Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The Sect Leader stood outside the Ash Chamber, with the Sword-Holding Elder behind him.

He still wore that gentle expression, his face not even twitching at the sight of a room full of incriminating evidence.

“Ah Heng, come out.”

When he called me, his tone was like the one he used when I was a child, calling me to take my medicine.

I felt nothing but disgust.

Shen Zhaowei stepped in front of me.

“Sect Leader, enough.”

The Sect Leader looked at her and sighed.

“Zhaowei, you have good talent. It’s a pity your heart is too soft.”

Shen Zhaowei said coldly, “I simply still know that human lives are not medicinal ingredients.”

The Sect Leader smiled.

“You think I don’t know that?”

He looked toward me.

“Ah Heng, I feel for you too. You came to Kunwu when you were six. The first time you carried a sword and fell into the snow, I was the one who carried you back.”

He spoke so naturally.

It was as if the warmth was real, and the sacrifice was also real-as if the two didn’t contradict each other.

“But many things in this world cannot be judged solely by whether they hurt.”

I asked, “Then what are they judged by?”

“By whether they are worth it.”

The Sect Leader finally stopped smiling.

“Your one life in exchange for a hundred years of peace for the world. It is worth it.”

Wen Zhi suddenly let out a laugh.

He was usually timid, not even daring to speak loudly.

This laugh startled everyone.

The Sect Leader frowned.

“What are you laughing at?”

Wen Zhi gripped the Bone Bell tightly.

“I’m laughing at how good you all are at balancing the books.”

His voice trembled, but he did not retreat.

“My mother’s life, Uncle Xie’s life, the lives of all these people in the cabinets. Every time, you say it’s worth it. But the lives being traded away are never your own.”

The Sect Leader’s gaze turned cold.

“Impudent.”

A wave of spiritual pressure bore down on Wen Zhi.

Master raised a hand to block it.

The Sect Leader looked at him.

“Xuanwei, do you truly intend to rebel?”

Master said, “Yes.”

He answered quickly, without the slightest hesitation.

The benevolent mask on the Sect Leader’s face finally cracked.

“For her?”

Master did not look at me.

“For myself.”

The Sect Leader paused.

Master drew his sword.

“A hundred years ago, I watched Wuchen enter the furnace and did not stop it. A hundred years later, you want to perform another refinement in front of me.”

His voice was very low.

“I have endured enough.”

The Frostbloom Sword cleared its scabbard, and all the candles in the Ash Chamber were extinguished.

The elders behind the Sect Leader simultaneously formed a formation.

Shen Zhaowei pushed me back.

“Take Wen Zhi and go.”

I didn’t move.

She grew anxious.

“Jiang Heng, staying here now is just dragging us down.”

That sounded like Shen Zhaowei.

Harsh, but accurate.

I grabbed Wen Zhi to retreat.

But the Sect Leader’s gaze remained locked on me.

“Ah Heng, do you want to know why Xuanwei was able to sever the Return-to-Origin Formation?”

My footsteps stopped.

Master’s sword momentum faltered.

The Sect Leader smiled.

“Because he transferred his own Divine Bone to you long ago.”

I turned to look at Master.

He did not deny it.

The Sect Leader continued, “Did you really think your meridians were being repaired all these years because of spiritual medicine?”

“It was Xuanwei cutting open his heart every Winter Solstice to pass the life force within the Divine Bone to you.”

My fingers slowly loosened their grip.

Wen Zhi called out to me in a low voice, “Senior Sister Jiang.”

But I couldn’t hear him.

I only remembered that every Winter Solstice, Master would go into seclusion for seven days.

I would always bring him sweet porridge on the eighth day.

He never drank it, only saying it was too sweet.

It wasn’t that he disliked the sweetness.

It was because he had just cut open his heart; anything he drank would hurt.

The Sect Leader said gently, “He can’t save you anymore, Ah Heng.”

“His Divine Bone is empty, and your Spirit Bone is half-destroyed. Now, the only way to survive is to restart the furnace.”

I asked, “Whose survival?”

The Sect Leader looked at me.

This time, he didn’t smile.

“The world’s.”