Chapter 41

#The Immortal City

On the snowy plains, the cold wind pierced to the bone. Xie Zhuo wrapped me completely in a large black cloak, carrying me on his back. He tightly tied a rope around my waist, binding us together.

The wind howled like a blade, cutting through the air. I buried my head tightly in Xie Zhuo’s shoulder, not daring to lift it, only feeling his steps rising and falling, constantly moving forward.

“Where are we going?”

After walking for a while, when the wind finally eased, I shouted into his ear against the wind, “Why not fly directly there?”

“My spiritual power must be reserved for more important uses.”

He answered me, but I was a bit confused.

If spiritual power is used up, can’t it just be replenished by breathing and drawing from the spiritual energy between heaven and earth? The way he said it made it seem like the spiritual energy here was extremely limited…

I fell silent for a moment, then began breathing and drawing in the spiritual energy from the fierce wind. However, with the evil aura inside me, as soon as I tried to absorb the spiritual energy the usual way, a sharp pain surged in my chest, and I coughed violently twice.

Xie Zhuo turned his head to glance at me. “You can’t use your old techniques anymore.”

I took a few deep breaths and replied, “I understand.”

“There’s not much spiritual energy here. The further we go in, the less there will be. You don’t need to waste your efforts searching for it.”

“The further in, the less?” I was puzzled. “Where exactly are we?”

“Northern Wastes.”

I was stunned. “Your hometown?”

Xie Zhuo’s hometown, according to legend, wasn’t a good place. I clearly remember Xie Xuanqing had once personally admitted to me that he had killed close relatives and wiped out his own clan…

“Why did you bring me here…” My voice lowered.

He glanced at me. “To rid you of the evil aura.”

And then I fell silent.

With this evil aura inside me, I would die eventually if it wasn’t removed. How I woke up last time, I didn’t know—perhaps because of Xie Zhuo, or maybe just luck. But if it happened again, neither luck nor Xie Zhuo might be able to help me.

Xie Zhuo continued walking with me on his back, and after taking several hundred steps, the wind suddenly stopped, which was shocking.

I raised my head from Xie Zhuo’s shoulder and looked ahead. There, in front of us, thick fog swirled, completely obscuring the path forward. Behind us…

I turned around and saw the blizzard still raging behind us, but it was blocked by an invisible “wall.” This wall was colorless and transparent, like a protective dome, preventing the snowstorm and wind from reaching us.

“Is this… a barrier?”

I had clearly not felt any sensation of entering a barrier just now…

I reached out to touch it, but Xie Zhuo kept walking, moving us further away from the transparent wall.

“Fu Jiuxia,” Xie Zhuo said, “You have many doubts about me…”

I turned my head and looked at Xie Zhuo’s face from the side.

His expression was serious, his lips slightly downturned, just like when he repeatedly warned me “Don’t drink,” “Don’t wander around,” or “Don’t stay with strangers at night.”

His voice was slow and heavy. “In this city, perhaps you can get all the answers you want.”

City?

I looked ahead, but aside from the fog, I saw nothing.

“What city?”

“The Immortal City.”

The name was strange to me. I had never read about it in any of Kunlun’s books.

“Northern Wastes and there’s a city named like that?” I voiced my doubt, and just as I did, I heard a creaking sound, a heavy and eerie noise coming from the fog, like an ancient giant door being pushed open.

Within the fog, the air began to stir.

Xie Zhuo tightened the rope around my waist. “Don’t trust anyone.”

Finally, Xie Zhuo looked at me. “Except for me…”

I froze, trying to process what he had said, when I suddenly heard staggered footsteps coming from the fog ahead.

I moved my ears slightly and immediately recognized it. “Two people…”

Xie Zhuo’s expression grew tense. “Don’t expose any skin. Don’t let them see the black veins inside your body.”

Although I didn’t understand the situation, I immediately checked my sleeves. Thankfully, Xie Zhuo’s black cloak was wrapped tightly around me, so I felt a little reassured.

The footsteps grew faster. I listened carefully and realized they weren’t coming toward us. They seemed to be heading… to the left…

“Thud!” A sound of someone falling.

I turned to look to the left, and with a dull thud, a drop of dirty blood shot through the fog and splashed onto my face.

The blood was still warm, dripping down my cheek.

I stared at the direction, where through the mist, I could faintly see a figure—a woman.

But this woman was holding a sword, and the blade was embedded in the body of a man lying on the ground. She had not noticed Xie Zhuo and me. She swiftly pulled the sword out of the man’s body—or rather, out of his corpse.

The Immortal City…

I hadn’t even seen the city, but I’d already witnessed death.

The woman in the mist wiped the blood off her blade, and as she did, the corpse on the ground turned into a wisp of black evil aura and dissipated.

She had killed… an evil spirit?

The mist stirred again. Xie Zhuo, carrying me, moved closer to the dense fog, as if he didn’t intend to disturb the woman and wanted to quietly leave. However, as he moved, the woman in the mist suddenly grew alert.

“She saw us,” I whispered into Xie Zhuo’s ear.

