Chapter 75

Someone is already translating act wildly apparently, so i accept my fate of wasted efforts :’) i tease something else instead because novels bring me joy

-Helli

Qin Yao could see Gu Yan’s claws digging into his chest, but he could not feel it.

It felt as if many things he could not understand in the past, suddenly became clear in a moment, like a sudden realization, or even enlightenment……For the truth he did not want to believe to suddenly burst out in such a way, he was not the least bit prepared, but he had to accept it.

The reason why the soul gathering spell could not work, why he could not find him no matter what.

Because his soul had not been in this world at all. No matter how powerful an array was, there was no way it could bring back a soul that had fallen into the demon world.

He guarded the last remnant of that shattered soul, step by step, going deeper, sinking into the bottomless abyss……

Right when he was about to give up.

That man he had been missing for a thousand years finally appeared in front of his eyes.

In this form, he appeared right in front of him……

However……Even if this was the case, this was still a good thing.

Qin Yao observed Gu Yan’s face with a look of obsession and a smile broke out from his lips.

This was a smile that revealed the joy from the depths of his heart, and also of his sincere gratefulness.

Thank god, he is safe.

An old widow lived on the barren hill behind Lijia Village.

Widow Zhang was already in her fifties, and she was rumoured to have killed both her spouse and her child, and that she was a mysterious person. And thus, the village people had decided to driver her up the mountains. Due to the harsh life she lived, her appearance degraded to that of a seventy year old woman’s.

Living with Widow Zhang was a child that was said to have been adopted by the widow ten years ago when she decided to end her life at the river.

The child had a condition where both his eyes were of different colours, one lighter than the other. Due to that being believed to be an ominous sign, he had been abandoned at the river. Widow Zhang heard the cries of a child, and at once, she lost her courage to jump into the river, and instead took the child home with her and raised him.

But she could barely even sustain herself, how was she going to raise a child? She could only bring the child to the village and beg for food.

The people in the village had disliked Widow Zhang to begin with, so seeing that she had taken such a child into her care, they scorned her even more, and easily flew into a rage out of their agitation. Even so, Widow Zhang was unafraid. With her shame set aside, she went to each house to kneel, obtaining some leftover rice from one house, and some pig slop from the other. At the very least, she was able to raise this child. She was not good at naming, nor did she know many words, so she just called him Xiao Gui, Xiao Gui, little devil.

The child was a very sturdy one to have survived through all that, and not even once being sick. In the blink of an eye, he had reached the age of five or six. Only due to the fact that he was not very well nourished, he appeared particularly thin and weak.

Since the child had gotten a little older, Widow Zhang did not care much for him anymore, she could not even manage herself. So, she sent the child to the village himself to beg for food.

Due to the child’s condition of heterochromia, just begging for food alone had left him suffering through many hardships, and humiliation. Every time he returned home, he would always be riddled with bruises and scars.

At first, Widow Zhang still felt some dissatisfaction. After all, they were companions living the same life. As time passed, she had also grown numb to this reality.

And though this child would come home with injuries each time, he would always be able to return with a considerable amount of food. At such a young age, he was very smart, so the two were actually able to live a better life than they did before. Widow Zhang was used to sitting around, enjoying the fruits of other people’s labour, so she gradually let everything go, turning a blind eye to everything.

Despite this, the child did not have any complaints either. Perhaps he knew that if not for Widow Zhang, he would have long been dead.

Even if Widow Zhang’s temper grew worse by each passing day, he would endure it even if she scolded him, and beat him. Even though she would abuse him even in his time of illness, he would still accept it each time, not resisting her once.

Perhaps humans were by nature evil, or maybe they were good.

But in the end, everything would be wiped out by reality. Life can always change a normal person completely the other way. They would change the kindness they should have by nature into a thing of luxury.

From then on, he had just about understood this reasoning, and thus he did not garner much hopes for humankind.

Everything he could see in his life was darkness.

In the thirteenth year of the Zhaoyuan calendar, the world suffered a great drought. Due to Emperor Chen Chan’s ignorance and incompetence, he ignored the affairs of his empire, and led to the rise in corruption amongst the greedy officials. life became worse and worse in Lijia Village. At a time where even the very last of their rations were gone, people started to eat whatever they could, such as tree bark, grass roots, and even sand……One day, the idlers in the village could not stand their hunger anymore. Even after going one full circle around the barren hills, they were still unable to find anything they could put inside their mouths. At this time, they saw Widow Zhang who was lying on her bed.

When the child returned, he noticed that the house was completely quiet. The only thing he could see was a large iron pot that had been placed by the door.

On the floor was a pile of bone scraps. Even though they were gnawed clean, you could still faintly tell that these were human bones. He pushed the door open, and a head rolled out. Widow Zhang’s turbid eyes were wide open, and the look on her face was frightening. Perhaps it was too scary, so those men could not stand to eat it in the end.

He knelt down right in front of that head, for a very, very long time.

He had actually managed to get some things home today; he had caught several squirrels, and they would finally be able to eat meat today. But before they could even have that meal, Widow Zhang had already become meat in someone else’s belly.

After that day, he did not go out anymore. Only when night came would he secretly go into the village.

In just a few days, he was able to figure everything out.

