Chapter 148 – One’s Loneliness

Fan Xian’s left hand tightly gripped the brazier stuck in his chest and abdomen, feeling the gusts of coldness coming from the metal. As the blood gushed out, he felt a chilling sweetness in his nose and throat, and even his body went cold.

The black cloth that was close at hand was still not stained with dust, and the face that was childish in its purity and without a single wrinkle seemed to be telling a story that had been hundreds of thousands of years in the making.

Fan Xian looked at this familiar face in a daze, but found that he could no longer find a trace of familiar flavor from this face. Obviously it was still this face, obviously it was still this black cloth, but he knew clearly that the person in front of him was no longer Uncle Wu Zhu, at least at this moment, he was not Uncle Wu Zhu.

Obviously this person is the other person, but the person is not the other person, twenty years together, at this time but as a stranger to meet, this is what kind of sad and gloomy things.

When Fan Xian saw the big box behind Wang Thirteen Lang’s back, his heart gave birth to a warning, and did not find Uncle Five Bamboo, the pleasure of completing the biggest purpose of this trip to the temple, because he keenly perceived a hint of a problem.

For the temple, the five bamboo uncle was the most powerful, the most senior messenger, but now is the biggest traitor, because of the five bamboo uncle guarding mother as well as his own sake, the temple do not know how many messengers died in the hands of the five bamboo uncle, since the temple finally control the five bamboo uncle, and how can he be placed in the place where Wang Thirteen can easily be found, unless the temple can be sure that they can completely control the five bamboo, and only then will not care about the five bamboo. Only then would it not care about Five Bamboo’s movements.

Based on this judgment, Fan Xian ordered Wang X3 Lang to take the box and break out of the temple, convinced that as long as he was out of the temple’s range, the temple would no longer be able to control the Five Bamboos. All of this reaction, however, was too late.

A black light flashed in the air, the box ruptured, and the Five Bamboos, masked in a black cloth, instantly went from behind Wang Thirteen Lang and killed Fan Xian, wearing his body like a shrimp, as if they didn’t know him at all, much less had ever been born to die for his mother and son, and had never left him.

The moment he saw the black light, Fan Xian couldn’t help but recall the scene many years ago relayed by Lord Sean, when the temple’s doors opened and the four-year-old Ice Fairy Ye Qingmei fled out of the temple door, a black light flashed out in the same manner, and with only one move, smashed Bitter Lotus into a rolling gourd.

Fan Xian stared at the piece of black cloth on Wuzhu s face, felt the sharp pain in his chest and abdomen, and knew that probably the temple had used some kind of method to erase Uncle Wuzhu s memories once again, or even …… erase them into a blank slate.

Fresh blood gushed out from between Fan Xian’s lips, his face was pale, but his eyes were extremely determined, and he raised his right hand with difficulty and speed, stopping Haitang and Wang Thirteen Lang from striking out in a rage under the shock.

Because he was clear that facing Uncle Five Bamboo, Haitang and Wang XIII Lang simply did not have any power to fight back, once they joined the battle, there was only a way to die. To get out of this most dangerous situation at the moment, he could only rely on himself!

Blood spurted out, Fan Xian shrank in pain on top of that brazier, looking exceptionally miserable, yet he could still think, didn’t die right away, and could even raise his right hand to stop Haitang and Wang XIII Lang from acting under grief, which only proved that this exceptionally strong and accurate stab from Five Bamboos hadn’t stabbed him in the vitals.

This was a very difficult thing to understand, with the realm of the Five Bamboos rising up to kill, who could be spared except for those few great masters under the heavens? Not to mention the fact that Fan Xian was originally seriously injured and sick, it must not have even occurred to the temple that under Five Bamboo’s hands, Fan Xian would still be able to survive, so that voice resounding from all directions fell silent, seemingly waiting for Five Bamboo to judge Fan Xian’s life and death.

Yes, no one could avoid Five Bamboo’s strike, but Fan Xian could!

Ever since that grocery store where Five Bamboos had offered the cleaver in his hand to Fan Xian, on the cliffs of Tanyu State, in the company of those slightly becoming moist sea breezes, Fan Xian had been meeting Five Bamboos’ clubbing education every day, and the cowering Little Yellow Flower, after being shattered countless tens of thousands of times, had finally become a lot tougher.

