Running Off With The Sect Senior Sister Chapter 53

Luo Tangtang opened her mouth, speechless.
What should I say?
“Junior Sister, you will understand.”
Luo Yi was as cold as frost, her gaze like a frozen pond, devoid of emotion. It made Luo Tangtang’s skin crawl, her hairs stand on end, and an unease settle over her entire being.
“Senior Sister, what exactly is the Main God?” Luo Tangtang flinched slightly, but enduring Luo Yi’s cutting glare, she still voiced her question.
The system’s evasiveness made it seem like this wasn’t just any secret.
“When the time comes, you will know. Right now, you wouldn’t want to know.”
“Why does everyone say that?” Luo Tangtang pressed, her eyes filled with confusion.
Luo Yi didn’t reply. She just reached out, as if to pat Luo Tangtang’s head, but Luo Tangtang dodged. Her hand froze in mid-air.
Luo Tangtang’s lips moved. Looking at Luo Yi, her eyes held a disappointment and sorrow she herself didn’t realize. She turned and ran.
“You’re just going to watch her leave like that?”
Luo Yi remained unmoved.
That voice paused, then seemed to sigh. “She was crying.”
Luo Yi lowered her eyes.
“Have you forgotten? What you said you absolutely had to tell her the next time you met.”
That voice sounded again, tinged with resentment and a goading tone.
“You forgot to tell her that you love her very much.”
As if a taboo had been touched, Luo Yi suddenly looked up, then abruptly closed her eyes. Her chest heaved violently. She gritted her teeth. “Shut up.”
But her fingers quietly clenched, turning pale.
“You clearly said you wouldn’t let her go. Why did you let her leave then?”
“And what about the things she shouldn’t have had to experience? Didn’t you create this world to keep her?”
At this point, that voice was furious.
A cold light flashed in Luo Yi’s eyes. “This is my business. It’s not your place to interfere.”
“If we can experience it, why can’t she?”
“You’ll regret this.” The voice, as if not wanting to say more to her, roared viciously and then vanished.
Luo Yi squeezed her eyes shut, rubbed her temples, and when she opened them again, she stared blankly in the direction Luo Tangtang had fled.
Towards you, my greatest revenge is also my greatest helplessness. Anymore, and I can’t…
Luo Tangtang walked in a daze, then was suddenly grabbed.
“?” She turned her head in confusion and met a stern face. Her heart leaped.
“Senior Brother Lu?”
The other person’s brows furrowed deeply, his stern expression turning to shock. “Senior Sister, what happened to you?”
“Ah—nothing.” I forgot, I’m the Eldest Senior Sister now.
“Did something happen?”
Luo Tangtang looked around and saw many people rushing about, looking as if something major had happened.
Lu Qingyan pressed his lips together, his face so grave it looked like water could drip from it. “Disciples stationed in various places have sent word. An unknown illness has appeared below the mountain and is already spreading among the people.”
“Now,” Lu Qingyan paused, “it’s a living hell.”
Luo Tangtang was stunned. “Is it that serious?”
“Yes.” Lu Qingyan nodded. “This illness doesn’t affect cultivators. So, the Sect Master has ordered us to go down… to collect the bodies.”
“I was just wondering where you were. Let’s hurry. Otherwise, Elder Qi Wei will scold us again.” Lu Qingyan forced a smile, his expression strained. He grabbed Luo Tangtang and ran.
The whole way, Luo Tangtang was stunned, and Lu Qingyan also looked preoccupied.
It wasn’t until they reached the mortal realm that Luo Tangtang realized things were far more serious than she had imagined.
The usually bustling streets were now terrifyingly silent. All doors were closed. The streets were filled with cultivators in white robes, each with a solemn expression, moving back and forth silently, drifting like ghosts.
Now and then, something would send a chill down their spines.
“Creak.” Lu Qingyan walked straight to a house and pushed the door open.
Luo Tangtang lifted her foot to follow, but the next moment, Lu Qingyan ran out, his expression panicked.
“N-no… Not good, Sister.” His eyes were red, and he muttered to himself. As if remembering something, he flashed away, flying towards a certain direction.
Luo Tangtang frowned. His sister, Lu Qingyue!
Luo Tangtang’s eyes flickered, and she quickly followed.
What came into view was a desolate small village, enveloped by a light barrier flickering with lightning. Inside the village, people lay on the ground, one after another.
Some of their chests still heaved violently, and they coughed occasionally. They lay by trees, by wells; mothers held their children, old people looked at the able-bodied adults on the ground. Everyone’s eyes were filled with grief and despair.
Lu Qingyan rushed over. His hand touched the barrier, making a sizzling sound. A flash of fire, and his hand was charred black, dark blood oozing out and staining the barrier.
“Sister.” He paid no mind to the injury on his hand. The lightning lit up his face, making it deathly pale. He called out, and tears fell from the eyes of someone who usually always wore a smile.
“Sister, Sister, wake up! Don’t sleep!” Lu Qingyan pounded on the barrier, roaring with all his might.
