Volume 3 - Chapter 388: Lord Haotian
"But you're already…"
Li Hao’s voice was hoarse, a dull ache rising in his chest. He thought she was just trying to comfort him.
Ying Xiaoxiao saw through him. Her gaze turned even gentler. Beneath her eyes, the delicate skin quietly crumbled into powder. Glimmering motes shimmered upward, against the flow of time, and vanished into the air.
"This incarnation of mine, walking the mortal world with you—it’s my favorite lifetime of them all."
Her voice was as soft as the breeze. "Do you remember what I said when we first met?"
A vivid memory surfaced in Li Hao’s mind: a roadside teahouse, where she emerged from behind the stall like a summer breeze, calm and poised as she looked at him and said:
"My name is Ying Xiaoxiao. 'Ying' as in fate’s response, 'Xiaoxiao' as in carefree wanderer."
What had once seemed a lighthearted jest now felt like fate laid bare.
A response to today’s tribulation. Reincarnated across time.
"Then how can I see you again?"
Li Hao wanted to hold her, but dared not touch her—afraid even the gentlest contact would hasten her dissolution.
"The Northern Region… the Su Clan… there lies my second incarnation. But that body was lost to calamity. That soul has yet to awaken…"
Her divine sense echoed gently, faint and fading, her eyes filled with warmth and contentment.
The Northern Region. Su Clan. Li Hao carved those names into his heart. He hurriedly asked, "If I go to the Su Clan, will I find you? What’s your name there?"
"You'll know… when you arrive."
Her voice lowered to a whisper. Her eyes turned slowly, and she murmured, "…Will you paint me a picture?"
Li Hao's heart trembled. His eyes reddened.
"I will!"
"Now?"
"Now!"
He raised his hand. Immortal energy gathered at his fingertips. As he watched her slowly disintegrate—embers of her form fragmenting, her gaze fading—his heart ached with a piercing pain.
Yet he gritted his teeth and poured everything into the painting.
He didn’t paint her as she was in this moment of ruin. He painted her vibrant and alive, as if time had been reversed.
He painted her stepping out from behind that teahouse for the first time, the hem of her robe rippling in the summer wind.
He painted her arrival in this world, a figure draped in seven-colored radiance, descending like a goddess.
In the void, clouds stirred, time swirled—until the faded figure of memory began to take form once more, emerging from the depths of his soul to stand before him.
And at that final moment, the last glimmer of light in her pupils scattered into dust. Her fading divine sense whispered:
"I knew… your painting would be the most beautiful…"
Her voice faded into nothing. Her floating hair collapsed into particles, her forehead disintegrating after her eyes vanished—gone like ash on the wind.
"Promise me… live on…"
Her divine sense lingered in the breeze, like starlight scattering.
Li Hao stood frozen.
He just stood there.
When the light and shadow vanished completely, time seemed to come to a halt.
The world collapsed into a vast emptiness. All light around him faded. All things dimmed.
Only he remained, standing in the divine darkness of the Black Tower—like a wooden stake, rooted in place for a thousand years.
After a long, long time, the young man's fist slowly clenched. Golden divine blood oozed from his palm and dripped down.
In the air, the painting floated gently. The girl in the blue-green robes stood in the void, her eyes lowered in tender gaze—as though watching him from another time and place.
Then waves of power surged from every orifice of his body—strength beyond the True Immortal Realm. The celestial veins of stars lit up behind him once more, this time vaster than ever before, stretching like a cosmic web, illuminating the heavens.
His aura surged upward with unstoppable force. In the blink of an eye, he shattered his bottleneck.
A majestic pressure, belonging to the realm of a Lord, burst from within him—like shedding a mortal shell to be reborn anew.
[Painting Dao: Twelve Segments]
[Heart of Painting: True Meaning of the Painting Dao]
Add Points—Body Dao.
Twelve Segments of the Body. Comprehension of the True Meaning of the Body Dao!
What is the true meaning?
Illusory yet real. True yet false. All things are but extensions of the Dao.
The Dao of Earth can shape mountains and rivers, manifest all of creation—from a grain of sand to a boulder to a towering peak.
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