Chapter 28 Your good fortune is yet to come.
The old ancestor was determined to die.
The vassal, as if he were blind, came in while berating Duan Jiuyou: "Don't always say that the Lord is afraid of the cold. This is the Lord of the Great Wilderness, the head of the Four Divine Clans. If he complains of being cold just because of a little wind and rain, what will people outside think?"
The vassal had been by the emperor's side since childhood, serving as his close advisor and guard as he grew up. The old lord was demanding of his lord, even when the lord was seriously injured, he insisted that the lord stand up on his own.
The Lord grew up under immense pressure from a young age, developing a strong mind. His vassals, influenced by this environment, gradually kept their concern at arm's length, waiting for the Lord to rise again as long as his life was safe.
Emperor Jiang stopped playing with the ring, and Duan Jiuyou saw that the man's face was ashen, and knew that the words of the vassal had caused trouble.
The Great Wilderness Clan reveres the strong, and he already cared about these things, so he never told others whether he was hot or cold.
Duan Jiuyou moved a chair closer to Di Jiang and said, "Why are you listening to that idiot? Everyone has weaknesses. No one is always strong. When you're cold, you wear clothes; when you're hungry, you eat; when you're sick, you rest. That's how normal people live."
The vassal, unable to bear it any longer, retorted, "Your Majesty is the Lord of the Great Wilderness, the strongest cultivator in the Three Realms. How can a normal person be worthy of being compared to him!"
"So you're hoping he's acting strange? He's freezing and still pretending he's not cold? He doesn't ask anyone to put on more clothes, nor does he put on more clothes himself, because you bunch of bastards always treat him like a god, not like a human being,"
The vassal's mindset has always been influenced by the old lord's teachings: "God is God, and man is man. If God is as fragile as man, how can he be worthy of being called God?"
The vassal thought Duan Jiuyou was good in every way, except for the fact that she said her master was afraid of the cold, which he disliked the most.
You can call him a bit slow-witted, or you can understand it as the old master's teachings being too deeply ingrained.
The emperor, too, was deeply ingrained with this ideology—he believed his vassals were right.
Duan Jiuyou ignored the master and servant pair and went to the master bedroom to fetch a cloak for Di Jiang. It was lined with silver fox fur from Xian Mountain, and just carrying it over there had made his body extremely hot.
Duan Jiuyou wanted to put a coat on Di Jiang, but was met with the same rejection as when he had his last attack. The difference was that last time, Jiuyou at least had a chance to walk up to Di Jiang and hug him, coat and all. This time, Di Jiang didn't let her get close. With a glance, he directly created a barrier, blocking her outside the main hall.
His numerous ailments were all thanks to her. Jiuyou was worried that continuing the conversation would only provoke her further, so he changed the subject and returned to the matter of spiritual power.
Duan Jiuyou said, "Repairing the primordial spirit must be done step by step. Trying to absorb everything at once is not necessarily a good thing. Although we don't know where the problem lies this time, it's not a loss for you."
—Not a loss?
These words struck right at Di Jiang's calculations. He half-closed his eyes and tapped the table with his finger. "Do you know how much I expended in Zhao Zhao City?"
He used a grand formation to cast a spell of oblivion on the entire Zhaozhao City, and also repaired the damaged barrier for Du Heng.
He calculated that he would recover 100% after consuming 40%, but unexpectedly, 40% went out and 40% came back. He didn't gain or replenish anything and suffered a lot outside, which caused cold air to enter his body and aggravate his old illness. His seemingly repaired primordial spirit was knocked down by the cold as if it were made of clay, and there was even a gap in it than before.
Duan Jiuyou was unaware that the Imperial Territory had already lost 40% of its resources, but judging from his usually restrained demeanor and the obvious anger on his face this time, it must have been a "huge loss."
She felt that this matter shouldn't be judged by short-term gains or losses, and softened her tone, saying, "There are many kinds of happiness in the world, and being strong isn't necessarily the best. You saved people and gave them a new lease on life, and that is a great act of kindness. Planting good seeds today will surely bring good results in the future, and your blessings are yet to come."
