt like his head was on the verge of splitting open.
Mo Ran's steps slowed; he stood in the middle and closed his eyes.
He didn't want to see these confused scenes of paradise and purgatory any longer. He stood waiting for the rest of the group to catch up to him. But the voices from both sides lingered in his ears, piercing as arrows, impossible to shut out.
"The falling leaves chase off my fragmented dream, I stroll over the ground dusted in fragrant petals of red…"2
"Don't! Don't do this to me! Please, I'm begging you! Save me… Save me…"
He heard Luo Xianxian say softly to her husband, "Chen-lang, the tangerine trees are blooming in the courtyard. Come see them with me?"
He heard Madam Qi, the former leader of Jiangdong Hall, cackling wildly. "An affair? Yes indeed, I had an affair with Nangong Liu! I'm a slut, a loose woman, a shameless hussy—I murdered my own husband, I made myself sect leader—come see who I really am! I'm just an ugly bitch, ah ha ha ha…"
They were crowded together, the living with the dead. Were they real, or were they an illusion? Were they black or white, good or evil?
The voices rose around him like a tide. He seemed to see a pair of massive dragons breach the beating waves, scales gleaming cold beneath the moon. Were they two evil dragons? No—they were his own two souls. They tangled together, roaring and spitting, clashing mightily, fangs bared. The earth trembled with the force of their battle.
The cacophony was too much for Mo Ran to bear. He clapped his hands over his ears, but he couldn't stop those garbled sounds from leaking in. In the end, he had no choice but to cast a muffling spell on himself.
When his eyes snapped open, his surroundings had vanished.
Fear jolted through him; he stood rooted to the spot. What happened? Where did the temple go—where was he? He was surrounded by darkness, a formless, endless darkness… Was this one of Xu Shuanglin's illusions?
Mo Ran looked all around, but he couldn't see a thing.
He took a few steps forward. "Shizun?" he called out tentatively. "Xue Meng? Is anyone there?"
No one answered. There was only darkness, a darkness like death.
Regardless how much hardship he had endured, this absolute gloom struck terror into his heart. He strode forward, his arms prickling with gooseflesh; he walked and walked…
He saw a pale glimmer in the distance ahead—perhaps an exit. He turned his steps toward it. Without warning, a crowd of shadowy figures materialized around him. Their faces were indistinct, but he could hear them muttering softly. Like a wave crashing to shore, they knelt as one before him. They were lauding him, low voices running together until they merged into rushing rapids—
"Praise be to Emperor Taxian-jun, long live the emperor." Emperor Taxian-jun? No… No!
He trembled and shuddered, quaking uncontrollably. He sprinted ahead as fast as his legs would carry him, but thousands of hands seemed to grab him from all sides.
"Your Majesty—"
"Taxian-jun, may the heavens favor you for all eternity."
"May the blessings upon you be unending, may you never lack for fortune or riches."
Mo Ran felt his sanity fraying. He struggled out of the grasp of those intangible hands, running toward that sliver of brightness. "No, that's not me… Go away, get out of my way!"
"Taxian-jun…"
But those voices seemed to tail him like his own shadow; he couldn't shake them off. He wondered frantically if Xu Shuanglin had captured some vengeful spirits from the ghost realm and tasked them with hunting down his escaped souls.
"Your Majesty, why are you leaving?" "Emperor, Emperor…"
Mo Ran stumbled, white-hot light searing his vision. He wanted to leave, but these resentful spirits trapped him, crowding him in until he had nowhere to run. In his helplessness, rage exploded out of him. He spun and drew his sword, hacking those nebulous shadows back into the dark. His expression was twisted, wolfish and feral. "Leave me alone!" he roared. "Get the hell away from this venerable one! Get out!"
The instant he heard his own words, he blanched. Someone snickered: "This venerable one?"
"He said 'this venerable one'… That's right… He called himself 'this venerable one'…"
"Emperor, were we wrong? In your heart, you know better than anyone who you are, where you came from—you can't run away."
Mo Ran raised his sword, taking a step back and shaking his head. "No, that's not true… That's not true at all…"
Those scattered wisps of darkness solidified once more, and a blurry silhouette drifted down in front of him. It pressed closer, step by step. "It's not true?" the shadow said softly.
