Niao Ni
Chapter 746: The Solitude of One Person
(My mind is filled with nothing but the three vulgarities, and now we're fighting against them, so let's just be direct, violent, and then... sentimental, melodramatic, romantic. I'd like to report to everyone that my favorite Wang Shuo novel is still *Air Hostess*.)
...
...
Fan Xian's left hand tightly gripped the iron skewer that was plunged into his chest and abdomen, feeling the waves of coldness radiating from the metal. As the blood gushed out, he felt a chilling sweetness in his nose and throat, and even his body grew cold.
The patch of black cloth so close to him remained free of any dust. The plain, yet youthful, face without a single wrinkle seemed to tell a story spanning hundreds of thousands of years.
Fan Xian stared blankly at this familiar face, only to find that he could no longer find a trace of familiarity. It was clearly the same face, the same black cloth, but he knew clearly that the person before him was no longer Uncle Wu Zhu, at least not in this moment.
This person was clearly that person, but yet, this person was not that person. Twenty years of companionship had turned into a chance encounter between strangers. How sad and disheartening this was.
...
...
When Fan Xian saw the large box behind Wang Shisanlang, an alarm went off in his mind. The joy of finding Uncle Wu Zhu and achieving the Temple mission’s greatest objective did not surface, because he keenly sensed a problem. To the Temple, Uncle Wu Zhu was the strongest and most senior envoy, but now he was the greatest traitor. Because Uncle Wu Zhu protected his mother and himself, countless Temple envoys had died at Uncle Wu Zhu's hands. Since the Temple had finally controlled Uncle Wu Zhu, how could they have left him in a place where Wang Shisanlang could easily find him?
Unless the Temple was certain that it could completely control Wu Zhu, it wouldn't care about Wu Zhu's movements. Based on this judgment, Fan Xian immediately ordered Wang Shisanlang to break out of the Temple with the box. He firmly believed that once they were outside the Temple's range, the Temple would no longer be able to control Wu Zhu. However, all of this reaction was too late.
A black light flashed through the air, the box shattered, and Wu Zhu, covered in a piece of black cloth, instantly appeared from behind Wang Shisanlang, killing Fan Xian and piercing him like a shrimp. It was as if he didn't know Fan Xian at all, and had never risked his life for Fan Xian and his mother, never been inseparable from them.
The instant he saw the black light, Fan Xian couldn't help but recall the scene that Lord Xiao En had relayed from many years ago. When the Temple's gate opened, the four-year-old ice fairy Ye Qingmei escaped the Temple gate, and a black light flashed out in the same way, smashing Ku He into a rolling gourd with a single move.
Fan Xian stared at the black cloth on Wu Zhu's face, feeling the severe pain in his chest and abdomen. He knew that the Temple had probably used some method to erase Wu Zhu's memory again, or even... erase it into a blank slate.
Blood gushed from Fan Xian's lips, and his face was pale, but his eyes were extremely firm. He raised his right hand with difficulty and speed, stopping Haitang and Wang Shisanlang from lashing out in rage and shock.
Because he knew that facing Uncle Wu Zhu, Haitang and Wang Shisanlang had no chance of fighting back. Once they joined the battle, there would only be death. To escape from the current most dangerous situation, he could only rely on himself!
...
...
Blood spurted out, and Fan Xian writhed in pain on the iron skewer, looking exceptionally miserable. However, he could still think, he hadn't died immediately, and he could even raise his right hand to stop Haitang and Wang Shisanlang's grief-stricken actions. This could only prove that Wu Zhu's exceptionally powerful and accurate stab had not hit his vital organs.
This was difficult to understand. With Wu Zhu's realm erupting to kill, who in the world could escape except for the few Grand Masters? Moreover, Fan Xian was already injured and recovering from illness. Presumably, even the Temple hadn't imagined that Fan Xian could survive under Wu Zhu's hands. So, the voice that echoed from all directions fell silent, as if waiting for Wu Zhu to determine Fan Xian's life or death.
