Chapter 9: Last Words

By the time Fang Xiu caught his breath and gradually recovered some strength, Mo Laodao, lying beside him, grew weaker and weaker.

Fang Xiu hurriedly climbed up and helped Mo Laodao to his feet. Mo Laodao had multiple knife wounds, his sternum was partially collapsed, he had lost too much blood, and was not far from death.

"Mo Laotou, Mo Laotou, you can't just die like this."

Mo Laodao forced his eyes open to look at Fang Xiu, enduring the pain as he spoke.

"A Ku has been captured by them. These people are from the Beggar Sect. You can't fight them."

The Beggar Sect is powerful with numerous underlings. Just now, that one was merely a small fry.

They still want to capture you. You must leave quickly, hide far away, and don't bother with A Ku anymore. You can't save her. Even if this child's life is bitter."

A Ku was picked up and adopted by Mo Laodao. She took Mo Laodao's surname Mo, and her full name was Mo Ku.

Mo Ku, what a beautiful blessing, what a cruel irony.

Mo Laodao told Fang Xiu not to save A Ku, but his eyes were full of sorrow. In terms of affection, he and A Ku were the closest.

He suppressed his heartache, reached out and grabbed Fang Xiu's shoulder, his five fingers gripping tightly, and instructed him.

"You child, you are agile and thorough, your thoughts are steady, truly not like a ten-year-old child. In that fierce fight just now, there was not a trace of cowardice, you were full of adaptability. I, an old Taoist, have observed people all my life, yet I cannot see through you."

Even more rare is that you harbor kindness, know how to yield and how to stand firm. When you grow up, you will surely not be a thing in the pond.

I don't know your origins, why you encountered calamity, or even what your name is. But now, if you risk yourself for A Ku, you will only end up losing both your life and A Ku's. That is truly not what a wise person would do. Remember, remember."

As soon as he finished speaking, Mo Laodao seemed to lose all strength in his body. He collapsed into Fang Xiu's arms, his eyes vacant as he looked at the roof and spoke.

"My name is Mo Guisheng. 'Mo' means valuing oneself, 'Guisheng' means rebirth. I am ashamed to mention my Taoist title."

What you said that day was right. I am not actually of the Zhuangzi Lineage. I am indeed a member of Quanxing.

Valuing oneself and rebirth are originally the doctrines of my Quanxing. Unfortunately, since the Western Han, Confucianism has been exclusively honored, and disciples of the Quanxing Lineage have repeatedly been suppressed, suffering heavy casualties. To this day, there are probably few Quanxing Inheritors left in the world.

Quanxing originated from Yang Zhuzi and belongs to Taoism, yet it is not accepted by Taoism. Zhuang Zhou denounced Yang Zhu, considering him a heretic demon. Yet the Nanhua Sutra quotes many principles of Quanxing, so much so that our Quanxing Heirs use the Zhuangzi Lineage as a cover, unable to see the light of day. How absurd."

People say no classics of Quanxing exist in the world. My lineage has endured humiliation and bore heavy burdens for many years, finally preserving some of the ancestral treasures.

Beneath that water vat, buried one foot underground, there is a map. It concerns the Quanxing Treasure Vault. If you are interested in the future, you can go find it. If you can enter the Quanxing Gate, that would be best. But if you truly have no affinity with my Quanxing, you must absolutely not let the classics be lost. I, this old Taoist, beg you from the netherworld."

This passage exhausted Mo Laodao's last strength. He completely went limp on the ground, his eyes lost focus, and he murmured weakly.

"To harm a hair to benefit the world, not to do it; to offer the whole world to serve one body, not to take it. They have misread the true scripture. They are all wrong..."

Mo Laodao finally passed away. Fang Xiu watched with his own eyes as he exhausted the last trace of vitality in his arms. In his heart, he felt neither sorrow nor joy.

He had been with Mo Laodao for over a month. Although Mo Laodao had saved his life, they both had secrets in their hearts. Apart from occasionally teasing each other, they were not close.

When Mo Laodao truly died before him, he originally felt desolate in his heart. But thinking of Mo Laodao's life—hiding his name, begging for a living, enduring the suppression of his own faith, the severance of the Dao Sect's inheritance, with the bitterness in his heart having nowhere to be told. Though in the mortal world, it was like being in hell. Passing away now could be considered a release.