"Good fortune?" Di Jiang said coldly. "Everyone says that I, Di Jiang, am not a kind person. You want me to wait for my good fortune? You really dare to say that."
"What the world says about you is not important; what matters is how you see yourself. You slaughtered the cannibals, and even when misunderstood, you never explained yourself. You plotted to lure Fang Zhuo into a trap, wasn't that all to save the people in Yuan Danli? Didn't you save them out of kindness?"
A cold wind blew into the hall, causing the candlelight to flicker and briefly plunging his face into darkness. The candlelight then flickered back on, as if redrawing his features in the darkness. He raised his eyes slightly, a faint smile playing on his lips, like a delicate, heartless stone statue on a crumbling wall, emanating a detached and indifferent smile.
"...Kindness?"
The emperor slowly chewed over these two words.
Did he have this?
Duan Jiuyou felt a chill run down his spine; this was clearly the true face of the Imperial Territory.
She pieced together the events leading up to her and realized that he had never told her he wanted to save people; she was always the one taking him around.
She asked, word by word, "So when you captured Fang Zhuo, it wasn't to save people at all, but just to test how much spiritual power the creatures in the original core could restore for you? So, in a sense, you're no different from Fang Zhuo. You, like him, see those people as food. If eating them can increase your spiritual power, you wouldn't hesitate, right?"
Di Jiang did not argue: "Fang Zhuo is quite powerful. When I arrived, he was already on par with the Lord of Fengshan, each occupying half of the country. Even if I don't touch his people, he will eventually plot against me. Since he is going to die anyway, why not take advantage of something that is offered to us for free?"
His schemes were still out in the open with her, but she had never questioned them before, relying entirely on her own self-righteousness to believe she understood him perfectly.
Duan Jiuyou, reflecting on all his previous wishful thinking, finally saw reality clearly at this moment.
She said Xiao Cui was one of yours too, right? "You gave her to me because you wanted to know what my purpose was in coming to the Ten Realms. It's ridiculous that I still protected her, afraid that you would kill her, and forcibly kept her among the disciples of the Ao Clan. In this way, the movements of my Ao Clan have been given to you for nothing."
Xiao Cui betrayed him too quickly. Now that I think about it, how could Di Jiang possibly keep a maid who knew his daily life so well and was so afraid of death by his side? Even the matter of Di Jiang's old chest injury was revealed to Fang Zhuo by Xiao Cui. So Xiao Cui was just a mouthpiece that Di Jiang threw out to the outside world. He could only let them know what he wanted them to know.
"I didn't report everything."
Di Jiang touched the still-warm soup bowl, rubbing the back of his fingers together as he said, "You didn't give me any news when you went to hunt beasts in the mountains first."
Xiao Cui is very loyal and kind. Once she's had a full meal, she treats the person who fed her very well. She's terrified of hunger. Her former master treated them servants badly, but after Di Jiang gave her a good meal, she refused to leave again. She can distinguish between good and evil and knows what news is truly detrimental to Di Jiang.
However, Xiao Cui has recently betrayed the Ao Clan because they can't compete with the Great Wilderness in hunting beasts. She is not getting enough to eat or sleep, and she wrote a long letter of several hundred words to her vassal, just wanting to come back.
Duan Jiuyou chuckled self-deprecatingly: "What difference does it make whether I give it to them or not? Even if I capture a dozen cages of ferocious beasts, Lord Desolate Lord's 'Sky-Splitting' attack will pulverize them into dust, won't it?"
The soup bowl grew cold, and Di Jiang's fingers were too cold. The hot soup gradually froze as he played with it. He abandoned the bowl and looked at Duan Jiuyou.
"Aren't you leaving yet? Do you intend to finish this meal?"
He was annoyed and didn't want to talk to her anymore. His body wouldn't cooperate, and he was just forcing himself to sit there.
Duan Jiuyou pursed her lips tightly, as if she had been slapped in the face. She was not the type to let grievances fester overnight, and she clutched her fox fur coat tightly.
