"HOW…" Mo Ran took an unsteady step backward, shaking his head. "How could this be? It's you…?"
"Correct. It is indeed this venerable one." Taxian-jun looked him up and down, smiling. "Hm… This venerable one thought you would've forgotten much of your past life when you were reborn, but it seems you remember it quite well. From the look on your face, I'd say you already guessed at my existence. Perhaps you're not so stupid after all."
A thousand menacing words crowded to the tip of Mo Ran's tongue, ready to pour from his throat. But what escaped from his stammering lips was no more than a disbelieving howl: "You're already dead!"
"Oh?"
"You took poison back at Wushan Palace, a lethal poison with no chance of survival! You died before the Heaven-Piercing Tower; you were buried in the coffin beneath the tree—you're dead!"
Taxian-jun chuckled. "But that's not the whole story." He looked up slowly, revealing a brittle smile. His eyes were like the fangs of a most ferocious beast, ready to pierce and shatter Mo-zongshi's facade. "Why doesn't this venerable one try instead?"
His voice was smooth as silk, carefree and mocking. "That's right, this venerable one is dead. The one who knows it best is standing right in front of me," he said into the breathless silence. "Because you are this venerable one's escaped soul."
He began laughing. "The endlessly benevolent Mo-zongshi. Even across these two worlds, this venerable one has heard tell of your…how shall we put it, heroic deeds?" He grinned. "You're so much fun. I thought you didn't remember much of the past, and that's how you could act as if nothing had happened. But you do remember, don't you?"
Mo Ran clenched his jaw.
"Oh, Mo-zongshi. Did you think no one would know as long as you stayed silent? Did you think the world would give you a second chance as long as you put down the butcher's knife? Most importantly…" Taxian-jun tightened his grip on Chu Wanning's neck, his nails sinking deep into flesh. Bruised and furious, Chu Wanning couldn't say a word through his bespelled lips. "Did you think I would be so kind as to let you bask in the light, when the fire was gone from my world?"
"Don't touch him!"
Taxian-jun snickered. "Don't touch him? Don't you think it's a bit rich for you to say this to me?" Still gripping Chu Wanning, he paced in slow circles, his eyes never leaving Mo Ran's. Taxian-jun stared down Mo-zongshi; Mo Ran stared down Mo Weiyu. The past locked eyes with the present.
"Have you forgotten how this venerable one touched him?" Taxian-jun taunted. "Who are you putting on this virtuous show for?"
"Don't say it!"
"Hm? Why not? Did you not think it was fun? Were you not satisfied? After so many years, across a death and a life, don't you want to take a walk down memory lane?"
Mo Ran shook his head again and again. His expression was even worse than Chu Wanning's, filled with fury and helplessness, guilt and despair. "Don't say it."
"Oh, that's how badly you want this venerable one to shut up? Fascinating. Our kind and heroic Mo-zongshi looks…" Taxian-jun carefully shaped the words in his mouth. "Very scared."
Mo Ran couldn't hold back any longer. The sight of Chu Wanning held so tightly in Taxian-jun's arms set his heart racing with fear. He didn't think; all he wanted was to stop this devil from speaking, to bury every inch of that bygone ugliness in a coffin under six feet of earth.
Jiangui flared to life and tore toward Taxian-jun, its scarlet sparks crackling. Its light was brighter and more vicious than ever before.
Taxian-jun danced aside, his expression shifting. "…Tianwen?" But even as he said the word, he knew it wasn't. "Your new holy weapon certainly is interesting." He cast a thoughtful glance at the red willow vine. When he met Mo Ran's eyes again, his gaze was several degrees colder.
"If that's how it is…" He leapt backward, shoving Chu Wanning toward a subordinate before lifting a hand and summoning Bugui. "Come, spar with this venerable one. I want to know if I'm stronger wielding Bugui or a vine whip."
Taxian-jun ran his hand down the length of the long blade, and Bugui glowed green, imbued with his spiritual energy. Mo-zongshi followed suit, brushing his fingers over the willow vine. Jiangui blazed crimson, its forked flames tearing at the air.
"Fire elemental?" Taxian-jun laughed out loud. "I do have a dual-
element spiritual core, but I remember I much preferred wood over fire. Why did you change that?"
Mo Ran gave him no response. His expression was set, his mouth tightly pursed; there was a hint of sorrow in his gaze. His were the eyes of someone dangling on the edge of an abyss.
