Chapter Forty-Eight: The Beauty's Demise

Jiang Pingchuan had just arrived at the county office of Sanjiang when he could faintly hear the heart-wrenching cries of Zhou Fu and Madam Zhou echoing from the rear hall. The sound was filled with utter grief and despair.

At the entrance, a crowd was chattering in low voices. Jiang Pingchuan felt the world spin around him, his mind filled with images of Zhou Ninger. Her laughter, her mischief, her anger, her coquettish pouting—her rosy cheeks were growing indistinct in his memory, and his mind began to drift.

The crowd, seeing Jiang Pingchuan return, fell silent and parted to make way for him. Everyone in Sanjiang County knew of Zhou Ninger’s affection for Jiang Pingchuan. In their eyes, the two were destined for each other, a perfect match. But now, fate had dealt a cruel hand.

Jiang Pingchuan walked step by step toward the back hall, passing over pools of blood and fragments of mangled corpses that filled the air with a heavy stench of rot. Some corpses, their controllers gone, had already decayed into piles of bare white bones; others had melted into puddles of black blood.

In a daze, Jiang Pingchuan entered the inner room and saw the purple skull, glowing with an eerie violet light, but it was not by Zhou Ninger’s side. It lay quietly among the remains of flesh, and in that moment, Jiang Pingchuan understood—something terrible had happened to Zhou Ninger.

It was because he had been intent on killing the man in black robes that he had overlooked Zhou Ninger. Her death was not by his hand, yet he could not escape his share of the blame.

The sound of weeping continued unabated—Madam Zhou lay collapsed in Zhou Fu’s embrace, inconsolable. The people around parted in silence as Jiang Pingchuan approached, unsure how to offer comfort.

He stood by Zhou Ninger’s corpse. It was not whole, but ravaged as if by some wild beast. Her face was unrecognizable, torn and brutalized, the lower half exposing a row of white teeth where the flesh had been chewed away. Her eyes had been gouged out, leaving two dark, bloody holes; her limbs were incomplete, her entrails dragged out and trailing across the floor. Her once-beautiful hair had been torn out in clumps, strands scattered everywhere, weaving before Jiang Pingchuan’s eyes in a tangled mass. His vision blurred, and everyone could sense that something within him was breaking—he stared, expressionless and vacant, at her ruined body.

He knelt—he collapsed in front of Zhou Ninger’s mutilated form, looking at the tattered pink gauze dress, the patches of fair skin still showing. Jiang Pingchuan removed his white robe and draped it gently over her, then walked to the pile of flesh, picked up the purple skull, and clutched it tightly with trembling hands as he returned to her side and knelt once more.

He said nothing. No one spoke. Only Madam Zhou’s intermittent sobbing broke the silence. Jiang Pingchuan hung the purple skull at his waist, covered his face with both hands, hunched over, and shook with silent sobs. He had never wept before so many people. Only Maoball had seen him cry. Now he wept again, voicelessly, but more sorrowfully than anyone could imagine.

For half a year on Changfeng Continent, Zhou Ninger’s shadow had always been with him. He remembered the first time he met her—a silly woman, afraid he was some charlatan out to cheat her father. She had covered her face in flour to scare him; he remembered eating the fragrant noodles she made each day—the most special noodles in the century-long history of the Zhou family’s restaurant, made only for him.

She had smeared his face with rouge when they strolled the market, insisted on sleeping in his room, and in the mornings forced herself up to keep him company as he practiced the Maoshan exercises. She feared thunder on rainy days, yet loved to wander around with that strange purple skull. Passing by Cui Feng Brothel, when the girls pulled him and shouted, she would shield him with her folding fan, then huff coldly and stride off with a toss of her hair.

By the banks of the Poshui River, she had fallen sweetly asleep. That night, she stayed awake, giggling as she lay on his back, every so often blowing at the fireflies on his head, sending them scattering...

All these memories now surged through his mind. Jiang Pingchuan opened his eyes; his irises shone a deep purple. The crowd sensed a wave of coldness emanating from him. He pressed his palms together, purple energy curling between his fingers—the breath he had hidden within, gained that night under the stars.

