Chapter 69
Eight months passed like a river flowing over slippery stones—swift, silent, leaving no trace, yet leaving the surface smoother than before.
More prepared to face whatever might come.
During those eight months, Ling Xu and Huan Zheng changed their names seventeen times.
Changed their clothes forty-three times.
Changed the way they walked.
Changed their habits.
Changed everything that could make them recognizable to spies who might still be lurking behind the curtain.
Sometimes they dressed like cloth merchants weary of life, with worn robes and cloth bags hanging from their shoulders.
Walking from one market to another while occasionally shouting offers of silk from distant lands that supposedly would never fade even after being washed a hundred times.
Sometimes they dressed like wanderers who had lost their way, with staffs in hand and provisions on their backs.
Taking shelter beneath an old banyan tree while sharing stories with other drifters about how cruel the world is to those without power.
Sometimes they dressed like lowly servants in the residence of a minor noble, with shabby clothes and faces always lowered.
Cleaning cold marble floors while listening to the whispers of guests who came from all corners of the Second Divine's kingdom.
Guests who never realized that behind the broom he used, there hid a pair of ears that heard every word, every secret, every lie that slipped from the mouths of those who felt safe behind three-meter-thick stone walls.
"From the frontline ranks of the soldiers," Huan Zheng whispered one night, when they sat cross-legged in the attic of an old warehouse long abandoned by its owner, amidst piles of dusty sacks and a stale smell that stung the nose, his voice soft yet clear among the sounds of rats scurrying in the corners and the night wind pushing through the cracks in the walls.
"The puppeteer who wished for the leaders of humanity to initiate the first attack came from the frontline ranks of the soldiers. Not from the nobles who sat on cushioned chairs while drinking wine from crystal glasses. Not from the elders who had spent decades sitting on advisory councils in silk robes and golden crowns. He was one of those who stood on the front lines."
The ninth month arrived under a sky that was never truly clear.
There was always a thin mist hanging on the eastern horizon like remnants of grief that refused to dissipate.
There were always gray clouds drifting slowly like corpses walking in their sleep.
There was always a wind blowing gently yet carrying the scent of metal and blood and something burning.
A scent not unfamiliar to Huan Zheng, for he had inhaled it for thousands of years.
A scent that made him want to yawn, yet strangely also made him want to cry.
Even though he had long forgotten the last time tears had fallen from his lazy, indifferent eyes.
For thirty consecutive nights, he and Ling Xu sat in a dark and damp underground chamber.
In a former military outpost long abandoned after the soldiers who once occupied it died in a minor battle that was never recorded in history.
Their corpses still scattered in the corners of the room because no one cared enough to bury them.
And one by one, patiently, carefully, with a persistence he had never shown anyone because he was too lazy to be persistent, Huan Zheng summoned the soldiers who had once stood on the front lines during the Harmony Conflict.
Not with shouts or spells or complicated rituals.
But with the foundation of his Humanity that had returned after being lost for so long.
With a subtle vibration that spread from his chest across the entire kingdom of the Second Divinity.
A vibration that said.
"Come. I want to ask. I want to know. I want to hear the truth you have hidden behind laughter and wine and stories of victories that were never truly sweet."
Hooooh!!
"They say, Huan Zheng," Ling Xu said one night, after dozens of soldiers had come and gone leaving behind traces of fear lingering in the air like a fog that could not be driven away, her voice soft yet clear in the silent room.
Her eyes—or rather, her third eye, still tightly closed—throbbed faster because she could feel that what she was about to say would change everything.
That there would be no turning back once these words left her mouth.
That she and Huan Zheng would have to be ready to face whatever came next.
Even if it meant confronting two of the three Cultivation Wheels who had once been comrades-in-arms.
Who had once been companions in laughter at a bamboo pavilion at the edge of the universe.
Who had once been the reason Huan Zheng still believed that the world was not entirely cruel.
"They say that besides you—who tended to be passive and almost completely unseen right after the Harmony Conflict ended, who preferred sleeping on an ox cart rather than celebrating victory with wine and laughter and the severed heads of Goddesses—there were two other figures often seen conversing with the leaders of humanity. Not once or twice. Not secretly in hidden chambers beneath the palace. Not through subtle whispers that slipped into ears and poisoned the mind without being restrained by logic or reason. They spoke openly, in grand assembly halls, before guards and servants and anyone who happened to pass by. As if they had no need to hide. As if they felt no guilt. As if what they were doing was right. Was good. Was something to be proud of."
Huan Zheng, upon hearing that, did not respond with words.
He simply remained silent, letting Ling Xu's words sink into his chest like stones dropped into a very deep well.
And in his heart, between the pulses of his Humanity realm that had begun to beat with a different rhythm—no longer calm like the surface of a lake in the morning, but restless like waves forming under a rising storm—he murmured in a voice that no one could hear.
Not even Ling Xu, who had shared death and rebirth with him eleven times.
"The Singer. The Silent One. Two names he could never forget no matter how desperately he tried. Two beings he once called brothers. Two beings he once laughed with in a bamboo pavilion at the edge of the universe. Two beings he once believed would always stand beside him against the world. Until the world itself tore them apart one by one, without mercy, without explanation, without a chance to say goodbye. And now, after so long, after thousands of years had passed, after he had fallen and risen and fallen again, after he met Ling Xu and chose to walk together through blood and fire and tears. He heard that they The Singer with her blazing red hair like embers that refused to die, with her green flute whose melody could crack the sky and split the sea and force a thousand cultivators to kneel without being able to raise their swords. The Silent One with his terrifying stillness, with a presence that made reality tremble like leaves in fear. Were the puppeteers behind the Harmony Conflict. The provocateurs who whispered poison into the ears of humanity's leaders. The executioners who never held swords yet whose hands were drenched in more blood than anyone else."
To be continued…