Chapter Seventy-Six: The Three-Eyed Crow

As soon as Su Bai stepped into the Suppressing Evil Tower, the massive vermilion doors slammed shut behind him with a thunderous crash, sealing perfectly. Inside, it was pitch black, devoid of any light; Su Bai could only rely on the guidance provided by the Azure Dragon: keep walking forward, eyes fixed straight ahead.

At this moment, Su Bai acutely felt the difficulty of each step. From both sides, voices wailed, seduced, or roared in anger, making it feel as though he had entered a lair of malicious ghosts.

A furious roar, as mighty as a tiger's growl and a dragon's bellow, erupted directly ahead, sweeping toward him like a violent gale. The human-skin mask on Su Bai's face was torn apart, revealing a glimpse of his true features. His clothes fared no better, shredded until he was half-naked. Whiplike marks streaked his flesh, shallow but bleeding, carved by the cutting wind.

Su Bai grunted in pain, nearly screaming aloud, his body collapsing from a standing posture to a crawl. At this point, he was tempted to retreat, turning to look back at the blackness where the door had been.

But after a moment's thought, he dismissed the idea. “If I turn back now, that's courting death. The vice sect master will never open that door for me. Better to risk everything and seek that sliver of hope.”

Clinging to the ground, Su Bai gritted his teeth and crawled forward. With each inch he advanced, the wind lashed ever more mercilessly, flaying flesh from bone. The pain, already barely endurable, multiplied several times, halting his progress. Looking down at his own claw-like, flayed hands, Su Bai’s face instead relaxed.

Suddenly, he stood up, letting the fierce wind strip away his flesh and organs. Eventually, he could no longer even feel his body. Only his soul remained, treading forward on the pitch-black path.

Then, the scene before him shifted again.

Either side of the dark road now bloomed with flowers. Su Qing and Yu Nian Ci stood nearby, smiling and calling his name, while Gu Fanshuang, on the other side, cradled a child in her arms. More beautiful than ever, she now radiated a mature charm; her happy smile could stir any man’s heart.

“What a cliché trick. It can’t be this easy to pass this trial,” Su Bai thought. He was no fool; he wouldn’t be so easily deceived by such a simple illusion.

Sure enough, as soon as this thought crossed his mind, the scene changed again. Gone was the warmth. Now, Hua Wenkai sat on a dark golden throne, eyeing Su Bai with amusement, left hand caressing a lost jade ring, right hand playing with a silken cord.

“Well, well, so the young master has finally been found by yours truly. I must say, this unexpected surprise genuinely caught me off guard.”

Su Bai looked at the “Hua Wenkai” before him, somewhat impatient. “Impressive imitation, but too bad you didn’t wipe my memory. This is amateurish. Who would walk into a trap knowing full well it’s a trap?”

“What are you talking about?” Hua Wenkai raised an eyebrow, puzzled by Su Bai’s nonsense, thinking, “Has he been scared witless?”

When the scene remained unchanged, Su Bai grew suspicious: “Could there really be some sort of teleportation system?”

“Hahaha!” Su Bai burst out laughing, while the throne-bound Hua Wenkai looked at him as if he were mad.

“Even after being exposed, you insist on continuing? That’s not easy! There’s something wrong with your own design, so stop being stubborn.”

This time, Su Bai didn’t avoid his gaze but stared directly into Hua Wenkai’s eyes, filled with scorn. “You’re not even real. Why should I be afraid of a ghost?”

“Fine, I admit it was my mistake. I’ll take it into account next time I select someone,” came Hua Wenkai’s resigned voice, parroted and unnatural, not sounding human at all.

In an instant, everything before Su Bai dissolved into nothingness, and the pitch-black path reappeared. Less than two yards away, a small black door materialized in his view.

Without hesitation, Su Bai strode toward it. Spikes and flames suddenly erupted underfoot, scorching his skin and making the scent of burnt flesh mingle with the blood streaming from his wounds.

But he ignored it all, eyes fixed forward, refusing to look at his battered body.

By the time he reached the door, no part of him was unscathed, but the pain felt as trivial as a mosquito bite.

Producing the second key, Su Bai wasted no time unlocking and entering.

