Yu Jingzhong suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, his knees went weak, and he fell to one knee, feeling a sharp pain in his throat as if it had been pierced, unable to make a sound.
Not far away, the Headmaster’s body swayed, and then he rubbed his neck with some discomfort.
“This… what’s going on…”
“Mirror reflection,” the Headmaster said with a slight smile, a teasing light in his eyes. “An inevitable phenomenon when using the Yata Mirror to attack its owner.”
He didn’t say it, but his face clearly read, “You can’t be so naive as to think you can defeat the final boss so easily, right?”
Mirror reflection? All my attacks will be reflected back onto me? What the hell is this?!
Yu Jingzhong’s heart trembled. His first reaction was whether he had to die with this person today. But then he realized that Nigini-no-Mikoto, who had already become a demon, was definitely more durable than him. If they both suffered heavy injuries, he would definitely be the first to die!
At that moment, Yu Jingzhong remembered how he had insisted on being a normal human. Zhou Hui had always half-jokingly, half-seriously told him to eat some immortal pills, but he had never taken it seriously. He suddenly regretted it deeply.
Damn it!
What now?!
The Headmaster, with his hands in his sleeves, fearlessly exposed his neck with a hole in it and walked over at a leisurely pace.
Yu Jingzhong endured the pain and stood in front of Yan Lanyu, his gun aimed at the Headmaster’s left chest, hesitating for a moment, his fingers trembling slightly.
Should he shoot? He didn’t believe anyone could stand up after getting a hole in their heart.
But what if the other party really didn’t care about physical damage, and he was taken down first?!
A look of amusement appeared in the Headmaster’s eyes as he walked closer step by step. Yu Jingzhong had no more time to hesitate. He gritted his teeth, raised his hand, and fired a shot straight into the Headmaster’s heart!
With a loud bang, the Headmaster staggered back several steps, and Yu Jingzhong fell to the ground!
Deputy Yu had probably never experienced such intense pain in his life. In that instant, only one thought remained in his mind: the line from those old Qiong Yao dramas, “My heart hurts so much I’m going to die.” So this was what it felt like to be dying.
In a daze, he saw the Headmaster pull Yan Lanyu up from the ground, coughing violently while laughing. “You really shot. I didn’t realize you had such guts…”
Yu Jingzhong, with strength from who knows where, suddenly stood up and lunged at the Headmaster, using his weight to pin him against the mountain rock and punching down hard!
At this point, he was already numb with pain. Every nerve trembled as if electrocuted, and the muscles in his arms and legs were in violent spasms. The reason he could still hold on was less due to his physical fitness and more due to sheer willpower.
He didn’t even know where his fists were landing. A few times, he was sure he hit the rock, and blood immediately gushed from between his knuckles. What was even more terrifying was that every punch that landed on the Headmaster returned to him with the same force. The pain made him numb, his consciousness fell into a strange daze, and his retinas flashed with chaotic golden light from the intense blood pressure.
His knuckles were almost shattered. He let out a hoarse roar and, as the Headmaster dodged, his fist smashed into the ground!
Fine cracks instantly appeared on the rock’s surface, and with a bang, the Headmaster kicked Yu Jingzhong over.
“Hah… hah…” Every breath Yu Jingzhong took filled his nasal cavity with the smell of iron. He staggered up from the ground. He saw the Headmaster leaning against a dead tree, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, and smiling. “As expected of the Yata Mirror Heart…”
Yu Jingzhong’s ears were filled with blood, and he couldn’t really hear what he was saying. It took a while for his scattered vision to focus, and he saw that Nigini-no-Mikoto’s eyes and nose were bleeding, and he looked quite battered as well.
Yu Jingzhong vaguely sensed something was wrong.
A person who didn’t bleed a single drop even when his heart was pierced by a bullet, how could he look like this after just a few punches?
His thinking was affected by the intense pain. It took several seconds before he sluggishly looked at his right hand.
—That hand was covered in dirt, the knuckles were split open, and the white of his finger bones was faintly visible. His nails had dug into his palm, making it a bloody mess. It barely looked like a human hand.
But the pentagram on his palm was still very clear. The countless fine runes around it even glowed faintly through the torn flesh.
…Was it because of this?
Yu Jingzhong had studied the Yata Mirror and knew that its symbol was not like this. The pentagram was actually the totem of an onmyoji. Every onmyoji had their own unique pentagram. Although they looked the same, they would actually show thousands of subtle differences due to individual magical power.
So, was this pentagram actually Yan Lanyu?
Was it the soul Yan Lanyu had used to wrap the Mirror Heart?
