Safety

Chapter 62

I wasn't afraid at all. I just opened my mouth, and my hoarse voice sounded unfamiliar even to myself.

I said, "It's no use, you're not what I want!"

The door was flung open with a bang, and someone stood in the doorway, dressed in pristine white. A man in blue rushed in, panting, "Mr. Wen, you can't..."

Wende didn't say a word of politeness, he just reached out his hand to me.

A very light breeze brushed past my ear; it was Mo Li, who leaped in front of me in an instant. He had changed into a scarlet outfit in his usual spot, just like when I first met him. Because we were so close, the hem of his robe brushed against my face as he landed, a cool, refreshing sensation.

"Qingyi, get out."

The woman in green seemed to hesitate for a moment, but she still retreated. However, she only retreated a few feet outside the door and stopped. She didn't close the door, but put her hands in her sleeves and stared at the situation inside the room, looking as if she were facing a formidable enemy.

Mo Li spoke again, "If you can't stop him by guarding the door, do you expect others to come and go as they please?"

The man in green turned pale, bowed slightly, and then silently turned and left.

The courtyard fell silent. Mo Li remained silent, and Wen De was also quiet. The air seemed to be frozen, making it difficult to breathe.

“Mr. Mo, I’m here to take her away. Please be lenient and don’t stop me,” Wen De spoke first.

"Break down the door?" Mo Li sneered.

"I was in a hurry, I'm sorry."

"Where is the person Mr. Wen is looking for?" Mo Li didn't move. I was shrouded in his shadow, a narrow, black net with no way out.

Wende glanced at me and said bluntly, "Ping An, come here."

I was shocked.

"Don't even think about it." Mo Li suddenly spoke, his voice turning cold.

“Mr. Mo, there may have been some misunderstandings between you and Ping An in the past, but she has now come to her senses and has expressed remorse. Since that is the case, why do you have to force her to do something against her will?”

I listened blankly, wondering when my master had become so eloquent.

Mo Li remained silent, then suddenly turned to face me, leaving his back wide open to Wen De, and simply looked at me.

He spoke, his voice hoarse, asking me in a few short words, "You regret it?"

I started trembling under his gaze, trembling so violently that even my simple military robe rustled.

"Ping An, come here." Master's voice rang out again. I turned my head sharply and saw only one hand he was extending towards me.

I had lost the ability to think. Like a drowning person grabbing at anything that appeared before me, I lurched forward and desperately grabbed that white hand.

My wrist was suddenly touched by cold fingers. Before I could react, there was a muffled thud beside me, and a shockwave almost sent me flying. When I looked up, I found myself being led outside by Wende. The room was a mess. The sheet of Xuan paper that had been on the table was instantly shattered in the shockwave, and pieces of it fell down, landing on the face and body of the person standing in the room, fluttering like a sudden snowfall.

Wende's robe sleeves were still swollen, moving without wind in the twilight, as if they had gathered a great deal of internal energy. After carrying me backward into the courtyard, he immediately leaped up and jumped onto the roof in the blink of an eye.

With a loud bang, Qingyi rushed in from outside the gate, hurrying to get into the house. My vision was blurry, my body felt like it had been stripped of its bones, and Wende was holding my hand, leaving me with no ability to resist.

The last scene I could see burned like a branding iron into my nerves, causing me to involuntarily groan. My body also began to struggle involuntarily.

Suddenly, a cold sound drilled into my ears, like an ice drill piercing deep into my body.

It was Wende who whispered in my ear, "Don't turn around, that's not him!"

All my movements froze in an instant. Wen De leaped up again, and Qing Cheng's Cloud Soaring Skill was so extraordinary that in the blink of an eye, he had left that small courtyard far behind. As the sun set, that ordinary courtyard vanished along with the last ray of sunlight, never to be seen again.

Chapter Five: Fixing the Heavens

1

When my master took me back and released me, I was still in a daze. Cheng Wei rushed over to see me, and as soon as he saw my appearance, he frowned, muttering to himself, and had already pinched out a golden needle in his hand.

I reacted suddenly, shrinking into a corner and glaring at him fiercely, as if he had done something extremely heinous to me.

Cheng Wei was stunned. He stood there for a long time, holding a needle in one hand and his heart in the other, looking heartbroken.

Later, Cheng Pingyi and Xiao Jin pulled him out. The senior brother also came over. When he saw my condition, his expression was even more heartbroken than Cheng Wei's. His lips moved erratically, but he couldn't utter a single word for a long time.

Finally, there was Wende. Even after all that, he was still dressed in pristine white. He stood in front of me in silence for a long time, then reached out and touched the hair on my head, saying in a low voice, "Fine, you can think about it on your own. I'll be right outside the door."

After saying that, he really left, closing the door behind him with a very soft sound.

