Chapter Twenty-One: The Reversal of Life and Death

Agonizing pain stabbed every inch of his nerves as if millions of red-hot steel needles were relentlessly piercing him. The hollow emptiness from his qi and blood being frantically devoured gripped his heart like a cold, giant hand, each faint beat sending spasms deep to the marrow. Lin Mo’s body convulsed violently on the icy straw mat, rolling uncontrollably, his throat erupting in untuned, beast-like wails of agony. Dark red froth spilled from his lips, splattering onto the filthy mat with every convulsion, blooming into glaring stains.

Before his eyes, a vortex of blood-red and darkness twisted together, his consciousness flickering like a lone candle in a storm, threatened by the tidal wave of pain, ready to snuff out at any moment. The last vestige of sensation he retained was the cold “stone” in his chest, its devouring of his qi and blood unleashing a thrill of destructive ecstasy, and the eerie flicker of vivid green in the corner, glowing faintly now that the threat had passed.

Darkness finally closed in, gentle and cold.

He had no sense of how much time had passed.

His consciousness, sunken deep in a frozen ocean, began to rise slowly, laboriously. The first sensation was a strange itch at the wound on his back—a crawling, gnawing, as if countless cold ants were burrowing into his flesh. Next came an unprecedented feeling of congestion and heaviness in his chest, emanating from the pulsing “stone.”

The weight remained, the cold endured, but within the sluggish heaviness there was now a peculiar sense of fullness and swelling, as if something inside was slowly expanding and growing, forcibly stretching and mending his shattered meridians. Each beat brought a tearing pain, laced with the sting of new birth.

“Ugh…” A suppressed groan escaped his throat, dry and hoarse, like sandpaper scraping.

Lin Mo struggled to lift his heavy eyelids. His vision was blurred, as though seen through grimy frosted glass. Under the dim light of the dormitory, a familiar face wavered into focus.

Zhou Xiaoxiao.

He was so close, almost pressed against Lin Mo’s bedding, his usual slick smile vanished without a trace, replaced by a solid, bottomless gravity. The eyes that were normally tinged with slyness now seemed like frozen pools, fixed intently and unblinkingly—staring at Lin Mo’s chest!

Not at the wound, but at something deeper—the core where the fragment of the Void Heaven Scripture lay beneath tattered clothing.

Lin Mo’s heart contracted violently. Overwhelming dread instantly eclipsed his physical agony. He wanted to curl up, to hide, but was too weak to move even a finger.

“Don’t move!” Zhou Xiaoxiao’s voice rang out, low, hoarse, icy with command, utterly unlike his usual tone.

Lin Mo lay rigid, cold sweat soaking his hair. He watched Zhou Xiaoxiao slowly raise his hand—a rough palm stained with mud, knuckles marked by deep blue frostbite. There was no medicine, no cloth, only a cold, razor-edged fragment of black stone.

A shard from the great stone that shattered Su Li’s divine sense last night! When had he retrieved it?

Zhou Xiaoxiao’s gaze was sharp as a hawk’s, his grip on the stone unnervingly steady. He no longer looked at Lin Mo’s face; his eyes locked once more on Lin Mo’s chest. Then, with a slow, irrevocable resolve, the pointed shard descended toward the spot beneath Lin Mo’s left shoulder blade, above his heart—the very core occupied by the Void Heaven Scripture fragment.

What was he planning?!

Lin Mo’s pupils contracted rapidly. Terror seized him. He wanted to scream, to struggle, but only ragged, leaking sounds escaped his throat, his body pinned as if by invisible stone. He could only watch as the cold, deathly shard edged closer to his heart.

The instant the stone tip touched the worn fabric—

A cold, fierce, and ruinous force erupted from deep within the “stone” in Lin Mo’s chest, like a primordial beast enraged. No longer just a pulse, but a tangible surge of resistance!

With a hiss, Lin Mo’s thin, tattered shirt was slashed open by the unseen force, a crack appearing right above his heart.

At the same time—

A faint, brittle snap, like a dry twig breaking!

Just beneath the torn shirt, under Lin Mo’s left shoulder blade—where the dusky mark was—a minute, eerie gleam of vivid green flared like ghostfire in the dark.

That light was weak yet piercing, pulsing with vibrant life, but also chilling with an evil from the netherworld. It pierced the skin, like ghostfire forcibly pressed deep into the flesh.

