172: Chapter 172 Loss of Consciousness

Bai Yu lowered his head, looking at Bai Wuji, who had lost consciousness while leaning on his shoulder.

This person, who remembered nothing and didn't even know who he was, had used his last bit of strength to block a blow for him.

Bai Yu's face remained expressionless.

However, his hands holding Bai Wuji never loosened.

In the corner of the courtyard, the old man poured out his cold tea.

“This damn tea gets colder the more I drink it,” he grumbled, his voice twice as gruff as usual.

No one responded.

Bai Yu carried Bai Wuji back to the couch and laid him down. While checking his pulse, his fingers brushed against Bai Wuji's wrist bone.

On the inner side of the wrist bone, his fingertips felt a raised line.

It wasn't a scar.

It was text.

Bai Yu turned Bai Wuji's wrist over.

Beneath the skin on the inner side of the wrist bone, a line of extremely faint golden text was slowly emerging; the handwriting was identical to the Law script on the fragments.

But the content was not a Law.

It was a single sentence.

“The negation seat can be passed on, but cannot be seized.”

Bai Yu stared at that line of text for five breaths.

Then he stood up, walked into the courtyard, and spoke a single sentence to everyone.

“If it wants someone to sit in that chair, fine.”

Pure Void Master frowned.

“But it won't be me sitting there.” Bai Yu's gaze fell toward Bai Wuji's wrist bone. “It says the negation seat lacks a person. I say the negation seat doesn't lack one. It never has.”

His right hand gripped the hilt of the Bone Knife.

“The person it's missing has already been taught by me.”

The courtyard was silent for a long time.

Pure Void Master was the first to speak. “You want to pass the negation seat to him?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn't even remember his own name right now.”

“I gave him his name. If he forgets, I'll tell him again.”

Pure Void Master's mouth twitched—not in a smile, but in restraint. “The negation seat needs a pure judgment mechanism. He needs you to take a bite first just to judge whether or not to eat porridge. You think he can sit in that position?”

“Just now, three words from him made the rift shrink by a millimeter.” Bai Yu's voice was flat, as if he weren't discussing a matter but reading an account book. “He doesn't need to judge. He only needs to know what things are not allowed to touch me.”

Pure Void Master fell silent.

The old man took a sip from an empty teapot, found no water, and set it down. “You mean—the 'one who says no' that the negation seat wants is not meant to say no to all things in heaven and earth, but to say no to the Heavenly Dao itself?”

“You've all seen the Law script on the fragments.” Bai Yu leaned against the doorframe, his tone devoid of ups and downs. “Among the Three Seats, the one in charge of life manages life, and the one in charge of destruction manages destruction. The negation seat does not participate in the operation; its sole function is to call a halt. What does calling a halt require? It doesn't need wisdom, cultivation, or Laws. What it needs is a sufficiently stubborn reason.”

He glanced into the inner room.

“He has it.”

Void Realm coughed. “How will you pass it on? The words on the wrist bone say it can be passed but not seized, but the method of passing—”

“The words haven't finished appearing yet,” Bai Yu said.

Everyone was stunned.

“When the first sentence emerged, there were still ink marks behind it that hadn't dispersed.” Bai Yu's speaking pace was neither fast nor slow. “That line of text wasn't carved on; it's seeping out from the bone, originating from the same source as the residual Law script in his body. Once his body recovers a bit more, the second sentence will come out on its own.”

Pure Void Master walked to the door of the inner room, glanced at Bai Wuji lying on the couch through the crack, and walked back.

“Even if it can be passed on, have you considered one problem?”

“Speak.”

“If he sits on it, he will also become that kind of thing—no personality, no memory, no emotions. You spent so much effort not wanting him to forget you. In the end, if you send him to the negation seat, he will still forget.”

Bai Yu did not respond.

After two breaths, he spoke.

“It's different.”

“How is it different?”

