Hell, Sea of Blood.
A streak of jade-green flame shot across the sky. The high temperature instantly evaporated the monstrous waves into white steam, forming a magnificent, haloed ribbon of light.
Then, the end of the light ribbon was blasted open by a long, pure cyan arrow. The arrowhead cut through the wind and waves like a meteor, instantly knocking Maha, at the other end of the sky, away!
The phoenix flew across the sky, its speed so fast it was almost a blur. It then grabbed Maha with one hand and, against the swirling air currents, forcefully pushed him down. The two figures plummeted from the sky and crashed into the Sea of Blood with a boom!
Zhou Hui followed close behind. The seawater, as if alive, parted from Maha’s sides and receded. Chu He pressed one hand firmly on his chest, and they fell rapidly through the magnificent walls of water to the seabed, landing with a boom on a flat, exposed piece of ground deep at the bottom of the sea.
Without a second thought, Zhou Hui charged down, but then he heard Chu He shout sternly, “Don’t come over!”
“You…”
“Don’t come over,” Chu He said faintly. He knelt on the ground, looking directly at Maha at his feet. “…This is between me and Da Mao.”
Zhou Hui hesitated and stopped.
Under the immense pressure of the two great Wisdom Kings’ divine power, all the demonic creatures in the Sea of Blood quickly fled into the distance. The seawater was pushed to the sides by an invisible, immense force, forming an endless, spectacular, and empty wall of water.
Maha lay motionless on the ground and said coldly, “Zhou Hui wants to kill me, Mother.”
Chu He said softly, “He doesn’t.”
“Why are you indifferent when he tries to kill me, but stop me when I fight back?”
“He doesn’t really want to kill you.”
Maha’s eyes moved, finally looking at the phoenix.
The Peacock King’s face was very similar to his mother’s, but even a silhouette could reveal a clear difference. Maha’s eyes were slightly upturned, his eyelashes always habitually narrowed, making him look sharp and a bit neurotic. His movements were always casual, and his tone was always laced with sarcasm when he spoke. Even when he said and did nothing, just sitting there carelessly, he was surrounded by an aura of violence that radiated from within.
Only when facing the phoenix would this agitated feeling of his slightly subside.
“He may have had the thought, but he never actually acted on it.” Chu He paused and said, “So I hope your thoughts are just thoughts… Some things cannot be changed, but it’s best not to act on them for a lifetime.”
Maha said sarcastically, “I thought you were always committed to restoring harmony to this family. So you admit that some things cannot be changed?”
Chu He was silent for a moment.
“It’s my fault,” he said after a while. “It was because I tried to change things that were meant to be from the beginning that led to today’s outcome.”
He let go of Maha and sat down on the ground, casually resting his hands on his bent knees, looking at the immense wall of water in the distance.
The tense atmosphere suddenly disappeared, and Maha felt a little uncomfortable. He lay on the ground blinking for a while before slowly sitting up in front of Chu He, watching his mother warily.
“…What do you want to say?”
“When you were undergoing the heavenly punishment,” Chu He said slowly, “I also thought Zhou Hui really wanted you to die.”
Maha was taken aback.
“That was the time I hated Zhou Hui the most in my life. I felt that he should have saved you, but he stood by and did nothing, and even prevented me from taking the heavenly punishment for you… In a way, he was the executioner who wanted to kill you. Because of this, my anger and hatred for him reached an unprecedented level. I even thought about breaking up, even the Snow Mountain Goddess back then on the thirty-third heaven…”
Maha listened intently, but Chu He suddenly stopped.
—Even the Snow Mountain Goddess back then did not ignite such a clear and deep resentment in me.
But he did not say this out loud in front of Maha.
“But as time went by… I slowly realized that my anger toward Zhou Hui actually stemmed more from transference and self-deception. During the hundreds of years you were sealed in the stone grotto under H City, the one I truly resented was myself—the me who couldn’t protect you, who could only watch as my own child fell into a predicament…”
“It’s not like that at all!” Maha retorted abruptly. “It has nothing to do with you! If it weren’t for you since I was young—”
“It is like that.” The phoenix interrupted him calmly. “I made too many wrong decisions in raising you. It was because I couldn’t face the fact that I had harmed my own child that I transferred all my resentment to Zhou Hui. ‘Why didn’t you help Maha? Why did you stop me from taking the heavenly punishment for Maha?’—Actually, deep down, I knew that if I had taken your place from the first bolt of lightning, I would have had my soul scattered before the final blow, and Zhou Hui’s fate would not have been any better.”
