He and It Chapter 169: The Serpent of Pharisee (35)

Chapter 169: The Serpent of Pharisee (35)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

The King of the Gods returned to the Heavens panting and embarrassed.

“The words of this God fell to the earth, and became a law as lofty as the mountains and as ancient as the sea. Thus the oath that I spoke is completely inviolable,” Zeus said grimly. “So it seems that we are set on a dead course! That one is determined to see our total destruction.” 

The Pantheon exploded. The Gods murmured and clamored anxiously for a solution to the matter. Even the seldom seen gods of the underworld came to Olympus, in all its glory, to join with their fellow creatures in trepidation.

Apollo did not speak a word. He sat alone in the gallery, far from the other gods, with his head hanging down.

In the midst of that cloud of despair, Athena whispered, “I suggest…I have an idea.” 

Hera said impatiently, “Goddess, I know that thou are the wisest of gods and men, and there is no proposal of thine that is not marvelous. Speakest thou. What wilt thou do to turn that evil man’s heart?” 

“Tis Echidna that he wants, but we are deeply bound by oaths,” Pallas Athena said “To open the gates of Tartarus and bring Echidna back to the world, one must break the oath made in the past – when the youth’s life has ended, the demon will be deemed to have served his time of hard labor.” 

“True.” Hera frowned. Her daughter, Hebe, the Goddess of Youth, sat at her feet, sheltered by her mother’s robes, “Alas, time cannot be turned back, nor the Wine of Immortality spewed out of one’s mouth.” 

“The oath speaks only of the end of life, not of the end of life as one person.” Athena said calmly, “As a man, he is immortal, but if he becomes a god, thus he is like Herakles, forever finished as a man, no longer the same as before.” 

Zeus’ eyes lit up, and he stretched out his arm, as he commanded the gods to be quiet so that he could think carefully.

“Elevating him to the rank of a god!” The King of the Gods exclaimed. “A possibility, a possibility…’Tis an excellent idea! If he accedes and becomes a god, his life as a human shall be considered at an end, then shall the Demon God finally be able to rise out of the
Abyss and fulfill his wish. Furthermore, when he becomes a god, then should not he be unable to paint his own demise?” 

“Not necessarily,” whispered Iris, the Goddess of the Rainbow, ¹ “I have seen that the youth is extremely strong-willed and obstinate, more resolute than an old ox and more fierce than a lion. How can even a god change his mind?” 

Athena nodded. “Thou art correct. Another hand is needed in this matter.” She turned to Zeus. “Father of the Gods, Aphrodite has always been at peace with the boy. She always showed him mercy, and was his sole patron in the competition with Apollo. She shall have to be one of the persuaders. Thou shalt coax Aphrodite, that she will come forward and speak kindly to the young man.” 

Zeus agreed. “Who is thy other candidate?” 

Athena leaned over, and softly spat a name in her father’s ear.

Zeus’ eyes flickered in hesitation and gloom, but only for a brief moment. He quickly nodded, and agreed to whatever his daughter proposed.

Many days passed, and the sky over the plains of Arima were clear, cloudless and silent, as if the thunder and fire of the previous days were all illusions; the gods were no longer prying.

At the edge of Xie Ning’s canvas stood a tall man with a staff. He had black hair, a broad forehead, and had brown eyes that were peaceful and wise. He wore simple, linen clothes, and no decorations except for a shackle around his wrist with a piece of gray mountain rock on it.

With his hands hanging down and his head lowered, he peacefully watched Xie Ning paint, his behavior that of a humble scholar, except his unusual physique and appearance which revealed his divine identity.

According to his usual practice, Xie Ning was ready to ignore him, but when he glanced at the other party with Gaia’s eyes, his brush couldn’t help but stop.

“…Prometheus.” He straightened up, and called out the other party’s name.

–The creator of mankind, Prometheus who stole fire from the Gods.

“Greetings, Dorus.” Prometheus smiled and nodded to him as if they were old and familiar friends who had known each other for years. “I have heard the news that you want to hold all the gods on one canvas. So, would you welcome a willing model?” 

Xie Ning hesitated.

“I have no ill feelings towards you. On the contrary, I admire you,” Xie Ning said slowly, “Your so-called sin of stealing the Fire of Heaven, which got you chained to the Caucasus Mountains, and had a vulture pecking out your liver every day, was a sin you suffered for mankind. So…Please, sit down, and you can be my model.” 

Prometheus leaned against a rock, placed his cane beside him, and looked up at him.

“Is this okay?” 

Xie Ning nodded, “Yes.” 

Xie Ning sketched with a carbon pen, as he said absentmindedly, “I suppose you didn’t come here for without a reason, did you?” 

