Ch. 90 – You Must Take Responsibility
Black. All different shades of black.
Feng Ye lifted his right foot and took a step forward.
It’s this dream again, Feng Ye thought, looking out at the vast, seemingly endless realm of darkness around him.
Although he couldn’t tell which way was which in the dark, he still walked in a certain direction as if he knew where he was going.
He walked for an unknown amount of time, for in such abject darkness, he was unable to see the sun, moon, or stars. Finally, he caught sight of the outline of a sapling.
A Jianmu sapling.
Having reached the stage of the show, Feng Ye stopped and idly waited for the dream to continue.
Next, the little figures appeared like they always did. Although he was only a dark shadow in this dream, Feng Ye had learned that this human’s name was Ling Yun when he went down to the mortal realm over a month ago to investigate the cause of these dreams.
The story told in his dreams was just a compact version of reality. At present, the small figure was busily tending to the sapling, watering and feeding it with meticulous care.
But in reality, Ling Yun had paid a much higher price to cultivate Jianmu.
Xuanming Water, Living Soil, and the rising sun of the far east – other than the latter, these ingredients were very difficult to obtain.
Ling Yun gathered them one by one until, at last, Jianmu sprouted.
Then came the scene before Feng Ye: the sapling remained a sapling, with no noticeable growth.
Of course, the growth of Jianmu was just too slow to see. With eight hundred years equaling one spring and autumn, the human lifespan paled in comparison.
It did indeed grow, but so slightly that it was imperceptible, leading people to believe that it wasn’t growing at all.
Having exhausted every method, the little figure slumped to the ground in despair.
But he didn’t remain despondent for long. Nobody knew how he had come up with the idea, and even Feng Ye had never imagined that giving a human heart to Jianmu would promote its growth.
But this person did think of it, and he put it into action.
He offered his heart to Jianmu, burying it within its roots.
Thump, thump, thump….
The sapling grew at visible speed to the rhythm of the heartbeat. With each blink of the eye, it grew taller and taller, dwarfing the mountains and clouds, until finally….it connected heaven and earth.
The little black figure cheered for the towering tree. He called upon his friends, summoning his shidi, Ji Chengyue, along with cultivators from all over the world, so that they could ascend to the heavens together.
A dense cluster of shadows climbed the giant tree, moving in an orderly manner after a brief period of chaos.
But just when it seemed they would reach the heavens…..
Feng Ye looked up and saw himself appear amongst the clouds.
After one glance, he looked away – because unlike a certain fish, he wasn’t a narcissist. There was really not much about him that was interesting.
He then cut down Jianmu, thus severing these peoples’ ambition to reach the heavens.
He watched as the world was instantly transformed into a sea of fire, living people wailing in agony within it. His golden eyes reflected this tragic scene, seemingly unmoved.
His current expression was identical to that of his counterpart in the clouds. Feng Ye watched in silence as it all unfolded before him, listening to the crackle of flames and the wails echoing across the land.
Finally, after raging for three days and three nights, the heavenly fire burned everything to ashes.
Everything, including Jianmu and the mortals ascending it.
Only embers were left to dance before his eyes.
The dream was coming to an end, and just like before, Feng Ye tried to step forward for a closer look.
He watched as a seedling broke through the soil, exactly the same as the fragment he’d handed to Ji Chengyue, which sprouted again after absorbing his divine power.
And beneath the seedling, he also saw the whirlpool rising up from below.
Something was watching him from the depths of that abyss. He had already met it in the outside world…..that black mist that had controlled Xue Ren, and looked so similar to Feng Ye.
Although Feng Ye couldn’t quite pinpoint what the other party was, he knew where he had come from…..
The Emberless Horizon.
Only there could such filth exist.
Just like Feng Ye himself.
A black tendril crawled up Feng Ye’s ankle, but he ignored it. The other party was blocked by an invisible barrier, and could only frantically and ineffectually scrabble at his ankle.
It was always like this at the end of the dream. Just as he was about to see what lay within the abyss, the dream would conclude.
Feng Ye readied himself to open his eyes and return to reality.
However, this time…..
He didn’t wake up.
Not only did he fail to wake up, but the barrier that the other party had been unable to break through seemed to have vanished while he wasn’t paying attention. The black mist, like tentacles, began to wrap around his limbs.
Feng Ye was caught off guard, and was pulled to his knees as the black mist wrapped around his calves.
He braced himself with his arms, struggling to break free. But pressing his hands to the ground was like trying to exert force against a swamp, and he only sank deeper and deeper.
Feng Ye was swiftly pulled to the ground, but made no further moves, because he witnessed something unexpected.
Feng Ye’s eyes widened slightly as he finally caught sight of what was lurking within the abyss.
It was a very familiar face…..
A face identical to his…..
The moment he saw it, Feng Ye almost thought he was looking into a mirror.
But the expression on that face immediately told him that it wasn’t his. The other person was smiling. It was a smile that Feng Ye had never worn, exuding a strange, sinister aura.