Maha was silent for a long time.
“And Zhou Hui’s decision was not wrong. Rather than saying he chose to sacrifice you, it’s more like he chose to bear the price of being resented in order to save me…”
The phoenix’s tone paused with a slight complexity.
“Many years ago, I thought that children were the most important, that you and Jia Louluo, connected by blood, were the least likely to abandon each other. But as the years passed, I gradually realized that this was a very selfish idea. To determine supreme importance based solely on bloodline, where does that leave the sincere feelings and love of others?”
“In a long life, you will always find someone who connects with your heart. You give him your feelings, and you can also ask him to accompany you with the same feelings until the end of your life. However, this person will not be your offspring. Children do not have the responsibility to bear their parents’ excessive emotional needs, and parents do not have the obligation to sacrifice everything for their children. Zhou Hui understood this from the beginning, but I only realized it at the last moment.”
“…I understand what you mean.” Maha took a breath and said in a low, hoarse voice, “But I still don’t want to change my mind…”
He sat cross-legged, his slender, fair fingers resting on his ankles, his gaze fixed on the ground, his long silver hair flowing down one side of his face.
Chu He looked at him.
When Maha was still a little peacock, he used to sit cross-legged like this, playing with his feathers intently in a corner by himself.
At that time, he was suffering from nightmares, confused between terrifying illusions and reality every day, manic, restless, and neurotic. Only when he was alone would he quiet down a bit.
“It’s okay,” Chu He sighed after a while.
“…”
“I just wanted to explain your father’s actions during the heavenly punishment to you… but you’re right, some things can’t be changed.”
They sat opposite each other, the sound of the sea waves coming from under the dark sky in the distance.
“Let’s discuss something,” Chu He said suddenly.
Maha looked up.
“Zhou Hui’s lifespan as a demon of hell is limited. I estimate he has this many years left.” Chu He made a gesture with his fingers. “Your symptoms of the five decays of a celestial being are alleviated in the Sea of Blood, so you should have no problem lasting until then.”
“Are you saying I can deal the final blow before he dies?” Maha asked without much hope.
“No. I mean, if you only travel between the divine and demonic realms from now on and don’t invade the human realm, after Zhou Hui dies, I will give you my divinity.”
Chu He’s expression was very calm, and his speech didn’t even pause, sounding no different from “be good from now on” or “my inheritance will be yours anyway.”
But to Maha’s ears, these words were like a bomb, stunning him on the spot.
“…You’re not kidding?”
Chu He nodded very seriously and said, “I’m not.”
Maha’s lips tightened, his face a little pale as he stared at his mother in disbelief.
Before the phoenix ascended to the Formless Heaven to slay the Buddha, he had said the same thing, but in the context of that time, Maha had taken it as a joke.
This was completely beyond his comprehension. He could never imagine that one day it would actually happen!
Not far behind him, Zhou Hui had been squatting on the ground drawing circles with a blade of grass. His movements suddenly paused.
“…I thought…” Maha’s voice was unsteady, and if you listened closely, the end of his words trembled a little. “I thought you would go and snatch a divinity for father… or something…”
“Are divinities cabbages that you can just snatch whenever you want?” Chu He retorted. “Besides, there are too few divinities that are compatible with hell demons. We can’t go on a killing spree in the Asura tribe, can we? Or should we go rob Jia Louluo?”
Maha was speechless, feeling only absurdity. “But if that’s the case, your life will also soon…”
“I know. But that’s how things are. There is no path that leads to a perfect ending for everyone.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and Chu He smiled slightly.
“Maha, for divine beings like you and me, our lives are almost as long as the heavens and the earth. Therefore, all our choices are destined to be transient passersby in our lives. It’s like an innkeeper watching travelers come and go. One day, you will meet someone who makes you want to close the shop, pack your bags, and go on the road with him.”
“For me, your father was originally only going to occupy a certain period of my life. But for him, I occupy an infinitely large portion of his limited life. This itself is an unfair game. I just want to change this inequality.”
Maha’s head was buzzing. He instinctively wanted to argue, but Chu He had already stood up.
“Alright, stop causing trouble in the human realm and stay乖乖in the Sea of Blood—this sword in your hand is Susanoo’s Kusanagi. He was indeed banished by his father after birth because he missed his mother too much. But his mother was already dead then, and I’m not dead yet, so you’d better not cause too much trouble.”
