High-Risk Master - Chapter 111: Mu Feng Xue

Shen Gurong stared blankly at Shen Fuji for a long time, then suddenly turned and fled.

It felt as if countless vengeful ghosts were chasing him. Shen Gurong panicked and ran straight out of Fengdu, without looking back.

Shen Fuji and Shen Wanglan exchanged glances.

Shen Wanglan muttered softly, "Is he not planning to help?"

Shen Fuji rubbed his little head, not feeling discouraged, but the light in his eyes dimmed slightly. He said gently, "It's a favor if someone helps, it's their right not to. You shouldn't be resentful."

Wanglan was very obedient, nodding, raising his hand to hold his father's fingers, and comforting him in a childish voice, "When Wanglan grows up, he'll help Daddy find Uncle. He'll definitely find him."

Shen Fuji nodded with satisfaction, holding his hand and carrying the small lamp, passing by the ghosts still unable to stand, and slowly went home.

In a panic, Shen Gurong plunged headlong into the gray fog.

His mind went blank. He had been fleeing like a madman, but his legs grew weaker and weaker, his steps slower and slower, until finally he stumbled and collapsed in a desolate, endless wilderness.

Shen Gurong knelt on the ground, his knees buckling, his hands digging almost into the earth. He gasped for breath, his gaze unfocused, staring at his own fingers. Shen Fuji's words pounded like drums, nearly shattering his eardrums.

"My younger brother's name is Shen Gurong, and my younger sister is Shen Xiwu."

"I've been looking for my younger brother and sister. They went to the Lantern Street to see the lanterns."

"I'm sorry, I don't remember what they look like."

My younger brother's name is Shen Gurong…

They went to the Lantern Street to see the lanterns.

Shen Gurong's pupils trembled violently, and large tears rolled down his cheeks, instantly soaking his icy eyes.

A damp sensation clung to his eyes and cheeks. Shen Gurong wept silently for a long time before slowly reaching out to tear off the icy coverings and tossing them aside.

Shen Gurong covered his eyes with trembling hands, muttering, "I didn't see anything..."

As his vision plunged into complete darkness, he seemed to hear again, as if haunted, the screams of those ghostly towns, and faint breathing sounds around him.

"Gurong..." In a daze, it seemed someone raised a hand to cover his eyes, their sleeve gently brushing his cheek, a faint scent of books and sandalwood wafting from somewhere around him.

"Don't look."

"You'll be fine after a nap."

"Don't...look." Shen Gurong's eyes widened in terror. He screamed and abruptly dropped his hands from his eyes, then desperately covered his ears.

"I didn't hear anything."

It was as if, without seeing or hearing, he would still be the young master of the Shen family, eagerly anticipating returning home.

"I just want to go home," he sobbed softly, as if pleading with something. "This isn't my world. I... I just want to go home..." Half-asleep, Shen Gurong suddenly stiffened, as if remembering something.

Go home?

Shen Feng Xue had given him the key to home...

That ball of light!

Shen Gurong trembled as he searched his body for the ball of light, finally finding it in the chaos.

The ball of light seemed to be a semicircle, faintly emitting a warm glow, gently illuminating Shen Gurong's vision.

He raised his hand and grasped the ball of light, as if grasping the last glimmer of hope.

If he could crush this light, he could go home.

Back to Huitang City.

Back to his parents and brother.

He would return to the day of the Lantern Festival, strolling through the lantern street with his sister, and then safely returning home.

His brother would be at the gate of the mansion, holding a small lantern to light his way home, laughing and scolding him for not coming home so late again. He would go home.

Shen Gurong firmly believed this.

At this moment, he resembled the drug addict in Tang City, clinging tightly to the ball of light, his eyes filled with urgency and inexplicable excitement, as if he were looking at the last glimmer of hope.

If he could crush the ball of light, he could prove that everything he had seen and heard today was nothing but an absurd play—no, his more than ten years in this world had all been a fictional world from a storybook.

Only returning to Tang City was real.

Shen Gurong's knuckles turned white as he gripped the ball of light tightly.

Just as he was about to crush it, Shen Feng Xue's words suddenly echoed in his ears.

"Can you abandon Mu Zhe?"

"Can you abandon everything in this world?"

For a moment, Shen Gurong's pupils, as if possessed, cleared. He knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the ball of light in his hand for a long time, slowly recognizing what it was.

Shen Gurong suddenly broke down. He cried out in agony, clutching his internal organs, which felt as if they were being scraped to pieces by a dull knife, tears streaming down his face.