Yes, no one could avoid Wu Zhu's attack, but Fan Xian could!
Ever since Wu Zhu presented the kitchen knife in his hand to Fan Xian in that grocery store, on the cliff in Danzhou, accompanied by those slightly salty and humid sea breezes, Fan Xian had been receiving Wu Zhu's stick education every day. The shriveled little yellow flower, after being crushed countless times, had finally become much tougher.
After thousands upon thousands of attacks, countless bruises had appeared on Fan Xian's body, but fortunately, he had gained the ability to survive in the world, an exceptionally exquisite movement technique, and more importantly, he was the person in the world who understood Wu Zhu's attack position and speed the best.
It was just that in the past thousands upon thousands of lessons, Wu Zhu held a wooden stick in his hand, but today he held a sharp iron skewer. Fan Xian couldn't completely avoid this stab, but in the instant before the black light reached his body, he forcefully turned, relying on his practiced, instinctive dodging technique, allowing the iron skewer's path to avoid his heart and lungs, seemingly spurting blood, but in reality, it only injured the area below his ribs near his heart.
Wu Zhu lowered his head slightly, and the black cloth fluttered in the cold breeze. There was no emotion on his face, and it was impossible to tell whether this unparalleled expert was surprised that this human could avoid his stab. To others, he was simply maintaining that action, impaling Fan Xian on the iron skewer.
"My mom wouldn't believe this if I told her." This was a sentence Fan Xian said while coughing up blood.
Immediately after that sentence, Wu Zhu was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked coldly, "What is your mother's surname?"
It was this light, like a ray of light, that instantly occupied Fan Xian's mind, allowing him to see a glimmer of hope for survival. He stared intently at the black cloth and said, "My mother's surname is Ye."
Wu Zhu didn't react.
"You call her Miss." Fan Xian looked at the indifferent Wu Zhu, and for some reason, sorrow arose in his heart, even more so than the pain from the wound. He said in a hoarse voice, "You call her Miss."
Wu Zhu still had no reaction.
"Her name is Ye Qingmei, my name is Fan Xian, and your name is Wu Zhu." Fan Xian spat out the blood on his lips, looked at Wu Zhu fiercely, but it stirred up the wound in his chest and abdomen, causing a sharp pain that made his vision go black.
Wu Zhu still had no reaction, as if these names that he should have known best and been closest to had long disappeared from his mind. Although he had said a word earlier, his entire body was exuding a chill, like a piece of mysterious ice in the world that would never melt.
Looking at this ice, looking at the black cloth on the ice, Fan Xian seemed to see a familiar soul gradually turning into spots of light, detaching from the body in front of him, flying into the air, and gradually turning into nothingness.
This fact made Fan Xian feel infinite fear and sorrow. He faintly felt that he would never see that Uncle Wu Zhu again in this life. This kind of grief made him forget that he was still impaled on the iron skewer, seriously injured and dying, about to bid farewell to this world.
For Fan Xian, who had now seen the changes of thousands of years, death was not terrible. What was terrible was that when he died, the closest person he was facing couldn't recognize him. He looked at Wu Zhu desperately, spat out a mouthful of blood, and knelt powerlessly in the snow.
Wu Zhu slowly withdrew the iron skewer, without looking at Fan Xian kneeling in front of him. With a bend of his elbow, the thin cloth cut through the air, and he directly smashed Wang Shisanlang, who finally couldn't help but launch a sneak attack from behind.
Then, this blind man covered in a piece of black cloth, without any emotional fluctuations, steadily walked over the snow-covered stone platform. The distance of each step seemed to have been calculated. He walked to the only intact building in the Temple, and then sat down.
Like a soulless shell, he sat back in front of the gate of the eternal iceberg treasure, began to guard, began to wait. This wait, no one knows how many thousands upon thousands of years it will be.
Fan Xian's body finally fell in the snow, and blood seeped out of his body. Haitang knelt beside him, futilely trying to stop the bleeding, forcibly suppressing the sorrow and shock in her heart, but she couldn't suppress the hot tears in her eyes.