Those near-identical figures flew into the sky, matching blow for blow in pitched battle. Jiangui and Bugui screamed soundlessly, coursing with ferocious spiritual energy. Their clashing was like a dragon slamming into a whale or a towering wave crashing over a leviathan. Paving stones around the Dragonsoul Pool shattered, sending loose gravel flying. The bursts of spiritual energy sent the lava of the Dragonsoul Pool splashing high in the air and spilling across the ground. The onlookers enchanted their feet so the oozing lava wouldn't burn them, and Taxian-jun and Mo-zongshi did the same.
The two of them rivaled each other in ferocity, the long blade clanging as the vine whip crackled. One black shadow flew at another; bloodthirsty eyes met despairing ones as each strike and every hit flared at the apex of their power. Amidst the shriek of weapons colliding, the two of them leapt into the air. The whip scraped against the long blade, sending up sparks that lit two pale faces.
One in death reversed; one in life akin to death.
Torrential waves crashed in Taxian-jun's eyes. "Bugui, Temper Spirit!" he cried, sending a surge of spiritual energy into the weapon. Mo-zongshi gritted his teeth and did the same with Jiangui. Filled with their spiritual energies, the weapons glowed, crimson dueling teal. With an earth-shattering boom, Bugui pierced Mo Ran's shoulder and Jiangui slashed Taxian-jun's left arm.
Both groaned and fell back to the ground, panting. Neither spared a thought for their wounds; all of their attention was bent on their opponent. They were two beasts locked in a fight from which only one could emerge victorious.
Taxian-jun's eyes darkened. "Your whip strikes look too much like his." Meaning Chu Wanning, of course.
Mo-zongshi had no time to waste on Taxian-jun. His eyes blazed. "Get the fuck out of here!"
"You mean this venerable one?" Taxian-jun scoffed. "Mo Weiyu, what right do you have? Have you worn the skin of a sheep for so long you've forgotten your teeth are stained with lambs' blood?"
They rushed at each other again, holding nothing back. Taxian-jun flew like the wind, sending sparks showering across the lava roiling beneath his feet—but how could Mo Ran not anticipate every one of his strikes? Battling Taxian-jun was like fighting his own reflection on the surface of a lake. He withdrew before Taxian-jun's blade even fell, molten rock sizzling beneath his soles. Each of their movements and gestures were precisely anticipated; a hundred blows were exchanged in an instant, but both were evenly matched. Neither could defeat the other.
Sweat beaded on Mo Ran's forehead. Taxian-jun was also panting shallowly. They paced, wary, circling each other.
A drop of sweat slid between two dark brows, hung for a moment, then fell to the ground. Mo Ran ground his teeth. "What are you doing this for?"
"I've already said it. The fire has gone out of this venerable one's world. Don't even dream of taking this last flame for yourself."
Mo Ran's temper flared. "He's your last flame too!"
"But this venerable one can't have him," Taxian-jun spat. "Anyway, what difference is there between the two of us? This venerable one's hands are bathed in blood; are yours any cleaner? What right do you have to Shi Mei, to Chu Wanning, to that ridiculous uncle and cousin of yours, while this venerable one is doomed to an endless night without dreams? Why should you have him?!"
Mo Ran froze. "But you've had him before." He stared at himself from the past life. The words he'd held in his heart for so long took shape in that murmur. "You've had him before. You were the one who trampled him underfoot… You were the one who snuffed him out."
Taxian-jun's expression turned vicious, his nose wrinkling and his eyes flaring like an evil dragon twisted in their depths. He was so upset he dropped the imperial pronoun entirely. "I destroyed him? Ridiculous. How are you so sure he wasn't the one destroying me?"
"You don't know the truth of what happened at the Heavenly Rift!"
"I don't need to." Taxian-jun sneered. "Mo Weiyu, it's too late. Everything turned out fine, didn't it? I just need him to be alive, to be mine—to have him in my grasp. I don't care if he's happy or if he hates me. None of that matters." He paused. "As long as I can see him."
Tormented by fury and anguish, torn by all-encompassing regret, Mo Ran's voice shook. So did the rest of him. "You've already ruined him once. Are you going to ruin yourself, and him from this world, a second time…?"
Taxian-jun's cheeks dimpled brilliantly as he studied Mo Ran's expression. "What's there to ruin? It's the same for you, isn't it? It doesn't matter if he lives or dies as long as he's in my hands. Nothing else matters."
Mo Ran shook his head, his eyes falling shut. "You're wrong," he rasped. "He doesn't deserve that. He's…he's the one who treated you best."
