Hu Lu and the others were still playing cards in the concierge.
The atmosphere was very strange. Apart from the sound of cards being picked up and thrown away, there was no other sound on the card table.
Xiao Congxin, who had been staying in Jianzong and refused to go out, today inexplicably broke off two peach blossoms and walked to the door of Jianzong. When passing by the concierge, he looked at them strangely.
"What are you doing?"
Mei Quming and the others laughed.
"play cards."
Of course Cong Xin could tell that this was playing cards.
But who plays cards so quietly?
It's just that it probably won't be lively.
In order to prevent Hu Lu from losing, they gathered three senior brothers who were a mess at the game.
The defeat was a mess, and naturally there was no sound.
And Hu Lu just remained silent and didn't want to speak.
So it looked particularly weird.
Cong Xin glanced at the four people at the card table, opened the door and walked out without saying anything.
The sky is getting darker in the world.
Cong Xin took the two peach blossoms and walked all the way to the river. She held her chin on the steps, watching the dusk over the river and waiting quietly.
People on the boat in the river looked curiously at this little girl who looked like a peach blossom falling by the river, wondering where she came from.
Naturally, Cong Xin has never been seen in the human world. Unless they had walked into Jianzong and walked to a pond, they would probably have seen such a little girl sleeping on the swing beside the wooden house outside the pond.
Sometimes when people on the boat pass by, they will look at Cong Xin and ask curiously.
"Are you lost, little girl?"
Although Cong Xin didn't really want to talk to others, she still managed to pull herself together, shook her head and said, "No."
No.
That's okay.
The people on the boat looked at the door of the Jianzong behind Cong Xin and left with strange expressions.
Could it be that because Hu Lu committed a crime, Cong Ren accepted a new disciple?
But this little girl looks too young.
I don’t know if he is six years old.
After all, entering the spiritual world at a young age will be morally condemned.
What is it called?
What child labor?
But consider that this is a place like the Sword Sect in the human world, and Kamikawa may not be able to control it. Even the disciples of the Sword Sect need to call Kamikawa their uncle!
Probably the world can't condemn it either.
The man was thinking about some strange things and left the boat.
Cong Xin continued to stay there quietly.
Until the twilight slants on the world and the river is sparkling.
Only then did a woman walk slowly along the river bank.
It didn't fly over, it didn't turn into sword light and fall down.
In the human world, nature has come over.
Slowly, like taking a walk, he turned around to look at the Nanyi River that had been away for thousands of years, and walked over quietly.
Cong Xin raised his hand and waved.
"I'm here, Xiao Qiushui."
Qiu Shui naturally saw this little Cong Xin sitting on the steps of the river bank and walked over with a smile.
"We haven't seen each other for a thousand years, Xiao Cong Xin."
Both are small.
Qiu Shui first turned into a human and walked in the world.
But Cong Xin lived in the human world first.
So who is the big one?
Naturally, the old man was laughing in the bush.
Probably seeing Qiu Shui.
Cong Xin, who had always been a little moody, smiled happily and stretched out a hand towards Qiu Shui, who was walking slowly.
Qiu Shui held that hand and sat down together by the river.
The sun was shining in the evening, and the river was full of brilliance. They held their skirts and sat on the bank of the river where many old boats were tied.
Cong Xin quietly looked at the waterfall of autumn water flowing on the white hair on the steps.
Then he said with great pity: "Why are you so old, Xiao Qiushui?"
Of course Qiu Shui is very old.
In the world of people who are less than a hundred years old even in the spiritual world, people like Qiu Shui can probably only be seen in coffins.
Of course Qiu Shui knew that she was very old, so even when she was sitting on the Turbid Sword Platform, she rarely cast a glance at the clear spring.
Take an old look. That's it.
But when Qiu Shui heard Cong Xin's words, he didn't feel any sadness and lamentation, he just smiled.
"You are still so young."
Qiushui held Xiao Congxin's small hand - as soft as a newly bloomed peach blossom.
Cong Xin just looked at the white-haired woman in front of her for a long time.
She was probably thinking about the time many years ago when this girl with a gleam of autumn water in her eyes first stepped into the human sword sect.
