Chapter 88

Chapter 88

The plane landed at Jiangcheng Airport.

With the entire city on a wartime footing, the usually bustling airport now sat eerily empty. Most civilian flight routes had been suspended, with only a few specially approved military routes still operating. In the waiting hall, only grim-faced officials hurried through, and Xu Muchan's group was part of that scene.

Since they were rushing to support Dongyang District, Jiang Fang's crew barely had time to hand Xu Muchan a contact number, telling him to reach out to whoever was supposed to pick him up, before hurriedly boarding a military jeep and heading off.

Xu Muchan dialed the number and called. The person on the other end picked up right away, but because they were short-staffed and flights were grounded, they said the soonest they could come get him was tomorrow afternoon. After confirming the time, Xu Muchan thought it over and decided to go home first.

At a time like this, getting a cab back into the city was basically out of the question. Xu Muchan had to ask around several airport staffers before finally hitching a ride on a supply truck headed into the city.

By the time he finally made it back to Oak Manor, it was already deep into the night.

Only a handful of scattered lights were on across the sprawling villa complex. In times like these, the once picturesque, high-end neighborhood now felt like a lonely island. Xu Muchan carried the bag of supplies a staffer had shoved into his hands when he got off the truck, and stepped inside. The familiar surroundings finally let his tense body unwind.

He set the bag of food on the kitchen island, took a hot shower, then threw together a bowl of instant noodles before heading to his room.

Lying in bed, his nose full of a familiar scent, Xu Muchan only then realized he'd instinctively wandered into Wei Xilou's room.

He lay on his back and slowly pulled the blanket up over his head, letting the room's lingering scent swallow him whole.

Xu Muchan tried to clear his head, telling himself to just get some sleep, but his overactive brain wouldn't shut up. The Black River, Ouyang Yuping, and the vanished Wei Xilou cycled through his mind, and he still hadn't truly fallen asleep by the dead of night.

That was when a pattering rain sound drifted in from outside the window.

It was early spring, and while Jiangcheng's temperatures hadn't warmed up yet, the rains were already coming down hard. Maybe it was his mood, but the patter of rain against the ground and windows carried a grating, unsettling rhythm.

Xu Muchan threw off the blanket and sat up in irritation, then, as if something had just clicked, he snapped his head toward the window—outside, in the dead of night, only the dim orange glow of the streetlamp by the gate was visible.

It wasn't raining out there.

But that dripping sound, like raindrops hitting the ground, never let up.

Xu Muchan crept to the window, pressed his lips together, and slid the tightly shut window open to peer outside—

In the dim night, countless tall, twisted figures marched in a long procession. Their faces were indistinct, and their malformed bodies looked rain-soaked, water endlessly dripping off them. There were so many of them that the dense patter sounded like a downpour.

Black water pooled beneath the monsters' feet into winding rivulets that snaked along with the procession.

It looked like the hundred-ghost night parade straight out of a supernatural tale.

The colossal ghostly figures stretched on like rolling mountain ranges, making the towering concrete-and-steel high-rises look as flimsy and insignificant as paper—so much so that it felt almost upside down, as if these beings were the real world, and the paper-thin modern buildings, and the even smaller humans inside them, were just fantasies spun out of nothing.

Standing at the window, Xu Muchan held his breath as he watched. The procession of countless ghosts stretched on without end. He waited what felt like forever, watching the edges of the night sky begin to pale into a hazy blue, until the very tail of the procession finally shuffled past his window.

Drip, drip, drip... The rain-like sound gradually faded into the distance. Xu Muchan watched the winding procession head off to who-knows-where, and after only a heartbeat of hesitation, he stepped out and joined the very end of the line.

In his ghost form, Xu Muchan didn't draw the attention of the other creatures in the procession. He looked tiny and delicate next to those towering, twisted monsters, and his jade-pale skin stood out like a sore thumb, but luckily he was at the back, so no one paid him much mind.

He quietly trailed the procession as it wound forward, the hazy deep blue of the sky growing brighter. Just as a sliver of red was about to crest the horizon, Xu Muchan heard the roar of violent waves surging toward him from the distance.

The hazy deep blue froze, and the orange-red that had been about to break the horizon stalled, caught between rising and not.

Ahead, rolling mountains and a huge, low-hanging moon came into view together. A black river burst out from the foot of the mountains, splitting the land into two banks.

The procession's destination, it turned out, was the Black River.

