Chapter 1931: The Primordial Returns to Slumber
"You... understand now?"
Within Yun Che's soul sea, the voice of the Primordial Divine Will resounded once more, yet it came as if from a bygone era.
"..." For a long time, there was no response. Yun Che's soul sea fell into a dead silence, as though it had ceased to exist.
"As the Fate Vessel, Xia Qingyue will eventually see her own 'essence.' And you, although your cultivation of the Heaven-Defying World Scripture will gradually make you more and more attuned to 'Nothingness,' can never ultimately transcend the Primordial Nothingness. Therefore, the occasional dreams are the utmost limit of what you can glimpse."
"These dreams will only be regarded by you as dreams, never as reality."
In other words, if the Primordial Divine Will had not informed Yun Che of all this, even if he could wield the Void Law to a certain extent, he would never be able to see all the 'truth' on his own.
"When I completed everything back then, I never imagined that I would one day tell you all this in person."
"Even a destiny interfered with to such an extent remains so unpredictable and changeable."
The soul sea remained in a prolonged, deathly stillness.
If all this had happened to someone else, or belonged to legends of the distant ancient past, it would take a long time to digest and lament.
But all this happened to him... This was undoubtedly a fantasy a thousand times more unreal than any dream.
Xia Qingyue... she was actually created...
Created for him...
The day they married was the first time he had ever seen her... and perhaps that was even the first day she had come into this world.
No wonder... she never developed any attachment to Xia Hongyi, and Xia Hongyi could not feel any sorrow at the news of her death. Their father-daughter bond was merely an imposed cognition, the past in their memories was merely a corrected cause and effect. They had never truly been together for even a single day, so how could any father-daughter affection possibly arise?
No wonder... facing Xia Qingyue, whom he had never met before, Yue Wuyai stopped in his tracks for her... It turned out to be a powerful resonance and stirring of bloodline. His unreserved kindness toward her was not because of her 'Glazed Heart,' but stemmed from an instinct engraved in his blood.
No wonder... Jie Tian Mo Di, who had endured a tragic fate, said that Xia Qingyue was the most sorrowful person she had ever met... Her fate was far more than just sorrowful.
No wonder... she finally made that choice, and even in death refused to speak, and could not speak, the reason... And for his sake, she wove an enormous lie, making herself forever a villain deserving of death in his heart.
No wonder... before the graves of Yue Wuyai and Yue Wugou, she wept and murmured that she had harmed them, had harmed Yuanba...
No wonder... on the day she chose to end herself, she wore a large red garment. Because she was born in red... and she would depart in red.
No wonder...
...
So, at the age of sixteen, he really did die...
In his body, any power, any bloodline could coexist without conflict. Even the opposing forces of light and darkness could be wielded simultaneously, astonishing even Jie Tian Mo Di... It turned out that this was the Sacred Body that originally belonged only to the Primordial Divine!
The Evil God's profound veins, the Phoenix, the Desolate God, the Celestial Wolf, the Golden Crow, the Ice Phoenix... and even Hong'er and You Er, all the way to the Life Miracle and Dark Eternal Calamity...
Of the seven Mystic Heaven Supreme Treasures, four were on him, and the Cosmic Thorn was also by his side.
His life had experienced countless twists and turns, and each time a twist was resolved, it was accompanied by tremendous progress or even transformation.
Even back in the Tian Xuan Continent, Mo Li had said more than once that she had never believed in the theory of luck, but during the years she coexisted with Yun Che, she felt he was definitely someone 'blessed with great luck.'
Starting from the age of sixteen, in just twenty years, he became the first true Supreme Emperor in the history of the Divine Realm.
Looking back on his life, the sixteen years before were mediocre, but the short twenty-plus years since the age of sixteen had brought him one opportunity after another that others would not dare to dream of in a thousand lifetimes.
So, there really is such a thing as luck in this world.
So, all of this was driven by an invisible luck.
And the price of this luck...
The price for him standing at this height...
...
"Another matter leaves me even more emotional. In fact, it strikes me as even more bizarre than the experiences you have described over the years."
