My Husband’s Ascension C71
Chapter 71 Oblivion
When Yao Ling and Rong Yu entered in search of Zhao Zhao, Mount Ling pressing down from above was already less than fifty meters from the summit of Beaconlight Mountain.
“Master! You must go! If you delay any longer, it will truly be too late!”
Mount Ling spanned a hundred hectares. Once they withdrew their spiritual power, they would have to race from Mistflow Peak at their utmost speed to escape the range beneath its crushing descent.
A hundred meters had already been a desperate margin. Now only fifty remained.
Zhao Zhao turned to look in the direction Xie Lanshu had departed.
His figure had long since vanished amid the towering ridges and deep valleys of Beaconlight Mountain. She could not spare the focus to sense his presence; she could only search once more with her naked eyes.
Never before had Zhao Zhao felt Beaconlight Mountain to be so vast—
Vast enough to serve as a man’s grave.
Mount Ling blotted out heaven and sun as it drew ever nearer. Clods of earth and jagged stones tumbled down from above in an unbroken rain. Yao Ling and Rong Yu shielded Zhao Zhao from the falling debris; as they watched Cloudculm Abode steadily smashed apart, their hearts ached beyond measure.
They had witnessed with their own eyes how Beaconlight Mountain had risen from a desolate, crumbling hill to the majestic immortal sect it was today.
“It’s alright.” Having steeled her resolve, Zhao Zhao finally withdrew her spiritual power and seized both of their hands. “Bricks and tiles may be rebuilt. So long as the people of Cloudculm Abode remain safe. Master promises, before long, I will return a new Cloudculm Abode to all.”
With tears brimming in their eyes, Yao Ling and Rong Yu nodded with earnest solemnity.
The wind tore past their ears in shrill gusts. With only the veiled Wu-Shaman remaining to uphold it, Mount Ling was plunging at a speed visible to the naked eye.
There is still time.
Clutching their master tightly, Yao Ling and Rong Yu fixed their eyes upon the boundary where shadow met light ahead.
So long as they crossed that line, they would escape the crushing peril of Mount Ling’s descent.
Behind them, Beaconlight Mountain erupted in a thunderous roar.
The spiritual power released by the veiled Wu-Shaman guttered out completely. At last, Mount Ling came crashing down upon Beaconlight Mountain’s highest peak.
Mountains collapsed and earth split asunder. Trees snapped in two, roof tiles were ground to dust, and a violent gale unfurled in sweeping layers.
Zhao Zhao, Yao Ling, and Rong Yu, who had still been some distance from safety, were caught by that furious wind and flung clear of Mount Ling’s shadowed boundary ahead of time.
The three hit the ground and rolled several times before coming to a halt. The onlookers, jolted back to their senses, hurried forward to help them up.
“Are you unharmed, Sect Master? Quick! Bring Grandmaster over to be examined!”
“Senior Sister Yao Ling, are you all right?”
“Is that Senior Brother Rong Yu? Senior Brother Rong Yu is bleeding from the head!”
In an instant, a great crowd surrounded Zhao Zhao.
Utterly drained of strength, she lifted her heavy eyelids and gazed beyond the boundary of Mount Ling’s shadow, at the countless Beaconlight Mountain disciples who had narrowly escaped death, and the ordinary townsfolk who dwelled at the mountain’s foot.
Zhao Zhao’s line of sight came to rest on the golden inscriptions at the backs of several individuals.
A Daoist cultivator of profound attainment had no need of talisman paper as a medium; they could imprint a spell directly upon a person’s body—just as with the maiden soul they had encountered in the Ghost Realm before.
“You—” Her breath thin as gossamer, Zhao Zhao suddenly reached out and seized one man by the collar amid the crowd. “Who brought you out? Where is he?”
The one she had grabbed was an outer disciple* of Cloudculm Abode. His eyes were swollen red from weeping. Startled by her grip, he stood dazed for a moment before stammering, “I–It was an Immortal Lord in white, with silver hair, who saved me… I told him my younger sister was still inside, and he…he went back in…”
(TLN: Essentially, outer disciples are the newer, weaker disciples. They are the lowest in the hierarchy, don't have any authority, and receive limited resources to advance their cultivation.)
At that very moment, amid the cataclysmic roar of heaven collapsing and earth rending apart, a clear bird’s cry pierced the sky.
Zhao Zhao whipped her head around.
It was the coo of a snow dove.
With that call, a small girl marked with talismanic sigils burst forth from the dust-choked expanse of Beaconlight Mountain.
“Xiao Xiao!”
