HCAW 142

Chapter 142: A Way Through the Sea of Suffering

The Tianfu Guard could not understand how things had come to this.

He recalled the past: when Penglai began to turn cold, he had followed Emperor Bai on an expedition, only to discover that Xian Mountain is trapped behind a wall of ice. Already located at the convergence of a hundred rivers, they exhausted themselves but could not break free of that prison. When the army returned to the capital, they found the commoners already in chaos from the devastation of the frost. Amid the uprising, they fled in panic, passing through Zhenhai Pass, which was forged from Taoyuan stone, only to discover that beyond the gate lay countless worlds, different from one another. From then on, they wandered like a lost ship across these myriad realms, yet found nowhere to anchor.

The Emperor Bai of the first lifetime had watched Xian Mountain fall repeatedly and, disheartened, had long since settled in Guixi. The second lifetime’s Emperor Bai, after so many grievous injuries and excessive consumption of Immortal Elixir, had grown muddled and confused about the pursuit of the Peach Source. Now the Tianfu Guard himself felt his body burning like fire—he knew the Immortal Elixir was eating away at him, and that he had little time left.

Were they truly out of roads to take? The Tianfu Guard sat alone beside the campfire, jaw clenched, fists tightly gripped.

Ever since proposing the idea of Da Yuan Dao, Emperor Bai had been full of energy, often running off alone to tinker with unknown matters. The Tianfu Guard was deeply worried. Though the idea of founding a sect sounded fine, throughout history, believers had always been most vulnerable to manipulation by those with ulterior motives. The Tianfu Guard had once voiced his anxiety to Emperor Bai:

“If, a hundred years from now, we’re dead and gone, and the followers are incited to harm the realm—what then?”

Emperor Bai’s gaze was dark and his argument sharp: “In that case, we’ll simply consume more Immortal Elixir. Then we shall live long and guard the sect ourselves. There’ll be no need to worry.” He added, “With just the two of us, it may indeed be difficult to find ‘Peach Source.’ We’ll need the strength of many minds. Founding Da Yuan Dao is essential!”

The Tianfu Guard saw his increasingly strange behavior and grew ever more uneasy. By now, Emperor Bai’s body was as black as coal. At times, when he moved with effort, pieces of flesh would crumble away. The damage caused by Immortal Elixir was starting to show. But after so many years rushing between stone gates, constantly wounded and weary, they had no time to rest. They depended on it. The Tianfu Guard knew—they were drinking poison to quench their thirst.

One day, the Tianfu Guard walked into the tent and was shocked to see Emperor Bai standing in a daze, one hand gripping the other. At his feet lay several broken finger joints.

“Your Majesty! What’s happened to you…” The Tianfu Guard’s heart jolted. He rushed over.

Emperor Bai gave a pale smile. “It’s nothing. Just that the body isn’t holding up well.” That smile sent a chill down the Tianfu Guard’s spine. Then Emperor Bai added, in a warm tone, “Don’t mind my fingers—they may have fallen off, but I can still grip with my hand!”

Only then did the Tianfu Guard see that the skin on the Emperor’s wrist had peeled away, revealing a black, mud-like appendage beneath. Worse yet, there were cracks along his cheek—within them, glittered several tiny, multicolored eyes, blinking rapidly as they stared at him. The Tianfu Guard was terrified. Emperor Bai now resembled the Gu Bi Guard they had once seen—slowly losing all human form.

“What’s wrong, Minsheng?” Emperor Bai noticed his pale lips and asked, concerned.

The Tianfu Guard said nothing. He lowered his eyes, his lips trembling. After a long while, he finally said:

“…It’s nothing.”

In the days that followed, the Tianfu Guard watched as Emperor Bai declined toward the end.

