Chapter 295. To Keep the Darkness at Bay

Shu Mingye narrowed his eyes. “Desperate… about your situation?”

Qi Heng nodded. “The array inside the inner wall… it won’t last much longer. Neither will I.”

Linyue looked at him, heart clenching. She already guessed, but hearing it like this still hurt.

Shu Mingye pressed on, his voice sharper. “And?”

Qi Heng closed his eyes. “There are two choices. Either sacrifice hundreds of lives to strengthen the array… or find a way to end the calamity once and for all.”

Shu Mingye’s brows furrowed. “That still doesn’t explain why you did that to her. That lightning.”

Qi Heng was quiet for a moment. Then he began explaining, “The only ones who can become transcendence are lightning cultivators. They’re the only ones who can survive lightning tribulation. I’ve waited for another one to appear for over hundreds of years.”

Shu Mingye glanced at Linyue, then back at Qi Heng. “And that’s her. You’re saying that’s Linyue.”

Qi Heng gave a small nod.

Shu Mingye’s voice turned cold. “You knew it could kill her… and you still did it?”

Qi Heng finally opened his eyes and looked at him. There was no anger. No defense. Just a quiet kind of exhaustion that made Shu Mingye’s chest tighten. “That Soul Devouring Array Qi Meng created,” Qi Heng said slowly, “it activates every full moon. That’s when my mind becomes the most unstable. I don’t have much time left. I knew it was selfish. I knew I was gambling everything. But before I lose myself completely… I wanted her to have a chance to survive. A chance to become transcendence. To fix what I couldn’t.”

The silence that followed was heavy. Even Fluffy didn’t sneeze this time.

Linyue stared at her master, the man who saved her, raised her, and taught her how to survived. Now, he sat under a creepy tree, half of his body corrupted, waiting to lose his mind and still thinking about how to save others. She reached out quietly and took Shu Mingye’s hand.

Shu Mingye didn't say anything either. He looked at the man who might’ve killed his wife and who also might’ve saved her. He didn’t know what to feel.

Qi Heng didn’t ask for forgiveness. He never had. But now, under the dark sky and the air too quiet to be safe, he simply said, “I’m sorry.”

Linyue kept staring at him. Her voice was calm, but her eyes weren’t. “Back then… I just left. You could’ve said something.”

Qi Heng answered calmly. “It was your choice. You can leave whenever you want.”

Linyue frowned. “But if you told me not to go, maybe… I would’ve stayed.”

Qi Heng looked at her for a long moment. “You left. But I never left you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Really?”

Qi Heng nodded once. “How could I leave you alone out there? You just wandered around aimlessly. You even ate random stuff off the ground. You almost died eating that fruit that time.”

Linyue lowered her gaze, her voice quiet. “…I was hungry.”

Qi Heng gave her a very unimpressed look. “It was purple. And it had spikes. Normal people don’t eat that.”

“I thought it was a plum,” she muttered.

“It had spikes,” Qi Heng repeated flatly. “Plums don’t have spikes.”

Linyue’s lips pressed together, and she mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “wasn’t that bad.” But she didn’t argue further.

Shu Mingye, who had been listening with growing disbelief, turned his head sharply from Linyue to Qi Heng. “Wait. Are you talking about that weird fruit that made her lose her voice?”

Qi Heng gave a slow nod.

Shu Mingye frowned harder. “If you were there, why didn’t you stop her?”

Qi Heng looked slightly offended. “Who knew she’d actually eat it? I blinked once, and it was already in her mouth. She swallowed it before I could stop her.”

Shu Mingye stared at his wife in horror. “Unbelievable. My dignified, brilliant wife almost died because she mistook a spiky purple monster fruit for a plum.”

She gave him a small shrug. “I was young.”

“Three years ago,” Shu Mingye reminded her.

She narrowed her eyes. “Still counts as young. And also… I was curious and hungry.”

Qi Heng tilted his head. “Curiosity? You were chewing like it was your last meal.”

Linyue cleared her throat softly, looking off to the side like the crooked tree were very interesting. Her mind, unfortunately, supplied the memory.

