Legend of Fu Yao

With a purple flash, Zhangsun Wuji appeared, ready to pull Meng Fuyao back up.

“Don’t!” Zong Yue stopped him urgently.

In a single instant, he was already heavily injured by Meng Fuyao’s inner energy. His white outfit was stained with fresh red blood, yet his eyes were still clear and bright, stopping Zhangsun Wuji’s help.

As he hugged Meng Fuyao rolling about, enduring her inner attacks, he quickly pulled out the golden needles and applied acupuncture onto her. Meanwhile, Zhangsun Wuji protected the two by redirecting the falling trees away from them.

Meng Fuyao continued struggling and rolling about. Other than Zong Yue, one of the best physicians in the world, no one else would be able to accurately apply acupuncture for her in such a berserk state. He had to bear the repeated attacks, risking his life just for the very second she would pause between these attacks. Making use of that break, he would accurately insert the needle. One needle after another, Meng Fuyao finally calmed down.

She gradually calmed down. The inner energy, as if alive, slowly went back into her body. This energy, compared to previously, was thicker and stronger that resembled a jade from afar.

She had leveled up.

In that moment, she had managed to convert the power from the medicine Zong Yue had given her back then and broken through the two levels consecutively, directly entering the seventh level and third section. She was not far from reaching the eighth level.

Of course, Zong Yue’s sacrifice played a very big role in this success. As he hugged Meng Fuyao, not only did he have to apply acupuncture for her, he still had to transfer his inner energy while she attacked him, making up for the deficit that her inner energy had, protecting her as she was breaking through.

Meng Fuyao collapsed on the floor and slowly controlled her inner energy. Zong Yue went into a coughing fit but rejected Zhangsun Wuji’s offer to help up. Slowly, he climbed back up.

He sat there in a daze for a while. Then, he broke the silence: “… She… really is?”

Zhangsun Wuji turned away as if he could not bear to answer.

The two sat in the devastated surroundings quietly. One coughed quietly, while the other craned his head back and stared at the moon. The one coughing coughed out mouthfuls of blood, while the one watching the moon stared on with a face of melancholy and pain.

Meng Fuyao continued laying on the floor. “You two can go,” Meng Fuyao said wearily, completely fatigued.

In that silence, Meng Fuyao closed her eyes. She no longer wanted to say anything nor ask anything.

She did not want to ask what happened after her mother had left. She had been forced away by the monsters in her memories that she had refused to confront. Instinctively, she had woken up, running away from the tragic ending.

She did not want to ask why Zhangsun Wuji hadn’t returned back then. What was there to ask? It was but her fate.

Her life, one that was admired and looked up to by the entire Five Regions Continent—leader of the three states, King Meng, Preceptor of Xuanyuan. This was how the life of the brilliant, glorious Meng Fuyao actually was.

Filled with darkness, pain, and despair.

“Don’t kill—”

The beast-like howls continued. Old Lu, awakened by Zong Yue, did not know that in this instant, not far away, the child he had abused in the darkness, looked up.

He was just confused, his memories murky. The color of blood dyed the earth and the sky as the memories of his recent years faded, leaving only the unerasable memories from 14 years ago… That little girl in the dark… The tender and soft skin… The child secretly given birth by the maid Xu Wan and who had been found out by the Empress… The torture of “grooming” where a metal brush, soaked in boiling water, would be dragged across a person’s skin, exposing the bones beneath… That pair of bloodshot eyes watching everything from the cupboard.

That pair of eyes were red like burning charcoal, bearing no form of resemblance to a five-year-old child. Rather, it looked like a thousand-year demon being imprisoned in the Nine Serenities Ηell, with the world’s hate and pain carved in her eyes. That burning charcoal scalded him, torturing his mind, slowly chipping away the last of his sanity.

In this moment, he saw that pair of eyes again.

Blood red, charcoal black. Those chilling, deadly eyes.

Meng Fuyao’s eyes.

The moment she saw Old Lu, she jolted up. With a flash, she transversed across many miles and then, her hand had already stabbed through Old Lu’s chest.

The wind howled and then fell silent once more. The girl’s plain dress fluttered with the wind as if one was mourning with α white flag.