That person called his name affectionately: “Feng Ye.”
They were separated only by a thin membrane, him on one side and that person on the other.
But now, that thing wearing his face reached through the thin membrane and broke through the barrier. It wrapped its arms intimately around his neck, and then…..forcefully pulled him down.
The tentacles around his limbs pulled at the same time, and Feng Ye realized that something wasn’t right. This dream was not simply a dream. There were countless methods in this world, and it was indeed possible for some monsters to devour the soul of their prey through dreams.
Although he didn’t know where the other party wanted to take him, he absolutely could not let them succeed!
Feng Ye exerted all of his strength, and amidst the tentacles holding him down, managed to open his right hand…..
But then, Feng Ye stared at his empty hand in shock. Fleeting Shadow, which always appeared immediately upon being summoned, was nowhere to be seen.
No light blazed from the sky to pierce the darkness. Everything before him was black. Pure, boundless black.
Whether or not it was due to the dream, his power had failed him.
A mocking laugh came from below as his mirror image mocked his powerlessness from the bottom of the abyss.
Feng Ye watched as the other party drew closer.
They were so close that their noses almost touched. Any closer, and he would be swallowed up by the other party and dragged into the depths of the abyss.
Suddenly, a sharp cry reached his ears.
Its volume was ear-piercing, cutting straight through the boundless darkness.
The man’s grip on his neck loosened slightly, and Feng Ye took the opportunity to break free, though his limbs were still bound to the ground by the tentacles. With difficulty, he turned his head to look toward the sky.
The darkness surged, then retreated.
A hurricane appeared on the horizon, its violent winds dispersing the darkness of this world.
The gale whipped across Feng Ye’s face, and very slowly, a sliver of light appeared in the receding darkness above.
That tiny glimmer shone through the gaps of what appeared to be feathers.
Those were…..wings so colossal that they defied imagination, blotting out the sky.
The darkness was swept away by the hurricane, but due to the bird’s enormous size, only a faint beam of light was able to pierce through a gap in its feathers and illuminate the person trapped in the darkness below.
In all his life, Feng Ye had never seen such an enormous bird.
Wait. He had seen something like this before. A certain person who always stuck to his side…..
“Feng Ye!”
Hao Chen’s voice sounded from above. So it was really him who stirred up a hurricane with a flap of his wings, Feng Ye thought blankly.
How had Hao Chen come to be in his dream?
But that didn’t matter. The important thing at the moment was….
Feng Ye opened his right hand and caught the sharp sword that came from beyond the sky, piercing through layers of darkness with its bright glow.
His power had not failed him in this dream. The darkness had simply been too thick for Fleeting Shadow to penetrate.
But Hao Chen, who had suddenly appeared in his dream as a giant peng bird, had used the hurricane stirred up by his wings to dispel some of the darkness.
Fleeting Shadow finally found an opportunity, and rushed to his side.
The moment the divine sword entered his hand, he released a sword glare that severed the tentacles binding his limbs.
And as the tentacles dispersed, so did his opponent’s ambition.
The creature in the abyss clicked his tongue in disappointment, glancing at the troublesome peng bird before meeting Feng Ye’s gaze again.
He then promised Feng Ye: “We will meet again.”
“It won’t be long, Feng Ye…..” The other’s voice grew fainter and fainter, then faded into the distance.
The darkness shattered before his eyes, and the light on the horizon grew increasingly bright.
Under this radiance, the peng bird became an elongated silhouette against an incandescent background.
Bathed in white light, Feng Ye closed his eyes.
And as the dream ended, he opened them again.
He sat up abruptly, chest heaving in the wake of his perilous dream.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, he finally had a chance to take in his surroundings.
It seemed to be daytime. Sunlight streamed over Feng Ye’s body through the window beside his bed.
The furnishings were familiar. This was his dormitory in Lingxiao Sword Sect.
And he was currently sitting on his bed, which felt a bit cramped…..
Feng Ye belatedly glanced to the side, where he found Hao Chen lying next to him with his clothes all disheveled…..
Hao Chen was looking at him expressionlessly. When Feng Ye finally looked over at him, he slowly sat up and straightened his collar while speaking four words:
“You must take responsibility.”
Feng Ye: “……”
What was going on here?
All at once, he realized that he might not have awoken from his dream.
Thus, he simply lay back down again.
This was not a good turn of events. His bed wasn’t big enough for two people. It was perfectly fine as a single bed, but squeezing two people into it made it a bit crowded.
Feng Ye bumped into Hao Chen’s shoulder as he lay back, causing Hao Chen to fall down with him.
The two lay on their backs, shoulder to shoulder.
Even though the warmth of the person beside him felt so real, Feng Ye still closed his eyes and attempted to deceive himself.
However, the sudden opening of the door and a barely audible “Shixiong….” rendered Feng Ye’s self-deception null.
Fang Yang stared at the two people who were sleeping together again and felt a sense of deja vu.
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Neon Dragonfly Translations 