“You’re right, I was convinced to become an advocate.” Prometheus curled his eyes up, his gaze full of a mysterious smile, but not like a trick, more like an amused elder. “To coax you to become a god.” 

Xie Ning’s pen stopped, and he looked at the Titan.

“Become a god,” he repeated. “That’s a new one.” 

“Do not be so sarcastic, Dorus,” Prometheus said gently. “The offer is very important for it will allow you to remove Echidna from the grasp of the Abyss. To become a god symbolizes the end of your life as a human being. At that point, how can Echidna not emerge from Tartarus?” 

“Which means,” Xie Ning said, “that Zeus still won’t just let him out.” 

Prometheus laughed.

“Believe me, Dorus,” the Titan said. “If Zeus could do it, then he would have done it already. The only reason for him to skirt the issue, to try and get around the oath, is that he really cannot break his oath. The harsh penalties for breaking the oath, the certainty of the vow, are all moral pretenses, but the essence is something else. A god is powerful enough to raise the dead, to reverse the position of the land, the sea, and the sky, so what is left in the world that can stand in his way? Therefore, he must keep his promise and fulfill every word that comes out of his mouth, otherwise, what is the meaning of his existence in the world if even he can reject himself?” 

Xie Ning hadn’t expected that. So he simply said, “That’s fine. As long as the goal can be achieved, there’s nothing I can’t agree to. But, let me say this beforehand, even if I become a god, I will not stop painting.” 

“I know,” Prometheus laughed. “Therefore, the second purpose of my visit is to ask you to draw slower.” 

Xie Ning stopped his brush, looked at the other party, and asked directly, “Is this some kind of delaying tactic?” 

“Of course not!” Prometheus chuckled. “From the moment I saw you, I never doubted that you intended to bring fate to its end. Only a fool would seek to prove himself wise, to accomplish a goal; if you must talk of it, that means that the goal must be false.” 

“However,” he slowed, and looked more sincerely at Xie Ning. “Dorus, please do not forget that this is not yet the time you know. Here, the Gods still control the sun, moon and stars, the tides, the celestial bodies. You have destroyed the Loom of Destiny, but please do not make everything speed up so fast! When Helios is gone, and Apollo no longer drives the golden chariot, there will be no more sunrise and sunset. No more Gods to change the seasons, no more grain to wither, no more weather to change. You know that I am the god of foreknowledge, possessed of the ancient wisdom of prophecy long before the new gods were born. I know Zeus’ rule will not last for eternity, and I also know that there will be a day when the gods will retire. However, the creatures that live on the earth and in the sea, they are innocent and should not be affected by that great change.” 

When he saw Xie Ning’s silence, Prometheus said, “Dorus, I know you have goodness in your heart, so please think carefully. When you first arrived, were there not people of Iolcus, who surrounded you, loved you from the bottom of their hearts, and admired your talent? Did the maids of honor in the palace not laugh and mend your belt, and did the children in the streets not play and sing your name? Did the old men not touch the hem of your garment, and hand you freshly baked bread and warm goat’s milk, because they did not want to see you so thin and frail as an olive branch?” 

“Once you have painted all the Gods on the canvas as fate dictates, Zeus will inevitably marry the goddess Thetis, and when their child is born, there will be no more peace in the land to speak of. The fires of father-killing and usurpation will burn in every uninhabited corner until the new god establishes his power, and then, in order to stabilize that power, he will destroy this generation of mankind, just as Zeus used the Great Flood to destroy the bronze mankind that belonged to his father.” 

Prometheus whispered, “So, I would ask you to paint slower, not to let the destruction come so quickly. Even if this generation of mankind can only live in peace for one more insignificant day, I do not want the end to come early.” 

Xie Ning didn’t speak.

After hearing Prometheus’ plea, his heart, which had been filled with pain and hatred for a long time, couldn’t help but open up. From the perspective provided by the other, he gradually detached himself from the long-standing grudge with the Olympian Gods and saw things differently.

“…Okay,” Xie Ning said. “I promise you.” 

Prometheus smiled in delight, and for the first time, his dusty face showed the light that belonged to a God.

Under his guidance, Xie Ning signed an agreement with the Gods of Mount Olympus.

–Xie Ning was given a unique divine position, and because he was in control of fate, yet above it, he was called “Dorus, the Witness and Narrator,” and existed independently of the Three Goddesses of Fate.

However, even if he had become a god, Echidna could not immediately return to the mortal world, to him.

“Tartarus is surrounded by three black curtains and three walls of bronze. Each obstacle takes three years even for a god to overcome.” The King of the Gods explained to him in a low voice, for fear that Xie Ning would turn his back on him. “This is the rule of the Ancient God of the Abyss, and I cannot erase it.” 

