Chapter 46: The Throne is Awake

When he woke up, Mo Ran found himself still inside the Shenwu Arsenal.

He seemed to have slept for a long time, but when he opened his eyes he found that not much time had passed, or even seemed to be a mere blink of an eye.

I don't know if it was because the spell had been successfully broken, but when he woke up, he found himself lying on the ground, unharmed. The ghastly wounds, the dripping blood, it was like a nightmare, they had not left a mark on his body.

Mo Ran was surprised and delighted, and then he looked at Shi Mei, who had also passed out at some point, but was also unharmed.

Could it be that after passing Gouchen Shanggong's trial, Gouchen not only removed the illusion but also restored the wounds they had sustained in the illusion?

Although, on reflection, Gouchen Shanggong was not trying to harm anyone, which is what the trial was all about, Mo Ran just didn't feel real, or even alive afterwards.

Of the four men, he was the first to wake up.

Then came Shi Mei, and when Shi Mei slowly lifted her eyelashes, Mo Ran was overjoyed and said, "Shi Mei, we're fine, we're fine, look at me."

Shi Mei's eyes were in a trance for a moment before they cleared, and his eyes widened suddenly: " Mo Ran you"

Before he could finish his sentence, he was hugged tightly by Mo Ran.

Shi Mei was stunned, but patted him gently on the shoulder: "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry I put you through so much."

Shi Mei said blankly, "It wasn't really anything, I just had a dream."

Mo Ran said, "That really hurt too."

Shi Mei: "What really hurts?"

At that moment, Xue Meng also woke up and, not knowing what he had dreamt, he cried out, "How dare you molest me", while sitting up violently.

Seeing that he was awake, Shi Mei went over and said, "Young master."

"Xue Meng thought she was still in a dream.

Mo Ran was in a very good mood and looked very soft to Xue Meng, smiling as he told him what had happened.

"So it was a dream I thought."

Xue Meng coughed lightly to cover up her embarrassment and was shocked to find that Chu Wanning, always the best, was still asleep and had not woken up.

"Why isn't the Master awake?"

They walked over and examined Chu Wanning's wound. As Chu Wanning had been wounded before the illusion was opened, the only damage that could be recovered was from the illusion, according to Gouchen Shanggong's design, so Chu Wanning's shoulder was still soaked in blood and shocking.

Mo Ran sighed and said, "Wait a little longer and see."

It took about a column of incense before Chu Wanning finally woke up.

He slowly opened his phoenix eyes, his gaze empty and cool when he awoke, as if a white blanket of snow had fallen. It was a long time before he rolled his eyes and his gaze fell on Mo Ran.

But like Xue Meng, he seemed to be momentarily less than fully awake as he looked at Mo Ran, slowly reached out his hand and said in a muffled voice, "You."

Mo Ran said, "Master."

At the sound of his call, Chu Wanning's hand froze in mid-air, her pale face seemed to take on a hint of blood, and her eyes suddenly brightened: "Yes."

"Master."

Xue Meng swooped in and pushed Mo Ran aside and took Chu Wanning's hand, "How are you feeling better Master you took so long to wake up, I was worried sick."

Chu Wanning saw Xue Meng and stared at her, then the mist in her gaze lifted. A closer look at Mo Ran reveals that although she is looking at her, she is holding Shi Mei's hand tightly and will not let go of it for a moment.

""

Chu Wanning then woke up completely, his face clear and cold. And then it was like a fish in a dry pond, finally dead through and through.

Shi Mei said with concern, "Master, are you okay, your shoulder, does it hurt?"

Chu Wanning said calmly, "I'm fine, it doesn't hurt."

He stood up slowly with the help of Xue Meng. Mo Ran wondered for a moment why Chu Wanning, who had injured his shoulder, was getting up with a weak gait, as if he had injured his foot.

Mo Ran thought that Chu Wanning did not know what had just happened in the vision and briefly recapped it again.

Shi Mei felt something was wrong when she heard it just now, and when she heard it again, she felt even more strange and couldn't help but say, "Mo Ran, you said I saved you."

"Right."

Shi Mei was quiet for a moment and then said slowly, "But I was dreaming the whole time, and I didn't wake up."

Mo Ran was shocked, but then laughed, "You're not kidding."

Shi Mei said, "I'm not joking, I dreamed I dreamed of my parents and they were alive. The dream was so real that I didn't seem to be able to leave them behind, I really did."