The tip of Zhou Xiaoxiao’s stone shard, mere millimeters from the strange green light, seemed to collide with an invisible, ruinous wall of bronze.

A faint but piercing clang of metal rang out!

Zhou Xiaoxiao’s hand jolted violently, a cold, fierce backlash surging through the shard, smashing into his fingers. The frostbite marks darkened instantly, his entire arm recoiling uncontrollably. The sharp shard flew from his grasp, striking the low ceiling with a slap before bouncing to the ground.

Zhou Xiaoxiao staggered, his face draining of color, his gravity replaced by shock and terror. He stared fixedly at the flickering green beneath Lin Mo’s torn shirt, as if witnessing something that shattered his understanding, a horror capable of stirring tidal waves.

“Reverse… Reverse Seed?!” The murmur escaped his pale lips, trembling with dread and disbelief.

The voice was soft, but struck Lin Mo’s chaotic mind like thunder.

Reverse Seed? What was that?

The fierce force in his chest ebbed away after repelling the shard, leaving only heaviness and the stubborn, flickering green beneath his skin. Lin Mo lay limp on the straw mat, drenched in cold sweat, every breath laced with tearing pain and the heavy scent of blood. He stared at Zhou Xiaoxiao’s stunned, terrified face; fear and confusion wrapped his heart like cold vines.

Zhou Xiaoxiao stood rooted like a clay statue, staring at the strange green light for a dozen heartbeats, his gaze shifting from terror, to disbelief, to a deep, apocalyptic gravity. The slick, mercenary air was gone, replaced by a looming sense of storm.

Eventually, he drew a deep breath, as if forcing his shock back down. He bent quickly, snatched up the fallen stone shard, and tucked it away without a glance. Then, with rough urgency, he tore open Lin Mo’s shirt, ripped by invisible force.

The sound of tearing fabric echoed harshly in the silent dormitory.

Lin Mo’s chest was exposed. His gaunt torso was covered in bruises and old scars. Above his heart, under his left shoulder blade, beneath the skin, a rice-sized, vivid green dot pulsed like a living thing. The eerie, cold light was the source that repelled the stone shard.

More startling to both Lin Mo and Zhou Xiaoxiao was—beneath the flickering green, pressed against the skin, a small, irregular patch of dark gold, no bigger than a fingernail, appeared like an ancient brand. It was cold and heavy, neither metal nor jade, edged with fine black lines branching like meridians.

The Void Heaven Scripture fragment—manifested externally?!

The eerie green shoot… had taken root atop the fragment?!

Zhou Xiaoxiao’s gaze sharpened instantly, fixing on the dark gold mark and the pulsing green above it. His rough fingers trembled uncontrollably as he reached for the mark, but stopped short, an inch from the skin.

A cold, fierce warning surged from the depths of the gold mark, like invisible poison needles.

His hand recoiled as if burned, the frostbite deepening. His expression darkened, terror replaced with near-furious gloom.

He no longer tried to touch it, instead pulling from his robe a handful of pungent, cheap hemostatic vine powder, roughly smearing it onto the chaos of Lin Mo’s chest. The powder was immediately soaked in blood, covering the green dot and gold mark, leaving a crude, dirty patch reeking of herbs and blood.

The sharp sting made Lin Mo jerk, but he was too weak to scream, only able to groan in pain.

Zhou Xiaoxiao stared at the filthy patch, his gaze so grim it seemed to drip. He snatched a relatively clean cloth, wrapping Lin Mo’s chest and the patch tightly, with a force that nearly suffocated him, each breath crushed as if by iron.

The bandaging done, Zhou Xiaoxiao straightened, chest heaving, as if suppressing a raging fire. He ignored Lin Mo’s contorted face, his icy gaze piercing the ruined roof, fixed on the fog-covered hillside outside the menial ward.

The dense fog rolled like a giant, cold shroud, weighing heavily atop the Azurewood Sect’s mountain.

In the silent dormitory, only Lin Mo’s pained, stifled breathing and Zhou Xiaoxiao’s ragged gasps remained.

After a long time—so long Lin Mo thought he might faint again—Zhou Xiaoxiao’s voice finally sounded, low and cold, every word falling like hail on frozen earth:

“The world… is about to change.”