Chapter 294: Life and Death

"call!"

Listening to the whistling sound of the wind in his ears, feeling the fear of his body falling rapidly, and the floating clouds and thick fog quickly disappearing in front of his eyes, facing the upcoming unknown, fear and tension are intertwined and difficult to suppress, overflowing his heart and filling his body.

At this moment, his body no longer belonged to him. Compared with the vastness of the world and the infinity of the universe, Liu Xunyi felt firsthand what it meant to be a gnat in the world and a drop in the ocean.
The heroic spirit disappeared, and the lofty ambitions vanished into ashes. All that remained was a hazy spirit and the memories that kept pouring out from the depths of my mind.

There is grief, sadness, hardship, and depression...

Until this moment, Liu Xunyi suddenly realized that in his short and hasty life, he had not had much happiness, let alone the slightest bit of happiness. Instead, he had been filled with pain, suffering, and a restless anxiety and confusion.

As for all the good things in life, they seem to always be stored in hope, illusory and out of reach.

Even so, those illusory imaginations and expectations are still precious memories in Liu Xunyi's past life.

"It turns out that I have been gritting my teeth and persisting in living for the glimmer of hope in my heart..."

At the moment of life and death, Liu Xunyi suddenly realized that his life was so ridiculous and so pathetic.

He lived, always looking forward to the future.

I hope that one day I can be reunited with my sister and her family...

I hope that one day I can marry Zhao Xin and have many children...

I hope that I can be appreciated by the court and valued by the emperor in the future...

I hope to achieve great things in my lifetime and leave my name in history...

I hope that I can enjoy my family and live out my old age in peace and contentment in my old age...

It is these beautiful "hopes" that are hard to come by that make him live desperately and strive to live a better life.

It is also these "hopes" that make his life miserable and extremely exhausted.

People will never know how miserable their life is until the moment of death.

At this moment, Liu Xunyi finally understood why this place was called "Forget Love Cliff"? Once he jumped down, all his emotions would vanish, and his joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness would also vanish, and he would naturally forget his emotions.

Everything happened so fast, it seemed like just a flash of light, in the blink of an eye.

Everything happened so slowly, as if summer had turned into winter and the earth had begun to age.

When Liu Xunyi slowly woke up from his memories and opened his eyes with difficulty in the fierce wind like a knife, his body had already penetrated the clouds and mist, and he could vaguely glimpse the mysterious scene beneath the clouds.

Half asleep and half awake, Liu Xunyi was surprised to find that a green shadow was slowly surging at the bottom of the cliff.

"That...that's..."

"Pfft!"

Before he could see clearly what was going on, his body had already fallen heavily into a pool of water, causing the calm surface of the water to suddenly ripple.

After hitting the water, Liu Xunyi's head was stunned for a moment. Then, the coldness from all directions instantly swept through his body, causing his chaotic mind to suddenly wake up. Then he hurriedly waved his limbs and quickly jumped towards the water surface.

"Wow!"

"puff!"

As it broke through the water, a mouthful of cold water gushed out of its mouth. Immediately afterwards, Liu Xunyi, still frightened, gasped for air desperately.

The complex feeling of surviving a disaster is hard to describe and cannot be expressed in words. You have to experience it yourself to understand it.

Liu Xunyi will probably never forget this experience.

“It turns out there’s a deep pool at the bottom of the cliff!”

Liu Xunyi was still in shock, surprised and happy. He raised his eyes hastily, but saw floating clouds in the sky blocking his eyes, and there was no end in sight either.

"I understand!" Liu Xunyi suddenly realized, "Falling off the Cliff of Absolute Love won't kill you. The so-called distinction between 'good and evil' is not 'God's will' at all, but 'human heart'. If you have a clear conscience, you will naturally have the courage to jump. If you have evil thoughts in your heart, you will never dare to take the risk. Haha... What a great Cliff of Absolute Love! What a great Valley of Absolute Love!"

There is a saying: Those who survive a great disaster will surely have good fortune in the future. At this moment, Liu Xunyi was no exception. He looked around excitedly and splashed the water with both hands to vent his ecstasy.

Just now when he was "sure to die", he was fully confident that he would "die without regrets". Now that he has "survived from a desperate situation", he has "rekindled hope" again. Is this probably human nature?

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. Before long, Liu Xunyi experienced what it meant to "extreme joy leads to sorrow".
He looked up and was surprised to find that the pool was surrounded by walls on all sides and there was no way out except for the thick clouds and fog above his head.

"This……"

The smile on Liu Xunyi's face gradually froze, replaced by a trace of sadness. He muttered to himself, "What does this mean? Am I going to be trapped to death at the bottom of the cliff?"

After thinking for a moment, Liu Xunyi's eyes suddenly became fierce, and he slapped the water with both palms, and his body soared into the sky, leaping several feet high. In mid-air, he stepped on his left foot with his right foot, flipped several times in the air, and his body shot towards the western mountain wall like an arrow.

"laugh!"

"Whoosh!"

"Pfft..."

Liu Xunyi originally wanted to grab the rocks on the mountain wall and use them to climb up, but he did not expect that these rocks would become extremely slippery and soft due to the evaporation of mist day after day.

Before Liu Xunyi's five fingers could exert any force, his body suddenly sank and then fell heavily back into the pool.

“Come again!” Liu Xunyi shouted with dissatisfaction and jumped out of the pool again. This time he headed straight for the east side of the mountain wall.

Unexpectedly, the east side was even more dangerous than the west side. Not only did he fail to hold on to the rock, but because he used too much force, countless rocks fell from the mountain wall and "crackled" into the water.

If Liu Xunyi had not dodged in time, he would have suffered a few more wounds.

"hiss!"