“…” Maha said awkwardly, “It’s not just because of this sword that I…”
Chu He raised his hand and patted his head.
Although the gesture was condescending, his voice was very gentle. “You will find someone to accompany you in place of your parents. Only this person can accompany you to the end. My way of thinking was wrong before, but it won’t be from now on.”
Chu He turned around, walked through the towering wall of water, and went toward Zhou Hui on the other side of the Sea of Blood.
Maha watched him from behind. In that instant, the violence and restlessness surrounding the Peacock King seemed to fade away, leaving only a dazed and empty look in his eyes.
Zhou Hui stood up, and Chu He walked up to him.
“Let’s go back. It’s not over there yet.”
Zhou Hui nodded, a thoughtful look on his face, the blade of grass still in his mouth.
Chu He pretended not to see and walked toward the continuous Iron Wheel Mountains under the gray sky in the distance. Zhou Hui followed behind him step by step. After a long while, he finally spoke hesitantly, “Um, if one day…”
“Hm?”
“…I die…”
Chu He looked straight ahead, his expression unchanged.
Zhou Hui’s tongue suddenly got tied, and the words that came out were, “Where do you think is a good place to bury me?”
“…” Chu He was silent for a moment, then said slowly, “Mount Buzhou.”
“Why?”
“It’s big enough to bury both of us.”
The wind blew toward him, instantly lifting his hair and clothes, reflecting in Zhou Hui’s deep eyes.
Without looking back, Chu He reached back and pulled Zhou Hui’s hand. Their fingers intertwined, palms touching. Zhou Hui quickened his pace to walk beside him. Not far away, in the sky above the Iron Wheel Mountains, a resplendent spacetime passage slowly opened, and the pure white body of the Human Realm Stele flashed from within the wide passage.
That was the entrance for the newly deceased souls from the human realm to enter hell.
From there, they could return to the human realm, the place they came from.
“Hey,” Zhou Hui said, his eyes fixed on the sky. “About Shakti, I actually have something to say…”
Chu He said flatly, “Don’t.”
“No, no, these words have been on my mind for a long time. Did you know she’s a demon now? Actually, she’s much better after becoming a demon and letting herself go. She was really too pretentious back then. It’s not that I’m the type to gossip behind people’s backs, and I don’t want to keep bringing up my own stupid past, but if you mind…”
“I don’t mind.”
“No, no, it’s okay if you mind. What I want to say is that everything has a process of development, just like how Shakti went from being pretentious for thousands of years to letting herself go. Back then, I was just a newly transformed demon beast with a bit of intelligence, often stuck in my own head. Looking back now, I should have waited until I was more mature before looking for you, but I was hot-headed and… sometimes I do stupid things…”
“Stop talking,” Chu He said, unable to bear it any longer. “I didn’t care about her as a person back then, okay!”
Zhou Hui stared at him, his face set in a look of grim determination.
“I was just worried that you would be like Sakyamuni!” Chu He said. “I was already starting to doubt him back then. I was afraid you would be like him, with two faces! I never cared about the Snow Mountain Goddess herself. If I was really bothered, any kind of goddess would have died a thousand times over. It would have been more than just burning down her house. So what you want to explain is not important at all. I will find the answers I care about from other, more aspects, understand?”
Zhou Hui looked at him skeptically. After a moment, he asked, “…Then what was the fear you saw in Shakti’s mirror back then?”
“It was you slaughtering Maha and making peacock stew,” Chu He said casually.
Just as Zhou Hui was about to mercilessly expose his lie, he suddenly saw Chu He standing on the mountainside, squinting up. “Hey?”
“Don’t you try to change—”
“No,” Chu He pointed to the spacetime tunnel in mid-air and asked, stunned, “Isn’t that little brother Yan?”
Zhou Hui’s only reaction was, “Don’t you dare try to change the subject,” but then he looked back and was also stunned.
A torrent of millions of souls was flowing through the Human Realm Stele, pouring from the spacetime tunnel into hell. In the gray, translucent stream, one soul shone brightly, like a tiny star in a huge school of fish. On closer inspection, it was because a pentagram was flashing in this soul’s chest, its light slowly dimming at a visible rate.
—It was, astoundingly, Yan Lanyu’s Yang-World Soul.
