28. The Curtain Falls

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Lin Fan still felt a lingering dread. Fortunately, he had run fast; from the underground palace behind him came shrill, terrified screams.

He could imagine the scene of Huang Dongshan’s gruesome death.

Tu Lixian must have torn him limb from limb. But in the end, he had brought it upon himself.

“It’s over! It’s all over!”

A wave of weakness swept over Lin Fan. Unable to hold himself up any longer, he collapsed onto the ground. The Pure Yang Sword had absorbed his blood, and the attack it unleashed had slain Yang Muy u. Because it had drained so much blood from him, Lin Fan was extremely weak. Leaning against the ship’s wall, he made his way toward the ninth level.

That day, he had first encountered the Purple-Spirit girl and the woman in bridal red. Those perilous experiences had ended without disaster, but then Huang Dongshan’s provocation had driven him into a fury. He had first crushed Wang Xingbing’s skull, then used the terrain of the Forest of Steles to kill Huo Yuxiao, Deng Nanqiao, Ma Shouyi, and Zhuo Qirui. After entering the seventh level, he had successively killed Yao Chenxuan and Wu Jingxing.

His anger had long since vanished amid the slaughter.

All that remained were the aftereffects.

Those bloody scenes surged through his mind. He was terribly weak. This was the first time he had ever killed anyone.

Lin Fan’s face was deathly pale as he recalled each person he had killed, wondering whether they truly had been, as he claimed, people who deserved to die.

Because of Huang Dongshan, Ning Fang had been violated; Tang Gubo had died; Chen Cun yuan’s limbs had been crippled… Every one of these things was an answer. Lin Fan had not killed the wrong people. If he had to choose again, he would still kill them without hesitation.

They were not human beings!

Even with death before their eyes, not one of them had shown the slightest remorse. Their crimes were enough to condemn them to death a hundred times over.

“They brought death upon themselves. It wasn’t that I was cruel!”

Lin Fan breathed heavily. Thinking this way brought him considerably more peace of mind. Wuxuzi had once told him that those who cultivated the Dao must at least remain free of shame in their own hearts. Otherwise, if their state of mind was flawed, even the most powerful cultivation would ultimately come to nothing.

Leaning against the ship’s wall, Lin Fan slowly made his way toward the ninth level.

On the ninth level, Fan Yijun and Pu Qingyue threw the corpses of Huang Qiushan, Wang Xingbing, and the others from the ghost ship. Only after watching them be devoured by the vengeful spirits did they finally feel at ease. They also buried Tang Gubo’s body, refusing to leave him lying exposed in the wilderness.

Although he could not be buried in his homeland, at least he had been laid to rest.

Tang Gubo was the only one who had stood up to resist. Compared with the inhumanity of Huang Qiushan and the others, Tang Gubo’s courage was far more worthy of admiration and praise.

“Lin Fan, are you all right?”

When Fan Yijun saw him come up looking exhausted, with his chest covered in blood, she grew anxious again. “You’re injured? Take off your shirt. I’ll bandage your wounds.”

“I’m fine…” Lin Fan waved a hand. His weakness came from having lost too much blood to the sword. “How are Chen Cun yuan and Qin Fen?”

“Take care of yourself first.”

Fan Yijun shot him a reproachful look. Regardless of whether Lin Fan agreed, she began tending to his wounds.

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“Lin Fan… You’re alive. Does that mean Huang Dongshan and the others…”

Pu Qingyue suddenly thought of something, but halfway through the sentence she realized she could hardly believe it herself and fell silent.

“Yao Chenxuan, Wu Jingxing, and Yang Muy u from Laboratory 701 were killed by me. Huang Dongshan was destroyed by his own schemes. After drinking the Golden Crow’s blood, Tu Lixian mutated and killed Huang Dongshan.”

“And the seventh level is no longer accessible.”

Lin Fan watched Fan Yijun. He had deliberately displayed the appearance of a gravely wounded and weakened man, hoping to lure her into making a move. Unexpectedly, she had not attacked him. Could it be that she truly cared about him?

“They’re dead? All those beasts from Laboratory 701 are dead?”

Pu Qingyue stared wide-eyed at him, astonished and delighted. Tears glimmered in her eyes, and her long lashes resembled dewdrops hanging at dawn.

“At last, Teacher Yang has been avenged!”

“Old Yang is dead?”

“Three days ago, Old Yang took his own life. Huang Dongshan drove him to it, and he bit through his own tongue.”