Before he could finish his sentence, Chu Wanning said lightly, "That's not surprising. Perhaps Gouchen's illusion erased the memory of the time you saved him. Anyway, neither I nor Xue Meng saved him, so if he says you did, you did."

Shi Mei :""

"What else, does Gouchen have a way of swapping people's minds?" Chu Wanning said coldly.

He had wanted to tell Mo Ran the truth, and had hoped that Mo Ran would realize that the person in the illusion was not Shi Mei, but himself, who had changed his heart with Shi Mei.

But Mo Ran's final confession to Shi Mei is too embarrassing for Chu Wanning.

When he woke up, he looked into Mo Ran's dark, shining eyes. For a moment, Chu Wanning felt that perhaps there was something in Mo Ran's heart that he cared about.

Such a humble expectation was also a weak thought that he dared to pry out quietly after so long.

But that was just his self-interest.

The blood he has shed, the wounds he has sustained, Mo Ran will not know, nor does he need to know.

He was not stupid, and although he did not say so, he could already feel how much Mo Ran cherished that gentle and wonderful person. How could he have seen himself, standing in the corner, like a puppet gathering dust?

But when he heard Mo Ran's own words, "I've always loved you", Chu Wanning still felt he had lost the battle.

The hug in the vision was, in Mo Ran's mind, a handout from Shi Mei.

But Mo Ran will never know that the hug was actually his own, given to another poor man.

Chu Wanning never thought Mo Ran would like him, so he tried very hard to hold back his feelings, not to force them, not to disturb them, not to touch them lightly.

The reckless love, the passionate infatuation, all grow only on the soil of youth. As a young man, he too wished for someone to keep him company, to drink under the moon, but he waited and waited, but he never got that person. As the days passed, his reputation and status in Xianxia grew, and everyone looked up to him, saying that he was unapproachable. Later he accepted this admiration and insensitivity.

It was like he was hiding in a cocoon, and the years were spitting silk over his cocoon. At first he could see a little light seeping in through the cocoon, but year by year, as the silk grew and the cocoon grew thicker, he could no longer see the light. Inside the cocoon there is only himself, and the darkness.

He doesn't believe in love, he doesn't believe in seeing the sky draped over him, and he doesn't want to go after something. What would he do if he had gone through all the trouble of biting open his cocoon and stumbling out, but there was no one waiting for him outside.

Although he loves Mo Ran, this man is too young, too distant, and too fiery for Chu Wanning to approach, fearing that one day he will be burned to ashes by such a flame.

So, all the retreats he could take, he did.

He didn't know what he had done wrong.

So much so, that he had only a small amount of obsession left, but had to be drowned by a cold rain that was enough to cover the sky.

"Master, look over there!" Xue Meng's cry of alarm brought Chu Wanning back to consciousness, and he followed it to see the molten lava tumbling out of the pool once again. But the tree spirit's pupils are white, and it is clear that it has lost its mind. In both hands, he holds the silvery sword of Gouchen Shanggong.

Chu Wanning said, "Run faster."

Without him repeating himself a second time, the disciples immediately raced towards the exit.

The manipulated tree spirit whistled its breath to the sky, its chains shaking and clanking. Clearly no one spoke, but all four ears heard one voice in unison.

"Stop them, none of them will get away."

Xue Meng lost her colour and said, "Someone is talking in my ear."

Chu Wanning said, "Ignore him, it's Pinching Willow's mind-blowing trick to run himself."

As he said this, the others remembered that Pinching Willow had reminded them, when he was sober, that the so-called "Mystery of the Mind" was to use the greed in a person's heart as a lure to make them kill each other.

Sure enough, the voice in Chu Wanning's ear hissed, "Chu Wanning, don't you ever get tired?"

"A master of the generation, Yu Heng at night. Such a character, but he can only secretly and secretly love his own disciple. You give so much to him, but he doesn't know any better and never has eyes for you, only for the gentle and lovely young master. How pathetic you are."

Chu Wanning's face was blue as he ignored the noise in his ears and swept towards the exit.

"Come to me, take up this sword of the Patriarchs, kill Shi Mei, and there will be no one between you. Come to me and I will help you to get what you want and make the one you love fall in love with you. Come to me."

Chu Wanning said angrily, "Get out of here!"

The others had apparently heard the voice's different offer, and they were able to resist the temptation, although their pace had slowed. As they drew closer to the exit, Pinching Willow seemed to grow more frantic, hissing in his ears almost distorted.

"Figure out that once you get out of this door, you don't get another chance."

The sound in each ear was different, a mournful whine.

