Volume Two: The Mortal Realm Chapter Seventy: A Grave Illness

Ye Mingke followed behind Li Han and the other two men, setting foot together on the road that would lead them home.

Jian Jiu was a meticulous person; somehow, this cold and taciturn man had remembered the place Li Han and the others had mentioned. The spot where the sword had fallen wasn’t far from their village.

Ye Mingke could be said to have just stepped into the mortal world. Even though he had only just determined his goal and desire, he had no idea how to go about it for the moment. Conveniently arriving at Li Han’s village, and with Li Han and Bamboo Pole’s invitation, he decided to stay there temporarily and rest.

The mountain path was lined with wild grass, withered and yellow, and golden leaves drifted down like beautiful butterflies, fluttering to the ground.

Ye Mingke reached out and caught a falling leaf. When he had left the small town, it was the season of new rain, everything lush and thriving, but by the time he had stepped into this outer world, it was the deep autumn, the plants and trees withering away.

This was because the seasons in the two worlds were different, yet he truly felt as if many years had passed.

Qiao Qiao’s disappearance, the strange changes in the town, the arrival of the black tide, his fall into the mortal realm, Dabai’s departure, the killing of the giant serpent on the Misty Sea, encounters with ghosts, and the subsequent struggles for survival—so many things had happened in quick succession, leaving him, who was used to the peaceful, uneventful life of the small town, utterly unprepared.

Yet he had made it through.

He was simply exhausted, so very tired that his steps unconsciously slowed, each forward movement feeling heavy, as if he were wading through thick, clinging mud.

Both his body and mind were weighed down by an overwhelming fatigue and heaviness.

Bamboo Pole seemed to be shouting something loudly at his ear, but Ye Mingke, with his head lowered, felt as though his ears were roaring and he could hear nothing at all.

He shook his head forcefully, trying to drive away the noise, and looked at Bamboo Pole with a confused expression.

“Brother Ye, we’ll reach our village as soon as we go around that hillside,” Bamboo Pole said, raising his voice as if he realized Ye Mingke hadn’t heard him.

This time, Ye Mingke barely caught his words. He nodded rather blankly and mechanically, then lowered his head and continued trudging forward after the men, each step a struggle.

His thoughts felt as though they were trapped in a mire, growing ever slower, every idea more difficult to grasp.

Since leaving the Misty Sea, that strange feeling of being surrounded by unseen things had never left him, only growing stronger. It was as if those invisible presences were blocking his way, dragging at his mind, pulling both his thoughts and body into a quagmire.

That mire was growing broader and more viscous, as if countless hands were clutching at him.

Even the scenery before his eyes began to twist and distort, turning into tangled, shimmering lines—lines that formed strange patterns, as though signifying something.

With sluggish perception and dulled mind, he struggled to see and comprehend the meaning behind them.

His body continued its heavy plod, following Li Han and the others step by step. The men, eager to return home after narrowly escaping death, did not notice the changes overtaking Ye Mingke during this short journey.

“We’re here. We’re finally home!” Bamboo Pole shouted excitedly as he saw the familiar village ahead.

“I made it back alive! I’m alive!” Fang Wu’s voice trembled, filled with the wild joy of one who has survived disaster.

Even the usually composed Li Han could not help but show his happiness. He turned to the always-silent Ye Mingke and began, “Brother Ye, just ahead is our village, you—”

But before he could finish, he stopped abruptly, staring ahead in shock.

For the youth who had shielded them through storm and hardship, that delicate yet resilient figure, suddenly collapsed backward with a thud.

His body twisted and curled on the ground, copious, vivid blood seeping from every pore, in moments soaking the earth beneath him.

The three men stood stunned at the sudden, inexplicable scene, unable to react or understand what had just happened.

Hadn’t they already left that terrifying sea? Weren’t they finally safe? Weren’t they already home?

Why was there still death? Still terror?

“A ghost, the ghost followed us!” Fang Wu’s scream cut through the stunned silence like a knife. He spun around, stumbling as he tried to flee, but collapsed to the ground after only a few steps, terror overwhelming him. He flailed wildly, trying to scramble up, crying out, “The ghost is back! The ghost is here again!”

Li Han and Bamboo Pole also instinctively took several steps back.

The sight of Ye Mingke drenched in blood so resembled the horrors of that ghostly possession, the terrifying apparition that had haunted them, that they could not help but want to run.

Yet some shred of reason allowed them to notice the differences.

