The Quest for Immortality

On the march, dust rolled in billows.

Mo Hua was riding a new barbarian horse that the Chasing Cloud Tribe had specially trained for him; Dan Zhu was also on horseback, following behind him.

All along the way, Dan Zhu couldn’t help but look at Mo Hua’s back, something weighing on his mind; after they had gone on for some time, Dan Zhu finally couldn’t hold back and spoke:

”Gentleman...”

Mo Hua turned and looked at Dan Zhu.

Dan Zhu pondered for a moment, then said slowly, ”Gentleman, about what happened with the Chasing Cloud Tribe, were you... reminding me of something?”

Mo Hua’s heart gave a slight jolt; in an instant, he understood.

The Chieftain of the Chasing Cloud Tribe had three sons.

Dan Zhu’s father was a Chieftain, and he also had three sons.

Mo Hua had Chi Feng snap the Chasing Cloud Tribe’s Chieftain’s neck and kill him, and then used words to ”bewitch” Chi Ju, supporting Chi Ju in taking the throne.

And Dan Zhu was also the third son of the Great Chief of the Danque Tribe.

In a certain sense, he too was being ”bewitched” by Mo Hua.

The Danque Tribe was far stronger than the Chasing Cloud Tribe, and far more complicated; the two could not be mentioned in the same breath, but the problem placed before Dan Zhu was the same one Chi Ju faced.

Dan Zhu was kind-hearted, but also very sensitive; he was an extremely intelligent person.

He might have instinctively seen his own reflection in Chi Ju.

He might also have sensed that, in a certain sense, he too was merely... a ”chess piece” that Mo Hua had bewitched.

Only, this chess piece of his was far more important than Chi Ju.

Mo Hua sighed softly in his heart.

This Disciple Dan Zhu really was too inwardly shrewd, too intelligent; his kindness made his thoughts delicate, and also gave him an intuition and comprehension that ordinary people could hardly perceive.

And this was also one of the drawbacks of Planting Devil in Taoist Heart.

Thoughts forcibly imposed on others would one day be perceived by them.

For someone truly intelligent and perceptive, you might bewitch him for a time, but you could not bewitch him for a lifetime.

Unless you directly strangled his Divine Thought and independent will, turning him into a Puppet.

Mo Hua calmly watched Dan Zhu, his gaze clear and gentle, and asked, ”Do you still remember those questions I asked you at the beginning?”

Dan Zhu was taken aback.

Mo Hua said slowly, ”You told me that you had secretly made a great vow, that you were willing to offer up everything, so that the Danque Tribe might remain forever prosperous and powerful, so that the people of the Danque Tribe might remain forever affluent and at peace...”

”But, suppose...” Mo Hua’s tone sank a little, ”that the Danque Tribe’s prosperity and flourishing had to be built upon the slaughter of large numbers of Barbarian Cultivators, upon oppression, exploitation, plunder, even the enslavement of countless innocent people...”

”That the strength of the Danque Tribe’s upper ranks required the lower ranks of the tribe to ’supply blood’...”

”Such ’prosperity and flourishing’—would you still want it?”

Dan Zhu’s expression was silent.

This question was one Mo Hua had brought up with him the very first time they met.

All this time, he had kept this question buried in his heart, unwilling to recall it, because the question was too sharp.

So sharp that it was enough to pierce his beautiful great vows, making him feel a cold, piercing pain.

”If all of this were real...”

Mo Hua looked at Dan Zhu and said, ”Then it would mean that if you wanted the Danque Tribe to change, wanted the Danque Tribe to become truly strong, you would have to start from the upper ranks; you would have to lay hands on the interests of your father, your elder brothers, and those Elders who value you, to bear the infamy of being cold and unfilial, to endure the pain of being misunderstood...”

”These things—can you do them?”

Dan Zhu’s face went pale, an obvious look of pain appearing.

In his heart, he could feel that the words Mo Hua spoke contained no bewitchment; they were sincere words from his heart.

But precisely because they were the truth, they were all the more unbearably painful.

Mo Hua’s tone was indifferent: ”All their lives, people pursue beautiful visions, yet never attain them, because to achieve those beautiful visions, they must face very sharp, very painful problems.”

”People only yearn for the beautiful, yet flee from contradiction and pain.”

”So most people can only spend their whole lives in ’yearning’, while in reality they obtain nothing.”

”Do you want to live inside your visions, or are you willing, for the sake of realizing them, to step into thorns and into hell...”

Dan Zhu fell into a long silence.

Mo Hua’s gaze grew a bit gentler. ”Previously, I didn’t bring these questions up with you again because it was still early; some things you needed to ponder slowly. But now there’s no time... The great catastrophe is about to be decided; on the road ahead, once we encounter people of the Danque Tribe, once we encounter your father and your elder brothers, for you it will be both a reunion with family and a moment of fateful choice.”

”In extreme circumstances, you may even have no choice but to draw your blade against your father and brothers, to the point of a fight to the death.”

”To persist in your own path, even at the cost of fratricide.”

”Or, for the sake of a momentary harmony, to give up your own resolve.”

”How you choose—that will be entirely up to you.”

In Dan Zhu’s heart, heaven and man battled for a time, contradictions intertwining, leaving him unable to calm himself for a long while.

After a moment, Dan Zhu lifted his head to look at Mo Hua and asked in a low voice:

”Gentleman, you won’t one day, sneaking around in secret... kill my father too, will you?”

Mo Hua was startled, feeling a bit helpless inside.

Your father is Late Golden Core Stage; I’d have to be able to kill him first...

Mo Hua pledged, ”I won’t.”

Only then did Dan Zhu quietly let out a breath.

Although the Gentleman was only at Foundation Establishment Late Stage, after all the things he had experienced, after seeing all kinds of strange ”miracles”, Dan Zhu always felt in his heart that even if his father was Late Golden Core Stage, if the Gentleman truly wanted to kill him, it might not be impossible.

So now, having obtained this promise from Mo Hua’s own mouth, having pleaded for his father’s life and gained it, Dan Zhu felt as if a burden had been lifted from his heart.

So long as the Gentleman would not strike to kill, as for the other contradictions, he could only work hard himself.

Dan Zhu fell into silent contemplation, then said seriously to Mo Hua, ”Gentleman, I still don’t know what to do, but I will think it over carefully.”