劍問蒼天 - 第199章 情傷 - 清風書屋

The Beast Sovereign nodded. "Just so. You find it laughable too, I suppose? But on that day, it was for this very purpose. Linglong's mastery of witchcraft had already far surpassed the ancients; across the whole world there was scarcely a rival for her, and within the Wu clan all revered her as a god. In her idleness, the thing she set herself to do was to seek out another goal for herself. It sounds much like those cultivators of the Central Plains today—yet the riddle of eternal life is, after all, the Way of Heaven, and though she was a woman of peerless brilliance, she could never fathom it. At last, one day, she thought of an inhuman method."

"Inhuman."

"The span of a human life is always bounded. Even one who succeeds in cultivating the Way merely lives a few hundred years longer. But things that are not human often enjoy far longer lives, and the creative workings of heaven and earth, the baleful qi of yin and yang, and the like have endured undying since the world was first opened. Once she had thought of this, she devoted herself to diligent study, and in the end she actually managed, out of that which had no life at all, to create a self—me."

"She truly was remarkable," the woman said softly.

"Heh heh." The Beast Sovereign smiled faintly and said, "Yes, she truly was a remarkable woman. From the moment I came into this world, the first thing I saw when I woke was her. Then, through countless years, she was the only one in my world. Gradually I began to take form, and since my original body was born of the baleful qi of heaven and earth, once I had consciousness I naturally began to absorb the baleful qi around me and grow stronger by degrees."

"But she seemed to grow uneasy. The way she looked at me was no longer so warm, and when my strength finally grew enough that I could barely contend with her, from that day on she never smiled at me again."

"I was bewildered then, not knowing why. In truth I did not know why my strength grew so fast either, but what did strength mean to me? I only wanted—only wanted to be with her."

"You could have told her, and then she would have known, would she not?" the woman could not help saying.

"I did tell her, many times. Looking back now, it was probably much like a child acting spoiled to its mother." A faint smile appeared at the corner of the Beast Sovereign's mouth, but it vanished again. "But she never once believed me!"

The woman fell silent and said nothing for a long while. The Beast Sovereign was silent too, as if sunk in memory.

The flames still burned in the brazier, trembling gently in midair, as though also catching their breath.

Time seemed to have halted its steps in this dark place—prick up your ears and listen!

The years gone by are ice that has frozen memory fast; bit by bit it melts, and then slowly vanishes.

Who can call it back?

You, or I? Or are we all, in truth, creatures gasping and running through the light of time, who can never outrun it, who age by degrees and vanish into that shadow—

"At last, one day, I no longer wished to stay forever in that room where there was only her. I wanted to go out and see. That day she had been gone a long while and still had not returned. I broke the prohibition she had set, opened the door of her room, and walked out."

"There were many, many, many people. But every one of them, upon seeing me, screamed in terror, fled in fear for their lives. Somehow, from that moment I began to panic terribly, and then to rage, and at last I felt a baleful qi surging straight up in my heart. It was then that a dozen or so warriors, drawn by the commotion, began to rush at me to kill me. I parried as I retreated. I did not want to fight them. I regretted it bitterly. I only wanted to be with my Linglong. I had only wanted to come out for a look—"

"I pleaded desperately, explained desperately, but no one listened, until I killed the first man by mishap."

A long silence.