My Husband’s Ascension C41 (Part 1)
Chapter 41.1 Meet Again
Zhao Zhao had never imagined she would meet Dao Lord Tianshu again under such circumstances.
He stood beneath the pear blossom tree. A sudden gust of wind stirred the petals, sending them fluttering down like snow. They fell into the pool of blood on the ground, their pure whiteness tainted a glaring crimson.
Mo Lingyun finally regained his composure.
Clad in bloodied robes, riddled with gaping wounds across his shoulders and abdomen, he looked as though he were on the brink of death. Someone in such a state could not possibly attempt a nocturnal assault.
“You… have come to seek Miss Immortal Tanzhao’s healing?” Mo Lingyun stepped forward, his gaze scanning the extent of the grievous injuries. “Wasn’t the chaos in Jimo Sea City already quelled? How did you sustain wounds like these? Did you just return from the border frontlines? Surely Kunwu’s disciples would have been accompanied by those of the Divine Farmer Sect…”
Dao Lord Tianshu remained silent, offering no answer to Mo Lingyun’s questions.
Zhao Zhao rose, her countenance calm and composed, a faint, polite smile appearing after a moment. “Do you require my assistance? Your injuries appear severe.”
His snow-white lashes trembled slightly. The stone lantern in the courtyard flickered momentarily, its quiet flame casting shifting shadows.
Mo Lingyun turned to Zhao Zhao. “With injuries this severe, you’ll expend far too much spiritual energy on your own. You should call your master to help handle this.”
Before Zhao Zhao could reply, a clear, melodious voice, like jade beads tinkling, sounded softly, “Merely surface wounds. You alone are sufficient.”
Dao Lord Tianshu’s body teetered at the brink of exhaustion, swaying slightly, yet his tone carried a gentle composure, as though even if the heavens were to collapse, he would not falter in fear or haste.
Mo Lingyun studied him for several moments.
From such calm alone, he was clearly no ordinary cultivator. Yet perhaps because he rarely left his sect, Mo Lingyun’s eyes were unpracticed; even after observing him for some time, he could not discern who he was.
Thus, he remarked, “Miss Immortal Tanzhao is indeed formidable on her own. Even among the disciples of the Divine Farmer Sect, few excel so equally in both combat and healing…”
The young man spoke freely, lavishing praise without restraint.
Zhao Zhao laughed. “You flatter me too much; your wounds aren’t yet fully healed.”
Mo Lingyun immediately clutched his arm.
Once fully healed, how could he hope to come to her courtyard in the evenings and speak with her alone, as he had these past few nights?
“I–It’s fine! Miss Immortal, conserve your spiritual energy. Tend to this Daoist instead, I’ll come to you another day!”
He hurried a few steps, then turned back, producing a small object no larger than a palm and placing it on the stone table.
The young man in the dark robe smiled wryly. “This is a little toy for Yao Ling and the others. Upon seeing the wooden kites of the Moyan Sect previously, they kept insisting they wanted one.”
A delicate wooden kite rested atop the table.
Though Moyan Sect’s mechanical arts were exquisite, to compress such intricacy into a toy no larger than a palm had required Mo Lingyun considerable effort.
He gave Zhao Zhao no chance to refuse, then lightly ran off after leaving it.
Zhao Zhao felt a quiet helplessness.
The object was light, yet the sentiment it carried was weighty; she could not hope to reciprocate.
“He likes you.” A soft, gentle voice spoke as the silver-haired youth stepped slowly along a carpet of fallen petals. His pale, almost lifeless face carried a faint, cold smile, as though the state of his own body mattered little to him.
“Do you intend to accept him?”
The hand resting on the stone table tightened slightly. Zhao Zhao lifted her gaze, her alert eyes meeting his. “Have you come to strip me of my cultivation?”
Dao Lord Tianshu’s footsteps halted abruptly.
The flawless mask of composure he always wore seemed to crack, a fissure appearing through which some turbulent emotion swirled—Zhao Zhao could not discern its nature.
There was no trace of romantic fancy in her eyes, only calm, rational scrutiny.
“All these years, I have remained in Jimo Sea, never disturbing you, never revealing the nature of our connection to those who need not know. You wish to drive me from the Cultivation Realm only because you fear I might impede you. But now I have proven that we can coexist peacefully, each maintaining our own path. And yet…you still intend to strip me of my cultivation?”
