Wanli seemed to laugh softly.
Ning Chengfeng couldn’t help but ask, “What path do you cultivate?”
He had never been interested in what paths others cultivated before, and it was a very personal question. He had only ever asked his brother, but now he couldn’t help being curious about Wanli.
Wanli shook his head, “I only vaguely remember it’s not very likable.”
Just as Ning Chengfeng was about to speak, a sudden intense pain shot through his right side below the ribs, causing him to cry out.
Wanli placed his hand on Ning Chengfeng’s lower right ribs, “Your flesh and bones are regenerating here, it might hurt a bit.”
Ning Chengfeng gritted his teeth and glared at him, “Couldn’t you have… warned me earlier?”
“The more you fear, the more it hurts,” Wanli reached out and patted his head.
Ning Chengfeng froze for a moment, then said angrily, “Don’t pat my head.”
“Hmm?”
Ning Chengfeng fumed, “It’ll stunt my growth.”
Because of that inexplicable bet with the green vine, he was always very concerned about whether he could grow taller in the future, and would explode when others patted his head.
He was still angry thinking about that annoying Chu Jun patting his head last time, but for Wanli… he reluctantly allowed it this once.
After Ning Chengfeng’s injuries healed, he wanted to travel by flying sword, but Wanli stopped him.
“You can’t use spiritual power recklessly for three months,” Wanli pulled him off the sword.
A sixteen or seventeen-year-old youth was at the age when he couldn’t sit still. Unable to fly and finding it boring to simply travel on foot, he told Wanli stories about everything under the sun, from Mrs. Ye who bought tofu next door to the Ning mansion and kept an orange cat as fat as a pig, to the factional entanglements between the main Ning family and various branches, to how he and his friends skipped class to go to the underwater Fuluo Secret Realm…
He usually didn’t like talking much, and Cui Ci always complained that he was cold like a clam, but in front of Wanli, he always had endless things to say, as if he wanted to tell the other person everything he had experienced since childhood.
Wanli would occasionally chime in with a few words, but most of the time he just listened quietly.
“Wanli, look, there’s a flower over there!” Ning Chengfeng’s sharp eyes spotted it, pointing to a thorny bush not far away, “Do you see it?”
“Mm,” Wanli nodded, handing him the fruit he had just cleaned.
Ning Chengfeng took it and finished it in a few bites. Wanli then handed him the water pouch.
He took a sip of water and said excitedly, “I’ll go pick that flower.”
Before Wanli could speak, he had already set his sights on a few dead branches floating in the swamp. With a light step, he leaped over in a few bounds to the flower, reached out and plucked it, then tossed it across the swamp into Wanli’s arms.
Wanli held the flower, confused, “What did you pick it for?”
Ning Chengfeng smiled at him, “I picked it for you to play with.”
Wanli: “……”
Once he could run and jump, Ning Chengfeng did many such boring things.
After another half month passed like this, one day Wanli suddenly said, “We’re about to leave the swamp wilderness.”
Ning Chengfeng, who was munching on a fruit, immediately perked up.
“Chengfeng, I need to go into seclusion,” Wanli added.
Ning Chengfeng turned to look at him, “Now?”
“After I send you to a nearby city,” Wanli looked at him, “Take good care of your injuries when you return to the Ning family.”
“I know,” Ning Chengfeng kicked a small stone at his feet, feeling a bit gloomy, “How long will you be in seclusion?”
“At least a month, at most half a year,” Wanli said.
“Will you regain your memories?” Ning Chengfeng asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“If you regain your memories, will you still remember me?” he asked again.
“…I don’t know,” Wanli wasn’t very certain.
“You dare to forget me, just try!” Ning Chengfeng pretended to choke him and beat him up, “Do you dare to forget?”
Wanli allowed him to hang on him and make a fuss, his voice carrying a hint of laughter, “I don’t dare to forget.”
On the day of their parting, they stood at the bustling city gate to say goodbye.
Wanli put the things he had already packed into a storage ring and handed it to him.
Ning Chengfeng took it and confirmed with him again, “You’re going into seclusion on the hillside of that small hill at the edge of the swamp wilderness, right?”
“Right,” Wanli lowered his head to tie the water pouch to Ning Chengfeng’s body, instructing, “Use spirit stones to solve problems if you can, don’t use spiritual power. Let your brother check your body again when you get back.”
Ning Chengfeng stared at the red string on his wrist, “It won’t take me long to go back. My brother hasn’t even looked for me after such a long delay, so there’s probably nothing major at home. I can return in half a month at the earliest, don’t wander around.”
“Mm,” Wanli looked up at him, “I’ll wait for you at the small hill.”
Ning Chengfeng couldn’t quite describe the feeling in his heart. He had experienced many partings before, but this time he was particularly reluctant to leave.
He smiled at Wanli, “We’ve traveled together for so long, and you’ve never shown me your face. Now can you at least let me see it once?”
Wanli reached out to remove his hood, but Ning Chengfeng quickly grabbed his wrist.
“…Never mind, I’ll see it when I come back,” he rubbed his nose, stating firmly, “I’ll definitely return before you go into seclusion, don’t wander off.”
“Mm,” Wanli nodded.
Ning Chengfeng casually raised his chin at him, “I’m off.”
With that, he strode decisively towards the teleportation array, waving to Wanli without looking back.
Amidst the bustling crowd, they parted on an ordinary morning.