The figure Zhao Zhao had seized tore free from her grasp and rushed forward in wild relief, catching the little girl as she flew into his arms. Tears and mucus streamed down his face as he cried, “Where did you run off to? You nearly scared your brother to death! Thank goodness, thank goodness you’re unharmed…”
Overcome with joy, the youth clutched his sister tightly.
Still dazed, the little girl turned her head back toward the direction of Beaconlight Mountain and murmured, “Brother, there’s still someone inside. The white-haired man who saved me…he hasn’t—”
BOOM!!
The colossal mass of the mountain, vast enough to crush all things beneath it, finally struck the earth in full. Everything upon Beaconlight Mountain was ground to ruin, swallowed into fissures splitting the desiccated land.
Dust billowed skyward in towering clouds. Even the lands surrounding Jimo Sea trembled for a long while beneath the aftershock of Mount Ling’s fall.
Yao Ling and Rong Yu exchanged uneasy glances before looking toward Zhao Zhao, who stood transfixed, staring at Beaconlight Mountain.
The ‘white-haired man’ the little girl described could only be Xie Lanshu.
Yao Ling and Rong Yu had assumed that in the face of such calamity, he would place their master’s safety above all else. Who would have thought he would remain behind to save the disciples of Cloudculm Abode, and thus fail to escape in time?
With her back to the gathered crowd, Zhao Zhao remained silent for a long while before finally speaking. “Yao Ling. Take the registry and count the sect members. See whether there are any casualties.”
Yao Ling froze for a heartbeat, then nodded.
Before they emerged, Zhongli Shun had already begun taking count. Yao Ling finished tallying the remaining disciples and returned to report to Zhao Zhao, “A little over twenty have sustained minor injuries. Aside from the forty-seven disciples currently away from the sect, from the elders above to the kitchen hands in the refectory below, even the celestial deer and spirit-beasts you keep, no one is missing. No one has perished.”
Silence fell for a brief moment.
Then, as realization dawned, the disciples who had survived the calamity erupted into cheers, laughter and tears mingling freely.
Though their sect lay in ruins, not a single life had been lost. In the face of a catastrophe that could have obliterated the entire order, it was nothing short of an inconceivable miracle.
“All thanks to Sect Master! Thank heaven Sect Master was here!”
“Our Sect Master’s cultivation is peerless! Without her, who knows how many would have fallen today?”
“Long live Sect Master! Long live Sect Master!”
The younger disciples crowded around Zhao Zhao, their eyes bright, gazing at her as though she were a goddess descended from the heavens.
Yet amid the throng of ten thousand voices, they saw in bewilderment that tears streamed down her face like rain, until she could scarcely speak for sobbing.
As if engulfed by some immense and unendurable pain, Zhao Zhao clutched at the fabric over her heart. Her slender back bowed beneath the weight of that sudden agony.
She could almost hear the rush of blood beneath her skin.
Hear, somewhere deep within her body, the emotions she had long since forgotten, the ones she had cast aside, being stitched back into her heart, thread by thread.
She remembered the bowl of Yangchun noodles from their temporary stay with the Zhongli Clan.
She remembered him, in a woman’s guise, cautiously offering her the Donghua Pearl.
Within the caverns of Mount Ling, beneath the deadly mechanisms, he had turned his blood into flame to shield her life. In the future projected by Zhongli Lanruo, he had even abandoned Immortal Realm of Kunwu, wishing only to remain at her side.
For fifty years he had turned his back upon the Cultivation Realm. The supreme faith he once held as Dao Lord Tianshu was cast aside without the slightest hesitation. For the sake of her resurrection he had schemed and strove relentlessly, indifferent to estrangement from mentors and friends, indifferent to infamy and disgrace.
In every fevered dream, he had sought her with desperate resolve. Yet at the final juncture, he relinquished the chance to live on with her, choosing instead to die protecting those she held dear.
The emotions that had vanished when she severed her bonds of attachment surfaced once more, rising bit by bit.
Around her, voices of concern rang out without cease.
Zhao Zhao struggled to wrench herself free from the drowning tide of feeling, struggled to still her tears and tell them she was well.
But her mind was filled entirely with fragments of her days with Xie Lanshu.
He had said:
“I want you to love me.”
Tears fell heavily from Zhao Zhao’s eyes. Even in death, he would not grant her release
…
Within Reflecting Shadows Heaven, Immortal Realm of Kunwu.
This was the residence of Lord Yaoguang. Though he now temporarily held the position of Sect Master of Kunwu, and by right ought to have moved into Separation’s Regret Heaven, he had delayed again and again under the pretext that he was accustomed to living in Reflecting Shadows Heaven.
