Chapter 71
A silence unlike ordinary silence—not the calm stillness like the surface of a lake in the morning, undisturbed by wind or humans or animals, not the peaceful quiet like dreamless sleep after days of being unable to close one's eyes, but a terrifying silence, a silence born from the awareness that something immense, something powerful, something absolute was approaching, and that nothing could be done except stand still, hold one's breath, and wait.
"What is it?" Ling Xu whispered, his voice soft yet clearly audible within that suffocating silence, his white-bandaged eyes turning toward Huan Zheng, while his still-closed third eye throbbed faster, stronger, more impatient, like something waiting to be released, like a plague of cancer growing restless from being too long unfed, like an executioner who had grown weary of waiting for his turn to behead prisoners who had lingered too long in the waiting room.
"You feel something? An enemy? Or—"
He did not finish his sentence, because at the very moment the word "or" left his lips—no longer pale, now fresh and alive like a normal twenty-two-year-old—a gust of wind, so powerful, so fierce, so sudden, slammed into his body from the front, not from the side, not from behind, not from above or below, but from the front, precisely from where Huan Zheng stood, as if the wind did not wish him to be too close to that lazy man, as if the wind were jealous, as if it wanted to separate them.
And before Ling Xu could gather the foundation of his Humanity to resist the force, his body—light after abandoning everything he had built and choosing emptiness—was thrown backward several steps, his robe fluttering like a flag in a storm, his white hair streaked with vein-like patterns scattering through the air like mist that could never be grasped, and when he finally stopped himself by digging his heels into the cracked stone floor made of flattened bones, he realized that the distance between him and Huan Zheng—who had been only inches away a moment ago, their hands clasped—had now become several meters, far enough that he could not reach him without walking, yet close enough that he could still see—or rather, feel—every detail of what would happen next.
"It's nothing, Ling Xu," Huan Zheng said, his voice still lazy, still flat, still sounding like someone reading the obituary of a stranger, yet beneath that laziness, Ling Xu could feel something he had never felt before—a tremor, a strangely warm tremor, a strangely gentle tremor, a strangely… longing one.
"This is not an enemy. This is… an old friend."
Behind Huan Zheng's back, amidst the black flames that began to dim because of her presence, amidst the bone walls that began to tremble under the pressure of her existence, amidst the thickening silence as if the world itself had stopped breathing to welcome her arrival, a woman appeared.
Not with the sound of footsteps echoing on stone, not with a breath carrying the scent of flowers or blood or something burning, not with a blinding flash of light like the gods of ancient tales—but with a sudden presence, without warning, as if she had always been there from the beginning, only unnoticed because she chose not to be seen, because she chose not to exist, because she chose to be a shadow among shadows, until now, until this moment, until she decided it was time to appear, time to reveal herself, time to greet her long-lost companion whom she had missed, whom she had searched for across the universe without ever finding—until today, until this artificial hell, among black flames and bone walls and endless screams.
Her hair burned red like embers that refused to die even after thousands of years, like a fire that never ran out of fuel, like blood that never dried, flowing over her broad and firm shoulders.
Not the shoulders of a fragile girl who needed protection, but the shoulders of a warrior who had stood at the front lines, who had watched comrades die before her eyes, who had slain more beings than the number of stars visible to the naked eye in the darkest night sky.
Her eyes—once dim with exhaustion, despair, and sorrow she had never shared with anyone—now burned with the same fire as her hair, a fire that declared she would never extinguish, never surrender, never stop searching, no matter how long it took, no matter how many obstacles she had to pass, no matter how many enemies she had to kill, because at the end of this journey, at the end of all this suffering, at the end of all these deaths, there was someone she loved, someone she longed for, someone she had never forgotten even as the world tried again and again to make her forget.
"Huan Zheng," the woman whispered—The Singer, the third of the Three Cultivation Wheels, the woman with ever-burning red hair, holding a green flute in her left hand, her voice melodious yet strangely broken, like a crystal glass shattering upon marble into a thousand irreparable pieces, like a harp string snapping in the middle of the most beautiful melody, like a prayer spoken by a child who no longer believed it would be heard.
"Where have you been? I searched for you everywhere. I asked every soldier, every merchant, every beggar, every god that still lingered in the darkest corners of the universe. I wandered across star cluster after star cluster, across universe after universe, across death after death, just to find you, just to make sure you were still alive, still breathing, still somewhere in this cruel world, waiting to be found, waiting to be saved, waiting to be embraced, like I always did before, when we were still young, when we still believed friendship could last forever, when we still did not know that this world is unfair, that kindness is not always repaid with kindness, that sacrifice is not always appreciated, that love is not always enough to save someone from a cruel and meaningless death."
And before Huan Zheng could reply, before he could utter a single word, before he could even lift his lazy hand to scratch his head or yawn away the sudden awkwardness tightening in his chest, The Singer stepped forward—one step that felt like shattering the distance of thousands of years between them, one step that felt like breaking time itself that had passed without ever being turned back, one step that felt like tearing down all the walls she had built around her heart to protect herself from the pain of loss—then she lunged.
Not with a deadly attack like she had used on fishermen in the dark, silent ocean, not with her green flute whose melody could crack the sky, split the sea, and force a thousand cultivators to their knees, but with her body, with her arms, with her embrace.
To be continued…