Chapter 199 — Wounds of the Heart

"I was not surprised, for I was created by her in the first place. If anyone in the world could deal with me and understand me, who but her? But I truly did not understand why she would treat me so. I had said so many things to her—why would she not listen to a single word? Yet this time Linglong actually answered me. She said: in truth it was all her fault; to have created a monster like me was her greatest error of all. For I was born of the baleful qi of heaven and earth, and by nature carried the seed of slaughter within me. If I were allowed to live in this world, she feared all living things would suffer calamity."

"I desperately explained to her that I would not, that I only wanted to be with her, that I wanted nothing else. But she only gave a desolate, bitter smile and said she believed me, that in truth how could she not wish to be with me—but what if, after she died?"

There in the ancient cave, somewhere far off in the gloom, it was as though someone were sighing in the darkness—for the sake of that scene a thousand myriad years ago. Yet who could say whether the tears shed then were still remembered by anyone?

"I was stunned, my mind a blank. I knew I was undying and indestructible, but I had never thought that Linglong could die. Even now I remember so clearly—in her ashen smile, tears fell. Then once again she unleashed the Eight Fierce Mystic Fire Formation, trapped me within it, and burned my true body to ashes once more. But that essence of baleful qi into which I had transformed—in the end she could not extinguish it."

"After the formation, she too was gravely weakened in vital essence. But I was made by her, and there in the flames I still asked her: why do you treat me so?"

"This time, she said nothing at all."

"She laid the formation here in this ancient cave, holding me confined, burning me day and night. Whenever my baleful qi recovered even slightly, the blazing flame would burn that little bit of qi to nothing. At the end she stared at me blankly, and suddenly asked what wish I still had."

The Beast Sovereign laughed softly and said, "A wish—what wish could I have? All my wishes were simply to be with her. So I asked her: why can I not be with you? Linglong lowered her head and slowly said, because I am not human, not even a living creature, and it is fated that we cannot be together."

"There in the roaring flames, I faced her and cried aloud: then make me human!"

His voice suddenly rose high. He jerked his head up and shouted loudly toward the cave's vaulted roof.

"Make me human!"

"Boom!" The four walls quaked in unison, and loose stones came crashing down, the sound like war drums, deafening.

Amid the flying dust, the Beast Sovereign slowly lowered his head.

"And after that—what happened?" said the woman's voice from the darkness.

"She seemed stunned. A long while passed, and she did not move at all. I endured the agony of the flames consuming my body, my every hope turned to ash. But then she suddenly stood up, halted the formation, and came to my side. I looked at her woodenly, not knowing what she meant to do."

"Softly, she said to me: she had wronged me. Then she—" Here the Beast Sovereign's voice, for some reason, suddenly began to tremble faintly. "She began to chant a long and tedious secret shamanic incantation, slowly drew out a knife, and then began to cut herself, one stroke after another—"

"What?" the woman in the darkness cried out in alarm.

"I was frozen too—no, scared witless, truly witless, with no notion what she was doing. Slowly, Linglong built a body and skeleton upon the ground from her own flesh and blood, even from her own white bones, and then she laid me upon that skeleton. As her incantation grew more and more urgent, I gradually merged into that body, and even my consciousness began to blur."

"I heard her voice growing softer and softer, yet still she went on speaking to me: this was the last thing she could ever do for me. In days to come, so long as someone found the five sacred artifacts and placed them within this skeleton, I would be able to rise from the dead. But after that resurrection, though my demon power would remain, my body would already be human—and being human, it would no longer be a body of deathless immortality."

"She said she had set her heart on seeking eternal life, offended against the heavenly way, and created a monster like me—and then an unnatural love had sprung up, compounding error upon error. And because of me, she had brought about the deaths of countless lives, heaping yet more catastrophe upon the living world. And yet it was her own hand that destroyed me—and here she said no more. My consciousness was already fading; in a daze, I heard only her final words:"

"I will always be with you."

That sentence—I never understood it.

Not until I, ten million years later, rose from the dead and once more stood at the mouth of the ancient cave.

That statue, buffeted by wind and frost and rain and snow, worn by sun and moon and bitter cold, yet still gazing deeply into the depths of the ancient cave.

I held her in my arms.

I understood.