Pursuit of the Truth

Su Ming’s Ecang clone closed his eyes.

The clone that practiced the Art of Swallowing Hollow Shadows Whole, too, closed his eyes along with Su Ming’s cultivation base clone.

If his soul had eyes, then at that moment he witnessed the aloof expression on Bai Ling’s face, they would have closed as well.

That was Bai Ling, not Bai Su. There was no way Su Ming would mistake it.

Cultivators originally did not dream, but Su Ming dreamed. When he woke up, he was in a daze, and he questioned just who was the other’s obsession…

Perhaps she was his obsession, but perhaps he had always been her obsession.

He woke up from his dream, but he did not wake up. In a shattered space there was a ballad that sang about time. In the ocean of memories was a lone ship that slowly sailed to the sea in the sky.

‘Who is she?’ This question did not appear for long in Su Ming’s heart before he obtained his answer. When he was still in the land of Berserkers, the three powerful warriors in Lunar Kalpa Realm sealed in Su Ming’s soul had provided him with a picture. Within it, he’d seen a woman. She was Bai Ling, Bai Su, and also… the Sacred Lady of True Morning Dao World’s Phoenix Sect.

She was also Xu Hui’s senior sister.

‘So this is the answer…But I am no longer the same person I was back then. The passing of one thousand years has allowed me to understand many things.’ Su Ming shook his head. With a calm heart, he realized that his heart did not clench in pain, and he did not experience that feeling of being at a loss as if his heart had been devoured by the void.

It was as if he had been prepared for this answer for a long time. Even if he saw the truth at that moment, he was already used to loneliness, as if the more experience he accumulated, the less things in the world could make his heart feel as if it would be torn apart. By then, there was nothing that could break his heart.

Even if it was the girl filled with wild beauty he met in Dark Mountain during his early days planting an obsession in his heart. This obsession had been deeply rooted in Su Ming’s heart for a thousand years, and when he met Bai Su in the ninth summit, it had grown deeper…

It was as if there was always a weak force that would lead him once in a while to remember and think about that white head, as well as make him recall that promise made in the snow.

‘Bai Ling in her youth, Bai Su in her adult years… and also Phoenix Sect’s Sacred Lady when she has become an ancient presence. What a powerful obsession. With each step, she connected more incarnations together and weaved a net that has lasted for a thousand years.

‘I wonder just what it is about me that makes Di Tian and even the Sacred Lady from Phoenix Sect be so obsessed with me.’

Su Ming smiled.

If it was not for the Malicious Eye’s presence, perhaps he would have continued lying to himself and refusing to think about the net of lies weaved to last for a thousand years. He had wanted to keep that beautiful and joyous moment in his heart and did not want to have it all be turned into a brutal reality.

He did not want to. He just did not want to…

But he woke up from his dream, just as if he had walked out of a material world.

When people are in materialistic worlds, they remember and yearn for each other, they do not forget each other. They think about each other, learn about each other… but never meet each other.

Once they walk out of that materialistic world, they do not remember, do not think, and do not learn about each other. They forget each other and only meet when they had become strangers.

If that was the case, then it was better to place no importance on separations and reunions. It was better to just smile and face the end that no words could describe, to wake up with a smile, to have less of an obsession and more of a sense of freedom.

If there was a promise, he would fulfill it one day, but he would just fulfill it to complete his life. He would not do so for another person.

Su Ming stood on the mountain with the sunlight on his face. His long hair rose and fell in the mountain breeze. However, that wind only managed to lift his hair and the corners of his robes. It could not move his heart.

It was as if the rising and falling strands of hair were Su Ming’s memories. They were gradually scattered away by the wind, and the ones that could not be blown aware were the dust that had been frozen in the sky.

Hence, his heart would also start freezing over, and those layers of ice would envelop him.

He would no longer long for anything good or happy. His expressions would become as cold as frost as his heart became frozen. Only at the bottom of his frozen heart, which no one could see, in an area where no sunlight would shine, he would find that it was not made of ice. It was wet, and as wind would blow past, drops of blood would fall, dyeing all the fallen leaves in the mountain red.

His love was over.

That first love of his, acquired when he was still ignorant of everything, was like a bud that did not come to blossom. In the end, even if it was a choice that came a thousand years late, it still chose to wither.

Su Ming smiled. There was no anguish in that smile, only a faint sigh that held a hint of an ancient air. No words were spoken.

He suddenly came to a realization. He had thought that the sigh he heard in the wind and snow in the past had come from none other than himself, but that wasn’t fully correct. The sigh had indeed come from himself, but it had not come from him at that time. Instead… it had come from him at this very moment.

“So… even the sigh arrived hundreds of thousands of years late.” As Su Ming smiled, he gradually began laughing until he was roaring. His laughter echoed between the sky and earth, filling the morning with peals of his laughter.

This laughter stunned the members of the Ninth Tribe, and they looked towards him. It also attracted Xu Hui’s attention, and she cast him a sideways glance from the house.

“Fifth, do you have wine?!” Su Ming’s voice traveled outwards with his laughter and landed in Dijiu Mo Sha’s ears at the foot of the mountain. He was first taken aback, because this was the first time Su Ming had called him ‘fifth’.

There was no way Su Ming would not understand the meaning behind that word. Dijiu Mo Sha shuddered, and excitement appeared on his face. He had been waiting for this day for far too long.

“Yes!” he shouted out loudly, and with a single move, he rushed up the mountain. Then, he turned into a long arc to instantly appear beside Su Ming. With a swing of his right hand, several pots of wine appeared beside them.

