Chapter 249: "Some People Are Alive, But They've Already Died!"
In the quiet little courtyard, Hai Bo Dong, with a dull expression, opened the novel that Jiang Lin had thrown to him with stiff fingers, not knowing how to describe his emotions.
The novel was mainly about a human Dou Huang with the same name as Hai Bo Dong, who was also ice-attribute. During an exploration of the Tagor Desert ruins, he accidentally encountered a beautiful and gentle snake-woman who had lost her memory.
This snake-woman turned out to be the younger sister of the current Queen Medusa. This was something completely impossible. The elders of the serpent race demanded that Queen Medusa kill her sister, but Queen Medusa couldn't bear to do it, so the snake-woman used forbidden techniques to escape. She was then found by the ice-attribute Dou Huang, who shared the same name. The usually cold and domineering Ice Emperor, for the first time, felt a rare moment of pity for the snake-woman. Later, the Ice Emperor fled with her.
During the escape, the Ice Emperor found himself gradually falling for the snake-woman, who resembled Queen Medusa but was gentler. The Ice Emperor gave her his ring as a token of their love. In order to take the snake-woman with him, the Ice Emperor was willing to fight Queen Medusa, but how could he possibly defeat her?
In the end, to protect the Ice Emperor, the snake-woman sacrificed herself to allow her lover to escape.
"Cold inside and out, you can only be melted by my fiery self." This sentence came from the snake-woman in the novel, directed at the Ice Emperor.
"…"
Silence.
"…"
An unspoken silence.
"Does the Queen Medusa really have a sister?" Hai Bo Dong finished reading the novel and was still deeply caught in his confusion and indecisiveness, staring at the last page of the novel with the beautiful illustration of the snake-woman dying in the hands of the white-haired Ice Emperor. He couldn't shake off the feeling.
After reading this novel, Hai Bo Dong was filled with frustration. He wanted to rush out and beg Queen Medusa for mercy, asking her to spare his life. Right or wrong, success or failure, didn't matter to heroes, but being able to endure and adapt was what made a man! Queen Medusa was too strong to defeat, so Hai Bo Dong could only keep it in his heart.
"I'm not sure, but last time I saw, it seemed to have a companion spirit snake. Unfortunately, it died," Jiang Lin said, referring to the giant sixth-grade serpent Xiao Yan had encountered in Medusa's temple, which was struck by heavenly lightning. It was also the original owner of the fire-type crystal core within Xiao Yan's body. That giant serpent had resisted the heavenly tribulation for Queen Medusa, and Queen Medusa had completed her transformation within it, which, in some way, matched the story of the novel.
"Dead?" Hai Bo Dong blinked in surprise. He had asked casually, not expecting a response. But the news of the sixth-grade beast falling in the Tagor Desert was something he had never heard of before.
"But… does the Refining Master Guild like gossiping about others?" Hai Bo Dong still couldn't understand. He had only disappeared for more than ten years, not dead for decades, so why were there rumors about what had happened between him and the serpent race? Why were there so many people talking behind his back?
"Hmm, the female powerhouses in the top ten of the Gama Empire each have various stories circulating in small circles. Your story just happened to be the one I saw," Jiang Lin said with a pitying look toward Hai Bo Dong. The look in Hai Bo Dong's eyes conveyed a sense of offense, as if Jiang Lin's gaze were an overt and blatant insult.
Some people are alive, but they've already died.
Hai Bo Dong had been hidden for so long that he felt like a ghost. The truth had long ceased to matter to others; people preferred to believe what they saw or what they wanted to believe. And the dead don't speak.
"… Forget it, forget it, let them say whatever they want," Hai Bo Dong sighed, feeling an unnamed fatigue and dejection. Having been sealed for all these years, what kind of frustration had he not endured? It was just that people gossiped about his reputation, causing him to lose his dignity in old age. As long as he regained his strength and returned to his peak, his Dou Huang power would make those bastards understand what true dignity was!
"But how did they know about my battle with Queen Medusa, and why is it tied to them? This novel is written as if the author had seen it all firsthand!" This left Hai Bo Dong puzzled. He looked at the novel in his hands, his eyes filled with anger, but beneath the anger, there was a deep sense of fear. Because the ending of the novel eerily predicted that although Queen Medusa spared the Ice Emperor, she planted a seal on him, ensuring that he would never be able to leave the Tagor Desert.
Not to mention how much of this novel is true, the key parts of it were enough to make Hai Bo Dong feel deep unease. It was as if someone had completely predicted his fate. Even the "mistakes" in the novel seemed to be mocking him, written with arrogance.
Hai Bo Dong wanted to see the author's name, but there was none. Of course, this was perfectly normal. After all, an author who wrote a small book slandering two powerful Dou Huang-level experts would be insane to put their name on it. They wouldn't even leave a pen name because the more you do, the more you get wrong; the less you do, the fewer mistakes you make.
Hai Bo Dong stared at the novel in his hands, feeling a chill run down his spine. The content of the book might be incorrect, but the results aligned perfectly with his life! Hai Bo Dong could leave the Tagor Desert, but to break the seal, he would have to return. Until the seal was lifted, he would always return to the Tagor Desert!
"This…" Jiang Lin's red-golden eyes watched as Hai Bo Dong's face flickered with confusion and fear. It seemed that Jiang Lin could see right through what Hai Bo Dong was feeling, but he didn't reveal it. Instead, he chuckled lightly and said, "The Refining Master Guild has some ties to the serpent race. They probably learned from them that your last battle, before you disappeared, was with Queen Medusa in the Tagor Desert. That's why they think you perished at her hands. Only the Refining Master Guild believes you're still alive."
"Some curious folks then used you as material for their stories in the Gama Empire's local gossip magazines."
As for how Jiang Lin knew about these gossip magazines?
That's a story that starts with his big brother, Yuan Fatzi.
(END CHAPTER)
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