In the years he spent in the mortal realm, Mo Zhiyuan recognized three places, which he once referred to as home.
The first one was a downtrodden house in a secluded village in the east, which the greedy villagers flattened to the ground when they came to get him.
The second one was Jinlian Peak of the Seven Sky Pillars Sect, which he razed to the ground during one of his earliest campaigns
The third one was Blood Moon Palace, the opulent crystal structure he erected above the Gate of Hell with his own hands. It was upon this unholy ground that the final battle of good and evil raged, and in this very place, his reign ended with his capture.
By right, stepping onto its broken marble halls filled Mo Zhiyuan with distaste, but this palace harbored a small haven. A place where he spent ten long years with his shizun, just the two of them entangled together within the confines of tall, sturdy crystal walls.
Because Shen Ruizhe liked to live in a place with good air circulation, much like Jinlian Peak's bamboo cottage, Mo Zhiyuan painstakingly built him an identical one.
This bamboo cottage, unfortunately, was not spared during the last invasion of Blood Moon Palace. Splinters of wood and shreds of leaves were reduced to wet mass beneath his boots as he walked around, reveling in bittersweet memories known only to him, now that Shen Ruizhe was dead.
Mo Zhiyuan found the haitang tree he planted in the courtyard, now dead, its trunk cut in half. He gently put Shen Ruizhe's body down, leaning against the tree.
"Shizun," he called out to the man who could neither hear nor answer him. "While I was trapped in that cave for a hundred years, all I could think about was how to make you repay me. I was thinking of the worst torture I could inflict on you, enough to make you regret being born to this realm."
He reached out to take a strand of Shen Ruizhe's inky hair and pressed it against his lips.
"Didn't you tell me that your life is mine?"
After losing everything he worked so hard for, Mo Zhiyuan unexpectedly clung to Shen Ruizhe's words like a lifeline.
But Shen Ruizhe's promise meant nothing. Once the words left his lips, he forgot all about it.
How despicable.
How hateful.
"You liar," Mo Zhiyuan said through gritted teeth, his eyes flashing with hatred as he watched Shen Ruizhe's peaceful face, devoid of pain and joy.
"I am going to make you pay, Shen Ruizhe."
And he knew just what to do to make him pay.
Mo Zhiyuan picked Shen Ruizhe's body off the ground and carried it in his arms. With neither spiritual power nor ice coffin to preserve it, the body was slowly withering in Mo Zhiyuan's arms.
As he walked, the body gradually disintegrated into dust, forming a trail from the ruined bamboo cottage to the tightly shut Gate of Hell beneath Mo Zhiyuan's feet.
Mo Zhiyuan shook his sleeves, allowing the remaining dust that clung to his clothes to flutter away.
The century-long incarceration did nothing to diminish his power. He could hear the sound of footsteps approaching from afar. Based on their meager combined strength, he surmised they were reinforcements from the Seven Sky Pillars Sect, presumably spearheaded by Zhang Xukai.
True to his expectations, Zhang Xukai, whose ribs he broke in a single clash just then, was already back on his feet thanks to his high cultivation level. The young disciple who cowered behind him at the mausoleum was nowhere to be seen. In his stead, twenty senior disciples followed Zhang Xukai to the Blood Moon Palace.
"Demon!" Zhang Xukai hollered at Mo Zhiyuan, who stood at the heart of the cascading stone formation.
Mo Zhiyuan turned to look at him.
"That was fast," he commented.
Zhang Xukai flashed Mo Zhiyuan a look brimming with hatred.
"Shizun," he said. "Give me back my shizun!"
Mo Zhiyuan sneered in contempt.
He then gestured toward the thin trail of white dust that extended from the entrance to the center of the vast space.
"He is right beneath your feet."