A Boat Full of Clear Dreams Weighs Down the Starry River, Part 3

Yun Yao had no time to ponder whether the terrifying orb, vast enough to engulf the entire Qianyuan Realm, was real or an illusion.
Its immense pull dragged her soul inside.

Her consciousness felt slammed from the heavens to a cliff’s base by a raging torrent, dazed and disoriented. When she awoke, it was as if lifetimes had passed.

…It truly was another lifetime.

The first sight was a weathered four-legged wooden table on red sand, its chairs battered by time.
On the table, beside a rolled-up sleeve, lay a plain long sword. Its scabbard, wrapped in old indigo cloth, revealed only the hilt’s heavy black iron, frosted with age. In the evening sun’s glow, it gleamed like blood-lacquered metal, harboring a dull, steadfast sheen.

Without thinking, Yun Yao knew its name the moment she saw it—

The divine sword Naihe, whose cry had pierced the eight directions from Tianshan’s peak not long ago.

Recognizing it, she hazarded a guess about her temporal whereabouts.

With Naihe in hand, she was still Yun Yao—but the Yun Yao of at least three hundred years ago.

The red sand stretched from the tavern floor by this mountain path to the endless horizon.
The immortal realm had no such place, but the demon realm did.

—Scorching Flame Red Sand.

This was the Demon Realm, Zhuque City, one of its four main cities.

Yun Yao’s emotions stirred strangely.

So, the blazing sun-like memory orb in Mu Hanyuan’s Sea of Seven Emotions had brought her to a moment over three hundred years ago, where she existed, in the Demon Realm no less.

Everyone in Qianmen and the immortal realm knew Mu Hanyuan was an orphan Yun Yao brought back from the mountains.
But none knew the future Daoist leader hailed from the Demon Realm.

—If this leaked, the upheaval in both realms would be unimaginable.

Her thoughts raced, and she instinctively sipped from the tea bowl beside her to calm her shock.

“—”

The liquid burned like fire, nearly choking her.
She glared at the “tea bowl.”

It was wine. Did she enjoy this stuff back then?

In that glance, a question struck her: upon first waking, she’d probed her original body’s memories but hadn’t noticed—everything tied to Mu Hanyuan from three hundred years ago was blurred, as if erased by some external force.

She couldn’t recall where or how she’d taken the young Mu Hanyuan away.

Frowning, before she could dwell, an instinct drove her to slam the wine bowl onto the table.

—Bang.

The waiter wiping tables nearby froze.

After an apparent struggle, he turned with a forced smile, hurrying to her side. “What does the honored guest command?”

What had she done to terrify him so?

Wondering, she heard her own voice, cold and hoarse. “This wine’s so sour it’s undrinkable. Poisoned, perhaps?”

“Honored guest, I wouldn’t dare!” he cried, trembling. “If it’s not to your taste, we have others—I’ll offer them! Please, don’t be angry…”

“Enough.”

She cut him off impatiently, leaning back against the tavern’s eaves pole on the scorching sand. “I ask, you answer. Lie, and I’ll smash this shady shop.”

“Yes, yes, ask away—I’ll speak truthfully!”

“Any demons or monsters causing trouble lately?”

“…Huh?”

Not just the waiter, even Yun Yao, who’d spoken, was stunned. Was she here three hundred years ago to slay demons in the Demon Realm?

“Answer when I ask. What’s with the ‘huh’?”
The wine bowl slammed down harder, nearly sending the waiter to his knees.

“I-I dare not speak,” he stammered, wiping sweat, stealing glances at her. “Does the honored guest truly wish to know?”

“Hm?”

She turned.

Swallowing, he spoke. “The biggest demonic calamity… three days ago, a red-robed female demon—no, fairy—slaughtered the White Tiger City Lord and his followers. The city’s river ran red for eight hundred li, still flowing…”

Following his trembling gaze, Yun Yao looked at herself.

Blood-red dress, concealed sword.
…No wonder.

Three days ago, a “female demon” from the immortal realm razed White Tiger City. Now, a similar woman appeared in a tavern hundreds of li from Zhuque City. No wonder the place emptied.

She scoffed lightly, unconcerned, sipping the wine. Frowning at its sour bite, she drank it slowly anyway.

Seeing her calm, the waiter grew bolder, continuing hesitantly. “Now, that fairy tops the Demon Realm’s bounty list. All four main cities hunt her. Please, be careful.”

“Oh, the four cities,” she sneered. “Seems I didn’t kill enough in White Tiger City to teach them a lesson.”

“—!”

