TIC Chapter 41: Bones Like Snow Gave Rise to Red Lotuses

Just as Jina was shocked by his own thoughts, his men had already crossed the Red Lotus Abyss and arrived in front of the Snow City.

The Saint Son of Ziwei frowned slightly, and suddenly felt that there was something wrong with the city wall.

He looked intently and raised his hand to carefully touch it. The sensation sent a chill running from the soles of his feet to the back of his head, and his limbs felt numb.

How can this be a city of snow?

This was clearly a high city built with human bones as tiles!

How many lives had to be lost to build such a magnificent wall? And what kind of madman would use the bodies of the dead to build a city?!

Ji Na felt a chill on his back, and he raised his head, suddenly realized something

He looked up in horror, his gaze following the magnificent towers. The wall extended at an impossible height, nearly reaching the sky. Above the snow-white wall, between the dome and the sky, dark black and red clouds swirled, and the mist gathered and rolled, forming a roaring sea.

A few rays of clear sunlight scattered down through the sea of clouds, illuminating the thick black fur robe of the man standing against the light atop the Snow Bone Tower.

A young emperor stood there, his face unclear under the black dragon crown. The wind blew, and the emperor’s elegant robes fluttered.

His fingers were resting on the tower. The slender joints left convex marks under the jade-white skin, and the fingertips were clean and dust-free, making it difficult to determine which was whiter, those fingers or the bone white tiles.

He seemed to have appeared there silently, and also seemed to have been standing there for thousands of years.

A pair of eyes as if frozen in ice looked down from above, indifferently falling on Ji Na who was standing in a daze under the city.

“Ziwei…”

The Emperor sighed softly and spoke in a low voice.

“I have been waiting for you for a long time.”

“Who are you……”

Ji Na’s head was buzzing. In just a short moment, he had experienced too many shocking changes, but nothing compared to the scene before him.

He had a sudden thought. “Lin Fuqing…?”

It was indeed Lin Fuqing! Although he had grown from a boy to a young man, his features were still recognizable. It was indeed the little immortal lord that he had brought to the Mountain, Sea, and Star Terrace.

The Holy Son took a hasty step backward, and suddenly his eyes became blurred.

The illusion in his sea of consciousness changed. He found himself standing in a dark and solemn hall. He was at the bottom of a long staircase, looking up at the emperor high above.

The emperor had long hair and slender frame, leaning back against the black silver dragon throne in a lazy, powerful posture. He tapped the armrest with his fingers and casually lifted his gaze.

“I have told you that you should be more careful and cautious. The Holy Son actually dared to bring a stranger he’d only met once to the Mountain, Sea, and Star Terrace. You’re really a…”

Lin Fuqing eyelashes drooped, and he shook his head, sighing with a half-smile.

“…quite foolish.”

“You…”

Ji Na’s face was pale. His voice echoed in the empty and dark hall, “Are you the same kind of person as Wang Zhe?!”

Lin Fuqing smiled and said, “Almost.”

He looked deeply at Ji Na and thought to himself that if they’re both counted as reborn souls, then they’re indeed nearly the same.

Ji Na’s hands and feet shook, and he could hardly utter a word.

“What a pity, Saint Ziwei….” Lin Fuqing lowered his narrow eyes and said half-jokingly and half-mockingly, “You have chosen to put your trust in the wrong person.”

“The astronomical chart you believe in, the destiny you worship… what are they?”

Lin Fuqing slowly raised his hands and clasped his fingers in front of his eyes. His eyes darkened, and his voice became deeper.

“I have already stepped on it countless times, and thrown it between my fingers countless times.”

“Where is this place? Who are you?” Ji Na knew that he was in a desperate situation. He suppressed his anger with all his strength and gritted his teeth, “What do you want?!”

The dim light from the dome of the hall adorned the emperor’s cold face. Lin Fuqing smiled coldly. “What do I want? You are wrong. It was not me plotting against you.”

“Let’s talk about it first, Ziwei…”

Lin Fuqing leaned forward slightly, a dangerous breath soaking between his lips and teeth. “What was your original plan for my person?”