“No thunder, no sinister laughter, and he’s not attacking anyone,” Li Han said, staring at Ye Mingke’s blood-soaked body and forcing himself to remain calm. “Maybe it’s not a ghost!”

He and Bamboo Pole watched a moment longer. Though Ye Mingke’s body trembled as if in great pain, he made no move to attack.

“Maybe Brother Ye is hurt or sick,” Bamboo Pole said, forcing down his fear and stepping closer, concern and pity on his face as he looked at Ye Mingke’s pallor and agony.

“It’s a ghost, the ghost chased us here, we’re all doomed,” Fang Wu’s bloodshot eyes peered from where he cowered among the trees, watching Ye Mingke with terror.

Li Han cautiously edged closer, frowning as he studied Ye Mingke, thinking hard. “What should we do now?” he muttered.

“To survive, we have to survive… That’s right, kill the ghost. As long as we kill the ghost, we can keep living!” Fang Wu, thrown from the heights of escape into the depths of horror, stared madly, shouting with a twisted face.

At that moment, Li Han’s trembling hand touched Ye Mingke’s still-warm neck.

Not far away, a group of villagers, drawn by Fang Wu’s shrill cries and wielding sticks, came rushing over, shouting as they surged toward them…

…

Ye Mingke saw it. In the instant before he collapsed, his dulled senses finally recognized what those tangled lines before him were.

They were endlessly intricate and subtle runes, and the moment he saw them clearly, those lines expanded infinitely, each rune swelling to mountain-sized enormity.

Those gigantic runes roared toward him, crushing down, surging into his tiny, fragile body.

Such vast things pouring into such a small vessel—he felt as if he would split apart, yet still they kept coming.

He longed to scream in agony, but no sound escaped him. He could feel those runes swelling in his veins, clogging his organs. His body could no longer contain them, but still they forced their way in.

Rending, swelling, twisting, burning—this was the longest nightmare of his life.

His body was at times aflame, as if seared by fire—those were the crimson runes branding themselves into his flesh.

The searing heat burned in his body and soul. He wanted to roar, to howl, to spit out the fire scorching his soul, to burn everything before him, to destroy and annihilate.

That very night, in a peaceful village, a nameless fire came down from the sky. The villagers, awakened by the blaze, struck their bronze gongs and frantically hauled water from the river to douse the flames.

At other times, he felt himself buried in fathomless mud, suffocated and silent, driven to madness by the weight—that was the ochre rune swelling in his acupoints.

At that same moment, a deep, jagged crack appeared in the earth of his village, running from southwest to northeast, splitting it in two.

Those dazzling and colorful, those transparent and colorless runes surged in, cold and silent, relentless, giving him not a moment’s respite.

He was lost in a world of chaos and pain, struggling again and again to escape the nightmare.

Sometimes, in a half-dream, half-waking state, he opened his eyes, only to see a world twisted in rainbow colors, and vaguely heard a clamor around him.

“Kill him—he’s the ill omen that came from the ghost sea!”

“He’s too frightening, a monster if ever there was one.”

“We absolutely cannot let him stay in the village.”

Those noisy voices echoed in his pain-racked, muddled mind; he could not understand their meaning, and was soon dragged back into the nightmarish world and unending torment.

His battered consciousness floated in an ocean of agony. He only knew he couldn’t give up yet—there were still things he had to do, people waiting for him.

The girl he’d promised to visit after the new rains, the hand that tapped his head during chess, the clear, hearty laughter, the silhouette unmoving by the fireside, steady as a mountain.

That silhouette turned, the familiar, determined face gazing at him, asking,

“Which one is you?”

The one who wants to live—that’s me.

He felt pure gold flowing in his veins, blocking the circulation of his blood, cutting into his fragile organs and vessels—the sensation brought by those dark-gold runes flooding his body.

He felt countless seeds sprouting under his skin, tearing his flesh, drawing blood and marrow, growing lush and wild—the sensation left by those sky-blue runes branded into his flesh.

Even the longest nightmare must end, just as the sweetest dream must one day shatter.

When the ice-blue runes seared themselves into his bones and blood, his veins flowed sluggishly, frozen like rivers in winter, and the extreme cold forced his muddled spirit into clarity.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, and saw, for the first time in his life on that warm, seasonless island, thick, falling snow.

The snow was so pure, so soft, so crystalline—a beauty he had never known.

And in the midst of the snow, a girl in white lifted the hem of her dress and danced, head raised to the sky, spinning joyously, her laughter clear and bright.

“Qiao Qiao.”

Ye Mingke gazed at the girl, his eyes blurred, his parched lips mumbling hoarsely.