It was the third day since Dao Lord Tianshu’s spirit lamp* had gone out.
(TLN: A spirit lamp is a vessel that contains a fragment of a cultivator’s soul. It is typically used by sects to monitor their disciples’ condition. If the flame remains lit, the disciple lives; if it extinguishes, it signifies their death.)
The extinguished lamp sat upon Lord Yaoguang’s desk. He did not know what meaning remained in keeping it there, as though he still harbored the faint hope that its flame might yet rekindle.
But Dao Lord Tianshu, or rather, Xie Lanshu, had already died three days ago, quietly and without renown, beneath Mount Ling.
“Sect Master.” A disciple’s voice sounded in announcement from outside the door. “The sect master of Cloudculm Abode has arrived. Will you receive her?”
In truth, Lord Yaoguang did not know how he ought to face Miss Immortal Tanzhao.
It was not that he blamed her. She had done nothing wrong. Yet at the sight of her, he could not help but think of the Dao Lord who had grown up at his side since childhood. His feelings were inevitably complicated.
“…Let her enter.” After a pause, he added, “Not here. Invite her to wait for me at Separation’s Regret Heaven.”
This was Zhao Zhao’s second ascent to Separation’s Regret Heaven.
Many years had passed; her memories of the first time had grown indistinct. As she walked the long stairway once more, her state of mind was no longer what it had been.
She sensed Kunwu’s elders above, gazing down at her from afar.
But this time was different. She was no longer the mortal they could dismiss without thought. She was the sect master of Cloudculm Abode, the one who had eradicated the calamity of Mount Ling and freed the four great predecessors sealed within the human pillars.
Even Immortal Realm of Kunwu must now treat her with due courtesy.
“Miss Immortal Tanzhao honors Kunwu with her presence. May I ask the purpose of your visit?”
It was Lord Tianxuan who spoke, his face set in rigid severity. His tone was civil, yet his gaze was sharp as splintered ice.
Zhao Zhao looked at him and offered a faint smile. “I have come to Kunwu to discuss with your Sect Master the matter of how the people displaced by Mount Ling are to be resettled.”
“Kunwu’s Sect Master?” Lord Tianquan could endure no more. He stepped forward, voice ringing with anger. “Our Sect Master has already been driven to his death because of you!”
“Lord Tianquan!” Lord Yaoguang cut through the encirclement of elders.
He smiled lightly and said to Zhao Zhao, “Since it concerns proper affairs, please enter the hall and we shall speak at length. It so happens I, too, have matters to discuss with Miss Immortal Tanzhao.”
“At a time like this, what is there left to discuss!”
“Kunwu nurtured a Dao Lord for a thousand years, only for him to fall because of her! She is nothing but a calamity incarnate!”
“Had we known it would come to this, we never should have—”
“Never should have driven her away? Or never should have allowed Tianshu to sever love and cast off emotion?” Lord Yaoguang flicked his fan lightly, a trace of mockery in his smile. “Regret is of little use now, esteemed elders.”
His barbed words struck at the heart of the matter. The elders’ expressions stiffened, and one by one they fell silent.
Zhao Zhao had no desire to bandy arguments with these obstinate old men. Seeing them quiet, she stepped past them and walked toward Lord Yaoguang outside the hall.
The other elders watched her departing figure in a daze.
Word had spread that Cloudculm Abode had lifted the seal on the human pillars of Mount Ling, invited a Buddhist from the Western Region’s Buddhist Kingdom to perform soul-pacifying rites, and called upon the sects of the four great predecessors to witness the ceremony.
Those four great predecessors had all been founding forebears of their respective sects, figures of transcendent standing. Rescued from Mount Ling by Xie Tanzhao, spared from utter oblivion, and granted dignity in their final passing, their sects now bore her a measure of gratitude.
They had even declared that when the time came for Cloudculm Abode to be rebuilt, they would lend their strength.
When this ordinary mortal girl first ascended to Immortal Realm of Kunwu, who among them could have imagined that one day she would become the master of a sect, unravel the thousand-year conspiracy of Mount Ling, and eradicate the greatest scourge of the Cultivation Realm?
…If they had accepted her then, how might events have unfolded?
The elders sighed in unison.
What is past cannot be reclaimed. Those who have departed will not return.
Author’s Note: Mutters, in truth, this could be considered as a BE (bad ending)…
Though Zhao Zhao has come to inherit her late husband’s legacy. In a certain sense, it is not really a BE (jk)
