Chapter 240: [Dragon Blood Mountain] Being Human

It was like the evening bell of doom.

Mo Ran almost knew what he was going to see next, and his hair stood on end, his bones and blood rushed, as he tried to pull himself out of the illusion and escape, while at the same time trying to lunge into yesterday, holding Chu Wanning in his arms.

"No Huai Zui you can't"

But there was nothing he could do to stop it, it had all happened a long time ago.

All he could do was look on with numbing horror, watching Chu Wanning's dark brow furrowed and resolute, meeting Huai Zui's gaze openly.

Mo Ran yelled at him uncontrollably, "Run, run, run."

The young man Chu Wanning had always trusted Huai Zui, the master who had raised him as a sacrifice, his adoptive father and benefactor. So even though he was disappointed, he did not see in Huai Zui's naked eyes the murderous intent of his life. Mo Ran stood in front of him, knowing that it was useless, but he could not stand by and watch.

"Please, run."

Chu Wanning did not walk, he walked like a cypress, step by step towards Huai Zui, finally standing, his high ponytail tossed by the wind behind him, his blood and mud-stained robes also tossed by the wind.

Huai Zui's lips opened and closed, crushing the words, "If you want to leave the temple and go down the mountain, you can."

"Chu Wanning's eyes widened slightly as he saw the knife raised by the executioner as a bright moon at the window, and for a moment he was even grateful and pleased.

He thought Huai Zui had finally understood him.

But the butcher's knife was cold, and his killing heart had already been expressed, and Huai Zui said, "If you walk out of this courtyard tonight, you will no longer be a member of Temple of No Mercy. You and I have been master and disciple for fourteen years, and that is the end of our friendship."

""Those phoenix eyes were still wide open, only the content within them slowly changed from joy, to dismay and sadness and cold.

Chu Wanning probably didn't expect Huai Zui to be so resolute, but he stood frozen in place for a long time before moving his lips. Mo Ran was beside himself with impatience, muttering, "Please, go, get out of here, stop talking, get out of here."

The lips moved but no complete words could be spoken.

Huai Zui stared at him, this was the heaviest bet he had ever made, Wangning was very affectionate, they had been the only two companions for the past fourteen years, if he broke the bond between master and disciple, it would be to cut his heart with a knife, he should not

Chu Wanning took a knee.

"" Huai Zui stared in awe.

He still thought numbly, "No, how could he be so determined, so bent on his own way?

Chu Wanning kneeling and kowtowing for a long time.

One knock, two knocks, up to nine knocks.

He lifted his face again, his eyes clear and free of moisture, but his cheeks were moist.

"I, Chu Wanning, thank you for your kindness in raising me. From now on," he said with a knot in his throat, he didn't know what to do from then on, he couldn't go on.

His robe was blown into disarray, the wind filled his sleeves, and his face grew sullen and cold, his lips bloodless, as he stared at the man kneeling before him.

That period

Wooden wood

He sculpted and painted, took blood to give life, he taught with great care and dedication.

He has done so much and waited for 14 years to send this piece of wood to the ghost world to become a shell to carry the spirit of Chu Lan, not to see it here today to talk about the worries of the country and the people.

A section of waste

Chopping wood

The fire in his chest burned straight into his eyes, destroying the sky and impulsive to the core.

Mo Ran leans down and tries to hold Chu Wanning, but he can't catch him, he can't touch him, Chu Wanning is as stubborn as ever, as stubborn and obedient as ever, kneeling where he is, stubborn because he has the way in his heart, obedient because he is ashamed.

Chu Wanning's eyes reflect Huai Zui's increasingly grim face, and his chest is filled with his blood.

He is all over the place for others, this chopped wood, wood, soulless thing.

He fell to his knees, the only thing he did not think about was himself.

" Wangning " Mo Ran suddenly choked up as he lifted his hand to touch the face he could not reach, "Please go go"

"There was a clang, the sound of metal hitting the ground.

Mo Ran slowly turns back to a scimitar lying on the green brick floor, the matching blade of Huai Zui.

There was a gurgling blood in the butcher's eyes in the moonlight as he kicked the knife again, sending the scimitar straight to Chu Wanning's knee.

"No, no, no, no, no."

Mo Ran had panicked, he went for the knife, but the tip passed through his fingers, he couldn't grasp it, he couldn't grasp it with all his desperate attempts.

Finally a long, well-proportioned hand came up and took hold of the knife that Mo Ran could not hold in any way.

Chu Wanning's eyes were calm at this point, the initial shock gone, the pain subsiding as Huai Zui threw the scimitar down at him.

He looked relieved.

"If the Master wants my life, I will return it." Chu Wanning said, "There is no difference between living fourteen years and living one hundred and forty years, if both sit only in this side of the world."