"I'm not Emperor Taxian-jun!"
"How are you not Emperor Taxian-jun?" That voice was delicate and supple, like threads of smoke rising behind a gauze curtain in summertime. "Of course you are. Every wrong committed, every debt incurred, has its source. There's only you—you can't run away…"
"But it's over!" Mo Ran stared at that inchoate mass of darkness. "It's over! Taxian-jun died in front of the Heaven-Piercing Tower! He lay down in the grave—he's got nothing to do with me! I'm just… I'm just…"
The shadow gave a quiet laugh, tender as a flower's pistil. "You're just what?"
Mo Ran couldn't say.
"You're just a soul who found his way back?" the shadow asked. "Just a body that retained a few memories? You're just an innocent living in the shadow of Taxian-jun? Or…could it be that it was all just a dream?"
Mo Ran had been seized by fury and fear a moment ago, but now his heart iced over, the blood in his veins frozen solid. His mind stalled; his lips opened and shut, but he couldn't string together a sentence. At length, he squeezed a single broken word from his aching throat. "Dream?"
"You thought you'd been reborn this entire time. But who can say for sure? Why do you think what you perceive is the truth? Who's more real right now—you or I?" That cloud of dark smoke coiled around him, its outline growing sharper. "You said you died in front of the Heaven-Piercing Tower, but look—you're standing here right now, alive and well… Are you so sure you died?"
Mo Ran glared at the smoky figure. He wasn't shaking anymore; he only felt cold. As if he'd fallen into a cavern of ice, plummeted into a fathomless abyss. He was so, so cold.
Was he so sure he'd died?
The desolate chill of Wushan Palace seemed to seep back into his bones. The torches of the rebel army raised by the ten great sects wound around the mountain like a massive snake, writhing and hissing, ready to snap his neck.
It was like Xue Meng had just been standing before him, tearful and bereft, spitting ruthless words at him. "Mo Ran, give my shizun back to me."
Was he so sure he'd died?
He remembered taking the poison, he remembered agony tearing through his insides. He had staggered to the Heaven-Piercing Tower and used the last of his strength to climb into the freshly dug grave, to lie down in that coffin. The haitang blossoms had unfurled so gently, scattering their soft fragrance as the shadows danced and played with the light.
He had closed his eyes…
"You opened your eyes. You awoke the year you turned sixteen, when everything could still be turned back—isn't that right?"
As though it could read every thought in his heart, that shadow snickered softly. "You returned—Sisheng Peak hasn't yet fallen, and though Rufeng Sect burned again, you weren't the one to set the fire this time. Ye Wangxi isn't dead; neither is Shi Mingjing. You came to understand your own heart and fell in love with Chu Wanning. After you became Mo- zongshi, he accepted you. You think you've thrown off the past—you fancy yourself a righteous leader, a proper cultivator, a hero of his generation who's climbed this mountain to capture the cruel villain Xu Shuanglin—"
Silence followed. The artery in Mo Ran's neck throbbed wildly in concert with his skittering pulse. The shadow had no face, but it was staring at him nevertheless; Mo Ran knew that it was.
"You've got quite the imagination."
It was like a cold blade sinking into his heart, venomous fangs piercing his throat. Despair spread through him like poison—like the poison he'd swallowed at the age of thirty-two. It radiated outward…seeping into his gut…his heart…
"You were never reborn. They're dead, all of them are dead. Xue Meng is still alive, but he hates you to the bone," said the shadow. "Now, you've woken from your dream. Open your eyes, Taxian-jun. You are still the lord of darkness."
"No… No, I'm not…"
Mo Ran could hear someone speaking. That voice was feeble and broken, as if it had been shattered and glued back together. In belated shock, he realized the person making those sounds was him. He summoned courage from every crevice of his bones, every drop of his blood. He opened his eyes wide, a frenzied, desperate light jumping in them—
"You lie! That's impossible! Impossible! "
He lunged with his sword, gasping madly for air. The dark smoke dissipated again, but its voice was steady as ever. "Lie?" A low chuckle. "Your Majesty, why don't you take a look at what's in your hand?"