The room was pitch black, but the moon had risen outside, shining brightly and making the window paper shimmer and glow. I huddled in a corner of the room, feeling cold all over, as if I had returned to my childhood, suffering from a severe case of chills, where no amount of people or light could warm me up.

Apart from the monsoon.

His face clearly showed reluctance, yet every time he hugged me, his hands were so warm. He rarely smiled, and when he asked me, "Ping An, do you want to come with me?" his eyes remained quiet. After hearing my answer, he simply nodded and said, "Okay."

I heard a soft, pecking sound coming from inside my body. What was that sound? Was my heart breaking? But what good was it? Even if I emptied my heart and offered it to him, even if I called his name a thousand times, ten thousand times, he would never come back.

What was he thinking when he left? All alone. Lying quietly in the shadows of the deep mountains, a heartless void, so deep. It must be cold, right? It must hurt so much, right?

But what was I doing? I should have been in a quiet room in Qingcheng, clutching my chest, fantasizing that as long as I wasn't dead, I would definitely find him someday. Imagining his expression when he saw me again. His calmest features would melt away with a smile.

I never imagined that someone would steal his heart.

The man who took his heart had a face identical to his. He was taciturn, devoid of gentleness, and even his smiles were initially fake. He was also ruthless, killing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

But he's good to me.

He was the man who traveled thousands of miles just to find me, the man who risked his life to bring me back to danger when I was poisoned. He told me to leave when I was on the verge of death, and then held my hand amidst a hail of arrows.

He was never a gentle man. Yet he had a pair of cool, soft lips. And that night, he was by the stream, cupping water to wash his hands and face. Very carefully, and as he stood up, he glanced down at the hem of his clothes one last time. I watched him through the crack in the door, seeing his long, thin shadow cast by the moonlight.

Even his shadow makes my heart ache.

It felt like a fire was burning in my head. A cacophony of frantic voices screamed shrilly through my empty body, making me almost want to tear myself in two and rip them out.

I should kill him, kill him! Tear out the heart that doesn't belong to him. Kill him to avenge Ji Feng, but they are brothers. Ji Feng's blood flows in his veins. Ji Feng's heart still beats within him!

I looked down at my trembling hands, but how could I let him go? How could I face him again?

I felt a burning wetness in my cold palms, one drop, two drops, and I raised my hand to shield my eyes. But tears streamed uncontrollably from between my fingers.

I heard a piercing laugh. The weeping made even the usually silent figure outside the window stir, but ultimately no one entered the room. That night, I covered my face, buried myself in the darkest corner, and listened to my own terrible sobs, spending the entire night like that.

I pushed open the door and went out at sunrise the next day. In the mountain town at dawn, the branches of the trees hanging over the courtyard wall still had fresh dewdrops on them. A person stood quietly in the courtyard, dressed in white robes that reached the ground, yet still spotless.

"Master," I called to him softly.

Wende nodded. "Get up and do your morning practice. You've been away for too long; your internal energy cultivation techniques must have become sluggish."

His calm tone made it seem as if I were still on Qingcheng Mountain, and he was still the same master who would come up the mountain every morning, coldly telling me to begin my day of cultivation.

I hummed in agreement and slowly began to move, almost too slowly, like a little old woman who had aged decades overnight. I didn't even notice the willow branches drooping by the wall; they snagged the hood covering my head, and with a whoosh, my unkempt hair was completely draped over my shoulders.

I didn't pay any attention and walked around the branch. Suddenly, a white shadow flashed before my eyes, and it was Wen De who appeared in front of me, calling out "Ping An..." His voice suddenly went hoarse.

I looked at him strangely as he reached out his hand. I wondered if I was seeing things, but his fingertips were trembling slightly. He then circled around a tuft of my hair and pulled his hand back, looking down with astonishment and disbelief in his eyes.

I looked down at the strand of white hair he was touching between his long, slender fingers, and it took me a long time to realize what was happening.

That's my hair.

It turns out that the body most faithfully reflects the deepest pain, which cannot be concealed by the calmest surface.

My hair turned white overnight!

2

Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the earth. Wende released my hair, turned around and put the hood back on me, and in the blink of an eye, he was already high up. I looked up at him and saw him gazing into the distance, his usually calm face instantly changing color.

A flurry of footsteps echoed in the courtyard as everyone rushed out. Wen De called out in a clear voice, "The Mo army is attacking the city, let's go."

Everyone was startled. Wen De spoke again, "Xiao Jin, stay here and keep an eye on Ping An." With that, he flicked his sleeve and flew away.

In the blink of an eye, everyone left the courtyard with Wen De. Yi Xiaojin chased after him to the door, but before she could finish her protest, she was left behind. When she turned around, she stomped her foot in anger.

"Ping An, look at them..."

