by RWX
Gongsun Tu grinned hideously. “Why don’t you go rescue your friend? Can it be that you are just going to stand here and watch him die?”
Yan Nanfei couldn’t move.
He knew that if he moved, Fu Hongxue would die even more quickly.
But he couldn’t be still either.
Zhao Ping was using his other hand to ferociously slap Fu Hongxue’s face. It seemed that he didn’t intend to immediately take Fu Hongxue’s life.
But this sort of humiliation was even worse than death.
Yan Nanfei tightly grasped the handle of his sword. Sweat dripped down from his head like rain. He suddenly said, “Even if you can kill him, you won’t necessarily be able to kill me.”
Gongsun Tu said, “What do you propose?”
Yan Nanfei said, “I want you to release him.”
Gongsun Tu said, “What about you?”
Yan Nanfei said, “I am willing to die!”
Gongsun Tu laughed. “Not only do we intend for you to die, we do not intend to allow him to live.”
Yang Wuji coldly said, “If you wish to kill someone, abstain from nothing at all.”
Gongsun Tu’s laughter stopped. He loudly shouted, “Zhao Ping, kill him! Kill him immediately!”
Zhao Ping gritted his teeth, then exerted strength with his elbow.
Just at this moment, there was a flash of sabre light.
It was Fu Hongxue’s sabre!
In heaven or on the earth, it was a sabre without equal!
They all thought that this battle was practically a guaranteed victory, because they had all forgotten something.
Fu Hongxue’s hand remained tightly clenched around his sabre.
Just at this moment, Yan Nanfei suddenly swept his sword about. Scarlet points of sword light sprayed about the room like rain, surrounding Gongsun Tu.
Yang Wuji’s sword appeared as well.
His sword-drawing technique was skilled and ingenious, and his strike was accurate and efficient. His sword stabbed out at precisely the point which would be fatal for Yan Nanfei.
Even if Yan Nanfei was able to kill Gongsun Tu with his attack, he himself would definitely die to Yang Wuji’s sword.
He had no choice but to retract his assault and defend himself.
Gongsun Tu’s body immediately emerged from the ring of blood red light. He immediately flipped away and out past the door.
With a flourish of his sword, Yang Wuji retreated as well.
Naturally, there was no way Yan Nanfei would let them off. Just as he was about to chase them out, he suddenly heard a frightened cry and a loud shout. “Catch!”
A human shadow flew towards him. Her hair disheveled and her face bloody, it was Zhuo Yuzhen.
Fortunately, although Yan Nanfei’s sword was quick, his eyes were even quicker. Just as his sword was about to pierce her, he pulled back at the last moment.
With a miserable cry, Zhuo Yuzhen fell against his body. At this moment, with a clanking sound, the steel door swung shut!
From behind the door, a series of clanging sounds could immediately be heard as all thirteen locks were once again locked. Aside from Gongsun Tu, no one else in the world could reopen this door.
Yan Nanfei stamped his feet. Not paying any attention to Zhuo Yuzhen, who was leaning against him, he turned around and immediately charged out from the hole in the wall.
“You take care of Miss Zhuo. I will come back and meet you with Gongsun Tu’s head!”
Fu Hongxue’s sabre had already left his scabbard. What misgivings might he have?
Now, the only thing he wanted to do was kill a person!
Kill a person who killed other persons!
The tip of his sabre was still dripping with blood.
Zhao Ping had fallen beneath his sabre. Zhuo Yuzhen had fallen by his side. All she needed to do was to lift her head, and she would see blood dripping from that blade.
Blood dripped onto the stone floor, then splattered, breaking apart into a bloody mist.
Fu Hongxue stood there without moving. He watched as the fresh blood dripped down from his sabre.
Unexpectedly, his sabre remained unsheathed this time.
Zhuo Yuzhen forced herself to sit up. Her eyes remained locked onto that sabre.
She really wanted to see what was so remarkable and astonishing about this sabre.
When this sabre killed people, it always seemed as though it had been blessed by all the divinities in heaven, or cursed by all the demons of hell!
There must be many incredible magical inscriptions on this sabre.
She was disappointed.
The long and narrow blade of the sabre was crooked and curved. The edge of the sabre was sharp. The blood groove was shallow. Aside from that pitch-black handle, this sabre was no different from any other sabre.
Zhuo Yuzhen lightly let out a breath. “No matter what, at least I’ve seen your sabre. Should I feel grateful to this person who died to it?”
Her words were very slow and very soft, as though she were speaking to herself. Naturally, she actually wasn’t.
She only wanted Fu Hongxue to know that if there was something she wanted to do, she would do it.
But as soon as she said these words, she knew that she had misspoken, because she saw Fu Hongxue’s eyes.
Just a moment ago, his eyes had appeared to be very exhausted and very sorrowful. Now, they appeared even colder and sharper than the edge of his sabre.
Zhuo Yuzhen’s body unconsciously shrunk back from him. She haltingly asked, “What did I say wrong?”
Fu Hongxue stared at her, as though he were a wild panther staring at his prey, ready to throw himself at her at any moment.
