Eternal Love Within A Smile - Chapter 42
Chapter 42
Deep in the Endless Sea lay a bottomless canyon. It seemed as if thousands of years ago, a deity had struck the place with a blade, tearing the earth’s crust apart straight down to its core.
Spiritual energy seeped endlessly from the depths of the canyon. Jiao Palace sat directly above the rift, adorned everywhere with luminous pearls that would be worth a fortune on the continent, enveloping the palace in a hazy, ethereal glow.
The dwelling of the Sea Emperor of the Four Seas was called Fobo Hall, located at the very heart of Jiao Palace. It was also the place where spiritual energy ran strongest in all the Four Seas. Every ruler who had ever ascended to this throne had trodden upon a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Most beloved ones could be slain, sworn brothers could be severed, and all things could be cast aside. To these sea demons living in the deep ocean, the concept of love existed, but only barely.
Inside the Ocean Heart Dungeon of Jiao Palace, pitch-black darkness reigned. Though luminous pearls were not considered precious at the bottom of the sea, prisoners were still not worthy of having them. Only when a lanternfish occasionally patrolled past the outside of the cage could one catch a fleeting view of the scene inside under the faint light.
A half-naked man was suspended mid-air. Two black-iron chains hung down from above, their sharp hooks piercing through his collarbones. He lowered his head weakly as if dead. His black hair floated in the water, spreading out like seaweed and half-concealing his face. Not an inch of his exposed skin remained intact, crisscrossed with terrifying new wounds and old scars. Faint threads of red seeped from his injuries. Looking at his emaciated frame, his blood seemed almost entirely drained. Below his navel, his Jiao tail had also lost all vitality. Scales that should have been lustrous and gorgeous were now entirely dull. On the ground beneath him lay scales shed from torture, stained with dark red blood.
“Is he not dead yet?” murmured a red lanternfish as it swam past.
“It has been ten years already. I cannot believe he is still holding on,” a green lanternfish said softly.
“Why does His Highness not just kill him directly? To think he dared to join Ao Xu against His Highness. What a waste of His Highness’s trust.”
“Who knows. Perhaps he simply wants to torment him on purpose.”
“Could it be that he is actually dead already?”
As the lanternfish spoke, it swam a little closer and lashed a whip at the prisoner inside the cage. A whip mark condensed from spiritual energy landed on the thin body, and faint red blood trails soon seeped out once more.
The man twitched, yet he made no sound.
“The blood is red. He is not dead yet.”
Ao Xiu opened his eyes slightly, staring listlessly at the blood threads floating in the faint light. He did not know how long he had been in the darkness. Only when being tortured could he see even a sliver of faint light, to the extent that now, whenever he saw light, his body would twitch involuntarily, as though even his bone marrow was in excruciating pain.
Prolonged darkness and pain would make one lose the ability to think. It took him a long time to remember why he was here.
It was because Ao Cang suspected him of participating in the rebellion. Even though Ao Cang had no proof, to the cold-hearted aquatic clan, suspicion was enough to alienate. To the high and mighty Sea Emperor, suspicion was enough to torture and kill.
“Ao Xiu, you are nothing but a lowly bastard born of a humble mother. Had I not taken you in, you would have been devoured by sea demons long ago. How dare you betray me!”
Ao Cang had stepped heavily on his back, nearly crushing his internal organs in his fury.
“I did not…” Ao Xiu defended himself weakly, blood constantly spilling from the corners of his lips. He did not dare to resist, nor did he have the strength to. The gap in power between the two sides was far too immense; any resistance would be futile.
Ao Cang’s birth mother possessed a purer divine lineage, so he was born standing above all his brothers. The previous Sea Emperor had countless wives and children, but only those with divine bloodlines could receive a name granted by the Sea Emperor.
Ao Xiu’s birth mother was merely a clam spirit with ordinary blood. Simply because she was extremely beautiful and possessed an ethereal singing voice, she was favored and toyed with by the Sea Emperor for a few days, after which she gave birth to Ao Xiu. No one knew exactly how many children the Sea Emperor had. Among those with names, Ao Xiu ranked one hundred and ninth. In the vast Jiao Palace, he was not much nobler than the other shrimp soldiers and crab generals.
The aquatic clan revered strength above all, and strength was built upon bloodlines. The strong remained strong, and the weak remained weak, to say nothing of the aquatic clan’s cruelty and cannibalism. To survive in the ocean, the weak had no choice but to rely on the strong, which the human race called parasitism.
Ao Xiu was fortunate enough to inherit a tiny fraction of the Sea Emperor’s divine bloodline, granted a name, and resided in Jiao Palace. Yet this was not necessarily a stroke of luck. Ever since he could remember, his head seemed to have always been bowed low, at the beck and call of his older brothers and sisters, rarely going a single day without being beaten or scolded. Jiao Palace was rich in spiritual energy; cultivating while living here was ten times better than the outside world. He endured humiliation for a century and finally achieved modest success. He thought that by attaching himself to Ao Cang, he would share the glory once Ao Cang ascended to the throne.
