A Fated Knot and a Final Resolve

Within the small bamboo dwelling, the air hung heavy, congealed like the depths of a still, dark pool.

Jiang Jinyue could have easily annihilated Lin Xiaoxiao with a mere lift of her hand, yet she did not strike directly.

Her ice-blue eyes had never before held such a palpable surge of emotion, scanning Mo Tingbei’s face, his collarbones, his wrists, every inch of his body, until they finally clung fiercely to his own eyes.

That gaze, focused to the point of avarice, yet tinged with a subtly hidden plea, seemed desperate to unearth from those eyes—eyes that rarely betrayed any emotion beyond tenderness—a glimmer of certainty, a familiar warmth from long-forgotten years.

This was a vulnerability she revealed only in Mo Tingbei’s presence.

Mo Tingbei clearly perceived that gaze, so focused it felt almost scorching, yet perhaps having truly walked the precipice of death once more, his heart surprisingly held little ripple of emotion.

His ill-fated entanglement with Jiang Jinyue was a knot far too complex to untangle in short order. He might as well let fate take its course.

Suddenly, from the edge of the white jade bed, he glimpsed his current reflection. Though the Youth-Retaining Pill had maintained his youthful countenance, that face was now etched with a pallid, deathly pallor; his once dark hair, now streaked with frost and snow, hung withered and limp.

He felt a profound weariness settle within him.

The Three-One Sword Sect was currently flourishing, like oil fueling a raging fire, further bolstered by the presence of a Golden Core Grand Sovereign.

All the past struggles, all the obsessions carved deep into his very bones, had now finally settled, their outcomes decided.

This broken husk of a body had, at last, reached the time for its ultimate rest.

The thought surfaced, bringing with it a tranquility bordering on liberation.

He had, in fact, burned away even the last vestiges of his meager spiritual power.

Years of cultivation, the time stolen from the very fingers of the heavens, now slipped irrecoverably from this decaying vessel, like sand through his grasp.

…But wasn’t this shattered, short-lived shell of a body, a perfect, utterly irreparable… vessel?

A single thought, like a weed spreading through darkness, silently pierced the tranquility he had sought to embrace.

To completely extract the violent Nine Nether bloodline, currently devouring its host within Xiaoxiao, and transfer it into his own body—a vessel already depleted of life force, on the verge of collapse!

Allowing him, a man destined for death, to bear the bloodline’s final backlash and madness, until this karmic debt was irrevocably carried into the grave!

This notion was so utterly insane that even he found it unbelievable. Yet, once it arose, it took root, refusing to be dislodged.

What had once seemed almost impossible to achieve now, with Yue’er (TL Note: A diminutive, referring to Jiang Jinyue.) having ascended to the pinnacle and Xiaoxiao’s bloodline in turmoil, suddenly held an eight-tenths chance of success!

A profoundly bitter, almost self-mocking curve silently unfurled at the corners of his chapped lips.

How truly ironic it was; in the end, his dilapidated husk of a body could still serve such a purpose.

Perhaps this was the karmic consequence, sown by that single moment of misjudgment years ago, when he chose to protect Xiaoxiao.

As this thought coalesced, something seemed to quietly disintegrate within the depths of his heart-lake, and a clear, profound enlightenment surged forth.

This should have been a cause for joyous surprise—such an enlightenment would have been a crucial aid in transcending that chasm-like boundary. Yet, at this moment, his mind was like the stagnant water of a dry well, incapable of stirring even the faintest ripple.

Life force was, thread by thread, withdrawing and escaping from his ravaged body.

His current lucidity was, in truth, merely a a final flare of vitality before death (TL Note: A Chinese idiom referring to a temporary resurgence of vitality or lucidity in a dying person, often seen as a final flicker before death.).

The sudden, brilliant clarity that pierced through the chaos was nothing more than a tragically beautiful afterglow bestowed by fate.

Eight years adrift in the mundane world, the ultimate poison of the mortal realm had long since gnawed its way into his very bones; and the potent venom, unwittingly sown by the Little Phoenix, was like a spark dropped into boiling oil, igniting and detonating the dormant, turbid toxins within him.

