Chapter One (continued)

Zhuo Yichen was also still awake deep into the night. There was one sentence he simply could not let go.

He walked into the dungeon to see Zhao Yuanzhou seated in meditation with his legs folded beneath him. Finally reacting to his approach, Zhao Yuanzhou opened his eyes and lazily yawned. “I almost fell asleep waiting for you.”

“You knew I would come?” Zhuo Yichen asked in a frosty tone.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to let it go.” Zhao Yuanzhou shifted his shoulders.

“I can’t let your life go. You carry the burden of a countless human lives. Your death won’t be worth grieving.”

Zhao Yuanzhou stood and twisted at the waist to stretch. “So, of course, you’ve come because you desire to know the true way to use the Cloud-Light Sword, which is the only way you can kill me.”

Zhuo Yichen remained silent.

“I can tell you.”

“But you have conditions.”

“I do,” Zhao Yuanzhou answered simply.

“What do you want?” While Zhuo Yichen believed Zhao Yuanzhou was motivated to help the Demon Hunting Bureau this time, he clearly had other schemes in mind. Nothing was as simple as he said. But Zhuo Yichen couldn’t see through Zhao Yuanzhou to the shape of those schemes. No matter what, he would never agree to anything immoral.

Zhao Yuanzhou took a step closer before speaking. “I require an oath from you, one from which you must never back out.” He paused, then said solemnly, “I want you to kill me. I will teach you the true way to use the Cloud-Light Sword, then you’ll kill me.”

Zhuo Yichen’s pulse immediately thumped like a drum. Zhao Yuanzhou’s condition was that he had to use the Cloud-Light Sword to kill him? He looked at him doubtfully. “You really want to die?”

“Yes, and I must die by your hand.”

Zhuo Yichen couldn’t believe him. He knew, if Zhao Yuanzhou sincerely sought death, he must have a thousand ways of accomplishing it. Why did he insist on finding Zhuo Yichen? It couldn’t be to atone for his crimes. Just the idea was laughable.

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m more vile and wicked than the legends say. Not only do I absorb the malicious energy of Heaven and Earth, but I’m also a vessel that contains it. Do you know about malicious energy?”

“I do,” Zhuo Yichen replied. “It can destroy Heaven and Earth, cast the world into darkness, and cover the land with the bones of the dead.”

“So, even though there are a thousand ways to die, none of those thousand is the optimal solution,” Zhao Yuanzhou said. “When I die, a new vessel will simply be born into the world to replace me, absorbing the unending, unextinguishable malicious energy. Whether this new vessel will be good or evil, just or unjust, cannot be predicted. Your Cloud-Light Sword can disperse all malevolent spirits. Death by your sword can bring an end to the vessel’s cycle of rebirth.”

Zhuo Yichen thought deeply upon his words. His sword could end Zhu Yan as the vessel of malicious energy, prevent the birth of another, crush the possibility that an inherently evil demon would use the malicious energy for evil deeds, and save a good-hearted demon from a fate of being used by the malicious energy. This truly would be the best solution, but was Zhu Yan good or evil? Was he capable of such good intentions?

Zhao Yuanzhou strolled to the cell door. The two of them faced one another with only the bars separating them, so silent that one could hear a pin drop. Zhuo Yichen’s eyes shined with an icy light as he stared at Zhao Yuanzhou. He slowly lifted fingers to the sky to swear an oath: “I, Zhuo Yichen, make this vow: As long as Zhu Yan teaches me the true way of the Cloud-Light Sword, he will certainly be slain by that sword. Should I betray this oath, the heavens will strike me down and scatter my soul.”

At least making this oath wouldn’t be a problem. He was determined to kill Zhu Yan with his own hands anyway.

Idioms that appear in this section:

无论如何 (wúlùnrúhé) – in any case; at any rate; whatever happens

天诛地灭 (tiānzhū-dìmiè) – [in cursing or taking vows] be destroyed by heaven and earth; be struck down by the gods

暗无天日 (ànwútiānrì) – complete darkness, total absence of justice