Bai Hao straightened from his kowtow and looked deeply at Bai Xiaochun. His smile was radiant, but at the same time, contained the sorrow of departure. With that, he kowtowed again.
Two kowtows!
“Thank you, master… for keeping me company….” Bai Hao's voice was weak now, and his soul had almost completely faded away. The twenty-two-colored flame was now almost completely gone.
In his mind, he saw the spirit enhancement shop back in Arch-Emperor City. He thought about all the things that he and Bai Xiaochun had done there, memories which would never leave him.
It had been the first time in his life that he had truly experienced familial love. The warmth he had felt then was something that would always be part of him….
Bai Xiaochun shivered. It was as if, deep within him, his consciousness was struggling to free itself. A deep feeling of unease had overtaken him, the type that came when someone realized that something supremely precious was about to disappear. Despite his weakness and the befuddlement that gripped him, Bai Xiaochun was starting to regain his senses!
Bai Hao looked up at Bai Xiaochun for the final time. His gaze was deep, as if he hoped to burn this image into his mind for all eternity. He didn’t want to leave, but now, his time was up. As his soul began to fade away for good, he kowtowed for the last time….
Three kowtows!
“Thank you, Master….” he murmured. He wasn't able to finish speaking the sentence. In the middle of his kowtow, he faded away. It started with his feet… and spread to his legs… and then his torso. Finally, his head disappeared from view….
Three kowtows of gratitude!
The rest of his sentence would only ever exist within his mind.
If I get another life after this one, Master… I hope I can be your apprentice again….
In the moment that Bai Hao faded away, Bai Xiaochun suddenly reached out with his withered hand….
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Chapter
1014: Just A Bi
Chapter 1014: Just A Bit
His hand… grasped at nothing but air….
“Hao’er!!” Bai Xiaochun’s consciousness began to rise up from within the blankness, pushed by an indescribable wave of grief!
His eyes snapped open to see… nothing. The twenty-two-colored flame was gone, and Bai Hao along with it.
Only a tiny wisp of the fire remained, a spark, the last trace of Bai Hao that remained in the world. As it fell onto the back of Bai Xiaochun’s hand, it burned him, leaving a small mark.
Bai Xiaochun shivered, his hand frozen in midair in front of him, his eyes filled with tears.
Although he had not been able to see Bai Hao’s final moments clearly, he could sense that his apprentice was now no more….
Tears fell down onto his withered skin, and the ground beneath his feet, as more grief than he ever imagined could exist overwhelmed him.
It wasn't that Bai Xiaochun had never experienced the death of a friend or loved one. But this was different. Bai Hao’s passing filled his mind with a deep, deathly stillness….
It was a grief the likes of which led, not to screaming and yelling, but to silence and the shedding of tears….
He thought back to the first time he had ever seen Bai Hao. He thought back to the moment when his soul awakened. He thought back to how they had relied on each other to survive in the Wildlands….
From now on, Bai Hao, I'm your Master!
Hao’er, how do you think Master did this time around!?
Hahaha!! Don’t worry, your Master has a lot of experience with this kind of thing.
As the memories flitted through his head, he shivered uncontrollably. He still couldn’t pull his hand back, and in fact, made another attempt to grab hold of Bai Hao. He refused to believe that his apprentice had truly perished….
“Hao’er….” he murmured, tears streaming down his face. Then he began to weep, the sound of which echoed out with the most profound grief and pain possible….
“Why? Why are people always fighting and killing each other…? Why do people have to die…? Why…? Immortal cultivation is about living forever, isn’t it…? Why…?”
As he wallowed in his tears and grief, he couldn’t help but ask the same questions he had wondered about from the moment he started down the path of cultivation. Time passed, and his voice grew weaker and weaker.
He only had the tiniest scrap of life force left in him. Bai Hao’s departure had inundated him with grief, a grief that was not the type that could be expunged with mere tears.
And thus, the grief built upon itself, becoming a cold wind that extinguished the last spark of warmth left inside of him. It became a tempest that sealed away anything and everything….
In the moment before the tempest sealed away his life itself, Bai Xiaochun looked up at the gravekeeper, and within his gaze… was profound grief and… hatred!
By now, he understood that, whether it was Du Lingfei or Bai Hao, the person responsible for how everything had turned out… was the gravekeeper….
He didn’t know why the gravekeeper had done all these things, but it didn't matter. There was no way he could forgive him!!
The hatred within Bai Xiaochun’s eyes was something that had never before appeared, or even existed within him!
He was a happy-go-lucky person, with a simple heart. And yet, all of that was now overwhelmed by the hatred, locked away and sealed within his memories.
He chuckled, and then closed his eyes.
The gravekeeper saw the hatred, and could sense the life force in Bai Xiaochun withering like an unbloomed flower because of the grief…. The gravekeeper sat there in the crumbling pagoda, and he sighed.
Had it been possible, he would never have let Bai Hao perish. But not even he could save Bai Hao’s soul after it became the fuel for a twenty-two-colored flame. He might have been able to secretly feed a bit of life force into him in the end… but even he wasn’t sure if that would have done anything.
“Bai Xiaochun….” he murmured, his ancient voice echoing out into the ruins of the third portion of the city, which was spread out around him.
“Please know that, although I came up with this plan… I didn’t orchestrate every single detail….
“The reason why all of this is happening is… the Undying Live Forever Technique….
“The undying aspect corresponds to Yang, and the live forever aspect corresponds to Yin….” Although his voice entered Bai Xiaochun’s ears, it could not reach his grief-stricken consciousness.
It almost was as if the gravekeeper wasn’t directing his words at Bai Xiaochun… but rather, himself. It was as if he was attempting to bolster his own convictions and faith.
“These two codices of Arch-Emperor’s magic were passed down for many years. They are partly that which is eternal, and partly that which is tribulation. Perhaps both, perhaps neither. They represent… hope….” The gravekeeper seemed more ancient than ever in this moment..
“Sadly, one codex alone is difficult to master. It would be rare to find someone who could succeed even among those with a strong bloodline tracing back to the Arch-Emperor, much less those in the world today, in which the bloodline is weak…. And even if someone succeeded… they would be unable to combine the Yin and the Yang, and achieve the next breakthrough. After mastering one codex, there could be no more progress.
“To cultivate the Live Forever Codex after the Undying Codex would be difficult beyond imagination…. From ancient times until now, no one has ever done it…. After all, the only way to practice such cultivation… would be to die first!