Chapter 317

"Little Brother, don't cry."

The black-robed young man looked at Xu Qing's tears, raised his hand to rub Xu Qing's head, and spoke softly.

"How are you still like when you were little, liking to cry?"

Xu Qing's body trembled, his gaze landing on the face before him that should have been familiar, but was now extremely strange.

The person before him was his older brother, who in his memory had stood before him countless times like a mountain. Every time he cried, he would touch his head just like this, gently saying the same words.

This was the most beautiful scene in Xu Qing's memory, and also the place of deepest fragility and cherished value beneath his outwardly strong exterior, supporting him through the difficult and cold barriers.

At this moment, the barrier collapsed.

The black-robed young man looked into Xu Qing's eyes, his voice gentle.

"Little Brother, in my previous life, I had many siblings, but I never experienced much warmth in the world. Everything I encountered was coldness and calculation, whether it was the Emperor Father or those brothers and sisters of mine, it was all the same."

"So in this life, I miss it very much, whether it's Father and Mother, or you... especially you who always likes to cry." The black-robed young man looked at Xu Qing and spoke softly.

"But the moment I awakened the memories of my previous life, if I did not immediately sacrifice a complete city to complete the ritual to the gods, I could not be reborn and would wither into death."

The black-robed young man spoke calmly.

"At that time, in the sky where blood rain was falling, watching you sitting in the blood mud and corpses, crying and helpless, calling for Father and Mother, calling for Brother, I was actually very happy that you were lucky enough to survive. I really wanted to walk up to you, touch your head, and tell you, 'Little Brother, don't cry.'"

Listening to this, Xu Qing's mind, already filled with thunder, roared again. Amidst the rolling heavenly thunder, his body trembled violently. His heart and soul stirred up even more violent waves, and a muffled low growl issued from his throat, yet he could not fully roar it out.

Eventually, it turned into blood, overflowing from the corners of his mouth and nose, falling drop by drop onto the ground.

The black-robed young man lowered his head, looked at Xu Qing with pity in his eyes, and placed the candied hawthorn in his hand to the side.

"I saw it on the road and remembered you liked to eat them, so I bought it for you."

After speaking, the black-robed young man took a deep look at Xu Qing, put the God's Remnant Face mask back on, and walked forward.

Sheng Yunzi and his father lowered their heads and followed silently, walking past Xu Qing.

The last to walk past Xu Qing was Ye Jiu, who was carrying Sixth Master's head.

Beside Xu Qing, Ye Jiu paused his steps and spoke in a low voice.

"My name is Ye Jiu. I didn't expect you to have such a connection with Master."

After speaking, Ye Jiu walked away. Thunder echoed in the sky, and amidst the dense dark clouds, rain and snow blended together, falling onto the earth together.

Xu Qing's body trembled violently. He wanted to struggle, wanted to chase after them, wanted to open his mouth to ask. Until the moment he struggled the most intensely, the black-robed young man walking in the distance paused his steps, and his voice came over softly.

"By the way, Little Brother, Father and Mother's bodies were buried by me at Mount Zhaoxia in Fenghai County. If you have time, you can go see them."

This sentence drifted from afar, falling into Xu Qing's ears, becoming the final heaven-shaking thunder that caused him to collapse. This thunder was so great it exceeded all others; the power of this thunder extinguished everything.

Xu Qing's body trembled to the extreme, his eyes were blood-red like a sea of blood, his aura was endlessly chaotic, and the sorrow in his heart turned into the firmament.

The next instant, Xu Qing's body shook violently, and he could move.

A shrill roar issued from his mouth as never before. He was not a person who liked to roar, but at this moment, his sorrow and shrillness uncontrollably poured out from his mouth.

He turned abruptly and, in the direction the black-robed young man and his group had left, unleashed his full speed, chasing after them to the extreme. He knew this was irrational, but he could not be rational.

The cold wind blew, and amidst the roaring sky, snowflakes mixed with rain fell, drenching his body. As the bone-chilling cold invaded, Xu Qing continued his pursuit. He chased for a very, very long time, but before his eyes, it was always vast and boundless, with nothing there.

