Chapter 79
"Although it may sound strange, Miss—and you must hear this as well, Huan Zheng—the consciousness of the Cancer plague that currently resides within your consciousness left traces of its presence that were detectable from just before the Harmony Conflict took place. This means that the consciousness of the Cancer plague had already appeared long before the spread of the plague began—namely, several years after the Harmony Conflict was declared."
She paused, looking at Ling Xu with eyes that no longer burned with jealousy or anger, but with the cold fire of curiosity, like a scientist preparing to dissect a corpse to uncover the truth hidden beneath flesh and bone.
"And within a hidden archive—and the one who concealed it was none other than The Silent One—I found evidence that the consciousness of the Cancer plague and the God of the Vast Cosmos once held a meeting during one of the battles of the Harmony Conflict. According to the testimony, they appeared to clash fiercely until the God of the Vast Cosmos swore to eradicate every fragment of the Cancer plague's consciousness whenever he encountered it."
She looked at Huan Zheng, then at Ling Xu, in turns, her gaze meaningful, a gaze that said she was not joking, that she was serious, that there was an unusual connection between The Silent One, the God of the Vast Cosmos, and the consciousness of the Cancer plague that still resided calmly within Ling Xu's consciousness, waiting, patiently, like a hunter who knows that in the end, all prey will come to it—no need to chase, no need to lure, only to wait.
"So, Miss—and you as well, Huan Zheng—before you kiss each other, argue, or do whatever it is you have planned in this man-made hell, I want you to realize this: there is something moving behind the curtain. Something that may be older than the three of us. Something that may have planned all of this since before the Harmony Conflict began, since before we were born, since before this universe existed. And if we are not careful—if we remain preoccupied with matters of the heart, desire, and jealousy—then we will become puppets. Just like the leaders of humanity once were. Just like the soldiers who violated and passed around the goddesses before beheading them. Just like all beings manipulated by a mastermind without ever realizing that they were merely tools, merely pawns, merely entertainment for something we can never see, never touch, never fight. Because it moves between the cracks of reality, within the gaps of frozen time, in spaces where we have never thought to look."
The echo of The Singer's words about the hidden archive and the meeting between the Cancer plague's consciousness and the God of the Vast Cosmos still lingered in the air of that man-made hell like a mist that never truly dissipated, when suddenly, from a void without direction, from the gap between heartbeats that never had the chance to beat because the heart itself had forgotten its function, a voice emerged.
Not a voice that came from a mouth or throat or vocal cords of any living being, but a voice born from darkness itself, from the space between spaces, from time between time, from meaning between meanings—a voice that was flat, cold, absolute, like the laws of physics that no one can deny, like death that never asks permission before claiming, like truth that does not care whether you are ready to hear it or not, because it will still exist, still speak, still tear apart every mask you have struggled to maintain, even if you have tried desperately to hide it behind silence and dreadful stillness.
"Ah," the voice whispered, and within that single syllable emerging from nothingness lay an irony so bitter, so deep, that Huan Zheng felt the hairs on his neck stand for the first time in thousands of years, and The Singer felt her chest tighten as if crushed by an invisible giant hand, and Ling Xu felt his third eye—still tightly closed like a flower sleeping in winter—pulsing so rapidly, so strongly, so impatiently that a grayish-green light began to seep through the thin gap between his eyelids, like the Cancer plague awakening from its slumber as it sensed its host was threatened, that the enemy they had been searching for, suspecting, believing to be merely a shadow behind the curtain, had now appeared, had now spoken, had now admitted that it truly existed, that it truly moved, that it had indeed planned everything from the very beginning.
"So it turns out that you two—The Lazy One and The Singer—are not as foolish as I thought. For thousands of years I have maintained this disguise, moving silently between the cracks of reality, whispering poison into the ears of humanity's leaders, orchestrating the outbreak of the Harmony Conflict, ensuring that those weak gods were destroyed and that those bloodthirsty humans rose as the Second Divinity, and I thought no one would ever suspect, no one would ever investigate, no one would ever find the traces I left behind—but you, my own siblings, managed to uncover it in the place I least expected, in this man-made hell, among black flames and walls of bone and the endless screams."
The silence that followed The Silent One's confession felt like an open wound in the chest of the universe—not bleeding, not festering, yet never truly healing, simply remaining, waiting, becoming a silent witness to the meeting of three siblings who had been separated for thousands of years by blood, fire, and betrayal.
The Singer, who just moments ago had been gripping her green flute tightly, her slender white fingers trembling as she restrained something she could no longer hide, stepped forward.
Not with a threatening stride as when she faced Ling Xu, not with a lustful step as when she licked her finger before Huan Zheng, but with hesitant, broken steps, like someone walking barefoot over shards of glass, because each step reminded her of the past, of the bamboo pavilion at the edge of the universe, of laughter that once filled the emptiness, of The Silent One who once—though silent, though cold, though never showing emotion—was always by her side when Huan Zheng was too lazy to care and the world too cruel to face alone.
"You… you really are the mastermind," the Singer whispered, her voice no longer melodious, no longer filled with lust, no longer sharp as when she mocked Ling Xu, but broken, damp, like a lute string snapping in the middle of the most beautiful melody, her glowing red eyes—once capable of making a thousand cultivators kneel with a single glance—now dim, weary, like embers running out of fuel, like a flame shrinking because there is nothing left to burn.
"For thousands of years I searched for your traces, suspected your strange behavior, gathered the archives you hid in the darkest corners of the universe, and I was never truly certain, The Silent One. I never wanted to be certain. Because if I were certain, it would mean that my own brother—the one who sat beside me in the bamboo pavilion, who listened to me sing without ever complaining even though I knew my voice sometimes faltered, who helped me stand when I fell on the battlefield while Huan Zheng was asleep on a cart—was the same kind of monster we have been fighting all this time."
To be continued…