Tome of Troubled Times-Chapter 855: The Reality of the World

She had said she would help him heal, but tragically, none of Ye Jiuyou’s abilities had anything to do with healing. In fact, she was worse than a common Profound Gate martial artist channeling internal energy to aid the meridians. Her power was purely destructive and corrosive. Any energy she sent into his body would only make things worse.

So, all she could do was let Zhao Changhe lean against her... not that she could reject him, anyway. His Eternal Blood Demon Body and Rejuvenation Art were already functioning on their own. The only thing she could offer was letting him rest a little more comfortably.

After all, the custom-ordered bed had not arrived yet. Her abyss was still a barren void.

Ye Jiuyou herself did not even know why she had said that she would help him recover. His injuries were his own fault. She had even warned him that not only might she hurt him, she might even kill him. And yet, when she saw him wounded, those words had slipped out from impulse alone.

This man had a first-rate talent for playing the victim. He had been clinging to her this entire time, and Ye Jiuyou could not even tell whether he had actually finished healing already. He would not get off, repeatedly shifting positions like he was trying to adjust, occasionally leaning in a bit closer...

Unknowingly, his nose and lips were brushing dangerously close to the pale curve of her neck.

This did not feel like healing; it felt like he was already mostly recovered and just using the opportunity to cop a feel.

Ye Jiuyou could bear it no longer. “Are you done yet? I’m pretty sure you’re fine already!”

“Do you not know how strong that attack of yours was? Of course I’m not fine. I’ve got a long way to go.”

“You—” She raised her hand, ready to slap him.

Zhao Changhe immediately buried his head in her chest.

Ye Jiuyou, caught between anger and laughter, smacked the top of his head. “So now we’re doing the shameless routine, are we?”

Zhao Changhe thought to himself: Got her. The fact that she had not pushed him away, even with this level of closeness, said enough. And the way she had instinctively shielded that jade bracelet had confirmed it.

Today’s tenderness was not part of some reverse ploy, it was genuine. She was allowing herself to enjoy being spoiled, using the identity of “Miss Li of the Li Clan” as a veil to let herself relax.

This was because... no one had ever cherished her before.

The only one who could be called kin was a mortal enemy, one who had just attacked her the night before. Even now, neither of them knew what that ambush had really meant. She had always lived wrapped in the shroud of her abyss, too afraid to let anyone close. Everything she did was calculated in isolation.

And from beginning to end, Zhao Changhe had done the only thing that could reach her.

He told her that he wanted her. Then, he pursued her, he pampered her, and he said that he liked seeing her look more alive, because he liked her. He did not want her to be alone, not even while looking in a mirror. He wanted her to see a reflection not just of herself, but of his presence with her.

It had worked.

But without last night’s rescue, things would not have progressed so quickly. That had been the first time in her life anyone had ever protected her. Her face had stayed unreadable, like still water, but the storm inside had yet to subside.

Still... just because progress had been made did not mean she was “his” yet. Like mortal couples, just because they were dating did not mean the next step would happen immediately. Some needed “cuddling without going all the way” to ease into things. And even after they got there, breakups still happened.

Even now, Ye Jiuyou had not truly admitted to any feelings. She still used the excuse of a marriage pact and giving him Guanlong to disguise herself. The progress bar was not yet full. And how to push things further was a real problem, because Ye Jiuyou was not someone one could seduce with the “accidental gropes and inching closer” game.

She may have lacked affection in her life, but she was not naive. In her long years, who knew how many mortal couples she had seen play such games? Anyone who dared pull that trick on her would likely find themselves hurled into the void the moment she caught on.

At this thought, Zhao Changhe broke into a cold sweat.

His mindset... had gotten skewed.

He had played too many games. Somewhere along the way, he was starting to look like the kind of scumbag who seduces women just to sleep with them.