The situation before him made Liu Xunyi horrified and he smacked his lips in amazement.

Afterwards, unwilling to give up, Liu Xunyi "struggled" several times again, trying the mountain walls on the southeast, northwest, northeast and southwest sides one by one, but the results made him discouraged and desperate.

Even if the pool was not ten thousand feet away from the top of the cliff, it was at least several dozen feet away. Even if he could fly up, he would have to rely on the force dozens of times, or even more. Regardless of whether the rocks were slippery and loose, he would probably not be able to support himself with his own strength.

"Hello! Tang Cong! Miss Pan! Is anyone there?"

Liu Xunyi raised his head to the sky and howled loudly. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, even if his throat was hoarse, the only response he got was a gradually fading echo. Other than that, there was no more movement.

"What should I do?" Liu Xunyi floated in the pool, looking around with embarrassment.

At this moment, for the first time in his life, he experienced what it meant to be "a life worse than death".
"If I had known there was a pool of stagnant water at the bottom of the cliff, I would have fallen to my death." Liu Xunyi complained to himself, "Now I am going to freeze to death or starve to death, it is really unbearable."

Liu Xunyi swam aimlessly in the water. The pool was only a few feet in size and he could swim back and forth in a moment.

Compared with the huge cliff mouth, the shape of Wangqing Cliff is like an upside-down bamboo hat.

"It's over! Am I really going to be trapped here to death?" Liu Xunyi said bitterly, "No! Since Valley Master Xiao can say that, there must be a ray of hope in the Forgetful Cliff. It is definitely not a dead end. But this pool is surrounded by mountains on all sides. There are no caves or gaps. There is no way to leave. As for the top... no matter how high your Qinggong is, it is impossible to escape. Then... where is the exit?"

After thinking hard for a while, Liu Xunyi felt his body numb from the cold water, and his mind became a little dazed and dull. He wanted to find a dry place to rest, but he searched for a long time but could not find a place to go ashore.

"Alas!" Liu Xunyi looked at the sparkling water in front of him and said self-deprecatingly, "My words really came true. If God wants me to die, I will definitely die. Even if I don't die by jumping off the cliff, I will be frozen to death now. What do you mean by escaping death? It's just that the time has not come yet..."

Before he finished speaking, Liu Xunyi suddenly felt something strange under his feet. He hurriedly jumped into the water to investigate, only to see a silver fish swimming slowly past his legs.

“Striped bass?”

Liu Xunyi recognized the fish at first sight and was stunned. He asked suspiciously, "The spotted bass usually lives in rivers, why is it here?" At this point, Liu Xunyi's eyes suddenly changed, and he asked doubtfully, "Could it be... this pond is not a pool of stagnant water, but..."

Liu Xunyi suddenly realized what was going on and no longer cared about his swollen limbs. He took a deep breath and dived into the pool, following the direction the spotted bass was swimming.

Liu Xunyi followed the spotted perch closely, swimming towards the bottom of the pool, sinking deeper and deeper.

A moment later, he suddenly discovered that on the north side of the bottom of the pool, on the mountain wall soaked in deep water, there was a five-foot square hole, big enough for one person to pass through.

Seeing the spotted sea bass crawling into the cave, Liu Xunyi couldn't help but hesitate. What if there was a dead end inside, or it was bottomless, wouldn't he be suffocated to death?
At this moment, Liu Xunyi felt a slight tightness in his chest and shortness of breath, and secretly regretted: "If I had known this would happen, I should have learned the art of turtle breathing..."

"Forget it. I can't get out anyway, so I might as well die!"

After hesitating for a long time, Liu Xunyi simply made up his mind and leaned over to dive into the cave.

As soon as they entered the hole, the originally gentle water flow suddenly became turbulent. The clear water gradually became turbid.

Caught off guard, Liu Xunyi could only hold his breath, close his eyes, and let the increasingly violent waves wash him away and drift with the flow.

He moved left and right, up and down, bumping around everywhere like a headless fly, his body swaying like willow catkins in the wind and his shape like a lonely leaf drifting away.

After drifting in the turbulent water for an unknown period of time, Liu Xunyi's breath gradually ran out, but he could not tell east, west, south, or north. At this moment, although he felt regretful, he could not turn back and could only resign himself to his fate and endure for a while.

Finally, when Liu Xunyi was about to use up his last bit of strength and was about to give up struggling, his body suddenly sank and he fell from the turbulent torrent into a pool of still water.

The sudden change made Liu Xunyi subconsciously choke on a few mouthfuls of cold water.

At this moment, his gradually bleak eyes seemed to see a swaying light coming from above his head, and he was immediately cheered up. Then strength came from his heart, and the desire to survive stimulated infinite potential, making him, who was already dying, struggle desperately again.

"puff!"

Finally, his efforts paid off. When Liu Xunyi was on the verge of death, he broke through the water just in time. Fresh air and long-lost sunshine poured down, and he greedily inhaled and enjoyed them.

"Hu! Hu! Hu!"

One deep breath after another gradually pulled Liu Xunyi back from the brink of death, and at the same time, his confused mind slowly regained a bit of rationality.

"Where is this?"

Liu Xunyi, who was still unsure of his breath, looked around in confusion. Seeing the beautiful mountains and clear waters, the chirping of birds and the fragrance of flowers around him, and a familiar fragrance in the air, he murmured to himself: "This fragrance... I seem to have smelled it somewhere before?"

"This is the scent of the ruthless flower!"

Suddenly, a cold female voice came from the shore.

Liu Xunyi was suddenly startled and turned around hurriedly to look, only to see a beautiful figure standing quietly by the lake.

She is dressed in fluttering green clothes and wispy cloud gauze, like a fairy descending from the sky.

"You are... Master Xiao?"

……

(End of this chapter)