Inside, the room was bare save for a massive birdcage. Within, a wooden rod about a foot long was skewered at both ends by finger-thick steel bars and hung upside down in midair.

On the rod perched a crow, eyes tightly shut.

The crow was about the size of an ordinary male raven, wholly unremarkable in appearance. An ordinary person would perceive it as nothing more than a common bird.

“Could these illusions have all been the work of this crow?” The thought sent a chill down Su Bai’s spine.

Man and bird regarded each other in silence.

“You…” Su Bai began to ask, “Who are you?” but before he could finish, a slit slowly opened on the crow’s brow, making Su Bai instinctively swallow.

“This isn’t supposed to be a world of supernatural fantasy—why is everything so bizarre?” Su Bai raged inwardly.

Yet as he stewed, the slit on the crow’s brow began to gush blood, the flow intensifying until Su Bai’s scalp prickled. The wound sprayed blood like a high-pressure hose, drenching him for the duration of an incense stick’s burning—far more than any adult should contain.

His feet squelched in the sticky blood, metallic stench thick in the air, making him nearly retch. It was even more nauseating than dissecting Ni Hanyan.

The room was like a shallow pond—not clear and bright, but a pool of crimson, black feathers drifting atop.

Suddenly, the crow ceased its bleeding and opened a single golden eye, its pupil vertical.

The instant that golden vertical pupil fixed on him, Su Bai’s body lost all sensation. His soul began to peel away from his flesh, a weightless euphoria he had never known.

But that pleasure vanished the moment he saw his own body, eyes glazed and vacant.

Before him flashed scene after scene, identical to those he had witnessed upon viewing the stone stele.

Yet now the protagonist had changed: a woman, clutching a scroll, quietly lay in a coffin. When she settled in fully, the lid snapped shut, and from the inner hall emerged a figure holding a jade pendant. She kowtowed nine times to the coffin, then gently placed the pendant atop it.

Who knows how many centuries passed; the dust-covered pendant atop the coffin suddenly began to emit a blue glow, though what transpired, no one could say.

So it went: Su Bai watched, as if reading a memoir, seeing one after another perish. Their clothing revealed they were from disparate eras, some separated by millennia, others by mere centuries.

At last, a figure appeared before Su Bai: a man carrying a heavily pregnant woman—both radiant, the man noble and heroic, the woman stunningly beautiful. They were Su Qing and Yu Nian Ci.

Next came Yu Nian Ci’s death in childbirth, and Su Qing’s desperate battle with Hua Wenkai, ultimately dying by his hand.

By now, Su Bai’s skin crawled with goosebumps; a visceral fear crept through his heart, fists clenched until his knuckles cracked.

The next scene left him utterly limp, gasping for air.

“That’s me? You must be joking. How could that possibly be me?” His rough breathing gradually steadied, but only endless doubts and self-questioning remained.

He saw himself leading a hundred thousand troops to besiege the Divine Capital, forcing the emperor to commit suicide before him—though the emperor’s face was a blur. He saw Wei Mingyuan and other formidable opponents fall one by one before him, his hands stained with blood, clutching the lifeless body of Gu Fanshuang. People pointed and whispered all around. In the end, he lay upon a marble road, laughing bitterly in a downpour, his laughter echoing through the empty palace, full of desolation.

The clearest image was of Gu Fanshuang’s defeated face, blood seeping from the corners of her mouth. All of it was more than Su Bai could bear.

“This is all utter nonsense! After all that effort, just to show me this?” Su Bai roared, and in that instant, everything shattered like glass.

He snapped his eyes open.

He moved his arms, gripping the air—yes, he was no longer in that strange state. He looked toward the spot where the three-eyed crow had been.

But the crow was gone. The rod was empty, and the floor was spotless—no blood, no feathers.

As confusion consumed him, the three-eyed crow reappeared above, staring down imperiously, as if regarding an ant.

“You’re right in your guess—this is indeed your fate. And those you saw before, that was their fate. Like you, every one of them believed their destiny would not play out as foretold. Yet all left, one by one, as destiny dictated.”

“But I didn’t die in the end,” Su Bai protested.