“Wait!” Zhou Hui said abruptly. “And Old Yu!”
Chu He looked closely and saw Yan Lanyu’s soul facing the human realm, as if reluctant to leave. And not far in front of him, another gray, transparent soul was pushing through the torrent, desperately reaching for him. It was Yu Jingzhong!
“—Grab them!” Zhou Hui was instantly furious. “What the hell happened? Why are both of their souls floating to hell?!”
Chu He leaped up and followed Zhou Hui, the brilliant Buddhist light of the Phoenix Wisdom King erupting from his side. Wherever the light reached, countless souls immediately ascended, fluttering away from the shackles of the hell realm and scattering toward the human realm and the thirty-three heavens.
For a moment, hell was filled with souls. In mid-air, Yan Lanyu’s Yang-World Soul was also about to disperse, but Chu He grabbed it. The illusory soul was held in his palm as if it were solid. He looked back and saw that Zhou Hui had also caught Yu Jingzhong not far away and had plunged his five fingers directly into the soul’s head with a slap.
“How the hell did you get here?! Are you dead? How did you die?!”
Yu Jingzhong’s soul was shaken back and forth. He stared blankly at Zhou Hui, clearly showing signs of about to dissipate.
“Back to the human realm!” Chu He made a decisive decision, flew over, grabbed Zhou Hui, and dragged him directly into the spacetime tunnel. “Their bodies are not completely dead yet! If we go back now, they can still be saved!”
Zhou Hui grabbed Chu He back. The two of them, each holding the souls of Deputy Chief Yu and Yan Lanyu, were sucked into the spacetime tunnel by the reverse force with a whoosh.
The next second, on Mount Ise in the human realm, Zhou Hui and Chu He both fell with a “thud!” onto the rugged ground.
Zhou Hui, who was on the bottom, climbed up, covered in dust. He saw a huge pit in front of him. Yan Lanyu’s body lay quietly at the bottom of the pit. Yu Jingzhong was slumped beside him, one hand holding his, the other still in a climbing posture, clearly trying to escape with Yan Lanyu until the very last moment.
This posture was actually so tragic it was a bit absurd. Zhou Hui looked back at Yu Jingzhong’s wooden, dazed soul, and his anger flared up. He immediately dragged him down into the pit and, without a second thought, kicked the soul hard back into Deputy Chief Yu’s body!
Buzz—a metallic ringing sound echoed for a long time as the soul entered the body.
Then Yu Jingzhong’s fingers twitched, and then twitched again. His whole body suddenly convulsed. He arched his back, clutching his chest, and let out a series of violent, distorted coughs!
“Cough cough cough cough, cough cough cough!…”
Yu Jingzhong trembled as he tried to get up, but the world spun, and he fell down again with a thud. After falling like this two or three times, Zhou Hui finally took pity on him and grabbed him by the back of his collar, lifting the extremely battered Yu Jingzhong up from the ground.
“Yan… cough cough! Yan Lanyu… he… cough cough cough!…”
Zhou Hui slapped him on the head. “How old are you, still playing the star-crossed lovers’ suicide game! Isn’t that Yan Lanyu?!”
Deputy Chief Yu gasped for breath. It took him a long time to stop the coughs that almost broke his ribs. He barely managed to look up.
The Yang-World Soul was floating above Yan Lanyu’s body—it was now just an ordinary translucent soul, the brilliance of the pentagram completely gone.
And Chu He was kneeling on one knee beside him, murmuring something, one hand pressed over the Yang-World Soul’s heart.
His palm seemed to be covered in a warm halo of light that completely enveloped the soul. After a few minutes, he gently and irresistibly pushed it back into Yan Lanyu’s already cold body.
Deputy Chief Yu scrambled over. “Lanyu!”
The halo had not yet completely dissipated. A faint touch of color seemed to appear on Yan Lanyu’s pale cheeks. Yu Jingzhong gripped his hand tightly and suddenly felt a touch at his fingertips.
—It was the pulse from his wrist.
Yan Lanyu slowly opened his eyes. After a few seconds, his dilated pupils gradually focused and turned to Yu Jingzhong.
“…”
His lips moved slightly, but no sound came out. After a long moment, a weary smile appeared on his face.
Yu Jingzhong let out a long sigh of relief, as if a heavy burden had finally been lifted. His body swayed a few times, and he could no longer support himself, collapsing softly to the ground with a thud.