After thousands and thousands of strikes, Fan Xian had been bruised I don’t know how many times on his body, but thanks to that, he possessed the skills to survive in the world, an unusually subtle stance. More crucially, he was the one in this world who knew the orientation and speed of the Five Bamboo’s strikes the best.

Only in the past thousands and tens of thousands of times of education, the five bamboo hands are holding that wooden stick, and today his hands are holding a sharp iron brazier, Fan Xian can not completely avoid this stab, but in the black light before the body of the moment, by virtue of pure as instinctive avoidance of the tendency to the body, forcibly turned, so that the brazier advances the channel to avoid their own heart and lung lobes, seems to be the blood gushing, but in fact, but only hurt the ribs under the At the heart socket.

Five Bamboo’s head was slightly lowered, his black cloth fluttering in the cold breeze, his face was devoid of the slightest emotion, and it was impossible to tell whether or not this overwhelmingly powerful man was surprised that the human in front of him was actually able to avoid one of his own stabs. To the casual observer, he simply maintained that motion, piercing Fan Xian on top of the brazier.

“My mom can’t believe this when I tell her.” These were the words that Fan Xian uttered as he coughed up blood.

Right after these words, Five Bamboos was silent for a moment and suddenly opened his mouth to ask indifferently, “Your mother’s name.”

It was this light, like a ray of light, that instantly took over Fan Xian’s mind, allowing him to see a glimmer of a possibility to live, and he stared at the black cloth with a deadly stare and said, “My mother’s surname is Ye.”

Five Bamboos didn’t respond.

“You call her Miss.” Fan Xian looked at the apathetic Uncle Five Bamboos, and for some reason sadness came over him, even more so than the pain in his wounds, and sanded his voice as he said in a mournful voice.

Five Bamboo still didn’t respond.

“Her name is Ye Qingmei. My name is Fan Xian. Your name is Five Bamboo.” Fan Xian spat out the blood froth on his lips and looked at Five Bamboos and said viciously, but he pulled the wound at his chest and abdomen, and a sharp pain caused his eyes to go black.

Five Bamboo still did not react, just like these names that he should have known best and been closest to, had long since disappeared from his mind, although he had said a word earlier, yet his entire body was seeping with a coldness, just like a piece of ice between heaven and earth that would never melt.

Looking at this piece of ice, looking at the black cloth on the ice, Fan Xian seemed to see a familiar soul, gradually transforming into a point of light, detaching itself from the body in front of him, flying into mid-air, and gradually dissolving into nothingness.

This fact made Fan Xian feel endless fear and sadness, he vaguely felt that he would never be able to see that Uncle Wuzhu again in his life, and such grief made him forget that he was still being pierced on top of the iron brazier, dying of serious injuries, and was about to bid farewell to this world.

For Fan Xian, who had already seen a thousand changes, death was not scary; what was scary was that when he died, the closest person he faced would not recognize him. He glanced at Five Bamboo in despair, a mouthful of blood spurting out, disheveled and powerless, kneeling down into the snow.

Five Bamboos slowly drew back the brazier, not even glancing at Fan Xian who was kneeling in front of him, and with a bend of his elbow, his thin cloth cut the air, directly smashing back Wang XIII Lang who finally could not hold back from launching a sneak attack from behind with a single blow.

Then this blind man covered in a piece of black cloth, without any emotional fluctuations, steadily walked across the stone platform covered in light snow, the distance of each step as if he had counted it. He walked to the only intact building within the temple and sat down.

Like a soulless shell, he resumed his seat in front of the door to the Thousand Ancient Ice Mountain Treasure, and began to guard it, began to wait. This waiting, I don’t know how many thousands or tens of thousands of years it would be again.

Fan Xian’s body finally collapsed in the middle of the snow, blood seeping out from his body. Haitang half-kneeled beside him, futilely stopping his bleeding, forcibly suppressing the grief and shock within her heart, yet she could not suppress the hot tears in her eyes.