Yu Jingzhong gasped for breath, a huge wave of grief and anger suddenly surging in his heart. The emotion was so strong and swift that it swept through all his consciousness like a hurricane, even completely overpowering the intense pain in his muscles and bones.
He was still desperately trying to protect me until the very last moment, but I couldn’t save him.
I can’t even take him back.
Yu Jingzhong’s throat was congested with blood. He let out a hoarse, distorted gasp, his molars clamped down tight.
Nigini-no-Mikoto stood up and walked forward. Although his demonic body had been completely destroyed and he looked a bit battered, he was still much better off than the heavily injured Yu Jingzhong. However, just as he was walking towards Yan Lanyu, he suddenly heard another gunshot, and his knees went weak, causing him to kneel.
Clang!
Yu Jingzhong slammed the gun on the ground and lunged forward. It was a desperate move that sent the Headmaster rolling down the mound!
In the chaos, the Headmaster grabbed Yu Jingzhong, and as they rolled, they evenly shared the burns from sharp dead branches, rubble, and the scorching earth from the explosion, before crashing heavily into a stone pit with a boom.
Yu Jingzhong spat out a mouthful of blood, and Nigini-no-Mikoto grabbed his neck!
A few seconds of silent struggle, like a tragic pantomime. In the darkness, Yu Jingzhong’s hands were covered in blood, veins popping, as he raised them inch by agonizing inch to clamp down on Nigini-no-Mikoto’s throat.
It was a matter of life and death, but every millisecond was stretched infinitely, endlessly in the suffocation.
Yu Jingzhong had never felt so clearly, so tangibly, that today was the end. His life was going to end here, turn to bones, turn to dust, and disappear forever in this foreign land.
So be it, he thought calmly.
Even if I don’t die, Yan Lanyu won’t make it. I might as well go with him. I’ve heard the road to the underworld is not easy to walk. We can keep each other company, and maybe we can even be reincarnated together in the next life.
His fingers were still clamped like iron on Nigini-no-Mikoto’s throat, but his mind, in the chaos caused by lack of oxygen, had already fallen into darkness. His eardrums roared from the rushing blood, sounding like the tide.
It was like the sea he had dreamed of on his last night with Yan Lanyu.
Flames blazed on the surface of the sea, and countless pale arms waved like a forest in the demon realm. On the cross-like wooden stake not far away, the grown-up, young Yan Lanyu had broken free from his ropes, stepped barefoot onto the sea, and walked to Yu Jingzhong.
Yu Jingzhong bobbed up and down in the waves, looking up at him.
Yan Lanyu’s body was as mangled as if it had been cut by a knife, the muscles rotting, revealing the bones. His face was a strange ashen color, completely lifeless, like a gloomy sky.
His pupils were cloudy, no longer belonging to a living person. But Yu Jingzhong could feel those eyes looking at him.
Very sad, nostalgic, and yet gently looking at him.
“…Lanyu…”
Why are you hurt?
Who did this to you?
Yu Jingzhong opened his mouth in vain, but couldn’t make a sound.
A sad smile crossed Yan Lanyu’s face. He pointed to himself and mouthed a sentence. In the raging waves, his voice was completely inaudible, but the shape of his mouth was very familiar, as if he were saying: I am…
What are you?
Yu Jingzhong’s mind grew even more chaotic. He was at the end of his rope.
The real, 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 touch of their lips was so real, and even the cold, desperate breath hit his face.
Yu Jingzhong suddenly realized something. Then he saw Yan Lanyu reach out, grab him, and pull him forcefully out of the seawater!
Splash—
The sound of splashing water, Yu Jingzhong’s vision blurred, and the scene changed dramatically!
He was back in reality from the illusion, the hard, scorching earth beneath him. His hands were still clamped on Nigini-no-Mikoto’s throat, and what he heard around him wasn’t water, but blood!
—It was the sound of blood rapidly spurting from Nigini-no-Mikoto’s chest!
Yu Jingzhong’s pupils constricted. The next second, the pressure on his own neck loosened, and fresh air rushed into his lungs, causing him to cough violently in a full-body spasm!
“Cough, cough, cough!!…” Yu Jingzhong rolled over to his knees, clutching his neck and coughing up mouthfuls of black blood. After a moment, he looked up, trembling violently, and was stunned by the sight before him.
Nigini-no-Mikoto was lying where they had just been fighting for their lives, his chest pierced by a sharp object, large amounts of blood gushing out. And standing before him was, astoundingly, the young Yan Lanyu from the illusion!
