Seeing that Yue Yang doubted her, Pandora got angry: “I’m being serious!”

Yue Yang acted as though he hadn’t heard a word. He poured out a little water to rinse his hands, wiped them off carelessly on his clothes, and answered her without even lifting his head: “Weren’t you the one who said that in the Desire Valley, you can’t trust anyone?”

Pandora practically wanted to take a bite out of this brat: “I’m the exception, all right!”

Yue Yang really was afraid she might bite him, so he threw up his hands in surrender—though he still reserved his personal opinion: “Where did you suddenly get such a boring idea?”

“Since when is falling in love boring?” A certain beauty who’d been dead for a hundred thousand years was going out of her mind.

“It’s not boring—it’s just silly!” was the transmigrated man’s verdict.

“……” A certain beauty was rendered utterly speechless.

While Pandora was busy being angry, Yue Yang began attempting to save himself.

After all, he couldn’t just sit there and watch himself die, could he? Never mind whether it would work or not—he had to at least try.

First Yue Yang summoned out the Grimoire, cradling the tiny ‘world’ in his hand, and set about converting every last bit of the resentment energy it had absorbed. Pillars of Nirvana Flames surged upward. The resentment energy inside the world would naturally convert into chaos energy on its own, but that process was far too slow, so Yue Yang actively used the Nirvana Flames to purify it, accelerating the whole thing.

Under Yue Yang’s Nirvana Flames, the negative energy was like snow dropped into hot soup.

Especially the resentment energy he’d absorbed earlier while tormenting those filthy treants—it was purified with the greatest of ease, reduced to a faint wisp of utterly pure chaos energy carrying no will of any kind.

The new ‘world’ absorbed all energy.

And even elemental energy—it converted every bit of it. Aside from chaos energy, no energy could exist forever.

Yue Yang felt it bore a certain resemblance to the newly born divine artifact he couldn’t yet actively control, the Creation World Bead. But both the Night Empress and the Supreme had said that only by using the Creation World Bead to open up a heaven and earth, giving birth to true life, could a world be considered truly complete… just like the Summoning Grimoire, which climbed steadily from the Bronze Grimoire up through Silver and Gold ranks, evolving without end. The world inside the Summoning Grimoire could provide a place for its master to dwell and live, but the rules were not set by the master—the master had to conform to that world’s laws of existence. Yue Yang’s ‘world,’ however, was different from the Creation treasures: if he really could create a world, then Yue Yang would be the ‘god’ of that world, its one and only ruler.

The Nirvana Flames blazed on, unquenchable.

The resentment energy the treants had given off was quickly converted by Yue Yang.

But compared to the resentment filling the Desire Valley, their resentment was quite simply the difference between a single ant and a vast ocean.

The resentment these treants gave off while being tormented—even set against the resentment accumulated by a hundred thousand years of failures—was the enormous gap between a single tree and an entire forest. Yue Yang could purify their resentment in one minute, but to purify all the resentment amassed by the failures would take at least a month.

And to purify away the entire Desire Valley’s resentment force—disregarding any backlash from the laws, purely as a matter of time—would take an estimated year or more, perhaps far longer.

And the entire span of time left to Yue Yang now?

Only one day!

What could be done in one day?

Could an endless, ocean-vast quantity of resentment energy possibly be purified away in that time?

Even a fool knew that was impossible… but Yue Yang didn’t stop. The Nirvana Flames still had to keep burning, and he devoted himself wholeheartedly to purifying the resentment energy in his body.

“Why are you being so stubborn?” Pandora asked curiously.

“Because you aren’t me, which is why you can’t understand me.” Yue Yang answered with a smile.

Pandora saw his smile. At first she was stunned for quite a while, as if pondering something, and finally she gave a slight frown: “Your smile is a bit like mine!”

Classmate Yue Yang’s jaw dropped to the floor: “I’m a man—no matter how I smile, I won’t look like you!”

