Chapter 595: Did He Get My Permission!

The Great Zhou Imperial Palace.

Xiao Mo, his consciousness gradually withdrawing from the Book of a Hundred Lives, slowly opened his eyes.

Unlike the sensation of his previous deaths.

This time, Xiao Mo did not experience that agonizing feeling of approaching death.

On the contrary, Xiao Mo felt as though he had merely had a dream.

As though everything he had experienced had been hazy and indistinct and yet, at the same time, entirely real.

[Ding...]

And just as Xiao Mo was settling his own mind, the voice of the Book of a Hundred Lives rose once more in his head.

[Book of a Hundred Lives rewards are being calculated. Please wait, host. During this calculation period, the host may enter the River of Time as an "observer." Will the host proceed?]

"Yes."

Xiao Mo did not hesitate for even a moment.

Before long, Xiao Mo's vision blurred once more.

When Xiao Mo came to, he found himself standing atop Moon Spirit Peak, at the Tushan clan's lands.

That towering Moon Spirit Tree was still ablaze.

Countless burning leaves drifted ceaselessly through the night sky, then gradually extinguished, like floating sky lanterns.

Beneath the tree, the woman in the white dress still lay in deep sleep.

The Tushan clan's fortune shielded her from any disturbance, so that not even the burning leaves could touch the hem of her dress.

Having lost the Moon Spirit Tree, the Tushan clan's fortune leaked away ceaselessly, yet as the Tushan Holy Woman, no small portion of it flowed into Tushan Jingci's own body.

Three days and three nights passed.

The great fire upon the Moon Spirit Tree had finally gone out, the scorched wood no longer bearing any trace of its former lush green.

Amid this ruined landscape of the Tushan clan, an even deeper desolation now hung in the air.

Tushan Jingci's brow furrowed lightly, then slowly relaxed.

The gentle breeze stirred her cascading hair, her long, curved lashes trembling faintly, like a butterfly beating its wings but before long, the sleeping Tushan Jingci's brow furrowed tightly once more, her head shaking ceaselessly from side to side.

As though caught in some nightmare.

"Xiao Mo!"

Tushan Jingci startled awake from her nightmare, sitting up abruptly from the ground, calling out Xiao Mo's name.

Her voice drifted slowly across the entire Tushan clan's territory, yet no one answered.

Rising to her feet, Tushan Jingci looked around, her eyes trembling ceaselessly.

As though the nightmare she had just had was not something she had woken from at all, but something even more cruel, still ongoing yet the sensation of the breeze against her skin, the scent of blood permeating the air, and the corpses scattered throughout the Tushan clan's lands all told Tushan Jingci one thing.

All of this was real!

"Xiao Mo..."

Tushan Jingci held her head, forcing herself through the searing pain, trying to piece together everything that had happened.

In her mind, she could only recall that the Human Alliance and the demon alliance had made peace, and that Xiao Mo had come as well and she herself had attended the peace talks.

At the time, seeing Xiao Mo and Gui Junmeng behaving so intimately with one another, she had grown extremely angry, nearly losing all composure but in the end, held back by her grandfather and master, she had managed to restrain herself.

The negotiations between the Human Alliance and the demon alliance had proceeded smoothly.

Though some details had not yet been settled, the signing of the treaty beneath the Moon Spirit Tree had seemed close at hand but then, last night...

Somehow, Xiao Mo had harvested Gui Junmeng's essence, using the Great Dream of the Yellow Millet to absorb her cultivation, thereby breaking through into the Ascension realm and by some method, Xiao Mo had taken control of the Moon Spirit Tree, seizing the majority of the Tushan clan's fortune, controlling no small number of the Tushan clan's elders.

Cultivator after cultivator had died beneath the Moon Spirit Tree's vines.

Xiao Mo had not even spared the innocent common folk of the Tushan clan.

Everyone had been offered up as a blood sacrifice by Xiao Mo, becoming stepping stones for his ascent along the great Dao.

Having witnessed all this, she had fought Xiao Mo, and in the end...

"In the end, I... killed... Xiao Mo..."

Tushan Jingci lowered her head, looking at her own blood-stained hands, unable to stop herself from trembling.

The sensation of flesh parting, of organs tearing, as she had driven her sword through Xiao Mo's chest, still lingered in the palm of her hand.

This sensation was too real, it could not possibly be false...

And Tushan Jingci was no longer the little girl who once understood nothing at all.

She knew that the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan's most direct path to attaining the Dao was to kill, with one's own hands, one's own beloved.

Only, to Tushan Jingci, compared to the Ascension realm, all she had ever wanted was to be with Xiao Mo.

Even in death, she had wanted to die alongside him.

If they could not be husband and wife in life, then let them be a pair of star-crossed spirits in death but now, Tushan Jingci sensed her own cultivation level.

She had, overnight, broken through into the Ascension realm.

