Chapter 81
The air in that man-made hell changed when laughter burst from The Silent One's mouth.
It was not a restrained chuckle hidden behind silent lips, not a bitter laugh born from an old wound that never healed, but a roaring, thunderous laughter that shook and rattled every fiber of reality still daring to exist.
A laughter that came from the deepest pit of his stomach, from the most decayed part of his chest, from the darkest part of his soul.
A laughter that made Ling Xu feel his third eye pulse so rapidly that the grayish-green light radiating from it turned into a pure white flash like lightning striking across a sky that never knew rain.
A laughter that made Huan Zheng—who for thousands of years had only known The Silent One as a quiet figure who never showed emotion—feel the hairs on his neck stand on end for the first time in his long and idle life.
A laughter that made the Singer grip her green flute so tightly that her knuckles turned white, because never—not once in thousands of years with The Silent One—had she heard that sound, the sound of madness long buried behind the silent mask she had always believed to be her brother's true face.
Kraaak!
The sound of cracking began to spread across the stone floor made of flattened bones beneath their feet—one, two, ten, fifty cracks crawling in every direction like roots searching for water in dry soil, like black veins spreading across the skin of those infected by the Cancer plague before their flesh burst from within.
And each crack gaped like small mouths screaming without sound, like wounds that could never be closed even if stitched with golden threads and ancient prayers.
"You… you're laughing?" The Singer whispered, her voice nearly drowned by the roaring laughter of the Silent One that still echoed from wall to wall, from crack to crack, from one corner of that man-made hell to another.
"You're laughing after admitting that you are the mastermind behind all of this? After thousands of years of spilled blood? After the goddesses were violated and passed around? After their heads were severed and turned into collections?"
The Silent One did not answer with words.
He only kept laughing, even louder, wilder, more unhinged, until tears—tears he had never shown anyone, tears he had buried for thousands of years behind cold and indifferent eyelids—began to stream down his hardened face, carved by experiences that never allowed room for softness.
And within that laughter and those tears, within the madness and sorrow that could no longer be separated because they had fused into a single nameless entity, he raised his right hand, covering his face with his broad, rough fingers and palm.
Yet he could not conceal the terrifying expression beneath—like a mask cracked at its most crucial point, revealing what had always been hidden behind it.
Not flesh and bone, but a darkness older than darkness itself, a hunger that could never be satisfied, a void that could never be filled by anything, not even by love, not even by blood, not even by the destruction of an endless universe.
The Silent One's laughter began to subside, turning into broken cackles interrupted by heavy, damp breaths, like someone who had just run a thousand li across a battlefield filled with corpses.
Like someone who had just realized there was no way home, because his home had already burned to ashes, leaving only remnants scattered in the wind.
With a slow movement, deliberate and meaningful, intentionally dramatic to provoke a reaction from the three pairs of eyes fixed upon him—even though one of those eyes could not see, Ling Xu's third eye, still wide open, captured every detail, every tremor, every shift in expression on The Silent One's face that was beginning to crack like a mask unable to bear the weight of the truth he had hidden all this time—he lowered his hand from his face.
Revealing a smile no longer empty like a void at the ocean's floor, but a bitter smile, a sorrowful smile, filled with regret that could never be undone even if he were given ten thousand more years.
"The Singer," said The Silent One, his voice no longer gentle as when he called her name moments ago, no longer flat as when he admitted his role as the mastermind, but sharp, piercing, like a blade slowly driven into the back of the person he loved most.
"How long will you continue to be fooled by your childish love for The Lazy One? How long will you keep chasing a man who has never wanted you, who has never loved you, who has never—even from the very first time you met him on the battlefield when you were still young and still believed that the world was not entirely cruel—looked at you as anything more than a nuisance disturbing his sleep?"
He paused, glancing at Huan Zheng with a gaze filled with hatred, envy, and everything he had buried for thousands of years behind a silent mask that had never cracked until today, until this man-made hell, until before the woman he loved yet could never have because she had already given her heart to the lazy man who did not even know how to appreciate sincere love.
"Do you see, The Singer? Do you see how he stands there with his hands in his pockets, with that signature lazy expression, with half-closed eyes as though nothing important is happening around him? That is him. That is The Lazy One you love. He will never change. He will never love you. He will never—"
Before The Silent One could finish his sentence, Huan Zheng let out a sigh—a sigh that sounded like someone who had just realized he would not be able to take an afternoon nap not only today, but perhaps tomorrow, and the day after, and every day after that, as long as his insane brother remained busy expressing feelings he had buried for thousands of years in the most inappropriate way, in the most inappropriate place, before the most inappropriate people.
"The Silent One," he said, his voice still lazy, still flat, but beneath that laziness lay a note of warning he had never shown to anyone, a tone that said he was not joking, that he was serious, that if the Silent One did not get to the point, he would simply go back to sleep and not care about whatever happened next.
"So what is the meaning of all this? You're saying you orchestrated the Harmony Conflict just to get The Singer's attention? You destroyed the civilizations of the Gods, you let the Goddesses be violated and passed around, you let their heads be severed and turned into collections—just because you were heartbroken that the Singer chose me over you?"
The Silent One, upon hearing Huan Zheng's blunt and straightforward question—a question spoken by a lazy man who did not even bother to change his expression while asking something that should have shaken the very foundations of reality—only smiled.
A smile no longer bitter, no longer sorrowful, but a resigned smile, like someone who no longer cared whether the world would be saved or destroyed, because there was only one thing he cared about—only The Singer, only the red-haired woman who once sat beside him in the bamboo pavilion at the edge of the universe, who listened to him speak of his past without ever growing tired, who bandaged his wounds when he returned from the battlefield with his body nearly destroyed, who made him feel that life was not entirely meaningless even as he witnessed death and betrayal every single day.
To be continued…