A’Han’s expression was sorrowful, the glimmer of tears faintly visible in his eyes. He had been silently watching Nusù’s back all along, and had not anticipated that she would turn her head and seek him out with her gaze. He was stunned for a moment, momentarily at a loss as to how to respond. But Yuan Jue and Qing Xuzi were both startled and overjoyed — they hurried forward two steps and drew close to examine Nusù carefully. They saw that her contorted features had restored to their original appearance, the ferocious aura having receded and vanished. The blood-vessel markings on her deathly pale cheeks flickered in and out of visibility, and within her dark pupils, a shifting gleam floated as she stared fixedly at A’Han, her expression actually carrying a trace of bewilderment.
The hearts of the two men ached beyond measure. They called out in hoarse voices: “A’Ling—”
The moment the words left his mouth, Qing Xuzi realized he was still binding A’Ling with a straw rope. After a moment’s hesitation, he drew the rope back and set her free for the time being.
Nusù gave no response to the calls of Yuan Jue and Qing Xuzi. She only tilted her head and gazed at A’Han. After a short while, her rigid features finally showed a reaction — her withered, dried lips parted slightly, as if trying to produce a sound. But her throat had long since rotted away, and so she could only raise one withered arm straight up and attempt to touch A’Han’s cheek.
Yet she was by now a body that was half ghost and half demon. With her murderous energy suppressed, she and A’Han’s pure yang constitution were in elemental opposition. Before she could even make contact with A’Han’s body, the intense cold and dark energy emanating from her entire form sent A’Han lurching backward a great distance.
“Mother—” The tears finally streamed down A’Han’s face in torrents. He knelt bolt upright and shuffled forward on his knees one step at a time until he was at Nusù’s feet. Heedless of the murderous cold energy that seeped into his body, heedless of the powerful stench of rot and decay emanating from her, he wrapped his arms tightly around her tattered black robes and wept aloud in anguish. “Mother, Mother, my name is A’Han. After you gave birth to me, you left before you had the chance to give me a name — this name was given to me by my Master. Look at me, call me by my name. I have missed you so.”
Qin Yao listened to her Shixiong’s desperate cries, one after another, and her heart clenched into a tight knot. She thought of how her Shixiong, though simple-minded when they were young, had once asked their Master why he had no mother like A’Yao did — and how every time Mother came to the Taoist abbey to bring her food, he would stand to one side watching with yearning eyes, his fingers in his mouth, full of envy.
At this thought, her tears finally could no longer be contained and fell in streams.
Liu Bingyu had first been frightened half to death by the scene of everyone suppressing Nusù, but when she heard the Emperor recount the truth of those years past through tear-stained cries, she was struck with astonishment. She cared nothing for the others — she could only think of how A’Han had been forcibly separated from his mother the moment he was born, and how now that they had finally managed to meet, it was yet another parting of life and death. Her heart aching for him, she too wept until she could barely catch her breath.
Nusù struggled to press her hand against A’Han’s cheek. She had clearly regained some consciousness, yet she and A’Han were incompatible in their very natures — the moment she touched him, A’Han could not help shuddering violently, sustained only by a surge of inner energy.
Even so, Nusù still stubbornly kept her fingers extended, utterly unwilling to withdraw them. As if she could not understand why, though she was so close to the person before her, the act of touching him should be so terribly difficult.
The Emperor, eyes red with weeping, stumbled to Nusù’s side and repeatedly called her name in a low voice, but Nusù never once turned her head to look at him.
He was consumed by both pain and remorse. Combined with the corpse poison in his leg, which had by now gradually infiltrated his heart meridians, he felt wave after wave of dizziness before his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak again — and then black fog suddenly shrouded his vision, and he toppled straight backward. The Duke of Luo and the others scrambled frantically to catch the Emperor and hold him upright.
Qing Xuzi and Yuan Jue, having watched A’Han and his mother recognize each other, had long since been reduced to silent tears streaming down their aged faces. They had been standing to one side weeping without sound for a while when they looked up and noticed the black clouds that had been blanketing Chang’an’s skies showing signs of gradually dispersing. Both were startled. They both knew that after A’Ling had become Nusù, the heavens and earth no longer tolerated her existence, and the only thing that could protect her was the murderous energy that filled her body. Now that her murderous energy had been neutralized by A’Han’s fingertip blood, she was no longer capable of summoning the dark apparitions that filled the city to contend with the righteous energy of heaven and earth. Before long, the skies above Chang’an would soon see daylight again. When the light of day illuminated the land and darkness had nowhere to hide, A’Ling would inevitably suffer harm.
The moment the two men thought this through, they could only find it bitterly ironic. In all their years of dealing with evil demons, they had never once hoped as they did now that night would continue and daylight would never come. Forcibly wiping their tears, they turned to A’Han and said: “A’Han, we must cast a sealing array to temporarily confine your mother beneath the earth. After we have set up the proper formation, we will then give your mother a proper sendoff. She was kind and upright in life and never once acted against her conscience — she should not have fallen into the demonic path, and she should not be left to a fate of being unable to reincarnate.”
The Emperor, upon hearing these words, had a sudden gleam of light in his previously dim eyes. He pushed away the Duke of Luo and the others, rose to his feet, and walked to the two men’s side. In a ragged voice, he asked: “Is there any method to help A’Hui reincarnate?”