At the thought of Old Yang, Pu Qingyue could no longer hold back her tears. She had been an orphan since childhood, and Old Yang had sponsored her education—from middle school through university and all the way to graduate school. He had been like a second father to her.

“Lin Fan, Old Yang asked me to tell you something. He said, ‘When sword and relic become one, the living realm of Lingzhou will emerge. If you ever have the chance to return to Earth, go to the Great Chan Temple and take a look…’”

Pu Qingyue had suddenly remembered those words. Old Yang had said them to her just after she entered the Netherworld Ghost Ship.

At that time, Lin Fan had still been unconscious.

“That’s strange…” Lin Fan pondered the meaning of the words. “I can understand ‘when sword and relic become one’—the relic bead merged with the Pure Yang Sword. But what place is the living realm of Lingzhou?”

When Lin Fan had obtained the Pure Yang Sword, he had paid little attention to it. Above the hilt was a bead about the size of a fish’s eye. It was precisely the relic bead he had once possessed.

Back then, Lin Fan had even said that the relic bead had been left behind by a predecessor of the Daoist tradition.

Searching his memories, he recalled the Great Chan Temple. The temple had disappeared a thousand years ago. He had read about it in the records of Zhenwu Mountain: the Great Chan Temple was a monastery where Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism had been brought together.

Since ancient times, the ideals of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism had differed from one another, which meant that they could never truly become a single whole. Yet the Great Chan Temple had somehow embodied a vision of harmony among all three.

“Old Yang seemed to know something. What a pity I can’t ask him in person anymore.”

Just as Fan Yijun was treating Lin Fan’s wounds, a faint song suddenly drifted over from the bow.

The voice carried a thread of sorrow and a touch of desolation, as though it held the anger buried in the depths of a soul.

Lin Fan had heard that song before. When he was young, he had often heard it in the villages beneath the mountains. It had once been a cheerful folk song.

“That’s… Ning Fang’s voice!”

“Oh no!”

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Lin Fan, Fan Yijun, and Pu Qingyue rushed onto the deck. They saw a woman sitting on the ship’s wall, with a sea of blood behind her. The slightest movement would send her plunging from the vessel.

Ning Fang was wrapped in a coat. Her body was covered in bruises, and tearstains marked her cheeks. Her eyes held nothing but despair, unwillingness, and a violent hatred. She hated Huang Qiushan and his companions. She hated the torment fate had inflicted upon her.

Ning Fang’s desolate voice drifted faintly across the ship:

“The great river rolls, its waves broad and wide…”

“The wind blows over the rice blossoms…”

“…”

When the song ended, a look of resolve flashed through Ning Fang’s eyes. With a gentle leap, as though she had grown wings of freedom, she flew toward the sea of blood. She fell lower and lower, until—

Splash!

They had just reached the deck when they witnessed Ning Fang leap into the blood sea. Lin Fan could imagine how desperate and terrified she must have been after Wang Xingbing dragged her into the woods—desperate and terrified enough to throw herself into that blood-red abyss.

“Ah…”

Lin Fan’s emotions were tangled. Fate was always so skilled at tormenting the human heart. She should have had a bright future ahead of her, yet she had been subjected to inhuman suffering. It was as though she had grown wings of freedom and had finally flown out of the Netherworld Ghost Ship, finally returned to the homeland that belonged to her…

There, perhaps, were ancient rivers, blue skies, and joyful laughter…

“Ning Fang suffered severe wounds, both to her body and to her mind. They can never be healed… For her, jumping into the blood sea was a release.”

Fan Yijun and Pu Qingyue closed their eyes to keep their tears from falling. Neither dared imagine what awaited her beneath that crimson surface.

How utterly desperate must she have been to abandon her life?

She had been at the age when she should have been radiant as a flower, yet she had endured injuries no human being should ever have suffered. In this place, even being beautiful was a crime.

How were women like them supposed to survive in this unknown land?

Lin Fan suddenly thought of Qi Lingshan. Fortunately, Huang Qiushan had not managed to capture her. Otherwise, he could not even imagine what might have happened.

Standing at the bow, he gazed at the ghost ship shrouded in ghostly mist, at the boundless sea of blood, and at the countless wronged souls and evil spirits below.

Huang Qiushan and Huang Dongshan were dead. No one threatened him anymore.

But what came next?

Where would this ghost ship take them? Would it carry them to a world resembling Earth? Or did the ship itself have no destination at all?

No one could give him an answer. He could only think it through for himself.

After watching for a while, he returned to the wooden shelter to check on Chen Cun yuan.

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