Her casual words unleashed a chilling, blood-soaked aura in the thin rain-mist, draining the waiter’s face white.

Thankfully, she didn’t press, asking softly, “Anything else?”

“Huh…?”

“Demonic disturbances.”

“Oh, demons, demons…” He racked his blank mind, desperate to appease this killing star without lying.
After sweating profusely, he gasped, “Yes! There is! Eighty li west of Zhuque City, a small town’s plagued by a ghost-like monster! Countless victims!”

“Ghost? Monster?” Her wine bowl paused midair.

After a moment, she turned, a faint smile curling her lips.
Blood-red, like it seeped from her lips to her pale, aloof face.
She grabbed her sword, standing. “What’s that town called?”

“H-Huanfeng City.”

“…”

As the blood-red figure left the tavern, the waiter collapsed, legs weak.
Before he could wipe his sweat, her frosty voice drifted back. “One more thing.”

“—!?”
He nearly died of fright, head swiveling, unable to find her.
Trembling, he asked, “What does the honored guest command?”

Silence lingered.

On the scorching red sand, in the heat-twisted air, a faint rain-mist carried coolness, sorrow, and a trace of tender dampness.

“Is there… a coffin shop here?”

—

Yun Yao had sensed it in the tavern.
On her way to Huanfeng City, relentless ambushes confirmed her suspicion—those two guests in the corner were likely after the bounty list’s top target.

She didn’t care.

Her Naihe sword spared the innocent but never hesitated to dispatch those seeking death.

After fending off countless attackers, stopping and starting, she reached Huanfeng City after two or three days, its vague silhouette rising amid wind-swept red sand.

Along the way, she hesitated.
Unsure of the original Yun Yao’s meeting with Mu Hanyuan or his identity in the Demon Realm, she had no choice but to follow this memory, reliving those events.

In the Sea of Seven Emotions, the more intense the emotion, the larger the orb—and the harder to escape.

The orb that pulled her in…

Closing her eyes, she could still see that sun-like orb, blazing the world white.

“Orb” felt inadequate for its vast terror.
She couldn’t fathom how Mu Hanyuan, so devoid of emotion, held such a memory—absorbing all his deepest emotions and desires.

…Not just fear, though fear was often the strongest emotion in the sea.

But something that immense couldn’t be.

She believed this until entering Huanfeng City.

At the city gate, she saw the grand sacrificial ceremony and, atop the highest platform, a boy “demon” bound to a thorn-covered rack, his clothes layered red with old and new blood.

A long spear, etched with blood runes, pierced his chest, pinning him to the towering rack.
Blood dripped before him.

Below, the crowd cheered, prayed, exulted—elders wept with fervor, children danced with glee.

It was a carnival before the end of the world.

Beside the rack, a ragged priest or witch, holding a cursed book, drove rune-etched spikes into the boy’s bones like a lingering execution, amid the crowd’s rising roars.

Yun Yao froze in the tidal clamor.

She was too late.

The eighty-first spike raised a spray of blood, piercing the boy’s fragile, pale neck.

Bang.
Bang…

The sacrificial chants overwhelmed her.

She closed her eyes.

Even without looking, she heard every spike tear flesh, crush bone, his numb yet piercing pain dragging him between life and death.
What was Naraka Hell compared to his mortal existence?

“Mother, is he dead?”

Yun Yao opened her eyes, looking nearby. At a weathered alley corner, a thin girl of thirteen or fourteen clung to her mother’s sleeve, peeking fearfully at the platform’s peak.

“Dead, but he’ll come back,” the woman crouched, glancing at the platform with wary disgust. “He’s a monster, unkillable.”

The girl asked timidly, “But he looks like he’s in so much pain. Can’t we free him?”

“No!” A one-eyed elder snapped nearby. “Undying monsters must be killed endlessly! Only half-dead can they do no harm!”
Someone chimed in, “Besides, without him, who’d be the sacrificial offering? Who wants that bad luck?”
“Pah, demon! Deserves to die a thousand times!”
“…”

“It’s raining! It’s raining!”
“The sacrifice worked! Lord Zhuque sees!”
“While the demon’s blood still flows, pray quick!”
“…”

In the frenzied uproar, the woman hurriedly pulled her daughter into a deeper alley.

Amid the shoving crowd, the girl’s “But he looks my age” fell, trampled into the filthy, blood-red sand.

…

The rain finally stopped.

The Demon Realm’s rain couldn’t wash away sin, turning the red sand near Zhuque City into a flowing blood river, oppressive in the dim sky.

