Chapter 373 : Scattered Ashes
While the Little Swan Goose was enjoying herself in the legacy space, forgetting about returning, the group outside—including Jiang Mo—had grown rather anxious with waiting.
During the half-month period, Qingyu had found time to heal her wounds, finally escaping her awkward immobility. Zhu Baiyi was quite pleased about this, but rather than becoming more restrained, she grew even more clingy with Qingyu. Having shared hardships in the underground world for a year, from Jiang Mo's outsider perspective, the relationship between the two had clearly softened considerably. Occasionally when Zhu Baiyi behaved excessively, Qingyu's annoyance seemed half-hearted.
Watching others being affectionate while she remained alone, Jiang Mo felt increasingly pitiful. After waiting for nearly half a month, she finally couldn't bear it anymore and approached Zhu Baiyi: "Senior Sister has been gone for so long, and we don't know if she's safe. Shouldn't we do something?"
Hearing this, Qingyu took out a soul lamp and pointed to its vigorously burning flame, saying to Jiang Mo: "This is Qingyue's soul lamp kept at the sect. When you and Qingyue fell into the dry well back then, we used this to assess the situation. From what we can see now, Qingyue is indeed experiencing an opportunity, not facing any danger... at least there appears to be no danger at present. Jianbing need not worry too much."
Hearing this, Jiang Mo stared at the soul lamp repeatedly, relieved yet still conflicted—even knowing Senior Sister was safe for now, they hadn't been separated since her nirvana rebirth. Being apart for so long now, Jiang Mo simply couldn't feel at ease no matter what.
Zhu Baiyi could see this and suddenly suggested: "Why don't we try again?"
Jiang Mo paused, unable to react: "Try what?"
Zhu Baiyi then looked up toward the sky, not at the perpetually gloomy sky overhead, but focusing her gaze on the spot where the Little Swan Goose had disappeared. She said softly: "Try to see if there are other legacies, or try to see if we can enter?"
Hearing this, Jiang Mo felt momentarily tempted but quickly dismissed the idea, shaking her head: "Let's not. Senior Sister is still inside. What if our rash actions trigger something that affects the stability of the space inside? Wouldn't that bring disaster upon Senior Sister? Besides, how could legacies be clustered together? This is Senior Sister's opportunity; we shouldn't interfere."
Her words sounded reasonable at first, but Zhu Baiyi and Qingyu clearly didn't quite agree. Setting aside other considerations, just looking at the disturbance created when Jiang Mo and Zhu Baiyi had jointly opened that legacy space earlier, it was evident that they couldn't destabilize the space merely with their power.
Furthermore, while legacies rarely clustered together, it depended on the location—this ruin was the burial ground chosen by the cultivation world for demonic creatures, inherently desolate and remote, and actually an extremely inauspicious place. However, this inauspiciousness had limited effect on demonic creatures; rather, the cultivators who came later to eliminate demons were more affected. If they wanted to leave legacies, they would have had to carefully select locations.
In that case, the available positions would be fewer, and perhaps the legacies might indeed be clustered?
Of course, these were just speculations, and Jiang Mo didn't dare risk Yun Qingyue's safety. Seeing this, Zhu Baiyi and Qingyu didn't mention it further. Though their injuries had largely recovered, they still had many latent injuries from their year underground that needed time for treatment and recuperation, so they weren't exactly idle either.
Only Jiang Mo was idle. With nothing to do, she could only wait and hope day after day, nearly turning herself into a stone statue waiting for her wife...
༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺
Inside the bamboo house in the legacy space, the Little Swan Goose was extremely vigilant, but her intimidation attempt had failed and instead amused the person.
The shadow laughed out loud. Seeing the fledgling completely bristle, the shadow suddenly reached out and brushed over her head: "Alright, don't be angry. How can such a little child have such a big temper?" After a pause, the shadow added: "Bristling like that isn't pretty."
Mysteriously, when the shadow's hand passed over her head, all negative emotions in the Little Swan Goose's heart vanished without a trace. She deflated like a punctured balloon, and upon hearing the shadow's comment about "not being pretty," she immediately folded her outstretched wings back in. Afterward, she even specifically groomed her feathers, as if this would make her appear more beautiful.
The shadow laughed again, and after laughing, its gaze fell on the Little Swan Goose again: "I really didn't expect..."
The words were suddenly cut short halfway, and despite her wariness toward the shadow, the Little Swan Goose couldn't help but look up. With her head tilted, she looked somewhat adorable, her beautiful phoenix eyes clearly expressing urgency: Don't leave sentences unfinished!