Until the snow and rain grew heavier and heavier, Xu Qing's insides churned, and a mouthful of blood was sprayed out by him. As it blended with the snow and rain and sprinkled onto the ground, Xu Qing's body trembled, and he staggered to a half-kneel.

Snow and rain fell on his hair, his shoulders, and his face, indistinguishable from tears, flowing onto the ground.

Finally, a miserable laugh issued from Xu Qing's mouth. He raised his head to look at the firmament, at the dark night, and at the God's Remnant Face looming in the dark night.

A past event he had buried deep in his heart slowly surfaced before his eyes in the softest part of his now riddled heart.

That was a past event from thirteen years ago.

The memories of those years had already uncontrollably blurred; this was the law of life.

But Xu Qing still remembered the feeling of having a home when he was little; that was the warmth of his parents' company, the coziness in the laughter of a family of four.

He remembered his father's calloused hands, remembered his mother's kind gaze, and faintly seemed to remember the taste of the food at home.

And all of this, with the arrival of that day, ended.

He could not forget that day when the God's Remnant Face in the firmament suddenly opened its eyes.

Its gaze landed on the city where he was. In an instant... the world blurred, all things twisted, the entire city vanished, Father and Mother vanished, Brother vanished.

Everything vanished.

Only a large amount of wreckage and blood rain remained, falling from the sky, leaving only him as the sole survivor, crying helplessly in fear in that blood mud.

Until, crying and crying, he fell unconscious.

When he woke up, he thought it was just a nightmare, that when he woke up, his parents and brother would appear. But the moment he opened his eyes, he looked at everything around him, and it was still the same, which let him know that the nightmare had perhaps only just begun from this moment.

At that time, he was only six or seven years old. He didn't remember how he left, didn't remember how he struggled to survive, didn't remember how much inedible food he had eaten, nor did he remember what kind of life-and-death struggles he had experienced.

Gradually, he became a stray child, covered in dirt, seeing the evil of human nature countless times.

Gradually, he learned to fight wild dogs for food, learned to bare his teeth, and also learned forbearance and vigilance, starting to like hiding in dark places.

Gradually, he also learned to kill, and finally, in the slums of a small city, after killing a big man who wanted to eat him, he cut off his head bit by bit and hung it on a tree, giving himself a place to stand.

Gradually, he began to yearn for life inside the city, envied the cleaner clothes of the people inside, and also longed to become a cultivator so he could live better.

Gradually, surviving became the only thought in his heart.

He was not supposed to be like this; it was this world that changed him.

Therefore, he respected knowledge extremely highly.

Therefore, he was incomparably cruel to his enemies, repaying every grievance.

Therefore, he was deeply grateful to those who had helped him.

This was also why, in that small city in the slums, he was not afraid during the catastrophe of the God opening its eyes. On one hand, life was already like this; he was not even afraid of death, so what was there to fear?

On the other hand, it was... he had experienced it.

But he always had a hope in his heart; he felt that his parents were not dead and his brother was still around, only they couldn't find him.

This was his secret; he hadn't told anyone.

When he first left the ruined city with the Lei Dui, and the temporary team members were discussing the city that had vanished years ago, Xu Qing listened in silence.

When the Captain told him that the vanished city had been sacrificed by someone, Xu Qing remained silent.

When Seventh Master told him in the Phoenix Forbidden about the secrets of the Ziqing Upper Kingdom and the place where that Crown Prince died, Xu Qing was still silent.

Just like now, he who was shedding tears in the snow and rain slowly stopped roaring, slowly stopped trembling, and slowly fell back into silence.

He was repairing his heart, perfecting his high walls, sealing away the bitter fragility and the softness he didn't want anyone to touch even more tightly.

Until a long time later, he took out the jade slip from his leather bag and, in the rain and snow, carved two words onto it.

Brother.

He wrote these two words very seriously, very forcefully.

"One day, if I do not die, I will kill you, Crown Prince of the Ziqing Upper Kingdom."