But after the flush from his face receded, he only let out a sigh. “We were all wrong. I was even more wrong than you. Why should I blame you?” Zhuo Yuzhen tried a question. “You were wrong too?”
Fu Hongxue said, “You spoke the wrong words. I killed the wrong person.”
Zhuo Yuzhen stared at the corpse by his side. “You shouldn’t have killed him? Didn’t he intend to kill you?”
Fu Hongxue said, “If he really wanted to kill me, the corpse lying on the ground would be mine.”
He lowered his head. His eyes were filled with deep remorse and sorrow.
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “Did he not kill you, in order to repay the kindness you showed him last time when you spared his life?”
Fu Hongxue shook his head.
That definitely wasn’t repayment. If you chopped off someone’s hand, the only way they could ‘repay’ you was by chopping off one of your own.
Perhaps it was just a strange sense of gratitude. Gratitude for making him think things he had never before thought of. Gratitude for allowing him to retain a little bit of dignity and self-respect.
Fu Hongxue understood his heart, but couldn’t speak it aloud.
Some complicated but subtle emotions could never be articulated by anybody.
All the blood on his sabre had dripped off it.
Fu Hongxue suddenly said, “This is the first time. It is also the last time.”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “I know. This is the first time you’ve killed the wrong person, and it is the last time as well.”
Fu Hongxue coldly said, “You are wrong again. A person who kills other people can kill the wrong person at any time.”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “Then what you are saying is…”
Fu Hongxue said, “This is the first time you have seen my sabre. It is also the last time.”
His sabre finally entered the scabbard.
Zhuo Yuzhen summoned up all her courage. Laughing, she said, “This sabre isn’t pretty at all. It’s only a very ordinary sabre.”
Fu Hongxue no longer wanted to continue speaking. But suddenly, he turned around. His pale face suddenly tightened. “How did you see this sabre?”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “It was right in front of me. I’m not blind. How could I not see it?”
Her words were very
reasonable, but she forgot something.
There was no light in here at all.
Fu Hongxue started training his eyesight when he was five. He spent day after day, year after day, in a hidden room that was dark and stuffy.
After ten years of training, he could see the ants and the mosquitoes in the hidden room. Now, he could obviously see Zhuo Yuzhen’s face.
Precisely because he had trained his eyesight, he knew that this wasn’t something easy to do at all.
How could Zhuo Yuzhen see his sabre?
Fu Hongxue’s hand tightened around his sabre anew.
Zhuo Yuzhen suddenly laughed. “Maybe you haven’t thought of this, but some people are born with night vision.”
Fu Hongxue said, “You are one?”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “Not only do I have good night vision, I can see straight into the hearts of others.”
Her laughter was very gloomy. “Right now, you must be wondering to yourself, am I the real Zhuo Yuzhen. Naturally, you won’t think that I am a ghost or a monster, but I might be a spy sent to you by Gongsun Tu and the others. Maybe I am a very famous female assassin, and I might even have betrayed Mingyue Xin, because no one else knew that we were here.”
Fu Hongxue could not deny it.
Zhuo Yuzhen looked at him. Tears appeared in her eyes. “Why do you never trust me? Why?”
Fu Hongxue was silent. After a long time, he slowly said, “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so clever.”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “Why shouldn’t I? How could a man like Qiu Shuiqing find a stupid woman to bear his children?”
Fu Hongxue shut his mouth.
But Zhuo Yuzhen was unwilling to be silent. “My child will definitely be smart as well. Thus, I cannot allow him to be born without a father. I can’t allow him to be regretful and in agony all his life.”
Fu Hongxue’s face began to twitch.
He understood her feelings. No one understood better than he did. He, too, was someone born without a father.
A smart child born without a father is a tragedy in and of himself. After he grows up, he will definitely create many tragedies for others.
Because he will always have more hatred in his heart than love.
Fu Hongxue finally sighed. “You can find a father on behalf of your child.”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “I already found one.”
Fu Hongxue said, “Who?”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “You.”
The underground cellar was very dark. In the middle of the darkness, Zhuo Yuzhen’s voice seemed to be coming from very far away.
“Only you are worth of being my child’s father. Only you can guarantee that my child will live to grow up. Aside from you, there’s definitely nobody else.”
Fu Hongxue stood there like a log in the darkness. He only felt as though every muscle in his entire body was gradually becoming hard.
Zhuo Yuzhen then did something which was even more shocking.
She suddenly snatched Zhao Ping’s scimitar. “If you refuse to agree, I might as well kill the child in my belly right now.”
Fu Hongxue involuntarily cried out, “Right now?”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “Right now, because I feel that he is about to come out soon.”
Although she was doing her best to restrain herself, her face was already becoming distorted with pain.
The pain women go through in childbirth is one of the most unendurable forms of pain known to humanity.
Fu Hongxue was even more shocked. “But you said you were only seven months pregnant!”
Zhuo Yuzhen laughed. “Children are disobedient by nature. A child in the stomach is even more so. When he wants to come out, no one can stop him.”
Although her laughter was pained, it was filled with an indescribable maternal love and tenderness.