He had to admit that yes, he was physically drawn to her, and yes, there was a thrill in trying to win over a top-tier demon god, but the real reason for his pursuit was the pang of heartache he felt when he saw her, alone in her darkness, quietly saying, “Have Azure Dragon withdraw from the capital.” That moment had moved something deep inside him. It made him want to protect her. Everything he had done after, from the teasing to the kindness, had mostly been genuine. The tactics were just a bit of pressure to keep things moving. He had simply done what felt right.

But now, it felt like he had strayed too far. It felt as though he had turned into something that resembled a manipulative playboy.

He abruptly sat up straight.

Ye Jiuyou looked at him in surprise. Catching the cold sweat beading on his brow, she asked, “What is it? Did I slap you silly, or is the injury flaring up?”

“...No,” Zhao Changhe said softly. “Earlier, when I helped craft Piaomiao’s body, I left a lotus pond outside. If you like, we can transplant it into your pool. The pool should then transform into something that would be great for vitality restoration. It should be able to restore flesh, mend bone, and even bring back the dead.”

Ye Jiuyou was puzzled. He had clearly just been taking advantage of her, and now he was being... serious?

She could not quite understand the shift, so she simply followed his lead. “Why wouldn’t I want that? I could use it myself.”

Zhao Changhe gave a faint smile. “I just thought that, well... Back then, when I created it with Piaomiao, it was meant to disgust you. So I wasn’t sure if you’d like it.”

Ye Jiuyou gave a breath of laughter but said nothing.

A few days ago, that might have indeed made her feel sick. But now? Not in the slightest.

At the very least, her domain of darkness and oblivion was no longer the same as before.

Too much of Zhao Changhe’s presence now lingered within it.

If it was something of his, then she did not really dislike it. If there was anything uncomfortable about it, it was simply that it had once involved Piaomiao.

Zhao Changhe ventured, “Since you don’t object... should we move it here?”

“Mm-hm.” Ye Jiuyou closed her eyes and reached out with her senses. She located it almost immediately. With a subtle flick of her will, the entire lotus pond was folded into the pool.

Since the pond was just a fragment leftover from the greater Lotus Platform, it was not very large, occupying only a small corner of the dark pool. It would not interfere with bathing. In fact, bathing in it might even benefit her cultivation...

“Are you going to get in to heal now?” Ye Jiuyou asked, still confused as to why he had suddenly stopped trying to take advantage. Is this about showing off his body? Pervert.

Zhao Changhe shook his head. “There are a few lotus seats. I’ll just sit on one.”

Ye Jiuyou asked instinctively, “What about me?”

Zhao Changhe laughed aloud. Ye Jiuyou immediately realized how strange her question sounded and stiffened.

Zhao Changhe grinned. “You’re going to study the inscriptions, of course. Weren’t you obsessing over them before? I had you in the palm of my hand with just a few characters. You were even willing to risk injury to decipher them. Now that you have them, you’re acting like you don’t care.”

Ye Jiuyou: “...”

Zhao Changhe flashed onto a lotus seat and sat cross-legged, closing his eyes. “At least this time, you won’t be alone. Even if you need to force through the last few characters... someone will be here to keep watch.”

Ye Jiuyou looked at him as he sat there in meditation. She could sense that he had not fully entered a trance; part of his awareness remained on her. She tilted her head, thinking, and suddenly understood.

This guy... After burying his face in my chest earlier and feeling a flicker of desire, he actually began to self-reflect. Now, in an effort to “cleanse his thoughts,” he's pretending to behave and sit quietly?

Ye Jiuyou smiled to herself. It's kind of cute.

As the very embodiment of the ultimate demonic overlord, Ye Jiuyou had no interest in judging others’ thoughts. From the start, she had been rather curious to see how far this man would go to coax her into bed. If he really had the ability to pull it off, she might even admire the skill.

These past few days, she had thought his tricks were clever, impressive even. He really had her heart on a string. But only now did she realize... maybe this was not strategy, or at least not entirely. Maybe... some of it had come from the heart?

She sat at the edge of the pool, resting her chin on one hand, watching Zhao Changhe quietly as he meditated. For a long time, she forgot all about the inscriptions.

If the Heavenly Dao still existed, it might have destroyed the world in a fit of rage by now.

