Yu Jingzhong suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, his knees buckled, and he half-knelt on the ground. He felt an excruciating pain in his throat, as if it had been pierced, unable to even utter a sound. Not far away, the Master swayed, then uncomfortably touched his neck.
“What… what’s going on…”
“Mirror reflection.” The Master smiled faintly, his eyes glinting with amusement. “An inevitable phenomenon when using the Yata no Kagami to attack its owner.” He didn’t say it aloud, but his face clearly showed an expression of “You wouldn’t be so naive as to think you could defeat the villain BOSS this easily, would you?”
Mirror reflection? All attacks bounce back to myself? Damn, what is this now?! Yu Jingzhong’s heart trembled violently. His first reaction was, Am I going to die with this person today? Then he immediately realized that Tenjin, who had already become a demon, was definitely more resilient than himself. After a mutual destruction, he would undoubtedly be the first to kick the bucket! At that moment, Yu Jingzhong recalled how he used to insist on being a normal human, and Zhou Hui would always half-jokingly, half-seriously tell him to take some immortal elixir, which he never took seriously. Now, he suddenly regretted it bitterly.
Damn it! What now?!
The Master, hands tucked into his sleeves, nonchalantly exposed the hole in his neck and walked leisurely. Yu Jingzhong endured the pain, standing in front of Yan Lanyu, his gun pointed at the Master’s left chest. He hesitated for a moment, his fingers trembling slightly.
Should he shoot? He didn’t believe anyone could stand up with a hole in their heart. But what if the other party truly didn’t care about physical injury, and he himself was the first to fall?! The Master’s eyes showed a seemingly amused expression as he walked step by step, almost reaching him. Yu Jingzhong had no more time to hesitate. He gritted his teeth, raised his hand, and fired a shot, hitting the Master squarely in the heart!
With a loud bang, the Master staggered back several steps, and Yu Jingzhong fell to the ground! Deputy Yu had probably never experienced such excruciating pain in his life. In that instant, only one thought remained in his mind: the Qiong Yao drama line, “My heart aches as if I’m dying,” and this was what dying felt like. In a daze, he saw the Master pull Yan Lanyu up from the ground, coughing violently while laughing, “You actually shot. Didn’t think you had it in you…”
Yu Jingzhong, finding strength from somewhere, violently stood up and lunged at the Master, using his body weight to tackle him onto the mountain rock, and unleashed a flurry of fierce punches! At this point, he was already dazed by the pain. Every nerve twitched as if electrified, and the muscles in his arms and legs cramped violently. The reason he could still maintain that breath in his throat, rather than strong physique, was purely due to willpower.
He had no idea where his fists were landing. Several times, he definitely hit the rock, and blood immediately overflowed between his fingers. More terrifyingly, every punch landed on the Master returned to him with the same force. The pain made him numb, his consciousness fell into a strange daze, and his retinas flashed with disorienting golden light due to severe blood congestion. His finger bones almost shattered. He let out a hoarse roar, and a punch, narrowly missing the Master’s dodged face, slammed into the ground! The rock surface instantly showed fine cracks. With a bang! The Master kicked Yu Jingzhong over.
“Hoo… hoo…” Every breath Yu Jingzhong took, his nostrils filled with the smell of rust. He staggered to his feet from the ground. He saw the Master leaning against a dead tree, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, and laughing, “Truly worthy of the Heart of the Yata no Kagami…”
Yu Jingzhong’s ears were filled with blood, so he couldn’t actually hear what the Master was saying. His diffused vision finally managed to focus after a while, seeing that Tenjin’s eyes and nostrils were bleeding, and he looked quite disheveled. Yu Jingzhong vaguely felt something was off. How could a person who didn’t shed a single drop of blood when his heart was pierced by a bullet look like this after a few punches? His thinking was affected by the severe pain. Several seconds later, he slowly looked at his right hand.
—That hand was covered in dirt, its joints cracked, faintly revealing white bone. His fingernails had dug into his palm, bloody and mangled, looking almost inhuman. However, the five-pointed star on his palm was still remarkably clear, countless intricate runes around it even glowing faintly through the shattered flesh.
…Is that why?
Yu Jingzhong had studied the Yata no Kagami and knew that its symbol wasn’t like this. The five-pointed star was actually an Onmyoji’s totem. Every Onmyoji had their own unique five-pointed star. Although they looked identical, they would actually show millions of subtle differences due to variations in individual spiritual power. So, this five-pointed star, was it actually Yan Lanyu? Was it Yan Lanyu’s soul, used to envelop the mirror heart?
