Chapter 168: Heaven and earth are grief-stricken!
The peak of the mountain was perpetually wreathed in cloud, with maple leaves reflecting the late autumn colours.
The sun shining overhead, crystal-clear spring water cascading down the mountain.
The young people were handsome and blooming, indulging in the landscape to their heart’s content and exhibiting their youthfulness.
The black-robed girl played a piccolo, while the white-robed boy played the accompaniment music, elegant music flowed from the edge of their lips, twisting around the mountain and fields, lightly hitting against the babbling brooks, adding energy and vitality to this beautiful paradise.
The flute’s vocal range was broad, loud and clear. The notes coming from the leaves sounded fresh, clean and gratifying.
This tune, which conveys an infinite yearning for love, was vividly and thoroughly expressed, and made one ponder deeply.
At this time, at this view.
Playing the flute, Qiandu led the way in front. The young girl’s footsteps were brisk but strong as she climbed over rocks and crossed several brooks. Occasionally, she rose high into the air like a beautiful and playful black butterfly.
Li Muyang held a leaf in both hands, the leaf is soft, but his eyes were even softer. He stared intently at the black-robed girl in front. She is the woman he’s chasing after. She is the love he yearns for.
Lin Canghai completely immersed himself in the melody, closely following after them. When they stopped, he also abruptly came to a stop. As though he was an affectionate man deep in love, but his expression was exquisite and cute, that makes people mistaken him as a celestial boy who fell into a wrong path.
Directly behind Lin Canghai, were deer, rabbits, a pack of wolves, and colourful pheasants——
They, surprisingly, were safe and coexisting peacefully.
Occasionally, Li Muyang and Qiandu gazed into each other’s eyes, a joyous feeling penetrated from their inside to the outside.
He likes her!
She likes him too!
A glance like that can’t deceive others, such emotions can’t be disguised.
When the music played to the part of sacrificing for love, ‘rise from the ashes’, Qiandu’s expression became mournful and the smile on Li Muyang’s face completely vanished.
The sadness, despair and the painful feeling of seeking but failed to obtain slowly diffused across their body, tightly wrapping around their entire body and constricting their heart, which felt as though they were squashed down by a thousand pound boulder, in that, they couldn’t even breathe.
Li Muyang felt a heart wrenching feeling.
He felt an endless sadness and the same white figure surfaced to his mind once again.
The white figure was saying farewell to him, uttering: ‘I’ll wait for you’–
I’ll wait for you!
I’ll wait for you!
I’ll wait for you——
“Who? Who is that? Li Muyang’s mood turned violent.
No matter how desperately he tried, he still couldn’t see the face of the woman in white.
Who is she? Why did she say ‘I’ll wait for you’? Why would she be waiting for me?
Even if he does not know who she is, Li Muyang felt sad and aggrieved for her.
His eyes turned red, as though his body was invaded by some unknown demon.
He mustered up all his strength and changed his technique of playing.
The music became more sorrowful, and the sound became louder than before.
As the music reached the ears of connoisseur Lin Canghai, he immediately realised that Li Muyang’s tone and pitch differed from before.
Now the sounds were more ambitious, serious, solemn and magnificent.
The Phoenix’s steely determination to die in a show of flames and combustion and that endless fire were vividly expressed through his music.
Lin Canghai felt a burning pain on his face, a surge of boiling hot air pouncing towards him.
Flabbergasted, he lifted his head up, only to discover purple clouds floating across the sky.
“Purple Sparks?”
“Why would there be sparks?”
It’s Li Muyang’s music.
Li Muyang’s body was wrapped in a huge body of purple sparks, each musical note that leapt out, transformed into a purple spark. The notes accumulated into one piece and the sparks also lined up as one.
Boundlessly spreading into the distance.
Overhead, there was almost a sea of purple flames painted above.
Butterflies flapped their wings, desperately fluttering into the flames, like the Phoenix throwing itself into the fire.
The pack of wolves raised their head and let out a long howl, their voice filled with an endless sorrow.
Big beads of tears streamed from the deer’s eyes, as if they were saying farewell to their children and lover.
Rabbits knocked themselves against trees; pheasants frantically danced.
The sight in front became mad and savage.
The tranquil, auspicious and peaceful atmosphere faded, developing into a suicide-like aura that enveloped all the people and animals in this area.
The music has become the ruler of all things, dictating their joy, their sadness. Their everything.
Lin Canghai had awakened from his earlier trance, standing aghast at the sight of Li Muyang entering into a frantic state.
At this moment, Li Muyang’s entire body was draped by an unusual fire, as he hovered at a high altitude, like a demon god crawling out of hell.
“Li Muyang—–” He screamed. “Li Muyang, what happened to you?”
Today, Li Muyang was strange.
Not only was he able to play the tune ‘Phoenix seeking phoenix’, which has been lost for hundreds of years, he rose into the air with a strange fire draped all over him. It’s too peculiar.
Qiandu also stopped playing.
She was Li Muyang’s music companion; no one understood Li Muyang’s emotion more than her at that time.
When Li Muyang was happy, she could feel his joy.
At that time, she was also happy.
When Li Muyang was in despair, when he was struggling desperately, she also felt the same pain and desperately struggled—
Li Muyang’s music took over her music. Li Muyang’s mood also drove her emotions.
When she noticed that Li Muyang’s music was abnormal, she already set aside her magic flute and stopped playing, glaring at Li Muyang with a puzzled look crossing her face.
The difference in Li Muyang’s music before and now was too immense and his mood was also poles apart, making her unable to react at all.
“Li Muyang, hurry stop. Hurry and stop.” Qiandu cried. She knew that Li Muyang must stop playing. His mind had already been disturbed by the melody and perhaps he also lost his self-awareness. If he continued to play, he might not be able to free himself from the tune ‘Phoenix looking for Phoenix’.
He might perform until his strength is drained or even until he’s exhausted to death.
Li Muyang did not reply.
His face more and more ferocious, his expression more and more painful. Even though Qiandu had stopped her music, he single-mindedly continued playing.
He felt a piercing pain in the back of his head; he felt his eyeballs were almost bursting from the scalding blood vessels.
He felt an endless grievance, a boundless hatred and distress from his unbreakable and inescapable fate—
He thought and thought, expending his energy to think, expending his strength to run, to chase after her.
He wanted to chase the girl in white. He desperately wanted to see the woman’s face clearly.
However, no matter how hard he tried, her figure remains a vague, fuzzy silhouette. He could only see a slim, graceful figure but not her facial features.
The autumn wind howled, raising dust and leaves as giant trees shook.
The mountain stream splashed and hissed, sending showers flying in all directions.
Dark clouds rolled across the sky, toiling and rumbling continuously.
Crash—
Big, heavy raindrops pelted down hard and started bouncing off, patting and watering all living things in the world.
The dragon king’s pain and sorrow, were felt by both heaven and earth.