"Kevin? Ah-Liao?"
All of us were dazzled by the brilliant golden light of this golden lion-man.
"Sorry we're a bit late, as we live quite far away. We hadn't even reached the wedding venue yet when we found that the world had changed. I didn't expect someone would actually create a Shadow Land and bring disaster to all the demons in the world," Kevin's lion face was very unhappy. Then he sighed in relief and said to me, "But fortunately we Golden Lions are famous for our speed; otherwise, we surely wouldn't have caught up with you."
"You guys..."
Kevin winked at me, "Weibu is doing well now. I owe you a favor."
"I don't want you to return my favor. You've already paid me." I don't know what he's up to, but I'm afraid he'll become another disobedient Ao Chi. Anyway, I don't want anything to happen to any of these guys around me. But I wondered why Kevin seemed to be completely unaffected by the power of the Shadow Land; he's clearly a demon too.
The smart Ah-Liao saw the concern and confusion in my eyes, pointed to herself, and said, "This dragon is not the only non-demon here, I'm not one either. The biggest skill of us Ginkgo nuts is to go against death. Although my cultivation is not very high, my power can at least protect this lion for forty-eight hours." Saying this, she pursed her lips and smiled, "They can create a Shadow Land, and we can try… to create a Sunshine Land..."
With that, Ah-Liao shrank her body and turned into a round ginkgo nut, jumped up from Kevin's back and fell into his mouth.
"Ah-Liao, are you crazy?" I was shocked.
"I'm not going to eat her; this is the only way to give full play to the advantages of our cooperation." Kevin carefully held the gingko nut in his mouth, took a deep breath, and fiercely clawed forward. In just two or three moves, he surpassed Ao Chi and dashed forward, radiating a brilliant light from head to toe. I watched in a daze as he advanced bravely, appearing as if another sun had begun burning in the darkness.
At that moment, the unrestrained energy all around us suddenly boiled up like boiling water, and a massive tremor almost knocked us off the sky.
"My dear brother has always been a hero. Since that's the case, why do you all insist on destroying his virtue? You self-righteous big demons, even if you don't want to contribute any power to my kingdom, at least you should be obedient spectators."
I saw Ao Shuo's faces, countless of them tightly packed together like a gigantic, endless and impregnable fortress wall, suddenly appearing around us. Each face had the same expression, spoke the same seemingly considerate words, and looked incomparably horrific. They pressed towards us from left, right, up, down; any angle I looked. The current situation made us feel like we were trapped in a sealed space, with the walls closing in from all sides. If we cannot escape, we will become mincemeat.
Kevin, who was running, had to brake abruptly as the closing walls blocked his path.
"Get out of the way!" Ao Chi caught up, spewing out raging flames from his mouth, which made the man-faced wall scream incessantly as it burned. Ao Chi swung his tail fiercely, delivering a heavy blow to the burning area, causing cracks to appear, and with another strike, a wide hole opened up.
"Ao Shuo! You keep on saying that you don't have the heart to fight me, yet you've gone through such lengths. You regard Shaluo and Jiu Jue as your insurance, using the safety of others to force me into taking my own life. For twenty years, the one who dare not have a head-on confrontation with me is you! You are nothing but a coward who is afraid of losing!" Ao Chi cursed loudly, drawing the attention of the man-faced wall to himself.
Kevin lowered his head and broke out through the hole.
However, countless white threads sticky like spider silk furiously burst out from the edges of the hole, like the gray hair of despair on a resentful woman's head. They continuously expanded, growing, half turning back to wrap around Ao Chi's neck and half chasing after Kevin.
"Get back here!"
I don't know where the brute strength came from, but I leaped from Ao Chi's back, stepping on his head as I jumped out. I grabbed the mass of white hair chasing Kevin and forcefully pulled it back.
One surged forward and the other pulled backward. In this confrontation, those steel-wire tough white hair cut deeply into my flesh.
I didn't feel the pain because my attention was not on myself but on others.
I tenaciously dragged the white hair in my arms and refused to let go. Yes, I am a tree demon who has cultivated for thousands of years. My life experience is unparalleled in the world. Even if I am barely hanging on now, I am still the valiant and fierce Shaluo, the lady boss without equal. What can mere white hair do to me!
This psychological suggestion worked. With tightly closed eyes and clenched teeth, I persisted and persisted. I won't let you hurt any of my friends!
With a few ripping sounds, I heard the hair breaking.
Cangtong Kai and Xuan were behind me, tearing and biting at the white hair. Their nails broke and blood appeared, and tiny pieces of flesh were cut off their tongues, but they didn't care, only earnestly working together with me.
Blocking the entrance of the hole with his body, Ao Chi prevented more white hair from coming out to cause trouble. His situation was worse than mine. His whole body was covered with slithering white vipers, each one so angry that they wanted to bite off a piece of flesh from him.
I saw Jiu Jue by his side, his face still pale, his body still leaking those halos, but the sword in his hand gleamed like a rainbow, cutting countless white hairs into ashes. On the side, Gu Wuming had a broken arm but that didn't stop him from fighting the white hair with just one hand.
There was also Ku Yue. Although a demon, after losing his human form, he was not much different from an ordinary butterfly. He was so puny that a gust of wind could easily blow him away, yet he kept flapping his thin wings and using his delicate tentacles to grab a strand of white hair charging towards Ao Chi's eyes and ruthlessly snapping it.
The fact is each one of us should have fallen long ago, but each of us refused, even though we had reached the limits of our bodies.
Perhaps in the eyes of someone like Ao Shuo, giving up and persisting would yield the same result. However, I still chose the latter. Even if I lose, even if I die, I would do so with my head held high.
I believe that there are actually many people in this world who are very similar to us, holding onto their own persistence and courage, refusing to compromise or fall.
Mo Bai is like this, Liang Yudong is like this, Baili Weibu is like this, Li Huai is like this, Su Qiuchi is like this, and so are many, many other individuals who have appeared in my life.
Whether they are demons or humans, it is precisely because there are still many "Mo Bais," many "Baili Weibus," and many of "us" in this world that I have the confidence to point at Ao Shuo's nose and say he is wrong and that this world still has its worth and the hope for change.
We have all experienced disappointment, we have all been hurt, but such is life, perfection is just a fairy tale. However, everyone has the opportunity not to leave regrets for themselves.
As long as you live earnestly and fight hard for the important people in your life, this in itself is a kind of perfection.
I had truly exhausted my strength.
There were more and more white hair, with one strand viciously winding around my neck.
I'm not afraid of dying; I just hope that before I die, I can finally say the words in my heart to a certain person.
These white hairs were really cruel… They strangled my neck to the point of breaking. My vision became blurry, and in my ears, I sometimes heard the voices of Cangtong Kai and Xuan, sometimes the maniacal laughter of Ao Shuo, and sometimes Ao Chi shouting my name...
There was a rumbling sound in the distance; it was not thunder but a long-lost lion's roar, a force that pierced through heaven and earth.
My eyes crossed over the darkness, and I saw a beam of sunlight. Just like what I saw when I opened my eyes for the first time following my birth on Mount Fulong. Golden light swirling and passing through the layers of clouds, casting onto my body; the snowstorm had just subsided, and all around me, there was only warmth, warmth, warmth…
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