Fanfiction3: A-Li's Three Lives, Three Worlds - Chapter 81 (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)
Chapter 81
This can’t be real. This can’t be real!
Mei Lin’s throat felt dry, her heart was pumping hard as she rushed toward the gates of Kunlun. Anyone could see that somebody had put up a barrier. It shone like a golden honeycombed wall from the air to the ground. Immortals thronged outside the edges of the shield, but none looked like they wanted to breach it.
Inside and above were Gun Gun and her Li-Ge in a deadlocked fight. To Mei Lin, the scene looked familiar. Li and Gun Gun had always been evenly-matched. Gun Gun lacked more powerful elemental spells and better swordsmanship against Li, but he had always made up for it with strategic defense.
Yet in a limited battleground such as this one, Mei Lin knew, Gun Gun didn’t stand a chance. Over the past thousands of years since saving the thirty-six Heavens, Li’s cultivation had increased at an exponential rate. Because of this, he had turned himself into an effective weapon for the Heavenly Clan to subdue their enemies. For Gun Gun to foolishly go against such talent was not brave, but stupid.
So what did Gun Gun think he was doing?
She saw Changshan and squeezed herself between bodies of onlookers to get to his side. Once close enough, she grabbed him by the elbow and asked, “Is it true?”
Second Disciple’s worried gaze looked past her, so she shook him to get his focus back.
“I had Fifth confine Father in his room.” She replied to his unasked question. Past Changshan, in the air, she saw that both men had taken out their swords as they went deeper into their fight. “Gun Gun…” She uttered his name and put her hands on her head. “What is happening here?”
“He stole Fuxi’s Zither. And he did not come alone.”
Fuxi’s Zither was Zhe Yan’s old weapon given to him by the Father Immortal himself. Known only to Kunlun’s disciples, it had been sealed thousands of years ago in Kunlun. Was that why she had caught Gun Gun strolling inside Kunlun’s private areas? Had she actually walked into him a while back while he had been on his way to steal the weapon?
More importantly, what did Gun Gun need it for?
The elemental power from Li’s blade sliced diagonally and against Gun Gun, who tried his best to block it— but to no avail, it sent him flying through the air.
Li had barely caught his breath when a red-haired man lunged from the ground and, with his fist, delivered a blow to Li’s stomach. Looking back at where the new attacker had come from, it was then that Mei Lin saw the men who were Gun Gun’s companions. They were on the ground, drawn nearly to a halt by her cousin’s earth magick.
Mei Lin’s knees felt unsteady, so she clung to Changshan for support. Indeed it was as Fifth had reported earlier. Her Cousin had caught the thieves on their way out and set a barrier to limit his magick’s area of effect, like how Lian Song had taught him to do before he cast his earth-net.
But Gun Gun...
None in the Four Seas and Eight Deserts was more loyal to Li than he.
An acidic taste crept up to Mei Lin’s mouth. It didn’t matter what Gun Gun’s reason was. Her Cousin needed her now, so she decided to take action.
She stepped inside the barrier, the invisible repellent force easily giving way to let her enter like one would when walking through a waterfall. Mei Lin saw her Li-Ge’s magick rapidly make its way toward her like an army of snakes. Speed was of the essence if she was to escape its non-discriminating confinement.
Thus, she ordered her Feather to go back while she transformed into her beast form.
Up she went, with her sight blazing and sharp. She flew toward her Li-Ge, who fought against the red-haired man with all his might. His opponent’s spiritual power was massive, and its pressure, along with Li’s, forced Mei Lin back when she tried to approach.
The warrior wielded a huge and heavy-looking guandao, one like she had never seen before. The sharp edge of its blade shone like a reclined moon. In contrast, its back edge had irregular serrations with rings at its edges for catching its opponent’s weapon.
Li’s sword met one of the serrations when the warrior attacked, and the guandao slid along the sword's blade until it hit the hilt. One twist of the red-haired man’s wrist and Li was relieved of his sword, sending the metal on its way down to the ground. The man pivoted his body in the air to swing his own weapon around, and the sharp edge of the guandao ended up slicing through Li’s left sleeve.