"Ridiculous." Taxian-jun's smile froze on his face. "He's the one who treated me best? Then what about Shi Mei? Mo-zongshi, do you hear yourself? Shi Mingjing has always been gentle and thoughtful toward you—he's the one you ought to care for. Now, you're telling me that Chu Wanning's the best? Do you know how absurd you sound?"
"You're the one who's absurd!"
They pressed close, spiritual energy sizzling in the collision.
The rims of Mo Ran's eyes were red. "He treated you with sincerity; it's just that he's foolish… There are so many stupid things he did that he refused to tell you about. Wake up—the object of your affections isn't Shi Mei! When have you ever felt desire for Shi Mei? When you lie in your empty bed in Wushan Palace, who do you think about?"
"This venerable one won't argue that he's good for a fuck," Taxian-jun idly responded. "So what? He can never replace Shi Mei."
This man was himself, but his words infuriated Mo Ran so deeply his head seemed to ring. "Don't talk about him like that."
Taxian-jun narrowed his eyes. "Hm? So protective. Did you crawl into bed with him again?"
Mo Ran said nothing.
"You've fucked him in this life too?" He watched Mo Ran with the slitted gaze of a snake. Neither had stopped fighting for a second; some of the pawns, unable to withstand the force of their spellwork, lay curled up on the ground.
Taxian-jun flicked his eyes sideways to Chu Wanning. "Mo-zongshi," he murmured. "This venerable one heard Shi Mei was alive and well in this world, and yet you neglect him like this."
For a beat, Mo Ran found himself at a complete loss as to how to argue with this mysteriously revived jackass who'd stepped out of the Space-Time Gate. "What about you, then?" he managed. "You're now in this world, where Shi Mei is alive. Why were you clinging to my shizun when I entered?"
"Your shizun?" Taxian-jun swung his gaze back to Mo Ran, mouth twisted in mockery. "Heh, you know what kind of relationship this venerable one has with your shizun. Tell me, do I have the right to hold him or not?"
Mo Ran only wanted him to release Chu Wanning. "Do you think this behavior is respectful to Shi Mei?"
"Someone as pure as Shi Mei cannot be profaned." Taxian-jun didn't take the bait. "Chu Wanning is different," he lazily said. "He looks so high and mighty, so formidable, so self-assured, but have you forgotten how slutty he looks when he's taking your cock?"
Mo Ran stilled. He hadn't expected Taxian-jun to be so brazen; his words immediately conjured the mental image of Chu Wanning, moaning wantonly beneath him. His mind raced ahead despite himself, recalling that evening when Chu Wanning, under the influence of the strongest aphrodisiac in the world, had succumbed to pleasure, raising his hips to meet Mo Ran's thrusts with unfettered fervor. He recalled the sweat-soaked, bestial intensity of their coupling. He remembered those phoenix eyes, humiliated and resentful yet brimming with tears, fluttering closed. Chu Wanning's glassy gaze and parted lips, his helpless panting…
He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were sparking with flame. "I'm nothing like you! In this lifetime, I… I never…"
"Never what?" This time, it was Taxian-jun who was confused. He'd never cherished Chu Wanning, so he couldn't conceive of the tenderness and restraint Mo Ran had exercised in their bed. A turn or more passed before the fury and helplessness in the other man's eyes clued him in. What followed was abject shock. "Wait—you're joking, right? Have you really not…"
Mo Ran clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. The red halo hazing off Jiangui seemed to solidify, as if ready to destroy the entirety of the Dragonsoul Pool's chamber.
Taxian-jun burst into laughter. "Mo-zongshi, perhaps we're not so alike after all. Are we even the same person? Huh?!"
One was a mad dog, the other a loyal hound. The mad dog howled with teeth bared, while the loyal hound silently, shamefully, and stubbornly stood in his path. Faced with his colossal misdeeds, the look of powerlessness on the loyal hound's face was despairing and deeply pitiful.
But neither seemed able to win this fight. Taxian-jun gradually grew bored. "All right, I've had enough. Mo-zongshi, have a taste of my true power."
He waved his hand and those waiting Zhenlong pawns charged forth. Mo Ran was instantly surrounded, stuck without a chance of escape.
"This is your true power?"
Taxian-jun slipped away from the throng and wandered over to Chu Wanning, turning to show Mo Ran a sneer. "This venerable one's chess pieces are this venerable one's weapons—of course they're my true power."
Mo Ran watched as he patted Chu Wanning's face with the bloody edge of Bugui, then reached out to grip his jaw and hiss something into his ear. His vision went white with rage; he forgot Chu Wanning and Bugui shared a hostile connection. "Bugui!" he shouted.
