Lantern: Reflection of the Peach Blossoms

Chapter 11

Volume 1: Incident of H City's Earth-born Fetus

Chapter 11 — Please tell him about my death, and ask him why he broke his promise.

Perhaps because Li Hu had hinted to him, Zhou Hui dreamed about a lot of things that night.

Those who had lived through as much as he did knew when they were dreaming. He too was curious how he remembered so much from that distant and secret past, and these memories, even after thousands of years of countless vicissitudes, were still as clear as if they had happened just yesterday.

It was when Phoenix gave birth to their first son. The sky looked extremely bizarre, and the entire realm was in an unstable state. The Inner Core in the mother's body was being rapidly absorbed by the fetus. Many said Phoenix would not be able to survive this time.

Phoenix can escape death through nirvana, but that does not mean they can live on forever. Once their soul returns to the Endless Ruins outside of the Thirty-three Heavens, they are said to become eternal, but it really isn't that much different from death.

Zhou Hui had been kneeling in front of the hundred-meter-tall golden Buddha statue in the Realm of Gods for seven days and seven nights. The blue prayer beads clutched in his hands had been rotated for no-one-knows how many times.

"Do you convert?" Buddha asked for the first time.

Zhou Hui was silent for a long time. Then he said, "No."

Thunder exploded outside the temple. Rain started to pour down. Countless lightning wriggled down the sky like giant dragons, their lashes turning the entire human world into an endless expanse of scorched land.

With an oil paper umbrella in his hand, Hu Qing walked up the bluestone path that wound its way up to the temple. He stood at the entrance, like a lonely ghost wandering in a rainy night, his face wet and almost ashen. He said in a faint voice, "He can't hold on any longer."

"..."

"Phoenix said he could sacrifice the Inner Core to save the fetus as a last resort."

"..."

Under the bead-sized candlelight in the temple, half of Zhou Hui's face was hidden in darkness, making his expression almost indiscernible.

Buddha asked again, "Do you convert?"

This time, it took a very, very long time, so long that Hu Qing almost thought Zhou Hui must have fallen asleep like this or turned into a rock rooted on the spot, before he finally heard the man answering in a hoarse voice, "No."

At the tenth day, the sky seemed to have closed onto the earth. Dark winds howled through, bringing endless rainstorm which turned the world into an Ice Hell like those described in folklores. The vast realm was filled with roaming monsters and ghosts. The glaciers collapsed, and oceans flowed backwards. Even the ground split open as it quivered in fire and in blood.