Huai Zui's eyes suddenly look nothing like that of the monk who is beyond the world, and for a moment, Mo Ran clearly sees Xiaoman in his face.

That Lin'an rainy night, the shadow of a teenager on the eve of a mutiny.

" Chu Wanning." Huai Zui said morosely, "If you want to end this with me, I will not detain you. I will not care what you have eaten, clothed, or used for the past fourteen years. But you must return to me what you have learned."

""

Huai Zui narrowed his eyes, "I'm going to take your spirit core."

The spirit core is the most refined condensed crystal for a monk, and it is the same for a divine wood. With a spirit core, it might be possible to reshape a Chu Wanning.

This time he must not be taught morality and righteousness, and he must not be made to learn the way of kindness and goodness.

He wants the spiritual core of Chu Wanning.

The heart of the living.

Chu Wanning watched him for a while as the light swept through the Zen courtyard, and there were monks doing their evening prayers in the Great Hall, the sound of chanting Hong coming from afar like the smoke of a sandalwood Buddha.

Huai Zui's voice suddenly rang out again in Mo Ran's ears, but this time he spoke only two words, two words that seemed to take all the courage and strength he had in his life.

His voice seemed to have aged a hundred years in an instant.

"He knelt down and looked at me, and I suddenly wondered if the Buddha, when he was forgiving mortals who had hurt him, had, in fact, looked like that."

"He was taking pity on his executioners, the living under the knife, on the blood-stained butchers."

"No," Mo Ran hissed.

But the knife flashed, he closed his eyes unexpectedly, there was a clearly audible stabbing sound and Mo Ran curled up on the floor.

"Don't."

Hot blood spurts, flesh and bone are separated.

Mo Ran wailed and crawled over to Chu Wanning, shaking his head in disbelief and sobbing as he scrambled to plug Chu Wanning's wounds and try to stop the bleeding by pouring spiritual energy into them.

Nothing works.

Nothing works.

He watched as Chu Wanning forced himself to endure the pain, to keep himself from passing out from the pain in an instant with his jutsu, and he watched as Chu Wanning poked the knife, inch by inch, into his chest cavity, blood, hot blood everywhere.

Rolling, rushing, blazing.

How could it not be a living person.

Flesh that tears apart.

Bright red, fishy-sweet and broken.

How can it not be a living person how can it

Huai Zui stood frozen in place, his face still fixed in that last moment, looking grim and cruel, but the light of his eyes shone, trembling, trembling, bewildered

Is this really what he wants?

At that moment, the scroll suddenly becomes turbulent and blurred, the scene in front of Mo Ran's eyes distorted and jumbled by Huai Zui's emotions as he makes the scroll.

He saw how many old stories welled up in the blood, each one soft and true.

Mo Ran saw Chu Wanning, aged eleven or twelve, leaving after Jin Chengchi had summoned Tianwen, when an ancient lute with a begonia-shaped tail emerged from the lake. The moment it floats, Chu Wanning's body glows with a light that seems to mirror it. He touched the strings of the lyre in amazement and confusion: "What is this?"

Huai Zui immediately guessed that the instrument was also made from a section of Yandi's sacred wood, and that it and Chu Wanning were of the same lineage, so they would naturally sense each other. He looked excited, a little surprised and a little delighted: "This should be your destiny Shenwu."

"Destiny Shenwu "

Huai Zui's eyes dodged a little as he was surprised: "Yes, there is someone who was born with a clear root and was born with a deep connection to Shenwu."

Chu Wanning just laughed: "I've got a great deal of bone in my body."

"" Huai Zui avoided answering, only fondling the wooden body of Nine Songs and sighing, "This ancient lyre has a destiny with you, and I fear it does not need a spirit core to summon it to connect with your bloodline."

In another scene, Mo Ran sees two people walking outside Lin'an, Huai Zui following young Wangning, calling out to him to slow down.

He saw the steaming flower cake, Chu Wanning's heartless smile through the steam.

He saw Chu Wanning in the inn, holding a small fan and working hard to fan Huai Zui, who was meditating, with a mouthful of energy.

He saw Chu Wanning eating a sweet osmanthus lotus root for the first time, his mouth full of sweet juices, grinning broadly at Huai Zui.

Finally, the vision is set at the edge of a lotus pond one summer, where the lotus leaves are endlessly blue, the pond is full of lotus flowers in full bloom, and the red dragonflies are high and low, curling and stopping, a perfect evening.

Chu Wanning, five or six years old, smilingly imitated Huai Zui's cross-legged meditation, his dark, warm eyes looking up at his master, "Master Master, play again, one more time."

