“Is that so?” Yueyang remained completely unruffled.

“You’ll die today — and you’re not afraid?” The beautiful woman who called herself Pandora looked at him with a faintly puzzled expression.

“But this isn’t actually real…” Yueyang smiled. A perfectly healthy person didn’t just suddenly die for no reason. That went for ordinary people too, let alone himself.

“You don’t believe me? My prophecies are actually fairly accurate. In ten thousand years, I don’t believe there’s been a single exception. I don’t know why I have this ability — but once I say it, it becomes fact. Many people didn’t believe me either. Without exception, they all died. Not too long ago, there was a human man — considerably more powerful than you — and I told him he would die within a year…”

“And he died within a year?” Yueyang asked.

“I’m not sure.” Pandora shook her head. “Someone who entered three years after him said the man had indeed died. Whether it was within the year I specified — I never found out.”

“What was this very powerful human’s name?”

“I think he was called Zhanfeng.” Yueyang felt a cold sweat form. Zhanfeng — that was none other than the famous Prison Emperor.

“What did you prophesy as his cause of death?” Yueyang was starting to take her ability more seriously, but couldn’t help asking.

“Self-destruction, I believe.” Pandora didn’t seem entirely sure.

“And what will I die of today?”

“The resentment force in Desire Valley.” Pandora seemed considerably more certain about this one.

“Why would I die from resentment?”

“You’re a little different from other people. Your body seems to be automatically absorbing the resentment energy. This force has existed since ancient times — the sheer number of those who’ve failed here over the ages has left behind a resentment energy that is essentially boundless. Far more than your body can hold or dispel. Beyond that, the resentment energy here has merged with the valley’s Laws — absorbing the resentment means absorbing Laws, and the Law energy that sustains Desire Valley will inevitably backlash against you. I expect in roughly a day’s time, your body will burst apart.” Pandora walked him through her analysis of his cause of death with meticulous detail.

“I see.” Yueyang wasn’t actually surprised by this answer. He did have something black-hole-like within himself that absorbed energy — and there was also the World, which was constantly drawing power in at every moment.

“Now that you’ve found your cause of death, what do you intend to do?” Pandora was genuinely baffled by how calm he was.

“What do you mean, what do I intend to do?” Yueyang looked at her blankly.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Pandora felt that this young man’s brain couldn’t possibly be this slow at processing information. Or perhaps he had simply been born without any concept of death?

“Do I have to be afraid?” Yueyang asked, with mild uncertainty.

“This is death we’re talking about!” Pandora was nearly at a loss.

“You died,” Yueyang replied, turning the question back on her. “Were you afraid?”

“I’ve been dead for a hundred thousand years — what would I have left to fear?” Pandora indicated she’d made her peace with it long ago.

“I haven’t died yet — what is there for me to fear?” Yueyang gave a relaxed shrug and spread his hands, somehow managing to project not just calm but actual optimism. “I’m not dead yet, am I?”

“…” Pandora ran out of things to say.

Yueyang walked forward along the path, lined on both sides by enormous stone figures frozen in their various explicit poses. Gradually, a canopy of trees began to appear on either side — though the trees themselves were deeply strange, each one twisted into human-like forms. The trees to his left resembled women; the ones to his right resembled men.

The resemblance grew stronger the further he walked.

By the time he was approaching the endpoint, what faced him on either side were no longer trees at all — they were tree-people, half bark and half flesh, their bodies bare without exception, visible in complete detail, disturbingly alluring.

Every tree-person, male and female alike, wept at the sight of Yueyang approaching, calling out desperately for help.

Yueyang, still concealed, turned back to look at Pandora curiously. “Can these tree-people see me?”

Pandora drifted behind him with a faint smile. “Anyone who enters Desire Valley — regardless of what artifacts or abilities they use to conceal themselves — cannot hide from its sight. Anything below the level of a Law is visible here without exception.”

“Can they see you?” Yueyang asked.

Pandora shook her head. “I’m outside the Laws. Only you — and a very rare few who can sense resentment energy — are ever aware of my existence. For everyone else, I simply don’t exist.”

“Please — save me! Take me out of this place! I’ll give you anything!” A tree-woman nearby called out, straining a slender arm toward him. Her upper body was partly mobile, but she couldn’t separate from the tree trunk itself. She reached out as far as she could — and the moment her arm broke the canopy of leaves, sunlight hit it and it burst into flame, sending her into a shriek of pure pain.

“If you spare me, I’ll be your slave. I’ll offer you anything,” a tree-man on the other side added urgently.

“Sorry — I have no interest in what you’re offering,” Yueyang replied, then added: “Also, I’m going to die today.”

“Does that mean you’ve already violated the Laws?” The tree-woman’s expression immediately fell.

“Unintentionally, but yes,” Yueyang confirmed with a nod.

“Get out of here — you’re wasting our time!” The tree-man, upon hearing this, instantly changed his tone.

