ATEG Chapter 138

A crescent moon illuminates a desolate shore, a lone swan’s shadow trembles in the cold.

When Feng Liuniang arrived at the water’s edge, what she saw was a figure standing among the rustling reeds. A wide white robe billowed fiercely in the wind, making the figure’s shoulders look thin and narrow.

It was not until he turned his head that Feng Liuniang recognized the face.

“Yun Miansha?” Feng Liuniang did not let her guard down simply because he was an acquaintance. She asked, “Where is Woshui?”

Yun Miansha and Duo Woshui were a married couple of swan demons. Feng Liuniang had come to know them through Bai Hong. Swan demons were deeply devoted in love, and the two were almost always inseparable.

“Woshui… her decline came on far too quickly…” Yun Miansha’s voice scattered into the wind.

Feng Liuniang could not catch what came after, yet she had already guessed what had happened. Yun Miansha’s expression showed nothing — no reddened eyes, no knitted brows, no downturned mouth… his voice was not even hoarse. And yet it was precisely that calm face that made Feng Liuniang feel, all at once, a grief that cut to the bone.

“I…” Feng Liuniang began. She felt a stir in her heart, though she could not immediately determine where it came from. Was it grief? Or was it something else?

Yun Miansha half-closed his fist, then slowly extended his hand toward her palm-up, his fingers — each tendon and bone clearly defined — opening slowly. “I am sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Feng Liuniang’s heart suddenly hammered wildly. She tightened her grip on the jade pipe, her entire body going taut all at once from some wordless premonition she could not name.

Then she saw clearly what lay in Yun Miansha’s palm — a dead little round bee.

She swept the pipe sideways, and in an instant a swath of bee-venom formation spread out.

Yun Miansha’s figure vanished from the spot and reappeared already caught within the bee-venom formation. “I never meant to kill it, but I could no longer hold myself back…”

While he murmured those words, Feng Liuniang brought the head of her pipe crashing fiercely toward him, and at the same time swung her waist, sending one leg hooking out like a needle — sharp and tricky — stabbing toward his side.

But Yun Miansha evaded Feng Liuniang’s foot with effortless ease. The bee-venom formation seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever. He reached out and caught hold of the jade pipe, his pair of eyes a crimson red, as though about to drip blood.

His strength was extraordinary. Feng Liuniang could not wrench the jade pipe back from his grip — but she did not need to.

Fresh red blood ran down from Yun Miansha’s hand. The smooth jade pipe was as though covered with countless thorns laced with bee venom, stinging through his hand; the agonizing venom spread through him as blood and spiritual power circulated. Yet Yun Miansha appeared completely unaffected. He did not release his grip. From his other palm, a thin blade like a feather had already appeared.

Feng Liuniang jerked backward sharply. Yun Miansha’s thin blade skimmed close against her throat. Her waist had not yet bent to its limit when the blade had already drawn a line of blood across her neck.

Too fast.

Why had his cultivation grown so rapidly?

Was it because his transformed form had become aberrant?

Feng Liuniang’s figure scattered — she transformed in an instant into countless bees no larger than a fingernail. But this bought her only a single breath of time. Those crimson eyes seemed able to distinguish the strength of vitality itself, and the slender feather-blade drove straight toward Feng Liuniang’s true form.

That single breath of time was not enough for her to escape the feather-blade — yet it was the one breath of time that saved her life.

Just before the feather-blade reached her, Yun Miansha suddenly stopped.

A light of divine power enveloped him, and within that light he scattered into fragments of broken feathers.

Ding Qin stood half a li away, hands clasped before her chest, forming a divine seal.

The place she had gone was somewhat farther from here than where Feng Liuniang had been, and so she had arrived a little late — but fortunately… fortunately it was not too late.

She hurried over. Feng Liuniang had already resumed human form; she was uninjured, but she was staring fixedly at the place where Yun Miansha had died, lost in thought.

Fragments of broken feathers drifted down into the desolate reeds, dissolving into even finer white dust that scattered on the wind — only three remained roughly intact.

“Liuniang, what is it?” Ding Qin followed her gaze.

This great demon had fully transformed into an Aberration. He had been lucid — he had made this choice of his own will.

Feng Liuniang picked up the feathers, her expression complicated. “He… should not have died so easily.”

Given the strength Yun Miansha had displayed, he could have evaded Ding Qin’s divine technique from so far away. In that final instant, he had neither attempted to dodge nor attempted to drag Feng Liuniang down with him in death.

Feng Liuniang had seen it clearly: when the light of that divine technique fell upon Yun Miansha, the terrifying crimson bloodshot color faded from his eyes. He turned his face aside, and his gaze went somewhere else.

Ding Qin nodded. She had been worried about Feng Liuniang’s situation earlier and had not given it much thought, but now she too noticed the problem.

She had acted in haste, and her primary purpose had not been to destroy the Aberration, but to save Feng Liuniang. The force of that divine technique was more a binding constriction than an attack. Though divine power itself carries the ability to harm Aberrations, an Aberration capable of pressing Feng Liuniang to such a degree should not have died so easily beneath that technique.

Yet Yun Miansha was indeed dead — no substitution technique could deceive her eyes.

“Did you know each other before?” Ding Qin asked.

Feng Liuniang gave a small nod. “Little one, let us go take a look over there.” She pointed in the direction Yun Miansha had looked toward at the last.

After encountering Yun Miansha, many questions had been answered — yet even more questions had arisen.