Pandora shot him a coquettish, reproachful glance: “I mean the charm. Normally, with that stony face of yours, there’s not much to it, but the moment you smile from the heart, you give off a certain unnameable energy that draws people in—just like me. Of course, I’m better than you. Whether I laugh or cry, whether I’m angry or happy, I’m equally captivating. I don’t remember who said it, but I’m absolutely certain someone once described me this way, said my charm was boundless!”

Yue Yang scratched the top of his head: “By that logic, I ought to be happy about it?”

Pandora countered strangely: “You’re not happy?”

Yue Yang shook his head and spread his hands: “I’ve only got half a day left to live, and there’s not a single pretty girl anywhere around. What good is looking handsome when I smile?”

“There’s no one around, so can’t you just smile for me to see?”

“Smiling too much is tiring, and it gives your face cramps!”

“You…”

She swore she’d never pay attention to this brat again—but ten minutes later, Pandora found him still hard at his pointless labor.

There was nothing for it. She could only fling her earlier resolve to the far corners of the heavens.

When she ran into a fellow this exasperating, Pandora found that her heart always softened especially easily. Right or wrong, she simply couldn’t do anything about him. Pandora drifted a little closer, looked at the Nirvana Flames on his arms, then retreated a bit with a touch of dread: “I never imagined you’d have Nirvana Flames! But even with these Nirvana Flames that purify all things, purifying away the Desire Valley’s resentment force would probably still take several months…”

Yue Yang denied it: “Several months won’t do it—at the very least several years, and only if the power of the laws doesn’t backlash.”

Pandora found this odd: “Then why are you doing something so useless?”

Yue Yang found the question amusing: “I’ve got to do something, don’t I? There’s the better part of a day before I die, and while I’m waiting to die, wouldn’t it be too boring not to do anything?”

Pandora: “……”

Another half hour passed, and Pandora really couldn’t hold back any longer: “Since we’re just waiting to die anyway, why not chat with me? You’ve got something to do, but sitting here watching is so boring for me!” Not waiting for Yue Yang to refuse, she asked again: “Tell me about yourself. I’m really so curious—just what kind of place, just what kind of parents, could produce a little monster like you? You’re completely different from everyone else!”

Yue Yang broke out in a sweat: “Actually, I’m not some wild Ultraman—don’t look at me like that.”

“What’s an Ultraman?”

“A creature that loves little monsters and is always getting frisky with them in front of everybody.”

“And what does ‘getting frisky’ mean?”

“That question’s a bit profound. All I’ve heard is that it has something to do with Brokeback Mountain and Chrysanthemum Computers or whatever—but as for the actual truth, I’m not too clear on it.”

“Then let’s not talk about that. Oh right—is there a woman you like?”

“There are lots.”

“Lots? You have lots of women? I never would’ve guessed you were that kind of person—aren’t you the one who can even resist my charm?”

“The thing is, some women have a charm I don’t want to resist, and some have a charm I don’t dare resist. In the moment, it’s hard to explain. Love is a very complicated thing. Some brain-dead experts call it a chemical reaction, and others say it’s arranged by a past life. Either way, it’s all a muddle. Only one thing can be stated clearly: you like her, and she likes you too!” It was a rare occasion for the transmigrated man to say something so honest—could it be a case of ‘when a man is about to die, his words are kind’?

“Is that how it is? I think I sort of understand now too!” A certain great beauty, dead for a hundred thousand years and never once given the chance to fall in love, knit her lovely little brows.

“You understand jack squat!” The transmigrated man promptly filed a certain woman under the category of love-idiot.

“If you weren’t going to die, would you fall in love with me?”

“Falling in love with an airhead like you would be a drag—but ‘pushing you down,’ now that I could consider.”

“What does ‘pushing you down’ mean?”

“It’s when a man and a woman do that…”

“That?”

“You’re not an airhead—you’re stone blind!” the transmigrated man raged.

