Chapter 133 The Past

Haitang and Fengxin did not survive for long under the pursuit of Ruoyu and Huajian. Although they used various tactics to fight and retreat during the roundabout, and also released a second batch of mechanical killer bees to delay, Ruoyu's advantage in personal strength was still very obvious.

Even if Ruoyu didn't activate her Soul Intent at the moment, her physical skills were enough to suppress these two C-level combat players; what's more... she also had Huajian assisting her. With both sides having medical support players and equal numbers, the key was how strong the other main combatant was.

Obviously, in this terrain and at this distance, a shooting-specialized player was at a disadvantage; meeting an opponent like Ruoyu could only be considered bad luck...

Thus, after nearly ten minutes of escape, offense, defense, and entanglement, the news of Tiehaitang's (Iron Begonia) and Fengxinzi's (Hyacinth's) deaths reached their teammates.

At this time, Xueqiangwei (Blood Rose) had also been driven into a desperate situation by the Blood Corpse God...

Even though the current Blood Corpse God was not at its peak, it was still easy for it to launch Fear Projection within a small range.

Under the pressure of escalating terror value, Xueqiangwei's performance was clearly affected. Against a Boss-level summon like the Blood Corpse God, which had incredibly powerful physical skills and high-speed regeneration abilities, once she lost her composure, it was almost impossible to turn the situation around.

To make matters worse... Wang Tanzhi also quickly arrived to assist the Blood Corpse God, thus shattering Xueqiangwei's last hope of surviving—"hold on until the Blood Corpse God's duration ends."

Having reached this point in the semi-final, the outcome... was basically clear.

…………

In the early morning, soft light pierced through the mist, igniting a pink glow in the cherry blossom garden.

At this moment, on the ground covered with fallen cherry blossoms, a lying, cold corpse... was gradually regaining its body temperature.

Her chest began to rise and fall again.

Her face also gradually regained its rosy color.

Her appearance, skin, and figure... had all returned to a girlish state.

Before long, Lin Yan opened her eyes.

And the first person she saw... was actually Feng Bujue.

"You..." Lin Yan didn't seem very excited, she was still a little confused at the moment, "This is... a dream?"

"No." Feng Bujue was sitting cross-legged beside her at this moment, staring with dead fish eyes, "If you have some words that you can only say to me in a dream, or something that you can only do to me in a dream, I advise you to dismiss that idea immediately."

His words immediately sobered Lin Yan up a lot.

"I..." Lin Yan supported herself as she sat up, "I... am I not dead?"

"Dead," Feng Bujue replied, "About three cups of tea's worth of time has passed."

"Then I..." Lin Yan originally wanted to ask something, but as the words reached her lips, her gaze happened to sweep to Cao Qin, who was not far away.

At this time, Eunuch Cao was leaning against a cherry tree. For some reason... his head of black hair had turned completely white, and his skin had become dry, shriveled, and covered with wrinkles.

However... Lin Yan recognized him at a glance. Even though he had aged decades in an instant, she still recognized that this old man was her adoptive father.

"Adoptive Father!" Lin Yan exclaimed, quickly got up and walked over. She grabbed the old man's arm and asked with concern, "Adoptive Father, what happened to you?"

"Hehe... Adoptive Father is fine..." A look of relief appeared on Cao Qin's face. He looked deeply at Lin Yan, "I'm... just tired... it's time to rest."

"This..." Lin Yan's eyes instantly became moist. She turned her head back, filled with grief and anger, and glared at Feng Bujue, "Did you, Feng, do something to him?"

"Hey, hey... blaming me again?" Feng Bujue said as he stood up and patted the dust off his body.

"No... Yan'er, you've misunderstood..." Cao Qin's voice sounded weak, but he still tried his best to raise his voice and said, "If it weren't for Lodge Master Feng's help, you wouldn't have been able to come back to life."

"What exactly..." Lin Yan looked at Cao Qin in confusion, "...what exactly is going on?"

"Simply put..." Feng Bujue saw that Cao Qin was having difficulty speaking, so he took the lead and said, "Your adoptive father gave up all of his cultivation and cooperated with my special mental cultivation method to revive you."

In fact, the details of this matter were not that complicated...

First, Cao Qin transferred all of the power of his highest-level secret skill that he had comprehended when he entered the Dao—the Dao Fruit Art (one of Eunuch Cao's two secret arts, the other being the Sunflower Manual)—to Feng Bujue.

