Chapter 28: The Promise of Keeping Dreams, Swords Cry in the Night

Description

The waves had barely settled, and the second-floor pavilion of the pleasure boat still carried the damp breath of the river.

Shattered porcelain cups and plates were scattered across the floor, left untouched by anyone.

The ferryman rested his oar across his knees, his rough palm rubbing against the calluses on the handle as he was the first to break the silence:

“Senior, we are in a half-awake, half-dreaming state, and the strange thoughts that frequently surface in our minds, are they truly the fruits of our true selves’ cultivation and trials within this dream?”

Cangjie Shangren planted her spear-sword into the ground with a thud, her gaze pausing on the ferryman’s face for a brief moment.

Then, she subtly swept her eyes over Bai Ling and Liu Pianpian:

“Correct. What you cultivate within this Cave Heaven illusion will inevitably reflect back upon yourselves. Moreover, everything gained in the dream can be brought out of the Cave Heaven, naturally including the inheritance of the ancient Zong Heng Sect, as well as certain gains you cannot even imagine.”

She paused, her gaze seeming to drift into emptiness for an instant, before clearing once more:

“But your awakening comes hand in hand with this Cave Heaven dream becoming far more perilous. The evil entities beneath the river can no longer be suppressed through this Inner Illusion. Help me hold this dream together until it ends. That is your mission, and the mission of every Cave Heaven trial participant who comes again and again. And this Cave Heaven will grant you your final trial reward based on your ultimate performance.”

Everyone exchanged glances.

Gu Yun hugged his sword and gave a faint, expressionless nod.

Liu Pianpian’s hand hovering over her zither paused mid-air, then she finally lowered her eyelids, her fingertip pressing a faint trembling note across the strings.

The ferryman said nothing, only gripping his oar tighter, a faint sword’s hum emanating from it.

Bai Chengwan sat silently off to the side, seeming utterly indifferent from the very start.

Bai Ling lowered her eyes, and within her Heart Lake, Bai Yao’s voice sounded:

“Dongling Qianbei, can Cangjie’s words be trusted?”

The grey sparrow on her shoulder fluttered its wings once, its voice cutting straight into Bai Yao’s Heart Lake:

“Trustworthy, but she’s holding something back. That woman has her own goals, but they don’t concern you all, that’s all.

Oh, and remember one thing, absolutely do not fully awaken, otherwise, if a person gets killed, they’ll die. Understand?”

Bai Ling’s eyelashes trembled, and she understood this thoroughly.

For the following six months, the waters of the Yuning River rose higher by the day, and the waves grew ever more ferocious.

At night, the force of the breakers crashing against the shore was so great that the dock planks trembled.

One night, on the riverbank.

Three massive black-mist beasts resembling giant lizards were crawling ashore from the surging waves, their fangs dripping saliva that corroded the stone slabs into white smoke with a sizzling hiss.

Bai Ling naturally hadn’t let Father come along.

The scar-shaped wound on Bai Chengwan’s forehead seemed as though it had been there since birth, utterly impossible to heal.

She left only the words, “Father, it’s enough to stay and guard the house,” then stepped out the door, weaving through the night.

Her right hand hung loosely at her waist, and the invisible sword condensed a pure white outline in the moonlight, like an immaculate lunar wheel.

Gu Yun swept in from the flank, his sword half-drawn from its sheath, cold light reflecting a face identical to Xiao Yi’s.

“Left side.”

Gu Yun said only two words, his body erupting with true qi like a dragon’s roar and a beast’s howl, forming a trembling sword light that seemed capable of annihilating all things, cleaving toward the beast’s head.

Bai Ling had no time to think. Pure white righteous qi burned into a searing white arc along her blade’s edge as she thrust her invisible sword forward!

Sword qi intersected in crisscrossing patterns, one from the left and one from the right, directly splitting the beast’s massive body apart, until its innards tumbled out.

Yet no blood appeared, only waves of black mist surging forth.

But strangely enough, when townsfolk who had risen at night passed by carrying lanterns, they both saw those people’s eyes hollow and vacant as they walked straight through the beast’s corpse.

The beasts seemed like phantoms to them, yet in truth, they could still be devoured by them.

Once the townsfolk’s system collapsed, this dream would collapse too.

“Phantom human forms, or those training within the dream, cannot see these beasts.”

The moment Bai Ling sheathed her sword, she heard the voice of the Cave Spirit sparrow echoing within her Heart Lake.

Understanding everything, she relayed it to Gu Yun.

Gu Yun pried open the beast’s chest cavity with the tip of his sword, and a demon core the size of a pigeon egg rolled out.

“This is… the quality of a demon core from a Thousand-Peak Great Demon.”

Gu Yun’s gaze sharpened.

His true self clearly possessed considerable insight, recognizing it as a demon core.

Yet he tossed the core to Bai Ling instead:

“Take it. Consider it payment for the dream intelligence.”

Bai Ling caught the demon core, hesitated a moment, then accepted it openly.

Afterwards, she suddenly spoke:

“That strange, vibrating true qi on you seems capable of annihilating all things. What exactly is…

Why is it that I always feel your aura… bears some resemblance to that thing beneath the river?”

Gu Yun only silently sheathed his sword, his gaze still like a pool of dead water, ancient and utterly solitary.