She softly continued, “Maybe it’s because he is impatient to see the world. Maybe it’s because he was made nauseous by the shaking those people gave him, and so…”
She no longer continued. The pain of childbirth had contorted her entire body.
But her hand continued to tightly grip that scimitar, much as how Fu Hongxue’s own hand continued to grip his own sabre earlier.
She clearly had already made up her mind.
Fu Hongxue said, “I…I can be his foster father.”
It seemed as though he had to use all the strength in his body to say these words. His voice was hoarse.
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “A foster father cannot take the place of a true father. Unacceptable.”
Fu Hongxue said, “What do you want from me?”
Zhuo Yuzhen said, “I want you to let me be your wife. Only then will my child be your legal child.”
Her labor pains came again. She gritted her teeth and forced out a laugh. “If you don’t agree, I definitely won’t blame you. I only ask that you bury our corpses within the graveyard of the Peacock Manor.”
Could it be that these were her last words? If Fu Hongxue did not agree, she would immediately die!
Fu Hongxue was frozen with shock.
He had run up against the most powerful opponents and the most dangerous crises.
But he had never run up against such a tough problem.
It could be said that Qiu Shuiqing died because of him. It could be said that Zhuo Yuzhen was Qiu Shuiqing’s wife.
Qiu Shuiqing’s corpse had barely grown cold. How could he agree? How could he do something like this?
But from another perspective, it could be said that since Qiu Shuiqing died because of him, and since the four-hundred year long fame of the Peacock Manor had been destroyed in one night because of him, leaving behind this last vestige of their bloodline in Zhuo Yuzhen, no matter what sacrifices he might make, he must agree to protect her and let her smoothly give birth, and protect her child as he grew up.
How could he not agree?
If you ran up against something like this, what would you do?
The time between each contraction grew steadily shorter. The pain became more acute. The sharp tip of the scimitar had already pierced her clothes.
Fu Hongxue finally made a painful decision. “I agree!”
“Agree to be my husband?”
“Yes.”
Was this the correct decision?
Nobody can make that judgement. He himself could not either. Only, at this point in time, he had no other options.
If you were him, would you do the same thing?
Panting, groaning, crying…suddenly, all of it came to a halt. Everything became as silent as death.
Then, there was suddenly a loud and clear sound of a baby crying. It pierced the sudden stillness, bearing with it a new life into the world.
Fu Hongxue’s hands were covered with blood, but it was the blood of life!
This time, his hands brought life, not death!
Life was hopping about.
As he looked at his hand, he felt as though his heart was filled with a leaping energy as well.
Zhao Ping’s corpse remained there, fallen underneath his sabre. In that moment, he had stolen away a man’s life.
But now, new life had been given birth to, a livelier, more dynamic life.
His earlier pain and sadness had been dispersed by the cry from the infant.
That bloody crime from earlier had been washed away by the blood of new life.
In this brief period of time, he had taken away a life as well as welcomed a new one.
This strange experience gave him a sudden, powerful, incomparably bright stimulus. His life had, without a doubt, become more lively and vigorous.
He had been baptized by blood, much like how a phoenix was baptized by fire. He had gained a new life.
Although this sort of experience is painful, it is part of growing up. It is the most precious, the most irreplaceable thing in the world.
Because this is life!
The old die, the new are born. This is how life is.
Only now did Fu Hongxue truly gain a new understandi
ng of life. A correct understanding!
He listened attentively to the sounds of life leaping about in his arms. He suddenly felt a sense of tranquility and joy which he had never before felt.
The real purpose of life and living, does it not center around bringing new life into the universe?
Zhuo Yuzhen asked him in a weak voice, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
Fu Hongxue said, “It is both a boy and a girl!”
His voice was extraordinarily happy. “Congratulations, you’ve given birth to twins.”
Zhuo Yuzhen let out a satisfied sigh. A happy smile appeared on her weary face. “I should congratulate you as well. Don’t forget that you have become their father.”
She wanted to stretch out her hands to hold her children, but she was too weak. She couldn’t even lift her arms!
Just at this moment, there was suddenly a loud rumbling sound, as though Mt. Taishan had collapsed. Thousands of jin of stone tumbled down, striking the floor of the hidden cellar. Crushed stones shot out like arrows from the hole in the stone wall.
And then, the sole way out of this place was sealed once more.
Fu Hongxue almost lost control of himself and nearly let out a crazed howl.
New life had suddenly been born. Could it be that he would need to meet up with death anew?
Chapter 12 - Between Life and Death
A fatal darkness! A deathly stillness!
True fear is not being without light or sound. True fear is being without hope.
The children were drinking milk. Only the sound of their suckling gave testament to the fact that life still existed here.
But how long could their lives be preserved?
Fu Hongxue was once more tightly gripping his sabre, but caught in this deadly trap, even his sabre was useless to break them out of here!
He should have gone and comforted Zhuo Yuzhen, but he didn’t know what he should say. His mind was in turmoil.
He had always viewed life and death very lightly. But he couldn’t do so for the children.
Although he wasn’t their true father, they now had a miraculous connection to each other, a connection which was even more intimate than between children and their real fathers.
Because he had personally delivered these children with his own two hands, it was almost as though they were a continuation of his own life.
