Ning Que ran down the street in the dark, raising his right arm from time to time to wipe the blood from his chin. From time to time, the large black umbrella hit his back with a scraping sound. As time passed, he seemed to be in pain, the light in his eyes became darker and darker, and the eyebrows outside the mask furrowed even deeper.

His vision blurred, and the doorposts of the street-side shops began to distort and become like grasping monsters. His breathing grew more and more rapid, and the breath squeezed out of his lungs was as hot as magma; And the breath he desperately inhaled was as cold as a glacier. His steps grew slower and more unsteady, often caught by the jagged bluestones on the ground. His mind became more and more confused, and he gradually forgot about his current situation.

He just remembered that he should run – the farther he went, the better.

A deep instinct prompted him to run to the old brush shop on Lin 47th Street. Maybe if he could see that little black girl, then he would feel safe and secure. The obsession with running home is so strong... It could support his badly injured and weakened body to run here from Nancheng, but he didn't notice that he was running on the Vermilion Bird Avenue now, and he always felt anxious and vigilant on weekdays.

The blood on the edge of the mask could be wiped away with his sleeve, and the blood oozing from the countless wounds on his body was slowly flowing towards the large black umbrella. It is then slowly absorbed and released by the sticky and greasy black umbrella and finally drips to the ground. Then, tiny blood flowers bloom on the ground and disappear between the cracks in the stones.

The morning breeze has blown, although morning has not yet come. It blew someone's clothes hanging under the eaves, and made the towering dragon cloud flag on the Vermilion Bird Avenue in the distance whizz by. The sound of footsteps and the faint smell of blood mixed in the morning breeze, gradually awakening some of the life hidden in the Millennium Stone.

The spacious and straight Vermilion Bird Avenue in Chang'an City of the Tang Empire suddenly turned into an endless road of hellfire. Ning Que felt as if his feet were stepping on extremely hot pebbles, and with every step, the soles of his feet would be burned. The blazing flames instantly spread into his flesh and blood, and then burned his bones, which was very painful.

He's still running. Every step he took seemed so painful, as if his feet had turned into muddy flesh and at the same time had been cut by numerous knives.

His body suddenly stiffened, clutching his chest in pain!

He felt as if an invisible spear had fallen from the high night sky, breaking his flesh and internal organs, piercing his body directly and pinning him to the ground!

The pain of the burning flames emanating from the ground of the Vermilion Bird Avenue disappeared in an instant. For all the pain in the world was nothing compared to the pain that came from his chest—the pain that almost tore and destroyed everything.

Ning Que frowned bitterly. Looking at his empty chest, the street that had become a bent corridor, Chang'an City, which had nothing to do with reality, he found that everything in his eyes had countless phantoms—true and false, deconstructed phantoms—and his body was standing in it.

Suddenly, his ears heard someone gasping softly.

He turned his head with all his might, and gripped the hilt of his sword at his waist tightly with his blood-stained hand, but he didn't see anyone. All he could see was the strange and twisted world around him.

His face was as pale as a snow-capped mountain. He looked around blankly, and subconsciously found the place where the breath came from.

It's as if the hitchhiker post that fell into the ground is wheezing, telling about the pain and irritability caused by the knotted neck every day; The yellow sign of the street tavern gasps in the morning breeze, recounting the coma and uneasiness caused by the drunkard's indecent assault every night. The locust that popped out of the mansion gasped and told that it had witnessed too many shameful family secrets, and it would wither; The green leaves that fell on the stone lions gasped, telling the reason why they didn't fall in season.

The lion carved in stone, the wooden building, the road under your feet, the morning breeze, the palace in the distance, the almost gray city wall, the whole Chang'an City is breathing, the whole world is breathing.

The beautiful and charming woman gasped in pain. And the long court was wheezing solemnly; and the nervous fugitives desperately gasped; And history, full of indifference and vicissitudes, is relentlessly gasping.

Ning Que stood in the middle of the street, listening to the breath coming from all directions in the streets, courtyards, and temples in the distance.

