MJWCATFPITWOC Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Not Wanting to Leave

Chapter 96: Not Wanting to Leave

Shizun always loved drinking slightly chilled White Peony tea, sitting on his favorite rattan chair, quietly gazing at the distant scenery.

A cool breeze would pass, and he would drift off to sleep in that gentle coolness.

“From today onward, you will be called Baili.”

A white light slowly floated in the darkness, the surroundings like a revolving lantern, turning over scenes from his past memories. He drifted aimlessly, watching those past fragments.

“Shizun… has he come?”

…

But only endless darkness answered him.

“Still not here…”

He knew in his heart that there would be no reply, but he couldn’t help but ask once more. Even if it was just another disappointment, he was willing.

“…He’s here.”

The white light trembled slightly, standing still, uncertain about the sudden voice.

That voice was so gentle it was almost unreal, like an echo of the countless fantasies in his mind.

He originally thought that this was just another hallucination.

“Baili, come here… Your teacher is here.”

He stood there blankly. The darkness before him shattered like broken glass, breaking and dissipating bit by bit, replaced by the night sky in reality. The moonlight shone on his face, and his body couldn’t move until a familiar face entered his sight.

Yun Yan approached and gently stroked his forehead.

Over the years, Shizun had never touched him like this.

Baili just stared at him blankly, still not recovered from his fantasy.

Until he heard those words.

“We’re going home together.”

…

Silence surrounded the two of them. Yun Yan was not anxious or impatient, but simply extended his hand, waiting for Baili’s response.

Baili’s gaze slowly moved from Yun Yan’s face to his outstretched hand, the hand that had once held the young him in its embrace. His vision suddenly blurred, and hot tears silently trickled down the side of his face. He opened his mouth, only to find that his lips were trembling. He tried to speak several times but couldn’t make a sound, and finally could only choke out an “Mmm.”

That was his first and last tear in many years.

“…Shizun, you’re… so late…”

Yun Yan’s eyes were red-rimmed. In his eyes, Baili was no longer some savior hero, nor the millennium puppet genius, but just his good disciple.

Baili’s spiritual body lay on the ground, his face covered in tears. He slowly raised his hand and finally grasped Yun Yan’s hand, the hand he had waited for for a thousand years.

“Shizun has finally come.”

Yun Yan picked him up: “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Stay with me.”

“Since when did you become so good at acting spoiled?”

“Anyway, I’m already dead, what’s the point of pretending…”

The two of them just talked slowly in the blood array, chatting about the regrets of the past thousand years, why they hadn’t explained things clearly earlier, wasting so much time in vain.

Behind them, the three disciples looked at each other.

From left to right were Mo Yifeng, Shen Yucheng, and Fu Lingxuan: “…”

Mo Yifeng: “Are we being excluded?”

Shen Yucheng nodded.

Fu Lingxuan: “We’re like outsiders now.”

The number one powerhouse in the cultivation world and his three illegitimate sons, a record of finding their son.

The three of them silently turned and left, indicating that they didn’t want to watch anymore.

“Then what do we do with this person?” Mo Yifeng pointed to Bai Guchen, who was trapped by golden threads.

In the final battle between Shen Yucheng and Bai Guchen, Bai Guchen broke the Puppet Dao. Shen Yucheng had already predicted this, so he set up a cage. It seemed like he was luring Bai Guchen into a trap, but in reality, making him think that was his real purpose.

Sure enough, Bai Guchen raised the blood array to the clouds.

In this way, Shen Yucheng could use the illusionary white smoke left by Yan Quanye without being noticed.

The white smoke melted into the clouds, and Bai Guchen unknowingly inhaled it, falling into an illusion. No one knew what he saw in the illusion, but in the end, he walked to the edge of the array himself and fell down.

Fu Lingxuan looked down: “But why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

Shen Yucheng gazed at Bai Guchen, who was peacefully asleep in the cage. His eyes were closed, and his expression was serene.

He remembered briefly talking with the young Bai Guchen. At that time, he was still a child who felt compassion for insects.

But after experiencing so much injustice and hardship, with no one pulling him back, he could only walk step by step into the darkness, and eventually never be able to turn back.

“That white smoke will make people see what they desire most. Ordinary people’s obsessions are just material desires, and they will wake up when the mist dissipates. But Bai Guchen is different. His obsession is Baili. He still can’t let go after a thousand years, so he will be more deeply trapped in the illusion. As long as he can’t figure it out, he will never be able to get out and can only chase after that Baili in the illusion for the rest of his life.”

Shen Yucheng glanced at him one last time: “Seal him in the back mountain of Futian Sect.”

Fu Lingxuan frowned: “Why choose there?”

Shen Yucheng’s tone was calm: “That should be the happiest place in his life.”

In the picture, Yun Yan was lying on the rattan chair, closing his eyes to rest, while Little Baili stood beside him guarding him. Underneath an ancient thousand-year tree, Little Guchen climbed to the top of the tree and shouted loudly. The two people below looked up and then smiled at each other.

A gentle breeze blew by, and time seemed to stop at that moment.

After dealing with Bai Guchen’s matter, Shen Yucheng saw that the disciples below were gradually recovering, and the casualties were not too serious, although there were still sacrifices.

Fu Lingxuan, as the deputy sect leader of the Lingfeng Sect, needed to go down to direct the aftermath, so he left first.

Only he and Mo Yifeng remained. Shen Yucheng was about to turn around to ask Shizun what his plans were, but he was stopped.

“Yucheng-ge.”

His footsteps paused.

Mo Yifeng slowly approached: “You… aren’t you going to say something to me?”

