Chapter 241: Fated (3)

This cave was quite unique; it appeared to be a sealed, semi-circular cavern, yet after walking inside, one could clearly feel air currents flowing. The cave was spacious, easily the size of two football fields. On all four walls, there were many natural, waist-high alcoves, some of which contained spirit tablets. Gu Yun stood in the very center of the cave, looking up to see spirit tablets on all sides; it was indeed somewhat terrifying.

Near the Hour of the Rat, Su Qing arrived. Gu Yun had assumed Su Yan and Su Quan would come along as well, but unexpectedly, he was alone. Su Qing walked to the stone wall directly opposite the cave entrance and struck it hard at a height of about one person. The stone wall slowly descended, revealing a square stone chamber behind it. Su Qing reached out, took a wooden box from the chamber, and the stone wall slowly closed again.

"Place Binglian and Chixue over there." Holding the wooden box, Su Qing gestured for them to place Binglian and Chixue in front of the stone wall.

"Mm." The two had just set down the two swords when Binglian and Chixue, which had been quiet all along, suddenly began to move simultaneously, flashing with dazzling red and white light.

Gu Yun and Su Ling exchanged a look, not understanding why they were so agitated. Gently patting the sword bodies, Gu Yun smiled and said, "You don't need to be afraid; you will be free soon." Gu Yun offered a few more words of comfort, and they finally stopped trembling, though the dazzling light continued to flash incessantly.

With the Hour of the Rat approaching, Su Qing asked, "Are you ready?"

"Mm." Gu Yun nodded.

Su Qing opened the wooden box and handed the Bagua Disk inside to Gu Yun.

Gu Yun looked carefully at the golden Bagua Disk in her hand; it was identical to the one she had seen in Qing's office. The difference was that the last time she saw the Bagua Disk before transmigrating, it had been blood-red, not golden.

Gu Yun was still pondering this when Su Qing suddenly said, "The time has come. Drop a drop of your blood in the center."

"Oh." Gu Yun snapped back to reality, picked up the small knife from the wooden box, made a small cut on her index finger, and dropped a drop of blood into the center of the Bagua Disk.

After dropping the blood, Gu Yun hurriedly looked at Binglian and Chixue not far away; they were still lying there as before, with no changes. Su Ling asked, "Why is there no reaction?"

Su Qing was also somewhat bewildered; the classics left behind by the Su Clan were indeed written this way.

All three were puzzled, and no one noticed that the Bagua Disk in Gu Yun's hand was slowly turning from its original gold to blood-red, and the wind in the cave had suddenly stopped.

"Ah!" With a numb sensation in her hand, Gu Yun let out a low cry.

When Su Ling turned his head, he happened to see a red light suddenly erupt from the center of the Bagua Disk. Gu Yun's entire body was covered by this red light, and her body began to fall to the side.

Catching the slipping Gu Yun, Su Ling asked anxiously, "Yun! What's wrong with you?"

The tingling sensation in her palms extended to her limbs. Gu Yun suddenly felt terrified; she was afraid that if she fainted this time and woke up again, she would never see this man beside her. Persisting in not closing her eyes, Gu Yun cried out, "I, I don't want to—leave." Using all the strength in her body, these were the fragmented words that came out.

"Yun!" Su Ling held the person in his arms tightly. Su Ling wanted to knock the Bagua Disk out of her hand, but unfortunately, before he could touch it, the Bagua Disk had already slipped from Gu Yun's hand, suspended in mid-air, keeping Gu Yun shrouded in red light.

Looking at Su Qing, Su Ling roared, "What on earth is going on?"

Su Qing also did not know why this was happening. Could it be that the Clan Emblem was trying to send her back?

Su Ling looked up, his crimson eyes coldly glaring at the Bagua Disk suspended in mid-air, and he shouted sternly, "If you dare to take her away, I will destroy you!" The suspended Bagua Disk flashed with red light; far from receding, it became even brighter.

"Ling—" Even though Gu Yun persisted, she could not withstand the encroachment of darkness. After a while, she could no longer move.

"Yun! You cannot leave! You promised to grow old with me; you cannot break your word!" Patting Gu Yun's cheeks forcefully, no matter how Su Ling roared or shouted, Gu Yun no longer responded to him.

His heart felt as if a large piece had been gouged out by a knife. Su Ling held the person in his arms tightly, yet he felt profoundly that he could not hold onto her at all.

You promised to stay with me; how could you break your word!

"Ah—"

A roar like that of a wounded beast dying echoed in the cave. At this moment, the white and red swords leaped up from the ground, flying toward the blood-red Eight Trigrams Disk suspended in mid-air. The red light that had been on Gu Yun immediately shifted to Binglian and Chixue. The two swords in mid-air trembled incessantly, yet they still could not break free in the slightest. Under the illumination of the Eight Trigrams Disk's red light, wisps of white light began to drift out from the bodies of the two swords.

Su Qing suddenly realized: the children's souls had developed a sense of dependency after staying in the swords for so long. If they kept hiding in the swords, the Clan Emblem could not save them. Only by volunteering to come out and fight could it rescue them from the sword bodies. The Clan Emblem had been using the child Qing Mo from the very beginning to force Binglian and Chixue to act!

Su Ling did not care about any of this; he only cared whether Gu Yun was safe. Gently patting Gu Yun's cheeks, Su Ling said anxiously, "Yun, wake up..."

