My Husband’s Ascension C56
Chapter 56 Reawakening
When she finally broke free from the long and burdensome vision, her surroundings had turned once again into a pure, untainted white.
Zhao Zhao opened her eyes. The images frozen in her mind were seared there: the extinguished passion beyond the bridal chamber, Yao Ling’s relentless, unyielding questioning, and the solitary figure trudging through the Demon and Ghost Realms, hunted by enemies at every turn.
Her heart felt as if it were slowly sinking into a pool of icy water.
For a fleeting moment, she found herself wondering what she would feel if her own attachments still lingered.
Her long lashes trembled as she lifted her gaze to Zhongli Lanruo, standing before her.
“…I understand now,” she murmured, “but I still have one question. You allowed me to perceive the future, to see what is to come, with the hope of changing it. Yet why was Mount Ling able to foresee the existence of Yao Ling and Rong Yu? Could this also be part of your plan?”
In the future Zhongli Lanruo had shown her, Mount Ling had made no divination regarding which hand would end Dao Lord Tianshu’s life.
Zhongli Lanruo shook her head. “It is not our plan. It is Heaven’s way.”
“These four great beings expended their final strength to project the future into your dreams. Their act was one of defiance against the natural order. Yet to maintain balance, Heaven provided Mount Ling with certain premonitions, so that the order of the world would not collapse, and the yin and yang of the realms would remain in equilibrium.”
Zhao Zhao could not grasp the grand principles of world order or cosmic balance. She only knew that if Mount Ling had remained ignorant, their chances of victory would have been far greater.
For Heaven to side with such evil cultivators who used lives as their foundation…filled her with impotent fury.
“How do you want me to handle this?” Zhao Zhao straightened slightly, pressing her lips together, her voice filled with determination.
Zhongli Lanruo only smiled. “Little one, my mission has come to its end. What comes next rests entirely upon your judgment.”
Zhao Zhao blinked, caught off guard by the gentle finality in the words.
Then Zhongli Lanruo lifted a hand, letting her fingertip brush the corner of Zhao Zhao’s eye.
As a formless spirit, the touch left no mark, only a faint wisp of wind that dissolved almost immediately.
“You are the one we chose, but also a mortal unwittingly drawn into the conflicts of the Cultivation Realm. I allowed you to see your original fate so that you might look upon your own heart with greater clarity.”
Zhao Zhao stared into those eyes, clear and deep as autumn waters, expecting her to speak of Dao Lord Tianshu.
But she did not.
From beginning to end, whenever she spoke of her child, it was no different from speaking of any ordinary person in the world. She never begged Zhao Zhao to save her child. She never invoked her own suffering or Dao Lord Tianshu’s misdeeds and repentance to sway her.
She simply said:
“We have done all that we could. The rest, whether to save or to watch, lies entirely with you.”
Zhao Zhao gazed at the beautiful woman before her. Her composure was serene, yet not adorned with lofty words or empty eloquence. In those tranquil eyes lingered a generosity carved by time itself, gentle as water, never imposing, only enveloping.
Had she not been struck down so early by Mount Ling’s hidden schemes, what might he have become?
With such a tender, forgiving mother by his side, he would not have been treated like an object to be nitpicked. He would not have been raised as a tool for cultivation alone, severed from all emotions by Kunwu’s hands.
He would have had friends, companions to cultivate with, to skip lessons with, to grow alongside as the stirrings of youth blossomed in their hearts.
His mother might have taught him how to care for a girl properly. And the girl he fancied would have been no less a prodigy than he, deserving of his careful, reverent regard—never to be abandoned without a word.
And she…
She would not have found, in the snows of Yunmeng Pier, the man who stole her heart at first sight. Yet she would still have fallen in love with someone else, taken him into the Xie Residence as a husband, borne one or two lovely children, and like her Uncle and Auntie, lived out the quiet and ordinary life allotted to a mortal.
If not for Mount Ling, such a life would have sounded rather good.
But because of Mount Ling, this long chain of cause and effect had thrown every one of their fates into disarray.
Zhao Zhao made her decision in silence. When she lifted her head again, she asked, “Senior… is there anything you would like me to pass on to him?”
For a brief instant, blankness crossed Zhongli Lanruo’s face.
“Do you have any words you wish me to convey to Dao Lord Tianshu?”