He laid his hands upon the white robe, focusing on the Restoration Chapter of the “Ten Thousand Laws” in his mind; his own composite true energy allowed him to learn more restorative arts. But here, there was only one technique suitable for Zhou Ninger—a restoration of the body, nothing that could bring her back to life.

Zhou Ninger was not a cultivator, lacking even the most basic spiritual field. All Jiang Pingchuan could do was restore her appearance. He could do nothing more.

For the first time, he realized how insignificant he was before the vastness of the heavens and the laws of the world. It was as if the sky itself mocked him—how could a grain of light compete with the glory of the cosmos?

“Follow the will of heaven, let the soul depart, gather the remains, unite in harmony, restore the body, command!”

Jiang Pingchuan withdrew his palms, chanting swiftly as he concentrated the purple energy at his fingertips and pressed it between Zhou Ninger’s brows. All present stared in shock at her body on the ground.

Beneath the robe, the ravaged flesh began to shift and move. No one felt revulsion at the sight—only held their breath as the transformation unfolded. As Jiang Pingchuan’s gaze grew more distant, Zhou Ninger’s body gradually returned to wholeness. Her rosy face reappeared, her long hair gathered into a bun, her missing limbs reformed.

When the last wisp of purple energy entered her body, the miracle ended—Zhou Ninger did not awaken. Jiang Pingchuan knew she would not. He could only restore her body, not return her to life.

“Pingchuan, Ninger, she...”

Zhou Fu spoke softly, looking at Jiang Pingchuan’s bloodless, hollow face. In their hearts, Jiang Pingchuan was invincible. In the half year since his arrival in Sanjiang, there had been nothing he could not do, no problem he could not solve. Now, everyone wondered if he could bring Zhou Ninger back. But when they saw him shake his head in a daze, they slowly came to accept that the dead could not return.

Jiang Pingchuan lifted Zhou Ninger in his arms and walked out of the county office. The faces of all present were heavy with grief as they watched him carry her away. Their hearts ached unbearably. The magistrate, supporting Gao Yao, watched Jiang Pingchuan pass before them.

Breaking free from his father’s grip, Gao Yao ran to the county gate, knelt in the direction Jiang Pingchuan was heading, and bowed his head deeply to the ground.

The crowd was stunned to see Gao Yao kneel to Jiang Pingchuan. Jiang Pingchuan had not spoken of the man in black, but perhaps he was already dead. Daoist Wu had been shattered by the aura of the purple skull. Gao Yao, awakened to his errors, knelt there—not just to Jiang Pingchuan, but to all the people of Sanjiang.

Step by step, Jiang Pingchuan carried Zhou Ninger toward the Zhou family restaurant. The bustling Sanjiang market was eerily silent.

The vendors wore somber faces, the fortune-teller took down his banners, the girls of Cui Feng Brothel did not call out to Jiang Pingchuan, the butcher put away his knives, and the old scholar at the folding fan stall quietly unrolled his scroll and began to paint the scene...

A sorrowful young man, his face full of grief, cradled a girl who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He in white, she in a pink gauze dress, her expression serene, as though content in his embrace...

By the banks of the Poshui River, Old Yu held the now-resting Qian Yuhe, gazing at the sky as the last wish of Qian Yuhe echoed in his mind. Old Yu carried Qian Yuhe to the water’s edge and laid her body in the river. Hundreds of sharp-scaled fish leaped from the water to bear her gently beneath the surface.

Standing on the shore, Old Yu opened his palm where Jiang Pingchuan’s two Dao crystals rested. They no longer shone with their former luster, appearing now as ordinary stones, devoid of any energy.

Qian Yuhe had said these two Dao crystals were extraordinary, beyond the Six Laws and Three Realms. But such things always had their rightful owner. Old Yu could not erase Jiang Pingchuan’s imprint from them, and trying to forcibly merge with them would only invite disaster.

He was grateful, even in his near-madness, that he had retained enough reverence to abandon the idea of fusing with Jiang Pingchuan’s Dao crystals. Otherwise, he would not have needed Jiang Pingchuan’s hand to perish—he would have destroyed himself. Only Old Yu could fulfill her final wish.

He glanced in the direction of Sanjiang County and put away the two Dao crystals.