GB Chapter 65

When Bifang found Qin Jiu, the Beauty Under the Moon he had cherished for a hundred years had become a cold corpse. The river water had washed away all traces of blood, and now she was just like she had been in the painting, neither speaking nor smiling, lying quietly among the water plants. The light of the water shimmered over the tear mole at the corner of her eye, like silent tears slipping away.

He silently carried her back to the Heavenly Court. However, Dao Man, who could find numerous examples to reference even for the matter of a human and a demon having a child, could only shake his head helplessly after seeing her corpse, sighing in a low voice, “Wait for the next life.”

When it was determined that there was absolutely no hope, Bifang felt liquid falling from the corner of his eye for the first time. He looked at the drops of water landing on the woman’s clean face, and asked in confusion, “What is this?”

“It’s tears.”

Dao Man’s voice was somewhat mournful, but he didn’t believe it, only murmuring, “You’re lying to me, celestial beasts don’t have tears, only humans cry.”

Yes, Bifang wouldn’t cry. Had he, already become a human?

“Dao Man, you told me that mortals are very fragile, and to avoid innocent people dying, even if you’re angry, you can’t start a big fire. Then, why can such weak mortals so carelessly take the lives of others?”

Bifang had always had a bad temper but liked lively scenes. Whenever someone ascended, he would go up to have a look. Few immortals in the Heavenly Court hadn’t been burned by him. The immortals all had a headache when he was mentioned.

He was the celestial beast symbolizing the fire of the Heavenly Tribulation, but in all the years he had spent in the mortal realm, he hadn’t released a single flame. He just wanted to quietly wait for his Beauty Under the Moon to ascend. This wasn’t a wish that would harm anyone, but why did it turn out like this?

“Perhaps it is because mortals are ignorant. They believe they are powerful, they believe they can control everything about another person. Ignorance breeds fearlessness, and because they are fearless, they are cruel.”

Dao Man had cultivated for a hundred years before ascending. He had spent so long searching for a way to save the world, and could only place his hope in the Heavenly Court. However, when he asked the Celestial Emperor how to make the human world a peaceful place, this most powerful of gods only replied with a helpless single word, “Wait.”

Wait until they learn their lesson, wait until they’ve experienced enough tragedies, wait until all of this makes people turn back, that would be when a peaceful and prosperous era arrives.

Dao Man understood what the Celestial Emperor meant, and he also knew that with the long lifespans of immortals, they would definitely be able to wait for that day. He originally wanted to quietly watch from the heavens, but now Bifang only asked one question, and he was left speechless.

He asked, “Dao Man, can you accept such a human world?”

Dao Man didn’t answer him, but silence itself was an answer. Bifang took the woman’s soul into a painting scroll. He would not let her be reborn as a human. The next era wasn’t a good place for humans. But even so, he wouldn’t remain silent like Dao Man. If only enough pain could make people reflect on themselves, then he would let the world feel pain and punish all living things. This was originally the duty of the Heavenly Tribulation Bird.

“The monks in the Western Heavens have said, ‘One thought makes a Buddha, one thought makes a demon.’ If you won’t guide them to become Buddhas, then I will guide the world into becoming demons.”

Mortals were fearless, then he would make the world remember what fear was. Mortals were ignorant, then he would make the people of the world not dare to be ignorant.

Humans, use the humanity that you uphold to defeat me. If she truly died because of such a powerful and irresistible righteousness, perhaps I wouldn’t be so angry anymore.

As Bifang’s name burned out from the celestial records, from then on, the Heavenly Court no longer had the celestial beast Bifang. The Demon Lord was born, and the world was plunged into chaos.

On the first day the Demon Lord appeared, he slaughtered the entire Purple Cloud Sect. He couldn’t distinguish which of them had broken his formation, but it didn’t matter. This was just the beginning. Those rules that had made Qin Jiu suffer her whole life, all those who obeyed them and believed in them as truths, he would start from here and kill them one by one.

He destroyed many cultivator sects, and he also destroyed the imperial court. Those who set the rules either bowed their heads to him or died by his hands. From beginning to end, not a single person dared to question him.

On the day he conquered the imperial court, the Demon Lord sat on the corpses of cultivators and looked at the kneeling civil and military officials with bloodshot eyes. He asked, “I heard that the rules of the human world are that one cannot use private punishments, cannot indiscriminately kill the innocent, and cannot engage in infighting. I have violated all of them. Are you going to punish me?”

These were the people who had set the rules, these were the people who had decided that his Qin Jiu could only be controlled by others for her entire life. When faced with Qin Jiu, who had never harmed anyone, they had not hesitated to kill her in order to uphold their morals simply because she had married a non-human cultivator. Yet when faced with a Demon Lord who was many times more excessive, they respectfully knelt on the ground, not daring to utter a sound. In the end, Yu Qing frantically raised his head and replied, “Master, those are just rules to restrain mortals. You are a demon, you are naturally allowed to do whatever you please!”

Yes, human rules were only ever used to control those who had no power to resist. They would use the lives of others to defend these rules. If they really encountered an invincible opponent, the number of people in the entire court who were willing to defend the way with their own lives wouldn’t even amount to ten.