Those idlers were able to have a good meal, and how could they ever be people who could keep a secret? It was not known how much they had shown off smugly in private. But this alone was not enough, once one has tasted sugar, they would start to develop a craving. The flavour of human flesh was not bad either, especially how they have been starving or eating tree bark as of late, where would they ever be blessed with the joy of having a meaty meal? But unfortunately, there was only one Widow Zhang. The people in the village were all close, so it would not be a good idea for them to strike.

Several more days passed. When their stomachs started to rumble again, they did not see why making a move against a friend was so bad a thing anymore.

Thus, they cheated the youngest son of their neighbour, and made another pot. From then on, things went out of hand, things would repeat themselves at least once every two days. But they just hid it too well, so the people in the village were all terrified. They all thought that some demons or beasts must have been terrorizing the village, but nobody had ever thought of those men.

After keeping watch on the situation for a month, the child finally figured out their pattern.

But even so, he was still just a child after all, how could he be the opponent of several burly men? Those brawny men may have gotten an addiction in cannibalism, but they were not weak at all. But after some thought, he waited until those men went out to scavenge for food and pretended to have found them out. How could they let this go? This was not something anyone could ever catch them doing. Moreover, they knew this child; wasn’t he that child Widow Zhang adopted? Here comes their next meal.

But this child was way too familiar with the mountains. He had a small body as well, so he was able to crawl into any nooks and crannies. Even after much work, they were still unable to catch him, so they could only return and continue their meal.

As they ate, their mouths started to froth from poison, and they fell.

Turns out this child had poisoned their food after attracting their attention. He had seen animals die from eating a type of poisonous grass, so he secretly gathered some for this purpose.

But this much poison was not enough to kill several brawny men. So, he went out to look for a sharp stone, and killed them one by one with it.

After the deed was done, he returned to his little house in the mountains. He dug a pit, and buried Widow Zhang’s head that had already started to decompose. No matter how he tried to avenge her, he only hoped that she could finally rest in peace. Hopefully she could be reborn into a better life next time.

The bodies of those men were quickly found, and only then did the village people realized that their children have actually been eaten by these animals!

But so what? They still could not be returned to them.

From then on, only a single child lived on that little house on the hill.

He did not go anywhere either, because there was nowhere to go.

Everywhere was the same no matter where he went, there was not a single clean place in this world. So why not just stay here? At least he was familiar with this place.

After some time, he heard that some officers and soldiers had arrived for disaster relief, and brought them some leftover rations that they had not finished. So, he secretly went down to peek, and that was indeed the case. Even though the amount was not much after the rations have been divided up for each household, they were at least able to put the previous days behind them, and was able to barely fill themselves up now.

Anything that was edible had practically been finished by all of them, and you could not find much even if you tried to hunt either.

Finally, the child could no longer endure it, and went down to steal food.

He had stolen from them several times, but he was always very successful and never got caught. Gradually, he ended up putting his guard down, and became careless.

After all, no matter how wise or smart he was, he was no more than a child only ten or so years old.

And so one night, he climbed over the walls of a household in the village, and was surrounded by a group of people. Those people looked at him in anger, so much so they looked almost as if they could not wait to eat his flesh. After countless kicks and fists landed on his body, he figured that he was probably going to die today.

Perhaps his existence was a mistake to begin with, so now God has come to correct his mistake.

The blood that flowed down his forehead blurred his eyes, but suddenly, he saw a man open a path through the group in his despair, and came over to him. The man who wore a set of black cloth boots stood in front of him, and pulled him up.

Then, he saw that man’s face.

That was an extremely good-looking man with a heroic and handsome face, as well as an extraordinary aura. When he stood between these rough villagers, his appearance was almost like that of a god.

The man gave instructions to his subordinates to pass out the rations to the villagers, then after saying that this matter would be handled by way of military law, he took the child away. The villagers did not dare to stop him at all, moreover, there was food, so who would care about a bastard child like that?

The man’s movements were not gentle at all as he hauled the child back as if he was jostling about a bag of goods, throwing him to the floor of the tent. He stood tall, and lowered his eyes to look at him from above:”Why did you steal?”

He responded without even thinking:”I want to live.”

Even though he wanted to live, he was most likely going to die here today. After all, once a thief was caught, he had no other end but death. What’s more, this has been such a ridiculous year……

But unexpectedly, that man laughed. In a free and easy tone, he told him:”Then live.”

Then, he bent over and looked into the child’s eyes,”You have pretty eyes, dazzling. Your name will be Yao then. With my surname, your name will be Qin Yao.”He did not seem to be asking for his input at all throughout this all, he just decided everything on his own. He decided a name for him, decided to let him stay by his side, and decided to give him the right to live.

Because of a single thing he said, he wanted to live.

So live he shall.

This was their first meeting.

Qin Yao was unwilling to look away from Gu Yan’s face for even a moment. Even though Gu Yan looked different now from the past, he could still vaguely see that man from the past. From his eyes, he could see the similarities.

He finally understood, it turns out he has been looking at the same person from the beginning to the end, and the one he loved was also one.

But he was just too much of a fool, and the cloth was pulled over his eyes just because of his appearance.

That was why he was not able to find him early on.

Thinking about everything he had done to him in the past, the times he hurt him, the times he doubted him……Qin Yao wished that all these injuries could be inflicted on him instead. He could not even love him in time, how could he ever bear to hurt him? But still, he had done it.

He could not forgive himself.

Qin Yao took Gu Yan’s hands, and sunk them even deeper into his own chest. Revealing a pale smile, he spoke,”I was wrong, you can hit me however you like……Please don’t be angry with me anymore, okay?”