Chapter 1367: Extra Chapter One Zhao Zhongheng's Fairy Tale

Extra Chapter One Zhao Zhongheng's Fairy Tale

Extra Chapter One Zhao Zhongheng's Fairy Tale

That was an unnamed small village at the foot of the Seventh Peak.

It was deep autumn, and the maple leaves covering the mountains and fields were red as an unextinguished sunset, even the wind carrying the dry scent of leaves.

The ancient ginkgo tree at the village entrance was like spilled gold ink, its leaves fluttering down in the sunset, paving the ground in brilliant splendor.

The wind picked up.

Golden butterflies fluttered in the air, dancing on the lingering warmth of the setting sun, finally landing lightly on the tip of the nose of an old man dozing beneath the tree.

"Ah... Ah-choo!"

The old man woke from his sleep with a short sneeze.

He rubbed his slightly cloudy eyes, and in his sight, a waving chubby little hand gradually became solid.

A six or seven-year-old chubby child, holding a large gourd, tilted his head to look at him, his cheeks puffed red.

"Grandpa! Grandpa! The liquor is back!"

The chubby child shook the heavy gourd, his face serious, looking at the old man before him, speaking expectantly.

"You promised to finish telling us that story, and you're not allowed to go back on your word!"

The tender hand tugged at the old man's collar, and behind him, a group of children with topknots gathered like sparrows, chirping and demanding the ending.

"Yes yes, what happened next? Did the purple-clad fairy really marry Zhao Zhongheng?" The little girl with sheep-horn braids looked full of anticipation.

The old man struggled to sit upright, took the gourd, and gulped a mouthful.

The spicy warmth with a hint of sweetness flowed down his throat into his stomach; he exhaled a long breath of hot air, and the knife-cut wrinkles at the corners of his eyes relaxed somewhat.

He looked at these children, his eyes full of moisture.

At that moment, not far away on the field ridge, an old farmer returned with his hoe on his shoulder, and the voices of village women calling for dinner rose and fell amidst the smoke and fire.

Yellow hair hanging loose, content and at ease.

The old man cleared his throat, his gaze sweeping over the noisy crowd and toward some point in the void, a childlike smile touching his lips: "That is, naturally...

On the day they married, the snow fell heavily, yet it was not cold at all..."

The old man's voice became soft and dreamlike; in his telling, it was a world as splendid as a painted scroll and as flawless as a dream.

"After marriage, they settled on the Seventh Peak.

That was the place where they grew up together, every blade of grass and tree knowing them. They sought no longevity, contended for no great Dao, only wishing to guard each other."

"Thus Zhao Zhongheng built there a wooden house full of plum blossoms, while Ding Xue most liked to practice her sword there.

The sword light was like snow; Zhao Zhongheng always sat beside her, warming a pot of sweet plum wine with spiritual fire, smiling as he watched his beloved, graceful and spirited.

In this life, they have met many passing travelers."

The old man took a sip of wine and continued speaking slowly.

"Huang Yan, Gu Muqing, Yan Yan, Xu Qing, Wu Jianwu...

But these travelers were ultimately just passersby in the two people's lives; as long as they closed the door, the world's turmoil had nothing to do with them."

"They walked hand in hand through many places."

"They once drifted aimlessly on a small boat on the Forbidden Sea, watching the red sun at the horizon gild everything in gold, watching sea beasts leap from the water, watching the smiles in each other's eyes;

They once wandered through dense forests, gathering various precious medicinal herbs amidst exotic beasts, and the originally extremely crude herbal manual, through their joint efforts to supplement and perfect it, became a magnificent opus;

Ghost Emperor Mountain, Judicial Palace, Imperial Capital, Sacrificial Moon..."

"They left their footprints on every inch of mountain and river in the Wanggu Continent, but in the end, they still returned to the Seventh Peak, their home."

As the old man spoke these words, his eyes seemed to reflect the sky filled with fiery trees and silver blossoms.

"At that time, mortals below the mountain set off fireworks, dim yet brilliant.

And Ding Xue turned her head, smiling at Zhao Zhongheng, with a shower of heavenly flowers falling behind her."

"Even though her posture was no longer as upright as in her youth, even though wrinkles gradually appeared at the corners of her eyes, but her smile never diminished in the slightest.

Time flies; in the blink of an eye, a lifetime has passed."

The old man's eyes were somewhat dim, and he spoke softly.

