He Was About to Die

More than ten days passed.

With countless precious medicines and Elder Yu's continued efforts to save him,

Long Zhanye was once again forcibly dragged back from death's door and slowly regained consciousness.

When he woke this time, it was as though most of his vitality had been drained away.

His once handsome face was now so pale it was nearly translucent, devoid of even a trace of color.

His eyes were sunken, his lips cracked. He looked exactly like a frail invalid plagued by chronic illness, with little time left to live.

When he spoke, his voice was light and weak. Every word seemed to exhaust all his strength:

"Elder Xu... You, you must seek justice for me... Report this to the Sect Master... Demand justice... for me..."

Seeing the endless sorrow and expectation in his eyes, eyes that had lost their former brilliance, Xu Zhaoting felt a pang of grief in his heart.

He hurriedly grasped Long Zhanye's icy hand and promised in a deep voice, "Child, don't worry. The sect will never stand by and do nothing!"

"The Sect Master... is at a critical point in his seclusion, but Great Elder Golden Roc already knows of this matter!"

"These past few days, he has been summoning every elder in the sect for emergency discussions. Shrek must give us an explanation and pay the price!"

Long Zhanye nodded with difficulty, struggling to rise.

Elder Yu hurried forward to support him, only to find that his legs were weak and unsteady.

He had to cling tightly to a bedpost or someone's arm just to move with difficulty.

Supported by them, he shuffled step by step to the window, pushed it open, and eagerly looked out at the still-azure sky.

The sunlight was somewhat blinding, but all he felt was cold.

Why?

He screamed soundlessly in his heart.

Why had what should have been the happiest day of his life turned, in the blink of an eye, into the destruction of his family and left him barely clinging to life in such a miserable state?

Heaven and earth were heartless, but why had fate treated him so unfairly?

The profound sorrow and confusion in his hollow eyes were plain for Elder Xu and Elder Yu behind him to see.

Yet the two could only face each other in silence before letting out heavy sighs.

Such a terrible calamity would be enough to shatter anyone's mind.

At a time like this, even the most comforting words seemed pale and powerless.

In the days that followed, Long Zhanye began to walk slowly and painfully through the sect.

How desperately he wished to encounter a fellow disciple, even if it was only to receive an encouraging look.

Or hear a single indignant word condemning Shrek's atrocities...

Yet reality brought him an even deeper chill.

Wherever he went, whether ordinary sect disciples or even some stewards, they would quickly detour around him the moment they spotted him from afar, as though avoiding a plague.

Others would lower their heads and hasten past, with no one daring to meet his eyes.

No one approached him to speak, as though what surrounded him was not injury and illness, but some ominous calamity.

Several more days passed.

The deathly pallor finally faded from Long Zhanye's face, replaced by the faintest hint of color.

He could now slowly walk on his own with a specially made cane, and outwardly, he seemed somewhat more "normal."

But this "normal" was still worlds apart from the vibrant, Soul Power-surging genius youth he had once been.

He was more like a fragile shell that had been carefully adorned, barely retaining the ability to move.

Meanwhile, the entire Body Sect had long been roiling beneath the surface, like a pot brought to a boil.

From high-ranking elders to ordinary disciples, everyone was passionately and uneasily discussing the tragedy and the consequences it might bring in private.

"Have you heard? Great Elder Golden Roc's face has been black as the bottom of a pot these past few days. Meeting after meeting has been held..."

"The Sect Master is still in seclusion. What will he do once he comes out and learns about this? Are we really going to war with Shrek?"

"Shrek... That's the monster academy that has stood for ten thousand years, and they have the Sea God Pavilion too... Our Body Sect may be strong, but if we truly tear off all pretense..."

"Ah, isn't that the truth? The biggest problem now is that Long Zhanye. I heard... he only has three years left?"

"Shh! Keep your voice down!"

"Don't mention him. Bad luck!"

"Right, right, stay far away from him. He used to be a genius, but now he's a hot potato. Whoever gets involved with him will have terrible luck!"

"Exactly. What if one day he... right in front of us? How unlucky would that be? We might even be blamed by association..."

Those whispers were like an ever-present cold wind, blowing around Long Zhanye's lonely, staggering figure.

When he passed through the square, the previously noisy crowd would instantly grow much quieter;

When he walked past the corridor outside the discussion hall, the stewards who had been talking would immediately fall silent, their eyes shifting away;

He even saw several elders who had once thought highly of him and had competed to accept him as a personal disciple.

"Elder Wu..."

He saw Elder Wu, known for his strictness but once approving of him, walking toward him.

A faint warmth rose in his heart, and he forced himself to raise a hand, hoping to greet him.

But the moment Elder Wu saw him, a trace of barely perceptible panic flashed across his otherwise calm face.

He hurriedly waved his hand without stopping. "Oh, Zhanye... Focus on recovering. This elder has urgent matters to deal with, so I'll be going first, I'll be going first..."

Before he had even finished speaking, he had already hurried down another path, as though lingering for even a moment would bring trouble upon him.

Long Zhanye's raised hand froze in midair. As he watched that rapidly retreating back, the last faint glimmer in his eyes went out as well.

He muttered to himself, so softly that only he could hear, "I just... Why... is everyone avoiding me?"

Such things repeated themselves almost every day.

Because everyone knew—

He was about to die!

Even though his body appeared to be "recovering" in the eyes of others, a cold fact had already taken root in everyone's hearts.

Long Zhanye was no longer that genius with limitless prospects.

He was now a "dying man" with little time left, entangled in enormous trouble and misfortune.

Everyone avoided him as though he were poison, afraid of being shrouded by the obvious shadow of tragedy.

That night.

The moon was hidden, the stars dim, and the wind cold beneath heavy dew.

A staggering figure shuffled along a secluded path within the sect, taking uneven steps.

His footsteps were weak, his body swaying like withered grass in a gale. Several times, he nearly fell, only to barely steady himself again.

At last.

When he reached the front of a solitary courtyard, he finally exhausted the last of his strength, and his body went limp.

With a thud, he fell stiffly onto the stone steps before the door and made no further sound.

It was Long Zhanye.

A strong smell of alcohol spread from his body.

He was clearly dead drunk.

This was the first time in his life he had drunk himself into such a state, trying to drown the sorrow and despair in his heart with the strongest liquor.

But he did not know that the scorching burn flowing through his gut had not eased his pain. Instead, it made every ounce of suffering clearer and more piercing.

He raised his cup to drown his sorrows, only for sorrow to grow still deeper...

Through his drunken haze, his lost family and shattered future instead became even more vicious phantoms.

A dull thump startled the people inside.

The door opened with a soft creak, warm lamplight spilling out.

A man and a woman stood in the doorway. The man stood tall and straight as a pine, his aura deep and steady; the woman was breathtakingly beautiful, gentle and graceful.

They were the Body Sect's publicly acknowledged foremost genius of the current generation, Long Aotian, and his beloved, Princess Vina of the Heaven Dou Empire.