Chapter 428: Yao Marries, Flower‑Fruit Mountain Is Empty

The trailing sound of "I'm coming for you" hadn't faded when the darkness moved.

It wasn't a response.

It was revenge.

Shi Hou's head felt as if someone had forcibly split it open, and something poured in through the crack.

It wasn't the distant scene from last time.

This time, his whole body was thrown in.

His feet planted on solid ground.

His ears filled with human voices.

His nose was flooded with the scent of fireworks.

Shi Hou stood stunned in the middle of a wide street, with immortal towers on both sides, their glazed tiles dazzling under the sun.

The crowd passed by him.

They passed through.

They didn't go around.

A porter balancing a load walked straight toward him; Shi Hou instinctively stepped aside—yet the man didn't even flick his eyes, and stepped directly over his midsection.

There was no sensation of touch.

No collision.

As if he didn't exist at all.

Shi Hou lowered his head to look at his hand.

It was semi‑transparent.

Like a ghost's.

Before he could ponder, a thunderous crash of gongs and drums erupted ahead.

The shofar‑like blast was so shrill it could make ears bleed.

Crowds on both sides of the street surged toward the curb in a whoosh, tiptoeing forward while shouting, "Here it comes, here it comes."

A grand red floral sedan chair wobbled its way from down the street.

Eight sedan bearers moved steadily, their red silk fluttering, filling the sky with festivity.

Shi Hou stared at the sedan chair.

A string inside his body tightened.

He didn't know why.

The sedan's curtain was lifted at a corner by the wind.

Just a corner.

Inside, a woman turned her face, revealing half of a pristine white chin and a hint of smiling lips.

Shi Hou's breath stopped.

He didn't recognize that face.

He could no longer recall anyone's face.

But his heart recognized.

The Jīnsè guāngdiǎn in his chest, on the verge of fading, spasmed violently in that instant, pain forcing him to bend over.

Yao.

That name rose from some bottomless depth.

Shi Hou's leg moved.

It wasn't his will.

It was his body moving on its own.

He ran after the floral sedan.

He burst through the crowd, through walls, through everything blocking his path.

The sedan stopped.

The woman stepped out of the sedan.

Crowned with phoenix feathers and draped in rosy robes, her dangling hairpin swayed slightly; each step carried a settled, tranquil calm.

She was smiling.

Not a forced smile, not a perfunctory one.

It was the kind that rose from deep within, a completely relaxed smile.

Shi Hou stood three steps away, watching her walk toward Joy Hall.

In the center of Joy Hall stood a man.

His face was blurred, his features smoothed as if flattened by a palm, indistinct.

Yet his aura was crystal clear.

Steady.

Gentle.

Like a wall that would never fall.

When Yao reached his side, she looked up at the man.

Shi Hou saw that look.

Reliance.

Reassurance.

It was like a boat that had drifted for a long, long time finally reaching shore.

Shihou's throat was blocked by something.

"What could he give her?"

"These words were squeezed out of his throat, hoarse beyond recognition."

That voice came.

Still that gentle, patient voice of an elder.

"He gave her peace."

"What did you give her?"

"Fear. Pursuit. Displacement."

"You made her burn herself to protect you."

"You made her single-handedly hold up the whole sky."

"You call this love?"

Shihou opened his mouth.

No sound came out.

Because his body was answering for him.

Although his mind was empty, remembering nothing, the guilt in his body could not be fooled.

"That heaviness of 'you owe her' is real."

"That self-blame of 'she once blocked a blade for you' is real."

Shihou clenched his fist, nails digging into his palm, drawing blood yet feeling no pain.

The scene shattered.

Like overturning a vat of paint, all colors mixed together, then re-solidified.

He stood on a mountain.

A dead mountain.

The waterfall dried up.

The peach trees all withered, their bare branches like dead bones reaching for Heaven.

Weeds overgrew the stone at the mouth of the Water Curtain Cave, tall and dense, blocking the entrance completely.

No monkeys.

No bird calls.

Not even a single insect.

The whole mountain resembled a corpse emptied of its organs, only a shell left standing there.

Shihou's steps grew heavier and heavier.

He saw a stone tablet lying in the mud at the mountain's base.

Half buried underground, the exposed part was pitted by wind and rain.

The characters on it were barely legible.

Only the character 'Sage' could still be made out.

Shihou crouched down.

His knees hit the gravel, he showed no reaction.

He reached out to wipe the mud off the stele.

He wiped it away layer by layer.

A fingernail broke.

Blood smeared on the stele, actually making the characters clearer.

Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

Four characters.

Shihou stared at them.

Then they cracked open one character at a time before his eyes, like mud baked too long in the sun,

Fracturing, crumbling into powder, blown away by a gust of wind from nowhere.

A firewood-gathering woodcutter passed by at the mountain's base, glancing over.

"Why would a broken stele stand in this desolate mountain? Probably a grave from a previous dynasty."

He said to his companion.

"Let's go, this place is unlucky."

The two left without looking back.

Shihou sat there motionless.

He buried his face in his knees.

No tears.

He couldn't cry.

A spot on his chest was sinking inward.

It collapsed layer by layer.

Like an old house long neglected, beams broken, walls askew, the Wūdǐng about to cave in.

You are not important.

Your life is not important.

The traces of your life are not important.

The wind blows and it scatters.

The rain washes and it's gone.

Shihou's head buried in his knees, his whole body curled into a ball.

That voice came again.

Light.

Gentle.

Like soothing a child who cried themselves tired.

"Let go, little monkey."

"You're tired."

"Put down those burdens that don't belong to you."

"Stay here, be a happy monkey."

"No one will blame you."

Shihou's body was trembling.

The throbbing of that red-gold light point was as weak as a mosquito flapping its wings.

He wanted to nod.

Really wanted.

Too tired.

No matter what word follows that "Master", no matter whose cold tea that is, no matter who the person sitting behind the broken table is waiting for——

What does it have to do with him?

He's just a monkey.

A monkey that remembers nothing, withered, useless.

Let go.

His neck was bending.

His chin was about to touch his chest.

Then——

The wind came.

Not the wind of this false world.

It was the wind seeping out from deep within Shihou's mind, from the cracks of that word.

Carrying a scent.

Old paper.

Cold tea.

The scorched smell of bamboo slips singed by the oil lamp.

Same as before.

But this time it's different.

This time, that scent had a hint of something else.

Very faint.

So faint it was almost overlooked.

Warm.

Hot.

Like that cup of tea that's forever ice-cold, sitting on an empty table untouched——

Someone had refilled it with hot water.

Shihou's head shot up.

His pupils shrank to a pinpoint.

His chest, that faint red-gold light point, gave a strong thump.

Stronger than any time before.