Chapter 1082: Chapter 606: Love (Double-Length)

Stepping into this woman’s Heart Lake once more, the scene was as familiar as ever, yet Chen Yi’s state of mind was no longer what it had been. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

In the past, when he and she opposed each other, blades and swords bared, at their most intense he had even felt the impulse to utterly destroy her Sword Dao; one of them had to perish, thus arose the matter of breaking the sword...

Chen Yi looked around at this dried-up Heart Lake; every inch bore mottled marks he had left behind, and the turbulent emotions of that time drifted before his eyes.

He could have her.

Even if she was Sword Armor, ninth under heaven,

by breaking her sword and destroying her dao, he would completely obtain her—he would obtain Zhou Yitang.

Torrential rain slid down from the icy mountains; the dead-ash look on the woman’s face fell into his gaze. He had gained her, and with his own hand ruined everything that had been.

To say there was not the slightest regret would be nothing but self-deception; only, even a forcibly twisted melon tasted sweet to Chen Yi. Compared with that, this bit of regret was scarcely worth mentioning.

Only later, when things had eased, there were nights when, as he held her, he would now and then recall the past.

His tangled emotions were still tangled. Feeling a faint desolation, Chen Yi glanced around. Heaven and earth stirred ever so slightly; shadowy, indistinct human figures surged in from the distance, ceaselessly pressing toward this place.

Sword Intent surged abundantly, as if at any moment it would burst forth like a dragon.

Chen Yi closed his eyes, gathering up his fleeting, kaleidoscopic thoughts.

He raised a hand and parted a corner at the center of his brows, to contain these remaining ten thousand obsessions, together with that keen, edge-baring Sword Intent, all of it received within.

Now they no longer needed to annihilate each other.

Even with blades drawn and swords facing one another, he was still fully able to accommodate Zhou Yitang’s sword.

Like a whale in the sea swallowing all things, an invisible whirlpool rose, and faceless obsessions were one after another swept into it. He felt a faint discomfort; the obsessions drawn into the Heart Lake rampaged in this unfamiliar environment, yet the vast, boundless heavens and earth covered them, and they unaware slowly merged into this expanse of heaven and earth.

When the discomfort had passed, countless memories surged up in Chen Yi’s mind, some he remembered, some he did not. For a while it was like watching flowers from horseback: there was the single sword she unleashed after discussing the dao with the Broken Swordman; the hazy silhouettes of gods of the myriad heavens amid a sky shrouded in white mist; her calm face when she received the Imperial Sword from her grandmaster; and taking Lu Ying as disciple, the scene when she first met Chen Yi... Zhou Yitang remembered too many, far too many things, dazzling to the eye. Chen Yi’s thoughts were affected, growing complicated; he nearly lost his mind and went astray then and there.

Since that was so, Chen Yi could only omit and exclude many, many memories. He brought his hands together, as though in a gesture of prayer.

"I seek the mortal ties."

What he was going to seek was not the Sword Dao she treated as her very life, nor any subtle, mysterious heavenly secrets of the Great Dao, but rather those mortal ties that Cultivators regarded as worn-out shoes, as blades of grass.

The face with which he secretly laughed behind a treetop as she scolded Lu Ying; the faint stirring in her heart when Lu Ying brought her fireflies cupped in her hands; and on one night after the breaking of the sword, while he slept soundly, the faint trace of killing intent she harbored that he failed to sense...

Scenes of mortal ties surfaced in his mind, yet though he tried to cut them, they refused to sever, messy and tangled; the mortal ties were still too many.

Chen Yi sought more carefully again: "I seek worldly thoughts."

In an instant, countless worldly thoughts flashed past: perhaps the way she inadvertently turned her eyes to gaze at his face; or the silent panting as she crouched over his shoulder; or later, when she gathered up his loose hair—a rare wisp of tenderness...

Chen Yi still could not find it. For the third time he searched, saying: "I seek heart demons."

After three rounds of searching, by now the memories left were very few. Zhou Yitang had already severed the Three Corpses; only obsessions remained, and among these, those that could be called heart demons were extremely scarce. Chen Yi examined them one by one, not daring to look too quickly, nor too slowly.

Yet no matter what he did, he still could not find what he wanted...

Chen Yi seemed to be walking down a long corridor; scene after scene brushed past his eyes, his state of mind inevitably sinking ever lower.

Just then, Chen Yi abruptly halted. Suddenly he saw, before the Fir Forest, a figure standing there in silence, looking out into the distance, feigning nonchalance as she inclined her head the slightest bit.

It was that day when he led her to see the mountain blanketed in peonies.

Chen Yi’s heart gave a violent tremor. He stumbled forward, somewhat discomposed, yet still flew toward her.

As he brushed past, he felt as though he was finally about to find it...

"...There is only... obsession?"

The emotion passed into his heart; in a daze, Chen Yi’s eyes went vacant. He looked all around, utterly at a loss.

She remembered that day very deeply; even so, there was only obsession.

After a long time, Chen Yi actually shook his head and let out a small, self-mocking laugh. So it should be; it was only right. This Sword Armor who had severed the Three Corpses was infatuated with the sword and utterly cut off from human feeling, and yet he had wanted to seek, amid her thousands upon thousands of obsessions, something one was ashamed even to speak of, to find that kind of thing which cannot be seen or touched.

Something that sounds childish the moment you name it—something called love.

Chen Yi could only let out a long, quiet sigh.

Zhou Yitang had said it well. All this time, it had only ever been his own empty expectation.

Even so, Chen Yi stood alone, shrouded in soundless darkness on all sides, the stillness bottomless. For a moment he drew his sword and looked in all directions, his heart at sea. In this instant, as his mood plunged to its nadir, something would surely happen, ought to happen. At this very moment, there ought to be a streak of light like lightning flashing past. If not, then what, after two lifetimes of relentless questioning, had he been asking after?

"Is there truly nothing?" Chen Yi murmured in a trance; his cheeks were suddenly dampened a little.

Yet the soundless darkness remained soundless and dark. No matter how he sought again and again, what he longed for one-sidedly would not arise out of nothing—just as a man dying of thirst glimpses a mirage at the edge of the desert.

With the Three Corpses severed, all of her feelings toward him were nothing more than one obsession after another.

It was time to turn back here. Even if there were only obsessions, his heaven and earth could still contain them.