Thousand Dusts Ferry Me - Chapter 76

Yu Beiting returned to his dwelling and found a white paper lantern. He gathered some fresh fruits and a small jar of wine, packed them into a treasure pouch, and tied it to his waist.

Then, as before, he used his sword tip to carry the severed head, held up the lantern with one hand, and braved the wind and snow. He walked across the jade-ground earth toward the dense forest from before.

When he reached the nameless solitary grave, he hung the lantern on the red pine tree, placed the fresh fruits and the severed head before the tomb, poured wine from the jar three times on the grave, then took a large gulp himself.

After drinking, he threw back his head and laughed heartily. His laughter shook the mountain forest, and snow powder fell rustling from the pine branches.

When he finished laughing, his eyes suddenly filled with hot tears.

He held his san Qi Sword, pressed the tip against the blank stone tablet, channeled his cultivation, and stone chips flew as the sword tip carved out several bold characters:

[Tomb of Beloved Wife Fang Hongyu.]

……

“Junior Martial Uncle, they all say you’re arrogant, but I think you’re actually quite nice.”

“Junior Martial Uncle, you look much better when you smile. You should smile more often.”

“Junior Martial Uncle, this is the ‘Ballad of the Jade Maiden’ I learned today. Tell me, does it sound good?”

“Junior Martial Uncle, could you perform a sword dance for me? Please?”

“Junior Martial Uncle, how do you like this painting I made? Do you like it? If you like it, I’ll give it to you!”

“Junior Martial Uncle, I’ll teach you a wonderful technique that can hide memories in paintings. Do you want to learn? Please learn it, please! My senior brothers won’t learn it. Won’t you refuse to learn it too?”

“Junior Martial Uncle, could you persuade my master? I just want to abandon my cultivation and start over by entering the Dao through painting. Why does he act like the sky is falling?”

“Junior Martial Uncle, you’re only a few years older than me. I don’t want to call you Junior Martial Uncle anymore. When no one’s around, I’ll just call you Yu Beiting. You don’t agree? I don’t care whether you agree or not.”

“Yu Beiting, I think I like you a little. Do you want to become my dao companion? I know we’re of different generations, but we could keep it secret and not let anyone know.”

……

He was her Junior Martial Uncle, and also her dao companion.

Fang Hongyu was a woman who loved to laugh. She always liked to end her sentences with a soft, sweet “la,” as if joking or acting coquettish. She loved painting, loved singing the Ballad of the Jade Maiden, and loved eating all foods made with glutinous rice.

She was also unlike typical painting enthusiasts who were quiet and reserved. She often had many strange and wonderful ideas, so her paintings were also fantastical and unique in style.

She had once comprehended a “wonderful” technique that could hide memories in paintings. These paintings looked like ghostly scribbles—nothing but random lines.

Yu Beiting thought there was truly no technique more useless in the world than this. Human memories were naturally managed by one’s own mind—why hide them in paintings?

However, when she looked at him pitifully and pleaded with him, he truly couldn’t resist, and finally learned it anyway.

Later, Yu Beiting also began collecting calligraphy and paintings, only because the woman he loved enjoyed these things.

Yu Beiting felt guilty about becoming dao companions with his junior, so he always maintained distance from her in public.

Added to his hobby of collecting calligraphy and paintings, which created a superficial rivalry with Fang Hongyu, gradually rumors spread that he and Fang Hongyu had quarreled over competing for paintings, and their relationship had become so strained that they could barely maintain even surface civility.

When Yu Wanzhi and Jiang Binghe heard about this, they both tried to mediate between them, leaving Yu Beiting torn between tears and laughter.

During the day, the two maintained their cold, seemingly irreconcilable facade, but at night when no one was around, they embraced each other.

Fang Hongyu said, “Yu Beiting, shall we try dual cultivation?”

As the senior in their relationship, Yu Beiting was somewhat reserved, but when Fang Hongyu actively proposed dual cultivation, he… he couldn’t bring himself to refuse.

Unexpectedly, their first attempt at dual cultivation led to disaster—both suffered qi deviation and swapped bodies!

Yu Beiting looked at himself—a tall, burly man with reddened eyes, crying and asking “what should we do?”… He nearly went mad.

