Chapter 104: The Truth Revealed

In midair, the two stood facing one another from afar, though even without striking a blow, the outcome was already obvious.

Mingji could stand suspended in empty space without so much as drawing upon a sword, while Hansu had to expend part of her spiritual power merely to keep herself aloft. There was no sense comparing one’s weakness to another’s strength. Hansu simply descended to the ground, sheathed her spirit sword, and tightened her grip on her life-bound treasure, Suiwei, before asking, “So it was you who sent Master Mingxin. You had him come to capture me, all for the Heaven-Reaching Mirror. Then the one who rescued him was also you? But if you want me to hand over the Heaven-Reaching Mirror, how am I supposed to know which thing on me it is?”

“Heh. Little girl, don’t even think of playing cat and mouse with me. Since you know I’m the one who brought you here, how could you not know that the necklace around your neck is the Heaven-Reaching Mirror?”

Mingji covered her mouth and laughed with elegant grace, yet her expression held a savage edge. Seeing Hansu still unmoving, she finally lost patience.

Without the slightest visible exertion, she took two light steps and was already within arm’s reach. Her slender, jade-white fingers, each tipped with blazing red polish, reached out with exquisite poise, slipped past Hansu’s defense with uncanny speed and precision, and snatched the necklace that had hung at her throat for decades, perhaps centuries.

“At last, we meet again...”

She held the necklace in her palm and admired it in silence, the corners of her lips lifting in satisfaction. Then her face darkened to a ghastly green, and with a ferocious snarl she seized Hansu by the shoulder. “No! This isn’t the necklace I gave you. Where is the real one? Hand it over, now!”

Hansu’s expression did not change. As if she knew nothing at all, she said, “This necklace is the one you gave me. How can you call it a fake?”

Mingji flew into a rage. Her five fingers dug deep into Hansu’s shoulder, gouging out five bloody holes. Blood welled and streamed down her hand, yet Hansu remained utterly composed, showing not the least sign of panic.

“I made it myself. How could I fail to recognize it? Back then, after I obtained the Heaven-Reaching Mirror, I refined it into the shape of a necklace. Unexpectedly, that bald thief came to see it. To muddy the waters, I specially found the same materials and made two exact copies, placing them in two utterly different places at opposite ends of the world. The authentic one, however, I gave to you. Speak! Where did this fake come from, and where have you hidden the real one?”

She flung the necklace in her hand aside and simultaneously exerted force with both hands. From each of her ten fingers shot out a thin thread of blood, as if animated by life itself, slicing through the air toward Hansu’s head.

Hansu whirled Suiwei in front of her, and the sharp ring of impact sounded without end as she blocked all ten blood threads.

Seeing this, Mingji composed herself and focused in earnest on the fight.

After all, the disparity between their realms was immense. Even with injuries, Mingji was not someone Hansu could resist.

Suiwei was knocked to the ground, and the ten blood threads, like ropes, bound Hansu tightly. Those slender filaments kept tightening, sinking viciously into her flesh.

In an instant, Hansu looked like a person soaked in blood. And yet she showed no intention of surrendering, still stubbornly asking, “Why did you place the Heaven-Reaching Mirror with me?”

Mingji paused, then tilted her head and studied her with sudden seriousness. “I never expected you to be so soft and weak in appearance, yet still made of such hard bones. It seems that unless I tell you plainly, you will never hand it over. Very well. I’ll let you die knowing.”

She withdrew the blood threads, waved a hand with leisurely ease, and a couch appeared on the ground. Lying half-reclined upon it, she began to explain the whole affair to Hansu.

“If anyone is to blame, it can only be heaven’s will. Who told fate to choose you exactly when I needed a person like you? You know I am a demon immortal. Even after becoming an immortal, bearing the word demon means endless tribulation by thunder. Otherwise, why would I have married that fool Xuanting?”

“Later, I became pregnant... and the timing could not have been worse. I happened to be facing the thousand-year great tribulation. Even Xuanting’s thunder spiritual root was of no help. If those two layers of lightning had come down together, I would have been reduced to scorched earth.”

“Just then, I found a method for warding off thunder...”

“Something connected to the Heaven-Reaching Mirror?” Hansu’s thoughts flashed like lightning. With that one sentence, she instantly understood the source of it all. It had all been orchestrated by Mingji.

“That’s right. At that very moment, that bald thief, Liao Wu, was nearly done accumulating enough merit to ascend as a golden immortal. So I secretly made an agreement with him...”

“You had him step forward to get your husband drunk? Then coax Cloud-Transforming Immortal Lord into it?”

“Heh. Do you know what that thunder-warding method required?”

Hansu rapidly linked everything together in her mind: Heaven-Reaching Mirror, vessel spirit, Cloud-Transforming... “Could it be...” An unthinkable idea flashed through her. “You knew all along that the vessel spirit would attach itself to Immortal Lord Cloud-Transforming, and the later conversion was meant to be...”

Mingji gave her an appreciative look. “You are very clever. Exactly. The method required a person with a pure and lucid heart. Once the vessel spirit attached itself to him, the Buddhist practice of awakening the mind could refine him into the second vessel spirit of the Heaven-Reaching Mirror. And that second vessel spirit would be tied to me. In this way, when I underwent my tribulation, all the power of thunder would be absorbed by the Heaven-Reaching Mirror and borne by him.”

“If that damned Liao Wu had not ruined my great plan... If this heart method could be used only by Buddhist cultivators, why would I ever have cooperated with that treacherous wolf?”

