Firmament Sword

Li Yu’s frenzied roar from that day echoed endlessly in his mind...

”He was smiling when he died! Smiling with hope... He was twenty-five and still hadn’t found a wife. No girl would give him the time of day. He was dirt poor, and we all suspected that big-assed Xiaotao Hong he talked about was just someone he’d made up... You young masters all have tons of concubines by the time you’re fourteen or fifteen, but he was still all alone at twenty-five!”

”And Song the Third... he had a prescription for his mother’s arthritis tucked away in his clothes. He was riddled with arrows in an instant... I’ll never forget the look on his face. He desperately reached into his clothes, trying to pull out that prescription. He knew he was done for, but he still wanted us to help him...”

”He was screaming, each word a mouthful of bloody spittle. He said, ’My mother’s...’ He only got those two words out before a Black-Feathered Iron Arrow pinned his hand to his chest.”

”He was looking at us even as he died, his eyes pleading...”

...

Xu Luo tilted his head back, fighting to keep his tears from falling. He stared coldly at Wei Yun, who was curled up on the ground—a wretched sight—still spitting curses at him. The fire in Xu Luo’s chest felt as if it would burn him to ashes.

”You think I’m cruel, is that it? You spent over a decade hiding in True Martial Academy—did you really think you were making some great sacrifice, just biding your time? You goddamn bastard! You animal!”

Xu Luo crouched down and looked at Wei Yun’s face, twisted in agony. He spoke flatly, ”You never once thought about them, did you? The soldiers who died so horribly because of you. Their stories... right. To you, those lives were just a string of insignificant numbers. For your own interests, what did they matter? Heh... Huang Dashua, who never got to see his own son born. Song the Third, who couldn’t cure his mother’s arthritis. Xiaoshunzi, who died without ever touching a woman... All of them, to you, they were just... a goddamn... string of cold numbers!”

”So, do you still think I need to ask you anything? Wei Yun, after more than ten years, you noticed one tiny little thing was off, and you immediately activated your network to come chasing after me—a mere boy—from thousands of miles away... Tell me, aren’t you just so damn impressive!”

”Your Dantian is destroyed, your limbs are broken, and you’re barely breathing. How does that feel? Can you see the crowd of souls coming to claim your life? When you get down there, remember to tell those souls that I, Xu Luo, will be sending the rest of their enemies down to join them very, very soon!”

As Xu Luo spoke, he stared into Wei Yun’s eyes, which were filled with venomous hatred. ”Including your brother, Wei Feng!”

”You... little... bastard... How... in the hell... did you... defeat me?” Wei Yun’s mouth was full of bloody froth, and the venom in his eyes gradually faded as he murmured, ”You think... I... wanted... to do that? You’re... wrong! Wrong...”

”Is this a case of ’a dying man’s words are true’?” Xu Luo gave a dismissive smile. ”I may be a lot younger than you, but I’d like to think I’m not that far behind you in intelligence. Don’t you dare tell me you came all this way just to have a heart-to-heart.”

”Heheheh...” Lying on the ground, a few soft chuckles escaped Wei Yun’s throat. ”That’s right... I did... come to kill you. But that doesn’t mean... I wanted... what happened back then... I had a great future ahead of me. I had no reason... to do something like that! A pity... one wrong step leads to another! But... Xu Luo... don’t expect... me to tell you who it was... that gave me your unit’s route. Heheh, you can... figure that out... on your own. I’ll be watching you from below... Heheheheh!”

After stammering out his final words and letting out a few bitter laughs, Wei Yun used the last of his strength to bite through his own tongue, dying on the spot.

Xu Luo glanced at Wei Yun. He didn’t feel particularly happy that one of his old enemies was dead. He was still caught up in the memory of Li Yu’s furious roars, unable to break free.

It was the first time in his entire life that Xu Luo had felt such a profound shock to his very core.

It was the first time he truly acknowledged the ordinary soldiers who guarded the borders, who could be called upon to sacrifice their lives for their kingdom at any moment.

From that moment on, he understood many things, and he matured a great deal.

That was why his brutalizing of Wei Yun today wasn’t an act of cruelty or bloodlust. It was to unleash the fury he held for all those who had died so tragically years ago!

”You think that just because you didn’t talk... I can’t find anything?” Xu Luo muttered under his breath. He bent down and pulled an envelope from inside Wei Yun’s robes.

He opened it and read it slowly. After a long while, a cold smirk touched his lips. He whispered, ”’Profit before all else.’ It truly is as they say: ’The world is a bustling place, and all for the sake of gain.’”

After carefully tucking the letter away, Xu Luo used Wei Yun’s broken sword to dig a shallow pit and buried him in it.

And so Wei Yun, a man once considered a powerful expert of his generation in the Cangqiong Kingdom, met a silent end, buried in the Endless Forest Sea in a foreign land.

There were two reasons Xu Luo hadn’t bothered to interrogate Wei Yun. First, he had already spotted the letter hidden on him. Second, Wei Yun had spent many years in the military’s intelligence branch, so his willpower was bound to be incredibly strong. It would have been next to impossible to break him.

Most importantly, even the ironclad proof Xu Luo had concerning the Wansong Town massacre wasn’t enough to directly topple Prime Minister Wei and the powerful faction behind him. So, what good would anything he could have forced out of Wei Yun have done?

”Prime Minister Wei... It seems you’re already scared, aren’t you? Heh... This is only the beginning, why so nervous? A great man like you, with power over the entire court and roots that run so deep—how could you possibly be toppled so easily?” Xu Luo muttered, pushing himself to his feet.

”Miaomiao, why do people have to be so complicated?” Xu Luo sighed, his face filled with melancholy.

”You humans don’t even know, so how would Master Mao know?” Miaomiao retracted the barrier and, looking a little tired, crawled into Xu Luo’s pocket. ”Kid, why overthink things? As long as you keep getting stronger, no one will ever pose a threat to you! Just like Master Mao here! I am just that... POOOWERRRFUUUUL!”

”Then why didn’t you pop out and say that when we were facing Qiushuiduan?”

”Brat, you’ve got a death wish, don’t you?”

”Hmph... Is it so hard to admit you’re not as great as you think?”

”You bastard! Master Mao is gonna mess you up! AAAAAAH!”