Barrier of Light

The formation patterns on the top of the temple slowly dissipated.

Flowing clouds linger.

The two sisters have finished talking... Li Qingci stood in front of the waterfall with a calm expression, looking at the temple landscape in front of her that looked like an ink painting, while Li Qingsui was sitting in the flower garden, leaning on her back, obviously still sulking.

Gu Shen climbed to the top of the mountain and saw this scene and said: "Celadon girl, I'm sorry."

"You don't have to say sorry to me..."

Li Qingci lowered her eyes and smiled, and said: "Celadon is going to talk about this matter. It will be the same today or tomorrow..."

"Sister, there is no such thing as today and tomorrow. If Gu Shen doesn't tell, how long are you going to keep it a secret?"

Qingsui, who was carrying his back, raised his voice and said aggrievedly: "You never thought of telling me!"

Li Qingci could only remain silent.

"The surname is Gu..."

Qingsui's shoulders trembled slightly, but she resisted turning around and said in a hoarse voice: "You sent a message to me earlier and told me that there is a way, but you said... Is there any way?!"

"The art of immortality."

Without waiting for Gu Shen to speak.

Li Qingci turned around and looked at her sister: "Mr. Xiao Gu... gave me a choice a long time ago. He has some drawings of the longevity technique. If I want to live, I can practice this forbidden technique."

Immortality? !

Li Qingsui was stunned. She turned around suddenly, with tears in her eyes, and wiped her cheek hard.

"yes."

Gu Shen slowly came to the table at the top of the temple. He took out the drawings from his arms, placed them on the table, and pressed them gently with a thick book.

He said calmly: "The 'wedge' of the longevity technique has been dismantled."

He put those words at the bottom of the mountain.

I told Li Qingsui again... the effects of the Immortality Technique, and the price.

Li Qingsui sat blankly in the flower garden, the cold wind blowing her messy hair. She is the head of the Li family, but she is too young, and her hands are not stained with much blood yet...

I want to become a person like "Lee Qihu".

She still needed many more years.

Now the Immortality Technique is right in front of you——

The "bloody" and "cruel" price has become an issue that cannot be ignored.

In fact, for many people, these costs are nothing at all.

If a hero like "Gu Lushen" were to make the decision, he wouldn't even hesitate for a second. He would sacrifice others to fulfill himself. As long as he was ruthless enough, he could achieve all the benefits without any harm. What's there to hesitate about?

But Li Qingsui is just a sixteen-year-old girl.

She grew up in an environment where she was cared for by her elders and loved by everyone. Although she was a bit naughty, her heart was kind.

"Is there such a kind of evil magic in this world..."

Li Qingsui was greatly shocked.

"have."

Gu Shen said: "Everything in this world has to pay a price. I need to make it clear to you... Even if one-twentieth of the life is transformed, there is a price to pay. The caster needs to accept the soul of the sacrificer. ', the longer you live, the greater the memory in your soul."

"So...if the 'immortality spell' is used, my sister's soul will also become turbid..."

Li Qingsui's reaction speed was very fast.

She murmured: "What if it's... a baby sacrifice?"

"..."

Gu Shen was silent.

"Qingsui!"

A cold voice sounded in the flower garden. Li Qingci, who had been quietly watching the waterfall, now lost all the smiles on his face.

She quickly came to her sister and squatted down.

The two looked at each other.

Li Qingsui knew that she had said the wrong thing and looked a little flustered. She quickly lowered her head and wiped the tears on her face with her sleeves.

"Sister...I don't want you to die..."

Li Qingci looked at the haggard face.

She wiped her sister's tears with her fingertips.

"Mr. Xiao Gu."

While wiping, Li Qingci said softly: "Actually, I'm very grateful to you for telling her this matter... Otherwise, I don't know when I would be able to tell her..."

Gu Shen just stood in front of the table and said nothing.

"It's just, this is my life."

Li Qingci smiled and said: "You are worried about me, you are thinking about me...I can understand it. I should be the one who finally decides whether I want to live or how I want to live, right?"

Li Qingsui raised her head and looked at her sister blankly.

"I want to live, but I don't want to live this way."

Li Qingci said leisurely: "I am not a saint with the heart to save the world, and the things I did in Shenci Mountain are not great. What supports me to this day is probably the word 'willingness'. There are still more people in this world Things that are more important than life, that’s what I think when I pay the price countless times.”