The ball of light in his hand wasn't the key to returning home at all.

It was half of Shen Feng Xue's yuandan.

Crushing the yuandan was tantamount to killing Shen Feng Xue.

No wonder Shen Feng Xue had asked him if he could give up everything when he gave it to him.

If he could give up Mu Zhe, give up everything in this world, it would be equivalent to giving up his own life.

Shen Gurong's face was streaked with tears. He gasped for breath, as if he were about to faint from the pain. He wanted to wail, but only choked sobs escaped his lips; he wanted to shout, but only deathly whimpers came from his throat.

His hand, clutching the yuandan, trembled slightly. Shen Gurong's knuckles turned white, but he dared not exert any more force.

“Shen Feng Xue…” Shen Gurong, like a dying animal, clutched his yuandan and bent low, almost pressing his forehead to the dirty mud.

He murmured Shen Feng Xue's name frantically, unable to utter another word.

After an unknown amount of time, someone sighed softly in his ear.

Shen Gurong looked up, his face streaked with tears.

Shen Feng Xue, dressed in blue, stood before him, looking down at him with eyes full of pity.

Shen Gurong, his face blank with tears, struggled to his feet, rushed to him, and grabbed Shen Feng Xue's neck tightly, slamming him to the ground.

The two fell into the mud, dust staining their white hair and blue robes.

Shen Gurong, expressionless, wept, his entire body pressed against Shen Feng Xue, his fingers trembling as he gripped Shen Feng Xue's neck, afraid to exert any force.

He gritted his teeth, his jaw clenched, and said coldly, with a fierce edge, "You lied to me."

Shen Feng Xue's white hair was spread loosely on the ground, his face still showing pity and a sorrowful understanding of everything.

Shen Gurong's voice trembled, but his face remained eerily calm: "You promised me that if I saved Yu Xinghe and Mu Zhe, you would send me away from this world."

Shen Feng Xue suddenly laughed. Even with his life force choked, he felt no fear. His lifeless eyes flickered slightly as he said, "When did I promise you that?"

Shen Gurong was stunned.

He believed that everything he had done since arriving in this world stemmed from the dream he had.

In the dream, Shen Feng Xue, dressed in blood, said to him, "You must save him."

"Shen Gurong, save... Feng Xue."

Shen Gurong stared blankly at the person who looked exactly like him, his mind a complete blank, tears falling one by one onto Shen Feng Xue's pale face.

His lips trembled as he murmured, "I remember, you asked me to save...save someone. Yes, Feng Xue, Shen Feng Xue, you asked me to save you, and I...I saved you. I clearly changed your fate."

Changing Mu Zhe and Yu Xinghe's fate would change Shen Feng Xue's as well.

"I...I accomplished it..." Shen Gurong looked at him almost in despair. "I saved you, look..."

Shen Feng Xue looked at him silently.

Shen Gurong's grip loosened. His face was filled with confusion as he gently shook his head, a few strands of white hair clinging to his deathly pale face.

“I’m not you,” he desperately tried to convince himself. “I’m Shen Gurong, you’re Shen Feng Xue. We’re not the same person. I was forcibly dragged into this world by you…”

“There…” Shen Gurong raised his hand and pointed haphazardly in a direction, stammering, “That’s not Huitang City either! I saw the words on that plaque, it’s Fengdu! Fengdu! How could it be Huitang City?”

As he spoke, he grew increasingly frightened, finally breaking down in a sob: “Fengdu isn’t Huitang City, and I’m not you…”

That ghost wasn’t him either. "My brother..."

Shen Feng Xue raised his hand, gently tucking the tear-stained white hair behind Shen Gurong's ear, and whispered, "I told you before, you didn't possess my body. I've always been in your heart."

Shen Gurong's face was filled with despair. Hearing this, he suddenly became fierce. He tightened his grip, his voice trembling with a mixture of cruelty and terror as he said, "You're not me. You're Shen Feng Xue. Feng Xue—no, not my courtesy name. I haven't reached adulthood yet. My parents and teacher haven't given me a courtesy name..."

Without a courtesy name, Shen Feng Xue was someone completely different from him.

Shen Gurong began to try to deceive himself with a name that meant nothing at all.

Shen Feng Xue looked at him pitifully, raising his hand to gently touch his face: "Why can't you accept it?"

Tears streamed down Shen Gurong's face as he choked out, "Tell me, tell me it's all a lie. I'll believe you if you say so..."

Shen Feng Xue said, "Even if I tell you it's a lie, will you really believe me?"

