Chapter 721: I Found You

As soon as Bai Ye said this, everyone fell into silence.

"Then what should we do now?" Heart 9 spread his hands helplessly. "We were planning to hold a funeral for Lord Red Dust, but now Lord Red Dust is alive and well... We can't force someone to die, right? And Lord Wuji has been taken away by Lord Red Dust, so didn't we make this trip for nothing?"

“……”

Even Bai Ye didn't know what to do at this moment... Their previous two realm funerals had gone very smoothly; once they collected the bodies of Lord Ruoshui and Lord Aurora, they could leave. But they hadn't expected the war in the Red Dust Realm to last so long, and in the end, not a single one of the Nine Lords had died.

Just as everyone was feeling lost, a ray of moonlight projected down from the clouds, scattering before them and gradually weaving into a line of text...

"This is..." Everyone was stunned to see this sudden moonlight.

Bai Ye slowly pulled down his baseball cap and said helplessly:

"It seems we won't be returning empty-handed this time."

……

Drip—

A raindrop fell from the edge of a broken beam in the ruins, sending ripples through a puddle.

Several refugees wandered blankly through the ruined streets, looking around in bewilderment, seemingly trying to find familiar shadows in the endless ruins... But except for the occasional shop sign fragment on the ground, there was not a trace of what had been before.

Their home was destroyed.

"Mom, where is our house?" a boy asked, holding the woman's hand blankly.

"...It should be just ahead, no, that's not right, maybe we need to go one more block... no, that's not it either..."

"Hey, is that Old Zhao's house? The walls are still standing, it's quite well-preserved," a middle-aged man said in surprise, looking at a small building in the distance.

"Indeed, Old Zhao is quite lucky... As long as this house is repaired a little, it can be lived in again."

"By the way... where is Old Zhao?"

"Dead. It seems he had his head split open by a silver monster."

“……”

"Is there an old man lying over there?"

As they were rummaging through the ruins, someone with sharp eyes saw a figure lying on the road in the distance like a corpse.

The woman exclaimed and instinctively covered the child's eyes with her hand. After the others exchanged glances, they still gathered around...

"Is he still alive?"

"Seems like he's alive, he's still breathing."

"Why are there so many holes in his body... and blood everywhere? How can he still be alive in this state?"

"He's not a resident of this street, is he? I've never seen him before."

“……”

Drip—

Raindrops fell from the sky, landing on the old man's wrinkled cheeks, then slowly trickling down... Amidst the surprised discussions of the crowd, the old man's eyes struggled to open.

Confusion, emptiness, pain, deathly silence...

There was no vitality left in the old man's eyes; he was like a dying puppet, staring blankly at everything before him.

"Hey, are you okay? Where do you live? Are there any children left in your family?" a kind passerby asked, leaning down. "Forget it, I'll just take you to the hospital."

The old man did not answer. He slowly scanned the people standing before him with his eyes. After a long silence, he used his wrinkled palms to push against the ground, trying to crawl up... A wheezing sound like a broken bellows came from his mouth. Seeing this, the crowd immediately reached out to help.

But the old man gently pushed their hands away, stubbornly stood up, and then staggered alone toward the distance of the street...

His figure gradually grew smaller in their eyes, eventually disappearing at the end of their vision.

"This old man... what's going on?"

"I don't know. He's so badly injured, why doesn't he want to go to the hospital?"

"Where is he going?"

"That way, it seems to be the direction out of the city... but aren't there only ruins outside the city now?"

The crowd's discussion gradually faded from the old man's ears. He just walked silently and stubbornly, distancing himself from the crowd... The hospital could never cure his aging; it would only expose his corpse to the world in the end. He didn't want to die here, didn't want to die in full view of everyone.

A whimpering cold wind brushed past the old man's ears. He stepped through the ruins, alone, moving forward.

He didn't know where he should go, but the instinct deep within his heart kept driving him forward. Eventually, he left the broken city walls, passed through the ruins of one town after another, and finally stopped before a small river.

He was tired.

The old man's organs had all failed, and even maintaining his breathing was incredibly difficult. He could only lean on the trunk of a decaying willow tree with one hand, allowing himself to sit slowly by the river.

He tried his best to move his body so that his feet dangled over the bank, his toes able to touch the cold river water, just like the carefree days when he sat by the Gusu River as a child.

After finding a comfortable position, he finally let out a long sigh, as if shedding all his burdens, and leaned against the willow tree.

The withered willow stood in the cold wind, waiting for death in the silence.

"Ending it here... is not bad," Yao Qing muttered to himself.

Actually, Yao Qing had wanted to return to Liu Town, to the Su residence where he and Su Zhiwei had spent three hundred years, to die quietly... But he knew how smart Su Zhiwei was; after dealing with Lord Wuji, she would likely return to the Su residence to look for him, so he randomly chose this place that no one knew about.

Although this place was already a ruin, this river and this willow tree were somewhat similar to Liu Town...

Dying here, at least, wouldn't be so lonely.

The old man's eyes slowly closed. The world was quiet, with only the soft tinkling sound of raindrops falling into the river. He sat quietly under the withered willow, like a statue that had existed there since time immemorial.

Rustle—

The next moment, a sound of footsteps appeared in the quiet world.

Someone stepped on the damp soil, came to the old man's side, and also sat down by the river, supporting herself with her hands... A voice rang softly in his ear:

"From childhood to adulthood, you've never won against me at hide-and-seek, have you?"

The old man's body shook violently.

He opened his eyes in astonishment, looking at the familiar, beautiful figure beside him, and was stunned for a moment.

"You... how did you..."

"I first went back to the Su residence to look around, but didn't see you. I figured if you were deliberately hiding from me, you wouldn't hide there... So, I simply jumped out of the Red Flower, searched the entire realm inch by inch... and finally..."

The white training suit fluttered on the bank, and the figure's dark hair brushed over the old man's shoulder in the wind. She turned her head slightly, her crystal-clear eyes gazing deeply at the strange, aged face before her...

"I found you, Yao Qing."