Farewell

Morning light flowed like a crystal-clear stream, silently spilling through the crude, uncarved window lattice of the stone house and scattering a soft golden radiance across the floor. Specks of light danced over the dry grass mat like countless warm spirits, quietly dispelling the last trace of chill accumulated through the long night.

Upon the grass mat, Little Black—the Demon Commander Ji Meng, who had once held sway over the Primordial Wilderness—had his thick lashes trembling faintly before slowly opening his eyes. His brown-black pupils had been cleansed of their former sharpness and vicissitudes, becoming as clear as a deep pool after rain. They reflected the slightly disorderly shadows cast by the crisscrossing thatch overhead, and his entire gaze was immersed in an almost motionless tranquility.

As consciousness fully returned to his body like a tide, his attention naturally focused on his neck. The wound that had once been fatal had now completely solidified into a dark-brown hard scab resembling a strange ore, clinging tightly to the vital spot like a bizarre, profound brand silently recounting the danger he had once faced.

At the edge of the scab, newly formed tissue had taken on a resilient texture brimming with vitality. Fine and dense, it rivaled the finest deerskin beaten and tanned countless times, fitting seamlessly around the wound. Most reassuring of all, as his chest rose and fell steadily and unhurriedly, the grievous injury produced only a uniform, faint 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 though it had never existed.

With a slight movement of his thoughts, he tried to guide the demonic power of his origin that had lain dormant within him for so long. In the next instant, an incomparably gentle and pure spiritual energy arose in response, like spring water surging forth after a glacier thawed. With unstoppable force, it poured into the depths of his nearly parched and cracked meridians in the blink of an eye.

This strange spiritual energy not only nourished his damaged body and demonic meridians like sweet dew, but also resembled a warm, vast current. Gentle yet firm, it swept through the sometimes-bright, sometimes-dim origin of his primordial spirit, which was covered in fine cracks, bringing indescribable, long-lost vitality, as though a withered tree had met spring.

Ji Meng gathered his mind and quietly examined himself inwardly. That single look sent turbulent waves surging through his heart. The spiritual energy in this Small Courtyard was unimaginably pure. Even more shocking was that this spiritual energy seemed to contain a trace of the profound and unfathomable true meaning of the law of life!

Wherever the spiritual energy flowed, the broken and withered demonic meridians, like parched fields suddenly blessed with sweet rain, greedily absorbed the life force at a speed almost visible to the naked eye. They rapidly knitted themselves back together, regenerated, and even became broader and tougher than before his injury. Under the nourishment of the spiritual energy, the web-like cracks on the surface of his primordial spirit glimmered with a faint golden light. The core of his demonic power, once as still as dead water, was now like a volcano awakening after hibernation, quietly gathering strength and blooming with new vitality under this abundant life force.

He secretly guided a tiny strand of demonic power and carefully circulated it to his spine. Three terrifying lacerations had once run there, deep enough to expose bone and coiled with demonic energy. Now, they had been completely filled with plump, pale-red granulation tissue, while the surface of the wounds was covered by a smooth and resilient membrane, its edges a healthy pink. The speed of this healing was simply horrifying, far beyond that of any known healing elixir in the Primordial World!

The wounds across his abdomen, once torn open by claws, were even harder to find. Only a few extremely faint silver lines remained, nearly impossible to notice without close inspection, like tiny fragments of moonlight cast upon a calm lake, possessing a strange beauty.

In the past, if he had suffered such severe injuries in the Demon Court, even with his status as a Demon Commander, he would have needed to pay an enormous price. He would have had to draw upon the blazing Solar True Fire to refine away the foreign demonic energy and turbid qi that had invaded his body, then supplement it with jade dew condensed from Taiyin Moonlight Essence to harmonize Yin and Yang day and night. Repeating this process would have taken at least several months before he could barely recover. The suffering involved went without saying.

Yet in this seemingly ordinary Small Courtyard, without any rare elixirs or miraculous medicines, the ever-present spiritual energy here, combined with the ordinary herbs gathered and pounded by a mortal, had produced a healing method that was almost miraculous! Ji Meng could not help raising his eyes toward Chen An, who was crouched beside the fire pit, intently pounding medicine. His gaze grew increasingly deep and unfathomable. This was absolutely not a stroke of luck. It must have been the Saint dwelling here in seclusion who, through supreme means, had infused the origin of life within the Heaven and Earth Great Dao into every inch of this place.

Chen An did not notice the complicated gaze behind him. He was carefully placing dried Fairy Crane Grass and Dandelion Root into a stone mortar, adding a little clear well water before slowly grinding them with a stone pestle. Dark-green herbal juice gradually seeped out, blooming with a faint golden halo, while spiritual energy mixed with the fragrance of plants and grass wafted into the air. Ji Meng's nostrils twitched slightly as he keenly caught a strange rhythm of Dao Resonance within the simple medicinal fragrance. It was not the tremendous medicinal power contained in ordinary spiritual plants, but a more fundamental life rhythm, Returning to Simplicity, faintly resonating with the natural principle of "plants wither and flourish, life continues endlessly" between Heaven and Earth.

When Chen An turned around and evenly applied the freshly pounded, cool-scented ointment to the wound on Ji Meng's neck, a gentle and refreshing force instantly seeped through his skin and into his flesh. Ji Meng closed his eyes and focused inward. He could clearly sense that this seemingly ordinary medicinal power had merged perfectly with the profound spiritual energy permeating the Safe Zone, transforming into countless invisible threads filled with vitality. They precisely guided every cell of flesh along the wound's edges to divide, reorganize, and connect at a speed beyond reason. Beneath the hard scab, new flesh flourished. As the pale-silver patterns faintly circulated, even the damaged, deeper demonic meridians were quietly repaired and smoothed by this force, leaving no hidden danger behind.

