Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

Chapter 80 – Book-burning immortal

The day Hè Wenzhao died was the apocalypse for God of Annihilation‘s discussion page and cause for celebration for Abusive Romance‘s. The atmospheres of the two were night and day.

In the discussion page of God of Annihilation—

[What do you mean ‘the end’? When I heard such an old book was suddenly getting revised, I rushed to the site to read it, and after following for a million words, the protagonist suddenly… dies? I thought he could still come back to life, but the author wrote ‘the end’? What kind of **** ending is this? I ********.]

[Author you ****, why did I pay money for this ****, you made the protagonist into a ****, you ****]

[Wasn’t this an old classic? I even bought a physical copy once! Now the protagonist is dead before the end of the first volume. **** author, I want my money back]

[I agree but… previous poster, this book was never printed. Did you read a 1 million word physical copy?]

[Then what did I buy?]

[Was it an especially thick book with especially small text, poor paper quality, which constantly had broken punctuation replaced by question marks? That’s called a pirated edition.]

[Forget about the pirated edition. Author, what do you mean by this revision? When Zhao-ge was locked up by Xuanyuan Sect, I was waiting for him to make a comeback, but at the conference he just got burned to death by Yin Hanjiang? And then right afterward, the story was finished? What does this mean?]

[Speaking of this book, God of Annihilation, I always thought it was a classic because of the mind-blowing ending. But now that I’ve come back to it ten years later, I suddenly feel like the protagonist is kind of a hypocrite and the logic of the harem is questionable. I guess I’ve grown up and my tastes and outlook have changed?]

[It’s probably the same for the author, I guess? After getting older, he looked back on his previous work and just wasn’t satisfied with it, so decided to toss it all out and start over. I can understand the author not wanting to face his shameful past, but you have to make a sensible ending, you ****]

[Why are there so many ****s  in this discussion page?]

[Language filters. Curse words aren’t suitable for children. This story isn’t either, it’ll make you doubt your life. Let’s just go read no romance stories to clean our eyes.]

The readers of God of Annihilation went from rage to helplessness to finally indifference as they moved on to other stories, while the discussion page of Abusive Romance was harmonious throughout.

In Abusive Romance, revised edition, Baili Qingmiao exited meditation having reached Mahayana, achieving minor enlightenment of the Path of Indifference. After hearing that Hè Wenzhao had died and she had been appointed the new Sect Master, she was silent for a bit, then accepted her new responsibility.

Her disciple Su Huai was puzzled. She was already at Mahayana and would soon be able to ascend, so why did she want to tie herself to Shangqing Sect?

Baili Qingmiao smiled gently at her disciple. “Do you think that Shangqing Sect and the entire righteous path all consists of chasers of fame?”

“All of them, except for you,” Su Huai answered angrily.

He had also been listening on True Yin Mountain as Yin Hanjiang interrogated the righteous scum on each and every one of their deeds. When he realized just how much dirt had been smeared on Xuanyuan Sect, he was furious, wishing that Sect Master Yin would just burn everyone there, but Sect Master Yin hadn’t done so. He just eliminated the Blood Demon, then gave all the prisoners back to their sects, for them to deal with themselves.

If you asked Su Huai, the best would be killing all the righteous experts present, so Xuanyuan Sect could take over the cultivation world!

“But do you know why the righteous cultivators could push all these deeds onto Xuanyuan Sect?” Baili Qingmiao asked.

“That…” Su Huai found himself wordless.

He wanted to say that Xuanyuan Sect had a bad reputation, but why was its reputation bad? Because it really had done many awful things.

“Before Sect Master Wenren unified the demonic sects, Xuanyuan Sect truly was capable of all evils.” Baili Qingmiao thought back to Zhongli Qian’s teachings and the stories of the past that Master Qingxue had told her. “Their actions were in no way inferior to the ones of the righteous sects today.”

Over these past several years, Baili Qingmiao had been free from Shangqing Sect, wandering the world and witnessing the sufferings of the mortal realm with her own eyes. She understood that the world wasn’t black and white. When her eyes, previously blinded by infatuation, had been cleared, her understanding of the world had changed.

She patted Su Huai’s hand, saying, “After Wenren È became the Lord of Demons, he used harsh methods to purge the ranks of the old Sect Master’s subordinates. That was destruction. He then reformed the sect’s ranks, ordering everyone to follow new regulations. That was rebirth. After a hundred years, Xuanyuan Sect has transformed from a demonic sect to a sect where anyone can express their nature. You feel comfortable in Xuanyuan Sect because everyone there is true to themselves, displaying malice and kindness openly with no pretenses or masks. But the one who made this possible was none other than Wenren È.”

