He and It Chapter 185: Inquire Here (13)

Chapter 185: Inquire Here (13)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

As soon as the scroll left the body, the ghostly creature could no longer sustain itself, and it dissipated into a mass of steaming, drifting tentacles on the ground, that resembled black boiling oil. It flowed calmly across the surface as it merged with the sticky sea of blood.

Yan Huan stared in a daze at the scroll in his hand. It was nothing more than ordinary silk, almost crude for a cultivator. The end of the scroll was made of white jade, and the tying string was red. Even after thousands of years, it still emitted a familiar spiritual aura.

…Fuguang.

He slowly lifted the scroll, and awkwardly pressed his face against it bit by bit. Like a hot knife through butter, the knots on the scroll pressed effortlessly against his false skin, and deeply touched his true form.

Fuguang.

“…Why are you here?” the Dragon God mumbled in a daze, as he smiled with a madness and joy that seemed to ignite him inside. “I’ve been looking for you for so long, so long. Countless years…Why are you here?”

He stood there, mumbling and laughing for a while. Then murmured to the scroll for a long time. Each word from his mouth was as tangled and incomprehensible as sticky tentacles and dense mire, impossible to decipher. Onlookers could only conclude that he had gone mad.

At that moment, the great demonic cultivators from outside the normal demonic domain gathered, and circled the periphery of the ghostly beast army, but didn’t dare to enter.

They had followed Yan Huan for many years, and had developed a method: as long as they didn’t speak out or act rashly; didn’t interfere with the ghost beast army, and merely followed behind like invisible men; their personal safety was largely assured. Most demonic cultivators who died miserably on Dragon Patrol Day were those who directly faced the Ghost Dragon, their minds shattered and spirits destroyed in an instant, only to be devoured by ghost beasts.

However, today was different from the past. The Supreme Ghost Dragon hadn’t returned to Tang Valley to continue its slumber after Dragon Patrol Day but descended to the Mortal Realm in an unprecedented human form…

With their keen sense, the demonic cultivators instinctively felt that something significant was about to happen; a great opportunity embedded in the Supreme’s unusual actions.

But what exactly was that opportunity? No one knew, and no one dared to guess.

After an unknown amount of time, Yan Huan finally moved.

He donned a pitch-black robe, held the scroll tightly to his chest, and flew into the void on eerie, ominous cloud currents. The vast, strange ghost beasts followed behind him like a tail that submerged the Mortal Realm. Some great demonic cultivators couldn’t resist and risked a glance at the Dragon God’s human form.

—They were all astonished to find that the supremely evil Ghost Dragon, in human form, was an unparalleled beauty they had never seen, as if “temptation” had descended to the Mortal Realm.

The demonic cultivators didn’t dare to make a sound. They exchanged cautious glances and, abandoning their usual treachery and mutual strife, followed the ghost beasts out of that small world.

The Dragon God passed through numerous floating and rotating celestial bodies, through the black light emitted by the dark sun. Stardust and particles collided endlessly with his robe, but he remained immersed in his own world, lost in thought.

It wasn’t until he returned to the world most deeply connected to him, that Yan Huan finally slowed his pace, changed direction, and descended vertically into the sunrise of Tang Valley. As he gazed at the vast empty chasm, he pondered for a moment and murmured, “My Dragon Palace…should be in this place.”

“Reality” followed his words and gaze. The spatial gate twisted, and in an instant, a grand dragon palace identical to the past stood in the depths of Tang Valley.

Having reconstructed his former nest, Yan Huan’s expression remained wooden. He indifferently landed before the palace gates, as familiar surroundings failed to elicit any change in his expression. Only when he reached the thousand-layered steps and began to climb did his heart stir with vague confusion.

Once, the Dragon Palace was his nest and kingdom, and he patrolled it alone, again and again. Still, at some point, whenever he climbed the steps and entered the palace, he would see his own sun…

Yan Huan entered the empty, deathly silent palace, still holding the scroll and sat alone on the Dragon God’s throne. His nine eyes wandered, as he blankly observed his surroundings.

