Chapter 153 Loving You (End of Main Text) I...

Once upon a time, there was a lowly beggar who had his head smashed open and was drenched in the rain. He was on the verge of death, but he survived because of a goddess's blessing for one night.

Later, the boy was beaten to death for guarding the keepsake left by the goddess, and turned into a vengeful ghost, which was then sealed in a dry well.

He broke the seal and became a ghost general in the underworld. Later, he was injured by the protective formation of the immortal sect and his soul was scattered. He had to rely on the body of a black panther to nourish his soul. Finally, he cultivated a demon body and then the path of gods... Over the course of hundreds of years, he was in danger countless times and was resurrected from the brink of death. It was as if there was always a force in the dark protecting him and keeping him alive.

The young man was completely baffled, thinking it was simply a matter of life and death. It wasn't until he removed his own ghost core to save his beloved goddess that he finally saw what was hidden deep within his soul.

It was from this moment that he learned the secret of his immortal soul...

...

Yun Tianjiao felt that familiar tingling sensation in his palm again, the same feeling he had when Zhiwei used the Vajra Pestle to connect their divine meridians.

Compared to the last time, the heat on the vajra was even more intense this time, and it seemed that even her heart was trembling from the heat.

"Zhiwei, stop..."

Yun Tianjiao's unease grew stronger, but she was unable to move, as if she were imprisoned by some unknown force. At the same time, the long-forgotten sense of lack deep within her body began to be rapidly satisfied and filled.

"Zhiwei, whatever you're doing, stop, okay?" Yun Tianjiao didn't dare to look at their clasped hands, only catching a glimpse of Zhiwei's hand fading little by little, as if it were about to become transparent.

She dared not speak harshly to him anymore, softening her voice and even adding a pleading tone.

But Zhiwei no longer listened to her. He, who had always been obedient to her, simply rubbed his chin gently against the top of her head this time and said softly, "I have something of yours here, and I will return it to you today."

On that rainy night, he was fortunate enough to win her favor, but he didn't know that the reason he was able to survive was because she left a trace of her divine essence in his body.

This is what Zhiwei saw deep within her soul after removing her own demonic core—

A wisp of divine essence from the goddess's dream.

Yun Tianjiao, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, roared angrily, "What are you? I don't want you! Let go of me! I command you, let go of me! Cang Han!"

That last sound was like an ice pick piercing his heart, causing Zhiwei's breath to catch in her throat. He seemed to waver, but in the end, he simply tightened his arms and hugged her even tighter.

"Desire to dream...desire to dream..."

He read it softly.

He really couldn't bear to let her go. She had finally regained her senses and should remember everything that had happened between them, right? But he didn't dare to ask.

He dared not verify it.

He feared that once he received a positive answer, he would lose control of his heart. He was far from being as selfless and righteous as her; he would be unable to resist abandoning all responsibilities, abducting her and hiding her away, no longer caring about the lives of others.

"Yu Meng, actually I lied to you."

Zhiwei wanted to raise his hand to wipe away the tears on her cheeks, but his two arms had almost completely disappeared at this moment, with only the remnants of his divine essence turning into golden dust, gently falling on his black hair.

"I don't love the world, I only love you."

He loved only her, solely because she was a savior goddess, which was why he was willing to save all living beings. If she were a demon, destined to slaughter the three realms, he would not hesitate to become the butcher's knife in her hands.

He was not a virtuous person, but because he fell in love with a virtuous person, he was willing to end his life in this way.

Unable to kill Mo Bei, she could only perish together with him by self-destructing her divine essence. But how could he bear to do that? He knew perfectly well where her lack of divine power lay.

"You promised me," Yun Tianjiao cried, tears streaming down her face, on the verge of collapse. "You promised me you wouldn't die for me again!"

Even when she stood on the God-Slaying Lotus Platform, facing countless gods and Buddhas, she had never felt such despair as she did now.