Zhongli Lanruo’s lips parted, as though there were much she wanted to say. Yet in the end, all that emerged was a dry, faltering sentence, “I… have nothing to say.”
“My parents also departed long, long ago,” Zhao Zhao said, her gaze steady and earnest as it rested on her. “Truth be told, I can barely remember what they looked like anymore. I’ve often thought that if someone could pass along even a single simple, unremarkable message from them, I would still be very happy.”
She would never have such a chance in her own life. But she did not wish for anyone else to lose that chance as well.
Even if that person was him.
“…Now I understand why my child could grow so fond of you…” The woman of incomparable beauty regarded Zhao Zhao with a gentle expression, her eyes shimmering with a faint, warm smile.
She opened her arms and embraced her lightly, as if Zhao Zhao had been caught in a soft spring breeze.
“If you can… tell him for me—”
Her words fell into Zhao Zhao’s ears, delicate and fleeting. At the same time, a subtle power flowed through the embrace, filling Zhao Zhao’s spirit with a vast, comforting surge of spiritual energy.
The arms around her slowly released, and Zhao Zhao felt her body grow lighter, as if lifted by a drifting kite. The anguished cries and the faint smile of Zhongli Lanruo, all of it receded, becoming distant and hazy.
What followed was blinding white light.
Akin to the final struggle of a seed breaking through the soil, Zhao Zhao poured every ounce of strength she possessed and finally shattered the last barrier.
A rush of abundant air swept in from all directions. She felt as though a drowning soul had finally reached the shore, gasping for breath as the air and spiritual energy of the world surged into her body like a roaring tide.
Wait…spiritual energy?
Moonlight fell upon Zhao Zhao, yet no shadow appeared beneath her.
Existing only as a soul, she now stood upon the treetop, sensing the pure qi of heaven and earth being naturally drawn into her being, flowing flawlessly through her meridians and settling fully within her.
Any practitioner would recognize the significance of this.
While most were destined to labor tenfold for but a fraction of progress, Zhao Zhao needed only give her all to reap the entirety. Her cultivation could advance a thousandfold in a single day.
However—
Even such rapid advancement held no meaning for a soul without a body.
As a tree, Zhao Zhao’s daily tasks were simple and unchanging.
Basking in the sunlight, absorbing the ambient spiritual energy, Zhao Zhao’s days passed simply enough—though she did have one particularly engaging pastime: eavesdropping on the gossip that drifted through Cloudculm Abode.
She soon discovered that some disciples treated her as a confidant, secretly confiding their worries beneath her branches.
When a disciple became frustrated over a cultivation bottleneck, Zhao Zhao would subtly shift her canopy to shield him from the burning sun overhead.
When another fretted over whether to confess to a senior sister, she would make a tiny wildflower bloom before him, and if he miscounted the petals and failed, she would discreetly add one more.
On one particular day, coinciding with what would have been her death anniversary, Shi Lanyan and Mo Lingyun journeyed far to pay their respects.
Shi Lanyan began, “You probably don’t know yet, but I’ve pledged an engagement with my Senior Brother Zi Qian. We’re to wed once his cultivation reaches the Third Great Realm. I’ve told him not to advance too quickly, but you, you’d better cultivate faster, or you won’t make it to my grand union ceremony.”
Mo Lingyun added, “…I’m about to break through to the next stage, but I’ll need a few more years of close-door cultivation. I wonder if you’ll have revived by then. If not, can you… wait for me? Please don’t settle on a Dao Companion too quickly… and… grant me one more chance.”
Zhao Zhao sat perched on her trunk, smiling serenely as they departed.
Bound by her lack of a corporeal form, her movements were limited to the core areas of the sect; even the outermost precincts were beyond her reach.
Once she had come to understand her new state, Zhao Zhao began wandering through the sect.
Her two charming little disciples? Not found.
Her steadfast, reliable eldest disciple? Out on some errand, absent from the sect.
Her two loyal yao familiars? Only one, Xiao Bai, was located, slyly receiving love letters from countless junior disciples.
And then there was her bumbling master—
“Why has Grandmaster’s lesson been changed to self-study again? That makes the third time this month.”