"Why should I leave, and why are you driving me away? Just because I couldn't help you replenish your spiritual power to ten percent? I treated you with sincerity, yet you schemed against me in everything. When you lured Fang Zhuo into the abandoned house, you knew that the creature trapped in his original core could only be safely removed with the Lingtian White Blade. You knew I could freely travel between the ten realms and would definitely try to find a way for you, so you played hard to get and went with the flow. I wasted two hundred thousand spiritual treasures to buy a dull blade, followed you into Zhaozhao City, accompanied you to retrieve the Heart-Gathering Lotus, and carried you out of the Four Seasons Ridge. I took good care of you all the way, and now you're driving me away because of a mere bit of spiritual power?!"
"...mere spiritual power?" Di Jiang repeated slowly, his heart burning with rage at those four words.
He said, “These words are really well used. Do you know that the meager spiritual power you speak of can repair half of my primordial spirit? Do you know that I am afflicted with a cold illness, which can only be cured by reshaping my soul? It is clear that my soul is incomplete, making me like a useless person.”
He spoke at a normal pace, without any anger, and every word he uttered reflected what he had lost.
He was only a little over 20,000 years old, which would have been the prime of his youth in the mortal world. Yet, at such a young age, his primordial spirit was shattered, and he fell from his divine pedestal and plummeted to the tenth realm just as he was about to rule the Heavenly Realm. Such an experience would be a devastating blow to anyone, but he was not so indifferent as to be unmoved. He simply did not harbor deep hatred and was used to suppressing it.
He grew up like this from a young age. Whether he succeeded or failed, his father would only tell him to get up on his own, without comforting him, encouraging him, showing him any pity, or even scolding him.
If you lose, try again; if you lose something, take it back!
But he was still flesh and blood after all. The merit and spiritual power he received today gave him a fleeting illusion, reminding him of his previous healthy self.
It's been so long since I've seen it, so I'm reluctant to part with it.
It was too short-lived, so now they don't even care about a single hair on Duan Jiuyou's head!
He said, "If I don't take the Yuan Dan, you won't save those people? Fang Zhuo has a grudge against me and will use you to take my life sooner or later. You're not stupid, so naturally you won't join forces with him to kill me. Once Fang Zhuo dies, the Yuan Dan will naturally fall. Would you not save them?"
"I—" Duan Jiuyou was speechless.
Di Jiang continued, "Since you will save me, then everything I just said will happen again. If it will happen again, then what's the point of sharpening the blade and picking flowers to leave the mountain? If it's for me, it's because you've had enough of living and have no choice but to lead me back to the so-called righteous path you speak of. To put it more broadly, for all living beings, you have served as a divine official for nine dynasties and have been forced to accept the destiny ordained by heaven. If I don't regain control of the Heavenly Realm, there will surely be a great calamity within a hundred years, and you are unwilling to be that sinner."
His relationship with Duan Jiuyou has always been based on mutual benefit. Her care for him was not without purpose, so why make it sound so high-sounding?
"My Lord, when did you become able to talk so much?"
The vassal looked surprised, as it was the first time he had heard his lord speak so eloquently.
In his memory, the Lord never reasoned with anyone, and those who tried to reason with him in his early years were long gone, buried in some mountain.
He was always decisive and ruthless, and his instructions in the main hall were always concise and to the point.
—A lot? I didn't notice.
Di Jiang glanced at Feng Chen. He was indeed not fond of talking, and he was too lazy to even respond to Feng Chen's question. But the Three Realms were so vast, and of all things, there was this long-mouthed bastard Duan Jiuyou. He couldn't be killed, and he couldn't be chewed up. If he didn't say something, would he just suffocate himself?
Lord Wilderness rarely lost his composure like this. After venting his anger, he felt bored and remained silent for a moment before leaving behind the words, "Prepare more medicine and add water to the bathhouse," and returning to his room.
A brief, blurry shadow remained in the main hall, along with the chilly air conditioning.
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