Consciousness floated like in the endless darkness of a deep sea, sometimes touching fragments of cold, piercing reality, sometimes being swallowed by endless void. The pain was like a bone-attaching disease, coming from every limb and every pore. The feeling of empty, withered meridians was more despair-inducing than any external wound. After an unknown time, a faint light finally pierced the heavy darkness, accompanied by piercing pain, dragging Tang Xiaoqi forcefully out of his unconscious state.
He slowly opened his eyes.
His vision was initially blurry, then the scene that came into view made his just-recovered clarity of mind instantly plunge into an icy abyss.
This place seemed to be a side hall on the front mountain of what was originally Qingxu Temple. He had been here countless times before, listening to his master explain Daoist teachings, sparring with senior brothers and sisters. However, at this moment, the hall's dome had a massive hole torn through it, broken beams exposed like menacing bones, cold starlight and the dim light of a waning moon sifted through the opening, illuminating the chaos inside the hall.
Most of the walls had collapsed, exquisite murals scorched beyond recognition, leaving only charred outlines. The stone foundations supporting the pillars were shattered, the floor covered with deep pits and cracks, scattered with debris, broken wood, and unknown metal fragments. The air was thick with heavy dust, lingering burnt smell, and a faint, unsettling smell of blood.
He lay on a hastily prepared straw mat, covered with an unfamiliar Taoist robe stained with blood and dirt. The moment he moved slightly, intense pain like tearing shot through his entire body, making him could not help but groan, his forehead instantly covered in cold sweat.
He struggled, supporting his upper body with trembling arms, leaning against a half-broken wall behind him, his gaze difficultly sweeping his surroundings.
Through the damaged walls and doors of the hall, he saw the scene outside.
It was no longer the mist-shrouded, crane-calling sacred realm from his memory.
Wherever his eyes reached, there were only ruins. The halls and towers that once stood in rows mostly now only had charred frames and collapsed wreckage, like the bones of a dead giant beast. The tall tower symbolizing the Transmission Hall was broken at the waist, its upper half crashing into nearby buildings, causing even greater destruction. The alchemy room, the scripture library, the disciples' quarters... almost no building was intact.
Further away, toward the Mountain Gate Plaza, though the specific situation could not be clearly seen, the black smoke still rising, not fully dispersed, and the increasingly distinct smell of blood in the air all proclaimed what kind of brutal battlefield had been there.
Qingxu Temple, the place he considered home, the sect he was determined to protect... now had become a pile of ruins.
A huge, hollow sadness, like a cold tide, instantly submerged him. More painful than his physical wounds, more despairing than the withering from burning his essence blood.
At this moment, his gaze fell on his hand.
There, quietly placed, was something.
It was a vermilion-colored wine gourd. The gourd's surface, originally smooth and glossy, was now covered with scratches and charred marks, with even a tiny crack at the gourd's mouth. This was Master Xuan Lin True Person's wine gourd. The master was not particularly fond of drinking in daily life, but this gourd was never far from his side. It was said his late wife gave it to him years ago. Occasionally, during breaks from urging Xiaoqi's cultivation, the master would sit alone on the cliff at the back mountain, taking a small sip facing the moon, his gaze distant, lost in thought.
Xiaoqi still remembered once when his cultivation hit a bottleneck, he was restless and irritated. His master said nothing, just handed him this wine gourd, letting him take a sip. The wine was pungently spicy, making his eyes water. The master laughed heartily for once, patting his shoulder, saying: "Boy, the path of cultivation sometimes is like this wine-rough when it enters, but the aftertaste is long and sweet."
But now... the master who would hand him the wine gourd, who would pat his shoulder and laugh heartily... was gone.
He had become a star, merged into the sect protection formation, never to return.
Xiaoqi stretched out his trembling hand, tightly embracing the cold, scarred wine gourd. The gourd was very light, seemingly already empty inside, yet as heavy as carrying a mountain.
He lowered his head, pressing his cheek tightly against the cool gourd wall, as if he could still feel a trace of his master's lingering aura.
There was no sound.
No hysterical wailing.
Only scorching hot tears, like a breached river, surging forcefully from his eye sockets, quickly soaking the wine gourd in his arms, sliding down his pale, emaciated cheeks, dripping onto the cold ruins and dust beneath him.
He held his master's only relic, sitting in the ruins after the catastrophe, gazing at this familiar yet strange homeland, scarred and battered.
Fellow disciples' corpses, master's sacrifice, the sect's ruin, father's entrustment, his own helplessness... all these heavy emotions intertwined and erupted at this moment, yet he suppressed them fiercely in the depths of his throat, becoming this silent, yet more heartbreaking than any wailing, stream of tears.
He sat there quietly, embracing the wine gourd, like a stone statue frozen in sorrow, blending with the silent ruins around him.
The waning moon's light filtered through the opening in the hall's roof, pallidly falling on him, outlining his thin, trembling silhouette.
At this moment, he was no longer the 'hope' who burned bright on the battlefield, leading the counterattack-just a boy who had lost his master, lost his home, crying helplessly among the ruins.
However, beneath those silently flowing tears, something was quietly changing in this extreme sorrow and the coldness of the ruins. A seed named 'responsibility' and 'revenge' was drawing nutrients from blood and tears, taking root and sprouting in the deepest part of his heart.