Chapter 1914: The Truth (2)
Chapter 1914: The Truth (2)
"Most of the things you guessed are correct except for a couple details here and there, Big Brother Yun Che. For starters, Sister Qingyue did engrave the recordings in the four Illusory Glazed Light Jades, but she was using the Hidden Moon Floating Image Pearls when she performed the act."
Yun Che wasn’t surprised by this at all. "They’re similar to the Illusory Glazed Light Jades in that they can record something without being detected, right?"
The recordings were transferred to the Illusory Glazed Light Jades later on to create the illusion that Shui Meiyin was the one who engraved them.
"In terms of the ability to avoid detection, the Hidden Moon Floating Image Pearl is actually inferior to the Glazed Light Realm’s Illusory Glazed Light Jade. However, she was the Moon God Emperor, and the aura leaking out of the Hidden Moon Floating Image Pearl when it was recording could be subsumed perfectly by her own Moon God aura. For her at least, the Hidden Moon Floating Image Pearl was definitely more undetectable than the Illusory Glazed Light Jade."
"Also, she engraved five recordings in total instead of four."
"Five… it’s the day the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor left the Primal Chaos, right?" Yun Che leaned forward with an obvious note of urgency in his voice.
"Mn." Shui Meiyin nodded. "However… I wasn’t present on the day the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor left, so the recording was unusable."
"Do you have it with you?" Yun Che’s voice grew even more urgent.
The recording was of course useless to them now, but it might’ve been preserved for some other purposes.
The recording was made by Xia Qingyue, so of course she wouldn’t appear in the scenes. Her voice though? That should definitely be in the recording.
Even her voice would be better than nothing…
However, Shui Meiyin shook her head lightly before replying, "Sister Qingyue… destroyed it."
"…" Yun Che’s eyes immediately became filled with disappointment.
"All of the recordings that were copied into the Illusory Glazed Light Jades were processed by Sister Qingyue herself. She made sure to wipe out every scene with me in it, her own voice, and anything else that may expose the deception."
"Then, she destroyed all five Hidden Moon Floating Image Pearls… she didn’t want to leave even the tiniest trace behind."
This meant that Xia Qingyue had decided as soon as that point in time to transfer all of her achievements to Shui Meiyin.
Yun Che desperately needed to know why she was even doing all this, but he forced himself to calm down and let Shui Meiyin continue at her own pace. He didn’t want to miss even a single word.
"I knew how useful these recordings would be for Big Brother Yun Che. If they were revealed to the public at a suitable time, they would help you tremendously be it in terms of reason, standpoint or morale."
"I immediately asked her why she made all these preparations or went so far as to use the precious Hidden Moon Floating Image Pearls to record these moments. I asked her if she noticed some signs that hinted at the tragedy long before it happened."
Back then, the explanation Shui Meiyin gave him was that her Divine Stainless Soul had warned her about some sort of future danger. That was why she had recorded those moments.
The real reason, or rather Qingyue’s reason was…
"She told me it was because the you at the time worried her too much."
"…" A shiver rippled across Yun Che’s eyes.
"She had expected you to return to your usual sharpness after dying in the Star God Realm and being reborn, but not only was that not the case, you became softer than ever before. Bad enough that your killing intent didn’t grow, your edge actually even became duller after the experience."
Yun Che: "…"
"Later on, she found out that you weren’t just reborn on the Blue Pole Star, but you also found Sister Yuechan and the daughter you’d lost for more than a decade."
"When you had lost all of your profound energy and returned to being a cripple, it was your daughter, Wuxin, who sacrificed her own Heretic God talent to revive it…"
"As a result, you became pious toward the heavens, grateful toward fate, hopeful toward the future, and filled with the desire to accompany your daughter and make up for lost time… However, it came at the cost of the one thing you needed the most: your ambition."
"As the successor of the Heretic God and the owner of many precious treasures, complacency is the worst state you can be in."
"…" There were many times Yun Che’s lips had parted as if he wanted to say something. However, he forced them shut because he didn’t want to interrupt Shui Meiyin.
In fact, Xia Qingyue had directly or indirectly mentioned this to him many, many times in the past.
"Did your heart become soft because of your daughter?" she had once said with a hidden sigh in her voice.
Shui Meiyin continued, "Not long after that, the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor broke into the Primal Chaos, but you were able to quell her fury and gain a patron like nothing the universe has ever seen.
"Not only that, you found Jasmine again with the power of the Evil Infant’s Wheel of Myriad Tribulations inside of her. It both filled another hole in your life and net you another powerful patron."
"However, Sister Qingyue said that these were all meaningless because they are ultimately not your own strength. Worse still… their presence completely removed the last vestiges of ambition and sense of crisis inside of you."
Yun Che remembered this clearly as well. At the time, all he thought about was the peaceful life he was going to lead after he returned to the Blue Pole Star with Jasmine. He had thought that his achievements as the "God Child Messiah" and the promise made to him by the Eternal Heaven God Emperor himself were enough to secure his safety.
It wasn’t completely a false misconception. Everyone already knew that he was the Heretic God’s successor and the owner of the Sky Poison Pearl. After the Crimson Calamity, the god emperors and realm kings had also treated him with the greatest reverence. In terms of status at least, he was elevated to their equal or higher.
He was the one and only bearer of a Creation God’s inheritance. It didn’t take a brain to know that it was only a matter of time before he surpassed absolutely everyone in the Primal Chaos.
And therein lay the greatest problem. He wasn’t the great emperor of the Primal Chaos yet at the time. He was just a Divine King.
