As everyone stared at the crevice whose very exit had been buried, all fell silent — only Liu Qinfang’s wailing cries rang out, shrill and desolate. Rong Chen Zi could not suppress the trembling in his heart; in the end, he had failed to protect her. After a long silence, the sound of mud and stone colliding drifted up from below. Rong Chen Zi’s expression shifted slightly, and he began frantically clawing at the crevice. The moment he moved, Zhuang Shaoqin and Ye Tian also drew their swords to help, and Qingxuan and Qingsu naturally could not stand idle. Xingzhi Zhenren and Yuyang Zhenren, too, could hardly just stand there watching — several people together scraped and dug at the fissure in the earth.

Gradually, the sounds grew clearer and clearer. A hand reached out from within the jagged crevice. Xingzhi Zhenren quickly stopped, and together they carefully moved aside the surrounding stones. From the mud and rubble, a corner of red fabric emerged. Chunyu Lin’s entire head and face were caked with mud, and beneath him, he shielded He Bang, who was in an equally wretched state. His hands were driven deep into the mud and stone — those outside naturally paid him no mind first and pulled He Bang out.

He Bang was still conscious. Chunyu Lin and her right hands were clasped tightly together. After a long moment, he abruptly let out a small laugh: “He Pan, we have been together for over three hundred years…”

He Bang lay cradled in Rong Chen Zi’s arms. Her voice was as faint as a candle guttering in the wind: “Three hundred and sixty-two years, four months, and four days.” Chunyu Lin lifted his eyes to look at her, and her pupils seemed to have taken on a shimmering, glistening quality. Chunyu Lin finally let a smile spread across his face: “Actually… I never once thought of killing you.” His voice was low and gentle, as tender as it had always been. “I only ever hoped that I might matter to you a little more. I always wanted to know…” He gathered his breath and asked the question that had lingered through three hundred and sixty-two years: “Actually, I never loved you at all, did I? I only fell under your soul-seizing technique, didn’t I? A person like you — selfish, cold, so terribly difficult to please, and insatiably greedy for food.” His smile was bleak. “How could I possibly have liked such a woman?”

He Bang reached out to feel his pulse, then withdrew her hand into her sleeve. Her smile was light and faint: “In truth, Chunyu Lin never once loved He Pan.” She smiled like mist drifting on a gentle breeze. “You only fell under my spell.”

Liu Qinfang stepped forward and desperately pulled at Chunyu Lin. Chunyu Lin only slowly released He Bang — he had never intended to walk out of that crevice, and only now did everyone understand why. A pulling force was slowly dragging him back into the mud and earth. Yet his eyes held a soft, lingering warmth. “I knew it… and yet now I regret it.” He Pan,” — his entire body was sinking slowly into the mud, and aside from Liu Qinfang’s sobs, there was no other sound around them — “perhaps when one has loved, one has loved. Why must we always seek to know the reason?”

The hands he had driven deep into the earth could not resist the tremendous force pulling him from behind. The serpent’s tail had already coiled around his waist. Blood trickled drop by drop from the corner of his mouth and seeped into the soil, yet his gaze was still touched with a smile, full of lingering reluctance. Gradually the serpent’s tail dragged him deeper and deeper, until not even the tips of his hair could be seen. He Bang pressed her hand to her chest, trembling like an autumn leaf in Rong Chen Zi’s arms.

Rong Chen Zi gently stroked her long hair. She refused to raise her head — her posture was as forlorn as an abandoned infant. Rong Chen Zi sighed softly, and could only instruct Zhuang Shaoqin: “Notify Daozong at once — reset the barrier around Changgang Mountain to temporarily prevent the two serpents from breaking free!”

Zhuang Shaoqin acknowledged the order. Rong Chen Zi carried He Bang down the mountain. At the base of the mountain, the authorities had already arranged a carriage and water. Rong Chen Zi set He Bang down in the carriage. He Bang had not slept at all the entire time; she lay there with her large, round eyes wide open, watching him. Ye Tian also climbed into the carriage, so Rong Chen Zi could not stay too close to her — he simply reached out and took He Bang’s pulse. In but a moment, his expression changed drastically: “You—” He Bang looked at him with eyes full of expectation. Before he could speak, Ye Tian reached out and pressed her hand to He Bang’s chest. Her own face immediately changed as well — He Bang had forcibly driven her spiritual technique, causing her already gravely injured heart to shatter almost entirely. The blood in her body had long since ceased to flow. She was still alive, but only because the celestial water spirit essence within her still held a thread of her primordial soul together.

