After that pill furnace sucked in the medicine, it would sacrifice itself, withering up into death to produce… an Undying Live Forever Pill!
“Soon,” the Celestial muttered. “Very soon now…. I've been waiting my whole life to get this Undying Live Forever Pill….” He began chuckling loudly, his expression twisted and distorted in bizarre fashion as he watched his daughter absorbing Bai Xiaochun.
Bai Xiaochun was shaking violently, and was wracked with unprecedented levels of pain. He had endured much pain to cultivate the Undying Codex, but none of that could even come close to comparing to what he was feeling now.
He was beginning to wither up. His hair was even turning dry and brittle. His Undying Blood began to fade away, and his Undying Bones were turning dull and dark. His Undying Tendons, Undying Flesh, and Undying Skin… were all melting….
He couldn’t struggle or fight back. As he was emptied out, as his life force was sucked away, he slowly began to lose consciousness.
He suddenly thought back to everything he had done in the Wildlands. He thought of Bai Hao, the Giant Ghost King, Mistress Red-Dust and Zhou Yixing…. Then he thought of the River-Defying Sect….
He pictured Li Qinghou, Song Junwan, Master God-Diviner… and so many other faces. They seemed so vivid to him that he was sure he could reach out and touch them.
“The River-Defying Sect….” he murmured in a voice that only he and the dead could hear. As he weakened, his hair began to fall out, transforming into dust before it could even touch the surface of the black blood.
By now, he was so withered that he was like a candle flickering on the verge of winking out….
He wasn’t thinking about the River-Defying Sect anymore…. He was thinking about the eastern Lower Reaches… and the Spirit Stream Sect. It was as if all the memories of his life were flowing past him. He saw himself in front of the stone steles of plants and vegetation. He saw himself licking his lips as he eyed some spirit tail chickens….
He saw himself with Big Fatty Zhang. He saw his Master, who had perished before even taking him as an apprentice. He saw Hou Xiaomei. He saw so many things….
By now, he couldn’t breathe. He looked like brittle skin wrapped over dry bones. Rotting patches of death were spreading out to cover him… and his teeth began to fall out. As of this moment, he looked like a desiccated corpse that had been left in the grave for years and years….
The hand on top of his head was like a black hole sucking away at everything that was him, and filling him with a pain that he had already grown used to.
The Undying Codex was now eighty percent extracted from him, and it was the same with his life force. In his fading consciousness, he no longer saw the Spirit Stream Sect, but instead… Mount Hood.
On top of the mountain was a boy who was somehow holding seven or eight axes and cleavers, all at the same time. At the top of the mountain, he tossed the weapons aside… and even as thunder crashed in the sky, he lit a stick of incense.
It was a comical sight that made him want to smile. But he couldn't control his body, and was thus incapable. Perhaps that was a good thing, considering his current appearance. Smiling would have made him look even more horrifying.
As his consciousness continued to fade, he was fairly certain he could sense his soul beginning to rise up from inside of him, toward an all-consuming vortex….
He only had about ten percent of his life force left…. Cracks had begun to appear on his dried-up skin, to the point where the slightest brush of a hand would likely turn it into ash. It was the same with his five yin organs and six yang organs.
The power of the Undying Codex was now almost completely gone. Only a tiny scrap of it remained in his bones, which caused the faintest glimmer of gold to be visible through the ragged openings in his skin….
In that moment, he saw what would likely be the last image he ever saw…. A child crouched next to a bed, tears streaming down his face. As his parents began to breathe their last breaths, he began to weep, and then to wail….
“Xiaochun,” a weak voice murmured, “don’t be afraid….” A cold hand came to rest on his forehead. “Take this stick of incense…. Haven't you always dreamed of becoming an immortal…? Here, take it….”
The boy looked up through his tears to take the incense. Then, the hand which had moments ago lifted the incense up to him slowly dropped down. The boy’s tears flowed even harder.
The boy remained at the bedside in a daze. Eventually, the neighbors came into the room and carried him out. He saw many sympathetic gazes as his parents’ bodies were carried away…. The boy sat down in a corner, wrapped his arms tightly around his knees, and looked at the incense….
“Why do people die…? I… I want to live! I want all the people around me to live…. I want everyone to be happy! I want… to live forever!”
The boy's voice echoed away into silence inside of Bai Xiaochun’s mind, a figment of eternity….
He felt more tired than he ever had been in his entire life….
However, in that moment right before his consciousness disappeared… a teardrop fell down onto the parched skin of his arm. As it was absorbed into his skin, it seemed to merge into his rapidly devolving consciousness.
“A teardrop….” he murmured. He could sense the bitterness in it. Using his last scrap of energy, he opened his eyes, and could just barely make out… Du Lingfei, struggling against the slave seal. Even if it destroyed her, she was determined to remove her hand from the top of his head! Oh so slowly, her hand began to rise up!
Then she spoke in a voice laced with the utmost despair. “Daddy… I beg you….”
Although her words were spoken softly, they struck the Celestial like lightning. He began to tremble.
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Chapter
1008: How Could You Be So Selfish?
The Celestial’s heart felt like it was about to be ripped to pieces. Things which had once been the most important in his life, but had vanished along the way, were suddenly brought right back to the forefront thanks to Du Lingfei’s words.
He suddenly saw her as a child, tugging at his garments and calling him daddy in her cute, girly voice…. He wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line… she had stopped calling him daddy, and started calling him father.
“Fei’er….” he said, trembling physically, his pupils constricting.
After all… this was his daughter, his own flesh and blood.
The Celestial was the mighty ruler of the entire world, and yet, had never had many Daoist partners. Over all the years, he had never had a son. Du Lingfei was his only daughter, and in fact, his only child.
The Celestial had been so focused on escaping the Heavenspan Realm that Du Lingfei’s mother had never meant much to him. She had long since passed away.
The Celestial’s heart was currently being ripped two ways; in one direction by his humanity, and in the other by his desires.
The part that represented his humanity was screaming at him furiously. “You’re really willing to sacrifice your own flesh and blood just to live a bit longer? Just to get off of this world? Is it really worth it…?”
On one side was his daughter, and on the other was his longevity, and his deep, insane desire to escape this prison he was in….
Du Lingfei was currently in the middle of a struggle… and so was the Celestial!
“Daddy… please….” Du Lingfei had begun to weep. She trembled physically as she fought against the slave seal. Every time she pushed against the magic of the seal, intense force slammed into her mind, making it feel like her soul might collapse at any moment.