Five Bamboos did not attack Haitang and Wang X3 Lang, probably because in the temple’s view, these two Fan Xian’s companions were not able to affect the overall interests of mankind, and it needed these two people to proclaim the existence of the temple in the world, this is a simple logical judgment, and does not involve the rest.

However, Haitang and Wang Thirteen didn’t understand. The two human world powerhouses felt chills running through their bodies as they looked at the blind man sitting cross-legged in front of the building’s door. Especially Haitang, how could she not believe that Master Blind would strike out at Fan Xian, and she couldn’t understand even more why Master Blind was sitting in front of that door, but there was a sense of the underworld that let her know that perhaps in the long years to come, this closest uncle of Fan Xian, this most mysterious Cloth Cloth Cloth Patriarch of the world of mankind, might just wither away in a temple, unaware of the years in the mountains.

Fan Xian will die, but Hai Tang looked at the indifferent and expressionless Five Bamboo sitting like that, and even felt a chill and confusion that was hard to stop.

Calm returned to the temple, and that gentle, calm voice without the slightest human emotion never sounded again. The snow fell from the sky once again, and the surrounding snowy mountains glowed with a crystalline light as if they did not exist.

Five Bamboo indifferently sitting in front of the gate, motionless, indescribable loneliness and loneliness.

The snow fell incessantly, the cold wind blew, the human heart was rain and snow, loneliness had no starting point, loneliness had no end.

Fan Xian through the tent deliberately lifted the gap, looking at the tent outside the flurry of snow, his face did not have the slightest expression, indifference as the blind man in the distant snowy mountains.

Haitang and Wang XIII Lang carried him down the snowy mountain with great difficulty and returned to the place where they camped. They thought that Fan Xian wouldn’t be able to make it through the day, but they didn’t think that Fan Xian would be able to survive by virtue of his small, strong vitality.

From the moment he woke up, Fan Xian fell into silence. Haitang and Wang XIII Lang knew that the emotions in his heart were complicated, so they didn’t try to interrupt, but only very briefly recounted the scene after he fainted. In fact, up until this point, Haitang and Thirteen Lang still hadn’t figured out why the temple had to want Fan Xian to die and allow the two of them to live.

Fan Xian’s body was very weak, and after meditating for several days in this place of incomparably rich heavenly and earthly yuan qi, his body, which had been gradually improving, was on the verge of being abandoned because of this massive loss of blood. However, Fan Xian did not feel the slightest bit of disappointment or sadness, he just indifferently looked at the wind and snow outside his tent for many days, carefully nourishing his body.

According to the original plan, after they left the temple, they had to travel south as fast as possible, avoiding as much as possible the great blizzard that would arrive after the summer, as well as the most terrifying polar night, however, because of Fan Xian’s injuries, and even more so because of Fan Xian’s insistence, the camp stayed at the back of the great snowy mountains and did not move south.

The color of worry between the brows of Haitang Duo and Wang Thirteen Lang these days had grown thicker and thicker. Although the trip to the temple had yielded nothing, at least for them, being able to enter the temple alive and leave it alive was already an impossible task in the human world, and it was impossible for them to hope for more.

Of course they understood why Fan Xian refused to leave the snowy mountains, and that was because there was someone he couldn’t let go of the most in that temple in the mountains. However, they really weren’t sure what else they, the mortals, could do in the face of the mysterious temple.

Haitang and Wang Thirteen Lang were not Fan Xian, it was impossible to see through the truth of the divine temple, they only knew that even a supremely powerful person like Wuzhu did not dare to disobey the orders of the divine temple, and laid down a cruel hand on the closest Fan Xian, so ask in this case, what could the three of them do besides withering away in the snowy mountains?

But Fan Xian didn’t think so, if he wanted to see Uncle Wu Zhu alone and lonely in the snowy mountain temple for ten million years, he wouldn’t do it even if he was beaten to death. Of course, Fan Xian had already vaguely guessed the true identity of Uncle Five Bamboo at this time, but he still used the words “lonely” to describe Five Bamboo, because he knew that Five Bamboo was different from the temple.

