But Lingyu merely looked with some curiosity at these mortals who were trying their hardest to survive. “So why don’t they kill those officials who embezzled the food? If they kill the officials guarding the grains and rob the granary, then they can survive this drought.”
Dao Zu asked, “Don’t you want to help them?”
Lingyu shook his head. “Old age, death, illness, and the seven emotions and six hardships are all tests from Heaven. What if Heaven had ordained that, due to their actions in the past life, someone among these people must experience starvation and suffering in this life in order to regain their Dao body after death? Besides, I don’t know these people. Why would I save them?”
Dao Zu asked, “Don’t you think they’re pitiful?”
Lingyu smiled. “There are countless pitiful people in this world. The Demon Realm is far more terrifying than this place. These people are only hungry, but for many demons in the Demon Realm, dying is better than living. Master, you know that sparrow spirits are scarce in the Demon Realm. Then, do you know where those few sparrow spirits come from, and who mines them?”
Dao Zu naturally didn’t know.
Lingyu continued, “The largest sparrow spirit mines in the Demon Realm are all near the Ghost Realm and Hell. Above them are sheer cliffs and precipitous rock faces, while below them are flaming lava. If they fall down, then not even bones will remain. The sparrow mines are all on these cliffsides. Before I was thrown into the Seventh Region, I served as a mining slave many times in order to survive. I nearly fell down several times and almost never climbed up again. Compared with that, who’s more wretched?”
In the end, Dao Zu failed to convince Lingyu and couldn’t make him experience the feeling of sympathy.
Dao Zu watched and grieved throughout their entire journey. Finally, he couldn’t help but use a Daoist technique to call down the rain, revitalizing the land that had been dried up for three years.
Even until the end, Dao Zu could never make Lingyu understand the meaning of kindness and compassion. After all, demons lacked these things from the moment they were born. These qualities only belonged to humans — a race loved by the Dao of Heaven.
“Even until I died, I never understood those emotions that Dao Zu mentioned.” When Yan Tianhen recalled the past, he smiled wistfully and spread his hands somewhat helplessly. “After all, no matter who ruled this world, it had little to do with me. So what if all of humanity dies out? So what if demons die out? I didn’t have such a strong sense of responsibility. I wouldn’t shoulder the burden of morality.”
“But you’ve indeed changed a great deal,” Longyao replied.
“Perhaps.” Yan Tianhen said, “After all, I’m half-human now. Moreover, I’ve already obtained my love. The more I have, the more I’ll cherish this hard-won happiness, the less I’ll be willing to see this world go wrong, and the more I hope that everyone will be well. This is probably the ‘compassion’ that Dao Zu talked about back then.”
Longyao looked surprised. “You obtained your love? Who did something so wicked and evil in their last life — worthy of being struck by Heavenly lightning — that they would actually be punished by being your partner in this life?”
Yan Tianhen’s expression suddenly darkened, and he said darkly, “I think you’re just itching for a beating.”
Longyao showed a sincere smile.
Yan Tianhen rolled his eyes. “I’m too lazy to argue with you. Just say it. Is there any other method besides having my Shixiong guard this Dragon Tomb in your place?”
Longyao said carelessly, “How can there be good things in this world where you can kill two birds with one stone? Back then, didn’t even Dao Zu have to sacrifice a disciple in exchange for the peace of the Nine Lands? To put it bluntly, this Dragon Tomb was first built by you and me in order to suck all those evil spirits inside so that we can then suppress and seal them. If we don’t count those evil Qi cultivators that we can’t beat, even if we work together, then this Dragon Tomb is actually the most dangerous place in the Nine Lands. If anything happens to this place, countless evil spirits will see the light of day again and spread all over the Nine Lands. I can afford to gamble on this, but the question is: can you?”
Can Yan Tianhen afford to gamble on this? Of course he can’t.
Otherwise, ten thousand years ago, he wouldn’t have racked his brains and forced Longyao to make an oath with him to suppress these evil spirits using his true form as a real dragon. These were millions of evil spirits ah. Even if their cultivations weren’t that high, ants could still bite an elephant to death. If the Dragon Tomb’s seal breaks, then the entire Nine Lands will fall into a terrible situation.
Yan Tianhen felt waves of coldness strike his heart.
Longyao looked at him with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, then looked at Zhan Fengting, who was standing next to him.
The former Lingyu lacked any compassion. Besides his concern towards Chang Sheng, he didn’t have any other feelings. That was the reason Lingyu could bluntly put forward the request that Longyao lay down his life and guard the Dragon Tomb for ten thousand years.
But now, Zhan Fengting was his martial brother, and he had also gained a human’s emotions. Can the current Yan Tianhen still do something like sacrifice a single person for the stability of the entire world?
However, although Yan Tianhen couldn’t do it, someone else could.
Zhan Fengting, who had remained silent for a long time, asked, “If I take over Ancestor’s position, can this Dragon Tomb remain sealed for at least a hundred or a thousand more years?”
Longyao raised an eyebrow. “Precisely. Your true form is already that of a real dragon, and ever since a long time ago, you already had all the cultivation that this fragment of my soul contains. Guarding a mere Dragon Tomb Holy Land is naturally nothing. Besides, this time and space don’t completely belong to the Nine Lands. I’ll tell you a way to finish this once and for all. Just perish together with this small world. When that happens, the millions of sealed evil spirits will disappear into time and space together with you, never to appear again.”
