Chapter 105
And within his consciousness, in its darkest corner, in the place where the Cancer plague resided patiently waiting, a whisper emerged.
It was not a voice, but a strangely warm vibration, a vibration that said it understood, that it comprehended, that it too had once lost, that it too had once been betrayed, that it too had felt what Ling Xu felt at this moment—the confusion between anger and sorrow, between hatred and affection, between the urge to embrace and the urge to turn away.
"Continue, The Silent One," Ling Xu said, her voice no longer cracked, no longer damp, but firm, resolute, like someone who had made a decision and would not retreat, like someone who had died eleven times and did not fear dying for the twelfth.
"Tell me—what happened to Huan Mei after she left? What happened to Huan Shu and Huan Yan after they chose to hate their own father?"
Pendiam, hearing Ling Xu's question—a question spoken by the bandaged girl in white with a firmness she had never shown before, a question that declared she was ready, that she would not collapse like Huan Zheng, that she would listen until the very end no matter how bitter, no matter how painful, no matter how shattered her heart would become—only nodded.
A single nod that felt like respect, a nod that felt like acknowledgment that Ling Xu was stronger than he had thought, that she deserved to know the truth, that she would not break as he had imagined.
And with a slow movement, full of meaning, deliberately dramatic, Pendiam raised both hands into the air, and from the tips of his slender, pale fingers, light began to emerge.
Not golden light like when he summoned the physical nature of the Singer, not the grayish-green glow of the Cancer plague dwelling within Ling Xu, not the dim light formed from gossip scattered through marketplaces, but a light made of the dust of dead stars, from the remnants of supernova explosions drifting between the cracks of reality, from the smallest particles invisible to the naked eye yet holding memories of everything that had ever happened, everything that had ever existed, everything that had ever been loved, hated, and forgotten.
And from that light, a reconstruction of life took shape.
Not an ordinary reconstruction, not an illusion that could vanish in an instant, but a recording so real, so detailed, so vivid that Ling Xu, for a moment, forgot that what she saw was merely a shadow of the past, that what she witnessed was death, that what she watched was the end of a family that once—perhaps, before everything shattered—had been happy.
Within that reconstruction appeared Huan Mei—the wife Huan Zheng once loved with all his soul, for whom he sacrificed everything, for whom he left the battlefield just to ensure her safety—now walking along dark, filthy streets, dressed in tattered clothes, with tangled and dirty hair, with a face gaunt from hunger and illness, with empty eyes from having lost everything.
Not only the wealth she had painstakingly accumulated, not only the grand houses she once boasted about to her friends, but also her dignity, her pride, her very reason to keep living.
"Huan Mei was deceived by a thief posing as a wealthy man," The Silent One said, his voice flat, empty, like someone reading the death notice of an unknown neighbor.
Yet beneath that flatness, there was a faint vibration—one that resembled pity—suggesting that even as a monster who had destroyed entire civilizations, he could still feel something upon witnessing a once-beautiful and graceful woman, once the center of attention at every gathering, once the reason Huan Zheng smiled despite his laziness, now reduced to a homeless wanderer sleeping on storefront steps and scavenging scraps from trash.
"That man—who claimed to be a wealthy businessman from a distant kingdom, who arrived in luxurious clothing with a charming smile, who took Huan Mei to expensive restaurants and bought her glittering jewelry—was a master con artist, Ling Xu. He not only stole all of Huan Mei's wealth, leaving nothing behind, but also burdened her with debts she never even knew existed—debts signed by her own hand when she was intoxicated by sweet words and false promises of a bright future together. And when Huan Mei realized the truth, when she understood she had been deceived, that she had nothing left, that she could not even return home because it had been seized by loan sharks demanding repayment, she had no choice but to live on the streets. To sleep on storefront steps, to scavenge food from garbage, and to die as a homeless woman—alone, with no one to care for her, no one to mourn her, no one to bury her properly. Because no one knew that the woman lying lifeless in the gutter, her body covered in wounds and disease, was Huan Mei—the wife of the second among the three Wheels of Cultivation, the woman once loved by Huan Zheng with all his soul, the woman who chose to leave because she could not endure a life of hardship."
Ling Xu, witnessing all of it—seeing how Huan Mei, once Huan Zheng's wife, once the mother of Huan Shu and Huan Yan, once the center of a fractured family's happiness, ended as a homeless corpse in a gutter—felt her chest tighten.
Not because of the Cancer plague, for it had already become part of her, but because of sorrow—a sorrow born from the realization that death is impartial, that it does not care whether one is rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, good or evil.
For in the end, all return to the earth, all become dust, all are forgotten—except by those who remain, who still remember, who still weep even though their tears can never bring back what has been lost.
"And Huan Yan and Huan Shu?" she asked, her voice no longer firm as before, but trembling—a tremor she could not hide, born from fear.
A fear that what she would hear next would be worse than Huan Mei's death, worse than anything she had ever imagined, worse than all the suffering she had endured for years as the child of a goddess whose mother had been violated before her eyes.
The Silent One moved his fingers once more, and the reconstruction shifted scenes—this time revealing Huan Shu and Huan Yan, two girls once around nineteen to twenty years old, with youthful and innocent faces, long black hair, warm and gentle smiles.
Now they stood before a young man—handsome, well-dressed, with a sweet smile but cold eyes, eyes that revealed he was not accustomed to hearing the word "no," that he would not accept rejection, that he would do anything to obtain what he desired, even if it meant destroying someone else's life.
To be continued…