Take himself for example. If one day he came to know of a greenhorn who would surpass him in reputation the moment their achievements were announced to the world, and would also surpass him in power if given the time to grow…
Even he would do everything in his power to remove them!
He had been oh-so-proud, satisfied, content, at peace with his current self and full of yearning for a bright future at the time… and what a childish, amusing and fragile mindset it was.
"You may have had Sister Jasmine to protect you after the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor was gone, but a god emperor’s ambition can never be predicted, and she had already noticed that Long Bai intended to kill you at the time… Even if that wasn’t the case, what if something happened to Sister Jasmine herself? Who could protect you or her if, say, she suddenly lost control of the Evil Infant one day?"
"If your power proved insufficient on the day it was needed, then Big Brother Yun Che wouldn’t be the only one who’d suffer. The entire Blue Pole Star would suffer as well."
Shui Meiyin then stared into Yun Che’s eyes and repeated exactly what Xia Qingyue had said to her back then:
"He was believing in, and yearning for, the beautiful future with everything he had. Therefore, I must plan and prepare for the worst case scenario as well."
"…" Yun Che gritted his teeth unconsciously. His fingers were clenched almost tight enough to crush his own knees.
"The true devils have never been the devil race which lives within the darkness. Instead, they exist within the depths of every living being’s soul. Therefore, do not be so naive as to expect your kindness to be repaid in turn and never ever underestimate the depths that people can stoop to."
Shui Meiyin paused for a brief moment before continuing, "Big Brother Yun Che, I told you that it was the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor who said this to me, but… it was really Sister Qingyue."
"… continue." His teeth were still clenching completely against his will. He had to take a moment to adjust his breathing before he finally squeezed out the word.
"After Sister Qingyue obtained the World Piercer from the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor and gained full control over it, she began looking for a planet that could act as the Blue Pole Star’s substitute… at the time, neither the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor nor sister Jasmine had left yet."
That was obvious. It had to have taken Xia Qingyue an incredible amount of time to find an inhabited planet that was nearly identical to the Blue Pole Star both in terms of aura and appearance.
At the time, he was looking forward to a peaceful future.
Having no idea that someone was wordlessly doing everything in her power to fill up the abyss that was right beneath his feet.
Yes, the chance of the ground he was standing on collapsing was very small.
But she did it anyway because… deeper than even the abyss was her love for him.
At this point, his fingers had become completely bloodless.
And after all that she had done for me, I killed her…
I… killed… her…
"When did the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor… give Qingyue the World Piercer?" Yun Che asked in the calmest voice he could manage while withholding a pain that felt like it was about to drill out of his chest.
Shui Meiyin answered without hesitation, "Sister Qingyue said that it was the day you implanted the slave imprint in Sister Qianying."
Yun Che exclaimed in shock, "That day…?"
There was no one Xia Qingyue hated more than Qianye Ying’er.
Even before she fell into the Abyss of Nothingness, she had tried everything in her power to kill Qianye Ying’er.
That year, she had driven Qianye Fantian into a corner and forced Qianye Ying’er to submit to her. But despite hating the woman to the bone, and wanting to kill her with her own hands, she had forced her to become Yun Che’s slave instead.
Today, Yun Che understood that it wasn’t just because she wanted to humiliate Qianye Ying’er. It was another one of her measures to protect him… even though she wanted so bad to kill her with her own hands.
"Not long after you planted the slave imprint in Sister Qianying and left the Moon God Realm, the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor herself sought out Sister Qingyue and gave her both the World Piercer and the World-Defying Heaven Manual."
"Why did she do that?" Yun Che asked, "Was it simply because Qingyue could control the World Piercer?"
In terms of the ability to pilot the World Piercer alone, Shui Meiyin’s Divine Stainless Soul was actually much better than Xia Qingyue’s Heart of Snow Glazed Glass.
Also, why did she give Xia Qingyue the World-Defying Heaven Manual when she could’ve just given it to him directly?"
However, Shui Meiyin shook her head and said, "Sister Qingyue didn’t tell me why. She said that it was a secret that mustn’t be spoken, and that the contents would eternally remain between herself… and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor."
Yun Che: "…"
The Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor had left the Primal Chaos, and Xia Qingyue had fallen into the Abyss of Nothingness… so this was one thing he would never know.
"Despite everything she had prepared, Sister Qingyue wanted nothing more than to be proven wrong. She wanted it to be proven that she was just being overly worried and pessimistic…"
"However, Sister Jasmine was attacked from behind the moment the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor left the Primal Chaos, and the worst case scenario she imagined happened faster than she could possibly react to. Even worse, your dark profound energy was exposed as well."
"At the time, almost everyone was standing against you."
"Sister Qingyue could’ve escaped with you using the World Piercer… but she would reveal the fact that she owned a Heavenly Profound Treasure, the entire Moon God Realm would go down with her, and you two would be hunted until the end of time."
"So, Sister Qingyue did the best thing she could think of at the time. She joined your enemies, pretended to sever ties with you on account of you being a devil person, and attempted to ‘kill’ you in the most ruthless manner imaginable."
"Hidden behind the Purple Pylon Divine Sword’s powerful light was none other than the World Piercer itself. She was planning to teleport you away seamlessly right before her power could kill you and create the illusion that you were utterly annihilated…"
"This way, the World Piercer wouldn’t be exposed, the Moon God Realm wouldn’t be implicated, and Big Brother Yun Che will be saved and free to grow as long as you liked because everyone would have thought that you were already dead."
"Naturally, you would find out her intentions immediately after you were teleported to safety, and Sister Qingyue could find you just as quickly since she was the one who teleported you using the World Piercer."
"That should’ve happened… if Sister Qianying hadn’t interrupted at the last possible moment."