Lantern: Reflection of the Peach Blossoms

Hell, sea of ​​blood.

A emerald green flame spanned the sky, and the high temperature instantly evaporated the turbulent waves into white steam, forming a colorful ribbon with a magnificent halo.

Immediately afterwards, the end of the light belt was blasted by the pure green long arrow. The arrow's tip cut through the wind and waves like a meteor, and instantly knocked Maha at the other end of the high altitude into the air!

The phoenix flew across the sky, the speed was so fast that it was almost invisible, and then grabbed Maha with a palm, pressing him down against the violent air current.The two figures fell sharply from the sky, and then fell into the sea of ​​blood with a bang!

Zhou Hui followed, and saw the sea water brush away from Maha's side as if there was life, and recede violently.Chu He firmly pressed his chest with one hand, and the two fell rapidly to the bottom of the sea from the majestic water wall, and then fell to the bottom of the sea with a bang, on a piece of exposed flat ground.

Zhou Hui didn't even think about it, and rushed down, but then Chuhe said sharply: "Don't come over!"

"you……"

"Don't come here," Chu He said calmly, half kneeling on the ground, looking directly at Maha at his feet: "...This is between me and Da Mao."

Zhou Hui hesitated and stopped.

Under the great oppression of the divine power of the two Ming kings, all the monsters in the sea of ​​blood quickly fled to the distance, and the sea water was pushed to both sides by an invisible force, forming an endless, spectacular and empty water wall.

Maha lay motionless on the ground, and said coldly, "Zhou Hui wants to kill me, mother."

Chuhe said softly: "He didn't."

"Why did you remain indifferent when he killed me, and I will be stopped if I fight back?"

"He didn't really want to kill you."

Maha's eyeballs moved, and finally looked at Phoenix.

Peacock King Ming's face is very similar to his mother's, but even a single silhouette can distinguish the obvious difference.The corners of Maha's eyes are slightly raised, and his eyelashes are always squinted habitually. He looks very sharp and a bit nervous; , just sat there indifferently, with a hostility lingering from the inside out.

Only when facing Phoenix, his feeling of anxiety will fade a little bit.

"He may have had this idea, but he didn't actually start to do it." Chuhe paused, and said, "So I hope your idea is just an idea... Some things can't be changed, but don't pay for it for the rest of your life." Actions are fine.”

Maha sneered: "I thought you have been working hard to restore harmony to this family, so you also admit that there are some things that cannot be changed?"

Chuhe was silent for a moment.

"It's my fault." He said after a while, "I wanted to change what was supposed to be like this from the very beginning, which led to today's result."

He let go of Maha, sat down on the ground, put his hands on his bent knees casually, and looked at the majestic water wall in the distance.

The tense atmosphere suddenly disappeared, and Maha was a little uncomfortable.He lay on the ground and blinked for a while, then slowly got up and sat in front of Chuhe, staring at his mother vigilantly.

"...What exactly do you want to say?"

"When you were condemned by heaven," Chu He said slowly, "I also think that Zhou Hui really wanted you to die."

Moha was startled.

"That was the time when I hated Zhou Hui the most in my life. I felt that he should have saved you, but he stood by and stood by, and even prevented me from taking the punishment from God on your behalf... In a sense, he is the one who wants to kill you. Executioner. Because of this incident, my anger and hatred for him reached an unprecedented level, and I even thought of breaking up, even the Snow Mountain Goddess in the 33rd heaven..."

Maha listened intently, but Chuhe suddenly stopped.

——Even the Snow Mountain Goddess did not ignite such clear and profound resentment in me.

But he didn't say this in front of Maha.

"But as time went by... I gradually realized that my anger towards Zhou Hui actually came from empathy and self-deception. During the hundreds of years you were sealed in the underground grotto in City H, I The one who really resents you is actually yourself—the one who couldn’t protect you and watched his child fall into the quagmire..."

"That's not the case at all!" Maha suddenly retorted: "It has nothing to do with you! If I didn't have you since childhood—"

"That's it." Fenghuang interrupted him calmly, "I made too many wrong decisions in the process of educating you, and it was precisely because I couldn't face myself who entrapped the child that I transferred all the resentment to Zhou Yu. Hui.'Why didn't you give Maha a helping hand? Why did you prevent me from bearing the scourge instead of Maha?'——Actually, I knew it deep down in my heart. If I personally replaced you from the first thunder of scourge, I would If you don't persist until the final blow, you will be completely wiped out, and Zhou Hui's ending is unlikely to be any better."