Yu Jingzhong breathed heavily. A huge wave of sorrow and anger suddenly surged within him. The emotion was so strong and swift that it swept through his entire consciousness like a hurricane, even completely overpowering the severe pain in multiple muscles and bones. Until the very last moment, he was desperately protecting me, yet I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t even take him back.
Yu Jingzhong’s throat was congested with blood, emitting hoarse, distorted gasps. He gritted his back teeth tightly.
Tenjin stood up and stepped forward. Although his demonic body was completely destroyed and he looked somewhat disheveled, he was still much better off than the heavily wounded Yu Jingzhong. However, just as he walked towards Yan Lanyu, another gunshot suddenly rang out, and his knees buckled, half-kneeling on the ground.
Thump!
Yu Jingzhong slammed his gun heavily onto the ground and lunged forward. His movement was almost a desperate gamble, sending the Master tumbling down the mound! In the chaos, the Master grabbed Yu Jingzhong with a backhand. As they rolled, both men equally endured the cuts from sharp dead branches, shattered rocks, and the scorching heat of the ground from the explosion. Then, with a boom, they slammed into a rock hollow.
Yu Jingzhong spat out a mouthful of blood. Tenjin fiercely clutched his throat with a backhand! A silent struggle for several seconds, like a tragic pantomime. In the darkness, Yu Jingzhong’s hands were covered in blood, veins bulging, as he slowly, arduously lifted them, pressing against Tenjin’s throat. It was a matter of life and death in an instant, but every millisecond was stretched infinitely, endlessly in the suffocation.
Yu Jingzhong had never felt so clearly, so truly, that everything would end today. His life would end here, turning into bones, into dirt, forever disappearing in this foreign land.
Let it end, he thought calmly. Even if he didn’t die, Yan Lanyu wouldn’t make it. Might as well go with him. He heard the Yellow Springs Road was difficult, so he’d go with him for company. Perhaps they could be reincarnated together in the next life.
His fingers still gripped Tenjin’s throat like iron pincers, but his consciousness, in the haze caused by lack of oxygen, had plunged into darkness. A roaring sound filled his eardrums from the rushing blood, sounding like the tide of the sea. It was like the ocean he dreamed of on that last night with Yan Lanyu.
Flames burned fiercely on the surface of the sea, countless pale arms waving like a demonic forest. Not far away, on a cross-like wooden stake, the adult Yan Lanyu broke free from his ropes, stepping barefoot on the sea, and walked towards Yu Jingzhong. Yu Jingzhong bobbed up and down in the waves, looking up at him. Yan Lanyu’s body looked broken, as if cut by a knife, muscles decayed, revealing bones. His face was a strange grayish-white, without a trace of vitality, like a gloomy sky. His pupils were cloudy and indistinct, no longer belonging to a living person. Yet Yu Jingzhong could feel those eyes looking at him. Very sorrowful, nostalgic, and gentle, looking at him.
“…Lanyu…”
Why are you hurt? Who made you like this? Yu Jingzhong futilely opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
A sad smile flickered across Yan Lanyu’s face. He pointed to himself, silently saying something. In the surging waves, his voice was completely inaudible, yet his lip movements were very familiar, seeming to say: I am…
What is it?
Yu Jingzhong’s mind grew more and more muddled. He was at the end of his rope. The true, final moment.
Yan Lanyu knelt down and gently pressed a kiss on Yu Jingzhong’s lips. Although he knew it was just his soul, the sensation of their lips touching felt so real, even the cold, desperate breath assailed his nostrils. Yu Jingzhong suddenly realized something. Then he saw Yan Lanyu reach out and pull him violently out of the seawater!
Splash—
Water splashed. Yu Jingzhong’s vision blurred, and the scene suddenly changed! He saw himself return from the illusion to reality. Beneath him was the hard, scorching ground. His hands were still tightly gripping Tenjin’s throat, and the sound he truly heard around him was not water, but blood!
—It was the sound of blood rapidly gushing from Tenjin’s chest!
Yu Jingzhong’s pupils constricted. The next second, the pressure on his own neck released, and a large gush of fresh air flooded his lungs, making him spasm and cough violently!
“Cough, cough, cough!!” Yu Jingzhong rolled over to his knees, clutching his neck and coughing up black blood. After a while, he trembled violently and looked up. The sight before him stunned him.
Tenjin lay倒 on the spot where he had just fought for his life, his chest pierced by a sharp weapon, large gushes of fresh blood continuously spilling out. Standing before him was none other than the young Yan Lanyu from his recent illusion! Yan Lanyu appeared to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. His face hadn’t changed much, but his lack of vitality made him look particularly ashen. In contrast, his expression was very calm. He gazed down at Tenjin, his slightly lowered right hand with four fingers together, crisscrossed with blood, pooling and dripping onto the ground. In that critical moment, it was he who pierced Tenjin’s heart!