Su Ming picked up a pot, patted off the soil crust, and without even using a bowl to drink, he placed the pot to his lips and took a big gulp.

This wine was brewed by those in Divine Essence Star Ocean, and it was quite different from the ones drunk by the cultivators. The spiciness in it was like a hot wave that erupted swiftly in his body before it rushed straight to his brain.

However, it would not knock out a person, but would just affect their mind.

Dijiu Mo Sha also picked up a pot of wine and drank with Su Ming.

“If only life was as beautiful as it seems at first sight…” Su Ming put down the pot of wine and leaned against the mountain rock. His long hair spilled over his shoulders, and there was an expression of indulgence on his face. Once he said these words with a smile, he took another big swig from the pot.

“Fourth senior brother, what does that mean?” Dijiu Mo Sha was momentarily stunned. He mulled over these words carefully in his heart, and the more he thought about them, the more he believed that there was something ancient to those words. They were heavy, so heavy that they brought a sense a depression with them.

“You won’t understand it.” The one who answered was not Su Ming, but Xu Hui, who walked out of the house with a pale face that gave an air of weakness. Her footsteps were light, though, and sunlight shone on her face, emphasizing her beauty that was like that of rainbow.

In that beauty was purity, age, and a form of gentleness.

“‘If only life was as beautiful as it seems at first sight.’ I’ve heard plenty of people say these words before, but no one had the tone as profound as I heard just now.” Xu Hui looked towards Su Ming and saw him drinking under the sunlight. Wine spilled out of the corners of his mouth, causing people to be unable to tell whether he was drinking wine, or whether he was treating that wine as anguish.

“When you’ve gone through the vicissitudes of life, experienced the changes in a person’s heart, lived through everything that you do not wish to face in your life, then you will sigh in when you are old and have walked through the path of your life.

“If all people and all things could return to their earliest moments when we first met them, then how good would that be? Because the beautiful moments in your earliest days will be memories that you can no longer live through again once you have been baptized by time.

“If only life was as beautiful as it seems at first sight…” Xu Hui mumbled and shook her head.

“You still have plenty of things you need to do in the tribe. you should go and do those things. I’ll stay and accompany… your fourth senior brother.” Xu Hui moved beside Su Ming and sat down. Dressed in a sackcloth, she took the empty pot of wine from Su Ming’s hand, then brought out another pot. She wiped off the soil crust on it, then placed the pot in Su Ming’s hand.

Dijiu Mo Sha fell silent. Once he wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed to Su Ming, he turned around quietly and left. When he did that, there was a look of recollection on his face. In his head were Su Ming’s words.

“If you want to drink, then I’ll drink with you.” Xu Hui picked up a pot of wine as well. With a gaze that could make a person calm down, she met Su Ming eyes when he turned his head towards her.

“I’ve already drunk one pot.” Su Ming stared at Xu Hui with an unruly look in his eyes.

Xu Hui smiled. Her smile was incredibly elegant, and there was a resplendent air to it. She looked at Su Ming and lifted the pot of wine with her hand. Once she took a gulp from it, she quickly lowered the pot and furrowed her dainty brows. Clearly, the spiciness of the wine was beyond her expectations. A red flush appeared on her pale face, and she only recovered after some time. However, when she picked it up again, she drained the entire pot in one go.

Once she finished drinking, she placed the pot of wine by the side and lifted her head to look at Su Ming. There was a slight, watery look in her eyes.

“I caught up.”

Su Ming stared at Xu Hui for a moment and lifted up the pot of wine to his mouth. Xu Hui sucked in a deep breath by the side, then picked up a pot of wine filled with wine again, as if she wanted to compete with him. Once she picked it up, she started taking large gulps.

She drank at an incredibly fast pace, and before long, she had already finished the entire pot. There was a smug look on her face, and when she looked at Su Ming, her expression immediately froze on her face. There was even hostility and slight anger in her eyes.

Su Ming lowered the pot of wine. He had only drunk a small half of it.

“We’re done for the day. Let’s drink on another day,” he said faintly.

“No! I’ve already drunk two pots!” Xu Hui stood up in anger.

Su Ming cast a look at Xu Hui and retorted calmly, “I didn’t ask you to drink it.”

“You’re not drinking, huh?” Xu Hui glared at Su Ming and nodded before she picked up another pot, and right in front of him, she finished another pot with loud, noisy gulps.

“… I don’t drink with people with a lot of moles.”

Su Ming’s eyelid twitched. He turned his head around and put down the pot of wine. The wine was too spicy, and when Xu Hui arrived, for some reason, her presence calmed his heart, and he no longer felt tipsy.

“Su Ming!”

Anger raged in Xu Hui’s eyes. With a single move, she picked up an empty pot and hurled it against the floor. The pot shattered with a loud crash. At that moment, she could not circulate her cultivation base, and as a woman, drinking three pots of wine from a tribe in Divine Essence Star Ocean had resulted in her… getting drunk.

“What did you say?” Su Ming looked towards Xu Hui.

“I might have been unconscious, but I could still hear. I, Xu Hui, do not care whether you are Su Ming or Dao Kong. What I care is that you asked to drink wine, but you can’t outdrink me! Now, drink!” A hint of scorn appeared on Xu Hui’s face. She picked up a pot of wine and shoved it in Su Ming’s face.

“You’re drunk…” Su Ming rubbed the center of his brows.

“Are you going to drink or not?!” Xu Hui glared at him. Her body swayed, and a misty look appeared in her eyes. Yet she continued holding herself straight so that she would not fall.

“Let’s drink on another date.” Su Ming sighed.

“I drank THREE POTS!” Xu Hui shouted loudly.