Ji Na suddenly jumped up, and a star-like sharp blade appeared in his palm. His figure turned into a purple light, flowing across the long steps with murderous intent, aiming for the emperor’s long neck on the throne!

“Stupid.” Lin Fuqing raised his hand, and Ji Na fell in mid-air. The usually noble Holy Son rolled down the long steps, grabbing at his neck in pain!

“……you……!”

Jina’s face suddenly turned purple, and he fell to the cold ground, unable to get up. The veins on his neck throbbed fiercely, as if his neck was being strangled by some huge force out of nowhere!

The suffocating feeling of a mortal, something that he’d never experienced before, surged wildly. He could not struggle, and within a few breaths, his lips had already turned a deathly gray. “You…ah…you…”

Lin Fuqing said calmly, “Your soul is already in my sea of ​​consciousness. If you obey me, you will suffer less. I don’t really want to hurt you…”

The pressure directly applied to the soul was so terrifying and so painful. Ji Na’s pupils dilated and his hands and feet spasmed and twitched, his purple robe dragging on the ground, wrinkling as he struggled.

It was not until Lin Fuqing sighed and removed his pressure that Ji Na was able to catch his breath and burst into an uncontrollable violent cough!

Lin Fuqing said, “Forget it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t tell me, let me guess.”

Jina looked up at him with hatred/

Lin Fuqing remained indifferent, and his beautiful fingers gently brushed across her lips.

He slowly leaned on the throne, his eyes were empty when he looked up, and there was a flash of melancholy in his expression. He said quietly: “You want me…”

=========

In the previous life, on the Mountain, Sea, and Star Terrace.

“Lin Fuqing,” the Saint of Ziwei put away the star plate and turned around. “Did you see the divination about the future three years from now?”

Lin Fuqing was in a daze, with a cold sweat soaking his snow-white clothes and black hair.

He clenched his pale fingers tightly, trying to stop himself from shaking, but it was useless.

The astrolabe revealed destiny. Under such an irresistible force, he felt cold from bone to skin and couldn’t help but tremble violently.

The young immortal said hoarsely, “I saw it.”

“This catastrophe is soon to befall the Three Realms,” Ji Na said with a gloomy face. “Last spring, my late master exhausted all his efforts making this divination, and he fell from the Mountain, Star, and Sea Terrace and died.”

“Ji Na once said that he had entrusted something to me, and this is exactly it.”

“Your sect’s disciple Fang Zhiyuan is a Star of Calamity who has returned to the world and will lead a great disaster onto the three realms.”

His clear voice gradually sank into the night.

Lin Fuqing’s body was wrapped in a cold chill.

After all, he was only nineteen years old. Being hit on the head with such a great fate, he was in a daze for a while, as if his soul had been scattered.

He looked up blankly, his deep pupils reflecting the sky. The night was stained black by a large area of ​​dark color, and the stars in the sky were still shining mercilessly.

At this moment, the Three Realms are rotating, as if it were no different from every ordinary night that had passed.

Under the same starry sky, the young talents of Liuhua Continent were drinking and singing, expressing their joy or sorrow over the results of the Golden Osmanthus Challenge.

Some of them couldn’t wait to board their own millet boats, ready to bring the good news back to the sect.

The waves at the seaside were still rolling and hitting the shore. The outer disciples on Taiqing Island were asleep. A mother hugging her child, a grandfather hugged his grandson, they all slept peacefully.

Atop of the four peaks of Xuyun, several inner disciples looked at Little Fish eating snacks, and smiled and wondered when the two brothers would return.

In the northwest demon territory, the demons had come out at night, lurking in the dense forests of the mountains. Their vertical pupils glittered brightly under the bright moon, and their fangs were filled with a bloody smell.

Hunters in the secular world lit bonfires, fishermen carried lanterns back to their boats, and farmers who had worked all day snored, making deafening noises. Someone in the small town was ringing the night watch, “It’s dry weather, be careful with fire—”

The underworld was still so lonely and peaceful.

Beneath the six paths, the River of Forgetfulness flowed.