The crow circled above, then settled on the original rod, speaking to Su Bai: “Those others saw their entire lives in detail, while you only glimpsed a fragment. As for why you did not die in the vision, the answer is simple.”

The crow paused, its gaze upon Su Bai growing curious. “It’s because two, or perhaps more, people were willing to trade their own fortune to extend your life. Originally, you were meant to die in the end, but this external influence changed your fate. I know only that your father paved a path for you, though he alone wasn’t enough. As for the other two, I do not know, but they must be among those you saw.”

“And there’s one more thing you should have noticed.” The crow spread its wings. “You are not the chosen of this world’s fate, but among your enemies is one who is—a child of destiny, your calamity and your stepping stone. I cannot tell you his name, but I can offer you a warning.”

Su Bai could not take in the crow’s torrent of theories all at once; he had always believed fate was an illusion, that so-called destiny was mere nonsense. Yet Su Qing’s actual death, his own journey through multiple provinces to the Blood River Pavilion, and even his duel with the bandit leader—all these scenes had vividly appeared before his eyes.

“What kind of sorcery is this?” Su Bai demanded of the three-eyed crow, enunciating each word.

But the crow did not stop for the protests of an insignificant man. “If you cannot exercise the utmost caution, you will perish utterly in this contest of fate. What you saw was merely the optimal path, but reality is ever-changing. If you truly wish to alter your fate, you could find a cage now and let someone inside kill you. Don’t worry, they would all smile and gladly oblige. That would be one way to break my prophecy.”

“But if my destiny was already set from birth, why should I strive so hard?” Su Bai’s voice was now hoarse, genuinely unable to comprehend why the three-eyed crow was so certain he would follow the visions step by step.

The crow watched Su Bai’s hysterics without a trace of pity, only turning its head aside with calm indifference.

“I’ve said all I need to say. If you don’t believe me, so be it. When fate descends, you’ll realize your resistance is useless and feeble. I appear once every hundred years, and this time it is partly because of your father’s request. Pity—you are still far inferior to your father. But perhaps you have yet to endure true hardship; your mind is not yet tempered.”

With that, the crow closed its three eyes and fell silent.

As the crow’s three eyes shut, Su Bai jerked awake.

He gulped in the air.

Reaching forward, his hand grasped something cold and solid—the great door of the Suppressing Evil Tower.

“Have I been lying here all along?” Su Bai stared blankly toward the end of the corridor: there was no little black door, only a solid wall.

Suddenly his right arm itched. Rolling up his sleeve, he discovered a golden vertical pupil branded on his forearm. Just one glance left him dizzy.

Su Bai dropped his gaze, dazed, and stood unsteadily. “Was it all real? Was everything the crow said true?”

Creak—

The vermilion doors slowly opened.

A familiar figure appeared before him: her hair disheveled, her face pale. In the freezing winter, she wore only a thin shirt, running through the snow, calling, “Ming Li!”

When Su Bai stared at her in shock, she seemed to sense his gaze, turned, and upon seeing the one she worried for, broke into a radiant smile. She rushed to him, heedless of the step ahead, long in disrepair and unable to bear her weight.

“Watch your step!” Su Bai shouted a warning, dashing toward Gu Fanshuang.

“Ah!”

Just as Gu Fanshuang was about to fall, Su Bai caught her in his arms. Feeling the coldness of her small hand, he could no longer hold back his tears.

He clutched her tightly, sobbing aloud.

“What’s happened?” Gu Fanshuang asked, alarmed. She’d tossed and turned with worry for Su Bai, leaving without even a coat to search for him. She had not expected to find him at the Suppressing Evil Tower.

“It’s nothing, I just missed you,” Su Bai choked out between sobs.

His transparent lie fooled no one, least of all Gu Fanshuang. Yet she seemed not the least bit angry, but rather patted his back gently, feigning annoyance with motherly tenderness. “What a big boy you are, still crying like this. Aren’t you afraid people will laugh at you?”

Su Bai did not reply, but bit his lip and vowed inwardly: “I will never lose you. Even if I must die a thousand times, I will not let you die before my eyes!”

“Gu Fanshuang, I will protect you with my life. I give you my word!”