Chapter 83
The Silent One, upon hearing the Singer's confession that she and Huan Zheng had been in the opposing faction—that they had tried to prevent what he himself had fought for with all his body and soul—could only laugh, a laugh no longer mad like before, no longer loud like when he created fifty cracks in the floor of the artificial hell, but a bitter laugh, a harsh one, spilling from his mouth like poison he could not vomit out despite it burning his throat from within.
"At its peak, The Singer," he said amid laughter that slowly turned into sobs he could no longer distinguish, "when humanity finally achieved victory in the Harmony Conflict—after months of battle that claimed thousands of lives on both sides, after those arrogant gods finally knelt before us and admitted defeat—dozens of soldiers who took part in the conflict, along with you and The Lazy One, chose to disappear for a while. Without farewell. Without explanation. Without telling anyone where you went or when you would return. And I—I, consumed by emotion, further ignited by my love being rejected, by my complete failure to draw your attention, by the fact that you chose to disappear with that slacker instead of standing beside me to celebrate the victory we had fought so hard to achieve—then ordered all the soldiers still loyal to me to gather the defeated Gods who had been captured by humanity's forces."
He licked his lips—a slow, deliberate, provocative motion, like a serpent flicking its tongue before striking its prey—and in his dark, blazing eyes shone a horrifying pleasure, a pleasure born from the memory of how he and his soldiers vented all their anger, all their disappointment, all the pain of rejected love, upon helpless beings who could not fight back, who could only scream and cry and beg for mercy before their heads were severed and turned into collections in the underground chambers of humanity's palace.
"You know, The Singer—and you too, The Lazy One—how magnificent my 'virility' was in defiling the purity of thousands of captured goddesses? How many screams I heard? How many tears I drank? How many fragile bodies I crushed beneath this large and mighty body of mine?"
He smiled—a smile no longer bitter, no longer harsh, no longer cold, but satisfied, a smile that declared he regretted nothing, that he would do it again if given the chance, that he would continue doing it until The Singer chose to see him, to love him, to leave Huan Zheng and embrace him instead, even though he knew—knew with absolute certainty—that it would never happen, that The Singer would never love him, that he would remain nothing more than a passing shadow in her life.
The silence that followed The Silent One's confession—about the thousands of purities he had defiled, about the screams of the goddesses he relished, about the tears he drank like victory wine—felt like an open wound in the chest of the universe.
A wound that would never heal, never be closed by time or prayer or tears, because it was no ordinary wound, but one born from the depravity of a thirty-six-year-old man who should have—within any human civilization, within any values that still retained even a spark of humanity—been a role model for family and children, not a monster who vented his rejected love in the most savage, most beastly, most heartless way ever recorded in the boundless history of the universe.
The Singer, who just moments ago still stood with tear-filled eyes and a broken heart because of her unrequited love for Huan Zheng, now froze.
Not out of fear—because she was one of the Three Wheels of Cultivation, and fear had long since died on the battlefield—but because of a disgust so deep, so absolute, that she felt nauseated, her chest tightening as if crushed by an invisible giant hand, as if she had wasted thousands of years of her life comforting the wrong man.
Not Huan Zheng, because Huan Zheng had never been wrong in his lazy indifference, but the Silent One—the man who sat beside her in the bamboo pavilion, who listened to her sing without ever complaining, who bandaged her wounds when she returned from the battlefield—was in truth the root of all the suffering she had witnessed for thousands of years, and more than that, he was a monster who delighted in every drop of blood spilled, every scream that escaped the lips of helpless goddesses, every fragile body crushed beneath his large and powerful frame.
"You… you bastard, The Silent One," The Singer whispered, her voice breaking, wet, like a lute string snapping in the middle of its most beautiful melody, and her hand—which once held a green flute whose notes could crack the sky and split the seas—now rose to cover her trembling mouth, because she could not believe it, because she did not want to believe it, because she would rather die than accept that her own brother, her own friend, the being she once believed would always stand by her side against the world, was the source of all the evil she had fought against.
"You ordered the Goddesses to be violated and passed around? You enjoyed their screams? You drank their tears? And you did all that just because your heart was broken when I chose the The Lazy One over you?"
She shook her head, her red hair blazing like embers that refused to die, fluttering even without wind, her eyes that had once dimmed from exhaustion now burning with a fire greater than before.
Not a fire of jealousy, not a fire of desire, but a fire of pure hatred, hatred born from the realization that she had been deceived for thousands of years, that she had treated a monster as a brother, that she had wasted her love on a man who did not even deserve to be called human.
"This is why I prefer The Lazy One over you, The Silent One. Not because he is more handsome, not because he is stronger, not because he is smarter—but because he, at the very least, never pretends to be something he is not. He is lazy, he is indifferent, he is never serious in love, but he has never—not even once—hurt a helpless being just because his love was rejected."
On the other side, Ling Xu, who had remained silent the entire time, whose third eye was still wide open with a grayish-green light pouring out, whose body had become light after letting go of everything he had once built and choosing emptiness, now trembled.
Not out of fear—because he had already died eleven times and his fear had died with his mother on the most horrific night of his life—but because of a surge of anger that suddenly emerged from a place he thought had long been empty, long burned away by the flames of vengeance he watered every night with tears that never truly dried, anger born from the realization that all the tragedy that led to his mother being violated and passed around by humanity's forces—specifically after the Harmony Conflict ended in humanity's victory over the Gods, when his innocent mother, who had never held a weapon, who was only skilled in brewing medicine, tending gardens, and singing lullabies for star-children, became a victim of inhuman brutality—was all caused by a thirty-six-year-old man who had no chance of approaching the woman he desired.
And instead of improving himself or seeking another woman, this man—who was unworthy of being considered, let alone regarded as human—vented his inability to obtain The Singer's love by ordering brutal violations against the Goddesses, including his mother, including the woman who gave birth to him, including the sole reason he still stood in this artificial hell, amid black flames and bone walls and screams that never ceased.
To be continued…