Chapter 52: If Not Me, Then Who

The mingled scents of blood and ink lingered in the rear courtyard, refusing to dissipate. Though the monstrous inky apparition that had blotted out the sky had vanished into nothingness, the courtyard itself lay in ruins—collapsed walls and shattered barriers, devastation as far as the eye could see.

Shangguan Chuci’s heart was in turmoil, her ears ringing incessantly as she stared, dazed, at the back of the young man before her. A moment ago, she had tentatively called out to him, but her voice, like a stone cast into the sea, received not the slightest response from Lu Chenyuan.

Just then, the sound of footsteps echoed nearby. Shen Guizhou and Han Lin, leading the only three surviving guards, burst forth from the far end of the inn. Each bore fresh wounds and was spattered with blood—testament to the brutal price the battle had exacted.

The instant Shen Guizhou appeared, his gaze fell upon Shangguan Chuci. Seeing that she, though injured, was ultimately unharmed, a trace of relief flickered across his perpetually stern visage. He exhaled deeply, stepped forward, and was about to speak when his eyes abruptly froze, fixed on the figure standing before Shangguan Chuci.

The youth stood with his back to them, tall and straight, yet a gaping wound the size of a bowl marred his chest, the hole piercing straight through. Within, flesh and sinew writhed and wove together as if alive.

Judging by his attire and shape, there could be no doubt—it was Lu Chenyuan.

Shen Guizhou’s voice trembled with alarm. “Young Master Lu, he… what has happened to him?”

Seeing their battered state, Shangguan Chuci felt a stab of pain in her heart. She did not reply, only raised a hand in a silent gesture, bidding them not to approach. Her bright eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she asked hoarsely, “And what of Daoist Master Li?”

A flash of unwillingness passed through Shen Guizhou’s eyes as he replied gravely, “That fiend is cunning beyond measure. Though I and the newly arrived Demon Suppression Bureau managed to deal him a grievous blow, he used the chaos to escape. The Bureau’s men have gone after him.”

“And the others?” Shangguan Chuci pressed.

A deep and bitter sorrow crossed Han Lin’s face. He shook his head slowly, and through clenched teeth forced out three words.

“Killed in battle.”

Shangguan Chuci trembled and fell silent. In this world, human life was truly worth less than grass.

When she had resolved to come to Zhenhai Chuan, she had prepared herself to clash with the demonic cult’s dark tide, but the carnage had far exceeded her expectations.

She could not help but question herself—had she been wrong to decide this?

As her heart surged with emotion, Lu Chenyuan’s rigid body suddenly began to turn.

“Be careful!”

Han Lin barked a sharp warning, drawing his weapon along with the three guards, all staring warily at the youth as if facing a mortal enemy.

Shen Guizhou too crouched, the flow of his energies gathering, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

At this moment, Lu Chenyuan bore none of the delicate bearing he once had. From his right arm down, half his body had transformed into something inhuman—dark scales, writhing tendrils, myriad demonic eyes—an overwhelming evil aura coiled about him, barely restrained. His blue eyes were icy and lifeless, devoid of emotion.

Within the gruesome wound in his chest, innumerable fleshy tendrils multiplied madly, as if a demon from hell were clawing its way back to the mortal realm.

Han Lin, chilled to the bone, stammered, “Young Master Lu… has he fallen to the Path?”

Though reason told him that Lu Chenyuan, an ordinary man unable to perceive the demonic tide, could not possibly have undergone such a fall, the sight before him allowed no other explanation.

Shangguan Chuci stared at his familiar yet alien face, shaking her head in bewildered pain.

“I… I don’t know…”

Lu Chenyuan looked at her, lips moving as if to speak, but only guttural, inhuman sounds escaped his throat.

Seeing the shock and sorrow on her face, he instinctively looked down at himself. Even he, with all his resolve, was shaken to the core. A gaping hole yawned in his chest, the faint pulse of organs visible within. The inhuman energy surged from his right arm, rapidly spreading through his body, transforming his skin to cold, dark scales wherever it passed.

“So… it’s finally my turn, is it?” he thought, a confusion mingled now with regret.

He would never see his master again.

Yet within that regret was a sliver of solace. Looking at Shangguan Chuci, he whispered in his heart:

“At least… I protected her. The price was only this life, this body… it was worth it.”

That thought brought him a measure of peace. He moved his lips, and though Shangguan Chuci could not hear his words, she could just make out, from the shape of them:

“Go… quickly…”

But she could only stare at him, stubborn and unwilling, her beautiful eyes ablaze with defiance. She sensed that his humanity had not yet been wholly devoured; there must be a way, there must…

Her mind spun furiously, racing through everything she had ever learned—in this world or the other—searching for anything that might help.

“It’s too late!”

Shen Guizhou’s shout cut the air. “My lady, fall back! The boy is lost—if we hesitate, disaster will follow!”

“No!” Shangguan Chuci cried.

He sighed deeply. “If you cannot bear it, I will wait for the Bureau to arrive and handle him. But if they are too late, and he becomes a full-blown abomination, how many more will die in vain?”

Her heart shook violently. She recalled the cultivator who had fallen in the street that day, remembered the Bureau’s thunderous methods, and looked at the youth before her, now on the verge of losing all control…

In that instant, the breathing technique of the Demon Suppression Bureau—the “Purity Sutra” that unified mind, energy, and spirit—as well as the strange method Lu Chenyuan had likely inherited from his unfathomable master, both flashed through her mind.

“Hey, have you looked enough yet?”

That slightly embarrassed remark surfaced in her memory.

“He’s never seen the moon over the sea, the stones beneath the tide, all the myriad sights of this world,” she’d said. “But I wonder, what is it about my feet that holds your gaze so intently?”

She suddenly recalled that night by the shore, when Lu Chenyuan had looked at her feet and said, in all seriousness:

“In those days, they were the only thing alive to me.

The moonlight on them was alive. The spray around your ankles was alive. Even the way your toes curled was alive.

They made me feel that this sick world wasn’t all that hopeless.”

In a flash, she felt she had found the crucial key.

Perhaps to resist this abyssal madness and death, what mattered was not the sword, but the purest spark of humanity.

What was humanity?

What could she do now to let Lu Chenyuan feel the beauty of being human?

“Uncle Shen,” she said suddenly, her voice not loud but carrying a resolve that would not be denied by a thousand men,

“No matter what I do next, do not be alarmed, and above all, do not stop me.”