That long blade gleamed and swayed in Taxian-jun's grip. It seemed conflicted, hesitant—it didn't know which master it should obey.
Taxian-jun frowned at his weapon. "Oh? You're going to listen to him?"
But pain burst inside Chu Wanning's skull at this call. Those dreams he had, those shattered scraps, poured into his head like a wave of sandy stone tumbling downhill. The crimson drapes, the sharp musk of the furs. Their entangled limbs. Kneeling outside the hall, hearing the snickering of the palace maids.
Taxian-jun noticed his reaction and lifted his silencing spell with a twitch of his fingers. "What's wrong with you?"
Chu Wanning made no answer. Agony consumed him; he felt as if his head would split apart—
He saw ashes blanketing the earth, smoke filling the sky, a black-robed man standing between, surrounded by corpses strewn across a desolate plain.
"Shizun." The man turned to reveal Mo Ran's face, grinning a devilish grin. Something red and slick pulsed in his hand. Upon closer inspection, it was a still-beating human heart.
"You're finally here. Did you come to stop me?" He squeezed; that heart disintegrated in his hands, exposing the dazzling spiritual core within. Mo Ran absorbed it into his own palm. He closed in, one step after another. "We were master and disciple half our lives. I never thought things would come to this."
Veins stood out at Chu Wanning's temples and blood rushed through his ears. He closed his eyes. Taxian-jun watched the change come over him and reached up to touch his face, then wrenched his jaw upward. "What's wrong? Does it hurt?"
Chu Wanning was shaking in his grip. "I didn't injure you that badly." Taxian-jun frowned, misunderstanding his pain. "When did you become so weak?"
But Chu Wanning was silent. He knit his brows, trying to speak, when a loud crash came from outside.
Taxian-jun's already pallid face turned paler. "Someone broke through the Mount Jiao barrier?" He whirled around, eyes flashing.
An almond-yellow silhouette streaked in at terrifying speed, moving in an eerie frenzy like a drifting ghost. In the blink of an eye, that figure had wrested Chu Wanning out of his hands.
Mo Ran's cry of "Shizun!" came just as Taxian-jun cried out "Wanning!" They exchanged a mutual scornful look before turning to the uninvited guest hanging in the air, his yellow monk's robes fluttering.
Master Huaizui.
Huaizui's expression was ugly; he seemed more shriveled than he had been five years ago, but the sharpness of his eyes hadn't faded in the least. They still resembled light over water, rippling in ceaseless waves.
Mo Ran relaxed. He didn't know why Huaizui had appeared, but this was the man who had used Rebirth to save Chu Wanning; surely he wouldn't hurt him.
Taxian-jun had never seen this man before, and his expression had gone dangerous. "Oh look, a bald donkey. And where did you crawl out from? Will you oppose this venerable one as well?"
Huaizui shot him a glance before looking toward Mo Ran once more. He seemed unfazed by the presence of two Mo Weiyus, his expression closer to worry than surprise.
"Mo-shizhu." Huaizui bowed to him. There were too many present; to keep Taxian-jun from overhearing, he brought his message to Mo Ran's ears with a spell. "I cannot stay long. Come to Dragonblood Mountain at once. Find me there." He paused and repeated, "At once."
There was no more—he left with the same quickness with which he'd come and disappeared. Neither the Zhenlong pawns nor the barrier around Mount Jiao stopped him. There was an instant where Mo Ran clearly saw a cultivator grab him by the arm, but in the next, Huaizui was far beyond the chamber. The pawn's hand had caught nothing but cold air.
Taxian-jun had turned to give chase when a shrill whistle cut through the air. Freezing in place, he swore. "Now?"
The whistle kept screaming. Brows tightly knit, Taxian-jun cast a final glance at Mo Ran and reluctantly waved a hand to the black-clad crowd behind him. "Count your lucky stars. There'll be plenty of time yet for us to cross blades."
With those parting words, he led the massed chess pieces back in the direction of the Soul-Summoning Platform.
This dark army had arrived with ferocity and left in haste. Huaizui had vanished, and so had Taxian-jun. No one was left by the Dragonsoul Pool. Mo Ran sped to the Soul-Summoning Platform just in time to see Taxian-jun leap into the air and sail back through that black demonic array. His Zhenlong pawns followed, one after another, swallowed up by that endless darkness in a blink. As the last wave of cultivators passed through, the array creased and twisted, shrinking to nothingness. Only the moon hung in the night sky, tinged with bloody crimson.