Xu Qing murmured in his heart and closed his eyes. A long time later, he opened his eyes and carved the names of Sheng Yunzi and his father, and carved Ye Jiu.

In the rain and snow, he stood up, did not look back, and walked toward the distance, walking further and further away.

The cold in the wind and snow, he suddenly felt he was no longer afraid of it.

His back carried a sense of desolation, carried sharpness, and while like a lone wolf, it also carried a touch of maturity honed through hardship.

Xu Qing remembered the Lei Dui saying that if a person buried too many things in their heart, they would become mature.

Xu Qing felt that he, at this moment, was already very mature.

He had to return to the sect once, and then after he was strong enough, he would leave Yinghuang Province to find that Mount Zhaoxia.

At the same time, he wanted to kill not only those he had carved, but for the organization called Zhu Zhao, the killing intent in Xu Qing's heart was unprecedented.

"Zhu Zhao."

Xu Qing's voice was hoarse. After speaking in a low voice, he took out his dharma ship, stepped onto it, and the next instant, the dharma ship turned into a long rainbow, galloping through the rain and snow, heading straight for the Seven Sect Alliance.

Inside the cabin of the dharma ship, Xu Qing sat there silently, meditating silently.

Letting time pass bit by bit.

Until three days later, Xu Qing slowly opened his eyes.

He looked down expressionlessly at his storage bag, opened it after a long while, took out a flask of wine, placed it to his mouth, and took a large gulp. As the spiciness flowed down his throat, Xu Qing remembered the first time he drank wine.

At that time, the Lei Dui looked at him with a smile, saying he was still young and didn't understand the taste of wine.

After Seven Blood Eyes, Xu Qing understood, and today, he felt this wine was not strong enough.

After taking another large gulp, he stood up, walked out of the cabin, stood on the deck, looked up at the night sky, and felt the wild wind from the sky. He slowly withdrew his gaze and looked straight ahead.

After a while, Xu Qing took out a flute, held it with both hands, and placed it to his mouth.

Gradually... bursts of desolate flute music echoed within the dharma ship and drifted away.

In the lingering reverberations, it recounted the past.

This piece was named "Departure Sorrow."

At this moment, in Yinghuang Province, in the wilderness, the Zhu Zhao group moving forward did not speak a word along the way.

The black-robed young man in front was indifferent, and the people behind were silent.

Until a long time later, Ye Jiu raised his head to look at the Master in front, and after hesitating, spoke in a low voice.

"Master, by doing this, do you hope to stimulate Xu Qing, letting him grow into the shape you want? Or is it that... he is also a person with a previous life like you?"

The black-robed young man in front shook his head and spoke indifferently.

"You think too much. I act according to my heart; I don't have the habit of stimulating others."

"Little Brother also doesn't have a previous life; he is just a child from an ordinary family. But the brotherly affection I felt before my memories of this life awakened became a bond after I awakened."

"Master, if in Seven Blood Eyes, I accidentally... killed him, what would happen?" Ye Jiu asked the question in his heart after hesitating.

"You would die." The black-robed young man didn't look back, his tone calm.

Ye Jiu was silent. He understood that his Master didn't care about Xu Qing's life or death at all; otherwise, when he had made his move before, he definitely would have stopped him.

Because he didn't care, anyone could kill him, and he could watch without stopping them.

But because of the bond, he would strike to kill anyone who killed Xu Qing.

Everything, in fact, was left to live or die on its own.

Ultimately, in his Master's heart, he was not the older brother of the Xu Qing of this life. From beginning to end, he was the Ziqing Crown Prince who stunned the firmament, whom even the Sacred Lands had wanted to take as a disciple multiple times, and who had made a promise to the gods before death, granting him a choice for his second life.

"Master, if severing the bond can make your Dao heart more complete, Ye Jiu is willing to do this!" Ye Jiu lowered his head and spoke in a deep voice.

"I do not cultivate the Dao, I do not want a Dao heart; what I cultivate is God." The black-robed young man's gaze was calm as he walked further and further away.