Pursuit of the Truth

It was a fragile soul, a soul that had lost its intelligence and had been floating about the land for many years, lost…

She floated about without any focus in her eyes, and no one knew just where she was headed.

Her body could not be seen with a naked eye, she could only be detected through divine senses. Only then would her beautiful face be seen clearly. Only then would her befuddled eyes be seen clearly…

She wore a white satin dress that was formed from her soul. She drifted about, with many other similar souls by her side. It was as if they could see each other and were just floating about in a group.

She originally did not have any memories and had already forgotten how she died. She forgot how she became this way, only remembering vaguely that she seemed to be searching for something…

Yet she could not remember exactly what she was looking for.

As she moved, she continued floating about, searching for that something, over and over again. Was she searching for her home? Was she searching for the warmth she had when she was alive? Was she searching for where her sect was..?

She… was the Celestial Maiden.

With her status, she should have originally left fifteen years ago during the great change. She was an Immortal, this was not her place. With her status, she should have left the World of Nine Yin with her sect members…

Yet she still appeared within Su Ming’s divine sense as a Drifting Roamer.

Su Ming stood there and looked at her, who could not be seen with a naked eye but could be detected clearly among the dozen something Drifting Roamers. He saw her pale face, her floating soul, and the dazed look in her eyes.

At that time, during the treasure gambling event, when Tian Lan Meng had lowered her head, when Wan Qiu had averted her gaze, when no one had spoken for him, this was the one and only person who had been worried about him.

Su Ming really did not have a lot of information about this woman. He had only seen this woman once during the war between the Shamans and Berserkers, and he had heard her call him ‘Destiny’...

After that, from Hong Luo’s memories, he knew that he had come into brief contact with this woman. They remained without any form of contact after that, and only met each other again in the World of Nine Yin.

Even the woman’s name remained incredibly obscure to him.

He only knew that there were people who called her… Celestial Maiden.

This was a very strange title. What did that ‘Celestial’ mean? Was it somehow related to ‘Destiny’ [1]? Su Ming looked at her and fell silent.

There were Drifting Roamers floating past Su Ming to arrive before him. They seemed to be unable to see him and treated him as if he did not exist. When eight Drifting Roamers moved past him, the woman in the white satin dress approached him.

With her befuddled gaze, she got closer to Su Ming slowly. At the instant she was about to float past him, she suddenly froze!

She seemed to have noticed something, because she turned around to look at him. Yet in her gaze, she only saw emptiness… However, for some unknown reason, she felt that the spot was incredibly warm, as if… that was the place she was searching for.

She slowly lifted her hand as if she wanted to touch that warmth. Su Ming looked at her and simply allowed her to place her hand on his body and touch his face.

Cold. That was the first thing Su Ming felt.

He looked at the woman’s soul. She originally did not have any emotions on her face, but her lips gradually curled up into a faint smile. That smile was incredibly beautiful, and there was a sort of innocence contained within, along with an indefinable attachment.

She touched Su Ming’s face and got closer to him slowly before gradually snuggling into his embrace. She closed her eyes, and a contented expression appeared on her face. She looked as if she had been searching for a very long time and had finally found the place she could call home.

She was a Celestial Maiden, and the word Celestial in her title was affiliated with Destiny…

She could have left fifteen years ago, but she did not. She chose to stay. If Destiny was not in the world outside, then she was no longer the Celestial Maiden. She could only stay here. This was where Destiny was. Only when she was here could she be the Celestial Maiden that belonged to Destiny…

When she was still a young girl with a weak personality, her entire life had been changed because of a single name. Even if she was one of the many Celestial Maidens who came to this place, she had come from the land of the Immortals because she had had only one goal in her mind - to see Destiny with her own eyes…

That was why she did not want to go. That was why after searching for several years, she turned into a Drifting Roamer on a rainy night. Yet even though she had turned into a spirit and forgotten everything, even lost her intelligence, she was still searching. She had never stopped searching.

Su Ming looked at the woman’s soul before him. In silence, he allowed himself to sense her attachment to him. He stood there. A day went by, then night arrived...

A sentimental feeling that he had never had before appeared faintly in his memories...

In that memory, he saw endless darkness. It was very cold, very, very cold. Loneliness and a sense of isolation became a constant. This was some time after he had lost his little sister’s voice, though he had no idea how many years it had been since then.

He still continued lying there. He could sense everything happening in the outside world, but he was already numb to it all, had forgotten about everyone.

Until a voice started whispering softly by his side, bringing with it a hint of naivety and timidity.

”Big brother, hello… My… My family name is Bai, it means white, and my given name is Ling Er… I’m from Hidden Dragon Sect…”

”Big brother, are you Destiny..? What does Destiny mean? Why do all of them call you Destiny?”

”Big brother, I miss home. I don’t want to be here. Do you miss home? Where is your home..? Let me tell you. My house is really pretty. I also have a younger brother, but it’s been a long while since I’ve seen him…”

”Big brother, grandpa Mo said I can become a Celestial Maiden now, just like everyone else. But I don’t want to be like them. I want to become your personal Celestial Maiden from now on… No matter where you are, I will always be by your side…”

”Big brother, I want to… see you when you’re awake. I’ll go find you, will you remember me..?”