Maha was silent for a long time.

"There is nothing wrong with Zhou Hui's decision. Rather than saying that he chose to sacrifice you, it is better to say that he chose to bear the price of being resented and keep me..."

Phoenix paused in a slightly complicated tone.

"Many years ago, I thought that children were the most important thing, and you and Garuda, who are of the same blood, were the least likely to abandon each other. But as the years passed, I gradually discovered that this is actually a very selfish way. Thoughts. Just relying on the bloodline to determine the supreme importance, where does the sincerity and love of others be placed?"

"In a long life, you can always find a person who is connected with you. If you give him affection, you can also ask him to accompany you to the end of your life with the same affection. However, this person will not be your descendant. Children do not bear the responsibility of their parents' excessive emotional needs, and relative parents do not have the obligation to sacrifice everything for their children. Zhou Hui was very clear about this from the beginning, but I didn't understand it until the last moment."

"...I understand what you mean." Maha took a breath and said hoarsely: "But I still don't want to change my mind..."

He crossed his legs, with his slender white fingers resting on his ankles, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his long silver hair flowed down one side of his cheeks.

Chuhe looks at him.

When Maha was a little peacock, he was used to sitting cross-legged like this, playing with his feathers in a corner alone.

At that time, he was suffering from the torment of nightmares. He was confused between the horrific phantoms and reality every day. He was manic, restless, and nervous. He would calm down a little when he was alone.

"It's okay." After a while, Chuhe sighed.

"..."

"I just want to explain to you what your father did during the Scourge...but you are right, some things can no longer be changed."

They sat facing each other, and the sound of the sea waves in the distance came from under the dark sky.

"Let's discuss something," Chuhe said suddenly.

Maha raised his head.

"Zhou Hui's lifespan as a hell demon is limited. It is speculated that there are still so many years." Chu He compared the numbers: "And your symptoms of the five declines of heaven and man have been relieved in the sea of ​​​​blood. It should be no problem to survive until then."

"Do you mean that I can make up the last knife before he dies?" Maha asked without any hope.

"No. What I mean is that if you only travel back and forth between the gods and demons and do not invade the human world, after Zhou Hui dies, I will give you my godhead."

Chuhe's expression was very calm, and he didn't even pause in the speed of his speech. It sounded the same as "be obedient from now on" or "my inheritance will be inherited by you after all".

However, these words were like a bomb in Maha's ears, and he was stunned on the spot.

"...Are you kidding me?"

Chuhe nodded very seriously and said, "No."

The corners of Moha's lips were tightly pursed, his face was a little pale, and he stared at his mother in disbelief.

Phoenix also said the same thing before ascending to the colorless sky to kill Buddha, but under the context at that time, Maha understood it as a joke.

This kind of thing is completely beyond his comprehension, and he can't imagine that one day it will actually happen!

Not far behind him, Zhou Hui was squatting on the ground with a straw stick to draw circles, but suddenly paused.

"...I thought..." Maha's tone was unsteady, and the end of his voice was a little trembling when he listened carefully: "I thought you would go to grab a godhead for father... something like that..."

"Godhead is a Chinese cabbage, can you grab it if you say you want to grab it?" Chuhe asked back, "Besides, there are too few godheads who are compatible with hell demons, so you can't go to the Asura tribe to carry out massacres, or go to rob Garuda ?”

Maha was speechless, the only feeling was absurd: "But if this is the case, your life will soon be..."

"I know. But that's the way things are, and there's no one way to get the best of both worlds."

They looked at each other for a moment, and Chu He smiled slightly.

"Maha, the lives of gods like you and me are almost as long as the sky and the earth, so all the choices you and I make are destined to be short-lived passers-by in our lives. It's like the person who keeps the inn, watching the passengers come and go , one day you will meet someone who wants to close the store and pack his bags and go on the road with him."

"For me, your father would only occupy a certain period of time in my life, but for him, I occupy an infinite weight in his limited life. This in itself is an unfair game, I just It’s about changing this inequality.”

Moha's mind was buzzing, and he wanted to refute instinctively, but Chuhe had already stood up.

