He and It Chapter 206: Inquire Here (34)

Chapter 206: Inquire Here (34)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

“You’ve been benefiting for so long, yet you still think it’s not enough. You truly have my style,” the Evil One marveled, as he clicked his tongue. “Fine. Regardless, you still owe me a debt. Once it’s repaid, we’re done. I don’t have time to deal with you.”

The Holy Ancestor knelt on the ground and vomited blood violently. The Evil One’s words had already hinted at a glimpse of his future. When the drum tower bell rang again, it would no longer herald a life of utmost happiness but an endless cycle of darkness akin to the Underworld.

The Evil One had ruined him…completely and utterly destroyed him.

“Kill…me…” the Holy Ancestor mumbled through thick blood clots, as he shook. “Kill me…”

The Evil One didn’t speak. For some reason, the Holy Ancestor felt as if the other was looking down on him with extreme malice.

“Die?” he said. “Death is the most boring ending. You’ll just have to endure!”

The wind howled as the demon god laughed wildly, then disappeared in a whirlwind of black mist. Left behind was the Son of Heaven of the Mortal Realm, hunched and withered, as he painfully spat blood until he lost consciousness.

The palace of Wuping was in chaos, but Yan Huan didn’t care. He waved his hand and called back the black inner core, reintegrating it into his body. Liu Fuguang looked at him and asked, “Have you resolved things on your side?”

Yan Huan nodded, like a peacock displaying its feathers, wanting to modestly show off but failing to remain modest. “It was effortless. Destroying his mind was an easy and simple task.”

When he saw his smug demeanor, Liu Fuguang found it amusing but maintained a calm facade. “He surrendered so easily?”

Yan Huan sneered, “My methods towards him are nothing compared to yours. Perhaps, he’s not even worthy of being an obstacle under your feet. But for someone like him…”

He laughed coldly to himself. “I’ve seen too many people like him, more than the water in the sea. He may call himself the Holy Ancestor, but deep down, he knows that a successful emperor doesn’t need a conscience or virtues. Moral constraints were never meant for those in power from the beginning. Successful emperors are like scaled serpents or thick-skinned crocodiles, with nothing but false tears rolling hotly. The lack of conscience and virtue is their greatest talent, allowing them to cause as much pain to their subjects as possible. The weaker the people, the stronger the country. The best way to secure the throne and control others is to use the barbed whip of power to strangle the weak.”

Liu Fuguang looked at him without speaking.

Outwardly, he was evaluating the Holy Ancestor, but in another sense, he was talking about himself.

Yan Huan’s mocking smile gradually faded. He spoke slowly, “People like him only regard themselves too highly, thinking they stand at the center of the world, with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around them. So, when they encounter setbacks, they either overcome them smoothly or are completely destroyed, with no other path to take.”

Liu Fuguang remained silent for a while before he said, “Yan Huan, tell me the truth. How exactly did you deal with him?”

Caught off guard by the question, Yan Huan panicked. He knew that with Liu Fuguang’s kind nature, he might not agree with how he handled the pregnant woman and infant. He hesitated, his gaze shifting away.

“What’s wrong?” Liu Fuguang sighed lightly, “Speak. You’ve already done it. What can I do to you?”

Yan Huan’s guilt was overwhelming, and his breath shook. The relationship with his lover had just seen the dawn of reconciliation. Having tasted honey, how could he endure bitterness again? Liu Fuguang didn’t need to do anything. Just a cold glance, a refusal to speak to him, would cause him more pain than a thousand cuts.

“I…” He hesitated, unsure whether to tell a pleasing lie to make his lover happy.

At that moment, Liu Fuguang said softly, “Don’t hide from me.”

Those four words instantly shattered Yan Huan’s defenses.

So be it. In this lifetime, he was fated to be ensnared by him…the Dragon God steeled his heart. He would speak!

He lowered his head and detailed how he deceived the Holy Ancestor, plundered time, and used his wife and child to break him. After he finished, Liu Fuguang didn’t pass judgment. Yan Huan was uneasy, his nine eyes rigid with fear.

“…What you did was wrong,” Liu Fuguang sighed after a long time. “But I don’t blame you.”

Yan Huan widened his eyes. He doubted his ears, and thought he had misheard.

“His wife and child, especially his wife, suffered greatly. Using them to break him was indeed excessive,” Liu Fuguang said seriously. “But they have long passed away…If this is the way to make the Holy Ancestor vomit blood and break the cycle, then so be it. I don’t blame you.”

He doesn’t blame me!

Yan Huan was overwhelmed with joy, and felt warmth spread through his entire body. His eyes were hot, and tears almost spilled out.

“I, I thought that even though the Holy Ancestor was despicable, seeing him vomit blood and cry in pain, you would pity him…” the Dragon God stammered. “I thought you would blame me…”

Liu Fuguang shook his head. “Pity? What is there to pity about him?”

He turned to Yan Huan, and frowned, “Aren’t the common people pitiable? Even in favorable cycles, with bountiful harvests, how much are taxes? How high are daily expenses? They can barely fill their stomachs. Farmers toil from dawn to dusk, scraping a living from the soil; merchants leave early and return late, calculating for a few coins; entertainers, beggars, fishermen, and cooks…those considered lowly in the secular world, struggle every day. And he? Holding all the resources and power, one meal for him is enough for an ordinary person for ten years. So what if he doesn’t feel happy?”

“I pity him because he’s narrow-minded and arrogant, willingly falling into an endless cycle, becoming a cocooned worm,” Liu Fuguang said softly. “But I’ve also said, pity doesn’t mean forgiveness.”