Shen Yucheng was speechless, not knowing where to start.

Mo Yifeng’s tone was slightly reproachful: “Your body was taken over by someone, and you didn’t say a word. No matter how I called you, you wouldn’t wake up. You just let them do whatever they wanted with your body… Don’t you have anything to say?”

It started out fine, but the more Shen Yucheng listened, the more he felt something was wrong. What did he mean by “let them do whatever they wanted with your body”? Why did that sound so strange?

While he was thinking this, a “hiss—” suddenly came from behind, followed by the sound of someone kneeling on the ground.

As soon as Shen Yucheng heard it, he immediately understood.

Mo Yifeng was still covering his chest, pretending to be seriously injured, peeking at his reaction.

Unfortunately, Shen Yucheng didn’t turn his head back and walked towards Yun Yan.

“Tsk, why didn’t that work this time…”

Actually, Shen Yucheng still hadn’t figured out how to express his feelings.

Every time he saw that big dog saying he liked him, it was without any hesitation, rushing straight up and hanging “I like you” on his lips, making Shen Yucheng not know how to respond or answer at all.

He always felt that if he directly replied with “I like you too,” it would be too casual, too light.

Mo Yifeng’s confession had already reached the level of a heavenly ladder. He didn’t want to lose. He must express a love that was deeper and heavier than that guy’s.

…But this was even harder than fighting ten thousand people alone.

After thinking about it, he decided to deal with Shizun’s matter first.

He walked to the edge of the blood array, watching the two of them chatting happily inside, and stood a little further away and said, “Shizun, you…”

Yun Yan turned his head, his tone relaxed: “Yucheng, we’ll chat for a while longer. We’ll have to trouble you with the things outside.”

At this time, Baili also turned his head, and his expression changed when he saw who it was: “Shen… Yucheng?”

Shen Yucheng thought he had something to say, so he strode into the blood array.

At that moment, the three of them stood in the array.

The soul-summoning array was not as simple as just summoning a soul; it also evoked all the memories and emotions in the soul.

Shen Yucheng couldn’t explain what it felt like. For a moment, he seemed to have really traveled through time, back to that time a thousand years ago.

Suddenly, he felt his sleeve sink, a little heavier than before. He reached in and touched it, and pulled out a round thing.

It was a bright red, dripping fruit.

He recognized it at a glance. It was a fairy fruit bought from a stall a thousand years ago.

He had only bought it on a whim, and later kept it in his sleeve, without worrying about whether it would rot.

But how could this thing appear here?

While he was confused, a voice came from in front of him: “…Sir?”

This tone…

Shen Yucheng suddenly looked up.

The person in front of him still had that face, but from that look in his eyes, he was sure that the other party had remembered.

Baili’s eyes were full of shock: “…So it was you, Sir.”

Yun Yan also didn’t expect Baili to remember, and asked in surprise, “Baili, you remembered?”

Baili said in a low voice: “During the time I was in Sir’s body, I could actually see those things… It’s just that those scenes were different from the past in my memory, and I always thought they were my own fantasies. I thought I was just fantasizing about someone like Sir. The face of Sir in my dreams was always blurry, until just now… Those dreams have all become clear.”

Shen Yucheng looked down at the blood array under his feet. It must have been that the three of them touched the blood array at the same time, triggering a resonance.

But before he could say much, the blood array suddenly began to glow with white light, and some scattered light spots in the array slowly detached and floated into the air, and then dissipated bit by bit.

All three of them saw it, and they all understood what it meant. The time had come.

But no one said it out loud, no one was willing to say this cruel reality.

Baili spoke first: “Okay, Shizun, and Sir… As for A-Chen, I know he did a lot of foolish things for me. Those things were wrong and unforgivable. But I was also blinded by resentment and made choices that I shouldn’t have made. If he wakes up one day, no matter how you deal with him, please tell him something for me. This time, please live well for himself.”

As he said this, half of his body had become transparent, and the weakness of his spiritual body went without saying. This time… he was really leaving.

He continued: “Although Sir is Sir, but… please forgive me for not fulfilling my responsibility as the eldest brother.”

He paused, as if trying to force a smile, and said, “And Shizun… I’ve said everything I need to say. But…” He leaned closer to Shen Yucheng and whispered, “Sir, you also know that our Shizun is helpless when it comes to living, so he’ll need someone to take care of him after coming out of seclusion.”

Shen Yucheng nodded silently, without saying anything.

The blood array had almost dissipated, and Baili’s figure was almost invisible. He didn’t say anything else, just quietly looked at Yun Yan and Shen Yucheng, as if he wanted to engrave their appearances deeply in his heart.

He had been smiling all along, but at this moment, even the strongest person couldn’t hide their true feelings in the face of parting.

He couldn’t help but choke up: “…I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to cry… It’s just… I can’t help it… It’s so rare to see each other, why does it have to be so soon… so soon…”

He couldn’t hold back his tears any longer. He didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to be separated like this. He hadn’t said enough, he still wanted to see them every day, still wanted to go back to those days.

Those days when the three of them lived happily together in Futian Sect.

Why did it have to be now?

He was crying with his head down when he suddenly felt his body tighten, and a familiar weight came from both sides. He looked up and saw that it was Shen Yucheng and Yun Yan. The two of them walked closer to him and hugged him tightly.

The three of them embraced each other like this.

This time, Baili couldn’t hold back his emotions any longer and burst into tears, crying his heart out, as if he wanted to cry out all the unwillingness, regret, and reluctance of the past thousand years.

At this moment, he was not a savior, nor an eldest brother. He was just the child in their arms.