"Ding Xue has grown old, white hair creeping up to her temples, yet she still likes to lean in Zhao Zhongheng's embrace, listening to him repeat those love words she has heard too many times."

In his murmuring, the old man's vision seemed to show a scene that perhaps never happened.

In the vision, Ding Xue turned her head, looking at the person beside her who was no longer young, and spoke with a smile.

"Zhao Zhongheng, I like you."

In the vision, Zhao Zhongheng replied gently.

"Me too."

In the vision, Ding Xue smiled, teasingly asking.

"But why do you like me so much?"

In the vision, Zhao Zhongheng also laughed, tightly grasping that hand full of wrinkles, and whispered softly.

"Perhaps because, liking you, is my Dao."

The old man finished speaking, exhaled a long breath, looked at the children around him, took a sip of wine, and his hoarse voice echoed in the dusk.

"Finally, they fell asleep smiling together, forever happy together.

Just as the fairy tale says."

At this moment, the sky grew even more dim, the sun completely sank below the horizon, and the children who had heard the ending, one by one, contentedly dispersed.

They jumped, laughed, and discussed that perfect hero and that happy fairy.

The village's lively noise gradually faded away.

Only the old man's smile, in the dim twilight, faded bit by bit, revealing a loneliness as desolate as withered wood.

He carried a wine jug, his steps unsteady as he walked along the leaf-covered path.

In the bamboo grove behind the village, the autumn wind was bleak, tossing his white beard and hair into disarray.

In a patch of withered grass that did not reach his ankles, two solitary graves stood side by side.

On the left stele, the words "Ding Xue's Grave" were carved.

The stele had cracked from years of erosion, but the area around the tomb platform had been kept spotlessly clean.

On the right stele, the words "Zhao Zhongheng's Grave" were carved.

That was an empty tomb the old man had chiseled with his own hands, silently awaiting its owner's return.

The old man slumped between the two graves, as naturally and familiarly as if he had guarded her presence many years ago.

He opened the gourd, first pouring half onto the ground before Ding Xue's stele, then tilting his head back and gulping down the rest.

The strong liquor burned his throat, making him cough violently, tears glinting in his cloudy eyes.

"Xue'er, did you hear me? I told the children today that we lived a happy life."

The old man murmured softly, his voice sounding especially bleak across the empty, desolate slope.

"I said, Xu Qing was merely a passerby, and you never even remembered his face. I said, we wandered through countless rivers and mountains, and you laughed like a child in my arms every day."

He gazed at the stele bearing the two characters "Ding Xue," as if seeing again those years when she stood gazing into the distance on Seventh Peak, recalling when he had asked her and she had answered with firm resolve: "No regrets."

She and her beloved forgot each other in the martial world.

And he, too, had accompanied her in this way for a lifetime.

From a reckless, lovesick youth to a white-haired grave keeper.

The old man gave a self-mocking laugh, the starlight in his eyes utterly extinguished by the night.

"I lied."

He spoke softly to that silent mound, uttering the words he had hidden for a lifetime.

"You never loved me, and I never possessed you. But I repeated this lie so often that even I almost believe you truly smiled at me in that illusory flower rain."

In the distance, the village lights flickered.

Yet in this secluded depths of the bamboo grove, only an old man remained, guarding a beautiful lie, murmuring on.

But an ineffable aura rose from the old man's withered body—not a mere realm breakthrough, but the culmination of his lifelong Dao, perfected at this moment.

Behind the old man, the void began to violently twist and fold.

Oong—

A blurred yet radiant ring slowly formed, condensing into a miniature world.

In that small world, there was no harsh reality, no shattered bamboo grove.

Only a wooden house filled with plum blossoms.

Snowflakes drifted down silently, a beautiful woman in a light purple Daoist robe, her hair tied in a ponytail, receiving a warmed wine cup from a youth.

She smiled so sweetly, her eyes full of the youth's shadow.

The youth draped a fox fur over her shoulders; the two gazed at each other and smiled in the snow—this hint of happiness, so real it broke the heart.

This was the fairy tale Zhao Zhongheng had told all his life.

The old man leaned against the stele, gazing at the illusory yet beautiful small world behind him, at Ding Xue smiling at him in his dream, gradually becoming lost in it.

Yet the realm breakthrough he had dreamed of in his youth now, to him, was as insignificant as dust.

The late wind blew, bamboo leaves rustling.

As if someone sighed softly, or as if someone bade farewell in silence.