“As for today, when Yin Hanjiang unmasked the righteous sects’ years-old decay on True Yin Mountain, it was destruction. After all these years of the righteous sects taking in disciples from far and wide, they’ve inevitably ended up unable to manage them. A large sect is bound to have rotten elements. If they don’t excise them with a firm hand, the rot will spread to healthy flesh, until righteous and demonic have no meaning, right and wrong, black and white, are intertwined, and chaos ensues under heaven.”

“So… what Sect Master Yin did was for the benefit of the righteous sects?” Su Huai said, astonished. “Master, have you become smarter? Did you really think of all this yourself? Sir Zhongli probably taught you, right?”

He was close with Qiu Congxue and Baili Qingmiao was a friendly person, so there was no distinction of age between them.

Baili Qingmiao tapped a finger on Su Huai’s forehead. “Your master thought of it herself. After your master obtained the Iridescent Blood Flame Silk, she remembered a great deal.”

The Iridescent Blood Flame Silk was transformed from the divine blood, which the primordial goddess had prepared in order to regain her divinity, so it also stored some memories of her previous life. After ascending to Mahayana, Baili Qingmiao gradually regained some of those memories.

Having been influenced by Hè Wenzhao’s previous incarnation, she really had believed that what she had done was wrong. Only now that she reincarnated and saw Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang’s actions did she come to understand.

“Sect Master Yin’s destruction is painful to the righteous sects, but it’s also their only path for survival,” Baili Qingmiao said regretfully. “In my previous life, I brought immeasurable pain to the mortal realm. To the lives individually, this pain was a devastating blow, but to the cosmos, each disaster is a chance for a new start.”

Su Huai cocked his head as he listened, not really understanding.

“In my previous life, I always brought about destruction, never rebirth. The leadership of Shangqing Sect is an opportunity for me. Shangqing Sect is the leader of the righteous sects, so the Sect Master used his life to wash away the stain Hè Wenzhao brought to it, and trusted me enough to give me this chance to reform the sect and the righteous path. I cannot refuse such a heavy responsibility.” Baili Qingmiao’s expression grew solemn, and facing the direction of True Yin Mountain, where the Sect Master had passed, she made a deep bow.

She faintly felt, deep inside, that the day she led the righteous sects to once again gain prestige in the world would be the day she was qualified to regain the divine nature.

The primordial goddess had been born together with heaven and earth, and all of her thoughts and actions were in order to preserve the realms. If only disaster existed in the cosmos, then it would head toward inevitable extinction. Disaster was only a means to clear out the weeds, refreshing the cosmos so it could grow brighter.

Su Huai was still confused. Baili Qingmiao asked if he wanted to go to Shangqing Sect or stay at Xuanyuan Sect, and after a lot of thought, he decided he would follow his master. Even though Xuanyuan Sect was his aspiration, his master was a bit dumb and he was afraid she would get pushed around at Shangqing Sect, so he couldn’t leave her alone.

And if he stayed at Xuanyuan Sect, that Altar Master called Shi Congxin would keep looking at him secretly, paranoid about him stealing his seat as the master of Hellfire Altar. Su Huai thought the members of Xuanyuan Sect were a bit out of control, and even Sir Zhongli, with all his brains, was about to go bald. He rubbed his thick head of hair and thought there was nothing wrong with being a head disciple at Shangqing Sect.

Before Baili Qingmiao left Xuanyuan Sect, some people who got along well with her showed up to say their farewells.

Qiu Congxue was highly unsatisfied. Her disciple had finally reached Mahayana, but instead of joining forces with her to assassinate Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang, she was heading off to be the Sect Master of Shangqing Sect. She grabbed Baili Qingmiao and yelled at her for a while, until Su Huai couldn’t listen anymore and, pulling her aside, quietly told her his master wanted to unify the righteous path.

Qiu Congxue’s eyes instantly brightened and, puffing out her chest, said, “Go get it done, and by the time you’ve unified the righteous sects, I’ll be the Xuanyuan Sect Master. By then, when we meet on the battlefield as master and disciple, it’ll be legendary!”

Su Huai rubbed his forehead, feeling like what she was saying wasn’t even close to legendary.

“Don’t you worry,” the alluring Protector Shu said, stroking Su Huai’s face. “With this Protector around, there’s no way your martial ancestor is going to take over the demonic path. If she becomes leader, she’ll probably turn the whole sect into ghosts, and if everyone’s a skeleton with no flesh, who will this Protector dual cultivate with?”