Life and death, souls coming and going.

This was supposed to be a most ordinary night.

On the Mountain, Sea and Stars Terrace, two figures sat opposite each other.

Lin Fuqing fixed his eyes back on Ji Na and said softly, “Since the Holy Son showed me this, there must be hope…right?”

“That’s right.” Ji Na agreed immediately, his eyes bright. “Fuqing, you are the one destined by the star chart, please help Ji Na and break this deadlock for all living beings in the three realms.”

Lin Fuqing was stunned for a while. Suddenly, he knelt forward, bowed his head, and said with a sob, “The Holy Son is so righteous…! Lin Fuqing thanks you for this great kindness on behalf of my shidi!”

“No!” Ji Na hurriedly supported him and said hastily, “If anyone should thank someone, it should be Ji Na who should thank you… Fuqing, please listen to me.”

“The astrolabe has revealed that if disaster is the ‘result’, then the person with the fate of the Star of Calamity is the ’cause’ of this disaster. The key to breaking this bad fate lies in the Calamity Star Fang Zhiyuan.”

The Saint of Ziwei paused and took a deep breath.

In the night, under the starlight above and around him, that holy and lofty aura returned to Ji Na’s face.

The Saint of Ziwei, who held the fate of the three realms, issued a verdict in a calm tone, “Eliminate Fang Zhiyuan.”

Lin Fuqing’s fingers trembled.

Unable to believe it, he slowly raised his eyes and said, “…What?”

The glimmer of hope that had risen extinguished in the darkness. Lin Fuqing looked at Ji Na, who said, “Only when the evil star is annihilated, can the Three Realms survive.”

“…Okay, Ziwei.”

Lin Fuqing raised his head again, and the evil star with red light was hanging high above the band of light in the sky.

A raging flame burned from the young immortal’s heart, burning through his lungs and liver. He gritted his teeth, his eyes gleaming like a blade, “Then I’ll go to heaven and kill the evil star.”

Ji Na frowned and shook his head. “Fuqing…you should understand what I want to say. Fang Zhiyuan must die.”

“And we can’t just simply kill the body,” Jina continued, seeming to have some compassion but still exuding great calmness. “The soul of the calamity star is tough and extremely difficult to destroy. Ordinary methods will not work.”

Lin Fuqing’s ears were buzzing. He chewed over Ji Na’s words four or five times before he understood what he meant.

Suddenly, it was as if a knife had stabbed into his chest, the blade twisting and turning, splitting his chest and gouging at his heart.

His face turned pale, and the world seemed to spin around him. Yet, only one clear thought came to mind.

No wonder.

No wonder Fang Zhiyuan, who was only seven years old at the time, never became a madman as Fang Tinghai hoped, even though he suffered such despair and misery at the hands of the Fang family.

Was he really that strong?

A seven-year-old?

Living a life worse than death in darkness and pain for three whole years?

—The soul of the calamity star is tenacious and extremely difficult to destroy.

“The soul…is tenacious.” Lin Fuqing laughed softly. His vision was blurred by the mist and he whispered to himself, “…extremely difficult to destroy…”

It turned out that Fang Zhiyuan was born as a Star of Calamity, and his soul was difficult to destroy.

The child on the rack back then was whipped and beaten by the cruel law of nature and the vicious human heart, and was covered in blood.

He wanted to go crazy, but he couldn’t; he wanted to die, but he couldn’t.

There was no relief, no end.

The mist in front of his eyes was hazy, as if he was back at the abandoned cottage inside the Fang family manor, which carried a dark secret.

“Fang Tinghai thought that this would drive me crazy. But after waiting for another year, and another year, I still didn’t go crazy.”

The young man in black kicked the rack casually, with a nonchalant look that showed a hint of pride.

“By the third year, not only did I not go crazy, I had even established my foundation.”

Lin Fuqing closed his eyes. He did not shed tears, but his thick and long eyelashes were wet.

Ji Na’s voice still echoed in his ears. “However, no matter how strong the soul is, there is always a limit. Ziwei Pavilion has a nine-turn soul-destroying formation, which is specially designed to eliminate evil spirits.”

