Farewell Moment

Chapter 43: The Moment of Farewell

Morning light, clear as a mountain stream, silently spilled over the rough-hewn stone window frame, scattering a soft golden glow across the floor. Patches of light danced on the dry straw mat, like countless warm spirits quietly dispelling the last traces of the night's chill.

On the straw mat, Little Black—also the Demon Commander Ji Meng, who had once dominated the Primordial World—his thick eyelashes trembled slightly, then slowly opened. His brown-black pupils had been washed clean of their former sharpness and weariness, clear as a deep pool after rain, distinctly reflecting the tangled shadows of the thatched roof above. His entire gaze was immersed in a stillness that bordered on stagnation.

As consciousness surged back into his body like a tide, his attention naturally focused on his neck. The wound that had once been a fatal piercing had now completely formed into a dark brown scab, like some strange ore, clinging tightly to the vital spot—a bizarre, profound brand silently telling of the danger that had been.

At the edges of the scab, new membranous tissue showed a resilient vitality, fine and dense, comparable to top-grade deerskin that had been hammered and tanned countless times, wrapping the wound seamlessly. Most reassuring of all was that, with the steady, deep rise and fall of his chest, this severely injured area only transmitted a uniform slight movement. The excruciating pain that had once followed him like a shadow, threatening to tear his soul apart at any moment, had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.

With a slight stir of his mind, he attempted to guide the source demonic power that had lain dormant in his body for so long. In the next instant, an extremely gentle, pure spiritual energy responded to his thought, like a surging spring torrent after a glacier thawed, pouring with unstoppable force into his nearly dried-up, cracked meridians.

This strange spiritual energy not only nourished his damaged body and demonic meridians like sweet dew, but also felt like a warm, majestic current, gently yet firmly washing over his Primordial Spirit source, which had been flickering and covered in fine cracks. It brought an indescribable, long-lost vitality and vigor, like a withered tree meeting spring.

Ji Meng calmed his mind and quietly looked inward. What he saw stirred a storm in his heart. The spiritual energy of this small world was purer than he could have imagined, but what shocked him even more was that this spiritual energy faintly contained a trace of the profound true essence of the Law of Life!

Where the spiritual energy flowed, the originally broken, withered demonic meridians, like parched land suddenly blessed by rain, greedily absorbed the spiritual energy at a speed almost visible to the naked eye, rapidly mending and regenerating, becoming even wider and tougher than before. The spiderweb-like cracks on the surface of his Primordial Spirit glowed faintly gold under the spiritual energy's infusion. The demonic power core, once as still as dead water, now, like a volcano awakening from hibernation, quietly gathered strength under this abundant vitality, radiating new energy.

He secretly guided a thin thread of demonic power, carefully circulating it to his back—where three terrifying tears had once gone deep to the bone, wrapped in demonic qi. Now, they were completely filled with plump, light red granulation tissue. The wound surface was covered with a smooth, tough membrane, and the edges showed a healthy pink. This healing speed was simply appalling, far surpassing any known healing miracle medicine in the Primordial World!

As for the wounds on his abdomen, torn by claws, they were now nowhere to be found, leaving only a few extremely faint silver lines. Unless one looked closely, they were almost impossible to detect, like the subtle, fragmented shadows cast by the bright moon on a calm lake, carrying a strange beauty.

Looking back, if he had suffered such severe injuries in the Demon Court, even with his status as a Demon Commander, he would have had to pay a huge price, drawing upon the supreme Solar True Fire to burn and drive out the foreign demonic qi and turbid qi that had invaded his body, then supplement it with the jade dew condensed from Taiyin Moonlight Essence to harmonize yin and yang day and night. Repeating this process would take at least several months before he could barely recover. The pain during that time went without saying.

Yet, in this seemingly ordinary little courtyard, without any rare miraculous medicines, merely relying on the ubiquitous spiritual energy of this place and the ordinary herbs picked and pounded by a mortal, such a nearly miraculous healing had been achieved! Ji Meng involuntarily raised his eyes to look at Chen An, who was crouched by the fire pit, focused on pounding herbs. His gaze grew deeper and more unfathomable—this was no accident of luck. It must be that the saint living in seclusion here, with his supreme means, had infused the source of life from the Heaven and Earth Great Dao into every inch of this place.

Chen An did not notice the complex gaze behind him. He was carefully placing dried Fairy Crane Grass and Dandelion Root into a stone mortar, adding a little clear well water, then holding a stone pestle, unhurriedly grinding them. Dark green juice gradually seeped out, faintly glowing with a golden halo, and a spiritual energy mixed with the fragrance of grass and trees began to diffuse. Ji Meng's nostrils fluttered slightly, and he keenly captured a strange rhythm of the Dao from the simple medicinal fragrance—it was not the vast medicinal power contained in ordinary spiritual plants, but a more fundamental, Returning to Simplicity rhythm of life, faintly echoing the natural truth of "grass and trees wither and flourish, life without end" inherent in the world.

When Chen An turned around and evenly applied the cool, fragrant medicinal paste to the wound on Ji Meng's neck, a gentle, cool force instantly seeped through the skin, reaching deep into the flesh. Ji Meng closed his eyes, focused inward, and could clearly perceive that this seemingly ordinary medicinal power merged seamlessly with the profound spiritual energy everywhere in the Safe Zone. It was as if they had transformed into countless invisible, life-filled threads, precisely guiding every cell of muscle tissue at the wound's edge to split, reorganize, and connect at a speed beyond reason. Beneath the scab, new flesh grew vigorously. As the faint silver lines flowed slightly, even the deeper, damaged fine demonic meridians were quietly repaired and smoothed by this force, leaving no hidden dangers behind.