At that time, her long hair was black, her eyebrows were young and sad, and all the fate was still chaotic.
At that time, Cong Xin was just a peach tree, and Cong Zhongxiao was still lazily lying on the bridge, letting Xiao Congren pour him wine.
At that time, Nanyi City had experienced several turmoils in the past century, and there was also a lot of desolation.
There is no card game in the world yet.
So when those distant voices from the poker hall in the dusk fell to this riverside.
Thousands of years passed by in Cong Xin's eyes.
"I'm getting old too." Cong Xin turned around and looked at a river of water - probably the dead are like this, never giving up day and night.
"I'm getting tired of waiting."
So it seems that aging in the human world never happens as a matter of course.
But from the heart.
So Xiaocong said with sadness in his heart.
Qiu Shui raised his hand and touched the top of Xiao Cong Xin's head. He didn't say anything about Cong Zhongxiao, but just looked down at the sword placed aside.
This sword was brought back to Huaian and Gaoya by Cong Zhongxiao.
Then it was unsheathed 490,000 miles away in the East China Sea.
Nothing is left.
Destroyed everything.
Cong Xin didn't ask about Cong Zhongxiao, she just looked at the two peach blossoms in her hand and laughed again.
"You probably haven't seen a peach blossom for a long time. I brought you one."
Cong Xin placed a peach blossom on her lap and handed the other one to Qiu Shui.
Qiu Shui chuckled and said, "Okay, then you can put it on for me."
"Where to wear it?"
Qiu Shui smiled and said, "You can wear it anywhere."
Cong Xin thought for a while, stood up, walked behind Qiu Shui, lifted some of Qiu Shui's white hair from both sides, and then crossed the peach blossom branch across it like a wooden hairpin.
A small boat passed by in the Nanyi River. The people on the boat held their pennies and stared blankly at the twilight scene on the shore.
Qiu Shui looked at him and smiled slightly.
He is a stranger in the world.
If it had been many years ago, Qiu Shui probably wouldn't have been like this. He would have just been very indifferent and calmly watching him drift away.
It's just that I may have been away from the rest of the world for too long.
Everything becomes cute.
Cong Xin combed Qiu Shui's long hair very carefully.
"Does it look good?"
Qiu Shui asked softly.
"It looks good." Cong Xin looked at the white hair that was pulled back, tilted her head and thought, "It's like..."
"It's like the Milky Way falls in the twilight on the high mountains, and a peach blossom tree falls on the edge of the cliff."
Although Qiu Shui couldn't see the scene behind him, he could roughly understand what it looked like after listening to Cong Xin's description.
This woman who once walked into the world with an autumn water sword and a stream of autumn water naturally amazed many people.
Qiu Shui finally looked down at the river in front of him and looked at it quietly for a long time.
Cong Xin noticed Qiu Shui's emotional change and asked carefully, "What's wrong with you?"
Qiu Shui just shook his head and laughed softly.
"do I look good?"
Cong Xin nodded and said, "Xiao Qiushui is naturally the most beautiful woman in the world."
Qiu Shui smiled softly, but there was a sparkling autumn water in his eyes, slightly reflecting the twilight.
"Yes, Xiao Qiushui is naturally the most beautiful woman in the world, so why do you think he was willing to die back then?"
Xiao Congxin fell silent, raised her hand and held Qiu Shui's hand that no longer had much human warmth.
"Are you going to see it?"
Qiu Shui nodded and said, "Okay."
So the woman on the river bank picked up the sword again, and helped Cong Xin pick up another peach blossom. She took Cong Xin's hand and walked quietly along the Nanyi River in the December twilight. Walking.
Until I reached a certain shore that was once shrouded in deep night.
Qiu Shui chuckled and looked at the broken stone slab that had been knocked up by the falling Qiu Shui sword.
Those turbulent sorrows of the past that had been silent for thousands of years once again fell into this world in the sound of the river lapping the shore.
She saw a patch of night in the twilight.
——
Gouqian stood by the Nanyi River in the night, looking at the silent autumn water on the other bank holding a sword for a long time.