Perhaps Mo Laodao hoped to reunite with A Ku in the netherworld. Thinking of this, Fang Xiu couldn't help but smile bitterly. Mo Laotou's dying instruction was for him not to risk himself for A Ku. But could Fang Xiu really watch A Ku encounter calamity and do nothing?

The child snatched by the Beggar Sect would very likely end up being harvested and mutilated. That was the true human hell. Just thinking of A Ku being crippled, even covered in beast skin, lying on the ground begging every day, and dying miserably in a few years.

Or perhaps that Qingyu Guan. What does a Taoist temple want with boys and girls? It's nothing but an evil path. Falling into an evil path, death might even be a luxury.

Fang Xiu kept asking himself if he could really just leave like that. If so, his second half of life would probably be haunted by nightmares every day, with not a trace of sunlight.

Fang Xiu shook his head, temporarily suppressing this thought. What Mo Laodao said was also reality. With just him alone, he fundamentally could not fight those villains. He had no plan.

Fang Xiu had now recovered most of his strength. He laid Mo Laodao's body flat and struggled to get up, but the severe pain in his left leg immediately made him unable to control himself. Fang Xiu knew that by forcibly using martial arts to fight the villain just now, his left leg, which had slightly improved after a month of recuperation, was probably broken again.

Fang Xiu smiled bitterly. This leg had suffered heavy trauma again. Even if he recuperated well in the future, he was destined to be a cripple for this life.

He tore a strip of cloth from his body, rolled it up, and bit it tightly in his mouth. Enduring the severe pain, he forcibly stood up. Now was not the time to recuperate from injuries.

There were two more Beggar Sect corpses in this house. At least three people had come here initially. One took A Ku away, and the remaining two stayed in the ruined house to wait for the rabbit.

That is to say, the Beggar Sect's branch had long since figured out this place. If these two Beggar Sect dead men did not return for a long time, someone would surely come to investigate.

Fang Xiu tried to channel his just-recovered Inner Force into his left leg. Although it still hurt severely, he finally had some strength. He used all his might to drag these two corpses out of the ruined house.

Behind the ruined house, separated by an old alley, there was an abandoned courtyard. When Fang Xiu couldn't get out of bed before, out of boredom he used his hearing to investigate and discovered that there were actually many rats underground in a corner of this courtyard. Suspecting the space was not small, it should be an abandoned cellar.

The most urgent matter was to hide these two corpses in this cellar. If the Beggar Sect people couldn't find them, they wouldn't think they were dead for a while, and could buy some time.

After Fang Xiu went through thousands of hardships to drag them there, he quickly found the cellar. He opened the cellar door and threw the two corpses inside, scaring the rats inside to run around everywhere. Then Fang Xiu returned the same way and tried his best to erase the drag marks along the way.

After finishing disposing of the corpses, he placed Mo Laodao's body into that water vat and covered it with stone slabs. Now the weather was cold, so the corpse would not rot in a short time.

As for the so-called treasure map underground beneath the water vat, Fang Xiu did not touch it. Now was not the time to touch it. If Fang Xiu also died next, then let the secret of the Quanxing Dao Sect die out like this. Anyway, there are too many things that have perished in Hua Guo over thousands of years, and later generations have long since had no Quanxing.

The only thing he needed to take with him was the set of clothes Wu Mianfeng wore back then and the jade pendant Feng Heng left for him. The clothes had long been washed clean by the kind A Ku, and together with the jade pendant, they were placed under Fang Xiu's pile of dry grass. Fang Xiu had a premonition that when he put on this set of clothes again, he would truly have merged into the world of The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

After finishing packing everything up, Fang Xiu picked up a wooden stick, hid the short knife behind his back, and limped away from this slum.

There was no longer Mo Laodao here, nor A Ku. Fang Xiu probably would not have a chance to come back again.

Thanks to Miao Sheng, Liyue Shuangxue, Gourd Sister, Book Friend 5546, Dashaishou, Book Friend 5234, Book Friend 0111, Book Friend 0470, Book Friend 9827 for the recommendation tickets.

Today there is a power outage, from 7 AM to 5:30 PM, so I got up early to release a new chapter. I won't write during the day today, I'll rest a bit. Don't worry, there are enough stockpiled chapters.

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(Chapter End)