Using the Vajra as a medium, it absorbed all of Zhiwei's hundreds of years of cultivation and continuously poured it into Yun Tianjiao's body. When his entire body disappeared, in the dazzling golden light, that small fragment of the ancient god's divine essence also returned to its original form under the guidance of the Vajra.

The complete divine essence of the ancient female war goddess erupted with unprecedented power as Yun Tianjiao let out a heart-wrenching roar to the sky. As her robes fluttered, the divine light of the divine essence within her body fell like a golden crow, causing the heavens and earth to change color.

"Cang Han! You broke your promise, and I will never forgive you! Do you hear me? Never forgive you!"

This time, however, no one answered from behind.

That embrace, carrying endless longing, has scattered in the wind.

The entire sky turned almost entirely into a blinding crimson gold. Mo Bei, who was busy devouring living souls to strengthen his power, felt a tremendous force crushing down from above, mercilessly shattering his inner palace and causing the power he had just accumulated to instantly dissipate.

"Yu Meng!" Mo Bei roared angrily, turning around to look in the direction of Yu Meng, his eyes stinging from the dazzling divine image of the goddess.

He was like a nocturnal insect that couldn't bear the light, fleeing in panic, instantly splitting into countless clones, ready to unleash an even more frenzied massacre.

"Living souls! Living souls! As long as I devour more living souls, I will not fear you..."

Mo Bei muttered almost frantically, grabbing people at random and binding hundreds of mortals with a binding spell. However, before he could devour a single soul, all his clones disappeared, and he was forced to return to his main body.

It turned out that Yu Meng had identified his true form among his countless clones and pierced it straight into his inner chamber with the Demon-Slaying Blade, which was precisely where his divine essence was located.

Mo Bei stared wide-eyed at the goddess wielding the knife before him, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Divine Essence...my, my Divine Essence..."

"Mo Bei, you are no longer a god, so where does your divine essence come from?" Yun Tianjiao's voice was devoid of sorrow or joy. She lowered her eyes and looked at him quietly, truly becoming a god detached from the seven emotions and six desires.

The glass lamp shattered, and the flame inside drifted out, now a black demonic fire.

Mo Bei was enveloped in black mist, and his once-glorious appearance began to decay and wither. The entire body of the Demon-Slaying Blade radiated golden light, as if it were burning, dissolving his layers of pretense of peace and tranquility.

"Yu Meng, Yu Meng, for the sake of our past camaraderie, spare my life, and I will surely repent and start anew..."

Mo Bei verbally apologized, but manipulated the demonic fire in the glass lamp to ignite the hem of Yun Tianjiao's divine robe. The black flames instantly engulfed her entire body, almost swallowing her whole.

However, Yun Tianjiao's hand holding the knife did not waver at all. Instead, she thrust it forward two inches. As she pushed her divine power to its limit, the golden divine light on her body gradually pierced through the black demonic fire and began to force it back. In the end, the range of the light and flames expanded to envelop both of them at the same time.

The moment Mo Bei came into contact with the divine light, he let out a shrill scream. His broken body could no longer withstand the scorching heat of the divine light and collapsed into a cloud of black smoke. The scream also stopped abruptly.

The noisy world suddenly became silent, with only a few wisps of black mist that had not completely dissipated remaining.

Yun Tianjiao staggered back a few steps, then pulled the blade back with his other hand, pressing the tip against the ground to keep himself standing.

The final confrontation with Mo Bei nearly exhausted her divine power, but compared to the emptiness of her body, her heart felt even more devastated.

Embers from the fire drifted everywhere in the air, and among the ashes were grass, wood, carved beams, and human bones...

All things in the mortal world, when they perish, always leave some trace of their existence. But when gods fall, they leave nothing behind.

Yun Tianjiao wanted to throw away the Demon-Slaying Blade in his hand, hug himself with his arms to replace the embrace he could never get back, and sat on the ground, curling himself into a ball and crying uncontrollably.

But she couldn't.

She is a goddess who saves the world. Even if she is teetering on the brink of collapse, even if she is covered in wounds from the inside out, even if she is suffocated by overwhelming pain, she will still stand up and support this mortal world.

