venerated venomous consort
“How is this even possible?” She murmured in disbelief while her evil aura slowly faded away.
“Your level of Kung Fu is spectacular. I finally know why it took Fan Qianshi thousands of years to plot against you, but there is something I still do not quite understand. Back then, your Kung Fu was not this powerful at all!”
Di Fuyi replied, “When I first encountered her, I had not fully regained my strength.”
“Her? It was me!” The demon answered with a squeal of disapproval.
“No, you have never been the girl I met,” Di Fuyi emphasized once more. “Fan Qianshi placed her memory forcibly into your head in order to increase your grudge against Gu Xijiu. He intended to strengthen your hostility.”
The demon was perplexed, for what she thought was hers turned out to be someone else’s. Even her memories belonged to someone else. Did anything even belong to her?
Her body started swaying as if caught in a daze. Meanwhile, glimpses of light started to escape from Di Fuyi’s hands.
The demon sensed the danger and immediately turned to look at him and asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
“Send you back where you belong,” Di Fuyi answered calmly.
Then, flashes of seven-colored rays slipped through Di Fuyi’s fingers and encapsulated the demon in a blinding circle of light.
The demon was never supposed to exist. She was a result of many irresponsible choices. She shared the same appearance as Gu Xijiu, but her character was completely different. Di Fuyi had no reason to keep the demon alive. Furthermore, if she lived on, the trapped spirits in the abyss of grudge and misery would never be cleansed.
Nevertheless, Di Fuyi did not seem heartless after all. He made sure that her suffering was minimal, for she used to be Gu Xijiu’s unspoken obsession once upon a time.
The demon, on the other hand, was reluctant to be cleansed. She continued to struggle against the bubble of light but could not set herself free.
She suddenly raised her voice and challenged Gu Xijiu, “Seems like he doesn’t love you at all. Look at the cruelty that he is putting me through. I used to be a part of you! As the Master of the Heavenly Law, he has to be compassionate to all, not passionate to only one. Now that he has regained his identity, he will no longer love you the same! Haha! He will not love you anymore!”
Gu Xijiu said nothing back. With a frown, Di Fuyi clenched his fingers to strengthen his seven-colored ray, causing the demon to screech with pain. “Di Fuyi, you will regret this! You will regret killing me off!”
It did not take long before she disappeared entirely in the light and turned into dust. Then, the surrounding spirits stopped squealing for a while. They were thoroughly intimidated by Di Fuyi’s superior aura as a deity and fell into a brief moment of silence.
Di Fuyi looked at Gu Xijiu, who was standing not too far away from him. She seemed absorbed in her thoughts while staring blankly at the spot where the demon was last seen. He decided to ask her to come over. “Come to me.”
It was normal for her to keep her distance from him when he was busy dealing with the demon. But now that the problem was no longer a concern, why didn’t she get closer? Was she affected by what the demon said?
Di Fuyi decided to walk to her and placed his hand on her waist. He softly said, “Are you mad at me? Hmm? She had nothing to do with you at all. Killing her off certainly does not mean I do not love you.”
“I do not think this is over yet,” Gu Xijiu finally broke her silence.
“Hmm?”
“The demon would not give up so easily, for sure. I have a feeling that she must have left some evil doings behind. What she said did not sound like a simple threat,” Gu Xijiu made her guess while absentmindedly tapping on the block of ice.
Di Fuyi was caught off guard by her unexpected response. She had clearly overthought the whole situation. During his time in the Lower Bound, he found a way that would allow him to regain his status as the Master of the Heavenly Law, but he could not do it. There could only be one Master of the Heavenly Law, so his return would put his son’s existence to an end.
When Di Hao disappeared, Di Fuyi’s memory of him disappeared too. However, something still lingered in Di Fuyi’s subconscious mind, telling him not to reinstate his status or something important might never return. He would not do it unless it were absolutely necessary.
As soon as he was restored to his former self, memories started to flood into his head. Being the Master of the Heavenly Law allowed him to experience what he had gained over many lives, thus filling him with countless fragments of memories. Due to his longevity, those fragments flowed back to him like a massive tide.
When he first recalled his former identity, he had to suffer from an inflow of memory every time he returned to the Lower Bound. There were just too many fragments of memory for him to absorb all at once. Every time the recovery happened, he needed to take a break before he could put those fragments into a proper timeline.
However, there was no time for him to react this time when the demon remained as his greatest threat. Even in a state of stunned confusion, he knew that he needed to stop the demon from causing more harm, which was why he was a little distant from Gu Xijiu at first.
She was still the person that he cared for the most, so he needed to make sure that she was safe by asking her to steer clear from the desert. Nevertheless, after the long of battling with the demon, he recovered almost all of his memories. In conclusion, he still cared about her the most, now and in the past.
Perhaps he had unlocked some prohibitions in the Forbidden Land of God because he had not only recovered his memories as the Master of the Heavenly Law but had also uncovered some of his entanglements with the former God of Creation.
