179: Chapter 179 Stone Seat

Bai Wuji didn't wait for his answer. He turned around and stepped onto that light pattern.

The patterns on the Stone Seat all lit up.

At the same time, a crack split open in the white Void Realm. On the other side of the gap, the ball of light on Bai Yu's chest exploded.

The symbols on the wrists of both men flashed one last time simultaneously.

Then, three consecutive heartbeats merged together.

It wasn't two hearts beating separately. It was a single rhythm.

The same rhythm.

The white Void Realm shattered. Everyone's vision returned to the courtyard. The gray mist, the walls, the shattered window frames, the sawdust all over the floor—everything returned.

Bai Yu lay on the ground. The Bone Knife had fallen by his side, the light on its blade extinguished. The wound on his chest was extremely shallow, having only broken the skin.

Bai Wuji knelt beside him, hands propped on the ground, sweat seeping from his forehead.

Pure Void Master rushed over and pulled open Bai Yu's collar.

The wound on his chest was healing. Extremely fast. So fast that the skin could be seen growing with the naked eye.

But it wasn't the wound that was drawing attention.

It was Bai Yu's right arm.

The transparency was receding. Starting from the shoulder, the skin bit by bit returned to a solid state. Bone, tendon, blood vessels, muscle—like a painting being recolored.

Pure Void Master looked at Bai Wuji again.

Bai Wuji's face had turned three shades paler. It wasn't pain—it was that something was being drained from his body.

On his wrist, the third line of golden characters had changed.

The original "The Negator is immortal; what is destroyed is that sword" blurred, and new characters were carved over the old ones.

Forming stroke by stroke.

After Pure Void Master leaned in and saw the new line of characters clearly, his fingers began to tremble.

"What's wrong?" The old man peered over from behind.

Pure Void Master didn't speak. He simply stood up, took a step back, and the look in his eyes as he watched the two men on the ground changed.

Medicine Not So ran over from the doorway and grabbed Bai Wuji's wrist to look.

The newly carved third line was crystal clear—

"Two swords share the seat, a covenant of life and death."

Bai Wuji's right hand suddenly gripped Bai Yu's left hand.

Bai Yu's fingers twitched.

He gripped back.

Bai Wuji held Bai Yu's hand, feeling the fingers warming up.

First the fingertips, then the palm, and finally the wrist. Warmth seeped out from the bones like ice melting. Bai Yu's left hand changed from a mere outline to a solid form, the skin color shifting from transparent to translucent to pale—it didn't look healthy, but at least it was the color of a human.

Bai Wuji breathed a sigh of relief.

Before he could even finish that breath, something suddenly stabbed his chest.

It wasn't a knife. It was a dull pain exploding from within, his entire chest cavity feeling as if it were being gripped and squeezed, his heart rhythm abruptly jumping from a normal frequency to a strange new cadence.

One. Two. Three.

On the third beat, Bai Wuji's vision went black for an instant.

He heard his own panting, and he also heard another person's panting. It didn't come through his ears—it came from within his chest cavity.

Bai Yu's breathing.

Echoing inside his body.

"The formation's power is transferring." Pure Void Master's voice came from above. The old man squatted beside him, placing two fingers on Bai Wuji's pulse point with extremely light pressure, withdrawing them after three breaths. "The pressure of the Ten Directions Array is being shared equally. His side has been reduced by half, and your side has taken on half."

Bai Wuji propped himself up to sit straight. That dull pain in his chest didn't recede; instead, it spread. It crept from his heart to both sides of his ribs, then seeped from his ribs to his spine, as if a pair of hands were weaving a web between his bones.

Something identical to the web between Bai Yu's brows.

He looked down at his chest—he couldn't see anything beneath his clothes, but he felt it. A thin thread. No, he hadn't touched it; he sensed it. An invisible line extended from his heart, crossing a distance of three feet to connect to Bai Yu's chest.

"So this is sharing." Bai Wuji stated the obvious.

Pure Void Master stood up and looked down at the two men on the ground, a complex expression on his face.

Bai Yu's right arm had already recovered up to the elbow. The speed at which the flesh grew back was slowing down; there was still a gap from the forearm to the palm, where the transparent bones looked like a tree branch in the gray light. But compared to his near-vanishing state half an incense stick ago, it was already much better.

Bai Yu's lips were moving.

Bai Wuji leaned in.

There was no sound. But the shape of his mouth was clearer than before—airflow was moving through his throat.

"...Stupid."

A single word. So raspy it didn't sound human, like stones grinding against each other.

But Bai Wuji heard it.

"You can speak now?"

Bai Yu closed his mouth. It was unclear if he didn't want to answer or if he could only squeeze out that one word.

Medicine Not So ran in with a bowl of water and squatted down, intending to feed Bai Yu. Bai Yu's mouth was clamped shut. Medicine Not So turned the bowl toward Bai Wuji, who took it and gulped down a few mouthfuls.

The moment he swallowed, the dull pain in his chest eased slightly.

At the same moment, Bai Yu's breathing also steadied for a beat.

Medicine Not So's eyes flicked back and forth between the two, a subtle curve at the corners of his mouth.

"Shared perception," he said. "One person drinks water, and both are no longer thirsty?"

Pure Void Master ignored him. The old man sat on the threshold drinking tea—he'd switched to a new pot, as the old one had broken twice already—and lifted his chin. "Old man, that what-do-you-call-it, 'Double Mouth Share Seat'—"

"Two swords share the seat."

"Right. Has anyone ever used that thing before?"

Pure Void Master was silent for three breaths.

"No."

The courtyard fell silent for a moment.

"The negation seat has existed for thousands of years, and countless people have occupied it." Pure Void Master walked into the middle of the courtyard and looked up at the crack in the sky. "Every Legacy involves one sword shattering and a new sword taking its place. There has never been a situation where neither sword shattered."

He paused.

"Because no one has ever chosen that option."

Bai Wuji tilted his head. "Why has no one chosen it?"

"Because choosing it means binding your lives together." Pure Void Master turned around. "Lifespan shared equally. Every extra day you live is a day less for him. When he can't hold on, you won't be able to either. If you're injured, he feels half the pain. If something happens to him—"

"I know." Bai Wuji gripped the rim of the bowl. "In that white place, that thing already told me."

"And you still chose it?"

Bai Wuji didn't answer. He looked down at his wrist. The light from the three lines of golden characters had faded, but the new words of the third line were carved the deepest—the eight characters for 'Two swords share the seat, a covenant of life and death' were embedded in his flesh like a birthmark.

The ground shook.

It was very slight. So slight that the puddle in the courtyard only rippled once before returning to stillness.

But everyone felt it.

Pure Void Master's expression changed drastically. He squatted down and pressed his palm against the stone slabs.

Two breaths later, he stood up, and for the first time, something appeared in his voice that Bai Wuji had never heard before.

Urgency.

"The Ten Directions Array has loosened."

The old man's tea choked in his throat. Medicine Not So sprang up from beside the doorframe.