Chapter 56: Curtain Falls

Suddenly, the wind and clouds shifted dramatically, and a sea of blazing flames lit up the pitch-black night sky.

Qingzhi shielded the badly injured, shrunken fire phoenix cradled in her arms and glanced back. All she saw were raging infernos that seemed intent on scorching the heavens themselves—these were the Nine-Headed Bird’s innate flames.

The pair had traveled nearly a hundred miles from Fog Moon Shoal when the flames erupted. Even at that distance, they felt the scorching heat wave rolling in from afar.

As another ancient bloodline with an affinity for fire, the little phoenix sensed the disturbance behind them. Moments later, a tiny, fully crimson phoenix poked its head out from the collar of Qingzhi’s robes and let out a sharp chirp.

“A Si and the others… they should be able to handle it, right?” Qingzhi murmured hesitantly, looking down at the small fire phoenix in her arms.

Even as she said it, she felt a pang of guilt. Shang Si, Lin Xiao, and the rest were all seriously wounded. Lu Shiyuan had returned with unfathomable strength, but in a situation like this, it was hard not to worry.

Yet Qin Xinying was in no state to even maintain her human form. If Qingzhi turned back now, the poor bird’s life might well end right there.

Lu Shiyuan herself had told them to go on ahead.

With that in mind, Qingzhi gritted her teeth and pressed on toward Yedu.

Soon, her figure vanished into the vast darkness of the night.

Half an hour later, another figure raced back from the direction in which she had disappeared, startling insects and birds into flight as it sped straight toward Fog Moon Shoal.

By now, the flames that had blanketed the sky were dying down from their initial fury, on the verge of extinguishing entirely.

Fog Moon Shoal and its surroundings remained lit as bright as day. Even the thick fog that perpetually hung over the shoal had been burned away clean by the inferno.

At last, everyone could behold the shoal’s true form. Peering down from above, they saw that beneath the mist lay a crescent-shaped wetland. But the extreme heat from the flames had scorched every bit of vegetation bare, leaving nothing but barren earth.

By the time Qingzhi arrived, the great battle had already concluded. A few mindless grudge spirits still drifted about, only to be swiftly cut down by cultivators from various sects.

It didn’t look like there had been heavy casualties.

But… something was off about the atmosphere?

Qingzhi glanced puzzledly at Lin Xiao nearby. His pristine white robes were scorched and tattered. Strangely, the usually carefree and irreverent ancestor of the Kunlun Sect had bloodshot eyes.

He wasn’t the only one. All the cultivators and great demons who had come today from the various sects shared the same grim demeanor.

In the crescent curve of the shoal, at the center of the depression that had once held the lake, Qingzhi found Shang Si.

The fire had boiled the lake dry. What was once Fog Moon Lake was now just a massive dirt crater. Shang Si stood at its heart, staring blankly at the Azure Frost Sword plunged into the ground there.

Only upon seeing the sword did Qingzhi realize she hadn’t spotted Lu Shiyuan anywhere along the way.

A foreboding thought suddenly struck her.

“A Si… where’s Miss Lu?”

The events at Fog Moon Shoal that day spread across the Three Realms in a matter of days. Whether it was the proud noble houses of the Demon Realm, boasting their pure bloodlines, or the righteous sects of the Mortal Realm who preached demon extermination and scorned Yedu, they all fell silent and donned mourning garb.

From that day forward, no one dared to speak ill of Ye Lord Shang Si behind her back. After this calamity, all that remained in people’s hearts for Yedu was respect.

There was one other person they would never forget.

Lu Shiyuan—a woman who had risen from a third-rate sect with extraordinary talent. She had shot into the heavens like a meteor, earning the awe of all, only to plummet into the dark night.

Most who witnessed the blaze at Fog Moon Shoal endured the long night and greeted the dawn. Lu Shiyuan did not.

Some called her the light of humanity. Others said she was an immortal descended from the heavens, the one who had saved the Three Realms from disaster and averted the impending catastrophe.

The outside world buzzed with speculation of every kind.

But Shang Si, Lu Shiyuan’s closest companion, had returned from Fog Moon Shoal that day and shut herself away with the Azure Frost Sword, refusing to see anyone.

For two full months, from sunrise to sunset, from starlit skies to blazing noon, day after day.

Amid the haze of grief, Yedu welcomed a rare and long-absent guest.

It was the esteemed senior who had accompanied Shang Si for years atop Cold Mountain Summit, only to vanish without a trace—now reappearing quietly in the city.

Her features bore seven or eight parts resemblance to Lu Shiyuan’s, so much so that when Qingzhi, Nan Jin, and the others first laid eyes on her, they thought Lu Shiyuan had come back to life.

Only Shang Si, when Pu Yin was brought before her, recognized her at once. “You’re… Pu Yin?”

“Good to see you again, A Si. It’s been years since we parted ways at the Cold Mountain Courtyard, and you look so different from the girl I remember.” Her temperament was utterly unlike Lu Shiyuan’s, despite their shared features. Pu Yin smiled faintly, a touch of nostalgia softening her expression as she spoke.

After enduring Mei Meng’s illusions, where truth and falsehood blurred into one, Shang Si couldn’t tell if she was hallucinating once more or lost in a dream.

In any case, it didn’t feel real.

That changed only when the attendants withdrew from either side of the hall. A beautiful little bird with iridescent seven-colored feathers fluttered out from Pu Yin’s wide sleeve.

At the sight, Shang Si’s heart clenched for reasons she couldn’t name.

Before she could speak, Pu Yin’s voice cut in with an explanation. “She wanted to see you, so I brought her.”

No one else remained in the hall but the two of them. The “she” Pu Yin mentioned could only refer to the exquisite bird perched before them.

Just as vivid in her memory, the lovely seven-colored bird emerged from the sleeve, circled the hall once, and finally settled gently into Shang Si’s palm.

It bobbed its head this way and that, letting out occasional chirps.

A rare smile flickered in Shang Si’s eyes. She reached out to stroke the bird’s head. “Is this A Jin? Or… perhaps just one of A Jin’s descendants?”

Millennia had passed, transforming seas into mulberry fields. A Jin had been an ordinary bird—could she truly have lived this long?

Deep down, Shang Si sensed this was the very companion from her past. Yet reason insisted otherwise.

Pu Yin’s reply shattered her doubts. “She is A Jin.”

She spoke with unwavering certainty. In the brief span of their conversation, the bird had already flitted from Shang Si’s palm to her shoulder, nuzzling affectionately against her cheek.

A sensation both alien and achingly familiar welled up in Shang Si’s heart.

Only then did Pu Yin finish her interrupted thought. “She is A Jin, and Lu Shiyuan… Of course, she is also the sole immortal who survived the Immortal Realm’s fall all those years ago.”

Back then, in the Immortal Realm, there had been an unremarkable little bird immortal… named Yuan.