Mo Ran watched Xue Meng calmly as he bore through the twisting pain in his stomach. His lips curled into a sneer, and he leaned against the back of his throne. Darkness encroached on his sight; it was as if he could feel his innards wrenching, melting, and disintegrating into stinking, bloody swill.
“Give him back to you?” Mo Ran replied indolently. “How foolish. Why don’t you use your brain to think a little? Shizun and I share such an intense hatred for each other. How could I allow him to live in this world?”
“You!” Xue Meng’s face went white, and his eyes widened as he stepped back involuntarily. “You can’t have… You wouldn’t…”
“I wouldn’t what?” Mo Ran laughed softly. “Why don’t you tell me: Why wouldn’t I?”
Xue Meng’s voice shook. “But he’s your… He’s still your shizun, after everything… How could you bear to kill him?!”
He raised his head to look up at Mo Ran, seated on his emperor’s throne. The heavens had Fuxi, hell had Yanluo, and in the mortal realm, there was Mo Weiyu.
But as far as Xue Meng was concerned, even if Mo Ran had become the eminent Emperor of the Mortal Realm, there was no way he could have done this. His body shook all over as his outraged tears spilled over. “Mo Weiyu, are you even human anymore? He once…”
Mo Ran lifted his gaze. “He once what?”
“You know very well how he once treated you,” Xue Meng said, tone taut with emotion.
Mo Ran barked a sudden laugh. “Are you trying to remind me that he once beat me so hard that I was left covered with cuts and bruises? That he made me kneel before all to confess my crimes? Or did you want to remind me that for your sake, for the sake of all these insignificant nobodies, he stood in my way at every turn, ruining my great endeavors time and again?”
Xue Meng shook his head, pained.
No, Mo Ran. Think about it. Let go of your vicious hatred and look back properly. He once trained you in cultivation and martial arts, trained you in the art of self-defense. He once taught you how to read and write, taught you poetry and painting. He once learned how to cook just for you, even though he was so clumsy and got cuts all over his hands.
He once… He once waited every day for you to come home, all alone by himself, from nightfall…till the break of dawn…
These words caught in his throat, and at length, Xue Meng could only choke out, “His… His temper is terrible, and his words are harsh, but even I know how well he treated you. So why… How could you…”
Xue Meng raised his head, but having held back so many tears, his throat was even more constricted, and he couldn’t continue.
After a long pause, Mo Ran’s quiet sigh floated down from the throne. “Yeah. But Xue Meng, did you know?” Mo Ran was clearly exhausted. “He also ended the life of the only person I ever loved. The only one.”
A deathly silence hung over them for a good long while.
The pain in Mo Ran’s stomach, as his blood and flesh tore and ripped themselves to shreds, was like a blazing fire.
“Still, we were once master and disciple. His body is resting in the Red Lotus Pavilion at the southern peak. He’s been very well-preserved and lies there among the lotus blossoms, looking like he’s only fallen asleep.” Mo Ran caught his breath and forced himself to calm down. When he spoke, his expression remained blank, but his fingers dug into the red sandalwood of his throne’s armrest so tightly that his knuckles went white. “His corpse is maintained by my spiritual powers. If you miss him, don’t waste your breath here with me. Go now, before I die.”
A lump of astringent sweetness swarmed up into Mo Ran’s throat; he coughed a couple times, and when he opened his mouth again, his lips and teeth were covered in blood. But his gaze was at ease.
“Go,” he said with a rough voice. “Go see him. Without my spiritual powers, he’ll turn to dust. If you don’t make it before I die, it’ll be too late.”
Done speaking, he closed his eyes dispiritedly. The poison had reached his heart, bringing with it a torment like a raging inferno.
The agony was so all-consuming that even Xue Meng’s anguished, despairing wails felt like they came from far away, like he and Mo Ran were separated by an ocean spanning thousands of miles and his voice traveled over those waters.
Blood continued to drip from the corners of Mo Ran’s lips, and his hands fisted in his sleeves as his muscles spasmed. When he opened his bleary eyes, Xue Meng had long since run off. The kid’s qinggong lightness wasn’t bad; it wouldn’t take him long to reach the southern peak.
He should be able to see Shizun one last time.
Mo Ran pushed himself up, wobbling as he rose to his feet. Using hands flecked with blood, he formed a seal and sent himself to the base of Sisheng Peak’s Heaven-Piercing Tower.
It was deep autumn, and the haitang blossoms were in full, abundant bloom. He didn’t know why he’d ended up choosing this place to end his sinful life, but with all of the flowers blooming so vibrantly, at least it wouldn’t be such a bad tomb.
Mo Ran lay down in that open coffin and looked up to watch the blossoms of the night drift soundlessly as they wilted. Drifting into the coffin, drifting onto his cheeks. Dancing and fluttering, fading away like the events of the past.
In this life, he’d started out as a bastard son who possessed nothing, and after enduring a great deal, he’d become Lord Emperor of the Mortal Realm.
He had blasphemed, and his hands were covered with blood. All that he loved, all that he hated, all that he prayed for, all that he resented—when all was said and done, there was nothing left.
Ultimately, he hadn’t even bothered to pen an epitaph for himself with that wild and spirited scrawl of his. There was no shameless “Emperor of the Ages,” nor was there something ridiculous like “Deep-Fried” or “Steamed”; he hadn’t written a thing. The grave of the first emperor of the cultivation world was, in the end, unmarked.
And so the curtains finally closed on a spectacle that had lasted for a decade.
Many, many hours later, the rebel army invaded the resident palace of the emperor with torches held high. However, what awaited them was an empty Wushan Palace, a Sisheng Peak without a soul, and at the Red Lotus Pavilion, Xue Meng, who had cried himself numb, slumped over on a floor covered in ashes.
And finally, before the Heaven-Piercing Tower, the long-cold corpse of Mo Weiyu.