"It's just that I don't want to absorb other lives and become nourishment for my own survival...even if you tell me that he deserves to die. Since he deserves to die, then let the law kill him."

"When I put this life on the scale of fate, I never thought about going back on my word."

Li Qingci smiled and said: "Maybe I am such a 'stubborn' person, so... Mr. Gu, look, I didn't dismantle the part of the drawing you left me. I can't understand it, so I can learn from it. No, I only know that a life extended by longevity magic is not the life Celadon wants."

Gu Shen looked at the woman in white in front of him quietly.

Among the white flowers, the petals are lingering.

Li Qingsui couldn't stop crying.

…

…

The phantom left the top of the temple.

Silence returned here again, with only Gu Shen and Li Qingci remaining.

The mission in the frozen lake is over, and there is no other trivial matter. Gu Shen will continue to retreat here. His fire of vitality needs to absorb the source of energy. After experiencing the tundra battle, his "domain embryo" can go further.

Li Qingci placed the stack of blueprints on the true solution to longevity at the bottom of her desk.

Gu Shen, on the other hand, stood among thousands of white flowers.

He asked softly: "Miss Celadon, what you really want to say to me are not the ones you just said, right?"

Li Qingci paused slightly while sorting the books.

"..."

silence.

There was only silence.

After the "farce" just ended, Li Qingci suddenly became much more haggard, and Qingsui left Shenci Mountain. I don't know what she was thinking, and I don't know if she will come back.

Her originally peaceful inner lake now had many ripples.

Li Qingci's voice was hoarse: "Mr. Xiao Gu, that's all I want to say..."

"If you are really determined to die..."

Gu Shen said: "Then you should find a new protector for the shrine."

"There is a goddess in the temple."

Li Qingci shook her head and said, "She is stronger than any protector."

"But she is not a protector after all."

Gu Shen continued: "You know this better than anyone else."

"The temple no longer needs guardians."

Li Qingci said: "The divine fetus has been hatched, and you promised me to clear the black spots on this mountain...One day, the black flowers will be gone and the white flowers will bloom, and the entire mountain world will be restored to clarity."

"So...does 'Defender' still have meaning?"

She looked at Gu Shen and said seriously: "Stepping into this mountain realm is equivalent to losing the light. I will cut off the inheritance of the 'Guardian'... This is a good thing."

"Yeah, that's a good thing."

Gu Shen said calmly: "It's just that you just said it yourself, becoming a 'Guardian' is not a lucky thing... Then how could you be willing to die like this? How could you be willing to fall down like this? You were only a little bit , you can see the light coming from outside the mountain."

"I……"

"I already told you."

Li Qingci lowered her head again, and her voice was so soft that it was inaudible: "I decided... to end it like this."

"In this case, just lie to Qingsui."

Gu Shen said leisurely: "You won't treat me like her, right?"

Li Qingci raised her head in confusion.

"I know you have good intentions, and you are most likely unwilling to accept the immortality technique, so I don't expect this technique... to make you compromise."

Gu Shen said slowly: "It's just that when people are 'on the verge of death', they always have to grab a life-saving straw. With your obsession with your sister and your obsession with Li, if you only have this straw left, you will probably be saved." You will still try to catch it, right?"

During the retreat last year.

He placed the longevity drawings in front of Li Qingci.

that time.

The celadon girl probably guessed that she was about to die soon, so she struggled and struggled several times, and finally dismantled part of it and gave up part of it...

The reason for giving up is of course not simply "the progress is too slow".

"The scale of fate... collects Yangshou."

"The golden thread of divination...receives the physical body."

"Every forbidden technique in ancient texts must be paid for..." Li Qingci said mockingly: "It's just that in my opinion, the most 'cost-effective' forbidden technique of immortality charges the highest price. It has to charge me." Spirit'."

"Mr. Xiao Gu, of course I want to live."

She sat back on the wicker chair on the top of the mountain. Behind her was the dry well where Chu Ling's divine fetus was stored. The wicker chair swayed in the wind. She was like a dead tree. She was quiet and peaceful: "Who in this world doesn't want to live longer? It's only been two years, but 'living' is more than just opening my eyes and breathing. I hope I can realize my own value and understand the meaning of all my efforts. To put it more selfishly, I live for 'myself', a lot. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, but at least in this matter, I had the power to make my own choice.”

Li Qingci looked at Gu Shen.

She rarely spoke at such long lengths.

