Ascending to the Clouds Alone

"You...you dare?!"

The female deacon shouted sharply, but she had already unconsciously taken half a step back.

The speed at which the corrupting force eroded her was far beyond her imagination. In just a short while, her true essence was completely defiled.

Her mind raced with thoughts:

The jade slip has been obtained, and that cunning disciple has also self-destructed and died. The Qi Refining stage youth is locked in by the Spirit Locking Talisman and will definitely not survive tonight in this chaotic rock forest.

But what if he miraculously survives and actually goes to the Exorcism Division? ...

However, the nearest branch of the Exorcism Division is at least half a month's journey away. We only need to send people to the vicinity of each branch and wait for them to walk into our trap.

The corrupting force was now closing in on her Dao Foundation, and her heart sank.

We can't delay any longer. Today's oversight is at most a failure in handling affairs, but if the foundation of our path collapses and we become useless, that would be true annihilation.

First, extricate yourself and solidify your foundation, then it's not too late to call people back to find him.

Staring at what Lin Su held in his hand, she gritted her teeth, mustered her strength, and leaped away.

The rain swallowed the butler's figure, but Lin Su remained in the position of playing the zither.

Lin Su waited, waiting to see if she would turn back, waiting for the spiritual energy to reappear in the rain, waiting for another deadly talisman.

One breath, two breaths, three breaths...

The rain was still drizzling, but the wind had gradually subsided.

Once he was sure the female butler had left, he let his arms fall limply, his taut will snapping completely, and his body fell backward.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, down his cheek, and flowed to his ears, staining the muddy puddle behind his head red.

He just lay there, gazing dazedly at the spinning sky.

Half an hour passed, and a faint buzzing sound arose from nowhere, constantly grinding against his eardrums and senses.

He tried to cover his ears, but he was too weak to even lift his hand.

In his hazy consciousness, the raindrops seemed to hang in mid-air, each one stretched out, emitting a trembling light… like? …

This scene lasted only a few breaths; before I could even process it, the raindrops began to fall.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but the coolness of the raindrops on my face felt so real.

The warmth of the Qi Fengqin seeped into his chest through his clothes, quietly merging with his heartbeat, and supporting his collapsing consciousness.

Lin Su then sank into another rain, even colder than the one before.

The fire illuminated the backyard, and he was screaming in despair when a blood-soaked hand covered his mouth from behind and quickly dragged him into the shadows of the corner.

It's Aunt Zhou.

She crouched down, took out a talisman from her bosom, and stuffed it into Lin Su's palm, saying anxiously:

"You will be teleported thousands of miles away, and your aunt doesn't know where you will land."

You might faint, you might break your leg, you might fall into a monster's den, but you must find a way to survive!

As soon as she finished speaking, she immediately closed her eyes, and then a tiny point of light, the size of a lotus seed, appeared between her brows, as faint as a candle flickering in the wind.

Immediately afterwards, she bit her tongue and spat a mouthful of blood onto the talisman paper. The patterns then lit up one by one, following the strokes of the brush when drawing the talisman.

Her face paled in the light of those strokes.

Her hand trembled uncontrollably, her forehead was covered in sweat and rain, but the light between her brows grew brighter and brighter.

When she opened her eyes, the whites of her eyes were red, as if she had wept blood, but there was not a single tear.

The talisman suddenly floated up and then caught fire, a thin layer of red light bursting out from it.

She opened her mouth as if to say something.

The rain was too heavy, and Lin Su couldn't hear her clearly or see her lip movements.

The talisman turned to ashes, and the red light grew larger and larger, enveloping Lin Su's entire body.

When Lin Suren came to her senses, she was already in mid-air. Looking down through the light screen, she saw Lin Suren kneeling in the water, looking up at her.

She grew smaller and smaller until she became a dot, and then she disappeared.

The whole process took only a few breaths...

Lin Su never saw her again after that day.

Old rain and new rain overlapped in my heart, becoming heavy.

Amidst the blurring of reality and illusion before his eyes, Lin Su emerged from that old rain.

The rain is still falling, but it's the rain of today.

He unfolded the talisman he was holding; it was identical in shape and pattern to the one Aunt Zhou had given him three years ago.