“As long as the soul is absorbed into the formation, the formation will tear the soul apart, slowly splitting it from one to nine, and then the nine pieces of soul will each be split into nine pieces, repeating infinitely… Within a year, the soul of the evil star will be torn into hundreds of millions of pieces, and then the broken souls will be thrown into the soul-burning divine fire to be refined. In this way, the calamity star will die.”

“…Ji Na,” Lin Fuqing sneered, his heart chilled. He shook his head. “Are you going to torture my shidi’s soul to death, burn it alive… so that he will never be able to reincarnate?”

He seemed to see Fang Zhiyuan again the night he retrieved his inner core.

Zhiyuan was so happy that night.

“Now my inner core can be fully restored, shige.”

Fang Zhiyuan smiled at him happily, his eyes burning with a rebellious spark, so bright. Lin Fuqing had never seen his little star so happy before.

“If you continue to be lazy, I might…”

It was like a young eagle having its wings freed from the shackles.

It was as if a young phoenix had achieved nirvana and cleansed all its old wounds.

He had endured so much hardship.

He should have flown away in all the glory.

“……No.”

On that deadly silent night on the Moutain, Sea, and Stars Terrace, Ji Na’s hesitant voice suddenly rang out, “This method is… a little too cruel after all.”

Lin Fuqing raised his eyes and thought to himself, so you know it too.

Ji Na hesitated and said, “If I tell everyone exactly what the divination said, the elders of Ziwei Pavilion will definitely choose to take this approach. However…the calamity star doesn’t really intend to bring disaster to the world. Ji Na really cannot bear it.”

“So?”

“So,” Jina tightened his lips, lowered his eyes, and said after a long while, “I want to hide it from the elders, from the Three Realms… and use another method.”

“I want to find someone to secretly kill the calamity star.”

“Then… place the mark of the Nine-Turn Soul-Destroying Formation on the soul of the calamity l star and send him to the underworld. Within three years, his soul will be torn apart continuously and unable to be gathered together, thus preventing the calamity star from reincarnating…”

Lin Fuqing silently moved his lips.

His eyes gradually lost their focus, and he no longer had the strength to feel the pain.

Well……

Changing the sentence from one year to three years is really a great mercy!!

“By trapping the calamity star in the underworld for three years, it will probably allow us to avoid the disaster in the three realms. After three years, the Nine-Turn Soul-Destroying Formation will dissipate on its own. If the calamity star’s soul is strong enough, it can be reincarnated again…”

After the torture was over, they still hoped that the broken body would stand up again, piece itself together again, covered in blood, and be reincarnated…

If the reincarnation was successful, it means that the Holy Son had a kind heart and saved the poor calamity star’s life.

What if it didn’t work? What if the soul was really destroyed, and the heart was dead, and it no longer had a trace of strength to put itself together?

That meant the Holy Son had done his best, and it was all the fault of the Star of Calamity…

“When the time comes, Ji Na will make another divination. If the calamity star is no longer harmful to the three realms, he will be allowed to be reborn as a human being. If he is still involved in disasters, it will not be too late to eliminate him.”

“—Ji Na.”

Lin Fuqing interrupted him coldly, but his eyes were red.

His hands and feet were already cold and weak, he was half kneeling and half lying on the ground, trembling all over. “You are not a human being.”

Ji Na’s eyes dodged for a moment, but he still insisted, “According to the astrological revelation, even if we don’t kill the calamity star, he will be swallowed by yin qi when the calamity descends in three years… Fuqing, don’t act on impulse!”

He took a step forward and said sincerely, “You are the only person in the world who can kill the calamity star. I have seen it on the star chart.”

“Please ask the Little Immortal Lord Lin to remove the calamity star for the three realms.”

=========

In the illusion of the sea of ​​consciousness, the Demon Lord looked down at the Saint of Ziwei who was lying in a miserable state at the foot of the long steps. His eyes were cold and he sighed deeply.

“You want me to eliminate the calamity star for the three realms.”

 

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