He remembered many things, even in their former life. Two lives ago, he went against destiny and became immortalized for her. One life ago, she became immortalized earlier because of him. No matter who immortalized for who, the unbearable pain of loss remained the same. It was not the kind of pain that he would like to go through again. There should not be any misunderstandings this time, unlike in the past.
When he was finally done with the demon, the next thing that he wanted to do was to explain everything to Gu Xijiu, but she seemed to be unaffected by what the demon said. She remained absolutely calm.
Did she trust him wholeheartedly, or did she care less about him already? The demon was gone, but the masses of resentful spirits remained as a terrible problem. Even as the Master of the Heavenly Law, cleansing them all at once remained outside of his power.
He was the Master of the Heavenly Law who maintained law and order, not the God of Creation who blessed the souls of the six realms. Fortunately, the resentful spirits were intimidated by his power and did not dare to make any moves at the moment. Nevertheless, intimidation could not keep them down forever. Once they break free from the desert, the consequences would be unimaginably deadly.
“What are we going to do with these resentful spirits?” Gu Xijiu was very troubled by the sight of them.
“Maybe Fan Qianshi knows a solution.” Di Fuyi then grasped her by the wrist and said, “The Yin element of this place is too strong for you. Let’s talk outside.”
Outside, the frantic expansion of the desert finally came to a halt. The leaders of all six kingdoms reunited to discuss a proper solution that could put an end to the desert. The desert had expanded to almost a third of the entire continent. Additionally, the enormous presence of resentful spirits had brought the temperature of the desert down to almost zero.
Cold winds from within the desert swept through its surroundings like a harsh winter, freezing the cities under a layer of thick ice. Meanwhile, the cold winds continued to spread, turning the place into a Siberia of sorts with extreme cold.
The cold winds were nothing ordinary. They were winds of the Yin element, which were harmful and sometimes even lethal. Therefore, the desert had to be destroyed.
In order to destroy the desert, they must first get rid of the millions of spirits, but there was no way they could cleanse the spirits’ resentments at once, not even the Emperor Immortal could do so.
Impatiently, the Monster King proposed, “If we cannot cleanse them all at once, let’s take it slowly then. There are so many of us here. Each of us can take care of hundreds of spirits a day. We can put an end to it slowly, but surely.”
But someone in the crowd disagreed, “It is not that simple. The spirits’ resentment grows stronger with each passing day. They are already affecting the climate of the entire continent. Ordinary people cannot possibly cope with such extreme changes. If we leave the spirits untreated, a great plague will come raging in less than three days.”
“Even if we give up on cleansing these spirits, fighting them one by one is not a wise option either. There are just too many of them. It would be a waste of energy.”
“That is right. They cannot be purified or destroyed. These spirits are truly problematic.”
“I have an idea. We can enclose these spirits in the desert before we seal off the place for good,” someone suggested.
“You make it sound so easy! How do you plan to seal off the enormous desert for good? Kindly enlighten me.”
“It is not me that will do it, of course. But the Master of the Heavenly Law should be able to do it.”
As soon as they mentioned Di Fuyi, many hopeful eyes turned to look at him. He still looked unapproachable and stood silently about 50 feet away from everyone. No one dared to stand too close to him except for Gu Xijiu.
His appearance had not changed much, but he was clearly no longer Shen Nianmo. Their eyes lingered on him as if he was the invincible leader that they desperately needed.
“In order to put an end to this, we must channel the spirits elsewhere. Sealing them off in the desert is not the solution. In time, they will break free and rise as an even greater disaster.”
No one knew how the spirits could be channeled, so everyone seemed perplexed. In the midst of confusion, Di Fuyi finally gave his attention to Fan Qianshi, who had been unusually quiet the whole time. “Maybe he knows a way.”
After Di Fuyi’s recovered his identity as the Master of the Heavenly Law, Fan Qianshi started behaving despondently, as if he was battered out of his senses. He did not make any fuss or any trouble, however. He just stayed quiet.
Di Fuyi comment reminded the group of Fan Qianshi’s presence, thus drawing their attention back to him. They all looked at him with a feeling of revulsion. After all, he was the root of all these problems.
Frustrated, they would have to reprimand him for his acts of foolishness if he were not the God of Creation. They did not voice out their disapproval verbally, but the look in their eyes said it all.
Fan Qianshi was indifferent to their comments and stares. He was standing right there in the group of people but never took part in any discussions. His gaze never left the desert, even when Di Fuyi called his name out loud. With his eyes still fixed on the danger, he slowly said, “This ferocious desert cannot be put away using any spells. The same goes for these resentful spirits. Any common practices cannot cleanse them. There is only one way to get rid of the desert, which is to open the Posuo Gate and lead the spirits across the gate. The Red Lotus Fire beyond Posuo Gate has the ability to cleanse their resentment and grudge. In a thousand years, they will be able to reincarnate.”