“Fuck your bullshit!” Yan Tianhen pointed to Longyao’s nose and cursed, “Are you still speaking the human language? Why don’t you choose the method that will finish this once and for all? You’re simply disrespectful as an elder!”
“What are you angry at?” Even though a torrent of abuse rained down on Longyao, he didn’t get angry and instead smiled. “I just mentioned it casually. It’s not like he has to do this.”
Zhan Fengting hesitated. “Can I think about it?”
Yan Tianhen immediately responded, “What’s there to think about? What’s worth thinking about? You must know that guarding this place means you can’t go out all your life. That’s a great sacrifice. I won’t allow you to do that!”
Longyao asked, “What, only you’re allowed to be a nameless hero, but others aren’t allowed to leave their names in history?”
Yan Tianhen sneered. “This chance to be a hero — whoever wants it can take it. Anyhow, I won’t let the people around me make such sacrifices. What’s more, back then, I was alone from beginning to end. But now, doesn’t Zhan Shixiong have to think about Hai Shixiong before you make a decision? You’ve already lied to him once. If you leave him again, he will never forgive you in this life.”
Zhan Fengting hesitated for a moment, furrowing his brows into a knot as he fell into a difficult dilemma.
I naturally don’t want to be the person who has to sacrifice so much, but don’t tell me that I won’t have to if I don’t want to?
Moreover, the evil spirit catastrophe was coming. If nobody took over the position of Dragon God, then once the Dragon Tomb collapses and evil spirits escape, the entire North Land will be the first to fall into danger.
If that happens, will the person I want to protect live a precarious and miserable life, doomed to always wander the land?
“It’s truly difficult to decide certain matters in this world,” Zhan Fengting sighed.
“I once thought,” Yan Tianhen’s voice rose slowly and echoed in the empty Dragon Tomb Holy Land, “there are millions and billions of people in this world. Among them, there must be true cultivators and true powerhouses, but why must the people sacrificed be me or those around me? I didn’t have the ability to choose back then and could only accept it. But now, things haven’t reached that irreparable step yet. I will never watch someone I care about make that ridiculous sacrifice again.”
When Longyao heard this, he spread his hands and shrugged. “Alright, alright. If you don’t want to guard it, then don’t. In any case, these things wouldn’t be able to escape so easily, not unless someone with high cultivation intentionally breaks the seal. I’ll pass the sealing technique to you for the time being, so that you can crush the restless evil spirits here again.”
Zhan Fengting sighed in relief.
He stepped forward and stood beside Longyao, then sat down across from him, cross-legged. Longyao merely pressed the center of Zhan Fengting’s forehead with a finger. Without moving, spiritual power traveled to Zhan Fengting’s body through the fingertip and into his forehead.
It took some time to learn the sealing technique. Yan Tianhen watched from the side and also felt relieved.
It looked like Longyao’s words just now were spoken to test Zhan Fengting’s mind. How can the Dragon Tomb’s seal be so easily broken?
Longyao managed to suppress millions of evil spirits for ten thousand years with nothing more than a sliver of his soul, as well as space magic and arrays. The reason that those evil spirits left the array was probably because this shard of Longyao’s soul had already exhausted all his power, so he couldn’t even perform the spell again. That was why he needed to find an heir to perform the technique to seal the Dragon Tomb again.
After watching for a moment, Yan Tianhen felt a little bored.
He didn’t know much about sealing. This was the blind spot in his cultivation knowledge. He looked at Longyao teaching each lesson and found it quite boring, so he simply toured the burial site and gazed at the scenery. He felt that the scenery here was quite beautiful.
The jade belts overlapped and fluttered, just like a girl’s skirt. The folds on the skirt were scattered in all directions of the Dragon Tomb Holy Land. The river water was a clear azure, which made people feel happy.
Just when Yan Tianhen was gazing at a dragon skeleton in fascination, there was suddenly a movement behind him. He reacted very quickly and pulled out the Yin Flame Whip. He turned, jumped up, and attacked at the same time, wrapping his whip around a similarly soft whip.
Yan Tianhen landed on the spine of that dragon’s skeleton. A strand of his hair had been cut from the back.
He looked at that intruder who had just launched a sneak attack on him and narrowed his eyes. “Lord Yuxu, why aren’t you helping others resist the enemy in the desert? Why did you come here instead?”
A black veil still covered Lord Yuxu’s face, but his pair of eyes glowed purple.
There were indeed people in the world whose eyes were purple, but most of them were monsters who transformed into humans. For humans, purple eyes represented inauspicious things, to a certain extent. However, for Yan Tianhen, the only thing purple eyes represented was an evil Qi cultivator.
Lord Yuxu smiled softly. He narrowed his eyes and sized up Yan Tianhen. “Prince Ye, I really have underestimated you, from beginning to end. I once thought that Lin Xuanzhi was the true reincarnation of a great powerhouse, but unexpectedly, you’re also the same.”
Yan Tianhen narrowed his eyes. “Who exactly are you? Why do you pretend to be Youshan Lingyu?”
Lord Yuxu said, “You even know who this face of mine represents. Looks like you’re also a powerful character in the previous life. But just who would the past life’s Chang Sheng like? Lian Hua? But you don’t seem like him. Are you Xi He, the Jianmu tree? That’s more likely. After all, Xi He always liked to follow Shixiong around.”
