Chapter 246: Chapter 161: "Return to an Ordinary Human
Hearing this, Zheng Xiu’s head throbbed, but he forced himself to listen through the pain. Though he didn’t know the full story, this young woman’s intellect had become razor-sharp in her fury. Like the world’s greatest detective, she unraveled the mystery thread by thread, seeing through everything with crystal clarity. It allowed the "observer," Zheng Xiu, to quickly grasp the entire situation.
"Young lady, consumed by your anger, please calm down," Gongsun Mo said, cupping his hands in a placating gesture. "The reason I have emerged into the world is because the Gongsun Family has been afflicted by a strange hereditary illness for generations. All male descendants are fated to die before the age of fifty. Without fail, they die suddenly on their fiftieth birthday. My father’s fiftieth birthday is only three years away, and a master prognosticator read his fate. He determined that this strange illness in our bloodline is not a disease, but a curse upon our Life Chart. Every generation of the Gongsun Family produces a master of Danqing, and for this, we have incurred Heaven’s envy. To change our fate, one of the Gongsun Descendants must become the Champion Scholar, using the Life Chart of the Star of Literature to counteract our own. And to become the Champion Scholar, I must borrow the power of Kang City’s Champion Scholar Archway, which has absorbed the wishes of countless scholars for the past hundred years. That is why I..."
Zheng Xiu’s mouth recited the "lines" woodenly, like a broken record, but inside, his mind reeled.
Zheng Xiu had been watching them argue as if it were a play. But now, as Gongsun Mo spoke, a flash of insight pierced through the throbbing waves of his headache. He felt as if he had suddenly grasped something crucial.
"You conspired with a Gongsun Descendant to deceive me! You... Chu Chengfeng! How dare you!" Wen Shishan’s expression was one of grim finality. She pulled a scroll from her robes and threw it to the ground. "Here’s your half of the Late Fall Maple Scene! You want it? You can have it! I, Wen Shishan, should never have held out any hope for you! All these years, I thought that if you truly liked men, I would become a man, just so we could be together again! Even if it meant breaking my vows, even if Heaven itself were to strike me down for it, I would have accepted my fate! But you... to think you would— From this day forward, I, Wen Shishan, and you, Chu Chengfeng, are finished! All ties between us are severed!"
THUD.
The half-scroll landed between them.
The air in the forest grew unnervingly still. It was as if in that one instant, the surrounding chorus of birds and insects, the rustle of wind through the leaves, had all abruptly stopped.
Chu Chengfeng suddenly pulled the other half of the scroll from his robes. He bent down, picked up the half Wen Shishan had thrown, and with trembling hands, carefully unrolled both pieces and fitted them together.
"It... it’s really the other half of the Late Fall Maple Scene!"
Wen Shishan was stunned. A tear hung at the corner of her eye, her expression one of disbelief.
’Chu Chengfeng... You actually picked it up?’
"Heh... heh heh..."
Suddenly, the National Preceptor, who had been ignored during the argument, let out a dry, rasping laugh without warning.
From the moment Chu Chengfeng had snatched him away in the chaos of a fierce battle, the skeletal National Preceptor had lain quietly on his back. He hadn’t uttered a single word or shown the slightest reaction. If not for the man’s faint, shallow breaths, Chu Chengfeng would have assumed he was already dead.
The Former Imperial Tutor’s sudden, raspy laughter was like a bucket of ice water dumped over Chu Chengfeng’s head. It snapped him out of the euphoria he felt over the Late Fall Maple Scene. Clutching the two scroll fragments, he took a swift step and stood before the National Preceptor.
"Speak! How do I crack the secret of the Four Seasons Map!"
"I... am about to die..." the National Preceptor said, his voice as faint as a gossamer thread. "To think that before my death, I would be able to see a Gongsun Descendant... and this painting. Perhaps this is all the will of Heaven..."
"Enough nonsense! Tell me the secret of the Four Seasons Map, and I’ll give you a grand burial!"