"To use ordinary mortal grass and wood to actually draw upon the most fundamental life force of Heaven and Earth... This, this is a means that steals the very creation of the world!" Ji Meng's heart shook, unable to contain himself. He couldn't help but think of the top alchemists in the Demon Court, who, to refine healing miracle medicines, often had to expend countless heavenly treasures like Thousand-Year Ganoderma and ten-thousand-year blood ginseng, going through extremely tedious processes to form the pills. Compared to Chen An's casual, effortless use of grass and wood, turning the rotten into the miraculous, the gap in skill was as vast as clouds and mud. The path walked by a saint had indeed reached the ultimate simplicity and depth, the state of Returning to Simplicity.

By noon, when the sunlight was at its most intense and abundant, Ji Meng quietly activated his foundational technique, the Demon Emperor Scripture. This time, there was no trace of stagnation in his demonic power. It was like a floodgate opening, or a thawed great river, surging and rolling mightily, scouring his widened and tougher meridians. But what shook his spirit even more was—deep within his Primordial Spirit, an extremely faint, yet fundamentally extraordinary wisp of Chaos Qi had quietly emerged!

That was the supreme barrier he had painstakingly sought but never touched when he had once tried to break through to the peak of the Demon Commander realm! Back then, his forced breakthrough had failed, leaving behind extremely difficult-to-repair hidden injuries. He had never imagined that this near-death severe injury, under the dual nourishment of this small courtyard's spiritual energy and medicinal power, would completely heal those old hidden injuries, and even, through this opportunity of Break and then Establish, unexpectedly draw forth a trace of the Chaos Qi that was only common when Heaven and Earth first opened!

He suppressed his surging emotions and tried to guide this faint but immensely heavy wisp of qi to circulate through his body. In an instant, the natural aura of his Demon Commander rank suddenly turned inward. He seemed to transform into a bottomless ancient well, or an abyss where all things return to silence. Even the leaping flames in the fire pit beside him seemed affected by this invisible force, freezing for a brief moment!

"Break and then Establish, fail and then succeed... Could it be that this tribulation was the saint's supreme enlightenment and opportunity bestowed upon me?" Ji Meng suppressed the ecstasy that almost burst from his throat, his heart surging. He deeply understood that this wisp of Chaos Qi, though as fine as a thread, was the crucial key to whether he could one day step into the supreme realm of Quasi-Saint! And all this turning point, upon careful thought, originated from Chen An's seemingly casual yet deeply Dao-filled reminder, "Take action and the path will widen"—if not for the saint deliberately walking the Great Dao in mortal form, revealing the truth in the smallest details, how could someone like him, trapped in the shackles of fixed thinking, have suddenly awakened to the supreme truth that "within the deadliest situation, the opportunity for nirvana and rebirth also lies hidden"?

Dusk gradually deepened, like ink dyeing the sky. Ji Meng lay quietly on the straw mat, watching Chen An, who was by the fire pit, carefully repairing a cracked clay pot by the faint firelight. The leaping flames outlined the saint's ordinary silhouette with a warm golden edge. His fingers moved nimbly; the ordinary clay seemed to come to life in his hands, flexibly mending the cracks in the vessel.

A thousand emotions surged in Ji Meng's heart, complex feelings rising like a tide: deep gratitude for surviving the disaster, profound awe for the supreme means, and a heavy sense of responsibility concerning his future path.

"The grace of saving my life is as heavy as a mountain; the virtue of enlightening me is as deep as the sea... How can I repay such heavenly kindness?" he pondered. If he considered the wealth of the Demon Court, rare treasures of the world were within easy reach, but the saint lived in seclusion here. Every blade of grass, every tree, every brick and tile in the small courtyard was in harmony with the natural Dao. How could ordinary, worldly things be worthy of matching them? He suddenly remembered Chen An's frequent saying, "Unity is strength," and recalled the focus and care with which he wiped every clay bowl. His mind suddenly cleared, like clouds parting to reveal the moon—

What the saint expected was never the accumulation and offering of external material things. To sincerely guard the peace and tranquility of this small courtyard, to do his utmost to help him practice this seemingly ordinary yet supreme Dao of "unity"—that was perhaps the true way to repay the kindness. When he recovered his strength and regained command of his old troops, he would strictly restrain the demon horde under him, ensuring they never disturbed this pure land, and secretly protect it. If the saint one day intended to spread this Dao, Ji Meng would be willing to be the vanguard, spreading the Dao of "unity" throughout the Primordial World, to repay the heavenly grace in the smallest measure.

The night wind gently brushed over the simple courtyard wall. The invisible barrier of the Safe Zone shimmered with a faint, barely perceptible silver halo in the darkness. Ji Meng slowly closed his eyes. Within his demon core, that wisp of Chaos Qi slowly drifted like a nebula. His injuries had healed, and the path ahead was clear. He was no longer just that wounded beast, lying on the verge of death in the wilderness. He was a Demon Commander, bearing the saint's enlightenment, having glimpsed a supreme opportunity from the brink of death. A true path of nirvana and rebirth had only just begun to unfold beneath his feet.