After becoming a protector, she was willing to become the shadow behind Mr. Li. From then on, she worked so hard, walking on the mountain roads of the shrine, pruning black flowers, practicing and praying.

A long time ago, she wanted to say something, but no one listened.

later.

Someone was willing to listen, but she no longer wanted to say it.

"From the first day my father brought me here, I knew... I couldn't leave."

"The only good thing is that if I stay here, Qingsui can enjoy the sunshine outside. At least my 'payment'... is valuable and meaningful."

Her voice was as calm as the stagnant water in the dry well behind her that had not fluctuated for decades: "I know the fate of every generation of guardians in Shenci Mountain. None of them survived past thirty, and I most likely can't either, but I want to live... Not only do I want to live, I also want to break through the fog in this Black Mountain and let the sunshine from outside shine in."

"So when my father taught me how to exchange with the 'Scale of Destiny'."

"What I'm thinking about in my heart is not only how to make the Li family better, but also how to make the shrine better..."

"More importantly...if I am willing to pay a sufficient price, can this scale also show me the direction?"

Li Qingci smiled softly.

She was sitting under the eaves of the ancient house of the temple. Part of the clouds on the top of the mountain had dispersed, so half of her white clothes were illuminated by the faint soft light, while the other half was soaked in the ink-like shadow.

All the time.

Many people in the Li family felt that this soft and weak protector was a fragile white flower that would break at the touch of a touch.

But actually.

Li Qingci lives in Shenci Mountain, and she gets along with countless flowers of broken order every day.

How could such a person be fragile?

"If you want to hear a 'true' story, it goes something like this-"

Li Qingci said frankly: "A little girl who looked innocent, but was not naive, came to Shenci Mountain and tried her best to survive. Fortunately, the scales of fate gave her a clear guide... a lot Years later, she followed the guidance of Libra and did everything. Now that she is dying, she does not want to live by the 'immortality spell'. She wants to give it a try and live by the guidance of Libra..."

Gu Shen looked at this pale and helpless face.

"Did this story disappoint you?"

Li Qingci asked with a smile: "The reason why I did this is because I think... I should be able to 'live' without the longevity technique. This is what I want to say to you, no one knows who I really am." It looks like I’m actually not a good person.”

"There is no standard in this world that can define good or bad."

Gu Shen got a satisfactory answer.

He asked: "So you want to find me because the scale of the wishing technique pointed at me back then. You spent ten years meeting me... not only for the sake of the temple, Li family, but also for yourself."

"Yes...that's what I wanted to say that day."

Li Qingci revealed the last secret in her heart, and she felt much calmer. She smiled and asked, "Now...I've finished speaking. You must look down on me, right?"

Gu Shen shook his head.

"No, you're not done yet."

Li Qingci was startled.

"The wishing spell must have given you a dream. I still remember you mentioned that dream. Now you can tell me what you saw in that dream."

The woman on the wicker chair was lost in thought.

She whispered softly, as if she had returned to that old dream.

"I saw……"

"The huge boundless wilderness is full of golden spike flowers, and a river runs through it in the distance, reflecting the shadow of the sails..."

"In the center of the world, stands a majestic ancient tree that supports the sky..."

Li Qingci showed a dazed smile: "It is a pure land there."

"The scene you dreamed about..."

The next moment, Gu Shen asked calmly: "Is that so?"

He lights the fire.

The next moment, flames filled the air and enveloped the temple mountain.

The scene around the two people changed rapidly, with countless flames and ice chips flying.

Li Qingci sat on the wicker chair, lost in thought.

She stretched out her hand in a daze, stroking the long flowing leaves hanging in front of her, and looked up. She was now leaning next to the towering ancient tree that supported the sky.

The wind was blowing.

Thousands of miles of snow is falling, and the golden spikes of flowers sown in the wheat fields in the distance are flying together.

"look."

Someone beside her whispered: "This is the Pure Land."

…

…

(PS: This chapter is a foreshadowing that has been buried for a long time. When Li Qingci and Gu Shen first met, they were imagining the appearance of this scene... Celadon girl is a very good person, and of course she should not die like this. God In the most barren years of the Ancestral Mountain, there were only black flowers and celadon all over the mountains and plains. Logically speaking, she was the most stubborn little white flower, but the little white flower did not mean "kindness without a bottom line". In my heart, celadon was the most stubborn little white flower. A character with strength and soul, her struggle against her fate is silent but powerful.)