Chapter Ninety-Three: Tear Apart

Since childhood, I had longed for the existence of such a fairyland in this world.

A vast land, where the people still kept the grace of the Tang and Song dynasties, and for countless generations had safeguarded precious customs and culture. It had never been invaded by outsiders, nor had it ever destroyed itself. Everything seemed suspended there, drifting motionless through the river of time.

The people there did not need to curry favor with alien ways, nor dress in stiff Western suits in order to win respect. They wore their own traditional garments, garments that too were always evolving, and they took equal pride and joy in them.

In that legendary realm, immortals, sprites, and humans lived together in harmony. There was no hunger, no disaster, no war, no corrupt officials. No one lacked food, no one lacked proper clothes, no one could not afford medical care, no one could not go to school.

Every resident was guaranteed a life of safety and security, and none ever envied any other place. No matter how rich one became, one would never wish to leave.

People cherished peace and tranquility. They would not commit crimes out of greed. Yet if there were something worth protecting, then regardless of whether it belonged to them, they would fight for it without fear.

That world was utterly serene.

I hoped it existed, and I always believed it did.

That place was called Sacred Serenity.

The ward was shabby, the lights dim.

Flower Bloom began to grow agitated. Beads of sweat the size of beans dripped onto the cement floor beneath his feet.

"What did you say? There is no School of Arcane Arts?"

"No. Flower Bloom, we have told you many times. There is no place in this world called the School of Arcane Arts," answered the cat nurse.

"No! It was here a year ago. After you gave me the Ninefold Rebirth Elixir, Black Cloud—the woman in black—took me away from here and brought me straight to the School of Arcane Arts. I enrolled there!"

"There was no Ninefold Rebirth Elixir. You always go on about some miracle medicine, some immortal pill. How could such a thing exist?" said the cat nurse.

"No immortal pill? Aren't you a spirit being? Aren't you a cat in human form? Isn't this the Sacred Serenity paradise?"

"Why do you keep saying that? I am an ordinary person! How could I be a cat in human form?" The nurse turned her back. "See? No tail at all!"

"But didn't you just say this was Sacred Serenity?"

"Yes. But this is Sacred Serenity Hospital, not some Sacred Serenity paradise of your imagination!" the nurse said. "Flower Bloom, you need to wake up. You have been fantasizing. It is your fantasy!"

Flower Bloom felt as if the sky had caved in. "You lied to me! What nonsense are you talking about?!"

The nurse opened the desk drawer and took out a thick stack of manuscript paper, placing it into his hands.

"Look. What is this?"

Flower Bloom stared at the stack of manuscript pages. There were hundreds of sheets, packed with dense lines of writing. He flipped to the first page. At the top were two large characters meaning "Arcane Path."

The nurse said, "This is the world you imagined. You gave yourself the pen name Nine Heavens, and then you kept writing and writing, imagining this hospital to be a fairyland."

Flower Bloom froze, his eyes fixed blankly on the pages in his hands. He turned through them rapidly, until at the very end he saw these words:

"She finally shattered into glittering grains of dust like stars.

That drifting dust vanished into the distance, leaving behind only a tiny luminous stone.

In the boundless cosmos, that little stone was like a seed buried deep in the heart.

That seed was the moonlight of that night, pure white and flawless as snow."

Flower Bloom's gaze was murderous. "Impossible! None of this is my imagination. Everything is real! Real!"

The nurse laid a hand on his shoulder, about to comfort him.

Suddenly, Flower Bloom let out a thunderous roar, leapt to his feet, and dashed for the door. At the same time he sprang into the air and cried, "By decree, be quick and obey! Shadow-shifting spell!"

But contrary to his expectation, he did not vanish. Instead, he crashed into the corridor.

Then he scrambled up and raced madly down the hall. He kept falling, kept slamming into the walls, but he did not care. This little pain meant nothing compared with the torment in his heart at that moment.

Soon Flower Bloom saw several nurses approaching from the opposite direction, colliding with their trays and medicines and sending everything crashing to the floor as he struggled to break free of this cage. At last he saw the nurse stationed at the front desk for the night shift, with a nurse and a security guard seated there.

Both were startled at the sight of him. Behind them came shouts: "Stop him!"

The security guard immediately stood up and tried to seize Flower Bloom. When Flower Bloom saw that face, it turned out to be Brother Xu—Xu Xiao Cheng!

Brother Xu tried to pin him down, but Flower Bloom slipped aside. Yet Brother Xu had taken the staircase landing, spreading both arms to block the way.

Flower Bloom tried several times and could not get around him. His bloodshot eyes widened as he shouted, "Move aside! You monster! Move aside now!"

Then Flower Bloom seized an aluminum chair nearby and hurled it at Brother Xu with all his strength. But Brother Xu was clearly trained; he dodged left and right, and Flower Bloom could not touch him at all.

So Flower Bloom turned and smashed the chair with all his might against the tempered glass window behind him.

With a deafening crash, a huge hole was blasted through the floor-to-ceiling pane. Flower Bloom looked out and saw that he was on the third floor. The chair fell with a thud to the ground below, the aluminum frame twisted and warped by the force of gravity.

The female nurse who looked just like the cat nurse hurried up. "Flower Bloom! Don't do anything rash! Come back. Rest well, and this will all pass!"