There was no sun anymore.

He had personally shattered his sun, so even though he now shivered from the cold, his heart numb, and every inch of his body in pain, it was all his own doing, his own fault.

Yan Huan pondered in confusion for a while, then slowly lowered his head. He stared at the scroll in his arms, carefully traced the knots, the end, and the back of the silk. He softly, almost inaudibly, asked, “You drew this, didn’t you? I can feel your aura…What did you draw? Can I open it and see?”

His nine eyes darted around. In his vision, Yan Huan seemed to glimpse a plain figure. When he turned to look, the intact face of Liu Fuguang was sitting beside his throne, and merely gazed at him without speaking.

Liu Fuguang had long fallen off the cliff at Bell Mountain cliff the abyss. Later, no matter how Yan Huan turned that place upside down, and dissected every beast in his search, he couldn’t find his partner again. So where did this “Liu Fuguang” come from?

If Zhou Yi or an immortal of the same rank were present, they would see that the Dragon God’s madness had transcended the bounds of reason.

After he swallowed the pure Dao-heart and broke the balance of natural law, with nothing in the world able to constrain him, Yan Huan was almost the “law” itself, second only to the Heavenly Dao. When he realized the path he had chosen was irrevocable and that he had accidentally killed Liu Fuguang, the immense, uncontrolled pain led him to lock himself in a dream. Except for those brief moments of wakefulness, he brewed in the endless obsession of his dream. He inevitably fantasized about the possibility of Liu Fuguang still being alive and was willing to give anything to return to the past where nothing had happened.

That obsession and delusion were so powerful, it was almost unparalleled and capable of creating a new reality. Powerful enough that by merely saying, “My Dragon Palace should be here,” caused the dragon nest destroyed thousands of years ago to truly reappear in the world, still splendid, as if it gathered all the splendor and luxury of all realms.

Now, he “seemed” to glimpse his long-awaited lover, so a figure identical to Liu Fuguang, like a phantom, appeared beside him.

Yan Huan’s wooden expression immediately cracked. He recoiled as if burned, and shielded his face with his hand, then curled up on the throne, as if afraid of being seen by the illusion.

After a long while, he slowly lowered his hand. His lips trembled, as he hesitantly revealed a small smile, and softly asked, “I forgot. You can see me…can’t you?”

The illusion remained silent. Yan Huan, on the other hand, seemed encouraged as if by a sign. His smile widened by two degrees, and nodded involuntarily as he continued, “I knew it. Later on, I realized it. I saw that you always spoke to me with your eyes. You didn’t look at the eyes on my face, you looked at the nine eyes on my body. From the moment you first saw me, you knew my true form…”

The more he spoke, the more hoarse and choked his voice became. Finally, he fell silent, as tears streamed down his face while he murmured, “I was foolish. How could I not see it? I’m the stupidest creature in this world, the most foolish…”

He couldn’t speak any longer. Yan Huan trembled, at a loss, and clutched the scroll tightly as if he were a drowning man clinging to driftwood in the middle of the sea, as if he were relying on it to survive, to navigate the precarious waters ahead.

The illusion still didn’t speak, only stared at him.

Long ago, Yan Huan had once despised Liu Fuguang. Why shouldn’t he despise him now? He had too many reasons to look down on him. Liu Fuguang was so soft-hearted, fragile, and easily broken—a human with naive and insignificant attempts to solve life’s problems with options like “love” or “no love.” Yan Huan remembered he once deliberately asked him, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

Liu Fuguang hesitated for a long time before giving him an unexpected answer.

He said, “Actually, I have killed. I sought justice for ordinary villagers and killed a gang of wicked demonic cultivators. However, despite being demonic cultivators, they were from the same sect, bound by deep friendships. Knowing they couldn’t defeat me, they sacrificed themselves to delay me, just so the youngest child of their sect could escape. When I caught up with them, I was filled with fiery anger, but when I left, all that remained in my heart was confusion and regret.”