Looking at the ten officials who insisted on not kneeling and were instead beheaded by the panicked emperor in front of the palace, the Demon Lord only shook his head. He said, “Ten, that’s too few, not enough.”

As soon as these words came out, the people kneeling below couldn’t help but tremble. Yu Qing’s eyes, however, were filled with excitement, “Master, there are over a hundred thousand people in this Chang’an city!”

The Demon Lord lowered his head to look at this madman, seeming to find it a bit amusing. In the end, however, he still couldn’t laugh. He only said faintly, “It’s different. Those who die standing are humans, those who kneel are just domesticated livestock.”

Yes, this is humanity. When they are powerful, they can justifiably harm any living thing. When they become weak, they cry and scream at the slightest pain. Even so, they can still derive pleasure from harming the weaker.

Qin Jiu had turned him into a human, but he didn’t want to be a human anymore. There was salvation for the world, but he didn’t want to save it.

He was the Heavenly Tribulation Bird. The only thing he had to do was bring calamity to the world.

Since it was a calamity, there would be an end to it. When he discovered the anomaly of the painting scroll, he glanced at the human world, which had already turned into a hellscape, and went to the sea without any hesitation. His premonition was correct. Qin Jiu had awakened and become an existence that had never appeared in the world before. She was the same as before, even though she had become a cursed ghost god. She still hadn’t given up, and did her best to give birth to the child in her womb and hand it to him, and then begged him to kill her.

Qin Jiu told him that this child was his kind, and that even without her, he would surely be able to live safely in the world. But now that she was so dangerous, it would be better for her to return to the original painting.

This was the first time Bifang had refused her request. He used the power he had inherited from the Golden Crow lineage to separate the sun and moon, but he couldn’t stop the baleful energy in her body from erupting. He could only stop her time on that day, and take the child to see Dao Man, who had come looking for him.

People only knew of the wonder of Underworld Soil, but didn’t know that Underworld Soil was originally mortal soil, but it was only because it was mixed with the ashes of the Golden Crow’s primordial spirit that it had the ability to reshape flesh bodies. And Bifang was the last descendant of the Golden Crow in the world.

That day, he coaxed the child with clay figures. The child babbled and reached out to him, as if wanting to hold his hand forever, as if telling him not to leave. Qin Jiu hadn’t lied to him. His child was indeed different from other people’s children. He wouldn’t get annoyed no matter how long he held him.

This little thing, he was afraid he would hurt him even just touching him. Why were there still people in the world who could watch their own children die? Human beings were too complicated. He, indeed, didn’t want to be a human.

That day, Dao Man looked at him, his whole body shrouded in demonic energy, and only sighed softly, “Bifang, I told you that descending into the mortal realm was not a good thing.”

“Yes, all evil deeds will have retribution. But tell me, if I hadn’t taken action, would the people who killed her really have retribution?”

He had existed in the world for thousands of years. How could he not know what the Heavenly Dao was? But he also knew that the Heavenly Dao didn’t care about the mortal world. The mortal world only followed human ways. If it weren’t for the fact that there was too much killing, and the resentment had soared to the heavens, even the heavens wouldn’t care. Just like what the Celestial Emperor had said, they would just passively wait.

The death of one person wasn’t enough to bring down the Heavenly Tribulation, so he could only do it himself.

Looking at the immortal in front of him, surrounded by immortal energy, he asked, “Dao Man, I have reduced the world’s population by half, and all the most evil people in the world have gathered around me. With this, can you save the world?”

The Celestial Emperor had not issued an order for them to interfere in the affairs of the human world. He had said that the heavens had already punished Bifang. This was a tribulation for all living things, and humans could only save themselves. However, Dao Man had still come to the human world. When he came, he had already decided what he was going to do. At this time, he was finally able to firmly answer Bifang, “The world cannot be saved by just one person, but I will give my life to teach them how to save themselves.”

This was the look that Bifang had been waiting for. Who knew that instead of encountering someone with such a look, he had ended up meeting such an immortal. He finally smiled for once, although it was so faint that it could barely be seen. It was an expression the past Demon Lord had never shown, “Alright, I’ll help you.”

Bifang’s three souls and seven spirits had stayed by Qin Jiu’s side. Now, with a bolt of the Heavenly Tribulation lightning, the last primordial spirit also left his body. The one-legged Bifang spread his wings and flew to the high sky, and disappeared into the thunderclouds, bringing an end to this tribulation.

This was how the Heavenly Tribulation Bird was used. In the past, when immortals defied the heavens, its ancestor, the Golden Crow, would spontaneously turn into the sun to extinguish all the rebellious immortals. Then it would use the lives of an entire clan to fulfill Hou Yi’s deed of shooting down the suns, leaving only it, who was born with a single leg, to be raised by the Celestial Emperor. Today, with the hearts of people being dark and the world stagnating, Bifang would also use the resentment of the world to create a savior, a Taoist patriarch.

