After banging on the door for a long time, the room remained silent.
Aunt Li gritted her teeth and slammed the door open.
The room was empty, not a shadow to be seen.
“Where is the Immortal Lord?”
“Why isn’t he here?”
Everyone looked at each other, and finally, Aunt Li reacted. She reached out and twisted the arm of a nearby child.
The child immediately screamed, crying out for the ‘Immortal Lord’ to save him.
But Ji Yue did not appear.
The pleas quickly turned into curses, and the enraged people desecrated the divine residence, smashing everything in sight.
Uncle Zhong was blocked outside the door, trying to rush in while begging them to stop.
The enraged people, however, could not hear his words. Seeing him continue to struggle, they shoved him outside.
He fell to the courtyard, landing right at Nan Shan’s feet.
Their eyes met. Uncle Zhong’s murky pupils trembled, and after a difficult effort to get up, he tried to persuade the crowd again.
The people, blinded by anger, would not listen to anything.
Unable to find Ji Yue, they bound Uncle Zhong and prepared to set fire to the back courtyard.
“Wait, wait a minute!”
Uncle Zhong panted heavily.
“I know where the Immortal Lord is…”
The people, ready to set the fire, stopped in unison and looked at him.
Uncle Zhong seemed to age another ten years, trembling as he walked toward Shou Xin’s bedroom.
Nan Shan’s gaze sharpened, and a burst of spiritual energy gathered at her fingertips.
Uncle Zhong, under the crowd’s watch, reached the door, knocking weakly.
“Immortal Lord… child… I know you’re inside, please come out. The people are waiting for you to explain. As long as you explain properly, they will understand.”
“Child, please come out, or they’ll burn the back courtyard. If that happens, neither you nor I will have a home left.”
“Child, please, come out quickly, everyone is waiting for you…”
Uncle Zhong’s calls were like a soul’s cry, the black summer night carrying a chilling and desolate aura.
The scene in front of Nan Shan gradually blurred.
When she looked up again, Uncle Zhong and the people were gone.
The back courtyard was empty once more.
She knew where they were.
Nan Shan stood in silence for a long while, before finally making her way to the front courtyard.
Between the temple in the front courtyard and the residential area in the back, there was only a wall and a long corridor.
Every time Nan Shan went to find Ji Yue, she would pass through a small door and cross the corridor to the back door of the temple.
But this time, she chose to leave the back courtyard first, then circled around the silent alley, finally standing outside the temple’s main entrance.
A solar halo had appeared in the sky, with dark red resentment falling from above, flowing into the temple.
She stood outside, able to see the bustling crowd inside.
More people were still heading toward the temple, moving like zombies, their eyes filled with fanaticism, as if they were about to attend a grand feast.
Nan Shan stood outside for a long while before walking toward the temple.
Tonight, the temple lacked incense offerings.
The old, decayed wooden planks were exposed, revealing the foul smell accumulated over the years.
Ji Yue sat on the altar, his form emaciated, his body frail, as if he might collapse at any moment.
Behind him stood a three-zhang-high statue of a god.
The golden robes on the statue seemed to have tightened even more, the cuffs and collar digging into the stone statue as though they might crush it at any moment.
Countless black-red resentments fell from the rafters, slowly merging with the statue.
With each additional bit of resentment, the statue’s golden robes tightened further.
Nan Shan stood behind the crowd.
Ji Yue seemed not to notice her presence, merely gazing calmly at the crowd.
His voice was weak, but he still spoke slowly, “But recently, I’ve been working hard to cultivate. I believe, after some time, my divine power will continue to flow, and I can bless you all again.”
“How long is ‘some time’? Ten years, eight years, or a hundred years?”
Someone couldn’t help but ask, “We are not immortals, nor divine servants. How could we wait that long?”
“Yeah, how could we wait that long!”
The temple was filled with noise, full of unwillingness.
