Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Let Go
Shen Yuan was falling down the hole in the mountain, which he had jumped into himself, thinking he was entering a cave.
Woosh!
He looked down and saw nothing. The darkness had swallowed everything, and the only sound he could hear was the one of him falling.
Tishshh!
He tried to touch the walls on the side, hoping to catch something, only to get a deep gashing wound in his palm.
"Mmm." Shen Yuan could feel the blood seeping out of the wound like water from an open bottle.
He tried to kick the gap, but his feet touched nothing.
"The gap is widening," Shen Yuan thought to himself. Before he could think any further, his body suddenly slowed down.
Boom!
He did not know what sound it was, but Shen Yuan remembered seeing a sea-green light right before the collision.
He knew he had struck something, but he did not know why.
The pain was there, but it was only limited to his muscles.
Shrnnn...
Then he felt the sensation of sinking followed by the sound of water falling.
Did I fall into the sea?
The thought appeared in his mind. Shen Yuan tried to open his eyes, but everything was blurry. He could see a distant light, but there were many things moving around him.
’Is this how I die?’
"From cliff to sea."
Life had always been tasteless. Nothing he ever did could spark an interest in his heart.
Memories started to flash before his eyes. Both his and Shen Yuan’s.
His first kill made him feel something, but that feeling passed away by the time he buried the body.
Then he moved from one body to another, searching for that spark.
All while convincing himself he was doing it to fulfill his father’s wishes.
Shen Yuan realized that he had not achieved something he could be proud of if he could even feel that.
He had taken lives and done many bad deeds, but never did he truly feel alive.
But that never made him want to die. He believed that if he searched hard enough and continued to live, he would find it.
Maybe... maybe one day, he would find it.
Something... or someone that would make his frozen heart beat again.
Ba-dump!
"How disgusting." Shen Yuan’s eyes paused, hearing the voice that was not his own and yet so familiar.
"To think you would give up after coming so close to winning." For the first time Shen Yuan could see clearly underwater.
Although he could only see the small boy standing before him.
The boy was staring at him with resentment in his eyes. "How long are you going to stay down, making excuses?"
"What do you know, boy?" For some reason Shen Yuan could speak underwater, and he immediately knew who the boy before him was.
"I know you for what you are." The boy smirked coldly, matching the one Shen Yuan always had on his face when he killed someone. "You are a killer. You are a manipulating bastard. And most of all, you are a scared little thief who stole my life and my body from me."
The boy whose facial features somewhat matched his own. "You took away my everything, but you don’t see me complain."
"Just like how you have been seeing my memories, I have looked into yours." Shen Yuan’s expression hardened, but he still could not move. His body was still being drawn into the depths of the unknown water.
He did not know how long he could survive before the unknown would claim him.
"I erased you? I did not even know what happened until I woke up in your body," Shen Yuan retorted. For some reason, the boy’s words were starting to bug him.
"I don’t know all that. I just know you took away my life and you don’t even want to meet my family." The little Shen Yuan stubbornly turned his head away like a spoiled child who was not ready to budge from his opinion.
"Whatever, man, let me get out of here. If I don’t try hard enough, I will die."
The boy finally turned his head and stared at him before shaking his head. "You won’t survive."
"Why? I won’t know until I try. I have been doing this all my life."
"And what did you get in return?" The boy shot back instantly. "You have been running all your life pretending to be someone you are not. Something you can never be."
"You know it right. Even if you survive today, you can never break through the next realm?"
...
The boy did not mind the silence and continued to speak. "You read it in that book, and you still refuse to accept it. The second Chapter of the True Scripture of Bloody Moon."
"To break through the Qi condensation stage, one has to temper their shape, nature, and emotions to achieve a balance."
"You, who have no emotions, can never become a Qi condensation cultivator and will die at the hands of the demonic cultivators."
Silence seemed to have taken root in the darkness.
"You have been clinging to things you never were or never wanted in the first place. Just so you could be like others. Here is the truth, man; you are not like others. You are different, you are you."
"In some ways I might say you are better." The little boy chuckled at his own joke before pointing at the surface above. "So, you just have to let go."
"Let go?" And the killer finally broke the silence, "should I die now?"
"No idiot. For someone so intelligent, you cannot even comprehend something so simple." Shen Yuan crossed his arms before his chest. His figure was slowly fading away. "Sometimes to rise up, you just have to let go."
"Let go of doubts. Let go of that mask." The little Shen Yuan’s voice seemed to have some charm. It made him slowly close his eyes. "You have everything you need inside of you. If you let go of the useless things, you can become better than anyone in that sect or in this world."
"I will be the witness to your rise. So, do something better with my body now that you have it. I don’t want you to visit parents or do anything for just..."
The voice slowly faded with his vision, and yet he continued to sink.