Faced with Protector Shu’s overwhelming beauty, Su Huai’s face reddened and he backed up several steps. Watching her warily, he said, “I’m entering the righteous path with my master, I’ll never d—dual cultivate with you!”

Shu Yanyan laughed slightly and took a few steps forward to squeeze Su Huai’s cheeks. “I wouldn’t touch someone like you. You’re too serious and sentimental, willing to give up everything for the person you love. I can’t take responsibility for that.”

While Shu Yanyan talked to Su Huai, Shi Congxin quietly moved up to Baili Qingmiao and presented a jade talisman with both hands.

“What’s this?” Baili Qingmiao said, looking doubtfully at him. Over her stay at Xuanyuan Sect, she hadn’t actually had any disagreements with Altar Master Shi. When she was unconscious, she instinctively took Altar Master Shi’s sickness qi in order to protect herself and fend off the divine nature. Thus, she had owed him a debt. But after she returned the sickness qi, it had been strengthened by the body of the primordial goddess that commanded disasters, so Altar Master Shi had gained power and Baili Qingmiao had repaid her debt.

“T—there’s a curse inside. You can use it if anyone defies you,” Shi Congxin said timidly.

Every time he laid eyes on Baili Qingmiao, he wanted to fall to his knees and offer everything he had to her. He really didn’t understand it.

“Thank you.” Even if she wasn’t necessarily going to use it, Baili Qingmiao still accepted his gift.

And, thinking back to the tracking curse that had been placed on Zhongli Qian and her, curses didn’t necessarily have to be bad things, as long as they were used in the right ways.

Thinking about the friend she had traveled for thirty years with, she looked at Zhongli Qian, cupping her hands to him for farewell.

There were no unnecessary words or demands made of each other. A relationship between gentlemen was as faint as water, but Baili Qingmiao knew that if she ever met with trouble in the future, Zhongli Qian was sure to help her out, and if Zhongli Qian needed help, she would do the same.

After bidding farewell to Baili Qingmiao, Zhongli Qian asked Shu Yanyan, “Protector Shu, when will the two Sect Masters exit seclusion? I need to resign and take my leave of them.”

“Exit seclusion?” Shu Yanyan lifted a slender hand to cover her surprised expression. “Who knows how much longer that’ll take? Yesterday, upon returning to Xuanyuan Sect, Sect Master Wenren borrowed a manual from me before entering seclusion. He asked for the most profound manual which not even I have grasped, so if he wants to master it, it might take thirty or fifty years.”

Zhongli Qian: …

He looked toward Baili Qingmiao, hoping his friend could lend him a hand, but Baili Qingmiao had hurried off right after saying her farewells and was long since gone.

Zhongli Qian let out a long sigh. The two Sect Masters seemed to be leaving the task of controlling the demonic cultivators entirely to him. They say that once you set foot on a pirate ship, you can’t leave, and Zhongli Qian understood exactly what that meant now.

Abusive Romance‘s last page stopped on this chaotic scene. Each of the readers acted as if they were proud to see their first daughter grow up.

[sob sob Reading Baili Qingmiao’s final lines, I feel like my daughter who’s been tricked into running off with a scum man finally grew up. It’s such a bittersweet warm feeling, it’s great.]

[Yeah, she not only stomped on him, but stole his company. Beautifully done!]

[After reading for over a million words, there wasn’t any romance up to the end, or you could say it was a romance between Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang written from Baili Qingmiao’s point of view, so it was actually a danmei. I’m pondering the title.]

[Abusive romance? All I see is Yin Hanjiang awesomely destroying Hè Wenzhao, where’s the abuse?]

[Abuse of Zhongli Qian’s hair. After this, he needs to keep the demonic cultivators in check. An award-winning teacher goes bald over his misbehaving students—is this twisted morality or the decay of societal values? Hahahaha!]

[Stop it, it’s too vivid. My poor Qian… he might as well shave off all his hair. Monks are self-restrained and good-looking, and it’s better than having a bald spot.]

[Who says there’s no abusive romance? Baili Qingmiao and Elder Qingxue a hundred years later, one the leader of the righteous sects, the other the Demon Lord, forced to kill each other even though they love one another. ‘Back then, I saved your body, you helped me escape a worthless man and saved my soul, we supported each other for thirty years, how could we end up facing each other in battle?’ Isn’t that cruel?]

[You’re thinking too much. Qingxue doesn’t have the brains to become the sect leader. If she goes for the position, Sister Shu won’t let her.]