Ji Yue quietly watched them, waiting until they were completely silent, before asking softly, “Three years, would that be acceptable?”
“Does that mean we have to go without blessings for three years?”
The crowd was shocked.
“Three years is too long! Immortal Lord, if you don’t bless us soon, we’ll starve to death tomorrow!”
“Why could the previous Immortal Lords bless us in time, but you can’t? Do you even care about us, your people?”
Words turned into a tidal wave of anger, suffocating the air around Ji Yue.
His face grew increasingly pale, his lowered eyelashes remaining still for a long while before gently trembling.
“Can’t you even wait three years?”
He murmured.
The crowd seemed not to hear his voice, and after discussing for a while, someone suddenly shouted, “Since the Immortal Lord can no longer bless the people, please step down! So we may avoid the suffering of the world!”
“Please step down, Immortal Lord, so we may avoid suffering!”
“Please step down, Immortal Lord, so we may avoid suffering!”
The shouts grew louder, as if the people had all reached a consensus.
The black-red resentment became thicker, and the three-zhang-high statue began to sway.
Amid the crowd, Ji Yue suddenly lifted his gaze, silently staring at Nan Shan.
“Kill me.”
His lips moved, as though saying these two words.
Nan Shan clenched her fists tightly, her whole body trembling.
After a long while, she suddenly relaxed, shaking her head with reddened eyes.
She couldn’t do it.
Ji Yue was not angry.
He lowered his gaze and smiled faintly with resignation.
The greedy followers no longer waited for the god’s permission.
They raised their sharp knives and stabbed toward his frail body.
Blood gushed out in an instant, and someone shouted that the god’s blood and flesh could prolong life.
Everyone surged toward Ji Yue like leeches.
The god’s blood and flesh were the best medicine in the world, and only those who were citizens during the transition between two generations of Immortal Kings had the right to enjoy it.
The citizens who had enjoyed it during the previous generation were old relics from thousands of years ago.
Now, they had the chance to taste such a treasure, and they naturally would not let it go easily.
Nan Shan’s pupils contracted sharply, and without thinking, she tried to use her spiritual power to push the crowd away, but her spiritual power seemed to be useless at this moment.
The crowd continued to surge toward Ji Yue.
“Get away! Get away!”
Nan Shan crazily pushed away one person, desperately trying to break through the crowd.
But there were more and more people, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t push them all away.
“Ji Yue! Ji Yue!”
Nan Shan’s voice became hoarse, but she did not receive a response.
Only then did she finally understand why Ji Yue had said that as long as she came, she would change her mind.
No one could bear to watch their beloved person suffer like this, dying tragically in front of them again and again.
The person at the very front stood up with blood in his mouth, crazed with joy.
“I’ve drunk the god’s blood! I can live a hundred years!”
The people behind him surged even more frantically. Some directly pounced on that person, desperately biting his mouth.
The person screamed in pain, but soon was drowned in the crowd.
The thick smell of blood and the sound of gnawing filled the temple, and Nan Shan for the first time felt such overwhelming despair.
The fake spiritual bone she had placed began to crack again, and Nan Shan screamed in pain.
Just as she was about to use all her strength to save Ji Yue, the boiling resentment suddenly exploded in the temple.
The people were thrown back by a powerful force, and the screams echoed everywhere, as though they were in a hellish world.
Ji Yue, drenched in blood, had somehow fallen from the altar.
He was now slumped against a table like a withered corpse, his skin almost entirely stripped, some places even exposing bone.
Nan Shan tremblingly walked to his side.
After staring at him for a long time, she finally hoarsely asked, “Is this… what you have to endure every night?”
Ji Yue, breathing shallowly, met her gaze for a moment before weakly speaking, “I… am falling.”
Nan Shan froze for a moment, then realized that the resentment, which had previously been surging toward the idol, was now being poured into his body.
His wounds were healing at an observable speed.
Ji Yue’s voice was clearer than before, “When you fall completely, you will lose your sanity for a moment, and… you must kill me then.”