“…Finally… finally forced you out,” Tenjin coughed up blood foam with every word he spoke, but his expression still seemed quite happy: “Well, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you like this, it’s truly nostalgic… You can’t pretend to be ignorant now, can you?”
Yan Lanyu quietly stared at him. The wind blowing from the other side of the Yellow Springs passed through the forest, brushed over the mound, and swept towards the boundless night in the distance, carrying the endless cries and obsessions of countless vengeful spirits, whistling as it rushed into the distance.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yan Lanyu said faintly after a long while. His voice was very hoarse, as if his vocal cords were damaged, sounding slightly strange. But the quality of cold indifference within it, transcending the chasm between yin and yang and the long years, remained unchanged.
“Still clinging to the role of ‘stranger,’ are you? That’s truly your signature line,” Tenjin laughed, covering his mouth as he let out muffled coughs, each sound seemingly vibrating from his chest. He was severely wounded. Yan Lanyu’s strike had directly pierced his heart, which was fatal.
“But never mind, I just wanted to know what you’re like now—the erroneous beginning of the story has been corrected, so the ending should take a different turn, right? I was just a little curious… that’s all.” Tenjin turned to look at Yu Jingzhong, even smiling somewhat teasingly: “I warned you earlier, Mr. Agent, villains die from curiosity.”
Yu Jingzhong half-knelt on the ground, gasping for breath, unable to utter a single word.
“Curiosity is inherent in everyone. You should respect a villain’s curiosity.” “It is often the key for the protagonist to defeat the villain in the story’s ending.”
…Did he hint at this outcome from the very beginning? What on earth goes through the mind of someone who has become a demon?!
“After becoming a demon, the years are long. You won’t truly die, but this is no longer where you and I should be,” Yan Lanyu paused, his voice trailing off into the air, like a distant, silent sigh. “Come, Tenjin-kun. Souls have a distant place where they belong.”
He extended his hand. Yu Jingzhong suddenly had a bad premonition and sharply cried out, “No!—Yan Lanyu!” However, the latter only looked up and gave him a faint smile. That expression carried bitterness, attachment, and helplessness, but also hid something deeper, as if it were a form of liberation. Like a traveler who has seen their destination after a long journey, or a pilgrim who has finally shouldered their pack and set off towards distant mountains.
At the same time, he placed his hand on Tenjin’s heart, and a golden five-pointed star engraved with intricate runes suddenly appeared on the back of his hand! Yu Jingzhong looked at his own hand in astonishment. Sure enough, the five-pointed star was gone. Then, the space-time fissure in mid-air abruptly collapsed, like a black curtain slowly drawing open. Beyond the curtain was the endless abyss of hell, and countless intertwined, mournful ghost cries assaulted them!
The cold airflow formed a hurricane. In the chaos, Yu Jingzhong fell to the ground. He saw the gate to hell instantly swallow both Yan Lanyu and Tenjin. “Yan Lanyu…” Yu Jingzhong roared: “Yan Lanyu!!” He almost clambered over the rocks, rushing forward. In a flash, in a thousandth of a second, he touched Yan Lanyu’s fingertips!
—However, then their hands passed through each other. Yan Lanyu plunged into the abyss, waving at him with a faint smile. That was the last image Yu Jingzhong saw before the gate of hell closed.
“Yan Lanyu! Come back!!”
The void suddenly vibrated, and the air silently closed. The illusion completely vanished in the wind. Within seconds, not even the slightest shadow remained. The forest was left with only devastation, scorched rocks, and scattered bloodstains from the struggle.
All the blood in Yu Jingzhong’s body ran cold. His limbs went limp, and he tried to stand up several times but couldn’t.
No, it can’t be… It can’t possibly be like this…
He clutched a handful of dirt, almost rolling and crawling, quickly and utterly disheveled, rushing back to the mound he had just left. He felt no pain from the cuts and scrapes caused by the shattered rocks, and he couldn’t even hear any sounds. Only the blood pounding in his head and eardrums, and his heart felt like a lump of flesh tightly squeezed by iron wires, ready to burst at any moment.
With a thud, he stumbled over the mound and fell to the ground. He didn’t even bother to get up, just looked up ahead.
—Yan Lanyu lay there quietly. He seemed to have been abandoned alone on the vast earth, his chest motionless, as if there wasn’t even the slightest rise and fall of breath, completely merged with the cold, deep night in the distance.