Flower Bloom roared in fury, his eyes reddened with blood. "You lied to me! None of you can trap me! I have the Ruyi Staff! If any of you dare come near me, I'll beat you to death!"

As he spoke, he tore the necklace from around his neck.

"Ruyi Staff! Ruyi Staff! Ruyi Staff!"

He cried it three times.

The necklace in his hand gave no response. Flower Bloom clenched it tightly, and the sharp triangular pendant pierced his palm. Blood kept seeping through his fingers. So hot that blood was.

Flower Bloom threw his head back and bellowed, "Victorious Fighting Buddha! Victorious Fighting Buddha! What should I do? What should I do?"

He stared at the bloodied iron chain in his hand, grief flooding his eyes, and cried helplessly, "I promised you. I did not abandon the Ruyi Staff, and I did not harm any living thing. But how am I supposed to use it to protect myself? What am I supposed to do?"

More and more doctors and nurses gathered in the corridor, their eyes filled with unease and fear.

"Come back! It's dangerous by the window!" the nurse pleaded.

"Young man, you're just sick. It's all right. Face reality, and you'll recover," Brother Xu said, his tone full of sympathy.

"All of you, get lost! I was an orphan from childhood. My parents are both dead! Only the teachers and friends at the School of Arcane Arts truly cared about me. I need to see them! I absolutely cannot, I absolutely will not be locked in this damned hospital!"

With that, he leaped from the shattered window without once looking back. In midair, he had begun reciting the immortal incantation for riding the clouds that he already knew by heart, but before he could finish, he heard a heavy crash as he struck the cement ground below.

At that instant, the sound of bones shattering rang through his ears, followed by searing agony that pierced straight to the marrow. Lying on the ground, he twisted his head and saw that his legs had been speared through by broken bones, reduced to a mangled mass of flesh and blood.

Flower Bloom saw the hospital gate, and with great difficulty dragged himself toward it by his hands, leaving a long trail of blood behind him.

"I have to run! Get out! Get out!"

That was the only voice left in his heart.

At that moment, he saw a girl with golden-brown curls standing not far away on the lawn, staring at him in terror.

Flower Bloom screamed himself hoarse. "Black Shadow! Black Shadow!"

"Flower Bloom?" The curly-haired girl seemed to know him. She looked at him in alarm. "You... what's wrong with you?"

And then, before Flower Bloom's eyes, there appeared a middle-aged man in a shirt—Master Yu Ran!

Master Yu Ran's beard had been trimmed short, but Flower Bloom recognized him unmistakably!

He cried out with all his strength, "Master Yu Ran! It's me! It's me, Flower Bloom! She, Black Shadow, she knows me, I'm not dreaming!"

Master Yu Ran was just entering through the hospital gate. Seeing Flower Bloom, he was stunned. He ran over quickly and gathered him into his arms.

"Flower Bloom! How did you end up like this?"

Flower Bloom cried out in desperation, "Master! Teacher, save me, save me! I want to go back! I want to go back to the School of Arcane Arts!"

Master Yu Ran held him tightly and said, "All right, all right! We'll go back. Flower Bloom, we'll go home!"

Flower Bloom shouted at the top of his lungs, as if he had suffered all the pain and grievance in the world, not because his legs had been broken by the fall, but because his heart was being cut to ribbons. He could not accept that the world he knew had been utterly destroyed.

Then he began to drift into confusion, and before consciousness slipped away, he saw the red lettering atop the hospital building.

"Sacred Serenity Mental Health Center."

When he woke again, it was already past noon the next day.

Flower Bloom found himself back in the hospital bed. Outside the window stretched a clear blue sky, reminding him of the sky he had once flown through with the Heavenly Master and Mist Rain.

The sky in his memory had been so pure and beautiful, even more real than the one before him now, as though it could be touched.

The downy, soft feathers on the crane's back, Mist Rain's long silver hair flowing like silk, everything had been so real.

Flower Bloom saw that both his legs were wrapped in thick plaster. Beside the bed stood an IV pole with a hanging drip bottle, feeding him some unknown medicine.

Before him stood the cat nurse, Master Yu Ran, Master Bright Awakening, and Master Fire Thunder, all in white coats surrounding him. He hurriedly tried to sit up.

"Flower Bloom, take it slow," said Master Yu Ran, steadying his shoulder.

"Master Yu Ran, you're all here?"

Master Yu Ran said, "Flower Bloom, don't rush. I understand everything you want to say. You've told us more than once about the School of Arcane Arts. I am indeed Yu Ran, but I am not a master. These two are Director Zhang and Director Chen. The three of us are your attending physicians."

Flower Bloom said nothing, his gaze drifting toward the doorway.

Suddenly, a boy appeared there, around nine years old, standing just outside the door, talking with a middle-aged woman in a hospital gown who was holding his hand. To Flower Bloom's astonishment, the woman holding him was Brother Xu's eldest sister-in-law, and the boy was none other than Star Lord Dao Ling!

That boy, who looked exactly like Star Lord Dao Ling, was stomping on the little ants on the floor, crying as he did so, "Exterminate the bugs! Crush you all flat! Dimensional reduction attack! Dimensional reduction attack!"

"Ah! Those two!" Flower Bloom pointed toward the doorway. "Who are they?"