Nan Shan gritted her teeth, staring at him fiercely.
Ji Yue closed his eyes and smiled faintly.
When he looked at her again, his eyes were filled with resignation.
“You will kill me, right?”
Had it been the Nan Shan who had seen what he had gone through, she would have surely said “no” without hesitation.
But at this moment, she couldn’t say a word.
After a long while, she hoarsely said, “I want to take you and leave Dong Yi.”
Since Ji Yue was seven years old, he had hoped every day and night for someone to say these words to him.
But today, when he finally heard them, he felt no joy.
“It’s too late…”
He spoke slowly, as though patiently teaching a student.
“Your spiritual bone has already begun to crack. Even if I lose my sanity, you won’t survive until the next sunset… Nan Shan, if you die, I will be trapped in this eternal night forever.”
“Forever and ever, every night repeating the pain of being drained of blood and flesh, unable to reincarnate.”
This must be the most terrifying curse in the world.
The greedy crowd still stubbornly squirmed on the ground, trying to take another bite of the god’s blood and flesh before Ji Yue completely fell.
Nan Shan stared at Ji Yue as though she had completely lost the ability to think.
“Pain?”
“Come to me.”
He reached out his hand to her.
Nan Shan stiffly grasped his hand and sat down in front of him.
Ji Yue gently and firmly placed the hilt of a sharp knife in her hand.
“Nan Shan, help me,” he whispered.
“I’ve been trapped here for so long.”
Nan Shan’s eyes turned even redder.
Her fingers weakly brushed the hilt of the knife, but she had no intention of gripping it.
If the first step was too difficult, he would help her.
Ji Yue lowered his eyes, patiently adjusting her fingers, then holding her hand with the knife, slowly stabbing it into his heart, inch by inch.
Blood once again gushed out, stinging Nan Shan’s eyes.
For a moment, she almost thought the knife was stabbing her, otherwise, why would she feel so much pain?
The knife was still sinking deeper, almost piercing his heart.
Just as the knife was about to pierce through, Nan Shan’s weak grip suddenly tightened, and she stopped the blade from going any further.
Ji Yue sensed her resistance and silently raised his eyes.
“I asked you before, when the people of Dong Yi treated you this way, did you ever feel resentment? You said you didn’t, and I laughed at you for lying.”
Nan Shan lowered her gaze and stared at the wound on his chest.
“But now, I believe you.”
Ji Yue’s eyes moved slightly, not understanding why she said this now.
Nan Shan looked at his brows and eyes, suddenly smiling briefly.
“My Ji Yue, the Immortal King, is the purest, gentlest person in this world. Even in the deepest pain, you would only give part of your soul and name it ‘Shou Xin.'”
“Even now, betrayed by the people, drained of blood, eaten alive, skinned, and had your bones pulled out, your eyes still show no hatred. You even want to end your own life. Among all the souls on this island who have been freed, how could someone like you lie to me over something trivial?”
“So you really don’t resent them.”
“Nan Shan…”
“Since you don’t resent them, then where did all this resentment come from?”
Nan Shan gripped the hilt of the knife, slowly pulling it out of his body.
Ji Yue groaned in pain, his breath weakening.
“Is this resentment truly coming from you?”
Nan Shan slowly stood up, taking a step toward the crowd still crawling toward Ji Yue.
“Is the real culprit behind your fall, your loss of reason, truly yourself?”
Nan Shan raised her hand, and with a swift motion, the knife pierced into the heart of the person in front of the crowd.
That person screamed in agony and died instantly, his body immediately bursting with thick resentment.
In the blink of an eye, the resentment dissipated, leaving behind only a dry skeleton.
“He’s been dead for years.”
“See, I was right.”
Nan Shan’s eyes, stained with blood, calmly looked at Ji Yue.
“Are you ready? I’m going to give you freedom now.”
This time, let her be his god.
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