But she had endured a fierce battle and lost her loved one; the dual trauma of physical and mental suffering caused her to overlook the lingering black mist before her. Until—

Suddenly, a pair of extremely malevolent eyes opened in the black mist.

Just as the black mist churned and suddenly swooped down towards Yun Tianjiao, a sharp purple lightning bolt shot out, accompanied by a woman's furious shout: "Mo Bei, you've had enough!"

Yun Tianjiao suddenly woke up, realizing that he had almost been possessed by Mo Bei's remnant soul. Looking at the end of the purple lightning that had dispersed the black mist, he saw a purple iris stuck diagonally in the ground.

The owner of these irises was none other than Xi Yue, the wife of General You Wei.

Xi Yue supported General You Wei, who looked extremely weak, barely clinging to life.

"Your Highness, oh no, I should now address you as the Goddess of Desire and Dreams."

Xi Yue still spoke gently, just like when she first met Yun Tianjiao by the Ghost Realm's Su Ye Pool. However, her eyes no longer held the crescent-shaped smile of that time; instead, they were cold, stern, and full of apology.

"I'm sorry I'm late; I couldn't help you get rid of this scourge in time."

"You bastard, who are you calling a menace?!" The black mist with eyes suddenly jumped up, spun in mid-air, and glared angrily at Xi Yue.

"Mo Bei! How dare you disrespect your mother!!" You Wei scolded, coughing violently due to her anxiety and anger.

"Adulterer, how dare you speak to me like that!" The black mist roared and charged towards You Wei. It had failed to possess Yun Tianjiao and intended to directly switch to You Wei as its host.

However, before it could even reach You Wei, Xi Yue swiped it back with her sleeve.

"You wretched creature, how dare you!"

The already faint black mist, almost invisible, was now shattered into pieces. A wronged and incredulous voice rang out: "You actually want to completely destroy me for this adulterer?!"

Xi Yue said coldly, "I only spared you, this patricide, because I was soft-hearted back then, which led to this terrible mistake. Since I gave birth to you, today I will end your life with my own hands!"

"Parricide? What father did I kill?! It was clearly this adulterer who had an affair with you, causing my father, the Divine Lord Qianzhe, to die of anger! I killed him to avenge my father!"

General You Wei looked sadly at the churning black mist and said in a hoarse voice, "Bei'er, your mother is right. I am your biological father. Qian Zhe was a close friend of your mother and me. Back then, due to family interests, your mother was forced to marry Qian Zhe. Qian Zhe was in poor health and knew that his life was not long, so he intended to make your mother and me happy by letting me stay in his temple as a deputy general. All along, he and Xi Yue were only husband and wife in name, providing cover for us, the real couple."

"You're lying, you're lying! You're just trying to fool me!" The black mist turned to Xi Yue and questioned, "If this person is my biological father, why didn't you tell me back then?!"

Xi Yue closed her eyes, seemingly unable to bear looking at the eyes in the black mist. "While we were away on official business in mortal form, you first murdered your own father, and then caused your own mother's death. You thought you had avenged your great enemy and were very smug. If you knew the truth, how would you face yourself? To protect you, your father insisted that I conceal the truth. We thought that since our existence caused you so much pain, it would be better to leave the heavenly realm and live as ghosts in the underworld. We thought you had let go of these old matters, but who would have thought that they would become your obsession and turn you into the person you are today?"

The black mist was silent for a moment, then suddenly burst into maniacal laughter. Tears streamed from its crimson eyes as it laughed. "Truly absurd! So you lied to me, claiming it was to protect me? You've been lying from the very beginning! My father isn't my father; the adulterer I believed was my father. You kept me in the dark, and in the end, you all became the good guys, while I alone am utterly wicked and deserve to die..."

"Lord Mo Bei, they only love you."

Yun Tianjiao had been watching quietly from the side, and then spoke softly.

Mo Bei suddenly fell silent, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat.