Corrupted by the Immortal Elixir, Emperor Bai’s body had become grotesque—his flesh rotted like sludge, tentacles burst through his skin, and his face sprouted a dense cluster of eyes. Yet he showed not the slightest concern. The Tianfu Guard brought him a cloak to hide his features, but was harshly scolded:

“Am I not still the Son of Heaven with the face of a dragon? What is there to be ashamed of? Truly, I look this way because I took all that Immortal Elixir to save you—and Xian Mountain. And now you turn from me in disgust? That’s disheartening!”

The Tianfu Guard’s heart ached. It was true—Emperor Bai had become this way for his sake, and for Xian Mountain’s. In his spare time, the Tianfu Guard embroidered a peach blossom pattern onto the Emperor’s cloak. When Emperor Bai saw it, he lit up like a child, draped the cloak over his shoulders, and declared proudly, “If we ever found our sect, this will be our insignia! I’ll be the sect master—you’ll be the guardian. We’ll sew a great banner and wave it from the city walls every day!”

The Tianfu Guard watched his ecstatic gestures, tentacles flailing wildly, and felt a lump rise in his throat. Suddenly, Emperor Bai noticed the sorrow in his eyes and quietly lowered his arms.

That night, the two sat by the fire together.

Emperor Bai rummaged through his satchel and pulled out two birch-bark cups. He filled them with wild reed wine, and the two shared a toast. The Tianfu Guard couldn’t hold his liquor and quickly became tipsy. At that moment, he saw Emperor Bai suddenly regain a rare moment of clarity. He smiled and said:

“Minsheng, after thinking long and hard, I believe… you should pass through the Taoyuan stone gate once more—and go find another me.”

The Tianfu Guard was struck dumb, watching Emperor Bai lower his head. From the cracks along his cheek, several tiny iridescent eyes blinked rapidly—utterly unnatural—yet his gaze was lucid, and his tone calm: “I know I’ve taken too much Immortal Elixir. I’m no longer like an ordinary man. If you continue traveling with me, I fear I’ll only hold you back. I too wish to settle somewhere, quietly nurture some followers. We each have our own pursuits. It would be better if we part ways and follow our separate paths.”

“What are you saying, Your Majesty?” The Tianfu Guard paled in an instant, sobering at once. He lunged before him. “Your servant has no separate pursuit from Your Majesty! We share a single desire—to find a Penglai where the snow has melted and ice has thawed. It is my duty to remain by your side. How could I simply walk away?”

At that moment, he felt a cold touch at his wrist—a pitch-black tentacle had slithered over. Emperor Bai had grabbed him. Though the Tianfu Guard showed no fear, his body shivered slightly. Emperor Bai noticed and smiled: “See? You’re still afraid of how I look now.”

“I’m not,” the Tianfu Guard said stubbornly. Emperor Bai looked at him sorrowfully and laughed softly. “Though I no longer look human, I’ve never once regretted it. Without the Immortal Elixir, we would never have endured so many stone gates. But my mind grows duller by the day. Who knows when I’ll become a monster and turn against you?”

“I’ve taken plenty of Immortal Elixir too. Someday I’ll look just like you. Then the two of us—two monsters with fourteen eyes and eighteen legs—will make quite the matching pair.”

Emperor Bai burst out laughing. “You talk nothing but nonsense!” The two looked into each other’s eyes—four clear gazes meeting—and for a moment, they remembered the days of their youth. Back then there was no snow, no rituals or rank, just two whole, unscarred hearts. After a short laugh, Emperor Bai lowered his eyes, finished the dregs of his wine, and slowly said:

“But you are the Morning Star—the one who lights the way for ten thousand ages. I… I am a sun already set. I’m not worth your guidance. Go find another me. He’ll be better than this one.”

A surge of emotions rose in the Tianfu Guard’s chest—indescribable and formless. He reached out and gently touched Emperor Bai’s cheek. In the past, he would never have dared such a thing, for it defied the decorum of monarch and minister. But Emperor Bai did not expect him to touch this monstrous form of his. His brow eased slightly, and he did not speak a word of rebuke.

The two sat long by the fire. In the end, the Tianfu Guard gently shook his head.

“I will not abandon Your Majesty.”