Immortals couldn’t save the world, because immortals couldn’t kill. But if an era was to end, all those who refused to change had to be removed. Only a demon who sacrificed everything could accomplish such a thing. And what immortals had to do was to remove the people who had been lured by the demon, and then guide the rest of the people towards the right path.

The only end for a demon was to die while being cursed by the world, but the Demon Lord didn’t regret it. He wanted the entire era to be buried with him. Even if the ending wasn’t as he had hoped, this was still his revenge.

In the end, even at this point, he still had not turned back. Qin Jiu was right, he was indeed an extremely willful man.

My son, Qian Ren, although you were born in the darkest age of this human world, I still hope that when you open your eyes, the first world you see is bright and warm. I hope that you can grow up safely and see the best scenery in the world, and I also hope that you can stay in your purest youth, forever never having to understand the love and hatred in the world.

In the last moment before he turned into ashes, he lowered his head and glanced at the island with its clearly separated day and night. In the end, he still merged into the thunderclouds, and disappeared from the world.

Dao Man used his primordial spirit to create a body for the child that was no different from a living person. As he had instructed, he left the child permanently in the blood pool, and the remaining ashes were scattered into the flower field in front of Qin Jiu’s home.

His death didn’t save the person he loved. The merit of saving the world was entirely taken by Dao Man. However, the Celestial Emperor still remembered the merits of the Golden Crow lineage a thousand years ago for extinguishing the world, he didn’t tell anyone, he only quietly used his supreme divine power to cause Bifang to re-emerge as a spirit within the thunderclouds. Slowly, Lüling was born into the world.

That day, the Demon Lord Bifang died at the hands of the Daoist patriarch, and the world returned to peace.

A month later, the immortal Dao Man spread the cultivation methods all over the world. He couldn’t make the world devoid of evil, but he could make people cultivate their hearts and seek the Dao. He firmly believed that good would prevail over evil. Even if people’s hearts were unpredictable, there would still be people in the world who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the Dao. Having completed all of this, the Daoist patriarch died with a smile in the immortal lake.

A year later, a fisherman walked out of the immortal lake. He established the orthodox Xuan sect, spread the Daoist teachings, and formed the Heavenly Dao Alliance to manage the cultivators of the world. From then on, all demons were subdued, and the world returned to righteousness.

Ten years later, Fang Sui Han stepped onto the Xi Shang political stage. He wanted to cleanse the imperial court and return a clean world to the people. Even if he died, he would still turn into a ghost god, waiting for the day when the world would be unified.

A hundred years later, the Xuan sect immortal Xue Lingyun, after ascending and descending again, granted the Book of Heaven Without Words to the Emperor of Xi Liang. From then on, all emperors, in order to gain merit to seek ascension, strove to govern diligently, creating one prosperous era after another.

Another hundred years later, the Xi Liang Kingdom was destroyed. Qingxu Zi, the third generation head of the Xuan sect, stabilized the world with his sword. A young man named Bu Qingyun climbed out of a pile of corpses. He vowed that as long as he lived, he would make the world peaceful.

Forty years later, Bu Qingyun, who had changed his name to He Huan, unified the demonic path. In order to seek the secret treasures of the Demon Lord, he went to sea. Then, looking at the names left behind by the Demon Lord before he died, he had a great epiphany, shed his murderous intent, and regained his original intention of seeking peace for the world. He took away the baby in the Demon Lord’s arms.

When Qian Ren opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was He Huan, a demonic head, releasing a soft smile towards all living beings. Although he had experienced many hardships to grow up, he also had the love of his master and the trust of his best friend. He also met the person he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. The world might not have become perfect, but he was happier than his father had been.

Finally seeing all of this history that he had forgotten, Lüling’s lips gently curled up, just like how the Demon Lord had looked before he died. He opened his eyes and saw Zhuge Qingtian’s surprised expression, hearing him ask in concern, “Why is he smiling? Isn’t the Demon Lord as serious as you are?”

Silly daughter-in-law, it’s not that I’m always serious. I have always liked lively scenes. It’s just that there were no more things in the world that made me happy later, so I couldn’t laugh.

Shaking his head, he placed his palm on the young man’s head, and softly said, “Although this isn’t the result I had expected in the past, I still want to thank you.”

As soon as this ancestral head-patting action came out, Zhuge Qingtian knew that the real father-in-law had woken up. However, he still felt that the situation was wrong, and immediately reminded him, “Wait, you’re patting the wrong person!”

Not paying attention to their surprised expressions, Lüling still rubbed his hair, and then smiled and said, “I didn’t get it wrong. This is what I wanted to say to you all this time but couldn’t get out. I’m really grateful that you could appear in my son’s life at the best time.”

The author has something to say: Zhuge Qingtian: Are you sure we didn’t get the families mixed up?

Lüling: I was afraid of getting kicked out by my son if I patted him, after all, we all have terrible tempers in this family.

Zhuge Qingtian: Actually, you could have let me feel touched for a few more minutes.

Lüling: Impossible. It’s your fate to get kicked out with me by my son.

Zhuge Qingtian: I really still want to argue with you!

Qian Ren: Looks at the two idiots with concern.