It was a long while before Ye Jiuyou finally pulled out the translation Zhao Changhe had gotten from Piaomiao and began comparing it to her own.

There were not many undeciphered characters left. If this were a martial arts technique, then even a single mistaken character could lead to disaster, but since this was more historical in nature, she could afford to extrapolate the general meaning.

“Heh... So this is how it is.” Ye Jiuyou muttered to herself, “This whole world... is a lie. No wonder Ye Wuming slaughtered the gods and demons. No wonder the White Tiger went mad. No wonder I’ve always felt like everything about me was just some prewritten role. It looks like the one who broke first was Ye Wuming. The White Tiger probably just overheard it... and snapped.”

Her eyes flared with a murderous light not seen in some time. “And what gave him the right...”

BOOM!

The ground trembled, a frigid wind howled, and a chorus of ghosts wailed across the Abyss of Jiuyou.

Zhao Changhe opened his eyes.

And his eyes met Ye Jiuyou’s bloodshot, ferocious gaze.

The two locked eyes in silence. Zhao Changhe’s expression remained gentle, and Ye Jiuyou’s fury slowly ebbed.

“You're not even surprised,” she said coolly. “Are you mocking us?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you're too calm.”

“I’ve just read too many fantasy novels and watched too many shows. My threshold for surprise is pretty high. And honestly... I’ve speculated something along those lines before.”

“Oh, what exactly is it that you've come to speculate?”

“I've speculated that the entirety of the Heavenly Tome might be the very body of this world. It's an extremely powerful artifact. It's possible that it's the martial arts record of some unfathomably strong being. And with the artifact being so powerful, it ended up creating a self-contained world within it—a microcosmic realm, if you will. And the first living being born within that world... might’ve been you. If nothing had interfered, you would have become this world’s Heavenly Dao. The myths say all existence emerged from darkness and chaos, so it fits.”

Ye Jiuyou’s eyes gleamed. “Go on.”

“Your power became too much. Even the artifact’s master grew wary. So... the world was forcibly divided, heaven and earth were split, order was drawn out from the primordial chaos, and that became Night Emperor Wuming. The primordial demon gods had no surnames. You were simply Jiuyou. She was always Wuming. The Ye part came later, added by others.”

Zhao Changhe’s voice remained steady. “She always just called you Jiuyou. It wasn’t out of closeness. It was... something else.”

Ye Jiuyou drew in a sharp breath. “You were speculating on the origin of this world, or the origin of us sisters?”

Zhao Changhe said sincerely, “I was speculating on the two of you. The world just came along for the ride. You two are far more interesting. And when I follow your threads, it naturally leads me back to the source.”

Ye Jiuyou said, “...Go on.”

“Once the division was made, the two of you each became the embodiment of opposing laws and were thus locked in endless conflict. That way, neither of you could ever again pose a threat to him. To ensure you never discovered the truth, he even implanted the notion that you were born after Ye Wuming. And because the laws you represent are inherently opposed to the world’s order, every demon god born after would naturally stand against you.”

Ye Jiuyou fell silent.

Zhao Changhe continued, “From then on, he became the so-called Heavenly Dao, the master of this world. Every so-called primordial demon god was nothing more than a preset construct. Their designated rules, their cultivation limits... all just lines of code. No matter how hard one tried, they could never break the boundary. Every effort was a staged illusion. Oh, and any power cultivated beyond the limit? Likely absorbed as sustenance by the Heavenly Dao itself. So if someone discovered they were nothing more than a clay puppet crafted by another... going mad wouldn’t be surprising. But of all the demon gods, the one most deceived, most betrayed, and most entitled to madness, was you.”

Ye Jiuyou remained quiet for a long time before finally asking, “So... your so-called pity for me, is that where it comes from?”

“In part,” Zhao Changhe admitted. “But most of this is still just a theory. Pitying someone based on speculation seems a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

“In other words, you’ve thought this for a long time, but you never saw it as something laughable?”

“Why would I laugh?”

“Because we’re not even real people. Just... constructs.”