"With mortal plants, one can actually draw upon the most fundamental life force between Heaven and Earth... This, this is simply a method of seizing the Creation of Heaven and Earth!" Ji Meng was shaken to the point of losing control of himself. He could not help recalling how, in the Demon Court, even the foremost alchemists often had to expend Thousand-Year Ganoderma, ten-thousand-year blood ginseng, and countless other heavenly treasures to refine healing elixirs, requiring an incomparably complicated process before they could achieve a pill. Compared with the way Chen An casually used plants before him, turning decay into something wondrous, the difference in height and depth was like heaven and earth. The path walked by a Saint had indeed reached a realm of utmost simplicity and profoundness, Returning to Simplicity.

At noon, when the sunlight was at its most blazing and abundant, Ji Meng quietly activated his fundamental cultivation technique, the Demon Emperor Scripture. This time, his demonic power flowed through his body without the slightest obstruction. It surged like a flood released from its gates, like a great river thawing, roaring and billowing as it scoured the widened and more resilient meridians. What shook his mind even more was that, in the deepest part of his primordial spirit, a wisp of Chaos Qi—extremely faint yet extraordinary in essence—had quietly begun to form!

That was the supreme barrier he had desperately sought but never managed to touch when he had once attempted to reach the pinnacle of the Demon Commander realm! Back then, his forced breakthrough had failed, leaving behind hidden injuries that were exceptionally difficult to repair. He had never imagined that after suffering a near-fatal injury this time, the old hidden wounds would be completely mended under the dual nourishment of the life force and medicinal power in this Small Courtyard. Through this opportunity of Break and then Establish, he had even accidentally drawn forth a trace of the Chaos origin energy that had only been commonly seen when Heaven and Earth first opened!

He forcibly suppressed his surging emotions and tried to guide this faint yet incomparably weighty wisp of energy through his body. In an instant, the Demon Commander pressure he naturally emitted abruptly withdrew. His entire being seemed to transform into a bottomless ancient well, or an abyss where all things fell silent. Even the flames leaping and flickering in the fire pit beside him seemed affected by this invisible force, freezing for a brief instant!

"Break and then Establish, fail and then succeed... Could this be the supreme enlightenment and opportunity the Saint has granted me through this tribulation?" Ji Meng suppressed the wild joy almost bursting from his lips, his heart surging. He understood deeply that although this wisp of Chaos Qi was as fine as a thread, it was the crucial key to whether he could one day step into the supreme realm of the Quasi-Saint! On careful reflection, all this change had originated from Chen An's seemingly casual yet Dao Resonance-laden reminder: "Once you try, the road opens up." If the Saint had not deliberately practiced the Great Dao through a mortal body, revealing its truth in the smallest details, how could someone like him, trapped in the shackles of fixed thinking, have suddenly grasped the supreme truth that "even in utter desperation, the rebirth of Nirvana is hidden within"?

Dusk gradually deepened, as though ink had stained the sky. Ji Meng quietly lay on the grass mat, watching Chen An carefully repair a cracked piece of pottery beside the fire pit by its faint light. The dancing flames outlined a warm golden rim around the Saint's ordinary profile. His fingers flew, and the common clay seemed endowed with life in his hands as it deftly sealed the cracks in the vessel.

Ji Meng's heart was filled with conflicting emotions that surged like a tide: deep gratitude for surviving the calamity, profound awe toward those supreme methods, and an even heavier sense of responsibility concerning the path ahead.

"The kindness of saving my life is as weighty as a mountain, and the virtue of your enlightenment is as deep as the sea... Faced with such heavenly grace, how can I repay it?" he thought silently. With the wealth of the Demon Court, rare treasures of the world could be obtained as easily as reaching out for them. But the Saint lived here in seclusion, and every blade of grass, tree, brick, and tile in the Small Courtyard resonated with the natural way of Heaven. How could mundane objects sully or match it? He suddenly recalled how Chen An often muttered that "there is strength in unity," and remembered the focus and care he showed whenever wiping each pottery bowl. His heart suddenly opened, as though clouds had parted to reveal the moon—

What the Saint hoped for had never been an accumulation or offering of material things from the outside world. Sincerely protecting the peace and tranquility of this Small Courtyard and doing everything he could to help Chen An practice this seemingly ordinary yet supreme "unity" Great Dao might be the true way to repay his kindness. Once he recovered his strength and took command of his former subordinates again, he would strictly restrain the demons under his command, ensuring that they never disturbed this pure land, while secretly protecting it. If the Saint wished to spread this path in the future, he, Ji Meng, was willing to serve as a foot soldier, spreading the path of "unity" throughout the Primordial Wilderness to repay even a fraction of this heavenly grace.

The night breeze was gentle as it brushed against the crude courtyard walls. The invisible barrier of the Safe Zone circulated through the darkness with an almost imperceptible pale-silver glow. Ji Meng slowly closed his eyes. Within his demonic core, that wisp of Chaos Qi drifted and sank like a nebula. His injuries had completely healed, and the road ahead was clear. He was no longer merely a grievously wounded beast, stranded in the wilderness and hovering on the brink of death. He was a Demon Commander who had received the Saint's enlightenment and glimpsed a supreme opportunity in the realm of death. A true path of Nirvana and rebirth had only just begun unfolding beneath his feet.