“Don’t be so hard on a dead man. While we wait for the next challenger, let’s entertain ourselves.” From beside him, another tree-man began to stir, sliding down the trunk in a way that was deeply unpleasant to watch, skin slick against the oozing bark. The moment the two figures came together, they paid Yueyang’s gaping stare absolutely no attention and proceeded to engage each other with enthusiastic abandon.

The two tree-men’s cries quickly became rather loud. The surrounding tree-people watched as though this was the most ordinary thing in the world — because it was.

Several others, desires stirred, followed suit.

Before long, the branches on both sides were shaking.

Yueyang broke into a very comprehensive cold sweat.

Only the tree-woman whose arm had been burned to ash by sunlight still watched him with tearful eyes. “You’ll die today — could you give me some love before you go? If I receive love, I can leave this place. I’ll stay with you for your final day and give you every pleasure before the end. I can even carry your child — give you a son to leave in this world. Since you’re going to die anyway, don’t you want to leave something behind? In your final moments, do you really want to leave with regrets? I can give you everything — let you depart in perfect happiness. I’ll love you. I’ll remember you forever. I’ll raise your son properly, teach him to be a good person, and make him the finest warrior in the Heavenly Realm. Someday he’ll come back here to honor your memory.”

The apparent generosity of Yueyang’s spirit today was remarkable. He leaned closer and asked: “What would I have to do to save you?”

Behind him, Pandora exhaled with audible displeasure, silently warning him not to be this foolish.

In Desire Valley, no one could be trusted.

Yueyang appeared completely oblivious to this, wearing an expression that radiated unshakeable benevolent concern for humanity.

The tree-woman wept with what appeared to be deep emotion, eventually composing herself enough to say in a trembling voice: “All you have to do… is touch me. Just once. And I’ll be free.”

“Touch you — where?” Yueyang leaned a little closer, his eyes making a fairly unambiguous scan.

“A… a feel is fine too,” the tree-woman said, apparently shy, head lowered, voice trembling.

A feel, just that simple?

Yueyang gave a solemn and dignified cough, straightened his clothes, smoothed down his hair, and very nearly reached for a mirror to check whether he looked appropriately noble and handsome.

Then he adopted the posture of a gentleman prepared to sacrifice himself for the greater good, and gave the tree-woman a thorough feel.

When he eventually withdrew his hand with some apparent reluctance, the tree-woman’s face bloomed into a radiant smile.

Her body convulsed against the tree.

With a crack, she fell to the ground.

As she pulled herself up from the green, sap-slick earth — Yueyang suddenly found himself launched upward into the same tree, adhered to the bark, sinking in deeper the more he struggled.

“What’s going on?!” Yueyang shouted.

The woman who had fallen to the ground laughed. “Why, replacing my position, of course. You wouldn’t have known — here, anyone’s freedom must be purchased with someone else’s. Perhaps in the future, when another fool comes along to fall for the same trick, your freedom will come. Until then, I’ll be on my way.”

“I’m afraid we won’t be parting on good terms, my dear gullible darling. Let me leave you with a lesson: never trust a stranger too easily. Never agree to a stranger’s request lightly. In this Trial Grounds, no one dies faster than those who are too kindhearted!” She straightened herself, turned —

And was now a middle-aged man.

He roared with laughter. “Fool — in Desire Valley, odd-numbered men turn into women and odd-numbered women turn into men. Everything you see switches every single day! If you judge by appearances alone, you’d help the person robbing you count their money. Besides, if I hadn’t been a woman, would you have fallen for it? I’ve waited so long for a replacement — and finally here you are. You’ll queue up in line — after a few thousand challengers walk by, one will eventually fall for your turn. Actually, living here isn’t so bad — you’ll be a man one day and a woman the next. When you’re tired of men you can switch to women, when you’re tired of women you let others come to you. As long as the tree’s occupied, one-on-one for variety, or all together for volume. You won’t be bored. Ha ha ha!”

Yueyang descended into a state of tragic lamentation. “I’m such an idiot. I knew it was fake. I’m such an idiot. I actually believed someone…”

The middle-aged man cackled. “Plenty of time to regret it. We all went through this. You’ll get used to it eventually. Brothers and sisters — I’ll trick plenty of new fools into taking your places! Wait for me! I’m off!”

Without a backward glance at the chorus of protests from the surrounding tree-people, the middle-aged man bolted.

He even hooked Yueyang’s backpack off the ground with his foot on the way out, apparently intending to take the luggage as well.

He shot out a hundred meters.

Then everything shattered.

Every image in sight collapsed like someone had smashed a mirror — vanishing completely.

The man who had been flying away a hundred meters out was still the tree-woman, still on the bark, her tear-streaks not yet dry.

And Yueyang, supposedly stuck and sinking into the tree, was still standing calmly at the tree’s center with a pleased smile on his face, as though he hadn’t moved a single step. His backpack was still on his back, exactly where he’d left it.

“An illusion?” The tree-woman’s expression shifted entirely.