The dress swayed in the wind, but her body and fingers remained unmoved, firmly stabbing into Old Lu’s chest.

In the dark night, two living statues.

After a long time, Old Lu’s lips broke into a smile. A smile of relief.

He was finally liberated…

He had waited for so long.

Ever since those bloodshot eyes had been tormenting him day and night, pervading even the darkest of his nights, he had begun to wait. As he had been waiting, he had begun to draw, feeling her presence every second. He felt that she was watching as he drew, he knew he shouldn’t have drawn, but he could not help it. He couldn’t help but to draw under the surveillance of these pairs of eyes but then came the time where he couldn’t draw any longer. Then, his works were finally seen by the passing Emperor, and then he knew… Everything was ending… Really, the ending was beginning.

And then, it ended.

Everyone, regardless if they were kind of evil, suffered. Everyone, regardless, waited for the same thing—the inevitable taste of death.

Old Lu laughed, staring into the eyes that were gradually regaining their calmness and the hand that was steady from the beginning to the end… This little girl that was locked up in a cupboard until she was five finally grew up, huh? She was now strong enough to dig out his heart bare-handed. That year, he had touched her body. Today, she had single-handedly dug out his heart. Fair, fair.

He looked at this cold, cruel world without reluctance for the very last time and then, prepared to collapse.

His gaze suddenly stopped.

In front of him, the man in white… an unfamiliar yet familiar face. That unique body shape. Despite his clothes being dyed in white, his aura was not the least tainted…

Him!

Old Lu suddenly began to tremble. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the third piece of his art, one that he had spent many years drawing to the point that every action, every expression, every person there was engraved into his memory. He saw the young man in the painting standing beside the Empress, walking over slowly, towards this man in white, and then they fused together.

He saw him standing in front of the bed, he saw him open the cupboard, he saw him whisper, “Before you become powerful, forget all your hatred.”

Him… It’s him…

Old Lu pointed his trembling fingers at Zong Yue.

Quivering, he choked as he tried to speak.

Blood flowed out with every word he said.

“… He… He is your… Your…”

Meng Fuyao suddenly pulled her hand away.

She pulled out her hand from Old Lu’s chest.

That corpse with countless of secrets hidden in it collapsed on the floor.

The blood flowed gracefully along the crevices of the floor and quietly, vanished into the ground.

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. [Bible, Genesis 3:19]

For a eunuch, who had spent his entire life in the palace, he had played the role of a monster that had locked her up in the darkness. But perhaps he was no evil. He had just been warped by the cruel fate that had led him to the road of a degenerate, and eventually, drawing the curtains of darkness onto the five years of a child’s life. Then, he had used the rest of his life to accept the punishment until the sentence was passed.

His trial was over. Regardless of heaven or hell, he no longer had to draw.

But what about the trial of others?

“Old Lu—” a miserable cry resounded as an old lady under the surveillance of Tie Cheng rushed out. Tie Cheng was worried about Meng Fuyao and abandoned his mission. And so, she managed to escape, witnessing the death of Old Lu.

She pounced forward, sobbing over Old Lu’s corpse, mumbling of the great deeds and kindness he had when he was alive and cursed a painful death for the one who murdered him. Angered by her words, Tie Cheng stepped forward and slapped her.

Meng Fuyao remained there, without even wiping off the blood on her hands. She only stared coldly at the woman, and then, the corpse. Even this old guy without his manhood had someone to truly love him. What about her mother, the beautiful Xu Wan? Had she even lived a good day in her life? And that man who had personally caused her tragic end was sitting at the top of the throne, protecting the evil woman as he had wiped her existence away in his memory.

This golden cage created a bunch of scum, and these scum refused to acknowledge their own doing, leaving the innocent to struggle in the darkness, wounded.

Meng Fuyao stood there, without any expression. Zong Yue took a step closer, she took a step backward. This step made Zong Yue freeze in his step.

Zhangsun Wuji watched her quietly, wanting to pull her over. She moved away, avoiding his hand. Zhangsun Wuji did not keep his hand but instead, stayed there, as if wanting to grab a breeze to calm the roaring pain in his heart.

Meng Fuyao only stood there quietly and coldly.