“If I sit on it, I am being rewritten. If he sits on it, it's his own choice.” Bai Yu's gaze swept across everyone in the courtyard, finally landing on the rift in the sky. “A person who is rewritten has nothing left. A person who chooses for themselves can take the things in their bones with them.”

After saying this, he turned and entered the inner room.

Bai Wuji was still lying there, face turned toward him, breathing shallow and even. Those three words earlier had exhausted his essence, leaving not a trace of color on his face.

Bai Yu sat down on a low stool.

He raised his right hand and spread his palm, looking at the skeletal patterns faintly visible beneath that layer of semi-transparent skin. His palm was blank. The scorch marks from the Bone Knife earlier were still there, but the pain had dulled. It wasn't numbness; it was that the region of his Divine Soul responsible for pain had also begun to loosen.

Four days.

He turned over Bai Wuji's right wrist.

On the inner side of the wrist bone, the first line of golden text remained: “The negation seat can be passed on, but cannot be seized.” Behind it, there was indeed a section of ink marks so faint they were almost invisible, like the radical of the next character, not yet formed.

Bai Yu placed Bai Wuji's hand back on top of the quilt.

Then, he did something no one expected.

He pulled out the Pulse-Sealing Needle.

Without consulting anyone or giving any prior notice, his right hand pinched the end of the silver needle at his glabella and pulled it out. The moment the needle body was withdrawn from the center of his Divine Soul, three sealed powers exploded simultaneously. The pressure of the Heavenly Dao Laws, the erosion of the old heavenly dao heart, and his own residual spiritual power—the three forces crashed into a mess within his body.

Bai Yu let out a muffled groan.

Nosebleed dripped onto the back of his hand, looking exceptionally red against his semi-transparent skin.

At his glabella, five white threads, having lost the suppression of the Pulse-Sealing Needle, began to grow simultaneously. Their speed was three times faster than before. A sixth thread squeezed out from a gap, with a seventh following closely behind.

He felt something else loosen in his mind.

A memory.

In the winter when Bai Wuji was twelve, he had a fever of forty degrees. Bai Yu had carried Bai Wuji on his back, running from the back mountain to the front hall to find medicine. The mountain path was frozen, and he fell twice. Bai Wuji leaned on his back, delirious with fever, constantly crying out, “Don't leave me.”

This memory was fading.

Bai Yu bit the base of his tongue. The taste of blood flooded his throat, and the image of the memory temporarily stabilized, ceasing its dissipation.

He stood up.

Walking to the window, he drew the Bone Knife from his waist.

The amber luster on the blade surface was a few shades darker than this morning, and the cracks around that shallow palm print had expanded. The Bone Knife trembled slightly in his hand, like a snake with its head pinned down—unwilling, but temporarily submissive.

Bai Yu reversed the hilt, gripped the blade, and pointed the hilt toward Bai Wuji.

Then he laid the Bone Knife by the couch.

Medicine Not So was at the door, sweating with anxiety. “Master, what are you doing—with the Pulse-Sealing Needle out, how many days do you have left—”

“Four days becomes six days,” Bai Yu's voice drifted out from the inner room.

Medicine Not So was dazed.

Pure Void Master's voice followed from the courtyard, his tone tightening slightly: “You want to accelerate the rewriting by the threads to force out the conditions for the Legacy.”

Bai Yu didn't answer, which was a tacit admission.

Inside the inner room, Bai Wuji was startled awake by the commotion.

He opened his eyes, first seeing the gray light from the window, then Bai Yu standing by the window, and finally the Bone Knife by the couch.

His gaze lingered on the Bone Knife for a second.

Then his right hand rose again. His five fingers lifted, palm facing outward, pointing toward Bai Yu's glabella. It was the exact same movement as before at the door.

But this time, there was no sound, and no Sword Intent.

He just held his hand up, blocking the way.

Bai Yu looked down at him.

Bai Wuji tilted his head, his hollow eyes still devoid of content. But the raised hand was very steady.

“What are you blocking?” Bai Yu asked.

Bai Wuji thought about it.