I remained standing there. Seeing my slow reaction, he became even angrier. He ran over, grabbed my hand, and made a loud noise as he got close. He said, "How did you get your face like this?" Then he dragged me towards the side room, saying as he ran, "Quick, let me fix it for you. Once we're done, we'll go after them."

She dragged me into the house and pressed me into a chair. Sure enough, the face in the mirror was terrifying. All the original disguise was torn apart by tears, and the waxy yellow surface was mottled and looked like a broken piece of porcelain.

Yi Xiaojin kept talking and working non-stop. After finally getting everything ready, she turned around and started pulling on my hood. I tried to stop her, but she had already ripped it off.

Then she suddenly fell silent. Even in the blurry bronze mirror, the expression on her face was enough to make me lower my head and not be able to bear to look at her.

She stood frozen behind me, and after what seemed like an eternity, she finally noticed some intermittent and strange sounds.

“Ping An…you…”

I turned my hand over and slowly put the hood back on, and even smiled at the two of us in the mirror, although the smile was so ugly that I didn't want to look at it a second time.

I said, "Don't bother, just wipe it off. It doesn't matter if people recognize us."

A terrifying and chaotic noise poured in from outside. Yi Xiaojin and I eventually climbed the city wall together. The city was no longer as orderly as it had been yesterday. Everyone was running around fully armed. Chaos reigned on the city wall. Archers endlessly repeated the same actions, and the screams of soldiers hit by stray arrows were deafening. Burning oil barrels were endlessly thrown down from the high city wall, accompanied by billowing smoke and flames.

Below the city was a black sea, with huge trebuchets constantly hurling boulders into the city. Armored siege engines charged toward the city gate with the force of thunder, and people kept climbing up the ladders, one after another, fighting to the death.

Several layers of corpses had already been piled up on the city wall. Soldiers rushed to the front amidst desperate shouts to replace their fallen comrades. Severely wounded people were constantly being carried down, groaning and covered in blood.

Although it wasn't the first time I'd witnessed a war, nor the first time I'd been there, the stench of death in the air always made my heart burn with dread, making it hard to breathe. The sun was high, and the scenes of blood and fire under the sunlight were a thousand times more terrifying than those in the darkness. Yi Xiaojin searched everywhere for the person she longed to see, her face already deathly pale, clutching me tightly in her hands.

Screams echoed endlessly. The bodies of decapitated Mo people still hung on the city walls. They were the bodies of the army generals who had raided Jinshui Town, whom we had brought back yesterday. Their bodies and heads had been separated and hung in different places, their deaths were gruesome. But at this moment, above and below them, more bodies and more deaths were piling up.

Everyone alive was fighting, and no one paid any attention to us. Yi Xiaojin and I stepped forward through the sticky blood, and finally, through a crack in the battlements, we could see a few different colors in the black ocean below.

It was Wende and the others!

I saw Wende leading a few people, almost flying towards the most destructive stone-throwing machines. This change caused the Black Sea, which originally had only one direction of attack, to gather waves, and countless arrows were pointed at them.

Yi Xiaojin stopped breathing and suddenly gripped my fingers with all her might. I heard my bones cracking, but those familiar figures didn't pause at all, their forward leaps as fast as lightning.

A deafening roar filled their ears—the sound of a stone-throwing machine, several stories high, collapsing. The falling massive pieces of wood and stone caused the densely packed soldiers all around to flee in a frantic panic, turning their once orderly offensive into utter chaos.

Suddenly, a loud drumbeat resounded from behind the black army. Banners fluttered, and someone mounted high on horseback brandished a sword, instantly restoring order to the scene that had begun to descend into chaos. I stared intently; even from this distance, the person on horseback was just a small black dot, but I still recognized him.

It was Mo Fei! He was still dressed in black, his battle robes as black as ink, riding his horse and brandishing his sword under the imperial banner, exuding an aura of dominance. This attack was actually personally led by him!

Upon seeing the imperial banner, the Mo Kingdom's army immediately regained its morale, their previously scattered formation reorganized, and their offensive intensified. Wen De and his men wanted to head towards the banner, but countless soldiers had already surrounded them, making it impossible for them to move an inch.

When I looked up again, I saw that the sun had moved from east to west, and the attack had lasted for a whole day.

The corpses piled higher and higher on the city wall, and fewer and fewer people were alive. Several arrows almost grazed past Yi Xiaojin and me, but none of us left the cold stone wall. As the attack and defense reached the final, tense moment, some people took advantage of the gap to climb up the city wall and pointed their swords at the guards.

Just when I thought all of this was beyond redemption, a ray of light suddenly shot towards the imperial banner from afar. Before anyone could react, the person had already gone out into the air. A crisp sound rang out where the whip had passed, and the entire battlefield seemed to freeze in place.

Then, right before the eyes of tens of thousands of people inside and outside the city, the black imperial flag that had been fluttering in the wind suddenly broke in two, slowly fell, and finally crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.