“Eighteen years,” Xie Ning said. He had become a god, but he didn’t have the slightest excitement in his heart. “In addition to the five years I wasted on you guys after I woke up, a total of twenty-three years. I don’t want much. Just so long as you repay it tenfold, and whoever was involved in the plan against us, goes to Tartarus to stay there for two hundred and thirty years. Is that okay?” 

The gods had already begged for a delayed pardon, so now none of them dared to object. Apollo silently restrained his light, and Hera, who had always been proud and arrogant, also swallowed her insults, and didn’t say anything for a long time.

Xie Ning looked around. He didn’t see Aphrodite’s figure in the temple, so he shut his mouth and turned away.

On the plains of Arima, Xie Ning sat all night, looking up at the stars in the sky, and the full moon hiding behind the streaming clouds. He thought he would at least have a little bit of the satisfaction of revenge, but no, there was nothing. The only thing left in his heart was the soreness of a bruise, and the hidden pain of longing.

Echidna.

He missed Echidna too much.

At dawn, Xie Ning decided to get up and do something. So, he packed up his painting tools, took the Heavenly Horse, now disguised as a mortal horse, and chose to use this time off from painting to travel. Otherwise, how could he endure eighteen years of waiting? 

Thus, he set out on a long journey.

Funny enough, perhaps due to the limitations of his godly nature, Xie Ning could not tell the difference between being a god and not being a god. He still could not fully understand the many dialects of the land, nor had he learned the language of this place in one go, and he had to talk and gesture to communicate with humans who had no divinity.

The journey was long and arduous, but Xie Ning didn’t tire, didn’t know if he was hungry or full, and still had to walk on his legs. In the past, when he was with Echidna, the Demon God always treated him as a child who needed to be pampered. His fingers developed calluses from drawing, and then the calluses were worn down to form tougher dead skin, but when Echidna found out about it, he had to rush over and awkwardly blow on them several times as if it could relieve his pain a little bit.

“Don’t you ever leave me, Dorus,” Echidna always said. “You are so small, and the world is so big, and I don’t know what to do when I think of all the horrible things you might meet with!” 

Now that he thought about it, he really was a lucky man. He stumbled into these unfamiliar times, people picked him calling him a son of a God and kept him in the temple; then when his identity was revealed, he was immediately sent to Arima’s underground palace, where he met Echidna.

In the past, he could play tricks and be childish, because there was someone who cared about him, someone he could rely on. Now that he had nothing, Xie Ning matured faster than anyone could have imagined.

He went to Thebes and saw the statue of the maiden Antigone, that transcendental heroine, standing in the center of the city, who died and was immortalized for her fight against the evil law; ² he sailed to Corinth, the last stop of Iason’s journey for the Golden Fleece ³ and was known as the most beautiful land, full of flowers and fruits, rich and fertile. He went to Athens, that great and famous city named for the goddess Athena, while at the same time housed the temples of many mighty gods and goddesses; even a sacred grove to the Goddess of Vengeance, ⁴ but when Xie Ning, draped in his cloak, passed under the temples without a single glance at them, the statues of the gods and goddesses on the altars all bowed their heads silently and gazed at his figure as he walked in silence.

He sailed to Sparta, once the powerful kingdom of Menelaus and his wife Helen, the beautiful woman of universal fame, for whom the earthly world had not hesitated to start the ten-year Trojan War. In Sparta, in addition to his work on the canvas, Xie Ning also sketched a statue of Helen.

The square was bustling with people, while the Spartan culture was martial, so when people saw a plainly dressed young man writing and sketching Helen’s statue, they just thought he was an admirer who had traveled a long way to see her. However, those who saw his drawings were shocked to realize that even if the youth was not a god, he had hands crafted by a god.

He arrived at the island of Skyros, where the great hero Achilles grew up, and after that he traveled to the destroyed and rebuilt city of Troy, where he observed the walls of the city stretched out like immovable snow-capped mountains.

Eventually, Xie Ning followed the aimless waves by ship to the island of Lemnos. On his way there, he heard many rumors about the island, that it was ruled not by a man, but by a goddess who knew the hearts of the people and the world, as wise as Athena and as beautiful as Aphrodite.

Xie Ning wasn’t curious about the rumors, nor was he interested in exploring them, he just drifted wherever the wind blew. However, as soon as he stepped on the island, the Queen’s chariot appeared in front of him.

“Dorus!” The Queen stood in the chariot, and called out loudly, “It is really thee! I see thee, Dorus!” 