“Eh… ever since Grandmaster lost all his cultivation trying to save Sect Master, his body has grown weaker by the day. I don’t know if he can even hold on until Sect Master returns, alas…”
At those words, Zhao Zhao’s smile vanished entirely. She spun around without hesitation and made straight for Moonlit Peak.
It all made sense now.
No wonder the Undying Wood could, once consumed, grant such a tremendous surge in cultivation.
Those gains were not conjured from nothing, it was her Master…
“Master!!” Though she knew Daoist Ming Jue could not hear her, Zhao Zhao’s voice rang out involuntarily as she burst into Moonlit Peak, tears threatening to spill.
What beheld her was…
“Not bad, not bad. The riceflower fish raised by the Divine Farmer Sect still tastes just as exquisite!”
“And the black mountain boars tended by Senior Uncle are exceptional too. The pork belly meat is tender, lingering with fragrance on the tongue, truly a delicacy!”
Two elderly men, their hair streaked with grey, were roasting their feast in the alchemy chamber, clinking cups of warm wine as they drank. Their wrinkled faces were alight with contentment, each smile full from food and wine.
Daoist Ming Jue lamented, “With my disciple and grand-disciples absent, no one can scold these brittle bones for enjoying fatty meat. Today, paired with fine wine, I may eat as much as I wish. Being immoral is perhaps no greater joy than this.”
The Sect Master of the Divine Farmer Sect, now lightly drunk, chuckled as he asked, “Those two youngest grand-disciples of yours… one followed the former Dao Lord into the Demon Realm, and the other…these past days I’ve heard, also intends to march against the Ghost Realm alongside the former Dao Lord. Are you not worried?”
Daoist Ming Jue laughed heartily. “Children have their own fortunes. This old body is near its end; even if I wanted to intervene, what could I do?”
Zhao Zhao: “…”
Her soul drifted silently beside Daoist Ming Jue, eyes narrowed in a glare full of indignation.
What had the Divine Farmer Sect’s Sect Master just said?
Who had gone to the Demon Realm with Dao Lord Tianshu? Who was about to strike against the Ghost Realm?
Half the heavens might as well have collapsed, and yet her Master could still sit in the pill refining chamber, enjoying roasted meat. Did he have even an ounce of propriety as the Grandmaster?
And these fatty meats and wine… was this truly appropriate for a few-thousand-year-old man whose cultivation had been entirely lost?
If only Zhao Zhao had a corporeal form. She would have confiscated his pill refining furnace, seized his private funds, and made him write three thousand characters of guarantee to eat healthy and live another five centuries.
He had to endure a little longer.
He had to wait until she returned to life, so she could personally thank him.
But… how much longer would it be before she could revive?
At the stroke of midnight, Zhao Zhao, who had been absorbing moonlight, suddenly opened her eyes.
Someone was stealthily entering the Cloudculm Abode’s protective barrier from above, and had not alerted a single soul.
She instantly became alert.
The sect’s protective barrier had been reinforced by disciples of several great sects long ago; even her own disciples needed to memorize the secret runes to pass through. No outsider could possibly breach it with ease.
Were the intruders internal disciples of the several great sects, who knew the secret runes?
No matter their intent, someone from Beaconlight Mountain had to be alerted.
Zhao Zhao was about to shake her branches to draw attention, but to her surprise, the group moved in her direction.
…Could they be coming for her?
Knowing that her corporeal body would perish if hacked, Zhao Zhao retracted the branches, still as a statue.
Now it was no longer about saving anyone else; she only hoped someone would notice and come to her aid.
Draped in a black fox-fur cloak, the figure revealed nothing of himself save for the fair curve of his neck. A black-and-white demon mask concealed his face entirely, his lower jaw lost beneath its shadow.
Yet Zhao Zhao felt a faint sense of familiarity.
Instinctively, a subtle alertness and resistance stirred within her.
The figure seemed unaware, merely gazing at the motionless branches swaying in the evening wind, and then smiled lightly.
He was about to step forward, but two subordinates behind him blocked the way.
One of them rolled up his sleeves eagerly and said, “No need for you to act, Master. We’ll dig it ourselves.”
He tilted his head to glance at them and replied warmly, “Very well. But if you sever even a single root, you will pay with your own hand.”
TL Note: “No need for you to act, Master. We’ll dig it ourselves.”
The ‘Master’ mentioned in the sentence above refers to an owner or person in charge, not a teacher/mentor.
