Chapter 71
"Yeah, I will," she replied casually while tying the final knot behind his shoulder. The room slowly fell quiet afterward, only the sound of the candle flickering and the cold night wind brushing against the windows remaining.
She finished patching the last wound and quietly cleaned the blood from her hands while Wuming leaned back against the chair in silence. His eyes stayed half closed as his thoughts continued moving elsewhere.
"If Elder Gu truly wanted to see my Excusatio," he thought calmly, "he would have used Weiyang against me… not Ming." His fingers tapped lightly against the armrest. "Unless he wanted Ming to reveal his own too."
A faint smirk almost appeared on his lips.
"Oh… don't tell me I ruined all the excitement for the old man."
Wei Zhi suddenly spoke while putting the medicine jars aside. "Did you want to kill Ming?" Wuming was still lost in thought and did not answer immediately. She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Well?"
He finally looked at her lazily. "What are you going to do with the answer?" His golden eyes stayed calm and detached. "Does it even matter whether I say yes or no?"
Wei Zhi crossed her arms lightly. "If you think checking my morality will not get you any answers. You won't " She leaned against the table beside him, listening. "I don't have any morality for others. Maybe only for myself." Then he sighed faintly. "Either way… you're stuck with me."
Wei zhi looked at her for a second before replying calmly, "I know, I am." The room became quiet again before Wei Zhi added softly, "And yes, it doesn't matter. But I was still curious."
Wuming closed his eyes again. "No."
Wei Zhi frowned slightly. "Why?"
"He'll be useful in the future."
Her eyes narrowed immediately at those words while she carefully studied his face, trying to understand what exactly he meant.
After getting patched up, Wuming adjusted the bandages slightly and said flatly, "Go." Wei Zhi rolled her eyes while picking up the medicine bowls. "Yeah, yeah."
His gaze immediately shifted toward her. "Don't roll your eyes at me again." Wei Zhi raised a brow slightly. "Why? Does it hurt your ego?" But Wuming did not answer her this time.
Instead, his eyes dimmed faintly.
For a brief second he remembered Ye Ying.
Out of all five of them, she had always rolled her eyes the most. Feisty tempered, chaotic, loud… endlessly troublesome.
"It reminds me of someone I despise the most," he finally said quietly.
Wei Zhi stilled slightly before looking at him carefully. Then unexpectedly she smiled faintly. "You don't want to hate me too, hmm?" Wuming looked away from her immediately. "Get lost."
"Hmph." She opened the door while speaking dramatically. "Only Weiyang knows my value. You'll regret not valuing me someday, Wuming."
As she walked out, Wuming watched her from behind silently before replying in a calm detached voice, "I never regret letting people go."
The door closed softly afterward.
Wuming slowly collapsed back onto the bed, his injured body sinking into the softness beneath him. White bandages wrapped across his chest and left arm while his long silver hair spread messily over the mattress beside him. One hand rested over the sheets loosely as his golden irises slowly dimmed further in the darkness.
"I wish I could say it directly to your faces…" he thought quietly.
"Ye Ying. Lan Shen."
"I despise the two of you the most."
A faint murderous intent flickered through his eyes for only a moment.
"Out of all five of you… even the slightest reminder is enough to make my body react." His fingers twitched slightly against the bed sheets. "Every memory feels like poison."
He closed his eyes slowly.
"Just like Heaven blocked fragments of my memories…" his thoughts turned quieter and colder, "sometimes I wish I could forget all five of you entirely."
"You all never deserved anything from me," Wuming thought quietly while staring at the dark ceiling above him. "And the one person who actually did… I never valued him."
His dim golden eyes slowly narrowed.
"Ye Xiao… you are the only regret I have carried through my entire life."
A bitter silence filled the room.
"My first life on Earth lasted barely thirty five years. A neurosurgeon." His fingers twitched faintly against the sheets. "Then suddenly I was given another thousand years to live like it was some blessing from the gods."
A cold laugh almost escaped him.
"But during that time my soul kept travelling through the hollow." His gaze turned distant, almost empty. "Forced to watch people live the life I wanted… the life that was taken from me."
He slowly closed his eyes.
"Generation after generation… searching endlessly for the perfect body Heaven would finally allow me to enter." His jaw tightened slightly. "Their damned conditions."
"Even though my soul itself only aged one thousand two hundred and sixty years…" his thoughts became quieter, heavier, "my consciousness travelled through the fabrics of time itself."
He remembered it all too clearly.
The endless future.
The civilizations.
The rise and destruction.
The countless lives.
"I saw everything," he thought. "Felt everything."
"To Heaven the travel may have been instant…" his breathing slowed faintly, "but to me it felt like seven thousand years."
"No…"
"Maybe ten thousand."
His hand slowly covered his eyes.
"I don't think I will ever forget those feelings."
A long silence followed afterward.
"They are not memories anymore."
"They are a burden."
He thought, "Those ten thousand years… did I truly live them, or did I simply feel them in a single instant? I don't know. Heaven is treacherous. It toys with me."
"People deeply value the things they have lost." His eyes dimmed further. "And I lost Ye Xiao."