Emperor Bai only smiled. “If that’s so, then how did you end up here? And where is the Emperor Bai you once served?” The Tianfu Guard thought of the first Emperor Bai, left behind in Guixi, hopeless, and pain stabbed his heart. He had abandoned him. He could not say a word.

Emperor Bai released his hand, and the black tentacle withdrew. Their eyes met—and the Tianfu Guard suddenly felt that though Emperor Bai’s pupils were dark as pitch, there was still a flicker of dying embers deep within them.

“In the end,” Emperor Bai said with a final smile, one as painful as a wound split across the face, “you are not my Tianfu Guard. And I… am not your Emperor Bai.”

That late-night conversation pressed on the Tianfu Guard’s heart like a stone, so heavy he couldn’t eat or sleep in peace afterward. The black-winged tern he had rescued in Guixi had fully recovered. One day, the Tianfu Guard carried it outside the tent and set it free. His mood had been heavy as lead these days, and this was one of the rare moments he felt slightly unburdened. But the tern seemed especially fond of him, circling overhead and chirping incessantly.

The Tianfu Guard smiled as he looked up, waving his hand—but the tern refused to leave. Curious, he followed it. It flew to the Taoyuan stone gate and cried out without pause.

He turned back to find Emperor Bai and share this strange occurrence—but found the tent empty. The furnishings were gone. In the snow outside the tent, a single line was carved with a blade:

We part here.

The Tianfu Guard stood there for a long time without a word.

Suddenly, like a madman, he began grabbing up the tent cloth and satchels, throwing them over his shoulder. He scoured the ice wall for any trace, but Emperor Bai was nowhere to be found. Panting heavily, he returned to the Taoyuan stone gate and guessed: Emperor Bai must have left him behind and entered alone. This Emperor Bai had always cared for him and likely didn’t want him to witness his monstrous final form.

After long hesitation, the Tianfu Guard stepped into the Taoyuan stone gate.

As he crossed the gate, he was greeted by a sea of snow and mountains of ice. Jade glittered on the bare branches like piled frost—this was the Guixi era of Xian Mountain. Skeletons were heaped in drifts, frozen corpses littered the ground. The Tianfu Guard realized with shock: he had been to this world before.

This was the same Guixi he had encountered after parting from the first Emperor Bai and passing through the Taoyuan stone gate into the realm of the second Emperor Bai!

Every time he passed through a Taoyuan stone gate, he would carve characters into it with his sword as a marker. Sweeping away the snow, he found the carving still there.

How had he returned here? Suspicion filled the Tianfu Guard’s heart. He had thought the worlds beyond the Taoyuan stone gate were as countless as the sands of the river—that to set foot twice in the same one would be a miracle. That was why he had never found the first Emperor Bai again. But just then, the black-winged tern cried out and perched on his shoulder.

A sudden thought struck the Tianfu Guard:

Could this tern lead the way—take him back to a world he had once visited?

This black-billed tern had long roamed Guixi. The last one he had found had an injured wing, and he had carried it with him, nursing it back to health. According to legend, the depths of the Ming Sea were the resting place of the Great Immortal Yonghe. The waters were his blood, the fish his flesh, and the Taoyuan stone dredged from the seabed was his bone. The terns that drank that blood and fed on that flesh had gained divine nature, becoming the Immortal’s messengers. In the past, Tianfu Guard had seen Xian Mountain folk raising these birds as flying messengers, known for their uncanny ability to return home over great distances—but he hadn’t imagined they held such power.

In that moment, a sliver of sunlight pierced the gloom in his heart.

He first searched through Guixi for signs of Emperor Bai—but found nothing. Then he stepped once more through the Taoyuan stone gate with the tern, released it, and followed closely behind.

Again he saw that familiar white expanse—he had returned to Guixi. Looking back, the carved marks were still etched into the Taoyuan Stone Gate.

In that moment, joy overwhelmed him.

He now understood—he had found a way to return to worlds he had once visited. From now on, he would never be lost again.