ITOTIABSAM | The Immortal on Liuyun Mountain | 147
One step, two steps... as he lifted his foot again, suddenly, Gu Cong felt the surrounding invisible air solidify, pressing inward, almost crushing him.
Fortunately, his puppet body, made of wood and stone, was much harder than flesh and blood. With his brain buzzing, he could no longer hear what the system in his sea of consciousness was saying. He mechanically thought that he had to take Xie Ye down the mountain.
His five fingers tightly gripped the youth's cold and slippery hand. Gu Cong could even smell the charred scent of flesh being corroded, but surprisingly, he felt not a shred of fear. Instead, a sour and painful sensation emerged.
Even someone as strong as Xie Ye would have moments of fear and desire to escape.
Not daring to slack off for a moment, he gritted his teeth against the transparent barrier, exerting force as if trying to burst through an overly resilient bubble. Finally, like prey spat out by a giant slime, with a crisp sound, the weight enveloping him suddenly disappeared. Gu Cong couldn't control himself as he soared into the air, following the inertia, drawing two graceful parabolas together with the small white bundle.
It was precisely this moment of loss of control that dragged the youth back several inches into the barrier.
But soon, Gu Cong, who had regained his senses, once again tightly grasped the fingertips that had almost slipped away from his palm. He applied the body techniques he had been practicing during this time, barely managing to twist in the air and solidly becoming a cushion.
Rip—
As if bitten fiercely by a greedy giant mouth, the hem of the white-clad immortal’s robe tore apart out of nowhere. Then, he softly fell and tumbled into Gu Cong's arms.
A strong smell of blood assaulted them.
"Xie Ye? Xie Ye?" Anxiously, Gu Cong called out twice but received no response.
The warm sunlight filtered through the dense foliage, casting dappled shadows. They were still in the mountains, but the surroundings had clearly changed.
In his hurry to check the youth's wounds, Gu Cong finally managed to loosen his own numb and stiff fingers. As he lifted his hand, he discovered that, at some point unknown to him, his right hand up to his forearm under the sleeve had already reverted to a piece of knotty, pitted wood embedded with jade stones.
Almost imperceptibly, Xie Ye's breathing slowed for a beat.
He was actually awake.
But he felt somewhat regretful. He was regretful that despite coming back with his memories intact, he still hadn't done as well as last time.
At the very least, the last time, Gu Cong hadn't seen his most hideous form.
"Xie Ye." In the brief moment of distraction, he heard his name being called again, and Gu Cong used his charred wooden knuckles to brush away his fallen hair.
The tiny blood holes, along with the puppet threads, disappeared without a trace. His neck remained slender, and apart from being slightly paler, there was no sign of anything amiss, including his robe, which appeared as intact as ever.
However, the large patches of wet crimson spreading under Gu Cong's hand felt so vividly real.
Just as he was about to undo Xie Ye's collar to check for any other injuries, the youth lying in his arms suddenly moved.
Like being shocked by electricity, Gu Cong's hand instinctively recoiled.
"Is there anywhere that hurts particularly? You've lost a lot of blood." The slender body of the youth pressing against him felt fragile, as light as paper. Gu Cong dared not move recklessly, and his voice softened.
But the immortal being being questioned only shook his head ever so slightly.
He seemed to lack strength, staying silent and keeping his face lowered as if trying to quietly hide himself away.
Gu Cong could probably understand what the other was feeling awkward about. Eventually, his hand hanging in the air fell on the youth's back and lightly patted him. "I'm not afraid, really."
A gentle breeze brushed past, and the tranquility of the mountains remained undisturbed.
"All right, I admit, I was a little scared," Gu Cong confessed, realizing his attempts at comforting were futile. "But when I think about it being you, it somehow doesn't matter."
"You look very beautiful now, extremely beautiful," he generously gave the most straightforward compliment, pausing before adding, "Of course, you were beautiful just now too."
Mesmerizing, eerie, and awe-inspiring.
After a while, the youth who had been clutching his clothes at the hem spoke, out of the blue, asking the first question after their descent from the mountain, "Do you think my family members are good-looking?"
"..." Hesitating for two seconds, Gu Cong furrowed his brows and swallowed the well-prepared white lie, shaking his head honestly.
The youth pressed against his chest replied lightly, "I'm the same as them."
All of them were "children" of Mount Liuyun.
Or rather, products.
So, when Xie Ye tried to escape, the monsters that were originally under his control would collectively go berserk, following the will of Mount Liuyun, using their interconnected puppet strings as a medium to roar and keep him from leaving.
No one wanted him to be free.
Therefore, he could never leave.
That was the reason why the unawakened Xie Ye initially wanted to forge his own puppet: besides companionship, he also needed someone to help him in critical moments.
But he couldn't find such a person.
Family members, intruding cultivators, Shen Qingshu whom he regarded as a peer... Each time he hoped, each time he was disappointed. The only option left for him was the puppet.
The half that split from the same soul would always choose to help him once.
At that time, who could have expected that fate, under the pen of the original author, would make his puppet, nurtured day and night with his efforts and hopes, be seized by the so-called protagonist's supporters at the moment of success?
"I'm the same as them," Xie Ye emphasized, repeating it like a declaration.
However, he was even more greedy.
Greedy to accompany the newly arrived Gu Cong and take a good look at the world together.