But a single idle rumor from others aroused Ao Cang’s suspicion. A hundred years of pleasing and following ended up like a bubble, crushed under Ao Cang’s foot.
“There are still ninety-nine lashes left today. You do it,” the lanternfish outside the cage pushed the task onto each other.
When Ao Xiu was first thrown into the Ocean Heart Dungeon, those jailers still tirelessly experimented with all kinds of torture devices on his body, watching him twitch in pain, restraining himself from letting out groans while his noble Jiao tail curled up and silver scales peeled off piece by piece.
Yun Jiao possessed a tough vitality and did not die easily. At such a time and in such a place, that was hardly a good thing.
Many years had passed, and he seemed to have grown numb to the pain. No matter how much they beat him, he showed little reaction. Tormenting a dead fish in this manner held no excitement for the jailers anymore, but under the Sea Emperor’s order, they still came every day to deliver the full one hundred lashes.
Ao Xiu gritted his teeth as old wounds tore open and new wounds worsened. A cloud of black mist gathered in his grey-blue eyes, rendering him unable to see anything, hearing only the sound of numbers being counted one by one.
Suddenly, something happened outside. The execution was interrupted, followed by the tragic screams of the lanternfish, and then the sound of the cage breaking open.
“Why does he have so many heart demons?” a man’s cold and slightly impatient voice came through, “This is already the fourth one.”
“Langyin, we seem to have disturbed the Prison-Guarding Sea Demon,” a woman’s voice was peaceful and gentle.
Even terrifying and unusual movements echoing from all around could not cause her the slightest panic, “I will go rescue him first. You hold them off.”
Countless sea demons swam from all directions. In the gloomy deep sea, a colossal beast was awakened, causing the entire deep sea to tremble.
Langyin frowned, his eyes surging with murderous intent. Here, he did not need to suppress his hostility.
The flying leaves and rain of flowers across the sky were all transformed from demonic qi, tearing the attacking sea demons into blood mist.
This was Ao Xiu’s dreamland, and these sea demons were all transformed from the fears inside his heart. Although they did not truly exist, they were more powerful than reality because they were not objective existences, but imagined within a person’s mind. When you believed an ant was larger than a giant elephant, it would project into your dream just as you imagined.
For instance, that giant beast lurking in the deep sea was the nightmare trapping Ao Xiu here. It was imagined by Ao Xiu; though a Prison-Guarding Sea Demon existed beneath the Ocean Heart Dungeon, it might not necessarily look like this.
Langyin scowled with annoyance. Though he was not afraid, he was disgusted by these endless nightmares.
Xu Manman reassuringly left her back to Langyin while she entered the cage to try and rescue Ao Xiu. Even with mental preparation, her pupils shrank when she saw the tragic state before her eyes.
Before coming here, she and Langyin had already witnessed four of Ao Xiu’s nightmares and eliminated four heart demons. Ordinary people had but a single heart demon, whereas Ao Xiu had at least five. Each of these five nightmares was more tragic than the last. Someone with weaker resolve would have died inside them long ago, yet his ability to hold on for so long was nothing short of a miracle.
These nightmares were all things he had truly experienced. After going through such a painful past, to still be able to pull himself together, avenge himself step by step, and ascend to the throne of the Sea Emperor, Ao Xiu truly could not be underestimated.
Xu Manman sighed internally, *How much sin did Ao Xiu commit in his past life to suffer so much in this one?*
She waved her sleeve to slash through the black-iron chains, stepping forward to catch Ao Xiu’s weak and limpless body.
“Ao Xiu, wake up! Do not die in a nightmare,” Xu Manman said by his ear.
If he died in the dream, his origin soul would also collapse along with it.
Ao Xiu opened his eyelids dazedly. His grey-blue eyes stared blankly ahead, unable to see anything, hearing only a gentle voice sounding by his ear. He was carefully held in an embrace by a pair of arms, and his nose could vaguely smell a delicate fragrance belonging to a woman.
A soft spiritual energy stroked his wounds, stopping the bleeding and suppressing the pain.
Am I dead? Is Mother here to pick me up?
Ao Xiu opened his mouth slightly, but having not spoken for years, he could only produce a dry, raspy, and unpleasant sound. He had originally inherited his mother’s ethereal voice, but now it had been destroyed by Ao Cang as well…
Ao Xiu’s heart suddenly throbbed with pain, and blood spilled continuously from the corners of his lips, showing a shocking blackish color.
Xu Manman was greatly alarmed and cried out anxiously, “Ao Xiu!”
