Xu Zhicheng stepped all the way back to the wall before he finally struggled to stop. He looked at Long Yangjun with his unfocused eyes again while he moaned like someone about to be drowned. “I’ve been invaded by devils… Day and night, no matter how I practiced the Serenity Arts, I cannot completely get rid of the devils!
“I don’t deserve to be the Grand Guardian of Nepenthe. I can’t deal with the devils… So many devils. Those damn devils have been haunting me all the time, giving me such a headache that I always want to go mad!
“If… If we can win this war, I will certainly be able to completely eliminate the devils in my head, right? Serenity Seraph, please tell me, please save me!”
He raised his arms that looked like dry branches and extended them at Long Yangjun.
Long Yangjun had been standing nearby and watching Li Yao and Xu Zhicheng’s conversation in silence. It was not until this moment that vague confusion and bitterness appeared on her face. She stepped back and said with a helpless smile, “Grand Guardian Xu, you should know that even I haven’t completely erased my feelings, right? I cannot execute my own feelings and desires, and I cannot even save myself. How can I save each and every one of you?”
Looking at Long Yangjun in a daze, Xu Zhicheng was gradually burning. The fire was condensed into a desperate and furious mask on his face along with his shivering wrinkles. His branch-like hands were aimed at Li Yao again before he waved them crazily and roared, “What-What-What are you up to exactly? What Cultivator are you? You are an incarnation of the extraterrestrial devils! You are intentionally raising the devils in my head! What do you want? Why are you messing with my head in such a way? Why are you so shameless and vicious?”
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry!”
Watching Xu Zhicheng melting down into a lunatic from the calm and indifferent man in the beginning, Li Yao felt that an indestructible wall in his own heart was smashed too. He bowed deeply at Xu Zhicheng sincerely with the urge of crying himself and said, “I’m sorry. I know that my methods are really shameless and vicious, and I couldn’t handle such a situation as well if I were the father of two children.
“But… But I really don’t have a choice right now. This is the only way to save you and your children!”
“What… What nonsense are you talking about?”
Panting hard, Xu Zhicheng was like an old wolf who had been pushed into desperation. With brutality beaming out of his eyes, he said, “My sons are dead! Both of them! Nobody can save them! Not Nepenthe, not the Cultivators, and not even the gods! How are you going to save them? Tell me!”
“Grand Guardian Xu, please listen to me. Whoever dies is gone for good. Of course, there is no way for me to bring the people whose souls have dispersed back to life. However—”
Opening his arms, Li Yao said sincerely, “I’ve heard a theory before. Everybody dies twice. The first time is when their physical body and their soul perish, and the second time is when everybody forgets them!
“Yes, your sons are already dead, but now, they still ‘exist’ in your memories, in your feelings, in your ineffaceable love and your haunting pains, in the toys and certificates that you clean carefully every day!
“Did they have classmates? Did they have friends? Did they have childhood crushes? I believed that they must’ve had them, right? Then, they are also existing in the memories of their classmates, friends, and loves, in the affection and agony of so many people!
“They are already dead, but exactly because of the memories of so many people, and the emotional fluctuations that you cannot erase no matter how you practice the Serenity Arts, that they can ‘exist’ in such a form. This is their last connection with this universe and the only thing that they have left for you!
“If you are erasing everything just because you cannot deal with the pain, you will also be erasing your love for your son, the most beautiful things in the past, the only brightness in the infinite darkness, and their last existence!
“By the time you completely forget them and burn up the toys and certificates that carry very special meanings because they are hindering you, by the time when all their friends and loves can’t remember their voice, their looks, and even their names, they will be completely gone from this universe, sinking into oblivion!
“Do you want your son to end like this, in an ‘oblivion’ that is even more terrible than ‘death’?”
As if struck by lightning, Xu Zhicheng was so astounded that he almost forgot how to breathe.
“I can totally imagine your pain. Really. Although I do not have any children yet, my computational ability is enough for me to simulate the… avalanche of emotions. I can feel what you are feeling, and I’m feeling it right now!”
While he was talking, Li Yao’s eyes became red. “However, I also believe that ‘father’ is a great name. A father can do anything and hold back any pain for his children.