Wu Zhu didn't attack Haitang and Wang Shisanlang, probably because, in the Temple's view, these two companions of Fan Xian couldn't affect the overall interests of mankind, and also because it needed these two people to proclaim the Temple's existence to the world. This was a simple logical judgment, and didn't involve anything else.
However, Haitang and Wang Shisanlang didn't understand. The two powerhouses of the human world, looking at the blind man sitting cross-legged in front of the building, felt a chill all over their bodies. Especially Haitang, she couldn't understand why the blind master would attack Fan Xian. She didn't understand even more why the blind master had to sit in front of that door, but a vague feeling told her that perhaps in the long years to come, this uncle of Fan Xian's who was closest to him, this most mysterious cloth-clad grandmaster in the world, would wither away in the Temple, unaware of the passage of time in the mountains.
Fan Xian was dying, but Haitang looked at the indifferent Wu Zhu just sitting there, and also felt an uncontrollable chill and a sense of bewilderment.
The Temple returned to peace. That gentle, calm voice without any human emotion never sounded again. Light snow fell again from the sky, and the surrounding snow-capped mountains shone with a crystalline light, as if they were not real.
Wu Zhu sat indifferently in front of the gate, motionless, unspeakably lonely and desolate.
...
...
The snow fell continuously, the cold wind blew, people's hearts were like rain and snow, loneliness had no beginning, loneliness had no end. Fan Xian looked at the fluttering snow outside the tent through the specially opened gap, his face without any expression, as cold as the blind man in the distant snow-capped mountains.
Haitang and Wang Shisanlang had painstakingly carried him down the snow mountain and back to the campsite. They had thought that Fan Xian wouldn't survive a day, but they didn't expect that Fan Xian would actually survive by relying on his cockroach-like vitality.
From the moment he woke up, Fan Xian had fallen into silence. Haitang and Wang Shisanlang knew that the emotions in his heart were very complex, so they didn't try to disturb him. They just briefly recounted the situation after he passed out. In fact, even now, Haitang and Shisanlang still hadn't figured out why the Temple had to kill Fan Xian, but allowed the two of them to live.
Fan Xian's body was very weak. Originally, after meditating for several days in this place with extremely rich heaven and earth energy, his body, which had gradually improved, had reached the point of being almost abandoned because of this large amount of blood loss. However, Fan Xian had no feelings of disappointment or sadness. He just looked coldly at the wind and snow outside the tent, and looked at it for many days, carefully taking care of his body.
According to the original plan, after they left the Temple, they had to head south as quickly as possible to avoid the heavy snow that would arrive after summer, as well as the most terrifying polar night. However, because of Fan Xian's injury, and even more because of Fan Xian's insistence, the camp had been staying behind the snow mountain, not moving south.
The worry between Haitang Duoduo and Wang Shisanlang's eyebrows had become more and more intense these days. Although the trip to the Temple had been fruitless, at least for them, being able to enter the Temple alive and leave the Temple alive was already an impossible task in the human world, and they couldn't hope for more.
Of course, they understood why Fan Xian was unwilling to leave the snow mountain, because there was someone he couldn't let go of in the Temple in the mountains. However, they really didn't know what these mortals could do in the face of the mysterious Temple.
Haitang and Wang Shisanlang weren't Fan Xian, and couldn't see through the truth of the Temple. They only knew that even a peerless expert like Wu Zhu didn't dare to disobey the Temple's orders and ruthlessly attacked the closest Fan Xian. Under such circumstances, what could the three of them do by guarding outside the snow mountain?
...
...
But Fan Xian didn't think so. He wouldn't stand by and watch Uncle Wu Zhu wither away alone in the Snow Mountain Temple for thousands of years. Beat him to death, he wouldn't do it. Of course, at this time, Fan Xian had vaguely guessed Wu Zhu's true identity, but he still used the four words "wither away alone" to describe Wu Zhu, because he knew that Wu Zhu was different from the Temple.