She rushed toward Li, who had pulled up his sleeve to see the wound. Thankfully, it was not deep. And yet…
It was her Phoenix form that saw the problem. More than the blood, her Cousin’s life force was leaking from the wound.
Mei Lin broke through both gods' spiritual pressure and sent a massive blow of her fire toward the guandao’s blade. The red-haired warrior tried to block it, but the attempt to stand against her fire was expectedly futile. It pushed him back until it sent him flying through the air. She only heard the crash that followed as he slammed into one of Kunlun’s mountain faces.
She transformed back to her human form and approached her cousin, her hand held out so she could inspect the wound.
“There is something about that blade,” she told Li. “Be careful.”
She tried to heal it, to close the wound, and yet it wouldn’t.
“It’s fine,” Li shook his head and put the sleeve back down. “What are you doing here?”
“Who are these people Gun Gun are with?”
Mei Lin didn’t have time to hear the response as the shout of “Phoenix!!!” rang in the air before two hands grabbed both her arms, and the wind took her. As they fell, she saw the red-haired man’s wide eyes, the enlarged nostrils, and the spittle that dribbled from his open mouth.
Then pain. Pain as she crashed on her back on the ground below. But she set that consciousness aside as she pushed and threw the now-laughing man away from her.
“Where did your weapon go?” She taunted and rolled. She tried not to sway while she attempted with her knees and arms on the ground to push herself upright on her feet.
The warrior still lay prone on his back and did not stop laughing. Mei Lin supposed he was not bad looking for a man of his size. She wondered which tribe he had come from, what his intentions were.
“Eat,” he said as he turned on his stomach and crouched on all fours. “Smell delicious. Eat!”
Surely he did not mean...
Mei Lin jumped back as he launched on her like a wild animal, mouth open for a huge bite. She called on her whip and inflicted the most significant damage that she could while maintaining her distance.
An immortal who eats gods.
Who was this man?
It was challenging to move as they were both within the area where Li’s spell restricted movement. Her opponent was strong, and like her, he was able to move faster than any other immortal could while trapped under Li’s spell.
Then, the spell gave way. Mei Lin felt it immediately and without missing a beat, she transformed once again to her beast form to escape... from one nightmare to the next.
Because what did she just see? Li and Gun Gun seemingly locked in an embrace, yet when Gun Gun stepped away, she saw his hand holding Chun Jun, Li’s own sword, buried in Li’s chest.
“I am so disappointed.” She heard him tell Li. “You held back.”
Everything looked red and felt hot from that point on. Mei Lin yelled, “Traitor!” and flew as fast as she could toward Gun Gun.
She could only take a swipe of her talons at him because Gun Gun had let go of Chun Jun’s hilt, and Li began his free fall.
To her horror, a brilliant line of red appeared across Gun Gun’s face, from right under one eye, across the bridge of his nose, toward the other.
For one moment, brought upon by years of knowing how he valued his looks, she wanted to apologize and say she didn’t mean to harm his face.
The old Gun Gun would have moaned about the injury.
This Gun Gun just wiped at the blood that streamed down his face and left.
With a huff, Mei Lin changed her course to catch her Cousin. She was able to wrap him under her wings before they hit the ground, with her taking the brunt of the impact.
“Pet,” she heard Gun Gun shout above the sound of the wind whistling in her ears. “We already got what we need. We are done here. Let us go!”
The shield Li had erected dissolved. Kunlun’s disciples rushed to catch the thieves while nosy immortals flocked around the two of them to check if they were still alive.
Mei Lin came back to her human form, sobbing. Heaving. She could barely see through the tears in her eyes. The clinician part of her mind wanted to start healing her cousin, yet her trembling hands felt numb.
Strong hands wrapped themselves around her palms. Mei Lin looked up. Her Father’s form materialized through her cloud of tears, and all she could do was to fall into his arms and cling to his embrace.
Why?
How had it come to this?
Gun Gun had betrayed them all.
Chapter 82
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