Huai Zui said, "No more games, Master is going to the Lenten Hall to recite the scriptures and overtake the deceased."

"Play once and go again, for the last time, really the last time."

And then, without waiting for the great monk to speak, the little one had already rolled up the sleeves of his little green and grey monk's robe, lotus flowers swaying, and he stretched out his little hand, excitedly touching Huai Zui's hand and not wanting to take care of him, his childish voice as sweet and crisp as a fresh diamond and sweet root.

"You to one, I to one, what blossoms in the water lotus blossoms in the water.

You to two, I to two, what blossoms a string of elms blossoms a string of elms."

Huai Zui had no choice but to look at his smiling face and finally just shake his head, laughing and clapping his hands in a childishly unpleasant game of high five.

"You to nine, I to nine, what blooms goes with the wind dandelions bloom with the wind.

You to ten, I to ten, what blossoms without leaves waxing plum blossoms without leaves."

Bloodstained lapels, red lotus soaked through.

In the Zen garden, Huai Zui closes his eyes.

It is a broken piece of wood.

The laughter of the old days is still fresh in our ears.

Yes, the soulless.

"What blooms in the water hahaha, Master is so stupid, the lotus blooms in the water."

It was an empty shell, a body he was to sacrifice to Chu Xun, a piece of wood he had poured out for centuries to atone for his sins, not a living person without a soul

"Master, the flower cake is divided in half between you, you eat the big one and I eat the small one."

Huai Zui's tears flowed down her face.

He shuddered and trembled violently, he frightened and he ran towards the child who had already sunk his blade into his heart and whose spirit core had begun to rupture and was about to be ripped out.

He falls to his knees, he howls in pain, he is as hoarse as Mo Ran, who at this moment is holding Chu Wanning but can only pass him by, and the cry in his throat is like sobbing blood, like a knife poking not Chu Wanning's heart but his voice, his soul.

How can there be no soul?

It is he who closes his eyes and plugs his ears.

He knew it all along, he could always realise it in his heart.

In Chu Wanning's smile, in Chu Wanning's earnestness, in Chu Wanning's generosity and gentleness, in Chu Wanning's stubbornness and persistence, he has always seen the soul of that man.

But he played deaf and dumb for his own selfish sake, for the sake of so-called atonement, he paralysed himself.

Chu Wanning was never a wooden statue, an empty shell.

He is a flesh and blood man who can cry and laugh

"I've watched him grow up day by day since he was a child, he looked like Chu Lan when he was little and Chu Xun when he was older, but I never got him wrong with any of them."

Huai Zui's voice is like a broken gong, hoarse to the core.

"It was he who shared half my pastries and pulled me along to call me Master, it was he who secretly cooled me with a fan and thought I didn't notice, it was he who was by my side for fourteen years at Temple of No Mercy, who laughed with me, who trusted me and said I was the kindest Master in the world."

Like swallowing bitter bile.

Huai Zui murmured, "The most benevolent of masters"

In the scroll, Huai Zui restrains Chu Wanning's hand and drains his spiritual power, causing him to faint from the pain almost as soon as the spell fails.

Huai Zui holds the living, gurgling body. It is like holding Chu Xun who, two hundred years ago, dug out his heart to light the way for all to escape when the Lin'an sky split.

But it's not the same.

Chu Wanning is stubborn and proud. Chu Wanning has his own little idiosyncrasies, such as sleeping without a blanket, chewing on his chopsticks when he's tired of eating, and never washing his clothes, but just soaking them in a load.

That was all his own habit, his own favourite.

Not the same as anyone else.

The screen went black again.

It's good that it's dark, because if Mo Ran were to look at it again, he would go mad.

In the darkness is Huai Zui's haunting sigh.

"In fact, it was clear to me when he crossed his eyes and told me that he was going down the mountain to help the Tao and that he did not want to sit on the ground and soar, that he was a living human being."

"I was weak and selfish, and I almost destroyed the child I raised with my own hands."

"He is not Chu Lan, he is not a sacrifice for my atonement."

"He is Chu Wanning, for it was a peaceful and calm evening when I awoke him, and the bells of the Zen temple rang out, and he was born under the gaze of the heavenly gods and Buddhas in their precious appearance, and I gave him his name."

"But what I have given him is really just a name. I had always prided myself on having created him, and had therefore decided that he should be mine to use, mine to own, mine to sacrifice. But it was not until I watched him, like Master Chu, disembowel himself for the sake of his own moral righteousness"

Huai Zui choked to the point that he could hardly speak again, and only after a long time did he say hoarsely.

"I finally realized that I had never given him a soul or a life. It was all his own, for because a dirty, weak sinner like me could never have created a life as clean and rigid as his."

"Never."