Uncle Wu Zhu had feelings, he had ties, he wasn't a cold program, he was a living person. Fan Xian firmly believed this, because in the dim secret room of the grocery store in Danzhou, he had seen that smile that was more brilliant than flowers, and after recovering from his injuries on Da Dong Mountain, Uncle Wu Zhu was becoming more and more like a person.
Fan Xian didn't know when this change started. Perhaps it was countless years ago, when that black-clothed envoy, in the identity of a divine envoy, wandered among the various human primitive tribes and saw too much human joy and sorrow? Perhaps Wu Zhu himself was the most powerful existence in the Temple, and in the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, he had embarked on a path completely different from the Temple itself? Or was it because a few decades ago, suddenly a sprite-like life, for reasons that no one could know, appeared in the world, appeared in the Temple, and in the process of getting along with that little girl, something was stimulated in Uncle Wu Zhu?
Fan Xian didn't want to investigate this, and didn't need to investigate this. He only knew that when he was reborn into this world, he was leaning on Uncle Wu Zhu's back, and the first person he saw was Uncle Wu Zhu.
Uncle Wu Zhu's back was warm, and although his eyes had never looked, it was thought that they were also full of emotion.
Fan Xian didn't know how the Temple had regained control of Uncle Wu Zhu, perhaps it was similar to brainwashing, perhaps it was restarting, perhaps it was formatting? In short, that ray of wisdom and emotional life in Wu Zhu's body could not be seen at all right now.
This fact made Fan Xian feel particularly sad and angry. He couldn't watch this scene happen and do nothing at all, because for him, that powerful being guarding the Temple was just Uncle Wu Zhu's body, and if Uncle Wu Zhu's soul wasn't brought back, it would be the same as saying that Uncle Wu Zhu was dead.
More than twenty years ago, during that cleansing operation in which the Temple and the Emperor joined hands, Wu Zhu killed an unknown number of envoys from the Temple, but he was also seriously injured. In the words of Chen Pingping and Wu Zhu himself, he had forgotten many things.
This amnesia must have been caused by the Temple's methods. Fortunately, Wu Zhu had forgotten some things from recent years, but remembered recent things very clearly. He remembered Ye Qingmei and Fan Xian, but today's Wu Zhu in the snow mountain didn't remember anything.
Fan Xian's eyelids drooped slightly, but a very bright light flashed in his pupils. His body was still weak, but his confidence was exceptionally full. He would not leave the snow mountain, he must return to the Temple and bring Uncle Wu Zhu back!
Because he hadn't died, Wu Zhu's stab hadn't killed him!
Fan Xian accurately judged that the Temple should not be able to fully control Wu Zhu's completely different life. At least those few names, those few names engraved in Wu Zhu's life, successfully interfered with Wu Zhu's behavior and prevented him from killing Fan Xian.
With Wu Zhu's ability, judging Fan Xian's life or death was too simple, but he gave Fan Xian a chance to live. This was Fan Xian's current confidence. He believed that Uncle Wu Zhu would definitely wake up one day.
Many, many years ago, Ye Qingmei, with the help of Ku He and Xiao En, escaped from the Temple, walking south in the wind and snow. Then one day, the four-year-old girl sighed and looked痴痴to the north at the tent entrance, saying a sentence: "He is too pitiful."
Many, many years later, the seriously injured Fan Xian, with the help of Haitang and Wang Shisanlang, left the Temple, but he didn't leave at all. He didn't sigh either, because he would never abandon that poor blind man and return to the prosperous human world himself.
Ye Qingmei later bravely returned to the Temple, taking Wu Zhu, stealing the box, and leaving again. Fan Xian must also go back. The past few decades seemed to have fallen into some kind of cycle again, but this kind of cycle didn't make people feel boring at all, there was only a faint sense of warmth.
When Fan Xian could walk, the wind and snow around the snow mountain were already extremely heavy. He walked towards the snow mountain for the second time, just like his mother Ye Qingmei's choice back then, because neither of them could bear it, they couldn't bear that person... alone.