Yan Lanyu looked to be in his late twenties. His face hadn’t changed much, but it looked particularly ashen due to the lack of life. In contrast, his expression was very calm. He stared down at Nigini-no-Mikoto with slightly lowered eyes, his right hand, four fingers held together, was covered in blood that dripped to the ground.
At the critical moment, it was he who had pierced Nigini-no-Mikoto’s heart!
“…Finally… finally forced you out,” Nigini-no-Mikoto said, blood frothing at his lips with every word, but he still seemed happy. “Hey, I haven’t seen you like this in years. It really makes me miss it… You can’t pretend to be stupid now, can you?”
Yan Lanyu stared at him quietly.
The wind from the other side of the underworld blew through the mountain forest, over the mound, and toward the boundless night in the distance, carrying the endless cries and obsessions of countless resentful spirits, howling as it rushed away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yan Lanyu said faintly after a long time.
His voice was very hoarse, as if his vocal cords were damaged, and it sounded a bit strange.
But the quality of cold indifference, spanning the chasm of life and death and the long years, had not changed at all.
“Still sticking to the role of a ‘stranger’? That’s really your signature line,” Nigini-no-Mikoto laughed, covering his mouth as he let out a muffled cough that seemed to vibrate from his chest.
He was seriously injured. Yan Lanyu’s blow had directly pierced his heart; it was fatal.
“But forget it. I just wanted to know what you’re like now—the wrong 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.”
Nigini-no-Mikoto turned to look at Yu Jingzhong, and his smile was even a little teasing. “I warned you, Mr. Agent. The villain dies of curiosity.”
Yu Jingzhong knelt on the ground, gasping, unable to say a word.
“Curiosity is human nature. You should be respectful of a villain’s curiosity.”
“It’s often the key to the protagonist defeating the villain in the end of the story.”
…
Could it be that he had been hinting at this outcome from the beginning? What on earth goes on in a person’s mind after they become a demon?!
“After becoming a demon, the years are long. you will not truly die, but this is no longer a place for you and me.” Yan Lanyu paused, his final words dissipating into the air like a long, silent sigh.
“Come, Nigini-kun. The soul has its own distant place to go.”
He held out his hand. Yu Jingzhong suddenly had an ominous premonition and shouted abruptly, “No! —Yan Lanyu!”
But the latter just raised his head and gave him a slight smile. The expression was bitter, fond, and helpless, but it also concealed something deeper, like a kind of release.
Like a traveler who sees the destination after a long journey, or a pilgrim who has finally packed his bags and set off towards a distant mountain.
At the same time, he pressed his hand on Nigini-no-Mikoto’s heart, and a golden pentagram inscribed with complex runes suddenly appeared on the back of his hand!
Yu Jingzhong looked at his own hand in astonishment; sure enough, the pentagram was gone. Then, the spacetime rift in mid-air collapsed with a roar, like a black curtain slowly being drawn, and behind the curtain was the endless abyss of hell, with the shrieks of countless entangled ghosts rushing toward them!
The cold air currents formed a hurricane. In the chaos, Yu Jingzhong fell to the ground. He saw the gate to hell instantly swallow both Yan Lanyu and Nigini-no-Mikoto.
“Yan Lanyu…” Yu Jingzhong let out a roar. “Yan Lanyu!!”
He scrambled over the rocks to get to him. In that split second, he touched Yan Lanyu’s fingertips!
—But then, their hands passed each other. Yan Lanyu fell into the abyss, smiled, and waved at him.
That was the last thing Yu Jingzhong saw before the gates of hell closed.
“Yan Lanyu! Come back!!”
The void suddenly shook, and the air closed silently. The illusion completely disappeared in the wind. Within a few seconds, not even the slightest shadow remained. The mountain forest was left with only devastation, scorched rocks, and the scattered bloodstains from the fight.
All the blood in Yu Jingzhong’s body went cold. His limbs went weak, and he swayed several times but couldn’t stand up.
No, impossible…
It can’t be like this…
He grabbed a handful of dirt and, almost tumbling and crawling, quickly and desperately rushed back to the mound. He couldn’t feel the pain of being cut and scraped by the rubble. He couldn’t even hear any sound, only the blood rushing to his head and eardrums, his heart feeling like it was being tightly squeezed by several iron wires into a piece of meat about to explode.
With a thud, he scrambled over the mound and fell to the ground. He didn’t even bother to get up, just looked straight ahead.
—Yan Lanyu lay there quietly.
He was like something abandoned on the earth, his chest motionless, as if even the faint rise and fall of his breath was gone, completely merging with the cold and deep night in the distance.