Xu Muchan had been here a few times in his dreams and knew the place well enough, but back then he'd always stood on the far bank, peering across the wide Black River at the fog-heavy other side.

Now, standing in the middle of it, he could finally see the other bank clearly.

Countless non-human beings—impossible to tell if they were gods or demons—crowded the riverbank. Their twisted bodies bowed toward the mountains and the silver moon, but not a single sound came from them—only the dripping of water.

The falling droplets gathered and eagerly flowed back into the Black River.

Xu Muchan, at the tail of the procession, knelt like the rest, but quietly lifted his eyelids to scan his surroundings.

He noticed the creatures ahead were melting, like ice cream cones left out in the sun. Their features and outlines were blurring before his eyes, and it was clear that before long, they'd dissolve back into their original forms and return to the Black River.

Of course, plenty of creatures still had clear forms. They used powerful claws or tentacles to snatch nearby creatures and devour them, and with each one eaten, their blurry bodies sharpened a little more.

Watching them devour their own kind to sustain themselves, Xu Muchan realized that maybe not every non-human being was willing to merge with the Black River.

Xu Muchan suddenly thought of Lady Golden Flower, who had vanished without a trace earlier. Back then, to decode the message she'd left, he'd entered Wei Yao's dream, and what he'd seen there looked a lot like this.

Xu Muchan's heart skipped a beat. He kept his emotions in check and, using his unremarkable size, wove nimbly through the melting monsters, searching for a familiar face.

The land on the other side of the Black River seemed boundless. White moonlight pierced through the mist floating in the air, and everything carried an unreal, illusory quality.

After weaving through for a while, Xu Muchan's movements unconsciously slowed. His bare feet had unknowingly become covered in thick, black river water. The water seemed alive, clinging to the surface of his skin and trying to crawl upward.

Realizing this, Xu Muchan stopped. His wandering black hair shook off the water droplets clinging to his skin, and a series of dripping sounds echoed around him.

Xu Muchan pressed his lips together, staring at the black flowing water beneath his feet. It seemed he couldn't stay here for long—if he stayed too long, he might end up like those creatures that had lost their self-awareness, eventually merging with the Black River.

But he had been weaving through for so long without finding any trace of Lady Golden Flower or any clue related to his brother. Xu Muchan bit his lower lip in frustration, his red pupils shifting as his gaze swept over the distant mountains.

The towering mountains stood motionless. Unknown giant trees stretched their gnarled branches at the peaks, and the huge, low-hanging moon hung from their branches.

That was the origin of the Black River.

Xu Muchan's gaze shifted. He stopped searching blindly and instead attempted to move toward the distant mountains.

A tangible gaze suddenly pierced into him. Xu Muchan instinctively sensed danger, and his long hair, roaming freely behind him, raised like wary snakes.

But when he looked around, he couldn't find the source of the gaze. His eyes returned to the distant mountains, and he resolved to move forward, staring at that tangible gaze.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but the distant mountains seemed to be slowly moving.

However, thick mist hung like a thin veil ahead, making it impossible for Xu Muchan to determine whether the mountains were truly moving or if it was just an illusion caused by the flowing mist. He pressed his lips together and continued forward. At some point, the non-human beings kneeling on the ground all turned to look at him.

In the strange silence, an arm extended to block his path.

That arm was extraordinarily large and ferocious. Its gray-black skin looked like dried tree bark at first glance. Xu Muchan's gaze climbed up the arm from bottom to top, and then he saw the owner of the arm—it was actually Lady Golden Flower, whom he had been searching for but had never found.

Lady Golden Flower's body was countless times larger than when she had been at the Wei family. Her towering form leaned down from above, and only a single vertical pupil emerged from amidst her disheveled hair, silently watching Xu Muchan as she firmly blocked his way.

A voice that wasn't unfamiliar sounded directly in his mind. Lady Golden Flower's other arms supported her overly massive body, and only one arm pointed behind Xu Muchan: "Go back. That place... you cannot go..."

Xu Muchan met her gaze but didn't obediently turn around.

Lady Golden Flower, who had been nowhere to be found yet suddenly appeared, made Xu Muchan think of a possibility—finally, he asked with certainty: "Did Wei Xilou send you to stop me? Where is he?"

Lady Golden Flower maintained the same posture and repeated once more: "Go back."

Xu Muchan narrowed his eyes, studying the Lady Golden Flower before him. His gaze returned to the arm blocking his path, like a withered branch, then moved past it, looking at the mountains behind the mist.