The Space-Time Gate of Life and Death had closed.
Mo Ran stood atop the Soul-Summoning Platform in the howling wind. He looked up at endless night and down at the dead littering the ground, dazed and chilled to the bone. All of this felt like a dream, but he knew it wasn't. Everything that'd happened today was only the beginning.
He was a ghost who had fled from death. However slow his retribution was in coming, it had come nonetheless. His sins had ever been a blade hanging over his head. They were finally here to punish him, to claim his life.
He pictured Taxian-jun's bloodshot, ferocious eyes. "Redemption?" Taxian-jun laughed. "What redemption? You and I are the same. You can never wash away the blood you're covered in."
He saw Xue Meng from his past life, howling hysterically. "Mo Weiyu! I'll rip you apart! I'll never forgive you, not in this life or the next!"
He heard the terrifying sound of Song Qiutong's scream as she hit the boiling oil; he heard Ye Wangxi's voice as she said there was not a single man to be found in all the cities of Rufeng. He saw the determination and worry in Xu Shuanglin's face as he stepped in front of Ye Wangxi—
"Yifu!" The scream drilled into his ear like an awl, leaving a bloody wound.
At last, he saw another silhouette among those flickering shadows, that bloody path, that bygone nightmare. Pristine and composed, standing beneath the haitang tree. That figure turned, and in the light of the sun and the shade of the clouds, he smiled. "Mo Ran."
Mo Ran forgot how to breathe.
"It was I who wronged you. I won't blame you, in life or death."
Mo Ran crumpled to his knees. He had fought through the night; his clothes were in disarray and bloodied in every corner. Beneath that clear sky and bright moon, he stared ahead for a moment, then curled up like a worm. Huddled on the ground, he shook with sobs. "Shizun… Shizun…" he howled, choking on the words. "It's not like this… That's not me… Please…please…all of you… That's not me… I want to turn back, I want to start over, I'll pay any price… Please… I'll tear out my beating heart, just don't make me die in Taxian-jun's name. I really…really don't want to be him anymore… Please…"
He thought of Xue Meng, then of Shi Mei. He thought of that stick of tanghulu Xue Meng had handed him when they were young, haughtily telling him he didn't care if he ate it or not. He thought of Xue Meng sobbing as he clung to his lapels when they parted, telling him, Ge, you better not be lying to me.
He thought of a young Shi Mei bringing him a steaming bowl of wontons. A-Ran, he'd said. I don't have parents either, so we'll be each other's family from now on, okay? He thought of Shi Mei blinding himself on the Soul-Summoning Platform. As those bloody tears fell, he'd said, You've never actually understood me.
He thought of Xue Zhengyong and Madam Wang. Recalled how they'd died in the past life, and how Xue Meng's face had twisted into a mask of hate.
He thought of Chu Wanning and couldn't think anymore.
He dug his fingers into the ground with such force his knuckles split and bled. "What do I do… What do I do…" He wailed in grief and despair, like a trapped beast whipped until its skin tattered and flayed. It was only now he understood—he'd thought of Taxian-jun as someone extraneous to this world, but what about him? Wasn't he the same? Was there any safe harbor for him in all this vast world; would any of his surviving friends forgive him?
He was unnecessary.
He curled in on himself, clutched himself, racked with sobs. Just as he had all those years ago in the burial ground beside his mother's rotting corpse. He'd cried, not knowing where he should go, or where he could call home.
Now, he was almost more wretched than he'd been in his youth—he suddenly didn't know who he, Mo Weiyu, was anymore.
Emperor Taxian-jun, Mo-zongshi. Seventh-generation descendant of the Rufeng clan, the lost-and-found second young master of Sisheng Peak. The irredeemable lord of evil and the kind-hearted grandmaster of good. It took a single moment for him to shatter, splitting into slivers upon slivers, each so sharp just one would be enough to give him death—death by a thousand, ten thousand cuts—till no piece of flesh remained that could be called whole.
In death, as in life, he was alone.
"I'm not Taxian-jun…" mumbled Mo Ran. He was so cold. The Soul-Summoning Platform was freezing; every inch of him shivered. He closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face. He sobbed. "I'm not Taxian-jun… What do I do…? I don't know what to do anymore… Spare me… Spare me…"
Whom was he pleading with? Chu Wanning? His own past self? Those countless vengeful ghosts who'd fallen under his blade? Or his own miserable fate?
No one would forgive him, no one at all. He buried his face in his hands, and on that desolate mountaintop, finally sobbed himself breathless. "Wh-what can I do…?"