Chapter 226 — Homecoming

"Rise," she said. Her voice sounded hollow and desolate. In all that Mingli could remember, he had never known Su Wan to speak in such a helpless, powerless tone, and that discovery only made him more fearful and more anguished. Involuntarily he began to move his face slowly through the sand and dirt, so that the pain on his face might distract a heart that was on the verge of bursting apart.

"If you do not rise, how will you tell me what happened?" Su Wan said faintly, and yet her eyes rested only on the body in her arms, which had long since lost all feeling and response, as though in this moment nothing else could find room within her sight.

Dahuang crept forward two paces and nudged Tian Buhui's body lightly with its head, its mournful whines low and unending.

Mingli's body paused for a moment, then slowly straightened. He raised his head and looked toward Su Wan. That dignified, beautiful woman, even in this hour when her heart had died, seemed not to have lost her grace; in the morning breeze her fine hair rose and fell faintly at her temples as she pressed her pale cheek against Tian Buhui's face.

"You've come back. You've finally come home..."

Those were the last words Mingli heard Su Wan speak.

Then blood and qi surged violently in his chest, churning like a furious tide, and darkness swept across his eyes—as though a string in his mind, drawn taut to the breaking point, had snapped in an instant.

With a thud he fell like a plank of wood upon the ground and lost consciousness.

In the instant before his senses left him, his sight went black, and he felt as though his whole body were ablaze, burning with unbearable heat, while within him it was cold as ice. And from somewhere far off came sudden shouts, voices filled with terror and pain, which in a moment dissolved into a sound of weeping.

Confused footfalls broke out on every side, yet all of them came toward one place.

"Mistress! Mistress!"

That soundless cry was the last and only thought to flash through Mingli's mind; and then he knew nothing more.