However, right at that moment, time and space abruptly froze into a painting, which was then torn apart from the middle by an unknown force, separating Xu Manman and Langyin.
Xu Manman’s heart tightened. She wanted to dash toward Langyin, but it was already too late. Darkness spread from the surroundings toward the center, swallowing the two of them separately.
The Jushuang Sword harvested the life of the Prison-Guarding Sea Demon and consumed the nightmare attached to it. Langyin clutched the long sword, eyes glinting with ferocity, and shouted fiercely, “Break!”
This shout tore through the black curtain like thunder, yet Xu Manman was still nowhere to be seen beyond it.
No one knew of the cruel slaughter beneath the deep sea. The ocean surface was calm and gentle, with occasional waves sounding, drifting into the coastal sea cave along with the ocean breeze. Seawater flooded into the cave, pooling into a pond. A spirit-gathering formation had been laid around the pond, and at the center of the formation curled a man who was half-human and half-Jiao tail.
His features were handsome yet pale. A blue outer garment draped over his body, covering the terrifying scars all over him. Under the effect of the spirit-gathering formation, they were slowly healing, and his scales began to glow with life once more.
He had been asleep, but having had some nightmare, he suddenly woke up with a start. Cold sweat seeped from his forehead, and his thick eyelashes trembled slightly before opening to reveal a pair of grey, hollow eyes. He fumbled around until he touched a strand of smooth long hair, only then letting out a quiet sigh of relief.
Half-concealing his grey eyes, his breathing suddenly grew a bit hurried. Applying slight force with his hand, he quietly severed a lock of hair and hid it within his palm.
Yet he did not know that his every move was under someone else’s gaze.
The woman sitting cross-legged beside him wore a luxurious robe, lowering her head slightly as she watched Ao Xiu’s every action.
That was the Xu Manman of back then.
At that time, Ao Xiu was blind and had never seen Xu Manman’s face. Ever since he found out that “Xu Yanyue” was Lianyue Daozun, that blurry outline in his dream gained a concrete image.
Back then, Xu Manman had already held the position of Daozun for a hundred years. She had traveled to the East Sea because she heard there were unusual occurrences in the ocean that harmed the fishermen. She went to Fobo Hall in person to talk with Ao Cang, but Fobo Hall was in complete chaos. Unable to meet Ao Cang, she could only head back, but picked up the dying Ao Xiu by the seashore.
He once possessed a pair of beautiful eyes. A Yun Jiao’s eyes were the soul of the sea, icy blue like gemstones. Later, after enduring many hardships and being imprisoned beneath the deep sea for a long time, the luster in his eyes gradually faded, turning grey-blue. His blindness was partly because his eyes were injured by sunlight after suddenly escaping the deep sea after not seeing light for so long, and partly due to psychological factors. During those ten years in the deep sea, every time he saw faint light, it meant torture. He had developed a psychological fear of seeing light…
Xu Manman spent considerable effort to pull Ao Xiu back from the brink of death, and set up a spirit-gathering formation to help him heal. Ao Xiu was severely injured and blind, keeping an extreme level of vigilance toward everything around him, remaining wary of Xu Manman as well. Perhaps due to their long companionship, he finally believed that Xu Manman bore no malice toward him, and trust was built between them.
After Ao Xiu woke up, Xu Manman did not stay by his side constantly. She would go out every day during the daytime, gathering the coastal sects and ordering the Daoist Alliance cultivators to patrol the coastal area to escort the fishermen.
Few people knew that the turmoil at sea during that period was because a Yun Jiao had escaped from the Ocean Heart Dungeon, killing many guards. Ao Cang was furious, and Fobo Hall shook because of it.
Xu Manman patrolled the sea during the day and returned to rest in this coastal rock cave at night. Moonlight flooded into the cave along with the seawater, and the Yun Jiao swayed his long, powerful Jiao tail, shattering the moonlit reflection in the pool.
It was a very beautiful picture, but the Yun Jiao himself could not see it.
He often woke up startled from nightmares into pitch darkness. Thinking he had returned to the Ocean Heart Dungeon, he would fumble around until he touched a soft hem of clothing, and only then would his heart settle down.
He only knew that the person who saved him was the leader of the Daoit Alliance, Lianyue Daozun, but he did not know what she looked like. Yet that was not important; what mattered was her identity and status.
The strongest power on the continent, capable of rivaling Jiao Palace.
He probably could not return to the Endless Sea anymore, so the only person he could rely on was the person before him.
He tried with all his might to please her, wanting to stay by her side, only to hear her say, “Ah Jiu, your body has almost recovered. It is time for me to leave.”
Hearing this, Ao Xiu froze instantly, his hand clutching the hem of her clothing trembling slightly from the force.
He said raspy, “I… can I go with you?”
