He fought free of Wen Kexing, turned, and left. The Great Shaman’s words were on the tip of his tongue, but he did not utter them in the end, the words dissolving into a nearly imperceptible sigh—

Chapter 42: Great Ruckus

Zhang Chengling followed uncomprehendingly behind the two men, sensing that his shifu had become a little different after changing his appearance. The atmosphere was stifling; not even Gu Xiang, off to the side, had the nerve to make a racket, following behind without daring to make a single sound.

Usually, once the two of them were put together, they would keep needling each other nonstop, both taking cracks at the other person to release excess energy. However, neither of them spoke, placing their respective attentions on putting one foot in front of the other. Zhou Zishu did not even put his human skin mask back on--no one here recognised him anyway.

He felt a sense of discomfort in his chest, like he was suffocating. The Great Shaman’s words were like a heavy blow straight to his chest--if ridding himself of his martial ability granted a fifth of hope, he would rather not have this hope, and die slowly, peacefully, like this.

Throughout history, numerous pugilists, far too many to count, had fought one another for just one secret manual and failed tragically. That gongfu of his was trained through momentous perseverance, through the deepest winters and the hottest summers; through carving his own unprecedented path of understanding via laborious rumination.

It was not merely a possession of his, or merely a skill he was proficient at. It was the culmination of his entire soul.

What did it mean to rid himself of his martial ability? It was like a person missing his soul; he might as well have turned himself into an imbecile at the very beginning and live blissfully in idiocy.

Naturally, the Great Shaman had understood this. It was why he had only sighed in the end, and not persuaded him.

If he was missing a good portion of his soul, if he had not this last bit of dignity, was it not an empty existence that was only fulfilled by dying[6]? He indeed wished to live, but he did not wish to do so barely clinging onto his last thread of life.

Suddenly, Zhou Zishu could not help but raise his voice and sing, “Time flits by too fast for me, I fear how the years do not wait for me; at the break of dawn I hike up the mountain to gather magnolia, and at dusk I pluck hardy weeds from the river delta; the sun and moon continue to exchange places in the sky, just as how spring and autumn change over tirelessly; to think of how the grass withers and the trees shed their leaves, I fear the aging of the beautiful…”[7]