Yun Tianjiao continued, "The High God Qian Zhe loves you, treats you as his own child, is your nominal father, and bestows upon you a noble status. General You Wei loves you; even though you killed him due to a misunderstanding, he didn't want you to know the true nature of your relationship and secretly protected you. Senior Xi Yue also loves you. It's a grave crime for a god to harm a mortal, but she risked her life to cover up your crime. They deceived you, but they were indeed protecting you in their own way. Haven't you always wanted others to love you? In truth, you were born of love."

"Shut up! Shut up!" The black mist became increasingly unstable. "You're just spouting nonsense, what proof do you have?! I don't believe a word you say! And I don't care about any of that..."

"If you don't care, why did you use the iris, which Senior Xiyue loved most, as your divine token?" Yun Tianjiao retorted.

Xi Yue's clothes always had purple iris patterns on them. Yun Tianjiao had once thought it was because Xi Yue was a follower of Mo Bei, and that's why she used Mo Bei's keepsake as decorations. Only now did he realize that this was putting the cart before the horse.

In fact, Xi Yue is Mo Bei's mother, and Mo Bei misses his mother, which is why he uses his mother's favorite flower as a keepsake.

"Divine Lord Mo Bei." Yun Tianjiao addressed Mo Bei as Divine Lord again, knowing this would be the last time she would call him that to his face. "Why don't you think about why General You Wei and Senior Xi Yue named you Mo Bei?"

Mo Bei, a homophone for Mo Bei (莫悲), means "Do not grieve over anything."

This name itself carries a beautiful vision, hoping that he will never be sad or upset, and will always be a joyful and happy god.

He is the god of joy...

The eyes in the black mist filled with tears again, but compared to the previous madness and chaos, the emotions in those eyes gradually calmed down.

He was precocious by nature, and seeing his mother being intimate with other men every day filled him with resentment. After his father, Qianzhe, passed away, this resentment became an obsession, a demon in his heart.

He always thought that his birth was superfluous. His mother didn't love his father, who was only obsessed with carving lamps, and his "godfather" who always pretended to be nice to him was actually coveting his mother.

He often thought that he wished he had never been born into this world. None of the three people closest to him cared about him, so he didn't care about them either.

He thought he was finally free when all three of them disappeared from his life, but a more tormenting sense of emptiness made him struggle in pain day and night.

People love the God of Joy simply because his smiling eyes bring joy to worshippers. But who knows that the God of Joy also has times when he is not happy?

No one in this world truly loves him.

When people see the baseness, darkness, and ugliness in his heart, they will only despise him and turn away from him.

He never knew what those three people he hated had actually done for him.

Actually, he is loved by others too.

The black mist looked in the direction of You Wei and Xi Yue, and after a long while, it finally called out softly, "Father, Mother..."

This is a term used by young children when they are learning to speak, but it has been delayed for nearly a thousand years.

Xi Yue didn't want to pay attention, but General You Wei put his arm around her shoulder, patted her gently, and said, "Xi Yue, your child is calling us."

Xi Yue's cold expression finally crumbled, tears streaming down her face. She reached out into the black mist, sobbing, "Bei'er, it's your parents' fault..."

The black mist dissipated, and with a barely audible sigh, that last vestige of obsession finally dissipated.

A purple iris flower drifted down from the sky and gently landed in Xiyue's palm.

Xi Yue held the iris to her chest and cried uncontrollably, until General You Wei pulled her into his arms.

General You Wei spent a long time trying to calm him down. He was already seriously injured in Mo Bei's imprisoning formation, and now his emotions were fluctuating so much that he could hardly hold on and kept coughing.

Xi Yue forced herself to stop crying and helped You Wei prepare to leave. Only then did she notice that Yun Tianjiao was standing there alone, staring blankly at the place where the black mist had dissipated.

Xi Yue hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Where are the Desire Dream God and the Knowing-the-Subtle Heavenly God?"

Yun Tianjiao snapped out of his daze, looked up at Xi Yue, and shook his head. "I don't know, I can't find him."