Xu Manman said, “I travel far and wide with no fixed abode. It is not suitable for you to follow me. If you have nowhere to go, you can go to the Siyi Sect to find my chief disciple, Ning Xi.”
Ao Xiu’s face dimmed with sorrow. Suddenly, silver light flashed across the Jiao tail beneath him, turning into a pair of straight, long legs as he knelt before Xu Manman. His grey-blue eyes stared blankly ahead, hiding the embarrassment and shame in his heart. Under the moonlight, the young man was pale and handsome to the point of being nearly demonic.
He unclasped his hand from the hem of her clothing and placed his right hand over his heart. His expression turned pale instantly, and a silver-white dragon heart reverse scale fell into his palm.
“This is the dragon heart reverse scale of a Yun Jiao,” he said, looking affectionately toward Xu Manman, “It is the most precious treasure on my body. Please accept it.”
Xu Manman frowned slightly, “What do you mean?”
“You saved me, so my life belongs to you,” Ao Xiu said softly, his expression hinting at an ambiguous implication.
There were often rumors on the sea that the handsomeness of sea spirits could make people lose their minds, leading them into downfall until they ultimately became prey of the ocean.
Few people could reject a sea spirit’s intentional gestures of goodwill. Their voices were deep like a lover’s whispers, and their appearances were refined like the moon in the water. Even knowing it was fake, many still fell for it.
Xu Manman was naturally not such a person.
Looking at Ao Xiu, her eyes held only sorrow and pity.
“Your life belongs to yourself. I saved you merely in passing, and I do not need your reward.”
The hand holding the dragon scale trembled slightly.
After a long silence, Ao Xiu suddenly asked, “Are you despising me because I am blind?”
Xu Manman was startled and shook her head, “No.”
“Or is it because my cultivation is low?” Ao Xiu asked again.
Xu Manman sighed, “No…”
“Or like them, you also think I am a lowborn bastard with mixed blood,” Ao Xiu’s voice turned cold, yet carried a hint of sharpness.
Using all his strength, he clenched the dragon scale, letting its sharp edges slice through his palm as blood ran down between his fingers.
Xu Manman looked at his agitated reaction in shock. Just as she was about to explain, she heard footsteps coming from behind her.
Turning her head, she saw a woman who looked identical to herself walking in.
That person let out a sigh and said, “I did not expect that I would actually have to kill myself…”
Xu Manman had to kill the self inside Ao Xiu’s dream.
This feeling was extremely bizarre. She could not even help thinking: If Langyin were here, would he be able to bring himself to do it?
Xu Manman had heard the conversation in the cave just now, and she suspected these events had not actually happened in reality. She did not remember Ao Xiu’s reaction being so intense back then. That memory was a bit hazy for her; she only remembered that she indeed refused Ao Xiu’s request to follow her, and that Ao Xiu had also presented his dragon heart reverse scale to her, telling her that he wanted to compete for the position of Sea Emperor.
Langyin had said that nightmares would magnify the fear and resentment in a person’s heart. Those pasts that could not be reconciled would repeat continuously, escalating until driving the person mad. What was presented in the dream was ninety percent reality and ten percent imagination.
Xu Manman felt that such an overreaction from Ao Xiu was perhaps the resentment hidden in his heart back then that had never been voiced.
Ao Xiu had always believed that Xu Manman looked down on him, just like Ao Cang, despising him for being a lowly bastard.
What a misunderstanding…
Helplessly, Xu Manman made a move against herself. She had not expected the nightmare to turn into her own appearance. Fortunately, the self in Ao Xiu’s imagination was not very strong, so Xu Manman killed the other self without much effort.
Piercing through the opponent with a single sword stroke and watching the other self collapse onto the ground dead, turning into a corpse… that feeling was extremely ominous.
Xu Manman stared at the corpse. After a while, seeing no aura of the nightmare released, she could not help but frown.
Langyin had mentioned that after the nightmare’s avatar was killed, black mist would be released, and one only needed to annihilate the black mist. But Xu Manman waited for a long time, and the black mist still failed to appear.
Could it be that the nightmare’s avatar was not myself?
But there are no other living beings here…
Pondering, Xu Manman turned her eyes toward Ao Xiu, whose gaze remained hollow, and her heart shuddered slightly.
*Could he be the nightmare’s avatar? Is Ao Xiu’s heart demon himself? If so, if I kill the nightmare, Ao Xiu will die as well…*
“Who are you?” Ao Xiu asked coldly, “You… are very similar to the Daozun.”
Xu Manman walked slowly to Ao Xiu’s side, kneeling down to meet his gaze directly.
“Ao Xiu, I am the real Lianyue Daozun. The one just now was fake,” Xu Manman looked into his eyes and said calmly.
Ao Xiu’s expression froze, “You know my name?”
Xu Manman let out a sigh, “I not only know your name, but I also know your past, and your future.”