“Senior Brother.” Luo Tangtang went forward to pull Lu Qingyan, but he forcefully pushed her away.
“Sister, wake up! Don’t sleep, don’t leave me!”
Luo Tangtang followed Lu Qingyan’s gaze and saw a woman in red lying by a tree. Her face was pale, her cheeks sunken, looking painfully thin. She seemed to be dying, but her eyes were still gentle, filled with sorrow and grief, but no resentment.
“Let me in!” Lu Qingyan’s voice was choked with sobs, his eyes full of despair.
Many cultivators had arrived by now. They held Lu Qingyan back. “No, you can’t! If the barrier is opened, it’ll be trouble if the people inside run out.”
“My sister is in there!” Lu Qingyan cried, completely losing his usual calm and composed way. He gritted his teeth. “I have to go be with her.”
“Don’t hold him!” Luo Tangtang’s mind was reeling, a mess. She yelled.
Lu Qingyan was completely self-destructing. He kept gripping the barrier, refusing to let go. It was a giant net woven from iron chains, imbued with forbidden lightning. He seemed not to feel the pain. If this continued, his hands would be crippled sooner or later.
“Where are the healer cultivators? Why can’t a group of cultivators cure a mortal illness?”
As soon as these words were spoken, the surroundings suddenly fell silent.
“What exactly is going on?” Luo Tangtang pressed.
Still, no one answered. Luo Tangtang looked at one of them. “You! Speak!”
That person immediately averted their gaze, unwilling to speak.
“Then what about you? You speak!” Luo Tangtang rubbed her temples, raised her eyes, and asked the person next to them.
That person did the same.
“Doesn’t Eldest Senior Sister already know?”
Finally, someone couldn’t hold it in.
Luo Tangtang immediately looked over. It was a young junior disciple, his face holding a seriousness that didn’t match his age.
“The Divine Maiden has spoken.”
That disciple smiled, a smile Luo Tangtang couldn’t quite understand. “She said… she cannot save a single person.”
The surroundings seemed to fall silent in an instant. Even the sound of the wind stopped. It was so quiet she could hear her own heartbeat, thumping, thumping, it was beating.
But then, she suddenly heard many, many other heartbeats, also beating. Only, gradually, the heartbeats became fewer and fewer, eventually returning to silence. The world fell quiet again.
She felt as if she was being pressed into the bottom of a cold lake, never to surface again.
“It can’t be changed. They all have to die.” The voice sounded again.
“They will become ghosts, then ghost cultivators. From then on, they will have no emotions and become our enemies.”
“This is what the Divine Maiden spoke of—fate.”
“Our loved ones, sent off by our own hands. We watch them die, watch them become our enemies.”
“And then, and then we fight them to the death. This is our fate, Eldest Senior Sister. Don’t you think it’s tragic?”
Tragic? Is it tragic? Tears suddenly fell.
Her blurry vision suddenly met a pair of beautiful eyes, though right now, there was something in those eyes that couldn’t be ignored.
Save him, save him.
Those red lips opened and closed, tears streamed from those eyes. Those beautiful eyes then moved to Lu Qingyan.
So, Luo Tangtang stepped forward expressionlessly. She reached out and knocked Lu Qingyan unconscious. Watching him fall, Luo Tangtang’s heart was almost numb.
Was it just that one sentence? Did that one sentence make them all give up any thought of resistance?
“We also tried to resist before,” that young disciple said again.
“It started with a baby girl. She fell ill, very seriously. The young Divine Maiden looked at her and only said, ‘This is fate. She will die. Nothing you do will help.'”
“But we didn’t believe it. All the healer cultivators of the Medicine Valley did their utmost. They fed the child many medicines. Healer cultivators test medicines for years; their heart’s blood can cure a hundred illnesses, so some healers dug out their own heart’s blood.”
“Polar ginseng can extend life, so they rushed to the extreme lands to search for it. Everyone risked their lives to try.”
“The girl’s illness seemed to be getting better, but in the end, she still died…”
“The young Divine Maiden glanced at her, her eyes filled with pity and sorrow. She only said… ‘How laughable.'”
The young disciple seemed to cry. “At that time, many healer cultivators… took their own lives.”
“And all our efforts couldn’t overcome that single phrase: ‘destined by fate.'”
“So it turns out our lives are all planned by others, and we are powerless to resist.”
“Are we truly powerless to resist?” Luo Tangtang suddenly spoke.
She raised her eyes and looked at that young disciple.
“If we are truly powerless to resist, then what’s the point of all this?” Luo Tangtang smiled. She spoke.
“What are you afraid of, Luo Er?”
The young disciple’s expression froze instantly. After a long moment, his figure suddenly shrank, turning back into that small, icy dumpling. “How did you know?”
The surrounding scenery receded. Luo Tangtang was still standing on the initial street, but it wasn’t quiet. Instead, it was bustling with a sea of people. Many cultivators stood before ordinary people, holding bowls of medicine in their hands.
Luo Tangtang smiled. “I won’t tell you.”
“You—Yun Shayi, you still can’t win. There are things you must do.”
Must do? Luo Tangtang frowned.