Xie Ning raised his head in surprise. After all, there were very few people who could call him by that name.

Ignoring her attendants, Xanthippe jumped out of her vehicle and rushed to him.

“Dorus!” The former God-made sacrifice, now glowed with health as she joyfully stood in front of him, “The Goddess sent me a dream last night. She said thee would come, and thou really came!” 

Seeing someone long thought lost, Xie Ning managed a smile after a prolonged moment.

“Xanthippe! So you’re here. Are you okay?” 

“I am fine.” Taking his hand, Xanthippe guided him to stand with her on the queen’s chariot. “How are thou doing? I went through the same upheaval a few years ago, but luckily the temple of Aphrodite protects Lemnos. The Demon God is…is he still with thee?” 

Xie Ning really didn’t want to go over those events, and the story of him being deified was still unknown to the people, who were unaware that a brand new god had appeared in the world. So, he downplayed his encounters, “He and I are separated for the time being, but I’m waiting for him.” 

From his tone, Xanthippe seemed to perceive something, so she only answered with a soft “Oh.”

At the queen’s order, an elaborate and sumptuous banquet was set up in the palace with all the  ceremonies due a guest of honor. Xie Ning pushed away the golden goblets and only accepted water in place of wine.

“I don’t drink anymore,” he said. “Thank you.” 

At the feast, they talked about previous years. Xanthippe spoke of Aphrodite’s rescue and her placement on the island, while Xie Ning similarly told of the things he had seen and heard during his travels through various lands. When the songs and dances were over, and the banquet of old times neared the end, Xanthippe kindly invited him to stay on the island for a short period of time.

Xie Ning thought about it and agreed. He had nothing else to do and he could paint anywhere.

That night, as he sat on the edge of his bed, his nose suddenly caught a scented breeze brushing through the veil at the window.

“Goddess.” He raised his head and said.

The island of Lemnos was dedicated to Aphrodite, so naturally she was the one who was there. Since Xie Ning mounted the heavenly horse and left Mount Olympus, he hadn’t met again with the Goddess of Love.

“There you are.” As she leaned against the window, Aphrodite twirled a rose, and said softly, “I wonder if thou remember, just before thee went down the mountain, I was wishing thou victory in my heart. Ah, I did not realize that blessing would become a reality, and that thou wouldst win over Apollo, but in such a way as none of the Gods ever imagined.” 

Xie Ning looked at her, nodded, and said, “I remember. And I remember the help that you gave me. I never forgot.” 

“So…” Aphrodite tossed down the rose. “There is no chance? Thou shall not change thy mind?” 

Xie Ning shook his head. “No change.” 

“Even if I touch thy knee and beg?” 

“Yes. Even if you come and beg.” 

When she heard that resolute answer, the Goddess of Love sighed helplessly, frowned in annoyance, stamped her foot, and said unhappily, “Heartless Dorus! Heartless Dorus! Since everyone loves me, I at least should have that rightful privilege. How canst thee turn a blind eye to me?” 

Xie Ning smiled. He heard the implication. He bowed his head, and after a moment’s thought, he replied, “In my case, of course you have privileges. I promise you, that on my canvas, you and your children will be the last gods to be painted.” 

Aphrodite pondered for a while. Her frown gradually subsided, and a smile reappeared on her face.

“Well!” she said. “Tis an answer, though one that barely satisfies me. Now I may say that I have persuaded thee and have not gone against Zeus’ will.” 

Once she said that, she happily saluted Xie Ning, then turned into a flurry of falling rose petals in the night wind that flew up into the boundless sky.

Xie Ning didn’t want to stay in one place for too long, so after a few days, he bid farewell to Xanthippe and set off on his journey again.

Along the way, he met many people, and saw many things. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his past experiences, which had worn away his sadnesses and joys, loves and hatreds, but Xie Ning seldom laughed, and had even fewer emotions. It was as if the wounds and pains had all scarred over so when he touched his heart there was only a thick cocoon which left him isolated.

Only once. Only once.

Xie Ning had been traveling at night and he climbed to the top of a mountain, and faced the starry sky. When he saw the moonlight reflecting the starry sky, he suddenly remembered that the first night of fiery embrace, there was also a cascade of moonlight, pouring down from the ceiling of the underground palace.

–”That was the second most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life,” said Echidna reverently, looking content and happy in the light of the moon. “And now, I want to show it to you too.” 

–”You say the second most beautiful?”

– “The most beautiful is you, my dear Dorus.” 

At that moment, Xie Ning was overwhelmed with grief. As he faced the vastness of the moonlit night, standing alone on the hilltop, he couldn’t help but cry, almost heartbroken.