“First, let’s not let anyone know. We’ll think of a solution.”

Before they could find a solution, the next day Yu Wanzhi proposed taking Zhang Yinmo and Fang Hongyu down the mountain to clear out a pack of fierce beats.

Yu Beiting, wearing Fang Hongyu’s face, wanted to find an excuse not to go, but feared being discovered, so he painfully nodded in agreement.

Thus he followed Yu Wanzhi down the mountain.

At this time, Yu Beiting still didn’t know what awaited him ahead. His mind was full of trying to act more like Fang Hongyu, so he learned to speak and behave like her, earning a blunt comment from Zhang Yinmo:

“Junior Sister, why are you being so affected today?”

Yu Beiting had to give up the pretense.

What followed was eliminating the pack of fierce beasts, encountering an attack, being trapped in the mirror, and being tortured to death by Jiang Binghe.

When Yu Beiting was being tortured to death, he felt angry—not just for himself, but for Fang Hongyu. If not for their dual cultivation mishap, it would have been Fang Hongyu suffering this torture.

He dared not imagine how much pain she would have endured.

It was also at this time that Yu Beiting discovered that the Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror couldn’t contain souls.

After death, when the soul leaves the body, it becomes a “dead soul.” Most dead souls involuntarily drift toward the Ghost Well, except for a very few dead souls with obsessions deep enough to generate a repulsive force against the Ghost Well, allowing them to remain in one place for extended periods without going to the Ghost Well.

After Fang Hongyu’s body died, Yu Beiting’s consciousness rose from her body. He saw the dead souls of Ji Yunche and Zhang Yinmo already drifting toward the sky, growing more distant.

Later he saw Tan Jingshu, Little Junior Brother, and Yu Wanzhi die one after another, their dead souls leaving their bodies and likewise drifting skyward.

But Little Junior Brother was special. After his body bore that lotus flower, his tiny dead soul quickly fell back from the sky, becoming a living soul that returned to the infant body.

Yu Beiting thought that the sky must be the exit of the Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror.

His current situation was extremely unusual. Since the body wasn’t his own, although the body had died, he wasn’t actually a dead soul—he remained a living soul. This living soul could move freely, unrestricted by the Ghost Well.

Yu Beiting’s living soul saw that Jiang Binghe had nearly gone mad, stabbing a child again and again with his blade. He felt anger and disgust, but could do nothing else.

Moreover, he needed to escape the Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror quickly. Jiang Binghe was so bloodthirsty he had no time to recite the Yin-Yang Incantation, but if he recited even one verse of the spell and opened his Yin-Yang Eyes to observe his surroundings, Yu Beiting would be immediately exposed.

So Yu Beiting decisively rose and drifted toward the sky. He floated for who knows how long until he suddenly saw a transparent layer, like an inverted water surface. When he penetrated this water surface, he indeed escaped the Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror.

After emerging, Yu Beiting remained at a moderate distance, secretly observing.

Before long, Jiang Binghe emerged from the void carrying a blood-covered infant, accompanied by Qin Ranqing. The Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror materialized and returned to Jiang Binghe’s hands.

Jiang Binghe raised his hand, and the corpses of Ji Yunche, Zhang Yinmo, Fang Hongyu, and Tan Jingshu fell from the mirror. Then he summoned earthfire and burned these four bodies beyond recognition.

Yu Beiting was overcome with grief and rage, wishing he could immediately kill this beast with his own hands.

But what could he kill in his current state? He was nothing but a wandering ghost.

Later he drifted back to Huayang Mountain and found Fang Hongyu, telling her everything.

The tall, burly man knelt on the ground, covering his face, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Yu Beiting, what should we do?”

Fang Hongyu had asked him “what should we do?” many times before, and Yu Beiting could always provide an answer. Only this time, he couldn’t.

Seven days later, Jiang Binghe returned to Huayang Mountain carrying Yu Wanzhi’s corpse, claiming he had found it where the pack of fierce beasts had appeared, with the other disciples’ whereabouts unknown.

This corpse was very fresh, as if it had just died, but no one knew that its freshness was due to the special rules of the Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror.

Jiang Binghe chose seven days because after seven days of death, the dead soul completely crosses the Yellow Springs boundary and can never be summoned back. This eliminated any possibility of the Huayang Sect questioning the souls of Yu Wanzhi and his disciples.