Originally, he could still have recovered through quiet recuperation.

He had been prepared when he chose this path to transcend that particular heavenly barrier, for his unique ‘Source’ was, in itself, the finest antidote.

Jiang Jinyue’s well-intentioned actions, however, had delayed his optimal window to expel the lingering poison, causing the supremely defiling and malevolent aura of the Nine Nether Blood, moments ago, to stir the residual toxins within him into a furious boil, pushing this body-consuming fire to its absolute peak…

Was everything merely a fated calamity?

Should he persist?

It seemed there was no longer any need, wasn’t there?

He subtly turned his head, allowing his gaze to pierce through the window lattice and fall upon the moonlight, frozen by the pervasive chill. That moonlight, like mercury spilled across the ground, had solidified amidst the bamboo shadows, reflecting not a single trace of vitality, just like… himself.

Very well, then. He would use this last sliver of remaining time to draw a definitive close… to this ill-fated entanglement.

A deeper, colder resolve, replacing his earlier weariness, settled in the depths of his eyes.

Lin Xiaoxiao’s suppressed sobs were amplified infinitely in the absolute silence.

Mo Tingbei could discern that the weeping was laden with guilt and self-reproach.

“Senior Brother…” Jiang Jinyue’s voice, squeezed out as if from the depths of an ice floe, held a barely perceptible tremble. “She… cannot be allowed to live.”

These six words weighed more than a thousand catties (TL Note: A catty is a traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 0.5 kilograms or 1.1 pounds.), and with each one that landed, the frost within the bamboo dwelling thickened by another fraction.

In her ice-blue eyes, the concentrated brilliance of the ice crystals intensified, radiating a chilling killing intent, yet strangely mingled with a deeper, unsettling hesitation.

She was forcing him to declare his stance, and in doing so, forcing herself to act.

Mo Tingbei’s eyelids fluttered faintly, like withered vines stirred by a gentle breeze.

He did not immediately respond, merely turning his gaze back slowly, with immense difficulty, until it settled upon the slender figure prostrate on the ground, covered in demonic patterns and grime.

That was still the stubborn girl he had rescued years ago from a living hell, the small green bamboo he had personally nurtured, watching her sprout branches and leaves. Yet now, the green bamboo was stained with ink, her spiritual essence clouded with dust.

Outside the bamboo dwelling, the night wind seemed to hold its breath.

Only the frozen moonlight silently bore witness to this silent confrontation—one side, a radiant moon whose killing intent was resolved yet hesitated to strike; the other, a decaying wood whose heart was a dead sea, yet stirred by a final ripple from those familiar sobs. Time itself seemed to have congealed.

After a long while, just as the ice crystals at Jiang Jinyue’s fingertips seemed almost unable to contain the raging destructive aura, Mo Tingbei’s chapped lips finally parted slightly, his voice low and hoarse, imbued with a bone-deep weariness, yet remarkably clear:

“Wait a little longer.”

These three words, devoid of weight, were like stones cast into a frozen, frigid pool, instantly shattering the suffocating equilibrium.

The ice crystals within Jiang Jinyue’s sleeve abruptly stilled, and the destructive aura, which had threatened to tear through space, solidified instantly.

She stared fixedly into Mo Tingbei’s eyes, her icy mask of a face utterly devoid of cracks. Yet, in the depths of those frigid, ethereal eyes, it was as if a scorching branding iron had been plunged in, the layers of ice silently shattering and melting away.

She understood his meaning.

First, an incredulous astonishment flashed within Jiang Jinyue’s eyes, instantly supplanted by a surging, almost eruptive fury!

She knew him too well!

Those three words, ‘Wait a little longer,’ instantly pierced through all her deliberate coldness and resolve, precisely striking the old wound she least wished to touch!

It was like this again!

She almost let out a cold laugh, a surge of pent-up malevolence rampaging through her chest.

