Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)
chapter-309

The edge of the dagger penetrated her skin, cutting open her blood vessel.

No blood spurted out. Blood had not flowed out at all, because there was almost no blood left in her body.

Chen Changsheng grabbed his dagger sheath, and placed the opening of the sheath to the wound on her neck.

With a slight movement of spiritual sense, a thin flow of blood appeared out of the sheath, seeming like it had come out of nothing.

The flow of blood was extremely thin, as if it were thinner than hair. It was slowly poured into her blood vessel.

In the entire process, he was extremely careful and alert, and refined his spiritual sense to the limit.

There were no sounds.

There was only a smell.

The smell of his blood slowly diffused into the spacious mausoleum.

After an unknown amount of time, he collected the sheath again. A coldness appeared on the index finger of his right hand, and he used it to press onto Xu Yourong’s neck. After a while, only after confirming that her blood vessel and wound had already been sealed by the extremely thin piece of ice, did he begin to treat his own wound.

The distinct wound on his wrist, which was so deep that bone could be vaguely seen, slowly healed, or in other words, was sealed with ice.

There were some remaining blood stains on the side of the wound. He thought about the explanation his senior personally had given him years ago, and hesitated a while. He then brought the wrist to his lips, and began to lick carefully, like a young animal drinking milk.

Back then, his senior had once said to him that if he was injured, and began to bleed, he had to use this method. Only this method of consuming the blood into his stomach could stop the smell of the blood from continuing to pervade. Otherwise, being washed with water, being buried by sand, or even being burnt by great flames, would still be unable to cause this smell to disappear.

This was the first time Chen Changsheng had tasted his own blood. In the previous battles, he came dangerously close to spitting blood many times, but it was then forcefully swallowed back down. However, before, the blood had only reached his throat. This time, it was on his tongue.

As it turned out, his blood was sweet.

That was what he thought.

The taste indeed was very nice.

It seemed to be delicious.

It really was delicious.

He wanted to eat some more.

Suddenly, he woke up. He was covered in sweat, which was then frozen into frost. He had actually been licking faster and faster and using more and more power, like a young animal drenched in blood, greedily licking the milk of its mother who had already died.

If he did not wake up fast enough, he probably would have even licked open the wound on his wrist.

The mausoleum fell into a deathly silence.

Only after a very long time was there a breeze.

The frozen droplets of sweat slowly began to roll, giving out sounds of rolling.

He leaned on the stone pillar tiredly. His face was abnormally pale.

Because he had bled too much, and also because of dread.

That year when he was ten, his spirit was expelled along with his sweat, out of his body, causing a worldly phenomenon. In the great mountain shrouded in clouds behind Xining Village, they received the attention of unknown, terrifying existences. From that night onwards, he knew that his body was abnormal. This was not to say that he was ill, but rather, to many existences, his spirit was the most delicious fruit, and contained an irresistible enticement.

“If ordinary people discover your blood is different, you will die, and you will definitely invite an end that is even more tragic than death.”

When his senior had said that to him, it was on the second night after turning ten. At that time, his senior took a very long time before being able to clearly express the meaning of it, because both of his arms were very sore and powerless, always making mistakes when making hand signs.

He asked his senior why was it like that. His senior stayed silent for a very long time before telling him that it was because the night before, when he was always fanning, he wanted to quickly fan away the smell that issued from his body.

He asked his senior why was it like that. His senior stayed silent for a very long time again, before telling him that the night before, after he had smelt that smell for a long time, he suddenly really wanted to suck his blood dry and eat him.

In Chen Changsheng’s eyes, his senior Yu Ren was the bravest person in the world, and the person who was the nicest to him. If his senior wanted him to die, he could die, but if his senior wanted to eat him...

He thought about it for a very long time, but still thought that this matter was too horrifying.

The blood that flowed in his body was delicious to all lives. As the person involved, it was obviously detrimental to him. That was why he disliked his own blood, or even loathed or feared it. Because of this type of mentality, he never thought about it, and even sometimes subconsciously forgot that his blood was special in some areas.

At dawn, after the night had passed, the pervading spirit disappeared into his body, entering his blood. Not even a sliver of it was emitted. However, this type of loathing and fear continued to linger in the deepest part of his mind.

After arriving in the capital, he thought he had already escaped far away from this horrifying memory. He could feel as if the taste of his blood had slowly weakened. However, at the dawn of the day when he comprehended all of the front mausoleum of the Mausoleum of Books in one day, when he absorbed starlight during the day for Purification for the first time, he discovered shockingly that everything seemed to return to what it was like on the night when he was ten.

He did not want to go through a night like that again, and did not want to attract the unknown attention within the clouds.