"Okay, don't go looking for trouble in the human world, just stay in the sea of ​​blood obediently - the sword in your hand is Susano's Ama Congyun, after he was born, he was indeed reprimanded by his father because he missed his mother too much. But at that time, his mother was already dead, and I wasn't dead yet, so it's better for you to make less fuss."

"..." Maha said awkwardly, "It's not just because of this sword that I..."

Chuhe raised his hand and patted his head.

Although this action is condescending, his voice is very gentle: "You will find someone who will accompany you instead of your parents. Only this person can accompany you to the end. My thinking was wrong before, and I will not do it from now on. Will."

Chuhe turned around, passed through the towering water wall, and walked towards Zhou Hui on the other side of the sea of ​​blood.

Maha looked back at him.At that moment, the violence and anxiety around King Peacock Ming seemed to have faded away, but his eyes were a little empty and confused.

Zhou Hui stood up, and Chu He walked in front of him.

"Go back, it's not over yet."

Zhou Hui nodded with a pensive expression, still holding the grass root in his mouth.

Chuhe pretended not to see it, and walked towards the endless Tielun Mountain in the distance under the gray sky.Zhou Hui followed behind him step by step, and after a while he opened his mouth eagerly: "Well, if one day..."

"Ok?"

"...if I die..."

Chu He stared ahead without making a sound.

Zhou Hui's tongue suddenly became knotted, and what he said became: "Where do you think it would be better to bury me?"

"..." Chuhe was silent for a moment, then said slowly, "Buzhou Mountain."

"why?"

"The place is big, you and I can both be buried."

The wind blew from his face, and the ends of his hair and the hem of his clothes instantly flew back, reflecting in Zhou Hui's deep eyes.

Chu He didn't turn his head, but pulled Zhou Hui up with his backhand.The two people's fingers intersected, and their palms pressed together. Zhou Hui took two steps and came to his side. Not far away, in the sky on the top of Tielun Mountain, a radiant space-time channel slowly opened, and the Human Boundary Monument was opening from a wide area. A white stele flashed in the passage.

That is the entrance to hell for the undead who die every day in the human world.

From there one can return to the Human World, where they came from.

"Hey," Zhou Hui looked at the sky, and finally said, "About Shakti, I actually have something to say..."

Chuhe said decisively: "Don't say it."

"No, no, these words have been in my heart for a long time. Do you know that she has become a demon now, in fact, it is much better for her to let herself go after becoming a demon, and she was really too pretending back then. I am not the kind of person who gossips behind people's backs, Besides, I don't want to keep talking about my stupid past, but if you mind..."

"I do not mind."

"No, no, it doesn't matter if you mind. What I want to say is that everything has a process of development, just like Shakti changed from pretending to be a perennial force to letting go of himself in thousands of years. I was just a new form , A monster with a little bit of intelligence, and often still on the tip of its horns. Looking back now, I should have waited for a little more maturity before looking for you, but when I get hotheaded... sometimes I will act stupid..."

"Stop it," Chuhe couldn't bear it anymore, "I didn't care about her at all, okay?"

Zhou Hui stared at him with an expression of despair.

"I just care about whether you will be like Sakyamuni!" Chuhe said, "At that time, I had already begun to doubt him. I was afraid that you would have two faces behind him like him! As for the Snow Mountain Goddess, I have never I never cared about it. If I was really entangled, all ghosts and goddesses would have died a thousand times long ago. It’s not as simple as burning her house? So what you want to explain is not important at all. I will find my concern from other and more aspects answer, do you understand?"

Zhou Hui looked at him distrustfully, and asked for a while, "...Then what was the fear you saw in Shakti's mirror back then?"

"It was you who killed Maha and roasted the peacock pot," Chu He said casually.

Zhou Hui was just about to ruthlessly expose his lies, when suddenly he saw Chu He standing halfway up the mountain, squinting his eyes and looking up: "Huh?"

"Don't try to transfer—"

"No," Chu He pointed to the space-time tunnel in mid-air, and asked in amazement, "Isn't that Brother Yan?"

Zhou Hui's only reaction was that you don't want to change the subject, but then he looked back and was stunned.

I saw tens of thousands of souls forming a torrent, passing through the Human World Monument, rushing towards hell from the tunnel of time and space.In the gray translucent tide, there is a soul caught in it, shining like a small star in a huge school of fish; if you look carefully, it is because there is a pentagram flashing in the chest of this soul, and the light is just right. Slowly weakens at a speed visible to the naked eye.