He didn't believe that Shen Gurong, having already discovered the truth, could willingly deceive himself into believing it was false.

Shen Gurong paused, then feigned a fierce look at him, though his heart was already as fragile as dust, only able to contort his expression to create this menacing facade.

It was as if denying it would erase the truth.

Ignoring his trembling hands, Shen Feng Xue leaned closer to Shen Gurong's ear and whispered, "You weren't of legal age back then, so you didn't have a courtesy name."

Shen Gurong was startled, a vague sense of foreboding creeping over him. He was about to pull away and struggle, but Shen Feng Xue's hands tightened slightly, almost pulling him into an embrace.

He gently held Shen Gurong's shoulders, seemingly not wanting him to escape, and said, word by word, "Feng Xue."

Shen Gurong inexplicably remembered the bamboo flute he always carried with him.

On the bamboo flute were two characters.

Feng Xue.

Shen Feng Xue whispered, "You never knew your teacher's name, you only ever call him 'Teacher, Teacher.' Today I'll tell you what his name is."

Shen Gurong suddenly felt a surge of terror. His hands gripped Shen Feng Xue's neck tightly, as if he wanted to strangle him before he could utter that name, preventing him from ever speaking another word.

But Shen Feng Xue remained unaffected. Even though Shen Gurong had exerted all his strength, he could still hear Shen Feng Xue cruelly speaking in his ear.

"His surname is Mu," 'Shen Gurong' said, "His name is Mu Feng Xue."

Shen Gurong was stunned.

"You call yourself that only to atone for your sins."

"You put on the blue robes, but that's just to deceive yourself into living in his place."

Shen Feng Xue gave him no chance to escape. Every word was like a knife, each one slashing at Shen Gurong, forcibly tearing away the countless lies he had woven for himself, shoving the truth into his bleeding bones.

"Back then, the entire city of Huitang was slaughtered by thirteen plague demons. Of the 1,139 people in the city, only you survived."

"Mu Feng Xue died tragically to save you, and you went mad for a long time. I am your mad self, the inner demon that gradually grew from your years of obsession. I can do anything for you that you don't want to do, bear everything you desperately want to escape, and I can slaughter all the ghost cultivators in the world for you."

"The 'save him' you heard in your dream didn't refer to me, not Mu Zhe, and certainly not Yu Xinghe, but to the long-dead Mu Feng Xue."

"I can do anything for you, but the one thing I cannot do is bring someone back to life."

"Even Jing Shilu can't."

The inner demon Shen Feng Xue looked at him expressionlessly, his scarlet pupils slightly contracted, and two lines of tears slowly flowed from his beautiful eyes, seemingly merging with the tear tracks on Shen Gurong's face.

Shen Gurong suddenly screamed in agony, gripping the neck of the person before him tightly, hissing almost frantically, "Shut up! Shut up—" His throat tightened abruptly.

A gust of wind, carrying a cloud of gray mist, swept towards him. Shen Gurong knelt alone in the mist, his clothes disheveled, his white hair scattered on the ground.

Shen Feng Xue was nowhere to be seen.

He was bewildered for a long time before suddenly realizing that his hands weren't gripping Shen Feng Xue's neck, but his own.

He was gripping his own neck tightly, his knuckles white.

After a moment of blankness, realizing the situation, Shen Gurong didn't loosen his grip. Instead, he let out a utterly devastating laugh, then tightened his grip even more, as if trying to strangle himself alive in this desolate wilderness.

Tears streamed down Shen Gurong's face like broken beads. He choked himself until he couldn't breathe, but the feeling that had been relentlessly scraping his heart with a dull knife suddenly vanished.

He felt no pain at all.

Whether it was crushing his yuandan or strangling himself…

Wouldn't it all be going home?

A crisp chill, carrying the scent of dew, rushed towards him. Countless crimson Dao Companion Contracts broke through the thick gray mist surrounding Shen Gurong and took flight.

The next instant, Mu Zhe rushed over.

The Dao Companion Contracts, transformed into spirit butterflies, danced gracefully in the black mist, slowly landing on Shen Gurong's slumped white hair. The others all flew into the air, gently dispersing the thick mist.

Mu Zhe reached out and pulled Shen Gurong into his arms, grasping Shen Gurong's still-struggling hands, trying to make him loosen his suicidal grip.

His face was filled with lingering fear, his voice trembling with a sob. As he tried to pry Shen Gurong's hands apart, he murmured as if begging, "Master, I'm here."

I'm here.

⬅️ Previous Next ➡️