Chapter 80
The Silent One, upon hearing the tremor in The Singer's voice—hearing doubt shatter into certainty, hearing love turn into hatred, hearing thousands of years of searching come to an end in this man-made hell with an answer she had never wanted to hear.
He simply smiled, a smile that was neither warm nor cold, but empty, like a void at the bottom of the ocean untouched by light.
And within that empty smile, for the first time in thousands of years, Huan Zheng saw something he had never seen before in The Silent One.
Not pride, not satisfaction, not victory, but exhaustion—an exhaustion so deep, so ancient, so absolute that he felt the man before him was not an enemy to be killed, but a brother who had lost his way and no longer knew how to return home.
"The Singer," said The Silent One, his voice no longer flat as when he admitted his role as the mastermind, no longer laced with irony as when he mocked Huan Zheng's question about purpose, but gentle—very gentle—like an older brother stroking the hair of his sleeping sibling, like a father carrying a child who had just learned to walk, like someone who had lost everything and did not wish to lose the only thing left.
"You do not need to cry. I do not deserve your tears. I do not deserve your sorrow. I do not deserve anything from you except hatred, anger, and curses, because that is what I deserve after everything I have done."
He shifted his gaze toward Huan Zheng—the lazy man who still stood with his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable, his eyes half-closed yet missing nothing.
Because even though he was lazy, even though he was indifferent, even though he preferred sleeping over fighting, he was Huan Zheng—The Lazy One, the second among the three Wheels of Cultivation—and he would never let his brother leave without answers, no matter how long it took, no matter how much pain he had to endure.
"And you, The Lazy One—you who always yawn at the wrong moments, who sleep atop a cattle cart while snoring, who make The Singer cry every night because you never take her love seriously—I do not know what to say to you. Because you are the only one who has never changed. Lazy, indifferent, never caring about anything except sleeping and eating and occasionally killing enemies if they disturb your rest. And strangely, I envy that. Because you can sleep peacefully without nightmares of death and blood and fire, while I—I cannot sleep at all without hearing whispers that never cease, without seeing shadows that never leave, without feeling a burden that I can never cast off even after carrying it for thousands of years."
The strangely warm yet painful atmosphere—between three brothers who had been separated for thousands of years, who had hated and loved and betrayed and longed for one another all at once, who now stood in this man-made hell among black flames and walls of bone and endless screams, speaking with gentle voices and tear-filled eyes as if no civil war was about to erupt—felt like a blade slowly being driven into Ling Xu's chest.
Not because he did not understand, for he understood too well what it meant to lose a brother and still want to embrace them even after they had become an enemy, but because he could not bear to see Huan Zheng—the man who had died eleven times with him, who had walked beside him through blood and fire and tears—now standing silently with weary eyes fixed on The Silent One, as though he had forgotten that beside him stood a girl who had sacrificed everything for him, who had lost both her eyes for him, who had swallowed entire divine civilizations and turned them into flesh within her stomach for him.
"Enough," said Ling Xu, his voice no longer cold as when he threatened Huan Zheng with eternal departure, no longer rough as when he compared The Singer's saliva to animal filth, but sharp, piercing, like a blade stabbing into the false warmth beginning to form between the long-separated brothers.
With a movement that was unhurried yet filled with certainty—for he was Ling Xu, the manifestation of the Cancer plague, the slayer of gods, the executioner of civilizations he had devoured whole—he stepped forward.
His body, light from having cast away everything he once built and choosing emptiness, now moved like a shadow that could not be followed by the eye, even though his own eyes could no longer see.
He did not need eyes to know that The Silent One was watching him with a cold and calculating gaze, that The Singer was gripping her green flute more tightly because she did not like being interrupted while speaking with her brothers, that Huan Zheng was letting out a long sigh because he knew Ling Xu would not remain silent any longer, that he would have to choose between his old brother and the girl who had died eleven times for him, and he did not know whom to choose.
Because choosing meant losing, and loss was something he had never handled well, because he would rather sleep than face the bitter reality that not everyone can be saved, that not all wounds can heal, that not all betrayals can be forgiven.
"The Silent One," said Ling Xu, and when that name left his lips—no longer pale, now fresh and alive like an ordinary twenty-two-year-old human—the air around them trembled.
The black flames that had begun to fade flared up again with greater intensity, the bone walls that had cracked spread their fractures everywhere, and the endless screams that had once been mere background noise of that man-made hell suddenly turned into shrieks—shrieks filled with fear.
Because they could feel that the Cancer plague dwelling within Ling Xu was awakening, growing hungry, preparing to devour a new prey it had been waiting for ever since it chose Ling Xu as its host in that dark and damp cave.
"You, a thirty-six-year-old man known as a terrifying scourge—who is said to make the entire universe tremble with your mere presence, who is said to need no words because silence is your deadliest weapon, who is said to be older than thousands of stars and colder than death itself—why are you acting like a neglected child?"
To be continued…