What did death feel like?
It was different from the last time, in the Imperial Palace's Ancestral Land, when he had experienced death inching closer as he struggled in pain, helpless and despairing because there was nothing he could do.
When the Clear Sky Hammer swung down, death had happened in an instant.
There was no pain, no fear. His mind went blank, and his body had already plunged into the lake's icy yet scorching waters.
Slowly, he sank. Sank.
I... am still alive?
His thoughts began to stir. Xu Lanqing remembered how, just as the suffocating hammer had come crashing down, a layer of silver film had shielded him.
He realized.
It must have been Gu Yuena.
This was the second time Gu Yuena had saved him, and he still hadn't even met her.
But then a sudden, bone-piercing agony erupted, as if a bulldozer had run over him. Pain surged from every corner of his body, racing along his nerves and into his mind.
He opened his mouth wide, trying to release a pained scream, but not a sound came out.
So he gritted his teeth and struggled to lift his heavy eyelids. Even that took every last bit of strength he had.
His vision was a blur of scarlet. Blood must have gotten into his eyes.
He looked up. All he could see was white and red, flickering with faint light.
A silver film enveloped his entire body, sealing him off from everything outside.
Pain had drained every ounce of strength from him. He couldn't even struggle; the slightest movement tugged at his injuries all over.
He was like a fish fallen into the deep sea, able only to sink through those depths, sinking and sinking.
Until even the faintly glowing white and red vanished from view.