Struggling to wake up from a nightmare, Yu Beizhou sat on the bed for a long time, long enough to air-dry the cold sweat on his body.
In the dream, he watched Zong Luo’s death countless times, rushed forward countless times, and countless times watched this person pass by him.
And there was that so-called Heavenly Way.
That extreme sense of oppression, Yu Beizhou had no doubt, as long as the other party was willing, he would be forcibly erased from memory, put back to the original so-called “no mistakes” “correct development”, a world without the existence of his senior brother.
Fortunately, he woke up.
As said in the dream, no matter what happened in the dream, it was just a dream.
But Yu Beizhou remembered very clearly, he did indeed die, lying in the arms of the crown prince in white, smiling away, his heart shattered under the sharp arrow of the Shenji Crossbow.
Letting him go did not mean that the nightmare would be so kind as to help him repair the fatal wound.
But now, his heart was still beating.
It throbbed powerfully in his chest, almost unrecognizable as his own.
Three thousand dreams in a fleeting life[1], waking up already a person in the dream[2].
(t/n: [1]-the hustle and bustle of the world, I choose to be true to myself and ignore the ebb and flow of things. [2]-That is to say, someone said something that suddenly reminded or awakened your doubts.)
Yu Beizhou was silent for a long time, ran a big cycle of internal force on the bed, and specifically probed the heart that had been torn apart not long ago. He found that although there were traces that had not yet fully recovered, he had indeed escaped the danger of life, and then groped to get out of bed.
The ugly goshawk, which was also injured, laid beside him. Seeing this, it patted its master’s arm with its well-bandaged feathers.
“I know, I know.”
The young man in red answered casually.
This was probably the best attitude he had ever had towards this goshawk. Usually, he either perfunctorily or disliked it for being ugly, not matching his good looks.
Yu Beizhou put on his boots and pushed open the door of this dim room.
In an instant, the bright sunlight outside could no longer be blocked, and the spring colors of the full garden flowed in like a rush, illuminating the cramped room filled with the smell of medicine.
Outside was a sheer canyon, the ground covered with thick green grass, and a pure stream flowing from the snow mountain in the center, beside which were flowers of various colors.
At the bend of the river, unknown wild trees were planted, strange in shape, but their branches were full of clusters of blooming flowers. Occasionally, a breeze would blow, spinning the petals into the stream, and also bringing the fragrant scent of flowers to any place in the valley.
The strangely shaped buildings were built against the mountain. As the terrain in the valley got higher and higher, the buildings also clung to the cliff, magnificent and beautiful.
Further away, it was invisible, the valley was full of mist. That was a confusion method deliberately created with Qimen Dunjia. If someone accidentally entered it and didn’t know how to break the formation, they would only wander forever at the entrance of the valley like ghost hitting a wall.
(t/n: Qimen Dunjia-the magic skill of being invisible)
(t/n: ghost hitting a wall-Superstition believes that ghosts can set up invisible obstacles in the wild to make people get lost at night; it is also a metaphor for invisible obstacles set up in the dark.)
“What a familiar scene.”
With just one glance, Yu Beizhou recognized where he was now.
This was the place where he and Zong Luo first met in the true sense, studied together, and lived for ten years. The legendary paradise, inaccessible to ordinary people, and no one knew exactly where it was–the Ghost Valley.
He quickened his pace.
The vast valley was quiet, with only the sound of chirping of birds.
Blurring reality and dreams, Yu Beizhou was no longer clear whether this was the world after waking up, or if he had entered a new dream.
The only way to distinguish it was to find that person.
Everything was illusory, in this puppet show that spanned two lifetimes, only one person was real.
Millions of people retreated, only one person went against the current.
Broke free from the shackles of fate and stood in front of him.
In Yu Beizhou’s eyes, there was only one person, always only that person.
With him, the stars were long and bright. Without him, it’s all a long night.
The young man in red skillfully traveled through the Ghost Valley, bypassing those scattered arrow targets and wooden stakes, and straw men. Even after so long, they showed no signs of aging, just as they were when he left here more than a decade ago.
This area was originally an immortal’s dojo. After the immortal ascended and the world’s spiritual energy declined, it was passed on to later generations, known as the Ghost Valley, following the ancestral teachings and passed down to this day.
Yu Beizhou opened every wooden door of each room, stepped into every place where there might be people, but never saw the person he was thinking about day and night.
Finally, there was only one place left.
The main hall built on the sheer cliff of the valley.
Things learned in the Ghost Valley were very diverse, half of the interior of the valley was hollowed out and filled with books. Among them were special studies in architectural aesthetics that were not highly valued in the era of war. For example, this main hall that was just built in the middle of the cliff, the whole body was made of wood, the corridor was winding and meandering, like the Shu Road built in mid-air. If one day there was a heavy fog, looking from a distance, it would look like an immortal palace floating in mid-air, too beautiful to be absorbed all at once.
Behind the steep cliff, a waterfall passes through the center of the main hall, rustling down like a jade belt.
The main hall even specially opened a unique cave for this, where one could stand on the hillside and watch the waterfall fall from a high place into the deep pool, a beautiful scene of splashing jade.
In the flowers and green leaves of the Ghost Valley, the young man in red ascended the steps.
In the seemingly frozen beauty, he was the only bright color.
Creak–
The heavy hall door was pushed open.
A faint light leaked from the end of the wooden corridor, illuminating the dust in the air.
At the end of that faint light, someone was sitting on a cushion in a unique cave.
In front of him was a waterfall that melted down from the top of the snow mountain. The dispersed cold air enveloped him, and his silver-white hair was integrated with it, resembling an unworldly banished immortal.
“You’re here,” Zong Luo said lightly.
His voice was very calm, just like the snow water flowing down in front of him, steady and condensed.
As if it were another world.