——I saw that it was Yan Lanyu's Yang Shihun.

"Wait!" Zhou Hui said suddenly, "There is still Lao Yu!"

Chu He took a closer look, and saw Yan Lanyu's soul facing the direction of the human world, as if he was still reluctant to leave; and not far in front of him, another ray of gray and transparent soul was passing through the torrent, trying to reach him. He stretched out his hand, and it turned out to be Yu Jingzhong!

"—Catch them!" Zhou Hui was furious in an instant: "What's going on, why did the two of them come to hell?!"

Chu He followed Zhou Hui closely, and the brilliant Buddha light of the Phoenix King burst out from his side.Wherever the light went, countless souls immediately soared up, fluttered away from the shackles of hell, and flew towards the human world and the 33rd heaven.

For a while, the hell was full of souls, and Yan Lanyu's Yangshi soul was floating in the air, and was held down by Chuhe.As if the illusory soul had substance, he held it in the palm of his hand. Looking back, he saw that Zhou Hui had also caught Yu Jingzhong not far away, and with a snap, he directly inserted his five fingers into the soul's brain.

"Why the hell are you here?! Are you dead? How did you die?!"

Yu Jingzhong's soul was shaken from side to side, staring blankly at Zhou Hui, it was obvious that he was about to drift away.

"Back to the human world!" Chu He made a decisive decision, flew over and grabbed Zhou Hui, and dragged him into the space-time tunnel: "Their bodies haven't completely expired yet! They can still be saved now!"

Zhou Hui grabbed Chuhe with his backhand, and the two held the souls of Yu Fu and Yan Lanyu respectively, and were sucked into the space-time tunnel by the recoil.

In the next second, Zhou Hui and Chu He fell to the rough ground in Ise Mountain, the human world.

Zhou Hui was under the blanket, and when he got up with a disheveled face, he saw a huge earth pit in front of him, and Yan Lanyu's body was lying quietly at the bottom of the pit.And Yu Jingzhong leaned over him, clasped one hand with him, and maintained a climbing posture with the other hand. It was obvious that he was still trying to take Yan Lanyu to escape at the last moment.

This gesture was actually so tragic that it was a bit absurd. Zhou Hui turned his head to look at Yu Jingzhong's stunned soul. Kicked back into Yu Fu's body!

Hum——When the soul enters the body, it sounds like a metal vibration, echoing for a long time.

Immediately afterwards, Yu Jingzhong's finger moved once, and then again.His whole body convulsed suddenly, he arched his chest while clutching his chest, and coughed violently!

"Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough!..."

Yu Jingzhong got up trembling, and then he spun and fell down again.After falling like this two or three times, Zhou Hui finally mercifully grabbed his back collar and lifted Yu Jingzhong up from the ground.

"Yan...cough! Yan Lanyu...he...cough!..."

Zhou Hui slapped him with his head in his pocket: "How grown up are you still playing martyrdom! Isn't that Yan Lanyu?!"

Yu Fu gasped violently, managed to stop the cough in his chest that almost broke his ribs, and barely looked up.

I saw Yang Shihun floating above Yan Lanyu's body—it was just an ordinary translucent soul now, and the brilliance of the pentagram had completely disappeared without a trace.

And Chuhe knelt on one knee beside him, muttering something, holding Yang Shihun's heart with one hand.

His palm seemed to be covered with a warm halo, completely enveloping the soul, and after a few minutes, he gently and irresistibly pressed it back to Yan Lanyu's already cold body.

Yu Fulian scrambled and rushed over: "Lan Yu!"

The halo hadn't dissipated yet, Yan Lanyu's pale cheeks seemed to be stained with the last trace of blood.Yu Jingzhong held his hand tightly, and suddenly felt his fingers move.

——It was the pulse coming from the wrist.

Yan Lanyu slowly opened her eyes, and after a few seconds, her dilated pupils gradually focused and turned to Yu Jingzhong.

"..."

His mouth moved slightly, but he didn't make a sound, and it took a long time for a tired smile to emerge.

Yu Jingzhong breathed a sigh of relief, as if he had finally lifted a heavy burden, his body shook a few times, unable to hold on any longer, he fell limply to the ground with a bang.