This was the very best proof that she had killed Xiao Mo and Tushan Jingci found that her own great Dao now seemed more complete than ever before, as though some soul that had long been missing had finally been made whole again.

"Jingci..."

Suddenly, a familiar voice rose within Tushan Jingci's mind.

Tushan Jingci raised her head, her heart racing.

Right after, Tushan Jingci felt her own great Dao gradually being pulled apart from something.

She turned her head to look, and saw Gui Junmeng standing beside her.

"You..." Looking at Gui Junmeng, Tushan Jingci felt considerable surprise. "What's going on? What exactly happened last night?"

"I'm not sure either." Gui Junmeng shook her head, feeling extraordinarily disoriented as well.

In Gui Junmeng's own memory, she seemed to recall being harvested by Xiao Mo, dying at his own hands but in the end, she found herself fused as one with Jingci and having fused with Jingci, she found she could also actively separate herself from Jingci's body, walking through the world in her own human bloodline.

Not only that, she could now sense Jingci's own emotions, even feeling, as her own, everything Jingci did.

The only problem was that her own cultivation level was gone but she could still cultivate, only starting over again from the beginning.

Gui Junmeng could even sense that her own cultivation and Jingci's could complement and merge with one another.

Should she cultivate up to the Ascension realm herself, while Jingci continued advancing further as well, then when the two of them fused together, the height of cultivation they might reach together was truly difficult to say.

"Could this, too, have been Xiao Mo's doing... but why would Xiao Mo do such a thing?"

Gui Junmeng lowered her head, deep in thought.

She truly wished to know what had happened last night, but all she could remember was being harvested by Xiao Mo, dying at his hands.

"..."

Looking at Gui Junmeng, Tushan Jingci pressed her lips together.

Tushan Jingci's feelings toward this "elder sister" of hers had always been complicated.

If Gui Junmeng were simply her sister, Tushan Jingci would have been overjoyed but... she had stolen Xiao Mo away from her.

And so Tushan Jingci did not care for her but now, having fused with her, Tushan Jingci could sense Gui Junmeng's own inner feelings.

Tushan Jingci knew that Junmeng had always thought of her as a younger sister.

She had even once considered sharing Xiao Mo with her, the three of them living together as one.

Only, she had never had the chance to bring it up, fearing she would be refused, and so her heart had remained heavy with guilt all along.

Faced with her sister's feelings toward her, Tushan Jingci pressed her lips together, uncertain what to say but now, all of this seemed to matter very little.

The entire Tushan clan was now gone entirely...

Her own kin, slaughtered down to the very last...

Tushan Jingci raised her head, glancing once at the scorched, blackened Moon Spirit Tree, then turned and left Moon Spirit Peak.

"Jingci..." Gui Junmeng called after her sister.

"Since neither of us knows what happened, I intend to find out the truth."

Tushan Jingci said coldly.

Over the following month.

Tushan Jingci buried every member of the Tushan clan, returning them to the earth.

She then attempted to gather the lingering souls of the clan's members, but nearly every remnant soul had already entered the cycle of reincarnation.

Just as Tushan Jingci was about to give up.

A woman's soul appeared before her.

"Xiangniang?" Tushan Jingci said, surprised.

She had not expected that any remnant soul of the Tushan clan would still remain.

She wanted to learn from Xiangniang's own lips what had happened that night but Xiangniang said she could only remember Xiao Mo killing clansman after clansman, and in the end, she herself had been killed by him as well.

Regarding her own utterly real memory, Xiangniang could not help gripping her sleeve tightly, doubt still lingering in her eyes, “Holy Woman, did sir truly slaughter the entire Tushan clan?"

Hearing Xiangniang's question, Tushan Jingci did not know how to answer.

"I will get to the bottom of all of this!"

At last, Tushan Jingci said slowly yet even as Tushan Jingci spoke these words, her heart, too, wavered somewhat.

In her heart, she still could not believe that Xiao Mo would do such a thing.

Even if, because of what had happened at the wedding, Xiao Mo hated her however much he might, he would never involve anyone else... but now, everything pointed to the massacre of that night having been Xiao Mo's doing.

Tushan Jingci wished to guide Xiangniang toward reincarnation but Xiangniang refused, in the end.

"Holy Woman, my talent was never particularly high to begin with. There's no hope, in this life, of reaching the Nascent Soul realm. I would rather become a ghost cultivator, to continue assisting you in rebuilding the Tushan clan, and moreover... I too wish to know what truly happened that night."

Xiangniang knelt before Tushan Jingci.

"I ask that you grant me this, Holy Woman!"

"I understand. From now on, you shall follow me."

Tushan Jingci nodded, agreeing to Xiangniang's request.

Three months later.

News of what had happened at the Tushan clan's lands spread throughout the entire demon race's territory, causing an enormous uproar.

