Nightfall

“Every death in the world is a long-awaited reunion.”

The Drunkard once said to Ning Que outside of Chang’an. It was not until this moment did Ning Que truly understood that this sentence was an invitation.

Sangsang asked the Drunkard to pass the message to Ning Que.

In the Haotian doctrine, the death of a believer was to return to the Divine Kingdom of Light and to Haotian’s arm. If he was willing to surrender to her, he would naturally stay with her forever after death.

But what is surrender? Of course it meant that Ning Que had to break the natal relationship with Sangsang.

Although she was Haotian, she also had to obey the rules of the world of Haotian. When she found out she wasn’t able to end her relationship with Ning Que, she could only hope he would do it.

Haotian wouldn’t deceive the world. As for the time when the whole world was hunting for the daughter of the Invariant Yama, it was the fault of people who were blinded by illusion rather than her intent to fool people. She promised to grant Ning Que eternity, then it must be true. Even though his answer was so rude, she didn’t change her mind.

If the Hierarch knew Haotian promised to grant Ning Que such a blessing, he would definitely go crazy with jealousy. But Ning Que was quite calm. “A god never negotiates with ordinary people. Why are you doing this? Are you fond of me? Or are you afraid of me?” He asked, staring into her eyes.

“You are not part of my people, so I can forgive the crimes you have committed. I loathe those memories, but I can feel your esteem for me. Therefore, I will grant you eternity.”

Sangsang had no emotion on her face, which was daunting.

“That year at the Victory House in Chang’an, you hid behind me and drank Kui Kiang Shuang Zheng rice wine. You had such a good time and totally forgot about Prince Long Qing. The prince wanted you. And I said he was beautiful.”

Ning Que looked at her plain face and said, “You are whiter and fatter than before, but you are still not a pretty girl. Anyway, I really wanted to say what I’ve said to Long Qing to you at this point.”

“Since you’ve already got such a beautiful face, just drop other wishful thinkings. I adore rather than esteem you in the past years. Why should I surrender to you?”

“From what I remember,” Sangsang said. “You fear death very much.”

“Then you must remember that I fear some other things even more.”

“Like what?”

“You. Our relationship.”

“So you are not willing to surrender to me even if I were to kill you?”

“In fact, I don’t think you will kill me. That’s why I find the courage to come here.”

Sangsang wore a little frown and asked, “Why do you think so?”

“Because you are my natal item.”

“So?”

“If I die, you will die too.”

“Haotian will never die.”

“But Haotian will be whitewashed. Is the new Haotian still be the original one? You left Haotian Divine Kingdom and became a being. You have memories on earth and your body is tinged with dust and smell of earth. You already possess self-consciousness, so you are a life. A life will never want to die or lose his present self.”

Ning Que looked at her eyes and continued, “We can only live together, or die together. So you dare not go to Chang’an, dare not kill me, and even dare not come to see me.”

“Why not enjoy eternity with me?”

“What the hell is that? I want to be together with you, just not the way you say it. I want us to be together as two independent individuals. We can be integrated into one, but we shouldn’t. Because in that way, you and I won’t exist anymore. It’s meaningless.”

“The Academy has always believed in meanings.”

“Isn’t it better to find something meaningful?”

“I can give you what I gave to the Drunkard and the Butcher, which is objective and independent eternity of the divine kingdom. You don’t have to worry about the annihilation of self-consciousness”

“But you still need my surrender.”

“All life must surrender to me.”

“I don’t accept it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are mine.”

Sangsang didn’t understand him.

Ning Que stared at her and said, “Since you are mine, you must surrender to me. It’s totally up to me both in bed and at the diner table.”

“How do you plan to achieve that?” Sangsang asked with a frown.

“Just like that night by the Thermal Sea,” Ning Que said calmly. “I won’t stop fucking you until you surrender.”

Sangsang’s expression remained the same, but billions of stars died out deep in her brightly arched eyes.

Her hands were no longer a gentle universe but an angry one.

Ning Que felt a strong and invincible might coming down on him, like numerous mountains weighing on his shoulders. With a sound of creaking bones, his knees were about to break at any moment.

He clearly sensed the cold and majesty of her hands that he was holding. His eyes and ears began to bleed, dripping on the terrace.

“I’ve wondered about one thing for many years.” His face was covered with blood, but still showed a gratified smile. “How come there aren’t many people who like you even though you are such a diligent and competent person? They like Shanshan, Yilan, even that stupid Li Yu, but why not you?”

“It was not until this moment did I truly understand that the reason was that many people can’t feel the emotions and warmth of human from you. Because you are certainly not a human being.”