Yun Miansha had known her little round bee. It was only natural that he would have means to evade the little round bee’s search. At first he presumably had no wish to come into conflict with them, and so he had simply hidden and kept out of the way — but then the little round bee came a second time.

He had killed the little round bee, and already knew that Feng Liuniang would inevitably come searching for him. Yet during this time he had not left. Instead he had remained here, waiting.

Duo Woshui had died from the Five Declines of Heaven and Man — but why had Yun Miansha transformed into an Aberration? Yun Miansha’s mind had been lucid; he had actively transformed into an Aberration of his own accord. Had the Five Declines of Heaven and Man also descended upon him? Yet when an Aberration is destroyed, the true spirit ceases to exist. Swan demons were deeply devoted in love — if he held any thought of a future life, he should have been all the less likely to choose this path.

Having transformed into an Aberration, why then had he lingered here without leaving? Transforming into an Aberration was a bid for survival — so why, in the end, had he willingly perished beneath a divine technique?

Undoing a small hidden protective formation, they found a small grave.

“Woshui…” Grief showed in Feng Liuniang’s eyes.

Several soft, delicate cries suddenly rang out. From deep within the reeds, two small fluffy grey heads appeared, gazing at Ding Qin with curiosity.

These were two young swan demons who had not yet grown up. They seemed to feel no fear of strangers — as though sensing the warm divine power emanating from Ding Qin — and before long they came padding toward her with soft little cries, flapping their still-small wings, trying to climb up onto her.

Ding Qin crouched down, at a loss, and after a moment’s hesitation, gathered the tumbling little swan demons up into her arms.

“Are these… their children?” Feng Liuniang asked.

The two small swan demons had very intricate and rare protective techniques planted upon them, capable of almost perfectly concealing their presence, warding off inauspiciousness, and blocking attacks — which was why, obscured by the reeds, Ding Qin and Feng Liuniang had not discovered them immediately. To successfully lay down such techniques was itself a difficult and painstaking task. Simply looking at the traces of this technique, one seemed able to feel what immense care and tenderness the person who had cast it had brought to bear.

Ding Qin saw the karmic threads upon them and gave a gentle nod.

She saw a dying white swan, wings tenderly sheltering two young swan demons who had not long been born, its long neck too weak to lift, its pure white feathers grown dim with age.

She saw Yun Miansha pressed close against the white swan, his slender and supple arms trembling, loose wrinkles and blemishes forming on his skin.

Swan demons share a life-and-death pact. The Five Declines of Heaven and Man descended upon Duo Woshui — and thus descended upon Yun Miansha as well. Yet Duo Woshui, before the great calamity arrived, was already carrying two young swan demons. She bore alone the vitality their birth would consume, and not long after, she faded and died.

Of the two of them, one had to live long enough — long enough to watch over the two young swan demons and see them grow.

Yun Miansha buried Duo Woshui here. He trusted no one. In the midst of this great calamity, there was no one who would cherish and protect these two children as he did, no one who could guarantee they would never be abandoned in a moment of danger.

But his own decline came on just as fast — so fast that before the two young swan demons had grown up, he was already facing his own end.

And so he chose another path. His craving for survival was so fierce because what he carried was not only his own life.

Driven by that craving, he became an Aberration — with full clarity of mind.

The karmic record ends here. For after transforming into an Aberration, all karmic threads connected to Yun Miansha had snapped and broken.

Upon the two young swan demons, the severed karmic threads drifted in the air. Imbued with spirit from birth, they stretched their heads out from Ding Qin’s arms to peck at Feng Liuniang’s hand.

Feng Liuniang opened her hand. A few feathers lay in her palm, white and soft.

They were still too small — as small and unknowing as infant children, not yet understanding what had happened, only instinctively drawn toward this presence.

Feng Liuniang placed one feather beside each of them. The two young swan demons pressed tight against the feathers and, soothed by Ding Qin, leaned against each other and fell asleep once more.

In their dreams, there was a snow-white figure.

Transforming into an Aberration, devouring living creatures — and then washing away the blood and killing aura — returning here, sheltering them beneath soft wings.

The severed karmic threads could not record what had happened after the transformation into an Aberration, but the two young swan demons remembered Yun Miansha’s figure.

Even though he had already become an Aberration — he was still, somehow, so warm.

Yet Aberrations will corrode the mind.

After the great calamity, had there not been countless cases of those who transformed into Aberrations turning on their own loved ones? An Aberration’s craving for vitality only grows more voracious — until that desire overwhelms every other feeling, until that desire devours even themselves.

Yun Miansha had killed the little round bee because he could no longer restrain the craving for the vitality within it.

In the young swan demons’ dreams, Yun Miansha’s eyes — even as he looked upon them — gradually began from time to time to seep red. Yet even amidst that dangerous and frightening presence, the two young swan demons, full of spiritual sensitivity as they were, still pressed trustingly and dependently close to him.

What other choice did he have?

He had harmed many living creatures, and he died lightly. He was nothing more than one among the countless souls caught up in this great calamity.

The message talisman trembled softly — another message had arrived from the Sui royal capital.

“We…” Ding Qin held the two young swan demons in her arms. Their soft little bodies lay heavy in her embrace. She lowered her eyes. “Let us go back.”

Feng Liuniang gave a soft sound of agreement, and in the wind, let go.

Behind them, feathers spiraled in the wind, drifting and swaying down before the solitary grave.

It would not alight on any cold bare branch; alone, the sandbar lay cold.