Ze Tian Ji

Edited by: Michyrr

After losing to Zhou Dufu, the Demon Lord was severely injured and tended to his wounds in Xuelao City for one thousand years. What had he wanted to do with his sudden appearance in Mount Han? What task would cause such an important figure like the Demon Lord to take such an enormous risk? What was on Chen Changsheng’s body? Or what did his existence signify?

This was something that the Elder of Heavenly Secrets could not calculate no matter how he tried. Xu Yourong’s Fated Star Plate also could not calculate this, but she could just ask.

She dared to ask and Chen Changsheng dared to give the answer, even though this was his greatest secret. To her, he had no secrets, let alone the fact that he had already confessed this secret to her in the Mausoleum of Zhou. To be more precise, a part of this secret of his was already in her body.

Chen Changsheng pointed at his own body. He didn’t speak, only mouthing a single word: "Blood."

Xu Yourong understood. Coupled with the records preserved in South Stream Temple on the injuries inflicted on the Demon Lord back then, she completely understood the origin of all this.

"Nanke?" she similarly mouthed.

Chen Changsheng nodded.

Xu Yourong looked at him, her eyes filled with concern.

The Demon Lord knew Chen Changsheng’s secret, which also meant that he could attack Chen Changsheng at any time. He was the continent’s most frightening expert, and to be coldly watched by this sort of expert at every moment, how dark was such a shadow? To live under this sort of shadow, what sort of pressure would one have to bear?

Xu Yourong asked herself, but even though her Dao heart was brightly lit, she found it impossible to imagine how she would respond to this sort of problem. She was very concerned with Chen Changsheng. Even if he never emerged from the capital again and remained under the protection of the Orthodoxy, his mind being under such restrictions would have adverse effects on his cultivation.

On the other hand, Chen Changsheng was not concerned over these problems at all. He had already lived under a similar shadow for quite a few years. What he was even more concerned over was that the secret of his body might be known by even more people. Those words of his senior brother Yu Ren on that night had remained with him always: no one can resist this sort of temptation.

Xu Yourong assured him, "That won’t happen."

Chen Changsheng thought it over and agreed with her view. The Demon Lord would probably keep this secret hidden.

It was just like a treasure submerged in the bottom of a lake. A person that knew of such information would definitely not talk about it wherever they went, but instead slowly and silently refloat it for themselves.

"Did it occur to you that the Demon Lord appearing in Mount Han might have been a plot?"

Xu Yourong seemed to have thought of something as she stared into his eyes and very seriously asked this.

Chen Changsheng, Tang Thirty-Six and Zhexiu had speculated in this direction, but they had failed to find any reasons for it, so he shook his head.

Xu Yourong stared into his eyes and asked, "Where is Principal Shang? Just what does he want to do? And what does His Holiness want to do?"

Chen Changsheng didn’t want to continue this line of questioning, so he fell silent.

Xu Yourong also fell silent.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, she suddenly said, "Let’s tell this matter to the Empress."

Chen Changsheng looked into her eyes, still silent.

Xu Yourong calmly stared back with no intention of yielding. "If this is a plan of His Holiness and Principal Shang, then only the Empress can break it."

Without hesitation, Chen Changsheng replied, "I trust His Holiness."

Xu Yourong replied, "Then Principal Shang?"

Chen Changsheng did not reply. He got up and went to the table to pour himself a cup of tea.

Xu Yourong gazed at his back, a hint of pity flashing through her eyes. "Everyone believes that you are the successor of the Orthodoxy, naturally meant to stand opposed to the Empress, but did you ever think that if you were to change your point of view, the scenery might be completely different?"

Chen Changsheng knew that she was not persuading him on the behalf of the Divine Empress, she was just worried about him, but he could not say anything.

Just as was said in that conversation in the Orthodox Academy between him and Tang Thirty-Six, every person had their own responsibility.

