Dinghai Fusheng Records

Xiang Shu’s wide palms unconsciously stroked the scabbard as his deep eyes gazed at the darkness-shrouded Lake Hong. He spoke, “Sir when you look at the lake, does it seem like nothing is there?”

“Yes, it’s pitch black.” Huan Mo replied, “Like a long and seemingly endless night.”

Xiang Shu raised his head slightly and displayed in his eyes was the splendid galaxy reflected on the lake’s surface. The Milky Way within the lake was like a heavenly bridge running from the heavens to the earth, and back from the earth to the heavens, forming a shining halo in the sky.

“But there would always be something in the sky that guides you towards the direction you need to go when you’re at sea.” Xiang Shu tilted back his head.
“You believe that’s a direction?” Huan Mo gave a laugh as he replied, “It’s nothing more than a fixation. When the dark clouds blow over, you will be unable to see anything anymore.”

“A fixation?” Xiang Shu echoed.

“You people mustn’t have so many fixations.” Huan Mo said, “Once you become too fixated, falling to the devil would be unavoidable.”

Xiang Shu refuted, “Although you say that one must not become fixated on something, I, however, think that if there are no fixations, and one takes nothing to heart and treats everything with composure, life would inevitably be incredibly dull.”

“Let’s go.” Xiang Shu was no longer smiling, and he said that with a serious face.

“To where?!” Chen Xing was in great disbelief, and he was on the verge of tears as he said, “Can we get it back? This is the last hope!”

“To Chi Le Chuan,” Xiang Shu said. “To Lake Barkol. I know of a path, and following that path all the way, we can leave the Central Plains.”

And saying this, he tilted his head to look over the autumn sky and endless waters of Lake Hong.

“And if we keep going,” Xiang Shu said stoically, “We’ll pass through Shazhou, through Loulan, and to even further places. I think, there won’t be any drought fiends there, and no Dinghai Pearl either; there will be no spiritual Qi of the Heaven and the Earth, no exorcists, no yaoguais, devils, or demons. There will be nothing, and you won’t need to think about saving anyone ever again.”

When I first heard of this place, I had also thought that. The world is like a river, but life in itself is akin to a sudden storm. Sometimes it would be like the peak of a wave, uninhibited as the millions of mountains as high as thousands of ren. But other times it’s like the valley of a wave, as overwhelming as a disaster that annihilates everything. The vast sea has risen and fallen for numerous years, but it was all nothing but the ocean’s unwarranted fit.