[Speaking of Sister Shu, I want to see how her deepest techniques can take thirty to fifty years to master.]

[Me too—

Slap! Yin Hanjiang slammed shut Abusive Romance: You Are the Unchanging One in My Heart, giving up on reading the comments. 

With the book in hand, he eyed the lamp by the bed, and slowly extended the book to the flame.

A sturdy arm reached over and took the book out of his hand. A lazy voice sounded by his ear. “What does it say? That makes you angry enough to burn it?”

“This Lord is just concerned…” Yin Hanjiang opened his mouth, but found his throat was hoarse, and took a cup of spiritual wine from his storage space, gulping it down before he continued. “This work is malicious and might affect one’s emotions.”

He roughly went over how, when Wenren È was in the Blood Hell, he had seen scenes from the original edition of the book and it had aggravated his inner demons.

“It isn’t just you who’s experienced that.” Wenren È thought back to how, when Qiu Congxue had been saved by Baili Qingmiao in his place, the original dialogue had appeared in her mind. When Shi Congxin first saw Baili Qingmiao, he also saw divine light.

Only, if the same plot was placed on a different person, a completely different outcome would result.

“Why would such a thing happen?” Yin Hanjiang took out Abusive Romance and the three books of God of Annihilation and flipped through them, finding that Annihilation Volumes 2 and 3 had already become blank. Aside from people still hurling insults in the discussions, there were no signs of a revision.

“I’ve always had a question. In both God of Annihilation and Abusive Romance‘s comments, there has never been any mention of the other book. They clearly have the same two protagonists, so has no one read both books?” Wenren È said.

Yin Hanjiang was bewildered for a moment. Staring at the books, various guesses flashed through his mind, but only one was close to a plausible answer. “The two books don’t exist in the same world.”

“Correct,” Wenren È said. “The myriad worlds are all disconnected from each other, but they also influence each other. The cultivation realm has many legends about the immortal realm and the divine realm, but when it comes to whether they’re true, we can’t know until we go to the immortal realm or the divine realm. Yet this doesn’t stop us from knowing things and discussing them.

“Our story is the same. From the viewpoints of different people, it’s reflected in different worlds. Thus, no book in no world has the entire story, only the perspective of a certain person.

“If I have to give a judgment on both books, I’d say these two books are warnings about the end of the three realms. The fact that they each appeared in different hands is heaven working in mysterious ways, spreading the knowledge of the calamity facing the three realms. Whether or not the people who obtained the books can grasp the single chance of survival would depend on how they act.

“As for the plot appearing in people’s minds, it could be the doings of the divine nature, or a warning from heaven, or other worlds influencing ours. But there could also be other reasons, so it’s impossible for me to judge.

“The only thing we can be certain of is that, after cultivating the Path of Indifference and taking on the leadership of Shangqing Sect, Baili Qingmiao’s will should be firm enough to subjugate the divine nature.”

Yin Hanjiang didn’t care about whether or not Baili Qingmiao could save the three realms. If you asked him, being able to live and die alongside Wenren È, then melding together with him after death and becoming the new cosmos, was a fine conclusion.

“I wonder if there’s a book with us as the main characters?” Yin Hanjiang suddenly said, as he flipped casually through the book over the oil lamp.

“Who knows?” Wenren È smiled slightly, and didn’t go to stop Yin Hanjiang’s move to burn the book. “Would you object to our story being read?”

“What does it matter to me?” Yin Hanjiang tossed the book onto the ground.

Just as Wenren È had said, even if other worlds could see their story, they didn’t have the power to affect the two of them. To Yin Hanjiang, the most important thing was that Wenren È was alive and they were together. This alone was enough.

Yin Hanjiang’s long hair, usually tied up neatly, was loose over the bed, with one lock being lain on by Wenren È, but he didn’t mind. He picked up a lock of their entwined hair and began playing with it.

“Is the Burning Sky Immortal me or someone else? Am I the reincarnation of the Burning Sky Immortal, or just someone who stole his position?”

“When we reach the immortal realm, we’ll naturally know the answer. In order to reach the immortal realm sooner, should we practice Protector Shu’s techniques again?” Wenren È said.

Yin Hanjiang threw an arm over Wenren È and turned over. He half-lidded his eyes, hiding his look of triumph.

As he turned over, he flicked a wrist and set aflame the four books discarded on the floor. 

The fire illuminated their somewhat shadowy bedroom. Seeing the light in the corners of his eyes, Yin Hanjiang smiled.