Thinking of the times when Aunt Zhou secretly taught him martial arts when he was young, Lin Su felt a lump in his throat.

It turns out that growing up is not about learning something, but about suddenly looking back and finding that there is no one behind you anymore.

He lay there for a long time, so long that he thought he would lie there forever.

As the sun rose above the horizon, a faint force seemed to emerge from the darkness, supporting him as he struggled to turn over.

Lin Su crawled on all fours to the spot where Han Xiangyu had exploded, and whispered:

"Uncle Han, Uncle Han..."

Rain and tears mingled together, blurring the muddy ground before my eyes.

He frantically dug, and his fingernails quickly filled with bloody bits of mud.

However, no matter how much mud is broken, it can never be pieced back together to make Han Xiangyu whole again.

Lin Su stopped only when he was completely exhausted.

Then, he slowly scooped up a handful of bloody soil and stared at it, as if he were in a daze.

The word "revenge" still lingered in his ears, and the pain from being knocked back remained clearly in his chest.

The wind swept through the cracks in the rocks, carrying a few soft sobs.

After a long while, Lin Su took a deep breath and stuffed the handful of soil along with the triangular talisman into his pocket.

Then, he gathered up the blood-stained soil little by little, piling it into a low little grave...

As the sun slowly rose higher, light and rain filtered through the cracks in the stones, sprinkling onto the grave.

Lin Su knelt before it, watching it quietly.

He recalled Han Xiangyu's last gaze, as calm as the lake in front of the Lin family's old house.

The buzzing in his ears hadn't dissipated, and Lin Su felt dizzy and lightheaded. He didn't know if it was the lingering sound of the Qifeng Qin or the scene he had just witnessed.

He shook his head vigorously, trying to drive away the sounds, but it was all in vain.

There's no time to worry about anything else right now; the only thing to do is survive so that we can have a chance to figure everything out.

After hastily treating the wounds on his hands, Lin Su dragged his battered body and slowly made his way westward through the chaotic rocky forest.

The small grave behind me stood alone, gradually disappearing from view...

This chaotic rocky forest is far more vast than I imagined.

Lin Su walked for a long time, and the sun gradually slanted westward from its zenith, but the surrounding scenery did not change much.

The gray-brown boulders stand scattered about, with weeds growing in the crevices and low shrubs everywhere.

Hidden among the roadside weeds was a small tree, its branches laden with thumb-sized red berries, their color enticing.

Lin Su's stomach immediately started rumbling.

He had eaten this fruit when he was a child.

He popped a red fruit into his mouth; it was so sour that he frowned, but when he swallowed the juice, his listless body seemed to perk up a bit.

Lin Su picked all the red berries from the cluster and carefully tucked them into his clothes.

As we walked, our footsteps occasionally trod over gravel, producing a soft, monotonous sound.

As the sun set, a large, concave rock appeared before us, finally providing a place to rest in this chaotic forest of rocks.

He slumped down against the stone wall, poured the red berries onto his lap, and slowly put them into his mouth one by one. They were sour, and he was reluctant to eat them.

In a daze, my mother's last words from three years ago surfaced in my mind, like a stone that had sunk to the bottom of the water being turned up.

"The zither conceals the primordial chaos."

Over the years, he's followed Uncle Han around, and aside from drinking and cursing, he never explains anything. Perhaps he doesn't even know it himself.

What secret is hidden within this zither? Or perhaps it's my mother's secret to the art of playing the zither?

When the shield was broken, I must have touched the sixth and seventh strings; as for the others, I can't remember anything else.

The six-stringed zither is associated with the melody of the Shao Gong, while the seven-stringed zither is associated with the wu sheng. Could this be related to that?

Lin Su wanted to figure it out carefully, but his mind was a complete mess, and he couldn't find a single clue.

The warmth of the phoenix zither in his arms gradually soothed his chaotic and painful thoughts, and he fell into a deep sleep...

Outside the crack in the rock, a drop of dew hangs on the tip of a mossy leaf, reflecting the first rays of dawn.

As his consciousness waned, a loud clanging sound jolted him awake.

Lin Su instinctively rolled over and lay prone on the ground, looking in the direction from which the sound came.