Then, Brother Jue used the instantaneous output generated by this NPC burning its own data strength... and increased the effectiveness of rewrite in one fell swoop.

In the time that followed, the effect of rewrite was more than just "allowing a certain target to rewind to a few seconds ago." The ability could actually do many things...

Within seconds, Feng Bujue completed a series of operations in his mind with zero time difference, and then he transferred the Immortality (that is, the ability to revive once) granted to him by the Staff of Asclepius to Lin Yan by rewriting and guiding the data, and made subtle adjustments to the effect.

And so... the scene of resurrection that had just happened was staged.

Of course, there was a reason why Feng Bujue used a "simple" explanation for Lin Yan: firstly, because Lin Yan wouldn't understand words like rewrite even if she heard them; secondly... naturally because revealing the name of this move during the competition would leak information.

"Adoptive Father... is this true?" Lin Yan looked at Cao Qin.

"Yan'er..." Cao Qin didn't answer this question, because he didn't have the strength to say another word.

At this moment, the face of this peerless master was full of the color of an exhausted lamp. He was saving his last strength, just wanting to finish what he wanted to say...

"Adoptive Father... no... I, Cao Qin... am sorry to you." Cao Qin's breathing became heavy.

"Adoptive Father... you... what do you mean..." Lin Yan was very smart. She had vaguely guessed something, but she didn't want to expose it.

"You shouldn't hate Feng Bujue, the person you should hate... is me..." Cao Qin said, "It was me who killed you..."

"No! Adoptive Father!" Lin Yan interrupted him decisively, "Don't say that... sit down first, and I'll circulate my energy to heal you..."

"Heh... silly child..." Cao Qin gave a wry smile and replied, "My pulse... does it look like I can withstand the transfer of energy?"

Lin Yan's expression changed suddenly when she heard this.

It became despairing, helpless...

If her emotions and thoughts hadn't fluctuated so much, Lin Yan should have noticed when she grabbed Cao Qin's arm... Cao Gonggong's body was now like a dangerous building that could collapse at any time. All the beams and columns in the building had been removed or were incomplete. Even a gust of wind from the outside could completely collapse him...

"Haah... haah..." Lin Yan's eyes were scattered, and she breathed heavily. She tried her best to calm herself down and think of a way...

"Lodge Master Feng!" She was indeed very smart, so she quickly thought of the only feasible method.

Lin Yan suddenly rushed to Feng Bujue, knelt down heavily, and said hoarsely, "Please save my adoptive father!"

"This..." Feng Bujue only had time to reply with one word.

Lin Yan had already started kowtowing on the ground, "Please! Please... as long as you save my adoptive father, I'm willing to do anything! I'll be your servant... I'll give you..."

"Get up..." Brother Jue supported her with one hand, stopping her from further self-harm, and shook his head and sighed, "Your adoptive father saved you to life, not to watch you be someone's servant."

"If you don't save him... I won't get up!" Lin Yan was still kneeling, but she was being held by Feng Bujue's shoulders and couldn't kowtow anymore.

"It's not that I don't want to save him, but I'm powerless," Feng Bujue added.

"No... you can even revive the dead..." Lin Yan seemed unwilling to accept the fact. She sobbed and begged, "Please... Lodge Master Feng... please..."

"Enough!" Feng Bujue shouted, startling Lin Yan's cries to a halt.

"Your adoptive father gave up his cultivation, gave up his immortality, and even gave up his ideals... just to let you live again in this world..." Brother Jue said sternly to Lin Yan, "...This is the way of redemption he chose himself, you should fulfill him."

Lin Yan was speechless, and turned back in a daze, crawling to Cao Qin on her knees.

"Adoptive Father... I..." Lin Yan choked and wanted to say something, but thousands of words were hard to express.

"I understand..." Cao Qin said, "I understand everything..." He shook his head, "It's a pity... I understood too late." He paused for a few seconds, and continued with difficulty, "Yan'er, listen to me..." He secretly took a breath, preparing to explain the last part, "Adoptive Father has done many evil deeds in his life. In the first half of my life, I was ambitious and killed countless people for my own selfish desires; in the second half of my life, I thought I had seen through the world and pursued the ultimate truth... but I still killed countless people. In the end, I was just looking for different excuses for my actions.

Lodge Master Feng is right, whether this world will become the way I imagined it... people like me are not tolerated.