The shadow understood but had no intention of continuing. Suddenly, it reached out and placed a finger on the Little Swan Goose's forehead—warm white light emerged from the point of contact. The Little Swan Goose instinctively wanted to struggle, but not only could she not move, many things suddenly rushed into her mind, making her momentarily dizzy and unconsciously close her eyes.
In the final moment before closing her eyes, the Little Swan Goose didn't forget to glare "fiercely" at the shadow before her, while simultaneously forming one last thought: if this shadow harbored ill intentions toward her, she would definitely make it pay!
Perhaps this thought was too intense, because another tuft of deep blue flame sprouted from between the Little Swan Goose's brows, immediately entwining around the shadow's hand.
It was the Ice Flame. As soon as it appeared, it froze everything around it. Frost immediately spread throughout the dim main room, not to mention the shadow that was in direct contact with it. However, seeing this formidable Ice Flame, the shadow merely let out a light "Oh?" and didn't move at all, only raising its other hand to gently cover the burning hand. That bone-chillingly cold Ice Flame was so easily extinguished.
The Little Swan Goose seemed to sense something, her body trembling slightly, but the shadow didn't do anything else. Instead, the white light from the fingertip touching the Little Swan Goose's forehead grew stronger. The Little Swan Goose never opened her eyes, but if she could look, she would have discovered that the shadow before her had become increasingly illusory.
༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺
Time passed slowly yet quickly, unnoticed.
Perhaps it was just an instant, or perhaps much time had passed, but the shadow standing before the Little Swan Goose was no longer in its original place. The Little Swan Goose, who had been receiving with closed eyes, had experienced something unknown, and after a long while, finally opened her eyes.
A gleam of light flashed through her slender, beautiful phoenix eyes. When the Little Swan Goose first opened her eyes, she was completely lucid, but this lucidity didn't last long, soon covered by confusion again. She shook her head, even humanly raising her wing to pat her head, feeling that something had been added to her mind, yet unable to remember what it was for the moment.
After a good while, the Little Swan Goose finally noticed her surroundings and recalled what had happened earlier—she immediately bristled, vigilantly scanning around, searching for the shadow's whereabouts.
Fortunately, though the room was somewhat dim, it wasn't too dark to see. The Little Swan Goose quickly spotted the shadow in a corner of the room.
Recalling how the other had suddenly "ambushed" her earlier, anger immediately surged in the Little Swan Goose's heart. She spread her wings and chirped several times at the figure. The sound was crisp and childish yet fierce, clearly cursing.
But this time the shadow showed no reaction. It neither laughed nor soothed the Little Swan Goose, and didn't even move at all.
The Little Swan Goose continued grumbling for quite a while, thinking the other was feeling guilty, and immediately felt quite smug. But performing a monologue eventually grew tiresome. She chirped a few more times, and seeing the other still motionless, she strode over with a defiant gait.
She wasn't afraid of anything now, or perhaps instinctively felt after the previous encounter that the shadow bore her no ill will. So she charged forward aggressively to pick a fight, only to discover up close that it was a large, fluffy mass—she immediately halted, inexplicably feeling somewhat fearful, for no other reason than this large pile of fluff looked somewhat familiar.
Indeed, this large pile of fluff was clearly a collection of huge fox tails, extremely similar to those of her birth mother. And not long ago, her unreliable birth mother had nearly smothered her with those tails!
The Little Swan Goose felt uneasy at this thought and was no longer eager to approach. She chirped a couple more times, but there was still no response from the other side.
Fine, no response meant no response, they weren't acquainted anyway... the Little Swan Goose thought as she turned to leave. The doors and windows that she couldn't find when she first entered the bamboo house had now clearly appeared, making leaving easy.
However, just as she was waddling to the door, she suddenly remembered something—right, her purpose in flying to this bamboo house wasn't for any legacy; she just wanted to leave. After all this trouble, she could walk out of the bamboo grove, but how would she leave this legacy space?!
The Little Swan Goose stopped in her tracks, looking around in confusion, and had no choice but to go back. As the only entity she'd encountered who might communicate, she could only continue chirping questions at the shadow: Hey, do you know how to get out?
The shadow remained motionless and didn't answer. After asking twice, the Little Swan Goose finally lost patience and flapped her wing against one of the fox tails.
She didn't use much force, just wanting to remind the other of her presence. However, after her wing struck, the fox tail seemed to have suffered a heavy blow, immediately turning to ash and scattering away piece by piece.
The Little Swan Goose was frightened and stepped back, then watched wide-eyed as the destruction spread inch by inch, from one fox tail to the entire pile. Before long, the shadow before her had completely turned to ashes...