His white robes swayed in the night, then vanished into the mouth of the alley.

In the pleasure boat’s pavilion, bereft of a single guest, Liu Pianpian sat alone facing a solitary lamp.

She looked down at her slightly rounded belly.

The outline beneath the thin gauze could no longer be hidden.

She pressed her hand to it in astonishment, the sensation of fetal movement like a fish swimming within her abdomen, making her fingertips tingle numb.

At night, she always dreamed.

In her dreams, she was Liu Linglin, and Xiao Yi held her hand upon a magnificent vermilion pavilion, taking in all the scenery of Chuyi City.

But the dream’s ending was always the Southern City Altar, where Xiao Yi lay collapsed on the ground, drenched in blood, gazing into the distance at the back of an innocent-looking girl in green robes, yet never looking at her even once, from start to finish.

When she woke with a start, cold sweat soaked through her thin gauze, clinging to her back.

Now she plucked at her zither, but the string’s tone was discordant, and even her voice trembled:

“Bai Ling? Who exactly are you?”

Another of Liu Pianpian’s zither strings snapped.

And yet another layer of fog had been severed as well…

“No… you’re not Bai Ling. You’re Bai Yao.”

Deep night. The long corridor was pitch black.

The roar of the waves beat like drums, causing the floorboards to tremble faintly.

The ferryman walked through the corridor, stopping before that half-closed door, his expression as placid as an ancient well:

“Miss Liu, a great demon is likely to emerge tonight, and Senior Cangjie needs to go suppress it.

But she told me something will come looking for you.

If this Luo can’t hold it back, you’ll have to fend for yourself.”

He froze the moment he finished speaking.

Luo?

He clearly couldn’t remember his own name.

Why had that surname slipped out of his mouth?

Inside the door, Liu Pianpian’s zither music came to a halt:

“…Very well. Thank you for your trouble, Young Master Luo.”

She too had no idea why she so naturally called him Young Master Luo.

The ferryman didn’t dwell on it.

He looked down at the old oar in his hands, then clenched his fingers and wrenched with explosive force.

The wooden oar shattered, wood chips scattering like dancing butterflies, and a peerlessly sharp longsword slid out from the oar’s core.

Its cold light illuminated half his face in an instant.

“Old friend, it’s been far too long.”

He turned, sword in hand.

The night wind swept across the blade, producing a series of clear, ringing notes.

Sword qi tore through the skies, splitting the frosty void; cold light flashed once, shattering jade-like chimes.

At that very moment, a violent gale erupted from the horizon.

Black clouds were torn apart in an instant, followed by a whale’s mournful cry that split the grey mist of the heavens.

Against the celestial light, a colossal whale-like figure ten thousand zhang long materialized, blotting out half the night sky.

Its scales glimmered with an eerie green-black luster beneath flashes of lightning.

Then, several bolts of lightning streaked past, and the beast—whether whale or kun—was blasted away by something unseen, crashing heavily into distant mountains beyond the horizon.

With a thunderous boom, the earth trembled, dust obscured the sky and sun, and the heavens’ clouds gathered once more, hiding everything from view.

The night closed back over.

No wind, no waves.

Only silence and darkness, an absolute solitude that seemed to stretch from the dawn of time…

Then, footsteps slowly echoed.

Tap… tap… tap…

Not only footsteps, but a strange sword’s hum as well, neither metallic nor wooden, more like the remnant bones of some deep-sea leviathan.

Luo Huai’an narrowed his eyes.

At the end of the corridor, a petite figure approached with sword in hand.

By build and appearance, it was Bai Ling.

“It’s you?”

Luo Huai’an was quite surprised, yet the sword in his hand trembled faintly, emitting a low warning hum.

The next instant, his pupils constricted sharply:

“No… your sword is wrong. You’re not that young girl… Who exactly are you?”

The approaching figure halted mid-step, and a playful laugh rippled through the darkness:

“Heh heh heh, as expected of Luo Huai’an, true disciple of the Qinglan Sect. Merely by the sword in your hand, you can discern the difference between her and me.”

With that, the figure dropped all pretense.

Black qi surged forth from around its body, its form stretched taller, its features twisted, finally settling on a face Luo Huai’an didn’t recognize well but remembered vividly.

Xiao Yi, wreathed in black qi, held a bone-forged longsword, its tip angled toward the ground, a sinister smile on his face:

“Luo Huai’an, everything Ye Tingyu did to me, I’ll settle with her personally sooner or later.

As you are now, you can’t defeat me.

And I’m not here for you today anyway.

Know your place and step aside.”

He raised his sword tip, pointing at the half-closed room behind Luo Huai’an, causing the zither music from within to cut off abruptly.

Yet Luo Huai’an didn’t even glance behind him.

His previously calm and haughty gaze suddenly became razor-sharp.

The cold light on his blade surged wildly, illuminating the corridor as bright as day:

“Xiao Yi, the greatest mistake you’ve ever made is provoking me.”

The next instant, the floorboards beneath Luo Huai’an’s feet cracked inch by inch, groaning under an unbearable burden.

Ye Tingyu was his senior apprentice sister, and the single greatest untouchable chord in Luo Huai’an’s life.

No one was allowed to touch her, not anyone!

The next instant, Luo Huai’an drew his sword.

The sword struck out, and his shadow followed!