He let go of the hilt of his sword and covered his ears with his hands, but he still couldn't stop the various breaths from seeping through his palms and then entering his mind clearly and forcefully.

He slowly knelt in the middle of the dark vermilion bird avenue before collapsing.

The big black umbrella was on his back.

Blood dripped from the black umbrella onto the bluestone, and finally flew into the cracks in the stone.

On Suzaku Avenue, the flat bluestone is paved, and countless small blood flowers bloom, lined up from the south city to the north, connecting with the blood in front of the black umbrella in a line.

At the end of the bloodline is a vermilion portrait of a bird, just off the boulevard.

...

...

The vermilion portrait of the bird is deeply carved into the stone and is located in the center of the Royal Road. It carries the history of the Tang Empire for more than a thousand years. No one knows how many energetic new kings it has ushered in, or how many old kings it has sent away who could not conquer time. Its two eyes, with dignity and strength, were always so calm that they did not move for a moment.

At that moment, the portrait of the Suzaku was still as solemn as usual, but among the three rooted at its end, the gorgeous right wing slowly flipped upward, as if it was about to break through the stone and enter the real world!

Ning Que fell under the big black umbrella and fell unconscious. He didn't know that the Suzaku portrait in the distance had undergone such a strange change, and he didn't even know that a respectful sense of ancient destruction enveloped him.

The blood flowing through the crevices of the stone was very shallow and flat, even more shallow and flat than humans could have imagined. It flew off into the distance from the center of the avenue and then crashed into the intricate and majestic feathered stone crevices of the vermilion bird portrait in the distance.

The blood in the cracks of the beautiful feather stone silently and quickly evaporated into a reddish mist, and then was quickly purified into an invisible void by some invisible high-temperature force.

The blood droplets and flowers scattered on the bluestone of the Great Dao also began to evaporate and purify. One by one, the flowers are gone. The extremely shallow, flat blood water continues to evaporate at a rate visible to the naked eye. Finally came to the big black umbrella and directly entered Ning Que's body!

The invisible raging fire, the invisible high temperature, and the invisible flame breath seem to be able to burn everything in the world. The blood on Ning Que's body quickly evaporated and disappeared, but his clothes did not change in the slightest.

His exposed arms outside his clothes and his cheeks outside his mask began to turn red rapidly. The hair on his forehead was rapidly withering. In addition, his fingernails, resting on the bluestone, became dry and crispy due to the rapid loss of moisture.

A green leaf was blown up by the morning breeze and fell on the back of his hand. However, when brushed off again, it is still greasy. An ant climbed onto the back of his hand due to the interference of the leaves, and then crawled down from the other side. It's alive. But in the next moment, Ning Que might be unexpectedly burned to death by the mysterious invisible flame released from the Suzaku portrait.

At that moment, a shadow fell to the ground and crushed the poor ant with a soft snap.

Blown by the morning breeze, the big black umbrella gently covered Ning Que's body, like a black swaggering lotus. With the swaying of the black umbrella, the green leaf was instantly frozen into ice, and then scattered into countless small stones.

An absolute chill gradually released from the black umbrella, slowly and irresistibly seeping into Ning Que's fiery body. After a while, his cheeks and arms, which had been flushed from the severe injury, returned to white. The hair on his forehead quickly turned black and shiny, and the nails on his hands resting on the bluestone returned to their shine.

The scarlet bird statue on the stone street in the distance seemed to lead to something. Its dignified eyes should have been as calm as usual, but it seemed to glance in the direction where Ning Que was lying.

A moment later, its three gorgeous wings rose together above its head!

Almost at the same time, the big black umbrella swaggered faster!

The black wind blows in the dark wilderness. The strong wind swept black gravel up the sky and threw it everywhere, as if the sun's rays in the sky had turned black to the naked eye.

The black snow-capped mountains far away in the wilderness are constantly melting and collapsing under the black scorching sun. Melting snow, mixed with black dirt and gravel, reflects the black sunlight and rushes everywhere.

The Black Snow Mountain is about to collapse, and the flood it forms will destroy the entire world. However, at this moment, the bright night suddenly descended on the world, releasing a warm chill.