Just then, Meng Duo’er suddenly saw the corner of Baili Weisheng’s resolute mouth curve slowly upward.

Meng Duo’er faltered slightly, and in that split second of hesitation, an unusually sharp and sudden whistling sound cut through the air: “Whoosh…”

That sound!

A wind blade!

Meng Duo’er instinctively looked up, and in that instant she understood exactly what that resolve in Baili Weisheng’s eyes had meant.

So that was it!

She hadn’t expected it — and surely the arrogant Meng Wanyue hadn’t expected it either.

At this very moment, neither she nor Baili Weisheng could touch Meng Wanyue — but Xuanyuan Lige was enveloped in that same purple light alongside her, and the barrier surrounding Meng Wanyue was, after all, powered entirely by the strength drawn from his own body.

In other words, Xuanyuan Lige belonged to that same barrier as she did — which meant Xuanyuan Lige could reach her perfectly well.

The wind blade was invisible, yet powerful, striking heavily against Meng Wanyue’s chest. Blood burst forth instantly, spraying out from both her front and her back.

A single wind blade had pierced clean through Meng Wanyue’s heart.

Heaven only knew how much strength this man had spent to manage it.

And where had he even found the strength for it?

Meng Duo’er looked up in disbelief and saw that, at some point without her noticing, Xuanyuan Lige’s eyes had opened.

His deathly pale lips were entirely stained with blood, great mouthfuls of it still pouring out without end, as though it would never stop.

This, then, was the final and greatest price of that last strike.

And yet upon those blood-drenched, terrifying lips curved a smile every bit as beautiful as Baili Weisheng’s own — as though a spotless lotus had forced its way up through a pool of blood to bloom, iron-willed and unyielding in his obsession, yet at the same time light and unburdened, utterly beyond himself and the world.

Meng Duo’er stared, transfixed. Not only was there a smile at Xuanyuan Lige’s lips — even in his habitually cold eyes, a trace of laughter had surfaced.

She had never known that this cold-blooded villain could have eyes capable of smiling.

Xuanyuan Lige was smiling, and Baili Weisheng was smiling too, while Meng Wanyue slowly crumpled, the purple light shrinking rapidly around her.

Draining every last drop of power from a Five Elements body was an extremely dangerous act — should the process be interrupted midway, both the one who held the Five Elements body and the one drawing that power were certain to meet a terrible end.

A thought seemed to strike Meng Duo’er, and she cried out in sudden alarm, lunging forward to pull Baili Weisheng away — but it was already far too late.

“Boom!”

Suddenly, the purple light, which had grown so faint, burst forth all at once, instantly engulfing Meng Wanyue, Xuanyuan Lige, and Baili Weisheng alike.

Within that blinding purple light, all Baili Weisheng could see was a wall of overwhelming white radiance. He felt as though his entire body, head to toe, had been struck hard — his head especially throbbed with such pain that he couldn’t even sit upright.

Still, he forced himself to endure it, crying out, “Xuanyuan Lige! Xuanyuan Lige! Where are you!”

The moment he opened his mouth, a wave of dizziness swept over him, so severe it made him want to vomit — and when he did, what came up was blood.

He had an awful, terrible feeling — as if his entire body, his whole head, had been badly damaged, as if he no longer had control over himself at all.

And yet he forced himself, with great effort, to ignore that feeling of losing control.

He was desperate — desperate to find Xuanyuan Lige.

Back when Ziqing and Yelu Qianqian, and indeed everyone else, had wanted this man dead, Baili Weisheng had always stood ready to protect his life.

That was why, during the siege at the gates of the Western Chu capital, he hadn’t lifted a hand against him.

This man could not die.

If he died, who would play the Lishang?

If he died, how long would Ziqing’s heart secretly ache — an ache she could never put into words, could never even admit to.

Baili Weisheng understood all of this perfectly well.

“Xuanyuan Lige, you’d better stay alive! Han Ziqing needs you — she really does need you!”

“Xuanyuan Lige, if someone hates you, resents you — it’s because she still cares about you!”

“Xuanyuan Lige, answer me!”

With every cry he shouted, blood kept welling from his lips, the dizziness overwhelming him until it felt as though the entire world were spinning.

After shouting for so long without a single answer, the truth of it all was, in fact, painfully obvious.

Still, Baili Weisheng refused to give up, continuing to call out even after every last ounce of strength had left him.

“Lige… do you know? The truth is… I love Ziqing too. I love her so, so much. I fell for her the very first time we met, back at Lishao Mountain. I always wanted to bring her home — but the trouble is… the trouble is… I don’t even have a home of my own. And the trouble is, she already has Jun Beiyue.”

“Lige, tell me — what’s so great about Jun Beiyue anyway? All he did was meet Ziqing before us. Just a little bit earlier, that’s all.”

He spoke weakly, then suddenly let out a hollow laugh, his face utterly pale. “Heh. That Jun Beiyue — every time I see him, I want to kick him halfway across the room.”

“Lige, the truth is… the truth is… heh, the truth is, everything I’ve been doing this whole time was never about bringing her home. All I was ever doing was sending her home… Once we find the Lone Isle, Jun Beiyue’s going to carry her off in a grand bridal procession and marry her.”

Baili Weisheng murmured on, still smiling, not even sure himself whether he was trying to comfort Xuanyuan Lige or something else entirely. He didn’t even know why these words were spilling out of him now — words he had always kept buried deep in his heart, things he had understood perfectly well all along yet had chosen to pretend he didn’t.

Bringing the woman you love home, and sending the woman you love home — what two utterly different feelings those were.

As Baili Weisheng kept smiling, his murmuring grew quieter and quieter. He couldn’t hold on much longer — the dizziness was about to swallow him whole, his mind sliding into confusion and exhaustion.

But just then, a hand suddenly gripped his arm. Baili Weisheng startled, and in an instant his mind cleared considerably.

Yet the purple light remained so blinding that he could see nothing at all, able only to tell, from the size of the hand, that it belonged to a man.

“Xuanyuan Lige!” Baili Weisheng cried out in shock, though by now he was so weak that even his cry of alarm came out barely above a whisper.

“It’s me…”

The voice was faint, as low as it could possibly go. Teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, Baili Weisheng forced himself to stay alert, straining to listen.

“Scholar… I… I need to entrust you with two things. Tell… tell Ziqing that the matter with Yelu Qianqian was… was a demonic sound illusion. It wasn’t real.”

The moment those words came out, Baili Weisheng’s heart jolted with shock, and he tried to speak — but Xuanyuan Lige was still talking, his voice so faint, so very faint, as though it might vanish completely at any moment. Baili Weisheng didn’t dare make a sound, straining with everything he had to listen closely.

“And… there’s one more thing. The Blood Zither… hidden inside the Blood Zither is something I want to give to Ziqing. It’s very, very important. You must… you must take it out and give it to her, and tell her that it’s…”

Xuanyuan Lige’s hand still rested on Baili Weisheng’s arm, and he kept murmuring on, but his voice had grown so low that no matter how hard Baili Weisheng strained, he couldn’t make out a single word of what came next.

Feeling the strength in that grip on his arm gradually fading, Baili Weisheng panicked and reached to grab that hand himself — but the moment he did, it went limp and fell away, and to the very end, he never managed to make out the rest of the words.

A stench of blood suddenly rose in the air, and Baili Weisheng felt something warm and wet soaking into his clothes from the ground.

“Xuanyuan Lige!”

Baili Weisheng wanted to scream, but he no longer had the strength left to make a sound. A wave of grief crashed through his heart, and at last, he lost consciousness…