Yan Huan grinned, “Then, I understand. What do we do next?”

Liu Fuguang shrugged, “Next, we leave him be and focus on transcending.”

Holding his jade pole with a green bell and a bright pearl on top, Liu Fuguang walked within the borders of Wuping. He sang songs of homesickness and returning home, his blood filled with a deep love for his homeland and a longing for peace and freedom, as he sent one ordinary soul after another to the sky. People listened to the low singing and couldn’t help but shed tears.

“Actually, I’ve longed for home for a long time,” an old woman with white hair confided to Liu Fuguang intermittently, her eyes brimming with tears. “But no matter how I walk, I can’t reach home, and it makes me so anxious…”

She held an old dog in her arms, equally unable to walk any further. They listened to the entire song, as they shed tears, and then dispersed into light in the mountains and fields, blown by the wind to the moon and stars.

The process of transcending souls was very long. During that time, they went through two more cycles. It wasn’t until the last soul of Wuping returned to the heavens, that they stepped into the palace again to visit the Son of Heaven of Wuping.

Although prepared, Liu Fuguang was still greatly surprised upon seeing the current Holy Ancestor.

The first time they met, the Holy Ancestor was in his prime, dignified, proud, and ambitious, truly a king with great power. Now, he saw only a pale, weak shadow, like a thin paper figure, helplessly clinging to the magnificent throne.

Liu Fuguang said, “Holy Ancestor, we are here.”

He had no sense of following up a victory, unlike Yan Huan, who would have laughed wildly first, then mocked the Holy Ancestor’s miserable state, making him vomit three liters of blood.

“…Supreme Goodness,” the Holy Ancestor said weakly. “I should have known…Good and Evil are one, and the person behind you is…is…”

His eyes filled with overwhelming fear, and the words “Evil One” suddenly stuck in his throat.

“Before sending you on your way, I still have one question,” Liu Fuguang asked calmly. “Even gods can’t manipulate time like you did. How did you manage it? Creating a realm of endless reincarnation.”

The Holy Ancestor looked at him. At this moment, he was worse off than a stray dog, yet he seemed to have found some strength, as if in a final burst of vitality. He shouted fiercely, “Time…time! Time is the lowest whore, the most despicable pig and dog! It forever eludes you, is never satisfying, and always leaves you with eternal regret throughout your life…”

He gasped for breath, his throat like a tattered bellows, and laughed madly, “I am…the supreme ruler! How could I…submit to the likes of a whore and a pig? I refuse, I refuse!”

Liu Fuguang lifted his eyes and met the gaze of the insane emperor. In that instant, he suddenly understood, and Yan Huan, beside him, whispered, “—Obsession.”

Yes, obsession, so intense that nothing could match it. Humans, being the most sentient of all beings, have a power of thought that can achieve unimaginable things. If one person’s obsession is an obsession, then the obsession of a group or a nation becomes a powerful delusion, an “atmosphere” that is neither dream nor reality.

Liu Fuguang shook the Soul Bell and sang a homesick ballad, willingly measuring Wuping’s land with his own body, all to break through that “atmosphere” and help the souls trapped within see the truth that they were already dead and didn’t need to enter reincarnation again.

Many events in the world, including a significant portion of Daoist magic, are illusions that exist if you believe in them and disappear if you don’t. Human belief is such a heavy thing that when it is lost, even the most powerful empire can crumble and vanish into the dust of history in an instant.

This was an unsolvable power. As an emperor and the core of the empire, the Holy Ancestor’s obsession first infected the palace and the court, then radiated layer by layer from the center of national power, causing the entire nation to firmly believe in his rule.

Unfortunately, Liu Fuguang’s anger from the front and Yan Huan’s intense desire for revenge from the back, combined with the Evil One’s heart-wrenching torment, attacked him from all sides, sweeping away this grand deception of greed like a breaking wave.

Liu Fuguang shook his head.

“It’s time to go,” he said as he walked toward the Holy Ancestor. “There’s no saving you now.”

In reality, they should have left the Holy Ancestor here to experience the torment of living worse than death in reincarnation, to understand what kind of life the people he affected had lived. However, they feared that leaving him would bring unexpected changes, so it was best to remove the anchor point as soon as possible to prevent Internal Demon from using it.

“You’re lucky,” Liu Fuguang whispered, as he pressed a finger to the Holy Ancestor’s forehead. A white light, like intense ripples, instantly spread throughout the grand palace.

The Holy Ancestor couldn’t dodge. He let out a sharp scream as his limbs rapidly deformed and his body shrank and twisted like a dehydrated vegetable. Liu Fuguang pressed down with force, filling him with pure energy until he swelled like an overinflated balloon, and then—

“Boom!”

The explosion sounded like thunder, and the sweeping airwaves spread like a shockwave, turning walls, floors, pillars, and the palace into crumbling dust that collapsed in a massive ruin.

Yan Huan seized the moment and pulled Liu Fuguang sharply upward. They soared into the sky. It seemed as if a chaotic hurricane had risen again on the ground. Liu Fuguang stared in shock, watching the collapse of the palace, the fall of the royal city, and the transformation of all the capital cities into ruins. With the Holy Ancestor’s death, Wuping also perished.

When he saw that scene, the Dragon God was uncharacteristically silent.

Because at that moment, when the Holy Ancestor died, part of the Supreme Evil’s existence seemed to scatter into countless fragments, falling into the winds of the void.

“…Alright, we can finally leave,” Yan Huan said with a calm expression, as he smiled kindly. “There’s still the next anchor point waiting for us to deal with.”