“Pfft. I’ve fallen for two-dimensional characters before. Why wouldn’t I love someone real and vivid like you?” Zhao Changhe stood, flashed to her side, and gently brushed her lips with his thumb. “Who says you’re not real? A preset demon god named Jiuyou would never have her heart stirred by anyone. But the woman in front of me? She puts on makeup just for me, and she dresses herself up in beautiful clothes... for me.”

Ye Jiuyou stared at him in silence.

“So,” Zhao Changhe asked, “how close was I with my guess?”

Ye Jiuyou sighed. “You're mostly there. No wonder you weren’t that interested in the inscriptions—just guessing alone got you most of the way there. These kinds of truths... Honestly, even if we tried to deduce them ourselves, we’d never have gotten close.”

Zhao Changhe said, “Then why leave the inscriptions behind at all? What, did the perpetrator want to keep a souvenir of his own crime?”

Ye Jiuyou shook her head. “Not quite. Just like any criminal leaves traces, no matter how perfect the act. For him to pull all this off was not easy. The world itself was bound to leave behind echoes. The inscriptions are marks left by the origin. He couldn’t erase them, no matter how he tried. And what gave you the clues?”

Zhao Changhe replied, “I once caught the White Tiger mid-breakdown, rambling that everything is fake.Then I tried tracing your origin, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t reach it. That told me there was something or someone above even Ye Wuming that prevented me from doing so. Dark Oblivion once said a few things, and a few days ago, I had an epiphany: this world was born of darkness and chaos. It all lined up. Oh, and even though myths like Yao, Shun, and Yu, along with all the poetry, were deliberately introduced by the blind woman in this era, things like the Four Idols existed long before. I suspect this Heavenly Dao comes from the same cultural system as my homeland, and that's probably why the blind woman went there to... ‘call for reinforcements.’”

Ye Jiuyou did not reply. But this time, she truly felt the gap between herself and Ye Wuming.

She had been suppressed far too thoroughly. Ye Wuming... was already eons ahead.

Zhao Changhe seemed to read her thoughts. His voice softened as he said, “You think being specifically targeted by the Heavenly Dao isn’t a mark of worth? Ye Wuming wasn’t. Only you were. And even under such restrictions, to have awakened to the truth as you did... I think it’s incredible.”

Ye Jiuyou gave a faint smile. “Flattery won’t change anything. I still lost to Ye Wuming.”

Zhao Changhe said, “Honestly, that’s part of why I’ve never been able to truly hate that damn blind woman. I feel like she’s fighting something too. And for that goal... she’s willing to let go of everything else. Like you said, Ye Wuming’s gone mad.”

Ye Jiuyou looked up into the endless abyss above. After a long pause, she murmured, “I don’t know where she learned all this... but if she did, why didn’t she come tell me?”

This time, Zhao Changhe did not answer.

It was not surprising that someone else learned the truth first. She had been the one most thoroughly suppressed. Now that even she had begun to awaken, it was almost certain the other demon gods at the peak of the Profound Control Realm had reached it even earlier.

But honestly speaking... Would you have trusted Ye Wuming back then?

You two had been enemies for too many years. Trust was out of the question.

And your personalities weren’t all that different either. Both of you were distant, solitary. If she had told you from the start that she was “programmed to monitor the world,” would you have dared open up to her? From Ye Wuming’s perspective, no one in this world could be trusted, least of all others born of darkness. Especially when someone like Dark Oblivion might very well be that man’s loyal dog.

Suddenly, Ye Jiuyou smiled. “But there is one thing I have over her.”

Zhao Changhe blinked. “Hmm?”

“At least... I didn’t go mad. I was furious, yes, but I calmed down quickly.” Her voice turned gentle as she continued, “Because when I saw the ugliest truth... someone was by my side. And he told me I am real.”

She reached out with a delicate hand and gently caressed his face.

“I... am luckier than she is.”

Zhao Changhe swallowed instinctively, unconsciously leaning in.

Ye Jiuyou’s lashes fluttered once, and then... she closed her eyes.