That day, she had burned through most of her spiritual energy. Her legs felt heavy, her hands ached, and her stomach had been growling for what felt like hours. Then she saw it—dangling from a low branch, glowing under the sunlight like it was calling to her. The strange purple fruit was covered in small spikes that caught the light like jewels. She had thought it was a wild plum with… extra texture. Without much thought, she yanked it down. It made a faint hiss, but her hunger told her to ignore that detail. One bite later, and her mouth was full of an oddly sweet and slightly burning taste. Then everything went black.

Back in the present, Qi Heng’s voice had gone quieter. “I tried to purify the poison with lightning. It worked, but not fast enough. It already damaged her throat. She lost her voice. At least she could still be saved.”

Linyue turned her gaze back to him. Her voice softened. “You saved me. But why didn’t you stay, Master?”

Qi Heng paused. His gaze lowered. “That lightning… I shouldn’t have done it. You were too young. I know you wouldn’t be able to withstand it, but I still did it anyway.”

Shu Mingye studied him sharply. “So you left because you regretted it?”

Qi Heng was quiet for a moment. Then said softly, “Because she found a better place. Better friends. Better masters.”

Shu Mingye’s brows drew together. “Better masters?” he echoed, as if ready to dispute that very idea on the spot.

Qi Heng’s lips curved in the faintest smile, but his eyes did not.

Linyue blinked. “Master… were you also in Luyan when I lived there?”

“Mm,” Qi Heng answered, like it was nothing.

Silence settled over the three of them.

Shu Mingye looked like he had a hundred questions lined up and no idea which one to throw first. Linyue looked like her brain had taken a break without telling her. Qi Heng, on the other hand, just sat there calmly, like it was perfectly normal to follow your disciple across the states and never say hi.

It was Linyue who finally spoke, her voice low. “Why transcendence?”

Qi Heng did not meet her eyes when he answered. His voice was low, almost distant. “To fight Qi Meng.” He paused, as if weighing how much to tell, then continued, “He created the Phantom Blood Array. He used it to sacrifice the souls of spirit beasts and cultivators. With their pain and power, he refined the Soul Devouring Crystal. That crystal drains their spiritual energy… and it does more than that.”

Linyue didn’t interrupt. Her gaze stayed fixed on him, her thoughts sharp and still.

Qi Heng’s eyes darkened. “Inside the crystal, the souls twist in agony. Their spiritual energy condenses and turns corrupted. Their minds break apart. What’s left is hunger. Need. Rage. They lose who they were. Their shapes warp until they are no longer human, or anything natural. They become the tainted.”

He looked off to the side. His voice softened even more. “They’re violent. Starving. Not because they want to, but because they’re trapped in endless pain. They crave spiritual energy like air, like water.”

Linyue murmured, “That’s how Qi Meng can use that dark red energy?”

Qi Heng nodded. “Yes. That’s the energy that taints the land. That’s what is spreading beneath our feet. This entire land… it’s slowly being poisoned by it.”

Linyue frowned, “But the tainted we fought… they didn’t have that red energy.”

Qi Heng looked at her and nodded slowly. “Because they’re not the end point. They’re the collectors. The hunters. Every time they attack, every time they take down another cultivator or spirit beast, the energy gets pulled back to the crystal. Then the crystal takes that energy and refines it into something worse. Something stronger. Qi Meng absorb that power from the crystal.”

A chill ran down her spine.

Qi Heng went on, each word heavier than the last. “Even if you destroy the tainted’s body… they don’t really die. The crystal keeps their soul. It fixes their body. Feed them. Brings them back. Every full moon… the crystal activates. That’s when they rise again.”

Linyue’s hands tightened in her lap. No wonder they couldn’t win by just fighting. No wonder the tainted kept coming back again and again. No wonder the land kept rotting. It had never been a simple fight. The source was still alive. Still active. Still growing. And that was why he had trained her. That was why he needed a lightning cultivator. A transcendence. To break the crystal. To end the cycle.

Her heart ached. Her master had carried all of this alone for centuries. And now, maybe he couldn’t hold it much longer. Linyue’s voice was low, heavy with dread. “Then the spiritual energy we’ve been giving to the array inside the wall…”

Qi Heng nodded slowly. “Yes. It flows back to the Soul Devouring Crystal.”

Shu Mingye had been holding back. But now he spoke, and his voice was sharp. “So we’ve been feeding it this whole time?”