Xi Yue was taken aback, as if she understood something.

You Wei managed to suppress her cough for a moment and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, if Xi Yue hadn't wasted so much time breaking the formation to save me, perhaps she could have arrived sooner and stopped Mo Bei earlier..."

"General Youwei, there is no need to blame yourself. Zhiwei did it to save me; it has nothing to do with anyone else."

You Wei seemed to want to say a few more words of comfort, but Xi Yue stopped her, and the two left silently.

The rising sun, with its golden light, dispelled all the gloom in the world.

As Yun Tianjiao walked out of the palace, he saw tens of thousands of pilgrims.

Pilgrims knelt and kowtowed devoutly, calling out the divine name of the Desire Dream God. They were pious and grateful, excited and fervent.

Because of the dream woven by the Goddess Gongxin, and because the evil god Mobei was eventually eliminated by her, almost no one in the mortal world did not believe in her, worship her, and admire her.

The goddess, who was once hated by everyone because of rumors about her being a prostitute, now enjoys the most incense offerings and believers in the world.

However, when everyone turned against her, her only believer disappeared.

The altar is built high, incense burns throughout the city, and countless prayers surround one's shoulders. Yet, one cannot see the beauty beneath the peach tree, her hair disheveled by the wind.

[Volume 7: The Goddess Returns (Complete)]

(End of text)

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Author's Note: This isn't the final ending; I just felt it would be more appropriate for the main story to end here. There will be more side stories later!

By the way, let me promote Peach's new novel, a contemporary romance called "Four Domineering CEOs Line Up to Get Married to Me." If you're interested, you can check it out in the author's column!

New copywriting:

What's it like to be surrounded by a group of rich kids since elementary school?

Zhou Mo: I hate the rich, so I want to become a rich man and then use bundles of banknotes to slap those bastards across the face until they kneel down and call me daddy!

When Zhou Mo was six years old, her father won the lottery. Unable to bear the constant harassment from relatives and friends who came to borrow money, he spent all the money, bought a villa in an upscale neighborhood, and sent his beloved daughter to a nearby private elementary school. Thus, Zhou Mo's nightmare began. She felt that all her classmates had serious illnesses. They were an eyesore to her at school and lingered around her after school because her mother ran a small after-school care center.

At fifteen, Zhou Mo was admitted to the best high school in the city, but many things happened in the villa area—

The arrogant young master suffered a great misfortune when his family was destroyed and his parents died. He was adopted by the Zhou couple and became Zhou Mo's older brother in the legal sense.

The sons of a nouveau riche, known as the "Two Bullies," have been exposed for their mother's infidelity. The two brothers are not born to the same father, and one of them is the son of a security guard in the community.

The aloof boy who Zhou Mo thought was the most normal person was about to be transferred to Beijing with his parents for work. Before leaving, he blocked Zhou Mo on her way home from school and said he wanted to go to a hotel with her.

At the age of twenty-four, three years after graduating from university, Zhou Mo finally owned her own company in Beijing. She was riding high, but she never expected that her former patients with serious illnesses would all become powerful CEOs, appearing one after another for one thing—to propose to her.

The domineering CEO knelt before her, gripping her hand tightly and refusing to let go: "Whether it's true or not, we are husband and wife now. As long as I don't divorce you, you will always be my legal wife."

The domineering CEO pinned her against the bedroom door, his eyes bloodshot: "Am I your brother? Don't call me brother, I don't want to hear it, and I don't want to be your brother."

The domineering CEO punched the wall repeatedly in a self-destructive manner, his voice hoarse and trembling: "What's so great about my brother that you want him and not me?"

The domineering CEO, emboldened by alcohol, pinned her between the chairs, exuding a dangerous aura but with a wronged expression: "If you're going to have a fake marriage, why not with someone else, and not with me?"

Zhou Mo: "..."

What is a "tall, rich, and handsome" guy? Slaughtering him and selling his meat is illegal; you might as well raise a pig.

—From a woman who doesn't want to be Cinderella, but only wants to be a boss.