When he came, Qiu Shui stood here like this, looking at the long river with no sadness or joy.
The two of them were just relatively silent, no one spoke.
With the departure of the demon clan, the people who had suffered the trauma of several wars in the past century seemed to have returned to their usual appearance, taking to the streets in twos and threes.
Then the lights went up and the noise came like a flood.
Then the lights faded out and it was late at night.
The noise was submerged into the river and disappeared without a trace.
Everything was as silent as the dead night.
"You...went to see the Demon Lord?" Gou Yan finally spoke, looking at Qiu Shui and said slowly.
In the past, he always called him a cripple, but now he just calls him the Demon Lord.
Qiushui looked at Gouqian for a long time, with something crystal clear in his eyes, and said softly: "How about we go back to Qiushui."
Gouqian heard Qiu Shui's voice that seemed to be crying, as if she was back in Kyoto when she begged him not to stay in the world anymore.
After a moment of silence, Gouyan looked at Qiu Shui and said, "Has he told you everything?"
Qiushui just held back her tears and repeated, "Let's go back to Qiushui, Gouqian."
Gouqian remained silent.
Qiu Shui crossed the Nanyi River and stopped in front of Gou Yuan. He hugged him and said in a tearful tone: "Don't go looking for it, don't ask anymore. Let's pretend that nothing has happened and go back to Huangliang." , Go back to Qiushui, Gouqian."
Gouqian let Qiu Shui hug him tightly and said slowly: "I can't go back, Qiu Shui. Those are all fake. It's impossible for me to go back to those days."
"Those are all fake, but I am real!"
"But I am all fake, Qiu Shui." Gou Yan said softly, with no sadness or joy, no anger, just calmness and indifference.
"I am just a lie. I have never existed in the world. The deceived past drives my dead body forward." Gou Qian said calmly.
Qiu Shui hugged him and kept crying.
"I used to always hear many voices coming from the earth, from the deep sea, and from every alley in the world. They were calling my name. I once thought that I was gradually turning into a madman in the chaotic sounds." Gou. Qian said calmly, "But no, I went crazy a long time ago. At the beginning, when I fell into that lie."
Gouqian took a deep breath and said sadly: "It turns out those voices came from the truth, from me who died twenty years ago. He was always standing behind me, begging me like you, asking me to stop. Come down. But I didn’t. I mistakenly mistook lies for greatness, and comforted meanness into heroism.”
Gouqian lowered his head, buried it in Qiu Shui's hair, and said softly: "So you see, how can I go back to the past like this? I have even forgotten my own identity and race, how can I go back to the past?" That piece of autumn water?"
"You can stop clinging to the past. We can start over. We can go back to Qiushui and those human villages. We can become common people. We can remain anonymous. Just pretend we haven't seen the truth, okay?"
Gouyan smiled, very seriously, and said: "How can I continue to pretend? I have been pretending in the world for so many years, how can I continue to pretend? Pretend that I am a human being, or pretend that I am a demon? I am a human being , and you are a monster, we can’t pretend to be you.”
"Is this a stereotype?"
"This is despair, Qiu Shui."
It's not prejudice, it's just desperation.
So how can you pretend that nothing has ever happened?
It turns out that the truth is really worse than not knowing.
The two fell silent by the Nanyi River late at night.
"Kill me." Gouyan buried his head in Qiu Shui's ear and whispered softly, "If you don't want me to continue walking, then kill me."
Qiu Shui let go of Gou Qian, took a step back, and looked at him blankly.
"I have no past and will not have a future. I am the dead self and the deformed body that remains in the human body." Gou Qian said calmly while looking at Qiu Shui.
"I am a person who has been assimilated into a demon, and a truth that has been assimilated into lies. I can't save myself, and no one can save me."
"I knew early on that I would never have the chance to ask that person in person why, but I could only go on."
Gouqian stretched out his hand and pointed at his empty heart, and said sadly: "When I cut out my heart, I should have died, I should have died long ago, but someone refused to let me die, so I could only survive, full of pain. Live in the world.”