He was an infant drifting on a river that his master had picked up and raised into an adult, educated into a respectable person. After arriving at the capital, he was watched over and nurtured by Archbishop Mei Lisha and received the high regard of the Pope. He had obtained far too many things from the Orthodoxy, so he had to bear the corresponding responsibility. Moreover...

"I don’t trust the Empress," he calmly declared with his back turned to Xu Yourong and a teacup in his hands.

"Why?" Xu Yourong stood up and continued to ask, "Because the Empress is a woman, not a man?"

Chen Changsheng gazed at the cup in his hands as he replied, "No, because she is not a good person."

The matter concerned the throne of the Great Zhou and the inheritance of the Orthodoxy, they discussed powerful figures that had persisted in the world for many years, yet they spoke of ’man’ and ’woman’, ’good’ and ’bad’. If other people were to hear this conversation, they would certainly deride the young man and woman of this conversation as too childish, naive, laughable.

But they spoke with great solemnity.

Xu Yourong knew that Chen Changsheng was just this sort of person.

She herself was this sort of person.

The room became quiet. For a long period, neither person spoke.

This was the first time that the two of them had formally discussed this sort of question. They had never spoken of it before because of their so-called ’factional dispute’.

"To me, the Empress...is just like a mother."

Xu Yourong’s voice rose up once more, rather faint, but dense with emotion.

With regards to the relationship between the Tianhai Divine Empress and Xu Yourong, many people, Chen Changsheng included, could not understand just where this love and trust had arisen from. It was only when the Burning Heaven Sword concealed in Su Li’s letter soared into the sky and clashed with the Wooden Sword Little Phoenix in the night above the capital that everyone knew the true reason: as it turned out, the Divine Empress also possessed the blood of the Heavenly Phoenix. From this aspect, Xu Yourong was her true successor, one that was even more important than her own son.

"But she is not a good person." Chen Changsheng stared into Xu Yourong’s eyes as he calmly and firmly said, "So I will not trust her."

Xu Yourong asked him softly, "What determines what’s good or evil?"

Chen Changsheng replied, "I don’t want to argue with you, and I don’t have a complete grasp on those arguments about good and evil. I only know that she has killed many innocents."

Ever since she took the reins of power several centuries ago, the number of people that had died at the hands of the Tianhai Divine Empress was too great to be counted. There were members of the Imperial clan, members of the Orthodoxy’s conservative faction, greedy and corrupt officials, and lawbreaking criminals, but nobody could deny that in this course of events, she had killed many people that should not have been killed.

"Martial Uncle Su also killed many people. Although only by accident, the number of innocents that died to his sword is also not small."

"Intentionally or unintentionally, that seems to me a very big difference."

"Then what evidence do you have, that you can be so sure that those innocents were intentionally killed by the Empress?"

"Because of Zhou Tong." Chen Changsheng looked into her eyes and said, "Zhou Tong is a man of pure evil. He finds enjoyment in cruelty, interest in tormenting all living things. From the day the Empress began using this man, it became impossible to say that she unintentionally committed evil."

After a moment of silence, Xu Yourong replied, "Do you have to assign all of Zhou Tong’s crimes to the Empress? This is rather unfair."

Chen Changsheng replied, "If the dog’s owner doesn’t tie up their dog and the dog bites someone, it’s certainly the owner’s crime. When using a knife to kill a person, it’s naturally the wielder of the knife that is at fault."

The whole world knew that Zhou Tong was an evil dog raised by the Empress, a sharp knife.

Xu Yourong looked into his eyes, saying, "You’re willing to defend Martial Uncle Su, but you won’t empathize with the Empress. In the end, it’s still prejudice."

Chen Changsheng replied, "Just how many people Senior Su Li killed in the Longevity Sect and Xunyang City, I did not see, but...the slaughters performed by the Empress and Zhou Tong in the capital are all written down in books, and I’ve read those books. I know that those words were all written in blood, very striking."

Silence reigned once more. For a long time, the two did not speak.