"You... you..." Shugu Ancestor's voice began to tremble.
Mo Hua said sternly, "Not me. I was just asking casually... understand? Just asking casually."
Watched by Mo Hua's eyes, brilliant as stars and sharp as divine swords, how could Shugu Ancestor fail to understand?
It nodded. "I understand, I understand."
Mo Hua asked, "Do you really understand?"
Shugu Ancestor nodded earnestly.
"Then... is there a way to deal with what I just asked about?" Mo Hua asked in a low voice.
Shugu Ancestor frowned. Though half its brow had already rotted away, what remained still knotted together.
"This sort of thing..."
Shugu Ancestor had only just begun before it could not continue.
Mo Hua pressed, "Aren't you yourself half-dead, half-alive? In other words, you stand at the edge between 'life' and 'death.' I don't believe you've never considered the matter of 'returning from death.'"
Shugu Ancestor wore a bitter expression. "Of course I have... Who would not wish to break through the boundary of life and death, to live forever without dying? The more one has died, the more one has tasted eternal emptiness, the more one fears death, and the less one wishes to die."
"But this... is different..."
Mo Hua asked, "How is it different?"
Shugu Ancestor pondered for a moment, then sighed. "Fellow cultivator, have you heard the four words 'the body dies and the Dao vanishes'?"
Mo Hua nodded.
Surely no one had never heard those four words.
Shugu Ancestor said, "Those four words actually carry great significance. 'The body dies' means one's Fate has 'died': one's lifespan is exhausted, one's final limit has arrived, and the flesh decays in death. There is nothing more to say about that."
"But 'the Dao vanishes' has two meanings. One is that after a person dies, the 'Dao' they pursued