"Not the same," Gu Cong rebutted decisively after quietly listening to what the youth had to say, "They are marshes..."
"You are a flower blooming in the marsh." Possessing a vibrant and pure soul.
He said the last sentence very softly, as if he found himself cheesy, yet also as if he were overwhelmed by belated embarrassment. But no matter how complex his feelings were, he didn't retreat. Instead, he earnestly finished his statement.
With the rustling sound of fabric rubbing against each other, the youth looked up at him.
Snow-white skin, red lips, and a pair of deep phoenix eyes filled with both strength and vulnerability. In that instant, Gu Cong seemed to truly see a flower.
And he, unexpectedly, felt a faint urge to pick it.
"The wound," the emotions churning in his chest made Gu Cong feel unfamiliar. He abruptly redirected the conversation, "I still have the medicine we used last time."
Supporting himself with his left hand, the youth sitting beside him in his embrace shifted with his assistance.
Even though the pain was excruciatingly evident to the naked eye, the youth immediately looked at his hand and asked, "Does it hurt?"
"In fact, even without me, you could leave Mount Liuyun," Xie Ye said. Puppets were not true lives and always found loopholes to exploit.
Waving his arm to indicate he was fine, Gu Cong seemed puzzled why the youth would ask such a question. Without hesitation, he continued, "But you said you wanted to leave the mountain."
So, he wanted to take the youth away.
Xie Ye understood that Gu Cong was speaking the truth. In such perilous situations just now, if Gu Cong had felt disgust or hesitancy, even if only for a second, his consciousness would have been contaminated by the collective consciousness of the monsters.
"Can you move? Let's change your clothes first." Gu Cong pointed out the missing hem of the outer robe, reminding him, as he carefully cradled the white bird, which had lost many feathers.
Then, he surveyed their surroundings carefully. "Where are we?"
Rarely caught off guard, Xie Ye replied, "I don't know."
"We should be near Liuyun Mountain."
It was the first time in two lifetimes that he had stepped out of Liuyun Mountain. Despite scanning most of the cultivation world with his divine sense, there was still a difference between seeing with one's own eyes and having a bird's-eye view.
"During the full moon, it's when the spiritual power of all monsters, including myself, is strongest," Xie Ye explained, slowing down as he spoke with disdain, reaching to undo the belt of his outer garment. "Liuyun Mountain forms its own realm, so it's not surprising to find daylight outside."
Exhausted, he spoke more lightly and slowly than usual. As blood seeped from within, and seeing the youth's slender fingertips tending inward, Gu Cong swiftly turned around.
——He was wearing a ceremonial robe, the pattern still intact, not even dirty.
Perhaps frightened by the wild plot as if by an unbridled horse, at this moment, Gu Cong's mental space was particularly quiet, contrasting sharply with the clear sounds behind him, as if every movement of the young man could be fully outlined.
Unconsciously, he clenched and then loosened his fingers, which were as dry as dead wood.
The plot written in black and white was altered, leaving Gu Cong, who was on duty for the first time, somewhat bewildered, but more filled with a sense of joy of breaking free from constraints, making him feel relaxed.
1101 was on the verge of data collapse: "Xie Ye! Are you deliberately scaring me?"
【It's just a fragment of world consciousness shattered, haven't you heard of it before?】Xie Ye replied in a casual tone, "The barrier of Liuyun Mountain is actually this thing, no wonder the previous me couldn't break free."
The mental attacks were both real and illusory, almost drying up his blood, yet there were no visible wounds.
His primordial spirit was more exhausted than ever before. Xie Ye waved his sleeve, mobilizing his nearly depleted spiritual power. In the blink of an eye, he changed his clothes, but then, as if all his strength had been drained, his legs went weak.
As he closed his eyes resignedly, just before Xie Ye let himself fall, someone quickly approached and reached out to catch him.
"Where are the puppet strings?" Completely forgetting that being manipulated by the villain was also a kind of restraint, Gu Cong was quite aware of himself as a puppet, saying, "You should have pulled me over."
Languidly, Xie Ye replied, "Broken."
"After such a long standoff, all the connections to the mountain have been severed." Slowly raising his hand, he still had puppet strings between his fingers, but the longest one was only one strand.
"With just this lone seedling," teasingly, Xie Ye lazily remarked, "I can't bear to let go."
Gu Cong understood then that this person was teasing him again.
However, against all odds, his heart truly fluctuated with the other's words. The moment he learned that the puppet strings were broken, he even felt large empty spaces emerging within him.
This was very strange.
It was a sensation he had never experienced in his eighteen years of life.
Understanding that the most important thing at the moment was to find a safe place for Xie Ye to recuperate, Gu Cong forcibly suppressed his chaotic thoughts. With the white bird tucked in his arms, he briefly released Xie Ye for a moment, then bent down with his back to the young man, gesturing for him to hook his arms around his neck. "I haven't learned how to fly a sword yet..."
Before he could finish his sentence, most of the young man's hand, covered by loose sleeves, intertwined with his chest.
With limited perspective, he couldn't see what was happening behind him, so he tried to restrain the movement of his arms as much as possible, cautiously passing through Xie Ye's knees, steadying himself, and gently hopping upwards.
The dense forest seemed to sense his confusion. The young man chuckled softly, his cool breath brushing against Gu Cong's earlobe. "Let's go."
"Wherever you want," Gu Cong replied.
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