The darkness in his memories gradually disappeared, and what was revealed before Su Ming was still the chaotic sky above him and the trembling earth beneath him belonging to the World of Nine Yin. It was still night, and he could still see the pillars of light in the distance connecting the sky and earth.

Su Ming dipped his head down and looked at the woman in his bosom. She had her eyes closed as if she was deep in slumber. Happiness radiated from her contented smile.

”Bai… Ling…[2]” Grief gradually filled Su Ming’s eyes. Suddenly, he seemed to have come to understand something, but the answer still remained rather fuzzy to him.

After remaining silent for a long while, he let go in anguish, but the woman’s soul continued clinging to him. Even if she did not manage to catch him, she did not want to let him go. Su Ming put her away into his storage bag, then moved to the ruins of Shaman City and found Ahu’s soul. He did the same thing to Ahu. Then, alone, he walked towards the Fated Kin’s valley in the darkness.

When morning arrived, Su Ming returned to the Fated Kin’s valley. As he stood in the valley and looked at these hundreds of Fated Kin before him, he suddenly could not tell whether these people were alive or dead…

He sat down, looked at the sky, and felt lost.

The sun rose and set. One day went by, and another day passed as well. Su Ming continued sitting there, but he did not obtain the answer.

‘Perhaps I will only obtain all explanations when I eventually leave.’ When the third midnight arrived, Su Ming opened his eyes.

‘The World Spirit in this world is about to wake up. This place is about to be overturned in the next few days. I still have one place that fills me with questions. Then, before I leave, I have to go there to get my answers… Eternal Li Mountain…’

A sharp, focused look appeared in Su Ming’s eyes. He quelled the shock and befuddlement that had arisen within him when he went to the Spirits of Nine Yin, stood up, and looked towards the distance in the night.

After a long while, he turned into a long arc and disappeared into the dark sky. He spread out his divine sense and charged towards the territory of the Sacred Bats.

This place would be his final stop in the World of Nine Yin. He would find out why the burning of blood existed, why the Fire Berserker’s Art in his memories existed in this place, and exactly what parts of his memories were wrong.

He also had to find out why Eternal Li Mountain sounded familiar to him. He already had an answer in his heart, and he was going there to prove it right.

Su Ming had spread his divine sense outwards several times as he continued charging in the sky, but he still could not detect Ji Yun Hai’s presence. The puppet that was formed from Ji Yun Hai’s corpse seemed to have disappeared, and he could not find it.

When first slivers of light arrived at the crack of dawn, the territory of the Sacred Bats appeared before Su Ming, and he still could not find the ripples of aura that belonged to Ji Yun Hai.

Right before Su Ming was a ground filled with countless ravines. All those ravines were so deep that they seemed bottomless. Freezing waves of air spread out and filled the area.

There was one spot in the land that was located in the distance. All the ravines on the ground would meet there. There was no pit there, neither were there a lot of ravines. There was instead a mountain over at that spot!

It was a black mountain that towered into the clouds, and it was exuding waves of eerie, chilling air!

This mountain did not exist fifteen years ago. It was as if it had crawled out of the earth and was now standing tall between the sky and earth!

Almost at the instant Su Ming approached the place, he saw numerous pairs of aloof eyes suddenly appearing within the innumerable ravines on the ground around him.

Those eyes were shining in the darkness, and they were all staring at him. Not only were the ravines filled with these sort of eyes, Su Ming also saw many of these gazes gathering on his person from the towering mountain.

Aloofness, emotionlessness, bloodthirstiness, and other sorts of emotions were contained within those pairs of eyes on the ground. It was enough to shake the hearts of all those who saw them.

However, Su Ming was not affected. He moved silently forward. He only had one goal in his mind, and that was the mountain - the mountain that was known as Eternal Li by these Sacred Bats!

As Su Ming closed in, piercing shrieks shot out from the ground and reverberated in the air. This was not the voice of one Sacred Bat alone, but came from all the Sacred Bats in this place screaming together.

That voice was like a wave of sound containing a presence that could shake the sky and earth. At the moment the wave surged into the air, even the slivers of light lighting up the sky during dawn seemed to have been forced away, but the wave of sound did not manage to cause Su Ming’s footsteps to pause even for a single moment.

When the sound reverberated through the air, the flapping of wings also appeared. Right before Su Ming’s eyes, those pairs of eyes in the darkness closed in on him with light shining in them, and all of them turned into an endless amount of Sacred Bats!

At the moment these Sacred Bats charged towards Su Ming, an ancient voice suddenly traveled forth slowly from the top of the mountain.

”Sacred Bats, my worshipers… Do not cause a ruckus… This is my guest. I have been waiting for him for a long time… for a very long time…”

As that voice reverberated through the air, the charging Sacred Bats all ceased making any sound. Instead, they returned to the ravine, and the sparkle within their eyes slowly faded away as well, causing the land to be swathed in darkness once again.

Translator’s Notes:

1.When I gave her the name Celestial Maiden, I was thinking constellations, and since constellations were related to destinies as well, I decided to stick to this term instead of changing them all to Destiny Maiden. The first characters between Celestial Maiden and Destiny are the same, that’s why Su Ming’s wondering about it. But if I put Destiny Maiden, I couldn’t get away with the play of words. Also, Destiny can only happen when I fuse 宿命 together.

2.The exact same characters as the name of the first Bai Ling that was first introduced to us.