Yuan Jue’s gaze was ice-cold, and he made no reply. Qing Xuzi was even less willing to say a word more to the Emperor than necessary, but thinking that properly settling A’Ling’s affairs would require this man’s assistance, he had no choice but to forcibly suppress the resentment churning in his heart, and said impassively: “The Side Consort Hui was unjustly caused to become an evil demon and slaughtered many innocent people. By rights, someone with hands so soaked in blood cannot reenter the cycle of reincarnation — their fate can only be eternal imprisonment within the underworld. Unless someone were to exchange their life fate with hers. But to forcibly exchange the life fate of an innocent person would violate the Way of Heaven. After much consideration, the only truly fitting candidate is the one who first caused this disaster and is the most responsible for all that followed—”
Everyone present was intelligent, and the moment these words were spoken, they immediately grasped that the culprit Qing Xuzi spoke of was Consort Yi.
Consort Yi was so frightened her face turned ghastly white. So this wretched Daoist had been plotting such a scheme — she was so furious she shook from head to toe. On what grounds should she exchange life fates with that lowly woman?
She had entirely forgotten how she had just been begging Qing Xuzi to save her two children, and screamed in a sharp, piercing voice: “You wretched Daoist! May you come to a wretched end! May you come to a wretched end!”
“In addition to this,” Yuan Jue raised his voice at the opportune moment, cutting through Consort Yi’s screams without haste, and continued: “Because this chief culprit has herself harmed others, even if the soul exchange is successfully completed, since her life fate carries the stain of sin, this humble monk must still conduct one hundred ritual ceremonies to help cleanse away the remaining taint. And whether it is the soul-exchange formation or the hundreds of ritual ceremonies that follow, all will require enormous manpower and material resources to sustain, and they must not be interrupted halfway.”
The Emperor’s voice was choked with grief. In a hoarse voice he said: “As long as it can spare A’Hui from further indignity, whatever Your Eminence requires of me, I will devote all my efforts to fulfilling it.”
Yuan Jue nodded and called out to the disciples in the courtyard to maintain the golden gong net to prevent the demonic nature within Consort Hui’s body from erupting again. Only then did he turn to the Emperor and say: “Please, Your Majesty, a word in private.”
Even as her Master began speaking of the soul exchange, Qin Yao had already guessed that what he referred to was the ancient soul-exchange formation he had once mentioned to her. She was somewhat taken aback at first, but then felt the brooding resentment that had been coiled in her chest dissipate considerably. Watching her Master and Yuan Jue discuss how to perform the ritual, she couldn’t help feeling a surge of eager anticipation, and thought inwardly that when the time came to actually lay the formation, she absolutely must participate from start to finish. For one thing, it would allow her to properly help her Shixiong give Consort Hui a good send-off on her new journey; for another, she could witness with her own eyes what end that vicious woman Consort Yi would come to.
While lost in these thoughts, a wave of intense nausea surged up from her stomach, scattering her train of thought.
Throughout the preceding events, Lin Xiao had remained alert against Consort Hui launching another attack. Though his hand held Qin Yao’s tightly, his eyes had been fixed on Consort Hui the entire time. He suddenly felt Qin Yao’s hand turn unnaturally cold, and turned to look — only to see Qin Yao’s face drained of color, her eyes tightly shut, her delicate brows knitted in pain. His heart lurched, and he asked in a low voice: “What’s wrong?”
Qin Yao felt that the moment she opened her mouth, she would be overtaken by a surging, roiling nausea, and dared not say a word. She only shook her head hard, gritting her teeth.
Lin Xiao could see that something was wrong with Qin Yao. He looked around briefly — in all the chaos when they had arrived, not a single person among those present had any medical skill. And even if they left the academy, who knew how chaotic the entire city of Chang’an had already become. He wanted to go out and find a physician, but feared that Nusù’s demonic nature might flare up again and harm Qin Yao and the others. A sense of anxiety unlike anything he had felt before gripped him. Not wanting to add to Qin Yao’s distress, he dared not let it show, and forced himself to stay calm. In a gentle voice he said: “Yao’er, bear with it a little longer. If the Daoists don’t need my help in suppressing Nusù, I’ll go outside and find you a physician.”
Qin Yao clutched his front lapel, clearly unwilling to let him leave her side even for a moment, and shook her head. In a low voice she said: “Don’t go. I just feel a little nauseous — it might be because I caught a chill on the road coming here. I’m already feeling better now.”
Qu Chen Shi was desperately anxious as she watched her daughter, but having heard these words, she suddenly recalled the suspicion she had harbored earlier. Not wishing to ask her daughter in detail in front of everyone, she leaned close to her ear and quietly asked a few questions.
Qin Yao did not understand what her mother was getting at and nodded in response to each question. When she heard the last one, she glanced at her mother in mild surprise, a coy expression crossing her face, and she gave a shy, red-faced hum of acknowledgment.
Qu Chen Shi was at once overjoyed and worried, and lowered her voice to say: “You foolish child, this of yours is likely not a chill you’ve caught, but rather—”
But for fear of causing another embarrassment the way she had last time and making Qin Yao feel mortified, she forced herself to swallow the next sentence down.
Qin Yao and Lin Xiao both found Qu Chen Shi’s manner strange, and were just about to ask what she meant, when they felt the murderous energy around them grow heavy and dense once more — Yuan Jue had already led his disciples to encircle Consort Hui within a formation. Amid a resonant chorus of Buddhist invocations, A’Han knelt outside the formation with tear-blurred eyes, continuously prostrating himself with deep, repeated bows, and wept to Consort Hui, who was desperately trying to surge through the formation to reach his side: “Mother, rest easy within the formation. The Venerable Monks are not trying to harm you — they are trying to help you. Rest assured — before you return to the cycle of reincarnation, your son will guard you without leaving your side for even a single step.”