After a while, Gu Yun finally opened her eyes slowly, clutched her head, and said painfully, "My head hurts so much."

"It's alright, it's alright." She had finally woken up! Embracing Gu Yun deeply once more, the joy of having her back almost overwhelmed him.

After the initial pain passed, Gu Yun finally regained her senses. Looking up at the two swords and the Bagua Disk stalemated in mid-air, she asked in a low voice, "What is going on?"

The light on the bodies of Binglian and Chixue grew weaker and weaker, while two freely flowing halos beside the swords grew brighter.

The red light on the Bagua Disk suddenly vanished, and the Bagua Disk and the two swords fell from mid-air simultaneously, leaving only those two bright halos flowing about.

Gu Yun asked in a low voice in Su Ling's ear, "Are they the children who were trapped in the swords?"

Su Ling shook his head; he did not know either. The two halos suddenly flew down from mid-air, circling around Gu Yun and Su Ling.

"Thank you." Two childish and gentle voices rang softly in their ears.

Gu Yun asked Su Ling in surprise, "Did you hear that?"

"Mm." Su Ling nodded.

That was great; she wasn't hallucinating! They had really come out of the swords! Circling them a few times, the two beautiful halos drifted toward the outside of the cave simultaneously, and in a moment, they were gone without a trace.

They were free. Regardless of whether there was such a thing as reincarnation, at the very least, they no longer needed to be trapped in the two swords.

"Let's go." Su Ling suddenly picked Gu Yun up by the waist. Gu Yun asked anxiously, "Where to?"

"From now on, you are not allowed to go near that Clan Emblem again!" He would absolutely never bring her back for a sacrifice again; who knew where that damned Clan Emblem might send her to next!

"Alright." Gu Yun found it amusing, but she did not contradict him.

Su Ling carried Gu Yun out of the cave, leaving Su Qing alone inside. Sighing softly, he had no choice but to resign himself to cleaning up.

Gu Yun thought Su Ling would take her back to the ancestral residence to rest, but to her surprise, he took her up to Gu Feng. It was the middle of the night, the moonlight was not bright, and everything around was pitch black. The sound of rushing water was clearer and louder than during the day.

Gu Yun asked, "It's so late, why come here?"

Setting her down from his arms, Su Ling asked, "Where do you think it would be best to build a wooden house? I'll build one here tomorrow."

"Why?" Why suddenly build a wooden house right away?

"No reason, I just want to build one!" Su Ling's tone was impatient, as if he urgently needed to do something to confirm that they could be together forever.

Gu Yun seemed to understand the reason he brought her here in the middle of the night. Holding his hand, fingers intertwined, Gu Yun smiled slightly and replied with feigned disdain, "But it's very noisy here! Living here, one wouldn't sleep well at night."

Noisy? The sound of rushing water was indeed a bit loud; he could barely hear Gu Yun's voice. Su Ling thought for a moment and replied, "Then how about living at the foot of the mountain? You can watch the sunrise and sunset when you go up the mountain."

Gu Yun held back a laugh, shook her head, and sighed, "There are people coming and going at the foot of the mountain; it's not quiet, not good."

She liked quiet, huh? Racking his brains for a long while, Su Ling smiled and said, "Living in the valley, it's quiet, and it's close to your favorite waterfall."

The valley? He really thought of that. Gu Yun replied with feigned annoyance, "I don't want to worry about when the house will be washed away by a flood every time the rainy season comes."

Su Ling was annoyed, "Then where do you want to live?"

"Wherever." Shrugging her shoulders, Gu Yun replied innocently, "As the saying goes, 'marry a chicken, follow the chicken; marry a dog, follow the dog.' Wherever you go, I'll go." She used to hear people say that being bored alone is boredom, but being bored together is romantic; she had scoffed at it back then. Now it seemed there was some truth to it. Even a boring topic could make her heart soar.

"Yun!"

Su Ling's helpless tone made Gu Yun laugh. Leaning lightly into his arms, Gu Yun replied softly, "As long as it's a place with you, living anywhere is fine."

A simple sentence, yet it was enough to soothe Su Ling's heart, which had been wandering all night. Holding her hand against his chest with one hand and embracing her shoulders with the other, Su Ling said in a deep voice, "You scared me just now." He never knew that losing someone could make him so panicked; the feeling that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep her, made him afraid—deeply afraid.

"I know."

Under the night sky, she couldn't see Su Ling's expression, but Gu Yun could feel the steady heart beating rapidly under her palm. She knew that this man who held her deeply in his arms and walked with her fingers intertwined loved her with all his heart. Perhaps what he wanted wasn't a wooden house, but the beautiful wish of growing old together. Standing on tiptoe, Gu Yun whispered in Su Ling's ear, "Ling, I love you."

"You—" Su Ling froze in place. This was the first time she had said "love." Su Ling didn't know how to vent the joy in his heart; he just wanted to kiss her properly right now!

Leaning forward, just as Su Ling was about to kiss her lips, a hand blocked the space between them. Su Ling glared at her, and Gu Yun smiled slightly, "I said, only I can force a kiss on you." As the words fell, her gentle lips descended as well.

A flash of cunning crossed his black eyes. He wasn't just looking forward to a kiss; he seemed to have thought of the best way to keep her by his side forever.

How about having a child?

(End of Chapter)