On this same day, Fang Hongyu quietly left Yu Beiting’s body. When Yu Beiting woke up, he found his soul had returned to his own body.

The problem of dual cultivation qi deviation was so easy to solve—one party simply needed to die.

She didn’t even properly say goodbye to him, because farewells would only be more cruel for them.

After Yu Beiting returned to his own body, he went into seclusion for half a month.

Half a month later, he secretly went at night to find those four charred corpses exposed in the wilderness and properly buried them. He brought Fang Hongyu’s body back to Huayang Mountain and buried it under a red pine tree.

That place had once been where they met in secret.

Not long after, Hanlu Zi suspected the cause of Tuishan Zi’s death and confronted Jiang Binghe, plunging the Huayang Sect into internal strife.

Beyond everyone’s expectations, Hanlu Zi’s most valued disciple, Yu Beiting, openly betrayed his master and sided with Sect Master Jiang Binghe.

On the day of his betrayal, Yu Beiting sealed most of his memories related to Fang Hongyu, everything that happened in the Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror, and all his negative memories of Jiang Binghe into a painting.

Before stripping away these memories, he repeatedly told himself one phrase: “I must gain Jiang Binghe’s favor.”

For three consecutive days, this single phrase occupied his mind until it became carved into his consciousness like an instinct.

Who said only the Way of One Mind could modify one’s sea of consciousness?

Afterward, the memories were stripped away and stored in the painting.

The rebel Yu Beiting knelt before Sect Master Jiang Binghe, accepting interrogation under the Incantation of Truth.

Jiang Binghe asked only one question: “Why do you wish to submit to me?”

Yu Beiting quickly answered: “I want to gain the Sect Master’s favor.”

Jiang Binghe smiled with satisfaction.

……

A strange painting of lines appeared in Yu Beiting’s dwelling.

These lines were thick and thin, dark and light, curved and straight, with no discernible pattern. People who stared at the painting too long would inexplicably feel sad.

Yu Beiting’s memory of this painting was blank. He didn’t know when he had acquired such a painting.

Moreover, he couldn’t explain why he collected so many paintings when he wasn’t particularly fond of calligraphy and painting, and his appreciation ability was ordinary.

He always felt as if something important was missing from his heart.

Three years later, Yu Beiting went down the mountain on business and inadvertently heard children singing the Ballad of the Jade Maiden on the street.

After hearing just two lines, his heart clenched with pain, and inexplicably, tears streamed down his face.

Why? Why!

Something must have happened, but why did he know nothing about it?

He returned to Huayang Mountain in a daze and, as if possessed, stood before that painting again.

Then, imitating the children from the mountain below, he began singing the Ballad of the Jade Maiden.

When the song ended, the strange lines on the painting suddenly began twisting and moving!

Then all the lines left the painting and rushed toward him!

Yu Beiting was greatly alarmed and tried to dodge, but couldn’t escape. Those lines seemed to have eyes, quickly drilling into his brain.

Suddenly many images appeared in his mind, as if they would burst his skull. Yu Beiting stood stunned, processing these images.

He remembered everything.

The woman he loved—that adorable woman who loved to act coquettish, loved to paint, loved to sing the Ballad of the Jade Maiden, and loved eating glutinous rice.

It turned out he had originally used the Ballad of the Jade Maiden as the activation key for this memory painting.

Yu Beiting sat dazed in his chair, tears streaming down his face.

—

Yu Beiting sat before Fang Hongyu’s grave, sip by sip, drinking all the cold wine from the jar.

The snow had stopped, and there was a faint light on the horizon.

He took down the lantern, shouldered his San Qi Sword with one hand and carried the lantern with the other, striding away through the soft snow layer in the forest. In the white snow and black forest, a dim yellow lantern light swayed back and forth, and a song echoed through the lonely heaven and earth:

The north wind blows sharp,

Snow dances like pear blossoms,

Fragrance pure as crystal.

The goddess’s hair turns white,

She vanishes from the mortal world without a trace.

A hundred years of bitter toil feel like yesterday’s sorrow,

Fame and fortune—just passing whims.

Laugh at life—

One cup of cloudy wine, one grand dream.