Yan Huan sneered. “What was there to regret about? Did you let that little demonic cultivator go?”

Liu Fuguang fell silent for a moment. He neither nodded nor shook his head.

“The child escaped, and I followed them for a long time, debating whether to take action,” Liu Fuguang said. “If I did, she was only eight years old, with no blood on her hands and mediocre talent, not even having opened her qi channels, let alone practiced demonic arts. If I let her go, she would be raised by demonic cultivators, influenced by them, and although she hadn’t practiced demonic arts, she knew spells like the back of her hand, and she harbored resentment against me. It was hard to say whether she would become future trouble. At that time, I was barely at the core formation stage. If I tried to erase her memories, I feared my skills weren’t precise enough, and she would become a fool. So I was torn between the two, unsure of what to do.”

Yan Huan couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“Ha! This is just mercy towards women! By sparing her, how can you be sure that a tragedy like the one in that village won’t happen again in the future? When that time comes, the karmic debt will fall upon you!” Liu Fuguang turned to him, and asked only one question.

“Is it not unjust to base the safety of many on the uncertain future actions of one person, whether they may err or not?” he asked. “Because that child might do wrong, you would eliminate her. Is this ‘good,’ or is it ‘not good’?”

In that instant, Yan Huan’s smile vanished abruptly. He couldn’t answer the question and could no longer utter a sarcastic remark.

Liu Fuguang turned his head away, sighed, and then laughed cheerfully.

“I didn’t take action,” he said lightly. “In the end, after months of diligent practice in soul manipulation, I finally had enough certainty to erase the child’s memory. I placed her in foster care with a family. That, to me, settled the matter.”

“…See? He’s such a reckless do-gooder. Even when facing a demonic cultivator who opposes his ways, he strives for the perfect solution. How could Yan Huan have any reason to respect him?”

But when Yan Huan swallowed the Dao-heart of utmost goodness, wandered in his dreams, and repeatedly flipped through memories of the past, he suddenly realized something.

—Liu Fuguang rarely looked at the “eyes” on his face. From the moment they first met, Liu Fuguang had been looking at one of the nine eyes in the center of his chest.

—He could see through illusions to the truth of utmost goodness. Throughout it all, what Liu Fuguang saw in Yan Huan was that ugly, sinister, morally tainted Yan Huan. He had reserved his pity for his true self, his gentle smiles, his fiery love, and his pure sincerity—it was all given to his real self, not to his false incarnation, not to his fabricated form.

At that moment, Yan Huan completely collapsed.

Like the minister whose heart was ripped out in the story, even though the sharp knife cut through his bones, he could still live, and walk out of the court, and stroll through the streets. However, when the minister stooped down and asked a vendor on the street what would happen if someone had no heart, upon hearing the reply, “Without a heart, one dies,” the minister immediately fell off his horse, his blood splattering three feet around, and died.

The truth was powerful enough to kill. Therefore, uncovering the truth was an extremely cruel punishment. It could evoke the pain of self-destruction in one’s heart and left Yan Huan with no excuses to take comfort in, only an intense determination, burning with the most intense love.

He fell in love with Liu Fuguang many years ago, and he also followed Liu Fuguang and died many years ago. It wasn’t until the moment when Yan Huan suddenly realized that, that he understood.

With hands eager to ease the pain, Yan Huan carefully untied the knot and unfolded the scroll.

Thousands of years had passed, and the image had already become withered and yellowed, but its contents were still visible—Liu Fuguang had depicted the palace where he resided in the Eastern Swamp, a place filled with joy and laughter, surrounded by his parents and siblings…and seated beside him was a somber Yan Huan in black, looking displeased, and holding his hand.

Yan Huan froze.

When did that happen? He was certain he had never visited the palace in the Eastern Swamp as a guest. Why would his Fuguang paint that?

The nine eyes crowded in one direction, as they focused intently on the image. Yan Huan’s gaze slowly moved downward, and stopped at the lines of inscriptions at the bottom.