“Not quite — false reality, to be precise. Advanced material, you wouldn’t necessarily know about it.” Yueyang opened his backpack and produced a large pile of phosphocrystal ore from Shen Du’s storage ring — which he’d raided along the way thinking it might contain something valuable, only to be somewhat disappointed by the high-purity red phosphor crystals — and began tossing them one by one along the forest path, spacing them out at regular intervals.

“What are you doing?” Not just the tree-woman — every tree-person in the area looked alarmed.

“A barbecue,” Yueyang replied with a sunny smile, the kind that in the right light made him look like a deity descending to earth. “It’s cold out here. I wouldn’t want any of you catching a chill.”

Before he had even finished the sentence, a blizzard erupted from the sky — each snowflake as sharp as a blade, carrying a cold that approached absolute zero, the kind of freezing air the tree-people’s sealing Laws couldn’t hope to hold against.

And the red phosphor crystals strewn across the ground responded in the opposite direction entirely — ignited by the Heavenly Fury Red Lotus in the falling snow, the energy stored within them detonated and spread in blazing curtains of fire in every direction.

Fire and ice, two extremes at once.

Every tree-person in the entire canopy began screaming in anguish.

Yueyang smiled, listening with evident appreciation. “You can all be a little louder, you know.”

“Mercy! Please, spare us, have mercy!”

The screaming and begging poured out from every direction amid the burning flames and freezing air. “We were wrong! We’re sorry! Please, have mercy on wretched, depraved creatures like us!”

“What’s this little punishment worth? Keep going — keep telling me you love me, keep trying to deceive me! You tricked me, and I still helped count your money afterward — I’m clearly a very well-behaved person!” Yueyang raised a hand, and several thousand bolts of lightning rained from the sky, immediately charring every tree-person to cinders. But under the binding power of the Laws, none of them could truly die — their skin regenerated on the tree trunks almost immediately, the pain as total and unavoidable as ever, leaving the tree-people in a state that made death feel preferable.

“I understand you were annoyed at being tricked — but why torture them this extensively?” Pandora had initially been irritated, but watching the tree-people’s suffering had started to make even her feel a twinge of reluctance.

“I have nothing else to do anyway. Besides — didn’t you just say I’m dying today? On my last day, obviously my mood isn’t great. Venting a little frustration on them seems entirely reasonable, doesn’t it?” Yueyang offered what he felt was a perfectly satisfactory justification.

“You seem to be in an excellent mood,” Pandora said, deeply confused.

“Because I just confirmed something.” Yueyang smiled — a genuine smile this time, unmistakably pleased with himself.

“What did you confirm?”

“These failed challengers do indeed carry resentment — when I was tormenting them, they released quite a bit of it. But even the accumulated resentment of ten thousand years from all of them combined doesn’t account for even one percent of what’s in Desire Valley. The true source of the resentment energy here… is you. Beautiful Pandora.” Yueyang’s tone shifted to something almost conversational, like asking a friend a casual question: “Do you remember who severed that beautiful head of yours?”

“No. I remember nothing at all.” Pandora made a visible effort to think, and finally shook her head. “My mind is completely blank.”

“That’s alright. It’s not important — I’ve run out of time to chase every question.” Yueyang let the search for an answer go.

“Don’t you still have a full day?” Pandora offered in what appeared to be an attempt at comfort. “You were so optimistic just a moment ago.”

“That was a moment ago.” Yueyang noted that a person’s mood was entirely allowed to change.

“…” Pandora gave up. Even if moods changed, that was a remarkably fast turnaround.

At the endpoint of the valley, exactly as Vivienne had described, stood a pair of headless kneeling stone figures — a man and a woman — serving as the exit.

Yueyang didn’t drop any blood onto them. He stood there and assessed his own state — still caught within Desire Valley’s Laws, his entire being immersed in the resentment force, with both the internal Black Hole and the World consuming it ravenously. He couldn’t be certain whether he would ultimately burst apart. But he was certain of one thing: he hadn’t truly cleared the stage. What had worked for Vivienne and the Prison Emperor — simple conditions, simply met — was apparently not going to work for him.

This was, perhaps, one of the unique headaches that came with being himself.

Pandora watched him lay out what appeared to be an elaborate spread of food and looked at him strangely. “What are you doing?”

“Eating,” Yueyang replied without looking up. “If I’m going to die, I’m at least going to die on a full stomach.”

Pandora was beyond words. “…”

Some time later, watching this young man finish eating with obvious satisfaction, then stretch out on the grass in the sun with a chicken leg in hand, nibbling at it with casual contentment — an idea suddenly occurred to her. “Since you’re going to die anyway — could you give me a love story? I’ve never actually liked anyone before. You’re somewhat different from the others who’ve come through here. You’re interesting. It would be a shame for you to just die like this. Could you let me remember you for the rest of my existence?”

The chicken leg in Yueyang’s hand fell to the ground.

He stared at her, cold sweat forming rapidly. “Pandora… a tree-person said almost exactly those same words to me not very long ago.”