Chapter 1346: Nüwa
How difficult would it be to find the humanity lost over these past hundred years?
A paradox stood before Qi Xia.
If he could maintain his humanity, then he could not possibly forge a world from flesh and blood.
If he could not maintain his humanity… then how could he create a true human?
At this moment, Qi Xia inexplicably thought of Nüwa.
Nüwa, the goddess who, according to legend, clearly had no emotions or desires, yet was able to create humans who experienced joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness—
How did she accomplish that?
"White Goat… you are truly insane…" Tianlong said, frowning the moment he sensed Qi Xia's thoughts. "Do you even know what you're doing? You're comparing yourself to Nü—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
At the founding of the "Peach Blossom Spring"… what was its purpose?
It was to create a "Nüwa."
And now Qi Xia's motivation… eerily aligned with the "Master's" original intent.
So, was Qi Xia exactly the person the "Master" had been searching for all along?
"Unfortunately, the 'Master' has already abandoned this place… White Goat…" Tianlong sighed in despair. "Your emergence is at least eighty-four years too late."
Qi Xia sat in his own home, lowering his head, beginning to contemplate the sentiment Nüwa must have felt when she created humanity.
After about a few months, he prepared to make his first attempt.
As Qi Xia's thoughts surged, a strange humanoid figure materialized within the house.
Even Tianlong took a step back at the sight of this so-called "person."
This "person" had been created without any skin. Its entire body was exposed flesh, splattering blood across the living room the moment it landed.
As grotesque as this already was, Qi Xia still stared at the humanoid creature before him for a long time.
It was as if he was trying to determine whether this thing could truly be considered human.
The creature was clearly in excruciating agony. Its entire frame convulsed, and soon, it collapsed to the floor, bleeding out.
Qi Xia let out a soft sigh. Then, he raised his hand, and the floor beneath them opened its jaws wide, swallowing the creature whole, merging it back into the world.
From then on, Tianlong watched as Qi Xia repeatedly "created" humans, only to fail time and again.
He saw humans missing arms and legs. He saw humans with misplaced facial features.
Following Qi Xia, he witnessed almost every kind of deformed monster that could never exist in the real world.
As time passed, what began to terrify Tianlong was no longer "eternity." It was the fact that he could no longer sense Qi Xia's thoughts at all.
Whether Qi Xia had deliberately concealed his own thoughts, or whether his thinking had now transcended human comprehension, Tianlong couldn't tell.
He only knew that his access to information had been cut off. He could not understand what Qi Xia was going to do, nor what Qi Xia was thinking.
Countless things that *looked* like "humans" appeared, only to vanish again into the earth.
It wasn't until Tianlong's very gaze began to grow weary with age that the first perfect human finally emerged.
Qi Xia looked utterly exhausted. Just creating a single flawless human had nearly drained all of his "conviction."
This person awoke within a psychological suggestion, so the moment they touched the ground, they believed this was the real world.
In their eyes, none of their surroundings were flesh and blood.
Before Tianlong could even react, Qi Xia had already merged this person back into the world.
"White Goat… have you lost your mind… you clearly succeeded…" Tianlong snapped out of his stupor. "What are you doing?"
"It's not enough…" Qi Xia murmured. "Nowhere near enough…"
When Qi Xia spoke, Tianlong could finally sense his thoughts again after years of silence.
What he wanted was not just one person. It was *everyone.*
He was searching for a way to make this world "burst with life."
If every single person needed to be as complex as this, he would never be able to create a world.
If creating one person required this much time and such an immense amount of "conviction," then before he could even finish creating the second batch, the first batch would already be dying of old age.
He could wait. But "people" could not.
Thinking this, he began to empty his mind, carefully recalling.
Was there any way to quickly shape this place into a world?
Those countless different kinds of people—those walking down the streets, those who brushed past him in various places… what was his final impression of them?
Yes.
Qi Xia could not remember their faces.
"This world is 'Me,'" Qi Xia murmured. "'I' *am* this world… so besides me, no one needs a face."
Without a face, people would not need expressions. They would have no need to carry joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness.
They would not need to see, hear, or speak. Matters would become vastly simpler.
Here, only thought was necessary.
As long as they *believed* they had features, a face, then they *could* see, hear, and speak.
So as long as they *believed*… they would assume this was the real world.
This would save a considerable amount of "conviction," allowing tens of thousands of people to appear in an instant.
Tianlong was once again stunned by Qi Xia's line of thinking, but before he could say anything, passersby had already begun to move outside the window.
Men, women, old and young, tall and short, fat and thin—countless people began to move through the streets.
Aside from the fact that every place was eerily silent, it was indistinguishable from the real world.
A single word involuntarily surfaced in Tianlong's mind—"bustling."
But this strange, silent kind of bustle… who would believe it without seeing it with their own eyes?
Qi Xia exhausted his "conviction" several times, filling this world to the brim, creating about two million faceless people in the small city within sight.
Tianlong could not see farther. But thinking carefully, there might have been "people" farther away as well. Tragically, following Qi Xia's logic of creation, those people might not even have possessed "thought."
They simply stood there in place.
During this time, Qi Xia also created a faceless Tianlong on a barren patch of flesh and blood land.
Just as he had said—within this space, apart from himself, no one needed a face.
The observing Tianlong found this step utterly baffling. Although he didn't know what was happening, given what Qi Xia had just been through… wasn't Tianlong already dead?
What was the meaning of creating a Tianlong here?
From that point on, Qi Xia would gaze at the sky at night, and spend his days fighting the faceless Tianlong.
Since the constant sounds of colossal collisions and earth-shaking tremors echoed throughout the area, always disturbing the nearby "residents," Qi Xia simply transformed the vicinity into a massive, abandoned amusement park.
Looking at those enormous, monster-like amusement park rides, Tianlong knew that Qi Xia's state could no longer be described merely as "mad." Summoning such massive monsters with a mere gesture… there was probably no word in the world left to describe Qi Xia's current condition.
Every move and technique of the faceless Tianlong was no different from the real Tianlong's.
But his "Artifice" was used to create flesh and blood, his "Separation" to decompose it, and he relied on his feet treading on flesh to achieve "hovering"—these were all the abilities Qi Xia could replicate.
On this particular day, Qi Xia once again fought the faceless Tianlong to a draw.
This situation gradually made the observing Tianlong realize something. Rather than saying Qi Xia couldn't win, it seemed he was constantly trying to defend.
He could have easily raised his hand and summoned the entire world to devour the faceless Tianlong. But he only defended.
He defended continuously for decades, solely to be able to use the most fundamental "Endless Vitality" to keep himself alive.
After it was over, he returned home and stood on the rooftop, staring into the pitch-black sky for a long time.
"White Goat… what exactly are you trying to do?" Tianlong murmured nearby.
But this time, Qi Xia was different from any other time in the past several hundred years. He turned back, as if looking at Tianlong, or perhaps looking at the void. Then, he softly replied.
At the same moment, a voice echoed from the void itself, and the two voices intertwined at that instant, drifting gently into Tianlong's ears.
"I want to start everything over. I want to turn back time to seven years ago."
「I want to start everything over. I want to turn back time to seven years ago.」
As the words fell, the pitch-black sky began to surge with distant, radiant, and dazzling stars.