On the night he returned to Lan Ji Star after becoming Emperor, his father Yun Qinghong looked at the starry sky and let out a wistful sigh: "You... are you really my son?"
"You and I are father and son, connected by blood. No matter how the world changes, this cannot be denied or altered. But..."
"Although I have never come into contact with that world called the 'Divine Realm,' the beings there could reduce an entire Lan Ji Star to ashes with a wave of their hand... Without a doubt, that is an existence I cannot possibly comprehend, a plane I could never reach in my entire life."
"And you, from your first departure to that place until now, it has only been a little over ten years, and yet you have become an emperor who holds everything in the palm of your hand. This makes me wonder... Could I, Yun Qinghong, really have produced such a son?"
"A person's destiny, vision, and limits are often determined by their bloodline and origin. This is a cruel and undeniable fact. And you, my son, are now at a height that I, and even the entire Yun Clan, cannot reach even with all our might looking up. To be honest, over these past two days, my wistfulness has surpassed my pride."
...
Father's lament back then was absolutely correct.
Given his birth and talent, even without the congenital deficiency in his profound veins, even if his life had been smooth sailing until the end, the maximum limit he could have reached would at best be on par with Yun Qinghong.
He was not the chosen one he thought he was, but he was a chosen one in another sense.
Because the Primordial Divine had reincarnated by his side.
His status as the Yun Emperor, his turbulent and splendid life... Behind it all was the sacrifice of the Primordial Divine and the immensely sorrowful life of Xia Qingyue...
That life could not even be called a life.
...
"Why..." Yun Che's voice was hoarse and indistinct, like a groan forced out from the deepest part of his soul: "You are the Primordial Divine, the emperor of the world... in your eyes, even emperors are but humble weeds..."
"Why... would you sacrifice six hundred reincarnations for a crippled mortal like me..."
The Primordial Divine Will spoke calmly: "If the Primordial Divine who was reborn by your side had been any of the previous nine hundred and ninety-nine reincarnations, none of this would have happened."
"As the Primordial Divine, sacrificing one's own Sacred Body to save a mortal, sacrificing six hundred reincarnations, and personally forging a cruel Fate Lock... it is more than absurd."
"But in the thousandth reincarnation, to achieve perfection, the Primordial Divine Will had to go dormant. The Primordial Divine of this reincarnation is Xiao Lingxi, and the new will that arose was the main will. When it awakened from slumber, the Primordial Will that had not completed its fusion became an external will instead."
"No matter how weak the main will is, it must override the unfused Primordial Will. Therefore, I was powerless to resist her obsession."
"What created all this was the Primordial Divine. But what decided it all was a mere fifteen-year-old girl, whose heart was shattered by the grief of losing her beloved."
Yun Che: "..."
"This was a massive unforeseen event I had never anticipated. Perhaps, after overlooking the heavens and the earth for countless years, I still underestimated the power that human emotions can generate."
...
Life is like a dream, the world like an illusion.
What happened to him was a reality that even dreams could not weave.
Thinking back to Xiao Lingxi before and after the age of sixteen, her personality, her gaze... there was no difference at all.
"Does she still... remember everything from back then?" Yun Che asked softly.
"No," the Primordial Divine Will answered him. "She rejected and refused to merge with the Primordial Will. This life's 'I' only wishes to be the purest Xiao Lingxi, to accompany you with the purest identity and emotions until the end of this life."
"Therefore, in the time reversal that brought you back to life, her memories also returned to before everything happened... This was also her obsession, which I could not resist either."
"As for me, I was supposed to return to slumber, waiting for the next reincarnation. But I was curious about what final outcome you and the 'Fate Vessel' would reach under the Fate Lock I personally forged."
She did not explicitly say that under the influence of Xiao Lingxi's main will, the Primordial Will had also developed an uncontrollable concern for Yun Che's fate.
"So I chose not to continue sleeping, but to wander between heaven and earth, observing the lives of you and Xia Qingyue... Yet because of this, her heart and soul would occasionally be affected by the Primordial Will, producing many 'illusions' and 'dreams.'"