No one could believe that the Tushan clan had been annihilated, nor could anyone believe that every Upper Three Realms cultivator sent by both the Human Alliance and the demon alliance to the Tushan clan's lands for the peace talks had died!

Both sides of the negotiations had had Ascension realm cultivators presiding over them, after all!

But when Gui Ning, Daoist Master Yun Xi, and the others failed to appear, and no small number of people traveled to the Tushan clan's lands to see the devastation with their own eyes, they finally understood that the rumors were, in fact, reality...

Because both sides were left without leadership, the great war between the Human Alliance and the demon alliance not only reignited, but internal strife broke out within both alliances as well, no one willing to submit to another, and in the end, both the Human Alliance and the demon alliance splintered apart once more.

Ten years later, the entire demon race's territory fell into a state of fragmented rule among various competing powers but because the demon race's territory had been at war for so long, the great majority of cultivators had lost all appetite for further conflict, wishing only to hold onto their own small patch of ground.

For a time, the demon race's territory achieved, remarkably, a relatively stable state of affairs.

The Human Alliance, too, secured a small foothold within the demon race's territory.

Though not much, compared to before, it was, at least, a place to stand but the human race remained weak, and no one knew how long these footholds could be held.

When Tushan Xinhua returned from her distant travels, she went to see her daughters.

She had spent all this time searching through various ancient ruins for a way to save her daughter yet when she returned, the Tushan clan no longer existed, and her two daughters had, remarkably, fused into one, while still able to separate from one another...

When Tushan Xinhua heard that Xiao Mo had destroyed the entire Tushan clan, she, too, refused to believe he could have done such a thing but the ruins that the Tushan clan's lands had become told her, at every moment, that all of this was true...

Over the following century, Tushan Jingci continued searching for Xiao Mo's reincarnation, but found nothing at all.

"Searching alone is far too slow..."

At last, Tushan Jingci established a nation upon the ruins of the Tushan clan's lands called the Nine-Tailed Kingdom.

Upon hearing of the Nine-Tailed Kingdom's establishment, the fox clan throughout the demon race's territory flocked to it in droves, and the Nine-Tailed Kingdom replaced the Tushan clan, becoming the sacred site held in the hearts of the fox clan throughout the world.

And within the Nine-Tailed Kingdom, humans held equal status with demons.

The demon race was forbidden from eating humans.

Even in the trading of servants, human servants had to be valued equally with demon servants.

Violators would be severely punished.

Humans could even hold official positions at court within the Nine-Tailed Kingdom!

For a time, no small number of humans throughout the demon race's territory traveled to the Nine-Tailed Kingdom and Tushan Jingci rebuilt the academy once more.

Hanshan Academy once again began accepting scholars from throughout the world, human and demon alike.

The rebuilt Hanshan Academy differed little from before.

Only, one particular mountain peak remained forbidden ground within the academy, one that even the dean could not enter and every spring, this peak bloomed with peach blossoms.

And so, the academy's scholars came to call it Spring Peach Mountain.

The students of Hanshan Academy looked forward, each year, to the arrival of spring.

Because every spring, that ruler of the Nine-Tailed Kingdom, praised as "the foremost beauty of the demon race's territory," would come to Hanshan Academy, waiting for the peach blossoms to bloom.

This spring, Tushan Jingci came once more to the academy, as she always did, to that courtyard where she and he had once lived together.

Because this courtyard was the place where Tushan Jingci and Xiao Mo had spent the most time together, it was also one of the places most heavily laden with karma and so Tushan Jingci drew a formation array within the courtyard, hoping to use the karma of this place to search for Xiao Mo's reincarnation.

Watching her own daughter draw this array for who knew how many times now, Tushan Xinhua's eyes were full of worry.

Over these years, Tushan Xinhua, unable to set her mind at ease about her daughter, had remained by her side, watching her search for Xiao Mo and Junmeng, cultivating and handling state affairs within the Nine-Tailed Kingdom's palace, seemed, on the surface, to have let go of Xiao Mo, but in truth, she was doing exactly the same thing.

Only, the two of them each used different methods.

Tushan Xinhua truly could not bear to watch her two daughters keep searching like this, endlessly.

Ever since that day she had seen Jingci and Junmeng again, neither of them had ever once smiled.

"Jingci, let it go... even if you found him, what then? How could he possibly remember any of what happened before?" Tushan Xinhua said slowly. "What has happened, has happened. Whatever Xiao Mo did, he is gone now, and the karma of this matter has already been settled..."

"The karma has been settled? Heh heh..."

Tushan Jingci gave a cold laugh, raising her head, gazing toward the distant horizon.

"I will find him! No matter how long it takes!"

"I will ask him what exactly he did!"

"If he doesn't remember, then I will make him remember!"

"What do you mean, the karma of this life has been settled?"

Tushan Jingci turned her head, her eyes tinged faintly red.

"Did he get my permission!"