People like me... are not worth your forgiveness, let alone your gratitude.

Today, being able to exchange my life for yours... Adoptive Father has no regrets even in death."

"Adoptive Father..." Lin Yan sobbed softly. She didn't dare to interrupt Cao Qin, because she was afraid that if she was interrupted, he would no longer be able to speak.

"Yan'er..." Cao Qin continued, "Adoptive Father knows that you are kind by nature... In fact, you don't want to hate anyone, but in order to be my 'chess piece', in order to become the kind of person I wanted you to become, you forced yourself to hate Feng Bujue, forcing yourself to become 'King Yama'." As he said this, his face was completely bloodless, "From now on, don't do this again... You must live well, live for yourself..."

After all, he was a grandmaster of his generation. Even in this dying state, he was still able to say a whole paragraph relatively completely: "Lodge Master Feng and I... have already made arrangements. From today onwards, 'King Yama' is already dead, and the only one alive... is Lin Yan; no matter the martial world or the court, no one will come to ask you about your whereabouts again. You can leave this valley and go outside... to live the life you want..."

Cao Qin... after all, was unable to finish all the things he wanted to say.

Life is always like this, there is no such thing as "everything is ready", no one will be "foolproof", we all come into this world in varying degrees of panic, and we will all leave at an unexpected moment.

If regret is a kind of beauty, then only those with a strong heart truly know how to appreciate it.

…………

Late autumn, the setting sun slanting.

For decades, the mist in Burial Heart Valley... had dissipated for the first time.

Yesterday, many people came here, most of whom stayed in this land forever.

But some people still left alive.

Feng Bujue and his teammates left... they turned into white light and disappeared, without saying hello to anyone.

Yuan Qi and the surviving heroes of the martial world also left... When Alliance Master Yuan left, he also took away Cao Qin's instructions, as well as the secret manuals of "Breathless Art", "Four Elephants Divine Art" and "Mountain Moving Iron Hand", which can be said to be a rewarding experience.

Later, the title of "Martial Arts Alliance Master" accompanied Yuan Qi for many years.

Who would have thought that this mediocre person who had accomplished nothing before the age of thirty would become an immortal legend in the martial world; after that day, he was not only the nominal Alliance Master, but also the "unbeatable" and "well-deserved" supreme master of the martial world.

Under Yuan Qi's leadership, the entire martial world can be described as stable, prosperous, and peaceful.

Ironically... after Yuan Qi's death a hundred years later, in order to compete for the throne of the Alliance Master and Yuan Qi's "martial arts legacy", an unprecedented dispute broke out in the martial world, and in the end... the court took the opportunity to intervene and reap the benefits.

Since then, this world has no martial world anymore.

…………

How long is human life? It vanishes like morning frost. Time does not return, and youth does not shine again.

Decades later, a similar late autumn.

A woman, leading a camel, came to Burial Heart Manor.

The world has changed, and the once prosperous manor is now only ruins.

But the strange cherry blossoms that bloom in autumn still bloom on time every year.

In the early morning, the woman came to a cherry tree.

She looked at the cherry tree in front of her, standing for a few seconds, then untied a pot of wine from the belt around her waist, took a sip, and with a bit of drunkenness, recited—

"Heroes rise with changing times,

Once entering the martial world, years fly.

Emperors and conquests, in laughter and talk,

But life is only a drunken sigh..."

Reciting to this point, she gently lowered her jade fingers, letting the wine flow down under the tree.

"...Drawing swords and riding, wielding ghostly rain,

Corpses like mountains, birds flee in fear.

Worldly affairs like tides, people like water,

Only sigh, how many return to the martial world..."

The wine had run out, but the poem had not yet been finished.

Her voice was still very pleasant, but her tone revealed exhaustion. Her appearance was still very young, but her eyes were full of vicissitudes.

"...Returnees alone, hearts weary,

Rouged faces age in silken veils.

Ask not the affairs of the world,

Pluck flowers and hold wine, until the last cup."

She raised her pink neck and poured the last few drops of wine from the pot into her mouth, before turning around...

At this time, a gust of clear wind blew, blowing her long hair.

It was a head of white hair.

As white as snow.

And under the white hair that fluttered in the wind was the face of a girl.

Every year on this day, she would return here.

Perhaps, she was just here to see an old friend, to pick up a memory.

Or perhaps, she was looking forward to... a reunion, an encounter.