Gu Luolin couldn’t quite follow what was happening.
Ye Zichen and the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch had already shed all pretenses of cordiality, and what followed should have been a bitter struggle that only one of them survived. They could only leave by stepping over the other’s corpse.
And yet, the hostile atmosphere had mellowed once more.
Neither was in a hurry to attack. They simply spoke, seemingly at ease.
Gu Luolin truly didn’t understand why they were acting like this. Her seniors had always killed decisively. Who had the time to waste chatting? If you could attack, you might as well do so quickly and be done with it.
The clan rules were like that too; if you didn’t like someone, you went and hit them.
If you won, the clan not only wouldn’t punish you, but they might even reward you.
Just now, she’d prepared to help Ye Zichen face their common foe several times, yet even after all this time, he didn’t attack! Gu Luolin was getting frantic!
Who pitied who? Who lamented what? All that talk about pity, but which of them pitied her?
Her big eyes flashed with impatience, and she pursed her lips, but she dared not speak. Although neither of them had attacked, she could sense the still-explosive atmosphere between them.
All they needed now was for someone to set the fuse and detonate this fragile peace.
Set them off, and they’d probably attack!
“Star Master Ye…” The Thousand-Faced Yao Sovereign’s eyes carried a hint of a smile. Even when Ye Zichen announced that he pitied him, the Yao Sovereign grinned; the very thought was ridiculous.
But although he smiled, in an instant, his expression changed. He was now reminiscent of a venomous snake, his piercingly-cold gaze terrifying to behold.
“You can pity me if you want, but the dead have nothing to do with me. All I can say is, they were stupid. If they’d been clever enough to see through my facade, as you were, they wouldn’t have died. Don’t think too highly of them either; they died, but that was because they were greedy.”
Ye Zichen didn’t know what the dead had been through in life, but based on the Thousand-Faced Yao Sovereign’s words, they’d likely passed the point of no return in pursuit of some sort of temptation.
But none of that was important. They were already dead. What good would debating their merits do?
The Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch’s eyes flashed with an even more vicious, sinister glint. His neck rotated, making several full circles, as if it were boneless. When she saw this, Gu Luolin was so scared, she covered her face.
Then, the monarch’s head returned to its usual position, and he laughed diabolically. “You pity me? Star Master Ye, you do know you’re about to die, don’t you? Yet you still have time to pity me? If you want to pity someone, pity yourself. Why is it that, despite being well aware that I was up to something, you were still stupid enough to follow me into this sealed-off room? Pity? Once you’re dead, I’ll appear before the world wearing your face, and while they’re completely off guard, their corpses will become my nourishment!
“I said I pity you, and I do. You…. are a tragic person.” Ye Zichen still wore that pitying expression as he stared at the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch. His eyelids drooped, as if he were a Boddhisatva out to redeem the masses.
Beneath this gaze, the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch felt transparent, as if Ye Zichen saw through him completely.
Those pitch-black eyes seemed to stab right through his heart, as if they were knives. Memories he’d hidden away for so long, they were practically covered in dust, rose unbidden before him.
The Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch didn’t know why, but those eyes made him recall an elder he’d once met when he was young.
At the time, he was just a little snake who’d yet to even take on human form, and the old man was just an ordinary cultivator.
Of course, at the time, he saw the elder as a peerless expert.
He was injured, and the elder offered him shelter, despite knowing full well that he was a cold-blooded snake. The old man treated him like family, almost as if he were his own flesh and blood child.
The elder taught him martial arts and bought him medicines to increase his cultivation.
His savior, practically his adoptive father, had been nothing but good to him. And yet, on one of his medicine-picking expeditions, when he got injured, the snake turned on him without warning and devoured him, draining all of his spiritual power.
When he was ambushed, the look in the old man’s eyes was just like Ye Zichen’s.
Pity mixed with lamentation!
After devouring the old man, the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch took on his appearance, but whenever he saw his reflection in the water, he remembered the look in the elder’s eyes. Eventually, he clawed madly at his own face, then devoured a passerby at random. He never appeared before others using the elder’s face every again.
Tens of thousands of years had passed. Even he thought he’d forgotten…
But now it seemed he remembered clear as day.
“See…. How pitiful you are…?” Ye Zichen sighed, but his eyes bore into the Thousand-faced Yao Monarch like torches. He saw the changes in the monarch’s expression. “I said it already: you’re a tragic figure. It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Shut your mouth!”
“You’ve actually been tormented with regret all this time, wondering why you had to give into your bestial nature and kill the man who was like a father to you, haven’t you? At night, when the world is silent, don’t you think back to your youth, and to your days at the elder’s side, plucking medicines, learning the dao, and practicing martial arts?”
“You…”
The Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch froze.
This was impossible!
His time at the elder’s side was a memory from his youth, back when he was just a little snake, too weak to even take on human form. No one could possibly know about that.
Could Ye Zichen really see into the depths of his heart?
But in an instant, the monarch sealed away his emotions once more.
But then, Ye Zichen laughed. “Even now, you still remember the heroic old man who saved you from the brink of death, don’t you?”
“You’ve said too much, and I’ve given you too much time. And here I thought you’d say something interesting, but it turned out to be nothing but a mountain of nonsense. I’m in no mood to let you ramble on. Go on and die like the others!”
The Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch’s gaze darkened. Then, he willed his domain, which he’d long since spread around Ye Zichen, into action. When it hit, it would obliterate him!
Even if Ye Zichen really could read his innermost thoughts, what if it? Dead men told no tales!
He wasn’t even in the mood to savor Ye Zichen’s shocked expression as his domain killed him. Ye Zichen had touched on his innermost thoughts; even ripping his body into thousands of pieces would do nothing to vent the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch’s hatred.
As for Gu Luolin, Gu Xuande and Qing Li’s daughter…
Her!
He didn’t want to leave her either.
But…
“Yao Monarch, when I said I pitied you, there was another reason for it as well. You’ve taken your victory for granted.”
Something unimaginable had happened; even after willing his domain into action, Ye Zichen stood in place by the pillar, alive and well. He still had a pitying look in his eyes.
Only then did the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch notice, but the domain he’d stretched around Ye Zichen had been peeled away, and it was no longer under his control.
“You’ve arrogantly assumed that I’m nothing but a fish on a chopping block, but think about it: I’ve suspected you all this time. How could I possibly be so stupid as to fall into your net and throw my life away on purpose?”
Ye Zichen narrowed his eyes, but he couldn’t help but sigh. He looked at the monarch and smiled. “You ought to be curious why I know what happened back then. Well, I’ll tell you…”
Ye Zichen took two steps back, then cupped his fist in greeting. “Uncle Lan, I’ll have to trouble you!”