"Heh heh heh..." The National Preceptor lifted his gaze. His murky, lifeless eyes looked past Chu Chengfeng, focusing on Zheng Xiu behind him.
No, to be precise, he was looking at Gongsun Mo.
Meanwhile, Zheng Xiu’s head was splitting apart. In Gongsun Mo’s memory, the National Preceptor was nothing but a terrifying shadow; he couldn’t make out the man’s face.
"The secret of the Four Seasons Map can only be unlocked by a Gongsun Descendant."
The National Preceptor spoke to Zheng Xiu. "You... This old man will tell you, and only you. Come... closer."
BUZZZZ—
Under Chu Chengfeng’s expectant gaze, Zheng Xiu moved closer like a puppet on strings.
Zheng Xiu’s head was killing him.
Gongsun Mo’s eyes were vacant.
The National Preceptor slowly raised his skin-and-bones arm.
Xiao Buping, Chu Chengfeng, and Wen Shishan all held their breath. In that moment, they seemed to forget their earlier argument, afraid of missing a single word. All they could see was the withered hand and the ever-decreasing space between the National Preceptor and Gongsun Mo.
"Closer..."
"Closer..."
"Closer..."
The National Preceptor’s voice grew progressively weaker until Gongsun Mo was right beside him. The old man then leaned close to Gongsun Mo’s ear and murmured.
It was like a whisper from the underworld.
"Nie Gong’s Treasure Vault holds the secret to becoming a normal Human again."
The National Preceptor’s raised hand fell, and his head slumped lifelessly.
"He’s dead?" Xiao Buping blurted out, stunned.
Wen Shishan was aghast. "Dead?"
Chu Chengfeng scrambled forward and checked the National Preceptor’s pulse. A few moments later, his face twisted in disbelief. "He’s dead!" The next instant, he seized Gongsun Mo by the collar. "Well? What did he say? What’s the secret to cracking the Four Seasons Map?"
Just then, Zheng Xiu suddenly realized something. The incessant headache that had plagued him ever since he’d regained his senses was, without any warning, gone.
Zheng Xiu nodded, his expression serene. "He’s dead. He didn’t say anything."
"Impossible! Younger Brother Gongsun! What did he say? You’re now the only person in the world who knows the secret of the Four Seasons Map!"
Chu Chengfeng’s voice was practically a roar.
Zheng Xiu just shook his head. His head no longer ached, the noise in his ears was gone, and he felt as if he had been reborn.
THUNK.
A sound cut through the air. An arrow, appearing as if from nowhere, shot past them and pinned the scroll Chu Chengfeng was holding to the ground.
「The clouds parted, revealing a bright moon.」
Silhouetted against the Full Moon, a barefoot woman descended from the sky, her toes touching down gently on the very tip of a treetop.
She held a fearsome-looking Longbow. With the Full Moon at her back, the woman smiled faintly and drew the powerful bow taut, making it look as if she were holding a second full moon in her hands.
After a moment of dead silence, the birds roosting in the forest suddenly took flight in a panic. Though nothing had physically startled them, the woman’s mere presence sent them scattering from their nests, crashing into one another in the sky with shrill, desperate cries.
Zheng Xiu stared blankly into the distance, at the moonlit figure perched on the treetop.
He might not have recognized Xie Luohe, but there was no way he could mistake Feng Bei.
Right now, Xie Luohe, the spitting image of Feng Bei, stood on that treetop, drawing her bow and nocking an arrow.
In an instant, the bright Full Moon behind her was dyed ink-black. A colossal shadowy skull, as large as the sun and moon combined, flickered in and out of existence behind Xie Luohe, seeming at once like mist, a river, and the wind.
The four people in the forest below didn’t see the ugly black markings that were rapidly spreading across Xie Luohe’s face.
The black energy swirled like a frantic vortex, finally gathering upon her arrow.
The terrifying shadowy skull became one with her arrow.
"What a coincidence."
Xie Luohe smiled faintly. With a twang of the bowstring, a second long arrow shot forth like a beam of black light, tearing through the moonlight as it flew toward the four people in the forest, who were frozen in astonishment.
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