This time, he could be certain—it wasn't an illusion. The distant mountains were indeed moving.

Or more precisely, those were not mountains at all, but countless non-human entities, each more colossal than the Lady Golden Flower looming before him. They lurked in the distance like mountain ranges, silently watching this land—and perhaps watching him as well.

His slow heartbeat began to pound loudly. After his ghostification, his heartbeat had slowed to an extreme degree; this was the first time Xu Muchan had felt such a violent pulse since undergoing it.

He stepped forward, ignoring Lady Golden Flower's attempts to stop him, and stared at the distant mountain-like figures, shouting loudly: "Wei Xilou!"

The piercing cry shattered the stillness along the Black River's banks, and echoes of "Wei Xilou" spread outward like ripples.

The slow movement of the mountain-like figures halted. An impossibly massive figure gradually emerged—first, gray arms emerged from the shadows, supporting an enormous body as the colossal form leaned forward—

A form so vast it defied human description hung over Xu Muchan like a dark cloud. Even the face that should have been familiar seemed alien due to its overwhelming scale.

Crimson vertical pupils blinked open on the gray face, gazing down at Xu Muchan like a perilous abyss.

Merely being looked at placed Xu Muchan under unparalleled pressure. Though his ghost-transformed skin was supposedly indestructible, he felt a distinct, piercing pain, and faint cracks even began to appear on the smooth surface of his skin.

Yet even so, Xu Muchan did not retreat.

Lady Golden Flower had already prostrated herself on the ground. Her trembling voice echoed in Xu Muchan's mind—a warning and a reminder: "Do not gaze directly upon the Black River."

The meaning behind her words made Xu Muchan's heart clench.

This time, he listened to her and closed his eyes, but still stubbornly tilted his face upward toward the face above.

His strained skin split open, spilling crimson blood. Thin streams of blood traced over his brow bone, cutting across his right eye like bloody tears, winding down half his face, finally pooling at his jaw before dripping—*drip*—into the black water below.

Xu Muchan licked his dry lips and tasted only blood.

The overwhelming presence told him the colossal being above had not departed, but the pain wracking his body made it clear that this deity radiating a terrifying aura was the "Black River" Lady Golden Flower spoke of—not his brother.

Xu Muchan's eyelashes trembled violently. Blood soaked them, making even the simple act of opening his eyes a struggle.

But in the end, he stubbornly pried his eyes open just a crack. He dared not look directly at the face above, instead gazing toward the distant mountains—the heavy mist had dispersed, and he could now clearly see that the colossal being silently watching him was fused with the mountains from the waist down.

Lady Golden Flower said it was the Black River, but Xu Muchan stubbornly believed that Wei Xilou was trapped within it.

"After escaping the ghost domain of Immortal Village, I kept searching for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere."

Xu Muchan's voice was soft, trembling with barely contained emotion: "I suspected earlier that you hadn't returned because something had held you back. I never imagined it would be the Black River."

His murmured words scattered on the wind. The deity looming above gave no response.

More and more blood seeped from his skin. His blood-soaked lashes could no longer hold the weight, and Xu Muchan closed his eyes again. Guided by instinct, he tilted his head toward the emotionless face above, and only after a long while spoke again:

"In the end, will you merge with the Black River like those beings?"

Still no answer.

Xu Muchan stubbornly continued, question after question: "Will you come back?"

"How can I help you?"

"Wei Xilou, answer me!"

When no response came, Xu Muchan's voice grew sharp. The pain in his body had gone numb, but his mind was stretched taut—the unbearable prospect of loss pushed his sanity to the brink of collapse.

"If you dare to die, I'll die too."

His black hair suddenly burst outward wildly behind him. Xu Muchan forced his eyes wide open, ignoring the pain, and shouted through gritted teeth.

The moment he saw the face above, an enormous hand reached down and engulfed him entirely. Xu Muchan's desperate attacks beat against the massive palm engulfing him, and his black strands pierced through the palm and between the fingers, crawling and spreading like a dense spiderweb across the gray-white back of the hand.

Another gray-white arm reached over slowly, as if to brush away the delicate strands—but hesitated, then withdrew.

Finally, the massive gray-white hand gently closed, carrying the tiny figure inside to the boundary between deep night and dawn. Then the palm flipped downward—

As Xu Muchan's body plummeted, he heard Wei Xilou's voice whisper in his ear: "Achan has grown up. He can take care of himself now."