Uncle Five Bamboo had feelings, ties, and was not a cold program, he was a living, breathing human being, and Fan Xian firmly believed this. For in the dimly lit chamber of the Tanyu grocery store, he had seen that smile that was brighter than a flower, and after recuperating from his injuries at Dadong Mountain, Uncle Five Bamboos had become more and more like a human being.

When this change had begun, Fan Xian was not sure, perhaps it was countless thousands of years ago, when the messenger with a piece of black cloth, in the capacity of a god’s envoy, traveled through the various tribes of human primitives and saw too many human sorrows and joys?

Perhaps it was because Uncle Five Bamboo himself was the most powerful one in the temple, and in the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, had taken a completely different path from the temple itself?

Or was it because a few decades ago, suddenly a spirit-like being, for reasons no one could know, appeared in the world, in the temple, and in the midst of getting along with that little girl, Uncle Five Bamboo was inspired to do something?

Fan Xian did not want to pursue this point, nor did he need to pursue this point, he only knew that when he was reborn into this world, he was leaning on Uncle Wu Zhu’s back, and the first person he saw was Uncle Wu Zhu.

Uncle Five Bamboo’s back was warm, and his eyes, though he had never looked into them, were thought to have feelings.

Fan Xian wasn’t sure how the temple had regained control of Uncle Five Bamboo, perhaps it was something like brainwashing, perhaps it was a reboot, perhaps it was a formatting? In any case, the life-giving glow of intelligent emotion in Five Bamboo’s body was simply not visible at the moment.

This fact caused Fan Xian to feel extraordinarily sad and angry, and he couldn’t just stand by and watch this scene happen while he did nothing at all. Because to him, that powerful being that withered away at the temple was nothing more than the physical body of Uncle Five Bamboo, and for Uncle Five Bamboo’s soul not to be retrieved was tantamount to Uncle Five Bamboo being dead.

More than twenty years ago, during that removal operation in which the temple and the emperor’s old man joined hands, Five Bamboo killed an unknown number of emissaries from the temple, however, he himself was seriously injured, and in the words of Elder Chen Pingping and Five Bamboo himself, he had forgotten a lot of things.

This kind of memory loss was definitely caused by the temple’s tactics, except that the good thing was that Five Bamboo had forgotten some things that happened years ago, yet he remembered the recent events very clearly, he remembered Ye Qingmei, and he remembered Fan Xian, yet Five Bamboo, who was in the snowy mountains today, did not remember anything at all.

Fan Xian’s eyes were slightly lowered, but an extremely bright light flashed through his pupils. His body was still weak, but his confidence was unusually high. He would not leave the snowy mountains, and he must return to the temple to bring Uncle Wuzhu back!

Because he had not died. That stab from Five Bamboo had not killed him!

Fan Xian accurately judged that the divine temple should not be able to have total control over a completely different being like Uncle Five Bamboo, and at least those few names, those few names inscribed in Uncle Five Bamboo’s life, had successfully interfered with Uncle Five Bamboo’s behavior so that he did not kill Fan Xian.

With Five Bamboo’s ability, judging Fan Xian’s death or life was too simple a matter, yet he let Fan Xian live. This was Fan Xian’s immediate confidence, he believed that Uncle Five Bamboo would definitely wake up one day.

Many, many years ago, Ye Qingmei escaped the temple with the help of Bitter Lotus and Sean, and walked south amidst the wind and snow. Then one day, the then four-year-old little girl sighed, gazed fondly toward the north from the mouth of her tent, and said, “He is also too pitiful.”

Many, many years later, the seriously injured Fan Xian left the temple with the help of Haitang and Wang XIII Lang, but he didn’t leave at all, and he didn’t sigh, because he simply wouldn’t abandon that poor blind man and return to the prosperous world of people himself.

Ye Qingmei later bravely returned to the temple, took the five bamboo, stole the chest, and left again. Fan Xian must also return. The passing of the decades seemed to have fallen into some sort of cycle again, only this cycle, however, did not make people feel the slightest bit boring, there was only a faint warmth of meaning.

When Fan Xian was able to walk, the snow and wind around the snowy mountain was already extremely heavy. He walked towards the middle of the snowy mountains for the second time, just like his mother Ye Qingmei s choice back then, because both mother and son couldn t let go, couldn t let go of that …… person alone.