"Chu Wanning, Chu Wanning, are you really going to be alone for the rest of your life"

" Mo Weiyu, I am the only one in the world who knows where the medicine for raising the dead is, come to me and let me show you"

" Shi Mingjing, I know your deepest desires and only I can help you"

"Xue Meng, the Shenwu you have chosen is a fake Jin Chengchi, only the last weapon made by Gouchen Shanggong remains, come back and this Ancestral Sword will belong to you, don't you want to be the best of the best? "

" Xue Meng " Mo Ran suddenly realises that his cousin, who was running beside him, is nowhere to be seen.

When he turned his head, he saw Xue Meng's steps slowing down and eventually stopping to look back at the silver-blue sword floating in the pool.

Mo Ran's heart flutters.

He knew how deep Xue Meng's obsession with Shenwu ran. The boy must have been devastated to learn that the weapon he had been given was a fake. Pinching Willow could not have done better to tempt him with the Ancestor's sword.

" Xue Meng, don't believe him, don't go there"

Shi Mei also said, "young master, come on, we're almost at the exit."

Xue Meng looked back at them blankly, but the voice echoing in his ears became more and more compelling: "They are jealous of you and do not want you to get your hands on the divine weapon. Think of Mo Weiyu, he has already acquired his weapon and he would hate for you to get nothing. The two of you are brothers, and if you are inferior to him, the position of venerable lord at the top of death and life will, of course, be his."

Xue Meng muttered, "You shut up."

In front of him, Mo Ran seemed to be shouting at him anxiously, but he couldn't hear him at all and just kept clutching his head and repeating, "Shut up you shut up".

"Xue Meng, the weapons of Shenwu Arsenal are no longer suitable for you. If you miss the Ancestor's sword, you will be subservient to Mo Weiyu, who will then be your venerable master, before whom you will kneel and be at his mercy. What hesitation do you have to come over here and let me give you the sword?"

" Xue Meng "

" young master "

Xue Meng suddenly stopped struggling and his eyes snapped open, they were actually crimson.

"Come to me you are the pride of the heavens and worthy of all soldiers."

Chu Wanning said in a stern voice: " Xue Meng "

"Come, only if you become the Lord of Death and Life will Lower Fairy World be at peace. Think of those who suffer and the injustice you have suffered.

Before he knows it, Xue Meng is at the edge of the boiling pool, where the spirit of Pinching Willow is holding Gouchen Shanggong's Ancestral Sword, his pupils turned up with bloodshot white eyes.

"Very well, take this sword and go and stop them all."

Xue Meng slowly raised his hand and trembled as he accepted the silver-blue sword.

"Kill them."

"Kill Mo Weiyu."

"Go on aaaahhhh."

The light of the Ancestral Sword flowed, reflecting the handsomeness of the proud son of the sky, and his eyes were brighter and clearer than usual.

Instead of stabbing at Mo Ran, the sword was pointed straight at Pinching Willow itself, penetrating the abdomen

In an instant, the earth shook and the ancient willows shook.

The heart-bending trick breaks suddenly, and the sky and the earth break apart inside Shenwu Arsenal.

Xue Meng breathes heavily as he breaks free of the compulsion with all his might. He stares at Pinching Willow, his young face full of the persistence and purity of a young man. The pride and innocence in those burning eyes could easily be seen.

The so-called Phoenix's brood is more than just martial arts attainment.

"You will never try to confuse me, nor will you try to harm anyone else."

Xue Meng finished with a gasp and drew his long sword with a jerk

Pinching Willow burst into a foul-smelling burst of blood, and as he died, his consciousness returned to his body, and his hostility suddenly died away.

He covered his chest, barely steadying his shaky body, raised his face and opened his mouth, no sound but the shape of his mouth was clearly discernible.

"Thank you for stopping me."

The Pinching Willow is a spirit of the ancient world, and its power is equal to that of the Ancestor Sword. The Ancestor's Sword in Xue Meng's hand also lost its light, and was suddenly dulled.

And at the same time, the 10,000-year-old tree spirit scattered with a bang.

In a flash, ten thousand points of light scattered into the water waves, like fireflies, circling and dancing around the crowd, the light flowing, the golden light shining brightly, eventually fading away one by one and disappearing.

Shi Mei said, "Young master, come here, it's going to collapse."

The earth trembles and cannot stay long.

Xue Meng turned back, took one last look at Shenwu Arsenal and, with a clang, threw down the damaged Patriarch's sword and abandoned it. In his wake, the bricks and tiles collapsed like snow crumbling.