Huanfeng City’s people hid in their homes, leaving the city empty, swallowed by blood-red heavens. Only the blood-soaked platform remained, with the boy demon, pierced by a spear and eighty-one spikes, shattered on the thorn rack.

After an unknown time, life flickered back in the “dead” boy’s body, starting at his brow.

The “demon” was dragged back to the mortal world.

Soul-tearing pain swept his consciousness, robbing his senses.
Others would’ve fainted, but he seemed accustomed.
His heavy eyelids parted slightly, peering through blood-matted lashes at the empty platform, the tower, the city, and the unreachable horizon.

Day after day, cycle after cycle, as if nothing would ever change.

He closed his eyes wearily.

As his consciousness sank into the numbing darkness of pain, a lazy, casual female voice spoke.
“Hey, little monster.”

“…”

His blood-soaked lashes trembled.
Amid the familiar stench of blood, a faint, unique cold fragrance reached him.

He opened his eyes.

The rain had stopped.
At the sky’s end, dark clouds churned, a faint ray of light piercing through.

In that light, on the platform, stood a woman in fiery red robes.

A cloth-wrapped sword hung at her slender waist, golden bells jingled on her wrist, and a flower-tied ribbon hid in her loosely pinned hair, dancing in the platform’s breeze.
Her features were a languid, striking beauty, softened by an unshakable emotion, rendering her aloof.

Her dark eyes, clear as washed glass, gazed at him.

After a moment, she smiled suddenly, like a vivid flower blooming in frost.

“Quite a pretty little monster,” she strolled to him, her gaze piercing his bloodied face to see his true features. “I’m lenient with beauties, even strangers, so I’ll grant you one wish.”

By her red skirt, her sword flew up, its scabbard lifting his chin.
Forced to look up, the spike in his pale neck shifted, blood gushing anew.
But his eyes remained impassive, his brow unwrinkled.

Her slender fingers tightened on the hilt, her dark eyes fixed on him, and she smiled again.

“Speak.”
With a casual swipe, the black spike in his neck vanished.
Blood stopped by an invisible force, the ghastly wound slowly mending.

“Any wish, I can do it. Name it,” she leaned closer, uncaring as his blood soaked her red skirt. “Kill a few culprits? Or… raze this apathetic city?”

Winds roared, clouds howled.

On the silent platform, the boy finally lifted his head from the thorn rack.
His voice rasped.
“…One.”

Yun Yao blinked.

She hadn’t expected such calm acceptance, no questions or doubts, trusting a stranger’s words.
But she recovered, laughing. “Just one? Too few?”

The red-robed woman tilted, her sword unsheathing half an inch, its edge sharp.

She gazed toward the city, her sight piercing countless homes, locking onto the priest.
His image appeared as a shadow on the platform.
“Him?” she asked casually.

“Me.”

“…”

The world fell silent.

After a moment, she turned back. “What?”

Pinned by the spear through his heart, the boy lifted his head from the blood-layered rack.

Beneath the blood, his face was like frost, his brows like green hills, his eyes a dead, indifferent calm:
“Kill me.”

“…”

In the body of the Yun Yao from three hundred years ago, her soul stared at those distant, snowy mountain eyes, clear as moonlight glass.

She saw her reflection in them.

…So alike.
See, how much he resembles you now.

In a daze, a mocking, sorrowful voice sighed by her ear.

Both seeking death, yet unable to die.

She lowered her lashes, veiling her eyes.

“…”

“Alright.”

Her smile faded, and she spoke softly, raising her left hand in a grip.

Naihe buzzed, soaring through the wind, hovering above.
Its tip aimed at the boy’s heart, ready to replace the bloodied spear, piercing deeper to shatter his last spark of life.

“Thought it through? This sword falls, and even a demon from Naraka won’t return.”

Before the rack, he said nothing, lifting his pale face, closing his dark eyes.

“Fine.”

Naihe sang, slashing through the wind.

Boom—

The sky-shattering sword fell, stopping abruptly at the spear’s tail.
In an instant, the runed spear and eighty remaining iron spikes melted like snow in sunlight, leaving nothing.

Without support, the boy’s broken body fell, his closed eyes sensing a plunge into an abyss.

Instinct drove him to grasp something.

“—”

Yun Yao looked down, seeing the blood-soaked yet sharp hand clutching her skirt.

Beneath it, his ink-black, beautiful eyes opened, bloodied yet pure as flawless jade.
He looked at her, confused.

She smiled.

Bending slowly, she hooked her finger, and Naihe lifted his thin chin for her—

“This sword counts as your death.”

“From today, your life is mine.”