His gaze swept over her features, and a sudden, almost absurd feeling gripped him.
For the past seven years, he had rushed through the Cultivation Realm, throwing his battered body onto battlefields, believing that by embracing pain he could quell it, forget the love and longing that should never have existed.
He had imagined countless scenarios of their reunion.
Yet never had he expected that after so many years, her very first words would be this.
…And perhaps, rightly so.
“I have descended to the very depths of the Soul-Shattering Abyss and met the overseer of the Langhuan Bochord.” His lips grew pallid, yet his voice remained as gentle and courteous as ever. “He claimed you have severed your threads of attachment?”
Zhao Zhao nodded in acknowledgement. “Yes.”
The single word came sharp and decisive. He had never imagined that the voice he remembered as eternally sweet and tender could cut like the ice of December, the single syllable piercing the chest.
Seemingly unable to endure the agony of his body, his soul broke free.
Looming above, observing his body like a marionette controlled by long-ingrained habits, he answered with calm composure, “Then what reason would I have to strip you of your cultivation?”
But these were not the words he sought; what lay in his heart was left unsaid.
Zhao Zhao lowered her gaze and, after a moment, smiled softly. “Then it is well. From now on, I will no longer let the trivial past disturb you.”
In the depths of his consciousness, a string taut for years suddenly gave a sound—one that heralded its imminent breaking.
Trivial past.
To her, all those memories that had tormented him day and night, granting him not a moment’s peace…had they already become something trivial?
The veins along his neck pulsed one by one, crawling toward his jaw, threatening to climb onto his snow‑pale cheeks.
Eyes normally cold as glazed crystal were ignited by an emotion so fierce it turned them into a devouring abyss.
For an instant, Zhao Zhao felt Dao Lord Tianshu might erupt, seize her by the throat, and snap her neck.
Yet in truth, how could he possibly have the strength left to harm anyone?
Blood surged from his mouth, nearly flooding into his nose. His broad frame toppled like Mount Jade collapsing, falling into her arms like a child too weak to lift a finger.
In a breath, her robes were stained scarlet.
Zhao Zhao’s mind went blank.
“Master! Master!!”
Dao Lord Tianshu could not die here—
At the very least, he could not die now.
The demon forces at the border had yet to be fully repelled, and the human pillar of Mount Ling remained unexamined. How could he abandon all this and rest in peace?
The clamor around him faded into the distance.
Dao Lord Tianshu’s consciousness sank steadily, drifting into the worn memories he had revisited countless times.
In the dream, the moonlight was soft and pale. A single branch of gongfen plum blossoms on the bedside gave off a faint, lingering fragrance, mingling with the sweet scent of the young woman in his arms, creating an illusion as though woven by some nightmarish demon.
Yet Dao Lord Tianshu knew this was all real.
It was the night he regained his memories.
Awakening suddenly while holding his wife peacefully asleep, he gazed upon the tranquil expression of the young woman in his arms. Yet in his eyes, all warmth had vanished, replaced by a clarity bordering on coldness.
With immense effort, Dao Lord Tianshu extracted his arm, which belonged to him alone, from beneath her neck.
Even as she unconsciously clasped his fingers, he had to summon all his strength to free himself from her effortless hold.
—What are you doing?
He questioned himself, questioning the version of Xie Lanshu who had set aside all responsibilities.
—You already know who you are…so why do you remain here?”
The millennium of memories bearing the name of Dao Lord Tianshu had not surged into his mind in a single night.
Long before he recovered everything, those memories had already begun to slip back into his boundless sea of consciousness, grain by grain, like sand through an hourglass.
Three days earlier, Xie Lanshu had already known that he was not Xie Lanshu.
He was the master of Immortal Realm of Kunwu, Dao Lord presiding over the Cultivation Realm. His disappearance would surely set off a great upheaval, stirring countless enemies to restless ambition.
Could Xie Lanshu truly have failed to foresee this?
How could he not know?
But when the thousand years of suffocating despair, of endless, hopeless yearning collided with the three years of tender warmth that belonged to Xie Lanshu, when those two realities repelled and devoured one another, he heard a voice rising from the depths of his heart—
The life and death of the world have nothing to do with me.
I only wish to remain Xie Lanshu.