"You were the one person I needed. You stayed by my side all along, yet I was too blind to truly see you."
Even though these thoughts were regrets he had buried for countless years, he was finally allowing them to surface.
"The way I think now…" he thought quietly, "is the result of every hardship I have gone through." His fingers tightened slightly against the sheets. "My point of view has become ruthless to the core. Calm. Detached."
"And it will continue to evolve."
A faint silence filled the room before his thoughts drifted again.
"You know, Ye Xiao… maybe this truly is the last life Heaven has given me."
"Here, I have everything."
"A loving mother. A father. People who care for me and people who hate me. Loyal allies standing beside me."
Then suddenly Weiyang's face appeared in his mind.
"And someone very much like you."
His golden eyes slowly narrowed.
"If I have reincarnated again…" he thought quietly, "then have you reincarnated inside him too?"
Wuming turned around on the bed sheets and saw the Crimson Heir laying beside him in the exact same position, staring at him silently with glowing crimson eyes. The little creature tilted its head and asked, "So… we succeeded right, Wuming?" Wuming looked at him calmly and replied, "Well yeah. We did."
The Crimson Heir smiled proudly before asking again, "But why did you make me put a letter in my handwriting for Elder Gu?" Wuming narrowed his eyes slightly. "Why do you want to know?" The Crimson Heir immediately answered, "To know if Wei Zhi knows the truth or not. After all… she's the most useful and closest person to you right now."
Wuming stayed silent for a second before speaking calmly, "We'll have to see." His fingers tapped lightly against the sheets. "And this habit of yours to keep appearing again and again in the human world…" his gaze shifted toward him coldly, "I'm thinking of making a ring where I can store everything. Including you."
The Crimson Heir immediately protested, "But—!" Wuming cut him off instantly. "Listen." His voice became quieter and colder. "Since you wrote the letter in your own handwriting, completely different from mine, even if Elder Gu suspected someone he still wouldn't find the culprit. Because he doesn't know you exist at all."
"Giving him the letter and orchestrating this entire situation was part of my plan," Wuming continued while resting against the bed again. "But I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't started showing signs of suspecting my Excusatio and forcing me into training related to the third level of Excusatio."
He lazily patted the Crimson Heir's head with one hand while continuing, "He already suspected me after those months of training when he promised me I'd eventually awaken Excusatio. It was obvious he would try to see my abilities sooner or later."
"The letter only accelerated the process," Wuming said calmly. "Especially when you specifically wrote: 'Don't you want to know the power of Excusatio? Excusatio versus Excusatio. Wouldn't it be an impressive battle?'" A faint smirk appeared on his lips. "The moment Elder Gu read that, he would naturally arrange a fight between Excusatio users."
"He's an impatient man," Wuming continued. "He cannot wait to see the results. The letter was only the catalyst that sped up the process. Honestly… the old man was moving too slowly."
The Crimson Heir smiled happily while being patted by him and asked curiously, "Why does this man seem so invested in your Excusatio?" Wuming answered without hesitation, "Because I'm the heir of the Xuan Clan. The most prestigious and noble house in the entire empire."
"He wanted to see how I would use Excusatio," Wuming continued calmly. "Since I only ever used Space Restriction and a few Zhens to counter others, it made him curious about how efficiently I would wield Excusatio itself. That's all."
The Crimson Heir blinked before asking softly, "Will you tell Wei Zhi about it?" Wuming closed his eyes halfway. "Only if she asks." Then the Crimson Heir suddenly grinned mischievously. "Wuming," he said smirking, "don't worry. I'm going on an errand."
The smile on Wuming's face vanished instantly.
Before the little demon could leap toward him and gnaw at his face again, Wuming snapped his fingers coldly.
The Crimson Heir's voice disappeared completely.
Then slowly, from toes to head, the small crimson body vanished into thin air.
Wuming had watched long enough to stop asking whether humans are free or bound. Across centuries, their choices looked different, yet the pattern stayed familiar. People call it will, but most decisions grow quietly from what came before—habit, fear, memory, need. Even rebellion follows a cause. Still, there are small moments that don't fit the pattern: a pause before acting, a refusal when obedience would be easier, a choice that cannot be explained by what came before. Perhaps human will is not complete freedom, nor complete control, but something narrower—freedom within limits no one chose. And yet, within those limits, they keep choosing.
Wuming had seen many who claimed they would gamble everything. Most did not understand what that meant. To risk everything is not only to act, but to accept what follows without retreat. Yet humans rarely do this fully. Even in their boldest moments, they hold something back—an excuse, a hope of reversal, a quiet safety they do not name. So they gamble, and at the same time, they do not.
Perhaps that is their nature. Not cowardice, not courage, but something in between. They step forward as if nothing matters, while still preserving a part of themselves that refuses to be lost. And in that contradiction, their choices are never absolute—only as complete as they can bear.
Wuming remained unconcerned after those thoughts, laying quietly on the bed while considering another matter entirely.
Should he eliminate Meihua immediately?
Or should he take his time and uproot the true cause behind everything?
The latter would be cleaner.
End of 71