Those two strikes of Liu Qinfang’s blade had, in truth, already killed her.

She was so gravely wounded, yet all along the way she had kept herself upright by sheer will, showing not the slightest sign of collapse. Regardless of Ye Tian’s presence beside him, Rong Chen Zi leaned forward and gathered her firmly in his arms. Her complexion was utterly drained of strength, yet still she refused to fall into unconsciousness: “Zhiguan, where are you taking me to be treated?”

Rong Chen Zi’s heart clenched with a wrenching ache. Not knowing how to answer, he could only deflect: “You are injured this gravely — why didn’t you tell me?”

He Bang clutched at his robes, her voice growing fainter: “I couldn’t say — I’d be eaten. Monsters are very fierce; whoever is weakest gets eaten by their companions. My senior brother and junior sister… were both eaten…”

Still hazy and half-delirious, she had not forgotten the main point: “Zhiguan, where are you taking me to be treated? I’m in so much pain — take me there now.”

Rong Chen Zi’s lips trembled. For a long time he said nothing. He Bang forced her eyes open to look at him. Accustomed as she was to judging a gentleman’s heart by the measure of a lesser person, she immediately decided that Rong Chen Zi surely did not want to take her to seek medical care. She tugged at his robes and sat herself up, her manner both gentle and obedient: “I won’t ask for the meat you owe me anymore. Just take me to find a physician.” Rong Chen Zi’s gaze was filled with grief; he cast his eyes downward and would not look at her. She grew a little frantic: “Zhiguan? You promised me!” Rong Chen Zi gripped her pale wrist tightly and with all his strength pulled her into his arms. He Bang seemed to sense something — she pushed against him with all her might: “You’re going back on your word again — and you made me a promise!”

Ye Tian turned her face away. Then she suddenly leapt to her feet and roared at the top of her lungs: “What are you shouting about?! We’re going to find a physician — we’re going right now!”

She burst out of the carriage, kicked the driver clean off his seat, and took the reins herself. The bitter wind cut at her face. She raised a hand and touched her own cheeks — only then did she realize that at some point, tears had already filled them to overflowing.

In stories, monsters are always apt to grow weary of the world at the drop of a hat, always feeling that the years drag on endlessly. And yet — thousands of years of time, endured through the loneliness and hardship of solitary cultivation, having finally managed to exist in the world in the form one desires — who would truly be willing to die?

Ye Tian drove the carriage onward. She did not know where to find a physician, and could only let the horses race wildly down the road back to Qingxu Monastery. In truth, what divine healer could truly bring the dead back to life?

Rong Chen Zi gripped her wrist until it had changed color. He Bang wept and wept in his arms until she was all tears: “Zhiguan, I know you are the kindest — please save me!”

Rong Chen Zi pressed his lips firmly to her forehead. After a long moment, with the air of someone who had made up their mind, he said: “Alright! Stop crying!” He pressed his face against her tear-soaked cheek. “I will not let you die. I won’t!”

The two of them had exhausted their spiritual power entirely — there was no way to summon a spirit beast or ride the clouds. The carriage traveled a full day and night before reaching Qingxu Monastery. Rong Chen Zi, while slowly recovering his vital energy, used his own blood to sustain He Bang’s last breath. Hearing that they were going to find a physician, and fearing she might once again provoke Rong Chen Zi’s and Ye Tian’s impatience, He Bang endured no matter how much pain she was in along the way — she neither cried nor made a fuss. The arm Rong Chen Zi had wrapped around her never once loosened.

The carriage arrived at the foot of Lingxia Mountain, and Rong Chen Zi carried He Bang up the slope. The winter sun that day was warm, the pines and cypresses on the mountain were evergreen, and here and there among the trees one could still glimpse small wildflowers. She stretched out her hand — sunlight shone through her translucent, jade-like palm — and she broke into a grin, nuzzling up against Rong Chen Zi in a coaxing manner: “Zhiguan, you will heal me, won’t you?”

Rong Chen Zi’s heart was burning with urgency; his feet did not stop for a single moment, yet his voice was firm and resolute: “I will!”

She closed her eyes and faced the sunlight, her voice as tender and delicate as spring bamboo shoots in the third month: “Then I’ll let you touch my feet every single day.”

Rong Chen Zi wanted to laugh, yet was nearly moved to tears.