“In the two hundred and twenty-fourth year of Chenghui, Hua Feiyue, with this painting as a memorial…” he silently read each word. “…The path to immortality is long; may there be no forgetting.”

A minute became an hour, and an hour became a tomorrow with no end in sight, as past events replayed before Yan Huan’s eyes.

Immortal ascension was an extremely arduous process. Mortals who embarked on the path to the heavens, gained much while relinquishing even more. On the path of countless deaths and lives, becoming a demigod almost meant having no desires or attachments, severing worldly ties, and after ascension, abandoning the old body to achieve unity with the heavens and purity.

In Liu Fuguang’s words, immortal ascension was “the process of giving up everything to gain everything in return.”

Therefore, those cultivators who held nostalgia in their hearts often left behind a “memorial” to record all things worth remembering and then hid that memorial. Like an anchor for navigating a ship at sea, it served as a window to the past. Even after true ascension, at the moment of needing to let go of everything, they could do so without hesitation. After all, they had already hidden away their most precious treasures. Even if they became desireless immortals, as long as they followed that anchor and peered through that window, they could grasp onto the beautiful things of the past. They wouldn’t become cold, aloof individuals without possessions.

This was a memorial.

After ascending to immortality, just like with his family, he still regarded him as a most precious and cherished thing.

The Dragon Palace stood tall and magnificent, but the lonely Dragon God curled up and cried out in despair. He wept as if there were no tomorrow, as if he were about to die. He trembled uncontrollably, and called out Liu Fuguang’s name in desperation, as he shook violently from pain, unable to utter anything but torrents of blood and tears.

In the Tang Valley, the continuous thunder echoed, while dark clouds shrouded the mountains and fields, and torrential rain followed. In the overwhelming rain, tens of thousands of ghost beasts trembled simultaneously and dissolved into the earth like the countless marks of shattered hearts flowing into bottomless rifts.

The crowd surged. Demonic cultivators surrounded the perimeter. They didn’t understand what had happened. They speculated that the Supreme might be angry, provoked by an unknown entity into causing such a terrifying scene. They watched in fear and shook at the majestic spectacle of thunder, dark clouds, and tears.

“Strange, it seems calm outside,” Sun Yinian said incredulously as he looked out the barrier. “Could it be that the Dragon Patrol Day has ended so quickly?”

Zhou Yi wore the disguise of an old man again. After speaking with Liu Fuguang, he released the restraints on the young cultivator, so he appeared to have the cultivation base of a foundation establishment. Liu Fuguang wouldn’t expose him.

He took out three coins, tossed them into the air six times, and noted the flower and characters each time, as he quickly calculated.

“It’s probably not that simple,” Zhou Yi frowned. “The Ghost Dragon hasn’t left. It’s just…I don’t know why…It’s subdued.”

Zhen Yue questioned, “Old man, why don’t you calculate quickly? Your cultivation base is similar to mine. Aren’t you afraid of backlash when calculating Ghost Dragon’s?”

Sun Yinian exchanged a glance with Xue Li but remained silent. Zhou Yi stroked his beard and chuckled, “Young friend, don’t underestimate this old man’s background. Perhaps among a thousand cultivators, not one could produce a treasure to stop the ghost beasts!”

Zhen Yue half-believed, “So according to you, could it be temporarily safe outside?”

“Yes,” Liu Fuguang interjected softly. “Listen to the old man. It’s temporarily safe outside. Take this opportunity and quickly return to your sect…Don’t delay outside.”

As he spoke, he coughed heavily, and Xue Li quickly helped him catch his breath.

Zhou Yi understood his thoughts and couldn’t help but sigh secretly.

He knew Ghost Dragon’s nature. Once he obtained that painting, he would turn the heavens upside down, and ruthlessly interrogate everyone about the whereabouts of those four people. He wouldn’t care how many people were killed or how many died, so Liu Fuguang wanted them to quickly return to their sect to avoid involving others.