Sixteen-year-old Ning Chengfeng treated parting as a commonplace event, naturally assuming he would soon reunite with Wanli, then return to Wanxuan Academy to spend four more chaotic years with Wen Zaiye and Cui Ci.
He wished he could grow up and be free overnight.
On the day of the Spring Equinox, he excitedly exited the teleportation array, only to see Xun Prefecture in ruins.
Overnight, everything had changed.
Someone thrust the Suzaku Knife into his hands, and before he could react, he was forced to begin a life on the run.
The Chongzheng Alliance pursued him relentlessly. He thought about returning to the swamp wilderness to find Wanli several times, but always suppressed the urge.
He couldn’t implicate Wanli.
The first year was extremely difficult. He lived in constant fear every day, afraid that he might not see the next day’s sun when he woke up. He had no time to think about why, just struggling to survive day by day.
When he finally confirmed Ning Xingyuan’s death from others, he could no longer hold on.
Before he died, he wanted to see Wanli one last time.
Carrying the Suzaku Knife that refused to accept him as its master, he took many detours, shook off countless pursuers, and returned alone to the small hill where he and Wanli had agreed to meet.
By then, a whole year had passed since their parting.
Was Wanli still waiting for him, or had he left because Ning Chengfeng had broken his promise?
Clinging to a faint hope, he climbed the small hill.
I don’t ask for much, just to see him one more time quietly would be enough.
Ning Chengfeng thought to himself.
Unfortunately, he searched the small hill for a long time but couldn’t find any trace of Wanli.
After all, I broke my promise first. It’s better that he left, so he won’t be implicated by my recklessness.
After calming down, Ning Chengfeng sighed in relief. He sat idly on the mountaintop for a night, then patted the dirt off himself and left.
Holding Ning Xingyuan’s Suzaku Knife, he had endured a night of cold wind, and suddenly he didn’t want to give up without a fight anymore.
He wanted to survive, to find out what exactly had happened to the Ning family, and to avenge his brother and everyone else.
He prepared to go to Zhongzhou through the teleportation array.
The young man, carrying the Suzaku Knife on his back, walked expressionlessly through the bustling crowd. He brushed shoulders with a white-robed cultivator, his peripheral vision catching a glimpse of the red string tied around the other’s wrist.
Ning Chengfeng walked a few steps forward, then turned back in surprise, but the cultivator had already disappeared.
Just as he was about to go look for him, he saw people from the Chongzheng Alliance. He immediately changed direction and stepped into the crowded teleportation array.
From then on, Wanli completely disappeared from his life.
****
It was just a momentary emotional impulse.
Hundreds of years passed, and even during each heart demon tribulation, Wanli was only a blurry shadow that he wouldn’t even look at twice.
Once again forced to relive his sixteen-year-old self, watching the figures of Chu Jun in Wanxuan Academy and Wanli in the swamp wilderness overlap, and then seeing the stunningly beautiful face of the children’s mother, the great demon rarely felt a hint of irritation.
What kind of karmic entanglement was this?
In a flash, he became the sixteen-year-old Ning Chengfeng again, full of resentment and unwillingness, carrying the Suzaku Knife on his back as he walked through the crowd, forcing himself to head to Zhongzhou.
Once again, he brushed shoulders with the white-robed cultivator with a red string tied around his wrist. This time, as if possessed, he reached out and grabbed the other person.
The person turned around, slightly stunned upon seeing him. Those beautiful phoenix eyes flashed with confusion, “Does this fellow cultivator need something?”
Ning Buwei stared at Chu Jun’s face, finding it difficult to associate him with either the annoying Head Teacher Chu from years ago or the gentle and steady Wanli, yet also feeling that this was how it should be.
The so-called heart demon tribulation was nothing more than cutting off the cultivator’s own desires.
If desire is not dispelled, the heart cannot be calm; if the heart is not calm, the spirit cannot be clear.
Greed, anger, delusion, resentment, love, hate, emotions, and grudges – there were always things that one couldn’t obtain and couldn’t let go of. He cultivated the Heartless Dao; what he should cut off most was emotion, and what was hardest to cut off was also emotion.
Five hundred years later, upon reuniting, Ning Buwei suddenly realized that he had regrets back then too.
If only he could have held onto him.
This person had always been his.
This thought spread through his mind like a possession, permeating his entire being, seeping into his bones, and firmly entwining around the hand that was gripping Chu Jun.
This hand… it would be quite suitable for changing diapers. A strange thought abruptly appeared in his mind.
Diapers?
The painful memory of changing his son’s diapers suddenly flooded his mind, instantly awakening the great demon. The previous demonic and absurd thoughts suddenly retreated, and in an instant, his heart became as still as water.
The past was gone, and forcing it would be futile.
It only took one imperceptible desire for a cultivator to fall into a heart demon, and it also only took a moment to cut it off.
Ning Buwei narrowed his eyes, suddenly letting go, and calmly said, “Sorry, I mistook you for someone else.”
The moment these words fell, the howling wolf pack in the Fuluo Secret Realm, the Fuluo flower handed over in Wanxuan Academy, the two long trails of footprints left in the swamp wilderness, the dim moon over the small hill, the thin red string tied around a wrist… all suddenly dissipated into countless points of light.
The heart demon realm was broken.
The final tribulation lightning struck with a thunderous crash.
