Chapter 728 – The Conversation in the Snowy Night (2/2)

At this time, her mind also held only one name: Chen Changsheng.

Chen Changsheng was the being in the world that she was the most familiar with and that she trusted the most. In addition, for a few reasons secret to her, she firmly believed that he had to take responsibility for her. Thus, after she came to her senses, she began heading without hesitation towards the nearby Orthodox Academy, her bare feet stamping out a clear trail in the snow.

……

……

The Orthodox Academy and the neighboring Hundred Herb Garden were both under heavy guard. The Orthodoxy cavalry and the troops of the Imperial Court had sealed off the entire block. Both sides silently stared at each other from their respective camps, the atmosphere extremely tense. Nobody knew what might happen next.

The situation in the capital was constantly changing. After the Pope returned to the sea of stars, it was still not possible to tell what the people yearned for, but assessments were slowly beginning to favor the Imperial Court. Teachers and students had left the Orthodox Academy in great numbers, leaving only one-third of the original number behind. The eighteen female disciples of South Stream Temple and Su Moyu had naturally remained, but all of them understood that it was impossible for them to influence what happened next in any way. The only two people that could truly decide the end of all this were currently under the great banyan tree by the lake.

No one in the capital could sleep tonight, because many people knew that the master and disciple were conducting their final negotiation.

The snowstorms over the past few days had been rather fierce. The Orthodox Academy was just like all the other places in the capital, buried under a thick mantle of snow. The dead grass by the lake had been utterly drowned. Only in a few slightly depressed areas could one see a few tips of dead grass that seemed to exude an aura of obstinacy.

The great banyan tree had shed its leaves long ago, but its bare branches were still as firm as ever, sturdy enough for quite a few people to stand atop them.

Chen Changsheng was not standing on the tree, but on the snow-covered ground beneath it, as his teacher was also standing in the snow.

This was the first time this master and disciple had met after that morning in the Mausoleum of Books. On that day, they had passed each other on the Divine Path like strangers, gazing straight past each other. This time, their gazes truly met and so each of them could clearly tell how the other had changed since that period in Xining Village.

Chen Changsheng was already Pope, but he did not wear the Divine Robe, did not bear the Divine Crown, and did not grip the Divine Staff. Instead, he wore the uniform of the Orthodox Academy, his hair meticulously combed into the simplest of Daoist topknots. What ran through his black hair to fasten his topknot was not some precious ebony hairpin, but a normal wooden chopstick.

Shang Xingzhou had a full head of black hair with no hint of white which was similarly combed meticulously. His face carried a noble and composed aura, exuding an indescribable elegance and ease. However, his clothes were very simple: just a blue Daoist robe. He did not truly seem like the supreme individual of the present age, but a normal Daoist.

If someone were to see this sight, they would get the impression that from a certain perspective, this master and his disciple were very similar. This was not merely an external similarity, but it was also in that deep tinge of indifference on their faces and that sense of disaffection hidden behind their calm exteriors.

Chen Changsheng was prepared to open his mouth and speak, but he realized that he had no idea what to say.

It had already been several years since he last spoke with the man standing across from him. To cultivators, a few years was a very short amount of time, but he still felt it to be very long, so long that the memories related to Xining Village and that old temple had become somewhat hazy. At the very least, memories of certain things had already become difficult to clearly recall.

He could still clearly remember the mottled spots on the walls of the old temple after the Daoist scriptures were moved. He still clearly remembered that on the night before he left, his senior brother had cooked four vegetable dishes, each having a different taste and style, and that one of them had contained a lot of garlic. And yet he could not remember what his final words with his master were.

At this time, Shang Xingzhou spoke.

”I picked you out from the stream. Although I knew beforehand that you would be in the stream, without me, you would have drowned in the waters of the stream or been eaten by the old dragon. In short, I saved your life and raised you into an adult, so your life is mine.”

Tonight was the final night, and tomorrow would be a new day, a new day like so many countless new days before it, but the first day for the new continent. Tonight's conversation in the snow would decide whether the people of the capital and the entire continent would be able to pass the morrow as they had for the past several years, peacefully and happily welcoming the rising sun of the new year.

No one could have imagined this conversation to have started so suddenly and advanced so unyieldingly that the prologue sounded just like the ending.