“So, for your sons, for yourself, and for your late wife who gave birth to them—do not forget them, do not let them sink into oblivion, and live on stubbornly while carrying their existence!”
“Carrying…”
Xu Zhicheng touched his shoulders with his shivering hands while he mumbled, “Their ‘existence’?”
“Not just their existence, but everybody’s existence made the happiest moments of the locals!”
Li Yao raised his voice, which burst out next to Xu Zhicheng’s ears like a clap of thunder. “Do you know? In the darkest and hardest towns below the ground, I heard the most wonderful songs from children, who told me their happy stories vividly. Even when I passed the murky, stinky huts outside just now, I heard people laughing too!
“No matter how dark life is, there is always vague brightness, isn’t there? Isn’t the brightness made of songs, laughters, and loves for each other while we are gritting our teeth to endure the pains and sufferings? Isn’t it why we are human beings and not animals, weeds, and rocks?
“But what you are going to do will destroy the last brightness in the dark!
“If you truly erase the emotions and desires of everyone here including your own, there will be no more songs, laughters, and babbling, wobbling children in the living areas. There will be no more boys and girls whispering their affections for each other in the forsaken tunnels. There will not be a father who creates toys for his children in great enthusiasm despite the arduous work, just to watch the innocent smile on his children’s faces! There will be nothing! Everything will be gone!
“If the Immortal Cultivators’ exploitations and oppressions are taking away your life, what you are doing right now is depriving everybody of their ‘existence’! By the time your so-called ‘eternal tranquility’ does arrive, each of you, no matter if you are living or dead, will no longer have any personality, a name, a past, or any significance as a human being! Is that what you want? Tell me! Because you have lost your family, you want everybody to lose theirs in such a way? Is that your purpose?”
“As*hole, shut up!”
Xu Zhicheng had enough of it and truly jumped at Li Yao. He was naturally no match for Li Yao. In his fury, he was not even attacking with any technique but simply hit Li Yao’s chest with his head like an angry bull.
He thought that he would be crashing into a wall, but out of his expectation, Li Yao did not activate the slightest spiritual energy and was knocked to the floor.
“You—”
Xu Zhicheng’s attack hit the target, but he did not know what to do next. He collapsed and stared at Li Yao not far away in a daze.
Li Yao rose to his feet and rubbed his chest. Then he smiled at Xu Zhicheng and said, “I’m sorry, Great Guardian Xu, I was talking nonsense again. I know it is definitely not your purpose. Besides, you haven’t lost your family yet. Your wife and your children still live in your emotions. The stronger your emotions are, the more vivid their existence will be. If you recall the joy and happiness you had in the past, they will forever live in the delightful memories.
“You will not truly lose them until the day comes when you completely slay all the devils and abandons your feelings and memories!”
Xu Zhicheng listened in a daze. His face was numb, but his eyes were extremely complicated and brimming with mixed feelings. He looked at Li Yao, full of expectations, as if he were hoping that Li Yao could continue.
“There’s something that I don’t understand.”
Li Yao said, “Why did you create Nepenthe independently at the beginning, instead of directly joining the Covenant Alliance? As far as I know, a lot of agents of the Covenant Alliance are active in the underground worlds below the capital, aren’t they?
“Was it only because the Serenity Seraph was strong and powerful? Or was it because you thought that the ‘Path of Ultimate Benevolence’ of the Covenant Alliance was too extreme, too cold, and too devastating?
“However, the thing about executing inner devils is that it will never succeed. It will only deprive you of your humanity and make you more and more extreme until you become simple tools like the people of the Covenant Alliance.
“Grand Guardian Xu, there is still time to turn back. Just call it off!”
Lowering his head, Xu Zhicheng was silent for a long time, before he finally said sullenly, “But only the Serenity Arts and the methods of telepathy can help us eliminate the dread when we are faced with the Immortal Cultivators, so we can fight the Immortal Cultivators fearlessly! We’ve already had enough of everything, and we are determined to fight a bloody battle!”
“Wrong. You are not fighting at all but fleeing!”
Li Yao’s voice became both cold and tough. He said straightforwardly, “You are only trying to use a great suicide attack to flee from this dark world and the real battles!”
