Chapter 1505: When Two Powers Meet

ng through the great academies and halls of learning, where he studied every kind of basic rune. Then Shen Mu entrusting him to the elders of Yincan Village, and his studies under those elders; then the outbreak of the Yankang Calamity, and his return to Youdu; then, after the calamity, the Lame Old Man smuggling him out of Youdu. Only now did he realize how many-hued, how utterly unlike anyone else's, his years had been. When he spoke of wandering the world to comprehend the Way, of the many disciples he had taken and the many friends he had made, a smile came to his face unbidden, and he stammered out explanations of his strange and outlandish divine abilities, his notions and ideas, to his own remnant soul. He enumerated his disciples as though counting up treasured heirlooms, and told of the things between him and his friends—how Big Head Shujun had been seized by the pill masters and soaked in a medicine vat alongside him while they conducted their research; how Xu Shenghua wore a face without expression, yet had a heart burning hot within his breast; how Dao Master Lin Xuan was suave and sly at once; how Wang Muran, Immortal Wang of Little Jade Capital, was stubborn and single-minded; how Princess Yan'er of the Emperor of the South was forever fussing over others; how Qin Ye of Kaihuang was obsessed with the way of the sword; how Qin Fengqing had nothing in his head but food, and talked with him of nothing but how to make things taste better... He had met so many interesting people that as he talked, he could not help laughing aloud. He did not know why he had so much to say. Though Heavenly Venerable Yu was his remnant soul, he felt to him like an elder brother of his own blood. Heavenly Venerable Yu listened with a smile. Lan Yutian talked until sundown and still had not finished his story; he talked on from sundown until the sun was about to rise. The east turned white. Heavenly Venerable Yu asked, "Did you never meet with danger?" "My elder brother bore it for me." Lan Yutian looked back at Shen Mu, who was deep in dream, and murmured, "He bore it all. However great the danger, he shouldered it alone. He wanted me to devote myself to comprehending the Way; he did not want those conflicts to disturb me, did not want me drawn into them. I know what is in his heart..." "Do you know?" Heavenly Venerable Yu braced his hands against the ground and leaned back at an angle, watching the paling sky. He turned his head to look at the self beside him and smiled. "My fate was not yours. Before the Longhan era, humankind knew too much suffering, and survival was bitter hard. Once I wished with all my heart that someone would carry all the sorrows of humankind, that a hero would carry them. Later I found that no one came to be that hero. So I stood up. If no one would be that hero, then I would be." His eyes were full of spirit, and though it had been an age of suffering, he spoke of it with utter ease. "I had to exhaust mind and strength. I had to raise my own power while at the same time dividing my thoughts to ponder how humankind might grow vigorous and strong, how to seek a way to live amid ten thousand dead ends. I always felt tired—body and mind alike. For the sake of that ideal, I had to abandon my own path of seeking the Way, and wait for more human champions to rise." He rose to his feet, facing the rising sun, and spread his arms wide. "You are luckier than I. In this age, more people have stood up. They are heroes, they are champions; they have shouldered your burden for you and carried the weight as they walked ahead. Lan Yutian, seeker of the Way—you are the true Lan Yutian!" His form was slowly turning transparent, his memories flying away like smoke and cloud. He turned his head and looked at Lan Yutian, a pure smile on his face. "I am not the true Lan Yutian. I am only the Lan Yutian whom the age crushed, whom the age remade. Heavenly Venerable Yu, in the end, is nothing but a stretch of Lan Yutian's memory." He waved to Lan Yutian, bidding farewell to the self of this age. Lan Yutian hurried to his feet, but Heavenly Venerable Yu was vanishing swiftly, and only a gentle, kindly voice remained. "This memory will hold you back. It will make you into the me of the past. The memories of the past—let them be buried along with history..." Lan Yutian reached out to seize him but caught nothing, only a few wisps of his own remnant soul. Wisp by wisp, the remnant soul sensed his spirit, bored into his body, and merged with him. Lan Yutian looked at the newly risen sun, and tears streamed down his face without his knowing. He felt as though he had lost something, and as though he had gained something. He walked toward the sun. The light grew blinding; he raised a hand to shade his eyes, and saw Shen Mu sitting there on the ground, layer upon layer of dream spreading outward. — Only one chapter tonight, because this one runs over thirty-two hundred characters, and I couldn't bear to split it...