Chapter 119 (2/2)
Then again, even if he now wielded the power to unearth all those who were involved in the intricate and insidious plot and reduce them to cinders, the fact remained that Hua Weiyang was no more. Despite Li Muxue’s uncanny resemblance of her and their striking similarities, deep within Xiao Chen’s heart, he knew that they could never be one and the same.
“I would like to go down the cliff to have a look, Brother Yifeng.”
Yu Yifeng peered down the dark and bottomless abyss. He was still apprehensive about the Devil Qi that he was certain he had felt emanating from the depths beneath him earlier on the Flying-cloud Stone. Still, he nodded. He cast his sword, and they both rode the sword down into the menacing darkness.
A damp and icy wind whistled out of the crevasse, prickling on their skins as they plunged into the depths. As they glided down, the rocky and jagged face of rocks gave way to a dense and lush forest at the bottom of the ravine with trees bearing strange blood-red fruits. Xiao Chen surveyed the surroundings; this was bottom of the ravine where he and Hua Weiyang had fallen into. But before he had crashed into the bottom, Ling Yin had intercepted him halfway when he had lost consciousness. He found himself back within the chambers of the Mystic Cyan Sect when he woke up later. But what of Hua Weiyang? Did she survive the fall, he wondered…
“Come here, Chen! Look, there are words here!” Yu Yifeng came calling to him suddenly.
Xiao Chen turned and scurried over. Yu Yifeng was standing before the face of the cliff, the weather-worn surface cracked and crumbling due to age. But there were fading words which had endured the erosion of time; a message which had waited long enough until its intended recipient finally arrived.
His eyes grew wet and moist while he exclaimed with laughter, “She’s alive! She’s alive!”
Even at the bamboo copse earlier, Yu Yifeng had noticed that Xiao Chen was behaving out of his norm. He was hardly surprised to see Xiao Chen shedding tears despite being apparently filled with joy. “Xiao Chen, what is the message here? You are able to read this?”
The message was left in the runic script used only thousands of years ago. Sprawled on the wall of the cliff, the message said, “I am at the Loveless Valley…”
Xiao Chen was certain that this was the message Hua Weiyang had left him thousands of years ago. He wrestled against his churning emotions, muttering with elation, “Do you know where lies this Loveless Valley, Brother Yifeng?”
“Loveless Valley?” Yu Yifeng pondered for seconds before he shook his head. “I’m afraid I have not heard of this place…”
The smile on Xiao Chen’s face froze, turning brittle, as the fervor in his heart subsided as a chilly frost gripped him. He reached and felt the barbed surface of the rock, his fingers caressing longingly on the words. Beats of still silences passed quietly, until he began to giggle, deranged and demented.
What good was there if Hua Weiyang had indeed survived the fall? Thousands of years had elapsed since then; all the might of the invincible Immortal Kings and Sages of Heaven were nothing before the unsparing washing away of Time. It was impossible for her to remain alive now.
The cleft spanning thousands of years between them had separated them indefinitely.
“AARRGHH!” Xiao Chen roared with all his strength in agony, the echoes of his despondent and futile voice clamoring off the walls of the cliffs and sent multitudes of frightened beasts and birds in the vicinity fleeing about.
“Curse the Heavens! Return to me the millennia that you have robbed me! Give me back Weiyang!” His blood-shot eyes started from their sockets as he pounded repeatedly on the rock face, causing rushes of cascading stones and sand to roll off the rugged surface as if an earthquake was taking place.
Suddenly, a monstrous voice boomed from under their feet like a rumble of thunder shaking the earth. Yu Yifeng felt a chill of fear zipping down his spine as the same aura of Devil Qi he felt before rose again. “Stop! Chen!” He yelled at Xiao Chen.
But his frantic cautions fell on deaf ears; Xiao Chen, still entranced in his maniacal hysteria, continued pummeling at the wall that a crack, stretching more than a few meters, began to open on the solid face of the cliff. Until a shrill voice came from underneath their feet, “Heaven has forsaken me; Heaven has betrayed me; With my corrupted soul; I’ll reforge my body anew…”
The voice disappeared as quickly as it came, like a shadow that flitted by momentarily. Xiao Chen regained his senses, being roused by the unearthly voice. He looked at Yu Yifeng behind him. “Was that you speaking to me, Brother Yifeng?”
Yu Yifeng was deeply worried beyond words. But Xiao Chen had awakened was all that mattered. “Let us leave. It is not safe here,” he said as he drew his sword and released it before he pulled Xiao Chen and rode his sword out of the gorge.
Higher and higher they flew as Xiao Chen looked back at the gorge which slowly melted out of sight. He sighed heavily. Just then, the same hollow voice rang again from the bottom of the Cliff of Fallen Divinity, “Heaven has forsaken me; Heaven has betrayed me…”