"Once I fall asleep, her 'illusions' and 'dreams' will all disappear. She will never know that she is the Primordial Divine, will not remember the heartbreak of that time... Until the end of this life, she will be the purest Xiao Lingxi."
"All of this, you must never tell her. Otherwise, with her overly tender heart, she would be trapped in endless guilt and remorse for the rest of her life."
"Are you... leaving?" Yun Che sensed the departure in the Primordial Will's words.
"You have become the supreme emperor of the present age, and the Fate Vessel has chosen to end herself. As the Primordial Divine, 'her' wish has been fulfilled, and I have witnessed the full entanglement of fate brought about by the Fate Lock."
"With the disappearance of the 'Fate Vessel,' the 'Fate Lock between you has also vanished. I have no further reason to remain here. After today, I will return to slumber, to restore the source power I have spent as soon as possible."
The Primordial Divine Will sighed softly: "Reborn six hundred times... I only hope that the hidden danger of the Abyss is merely an unnecessary worry."
"Telling you the truth of everything is the last thing I do for 'her' before I return to slumber. You should understand my intention."
"..." Yun Che could not speak.
The Primordial Divine's six hundred reincarnations, Xia Qingyue's single life of sorrow, in exchange for his current life...
"As the Primordial Divine that is Xiao Lingxi, her feelings for you arose naturally over the fifteen years you spent together day and night, until they were deeply engraved."
"And as the Fate Vessel, Xia Qingyue, I never gave her any emotional interference. After she prematurely discovered the essence of her own existence, she did not choose to struggle, but to comply... The only struggle was to end herself."
"She struggled against the fate imposed on her, but she was unwilling to struggle against the fulfillment of you."
"During your brief time together after marriage, you had already left a shadow in her heart. In the Bing Yun Fairy Palace, she would occasionally recall your silhouette as you walked out of the Xiao Sect."
"In the Tianchi Secret Realm, when you left the hope of life to her... your figure was firmly engraved on her heart and soul. For her, that brief instant was an eternity of a lifetime."
"In her cognition, it was only a promise, but from that day on, she could no longer forget her identity as your wife."
"Yun Che, you are the luckiest person in this world. For you, Xiao Lingxi is willing to forever remain Xiao Lingxi; Xia Qingyue was sorrowful yet without regret... even to death, she did not wish to leave you wounded."
"So you have no right to live poorly."
"Do not let all this become a sin and shackle on your soul. Your today is what Xiao Lingxi wished for, what Xia Qingyue wished for. Even if it is only to not let down everything they have done, you cannot allow your life, which already stands under the most dazzling heavenly light, to sink into an inescapable gloom."
"So, when you have shed all your tears, release all your sorrow and guilt as well. Face Xiao Lingxi, who will forever wait for you to come home, with a warm smile, and remember Xia Qingyue, who was once bound to you by fate, with a warm soul... For them, for all the people who love you by your side, you can do this, can't you?"
The world of the soul sea began to shake violently. The final words of the Primordial Divine Will deeply touched every corner of his soul, making all his emotions wildly stir and surge, shattering and overflowing completely...
"Then, Yun Che, farewell."
The voice of the Primordial Divine Will became exceptionally gentle, and also grew more and more distant:
"I hope that you, and the 'me' of this life, will henceforth be forever at peace."
The soul world then dissipated. In the silent, desolate mountain, the sound of Yun Che's unrestrained, fully released weeping rang out.
At this moment, the Primordial Divine Will also let go of its concerns, sealed itself away, and returned to slumber.
Just before its existence completely vanished, a faint trace of doubt flashed through its will:
She thought of the crack that suddenly appeared on the Lunhui Jing after Xia Qingyue fell into the Abyss of Nothingness.
The Fate Lock between Yun Che and Xia Qingyue had been forged using the Lunhui Jing as the medium.
When Xia Qingyue vanished, the Fate Lock naturally disappeared along with her.
But that instant crack on the Lunhui Jing...
The Fate Lock seemed not to have vanished silently, but rather... to have been forcibly severed by an unknown external force, thereby backlashing against the Lunhui Jing, causing that momentary crack.
If so...
What exactly happened in the Abyss...
—End of Chapter