Qiu Shui couldn't help but retreated, her whole body was trembling with coldness, she shook her head crazily, and murmured: "No, don't."
Gouqian said softly: "Pretending is meaningless, and so is living. I once thought it existed, but it didn't. Living is to die, and then return to the River Styx forever, never to wake up again."
Qiu Shui had already retreated to the guardrail of Nanyi River, shaking his head with tears streaming down his face.
"Even if I can pretend that nothing happened, return to Qiu Shui, and look back at the rest of my life, I still have nothing. All I can have is countless falsehoods and pain." Gou Kai looked at Qiu Shui and said calmly.
Life has no meaning, only pain, no joy, only stasis. Everyone is the seed of suffering, and death is blooming.
"It's time for me to bloom." Gou Gao walked forward, stopped in front of Qiu Shui, picked up the sword in Qiu Shui's hand with the demon-slaying knife in his hand, and raised it to his throat.
Then he closed his eyes.
Everything is forever in darkness.
Never come back again.
A mournful cry came from the world.
Then there was the sound of a sword falling to the ground. It was the Qiu Shui Sword.
There was also the sound of the broken sword falling to the ground, that was the Zhishou sword.
So I don’t know anything, and I haven’t guarded anything.
——(Note: This paragraph is quoted from the original text of "The Story of Crossing Demons" four years ago. Although there is a suspicion of water word count, after thinking about it for a long time, I have to admit that I probably don't have the same pain of struggle as I did back then. The state of mind to retell that episode well. Perhaps as mentioned in the previous book, people are killing themselves every day until they can no longer find the past. Maybe it is good, maybe it is bad, no one You know, this is just to honor and encourage yourself.)
The autumn water stood in the twilight, quietly looking at the night. The autumn water that made the eyes red in the twilight eventually flowed out.
This woman, who had been alone in the world for a thousand years, held the hand of Xiao Congxin beside her and smiled with tears streaming down her face.
"You, you, you."
...
Yunhu stood in the dusk far away, looking at the white-haired woman by the river in the distance who made the whole world quiet but was raging with sadness. After being silent for a long time, he looked back and looked back at the side sitting on the Feixian. The prime minister kept drinking.
"Have you ever seen that person before?"
The Prime Minister said with some melancholy: "No. Before I became a human, the man who pushed the entire demon clan back to the human world had already died by the Nanyi River. But Qingshi has seen your ancestor. I’ve seen it too.”
"Ancestor..." Yunhu was silent for a while and said, "Is it Yunhu Buzheng from Huangliang Dianke Company back then?"
"Yes." Qing Xiang said softly. "The story from thousands of years ago has probably been forgotten by the world."
The Prime Minister chuckled softly, drank half a bottle of wine in one breath, and said: "Sometimes, people in the world only remember Cong Ren, the Divine River, and the Autumn Water, but in fact, what the demon clan in the world should remember most is to immerse their lives in it. The person in pain and struggle, Gouqian. This is a name that everyone has seen on the Tonggui Monument, but no one knows what this name represents."
Yun Huzhi sighed softly and said, "How could the world not know?"
"Of course the world doesn't know. In those years, Gouji's story has never been mentioned. Tomorrow Heart, the head of the Demon Suppression Department, died before the demon clan crossed Daze. The demon master died in Lingnan, Qiu Shui Far away from Mojian Cliff, Cong Zhongxiao and the Demon Ancestor died 490,000 miles away in the East China Sea. So no one told what kind of person was deceived into a Demon Clan, thought he was a Demon Clan, and then hid In Kyoto, lead the world."
"How did the Master know?"
"Because there was a biography in Xuanxu Courtyard." Qing Xiang said calmly, "The Chronicles of Demon Crossing. He crossed the demon clan, but he could only cross by himself. It's a pity that he failed, so Choosing to die - this is a simple but cruel and painful story."
Yunhu sighed for an unknown amount of time.
The minister next to him took a big gulp of wine, and then handed the jug in his hand to Yunhu Wuzhi. Yunhu took the jug, not knowing what it meant.
"Give him a toast."
The great human demon in the dusk looked solemn.
"That's your senior."