Years ago, when she had unwittingly committed a grave error, facing the aggressive accusations of Martial Goddess Ji (TL Note: ‘姬武神’ translates to ‘Martial Goddess Ji’ or ‘War Goddess Ji’.)—who was once as close to him as a sibling—he had remained similarly silent, ultimately uttering only that dismissive phrase: “Wait a little longer.”

She had once believed Martial Goddess Ji’s indignant departure marked the end of it, only to learn later that he had borne the entirety of the blame for her, resulting in his suppression at the bottom of the Nine Nether Abyss for a full decade, unable to cultivate even an inch of spiritual energy for ten long years!

That was a decade lost for one who had achieved the realm of a Purple Mansion True Immortal within fifty springs and autumns! A decade for the youngest—and historically, the youngest—Purple Mansion True Immortal!

Now, how strikingly similar history seemed!

This broken husk of his, already depleted of life force, barely able to stand, was he truly deluding himself into believing he could repeat the same trick?

What was he waiting for? Was he waiting for his own damned lifespan to run out, so he could graft this troublesome disciple’s karmic burden onto himself, dragging both his ruined life and her fate completely into the grave?!

“Wait a little longer?” She squeezed those three words through clenched teeth, her voice colder than the frozen moonlight, imbued with an intensely sharp mockery, yet also seemingly laced with an unresolvable grief. “…Understood, Senior Brother.”

Each syllable was like a shard chiseled from an iceberg, striking the bamboo dwelling, and the chill instantly thickened by several feet. The swirling blizzard in her ice-blue eyes finally settled, transforming into a dead, bottomless abyss of cold.

Did she understand? Yes, she understood all too well!

She understood so profoundly that her heart felt as if pierced by ice crystals, numb with pain.

Anger? No, it was a deeper sense of powerlessness and… desolation.

He was, in the end, still that Senior Brother, stubborn unto death. And she, perhaps like Martial Goddess Ji who had departed, would yield to this damned, ingrained habit.

After all, they had both grown accustomed. Accustomed to his silence, as steadfast as a mountain; accustomed to his solitary burden-bearing; accustomed to him shouldering all the heavy responsibilities they were powerless to bear, with those seemingly slender shoulders, even if the cost was his own utter annihilation.

Even now, though she was far more powerful than her Senior Brother, she still found herself unable to utter a word of refusal when looking into his eyes.

In those eyes, which remained utterly clear despite harboring a will to die, there was only a tenderness, like newly melted lake water, capable of drowning her entirely.

However, just as this dead, almost suffocating abyss of cold was poised to freeze everything completely—

The suppressed, intermittent sobs, which had persisted, ceased without a single warning.

Lin Xiaoxiao slowly lifted her head.

Her spiritual power, drained by the bloodline’s rampage, left her unable to control the physiological spasms of her sobbing, making her appear somewhat grotesque.

Yet, on that face, which even demonic patterns could not entirely obscure from its ethereal beauty, the timidity and fear vanished without a trace, like dust scattered by a wild wind.

In their place was a burning tranquility, a fierce resolve born from embracing death.

Yes, this was her true nature; this was how she was meant to be.

She was the renowned ‘Tianya Sword Master’! She was Mo Tingbei’s disciple!

Her gaze swept past Jiang Jinyue’s eyes, swirling with a cold abyss, past Mo Tingbei’s withered and weary form, and cast directly towards the frozen moonlight, as if seeking some final anchor.

Then, mustering every ounce of her strength, she summoned the Tianya Sword, raising it above her head with both hands, and spoke the words that had been torn by her sobs—each word clear, humble, yet imbued with an unyielding weight, nailing them into the congealed air:

“This disciple, Lin Xiaoxiao, humbly requests Senior Uncle to enact the sect’s rules and execute this Nine Nether remnant.”

****

At the instant her words fell, a deathly silence descended upon the bamboo dwelling. Even the frozen moonlight seemed to tremble slightly.

Jiang Jinyue suddenly recalled what Mo Tingbei had said years ago when he brought the Tianya Sword back to the sect, to those who could not approach it: “This sword acknowledges only those who love the righteousness of the world more than they love themselves.”

Lin Xiaoxiao had not disgraced this sword.