As a result, he became even more careful and cautious. When he was heavily injured during battle, and wanted to spit blood, even if he had to take risks, he would swallow it back down at the first moment. No matter how strong the opponent he faced, he no longer dared to burn all of the lake water outside his Ethereal Opening, because he worried that it would become like that time underground, where he was exploded by true essence into a bloody mess.

To not bleed, and not let anyone smell his blood. This was a matter that he did not need to think about, but at the same time, it was the matter that had the greatest importance.

So much that it was even more important that his life.

Because he always remembered his senior’s warning.

However, today, in this mausoleum, he did not heed his senior’s warning.

Because he wanted to save someone.

He looked at the sleeping Xu Yourong, and revealed a satisfied smile. Due to her poisoning, her face was always slightly swollen, but at that moment, the swelling clearly subsided a lot. Her elegant appearance became even clearer.

Most importantly, on her face that was pale like snow, the color of blood slowly appeared.

At an area very far away from Zhou Dufu’s mausoleum, there was a run-down temple. If counted from the first sacrificial temple that was one thousand li away, this temple was the ninth. This also meant that they were only two hundred li away from Zhou Dufu’s mausoleum.

This was a matter that even children at the first stages of learning could calculate clearly, so Nanke and the others naturally did not get it wrong. The zither-playing old man sighed with emotion, “Who thought that there would actually be a day in my life where I would actually see the Mausoleum of Zhou?”

Teng Xiaoming carried a pole, and gazed into the distance. He could vaguely see the towering black mass under the sky. Despite being renowned for being slow and silent, his expression seemed slightly moved at that moment. As for his wife, Liu Wan’er, and the two demon beauties, they were even more so.

After journeying for over ten days, even the experts of the Demon race felt slightly exhausted. However, thinking that Xu Yourong and Chen Changsheng were in front of them, awaiting death, and even more importantly, that the White Grass Path may have ended at the legendary Mausoleum of Zhou, what could this exhaustion be compared to?

Suddenly, the White Grass Path began to tremble slightly. The trembling originated from the depths of the vast grassland behind them.

The zither-playing old man felt slightly flabbergasted, and turned around to look at the plains. He said with a solemn expression, “The monsters seem to have become slightly agitated.”

Suddenly, his expression changed immensely. He opened his mouth, but was so shocked that he could not say anything. The Demon General couple also saw the phenomena in the sky, and the Qi in their bodies suddenly rose to the limit that the Garden of Zhou allowed.

A shadow appeared in the sky above the grassland. The shadow was so big that it seemed to almost cover up half of the sky. The shadow currently moved slowly, and from a distance, it seemed like a pair of massive wings.

Nanke looked at the shadow in the sky and said with her brows slightly furrowed, “Even the great peng is displaying some mad behavior. What exactly is happening?”

She did not know that the agitation of the monsters of the plains came from the depths of the mausoleum two hundred li away. In the depths of the mausoleum, a teenager had cut open his wrist, causing fresh blood to come in contact with the air. The smell of the blood dispersed in the grassland, and was already extremely thin. However, it was still enough to cause an extremely crazy thirst to bloom in the monsters of this world.

The surroundings of the mausoleum had an extremely ingenious design of ventilation and windows. Rainwater could not flow through these paths, but they allowed fresh air and light in. Why Zhou Dufu designed his mausoleum this way was a complete mystery. Did the dead still need fresh air, or need to enjoy the beautiful radiance of spring?

Chen Changsheng could not understand why. It was just that through the change in light and the change in the humidity of the air, he confirmed that it should have been the early morning of the second day, and also that the rain outside the mausoleum should have stopped.

Just at that moment, Xu Yourong finally woke up.

Chen Changsheng saw her and smiled.

She did not smile, and stared blankly at him. She asked, “You transfused your blood into my body?”

Chen Changsheng said, “More correctly, I transfused my blood into your blood vessels.”

Xu Yourong felt a little helpless, a little emotional and a little tired. She said, “I don’t know what method you used to do all this, but do you think this will work? I said before, my blood…”

“Yes, this will work.”

Without waiting for her to finish speaking, he cut her off with a smile. His face was slightly pale and his expression was slightly weary, but his gaze was very bright, very clean, and very confident, as if it was facing the sun for the first time. Although it was covered up by clouds, it did not lack in splendor.

Looking at his expression, a feeling of disbelief bloomed in Xu Yourong. She mumbled, “Even this works?”

“It seems to indeed work.”

Chen Changsheng walked to her side, and checked the mark on her neck. Afterwards, he said, “Feel it yourself.”

Xu Yourong was slightly at a loss. Subconsciously, she followed his instructions, and discovered that her blood was actually not exhausted like when she had first fainted. Although it was not as full as normal, and was slightly thin, at least it could guarantee that… she could live.

Just how important and how great was living? It was the most important, and the best.

Just that, why was she able to live?

What was this about?

At that moment, the blood that flowed in her body clearly was his blood, but why did it seem like her own blood, without any differences?