As she spoke, hatred rose on Mingji’s face.

“So you sent Master Mingxin to the Realm of the Bodhi Tree, to abandon his name and cultivate as a Buddhist anew, all for the sake of...”

“Heh, that’s right. It was for you. You were the second person I found whose heart was pure and lucid, and you just happened to be born with the attribute of drawing thunder. In that regard, you were three parts more suitable than Cloud-Transforming. My arrangements were not wasted, nor was the divine power I spent in bringing you from another realm.”

Mingji laughed softly and seductively, covering her face with one sleeve while casting a sidelong glance at Hansu from the corner of her eye, full of delight and satisfaction.

“Pure and lucid heart... Immortal Lord Cloud-Transforming’s purity of heart was devoted entirely to you, and you repay that kindness with such ingratitude?”

At the mention of the thunder-attracting attribute, Hansu recalled the golden thunder that had inexplicably entered her body during the tribulation she once endured with Huaiyin, and she could not help but feel grateful to Lord Jade Balance in her heart. If not for the method he taught her to harness golden thunder for her own use, she did not know how many more times she would have suffered such torment.

“Little one, though you no longer have much chance left, I’ll still teach you one thing: men are not worth anything. Using him is already a favor to him.”

“You must never treat him as heaven and make yourself earth. Let him be the clouds and you the mud. One must live for oneself; heaven and earth will not tolerate otherwise. Haven’t you ever heard that?”

Hansu met her gaze steadily. “I will not make him my heaven while I become the mud beneath his feet. If he is heaven, then I shall be cloud. If he is mud, then I shall be the grass growing in the mud. The two of us leaning on each other, depending upon one another, giving ourselves for one another, with no distinction of rank and no difference of status—that is what is right.”

Mingji gave a contemptuous laugh. “Childish.”

Hansu continued, “Even if Immortal Lord Cloud-Transforming is a person with a pure and lucid heart, and even if he has you in his own heart and can shield you from tribulation thunder, why did you choose me? I have no connection to you at all, and I have never held you in my heart. I would never willingly give myself for you.”

Mingji suddenly looked up and waved a hand. A gust of wind carried Hansu beneath her couch. She extended one pale hand, lifted Hansu’s chin, and studied her face with an air of pointed meaning.

“No connection at all? Then why, after my husband was reborn, did he feel familiar the moment he saw you? Why did my son fall for you at first sight for no reason at all? Even Cloud-Transforming, after being reborn as a woman, did not also view you with special favor?”

Hansu twisted her neck hard, trying to shake off the cold hand beneath her chin. “What did you do to me?”

“Heh. That was long ago. When I refined that necklace, I dripped in a drop of my heart’s blood... You wore my heart’s blood for so many years. How could you possibly not have taken on even the faintest trace of my scent? My little substitute... Even Ling Rong fell for you...”

“So that is... why you gave me the necklace? And the thunder-warding method required me to cultivate to the divine transformation stage, so back then you told me to go to the Realm of the Bodhi Tree and find Master Mingxin only after I had broken through—so that I would walk straight into your trap... All that talk of catastrophe in the Star-Bright Realm, of falling into demonic corruption, of becoming a living hell on earth... it was all a lie, wasn’t it?”

Tears welled in Hansu’s eyes as she stared fixedly at her.

“Is that why you call yourself pure and lucid? You’re clearly so clever, and yet you are easy to deceive. It is a pity, though—such a pity that I underestimated a little girl like you. To think you could wake Ling Rong and then find all those people, all of whom had been reborn, and bring them together again. You forced me to bring the plan forward.”

“All right, the truth has been made clear. Be good and hand over the Heaven-Reaching Mirror. Once you become the vessel spirit, you will have a chance to return to your original world. Haven’t you always longed to go back?”

Mingji lazily extended one hand and held it out before Hansu, as though certain she would surrender it.

“I gave the Heaven-Reaching Mirror to someone else long ago.”

“What did you say?” Mingji exploded in fury. Blood threads surged out once more from her hand and stabbed back into Hansu’s body. The wounds that had nearly healed thanks to the abundant vitality within Hansu were torn open again at once, and she became a blood-soaked figure anew.

“I placed it in another safe place long ago. I believe he has already seen it. Perhaps he is on his way here even now to find you.”

“You gave it to Ling Rong?!”

Hansu smiled faintly and said nothing. She remembered the day Ling Rong had sent her out of the cave residence.

She had stood there for six days. In the end, she decided to leave the Heaven-Reaching Mirror with him. But his residence remained shut tight, and this time it was not something she could force open. So she summoned Snow Spirit to wait outside, and once Ling Rong came out, to hand it over to him.

Just as Mingji had begun to restrain her, she received a message from Snow Spirit saying that Ling Rong had already taken the Heaven-Reaching Mirror and was hurrying toward her.

Though she was not certain which side Ling Rong would stand on, she had a hunch that even if his heart inclined toward Mingji, he would never sit by and let her toy with human lives like that, much less after what she had done before.

Mingji could no longer maintain her earlier languid composure. She attacked Hansu like a madwoman, and Hansu tried every possible method. Whether using spiritual sense or thunder strikes, nothing worked at all. But after all, Mingji did not truly want her dead. She merely tormented her for a while before intending to take her away.

“Mother! What are you doing?”

Just before Hansu lost consciousness, she vaguely heard Huaiyin’s voice. Gone was the splendid, roguish charm; all that remained was panic and a trace of anguish.

So it was you who came first.