“You made my master go up to heaven, and he made you fall to earth,” Ning Que said, staring into Sangsang’s eyes. “You are a god, but I’m going to turn you into a human being. If it’s a war, then it’s a war with my master and I against you. I can feel clearly your anger and hatred which are the emotions only humans have. I call it the dawn of victory.”

Upon saying so, he took one step forward and tried to hold her in his arm. While casting a Divine Talisman with his left hand to cover his body, he began to summon his natal item in the consciousness.

He began to summon Sangsang.

He once sang a song to Sangsang on the cliff by the Snow Lake. Sangsang understood the song and the summon and invitation he made in the song.

Unlike the invitation she asked the Drunkard to convey, Ning Que’s invitation made such a tight connection that even the shadow of death and the threat of Invariant Yama couldn’t tear it apart. It meant absolute obedience.

Facing such an absolute and unilateral connection, any life with self-consciousness would reject instinctively and put up a long struggle even if they were to eventually surrender.

But Sangsang was different. She accepted the invitation without any hesitation or struggle. Because she was not Haotian yet — she was just his little handmaiden.

Once the natal connection was established, nobody could break it, not even Haotian. Sangsang went pale instantly, wearing a tighter frown.

It was the most crucial part of the Academy’s plan, or to be accurate, the continuation of the Headmaster of Academy’s plan of cultivating Sangsang’s love for the world by making her travel everywhere last year. It was also the reason Ning Que dared to leave Chang’an to the Divine Hall of West Hill.

No natal item could ever disobey the cultivator’s orders.

However, what happened next was beyond Ning Que’s expectation. Sangsang went a little pale and her sleeves trembled for a few seconds. But besides that, she looked fine.

She didn’t pass out as he had expected, and he didn’t get the chance to hold her.

Because she was Haotian, not just some normal natal items like swords, talismans or prayer beads. She was the objective rules. Although she needed to obey the rules of natal item, it took more power to force her since she was a nearly infinite existence herself. It was similar to how a derrick stone could fall off the cliff due to the basic rule of nature, but the strength to push it to the verge of the cliff must be enormous.

As one of the few strongest on earth, Ning Que had forceful Psyche Power. But it still looked insignificant and ridiculous when he tried to control Haotian with his consciousness.

Sangsang didn’t laugh and only stared at Ning Que without showing any emotion.

The Ning Que found out that the Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow inside his body were locked out instantly by rules he couldn’t understand and then fell apart gradually. With his Haoran Qi dispersing into the night wind, he lost all his strength.

Sangsang let go of his hands slowly.

Ning Que’s hands were no longer wrapped by gentle water. With his body becoming light suddenly and his feet leaving the ground, he flew backwards in an uncontrolled fashion.

He floated to the top of Divine Hall of Light like a dandelion catkin and he was tied by dozens of invisible forces, looking like a poor little reptile trapping in a cobweb.

The force couldn’t be casted off no matter how hard one tried, because it was the rule. Ning Que didn’t struggle and stared at the blood dripping down in silence.

Walking up to the spot right below him with her hands behind her back, Sangsang stared at him without any emotion. Obviously she was looking up at him, but it looked like she was looking down at the earth.

She won the battle just by glancing at him because she was Haotian. However, Ning Que knew he had not completely failed as long as he was alive and she was still his natal item.

Ning Que started to think about how to fight on. He had no precedents to follow since the battle was different from the ones Headmaster of Academy or Liu Bai had fought.

His thought was interrupted by an unexpected sharp pain.

His shoes splintered into pieces, and so did his skin. His skin was flaking off with blood and blood clots, resembling a peeling wall that went through many days of raining and then exposed to the sun.

His feet were cut apart by countless fine spaces in an instant, with innumerable flesh and blood being cut into small and neat shapes and falling to the floor of the divine hall dozens of zhangs below. Bare bones were the only things left of his feet, covering with blood and meat debris. The scene looked extremely horrible.

The speed of cutting was fast but had deliberate delays, which was Sangsang’s intention to let Ning Que see the scary process more clearly and critically and to give him enough time to feel the severe pain.

Ning Que suffered many injuries before and was brutally tortured by mounted gangsters back in Wilderness, but he had never been through such clear and horrible pain.

His lip turned blue and pale. Soybean-sized sweat beads oozed out and fell to the floor, causing light sound of splash and diluting the flesh and blood down there.

A magisterial voice echoed in his ocean of consciousness nonstop, like tens of thousands of drums being beaten at the same time and tens of thousands of wooden buildings collapsing ceaselessly. The voice said complicated syllables he couldn’t understand, but conveyed a very clear message: “Surrender!”

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