Before Xie Zhuo could respond, in the next instant, a blade cut through the fog, and the woman, without asking a single question, attacked both Xie Zhuo and me.

The sharp blade was inches from us. Xie Zhuo dodged with a swift movement. He didn’t use any weapon, instead striking her wrist with his palm. Her wrist seemed to freeze for a moment, and Xie Zhuo easily snatched the sword from her.

In a flash, the woman turned like the wind and quickly retreated into the mist, running away without looking back…

“Uh…” I was left dazed on Xie Zhuo’s back, “Just like that?”

I thought such a swift attack would require at least two or three more moves…

“After fighting her, she knew she had no chance of winning.” Xie Zhuo wiped the sword and handed it to me. “Put it on your back…”

When I regained consciousness, my weapon was gone. I must have dropped it during the unconscious fight with Xie Zhuo.

I took the sword from his hand and strapped it to my back.

“She killed an evil spirit earlier. It seems she’s doing something similar to the Kunlun defense forces. Why did she attack us? Did she sense the evil aura on me?”

“As long as no one sees the black veins under your skin, no one will sense the evil aura inside you.”

“Then why did she attack us?”

“The Immortal City has no trust. Everyone here is an enemy.”

“Why?”

Xie Zhuo glanced at me and continued walking. “Because anyone in this city could be an evil spirit.”

I froze, not yet realizing how terrifying this was. “Evil spirits… can’t they be recognized?”

Over all these years, every time I encountered an evil entity or someone tainted by its aura, they always had obvious signs. Some were like me, with blackened meridians under the skin. Some were like Xie Zhuo before, with pitch-black eyes. Some emitted a black aura and were delirious, appearing mad.

The only one hard to distinguish… was that man from Jingnan. But back then, everyone in Kunlun believed he was an immortal, which was how he hid his true identity for so long.

“The evil ones here—no one can recognize them before they die.”

I fell silent…

If that’s the case, then this city truly holds no trust.

No one can be sure who’s an evil being and who isn’t. Everyone suspects each other, stays guarded… or worse, engages in bloodshed.

Evil ones kill. Those who slaughter evil ones also kill. And those suspected of being evil—just to survive—they too will kill…

Thinking this through, it made sense why that woman earlier killed one evil being, then turned and attacked me and Xie Zhuo the moment she saw us. She must have already decided everyone she met was an enemy…

But how can I be sure that she herself wasn’t one of them?

At that thought, a chill swept through my heart.

I had only just arrived, and I was already thinking like this. What kind of daily struggle must the people in this city live through?

I couldn’t help but reach for the rope Xie Zhuo had tied around my waist, tugging it hard. The sensation of it biting into my flesh gave me a strange sense of security.

“Xie Zhuo,” I said to him, “we absolutely must not get separated.”

I thought of the person in my dream who said he was everyone. Once inside this city, if I were to get separated from Xie Zhuo, I might never be able to tell if the one I met again… was really still him.

Xie Zhuo looked down at my hand gripping the rope at my waist. “You can always trust me.”

He repeated what he’d said before: “Don’t trust anyone—except me.”

What did that mean? Was Xie Zhuo so confident that he would never become one of them?

As we walked on, I could start to make out the towering walls of the “City of the Undying” through the mist.

The walls were hundreds of feet high, like a majestic mountain bearing down with overwhelming pressure.

The closer we got, the more I could make out little black dots along the wall. Squinting for a clearer look, I realized with horror—they were corpses nailed to the stone!

Some still had fresh blood, others were nothing but skulls or tattered garments…

At the base of the wall lay heaps of white bones, untouched, left to pile up layer by layer, now burying the very foot of the wall.

My heart trembled. “Are… are they all evil ones?”

“Evil ones turn to black mist and vanish after death.”

That much, I knew.

I just didn’t want to believe that all these corpses and bones were—

“These are the people wrongly killed in the City of the Undying.”

I felt a deep chill in my bones.

“W-why would they be nailed to the wall…”

Xie Zhuo fell silent, not answering.

I thought he was going to go quiet again, like before. After all, conversations like this—where he actually answered me—were rare in our time together.

I didn’t press him further. Before such a horrifying sight, my mind was already reeling.

I had never imagined that even after the evil god was sealed in the deep sea for thousands of years, such a place could still exist in this world, and such things could still be happening. That I… knew absolutely nothing.

“They were nailed there by the evil ones.”

“What?”

Xie Zhuo, with his back to me, walked up to the city gate. The mist and shadows cast a dark pall over his expression. His voice was low, almost emotionless. “The true evil ones inside the city nail the wrongly killed to the wall.”

“They’re… shaming them…” I murmured.

I stared at the massive city gate in front of me. One side was wide open, swinging slightly in the wind and mist. The sound I’d heard earlier must have come from it.

The other side remained closed, but it was damaged and in disrepair. Neither side could serve as a real barrier anymore. Only the words carved into the gate still stood clear—

“Eradicate all evil—no rest until death.”

Eight characters, still roaring with the oath sworn when this city was founded.

Perhaps the people within… were once just like our Kunlun garrison troops.