“Oh, I get it now—it’s when a man and a woman couple together. That’s really too filthy. The Desire Valley is overflowing with that sort of thing, it’s genuinely nauseating. I don’t know why I have to be imprisoned here, but the things here disgust me. I hate everything about this place!” The instant Pandora flew into a rage, her resentment immediately set the entire power of the laws in motion. Yue Yang sensed with astonishment that every time she grew angry, she produced a vast quantity of negative resentment energy that fused perfectly into the power of the laws. Her own thoughts were pure beyond compare, yet the negative energy pervaded the whole Desire Valley, driving it ever closer to an indescribable ‘destruction.’

Pandora was terrifying when angry, but she recovered very quickly.

In an instant, she reverted to her original airheaded self.

A little downcast, she murmured: “My head was chopped off. I don’t have a body anymore.”

Yue Yang felt that this Pandora’s body seemed to carry a special kind of destruction energy—not the direct destruction of something like the Wheel of Apocalypse, but a formless, gradual, imperceptible destruction.

It was precisely this destruction energy she unconsciously radiated that turned into resentment, which then fused together with the Desire Valley’s power of the laws.

And finally, through her will, it bound itself tightly to him.

In other words, the reason he couldn’t leave was entirely because she was unwilling to let him leave. All the power of this Desire Valley lay in her unconscious grasp, and everything ran according to her wishes—it was only that she had never once used this power, not until he appeared and drew her attention, making her want to keep him here. That formless, destructive energy poured ceaselessly in through the very channels his own world used to absorb energy… The destruction energy Pandora radiated and the world Yue Yang used to absorb energy were like the two poles of a magnet, yin and yang, firmly ‘stuck’ together.

Had the two of them not both been so extraordinary, then perhaps she would never have had her head chopped off, and he himself would never have ‘died’ at all.

“Do you still remember who chopped off your head?” Yue Yang asked.

“I don’t remember.” Pandora’s mood sank further.

“Having no body is no big deal!” Yue Yang comforted her. “I have a friend who lost her body entirely. In the end I used the Nirvana Flames to revive her, and she became a ball of flame, and lost her memories too. You’re far better off than she is now.”

“In the past I never felt all that troubled either. A hundred thousand years went by, and I often slept deeply, sometimes musing about the past in my dreams, but mostly just slumbering. I lived well enough. But then I met you, and my heart suddenly couldn’t bear to let you go. You’re about to die, and I’ll be left all alone again… You’re completely different from everyone else. Plenty of people come to run the trial and manage to notice me. Some speak to me, some walk right past. Everyone seems to have nothing to do with me—coming and going, I never feel a thing. But you’re different… If you die, there’ll be no one left to talk with me. This is the first time I’ve been this happy—can’t you just not die?” The more Pandora spoke, the more sorrowful she grew, and two streams of pearly tears came rolling down.

“Well, isn’t there still half a day left?” Yue Yang sweated. He very much wanted to tell her that it was precisely because her subconscious wanted to keep him that things had turned out this way.

“But I don’t want to have only half a day. I want you to stay forever.” Pandora was crying her heart out.

“Some things aren’t yours just because you want to have them.” Yue Yang sighed softly.

“But I want it! Why can’t I get the thing I want? Why am I the Goddess of Misfortune everyone flees from—why am I not the goddess of fortune everyone adores? Why? Why did they have to chop off my head! Why did they still have to trap me in this filthy Desire Valley? I hate it! I hate every one of you!” Pandora lost her reason. The memories stored deep in her mind came flooding out all at once, driving her into a frenzy. Her furious shrieks rang to the very heavens, the entire Desire Valley’s power of the laws surged into turmoil, and endless destruction energy swept invisibly across heaven and earth.

Yue Yang discovered that the ‘world’ before him was swelling at a frantic pace, resentment energy pouring in like a flood. He himself had become the target of the attack, the object on which the reason-stricken Pandora vented her fury. Against the resentment this Goddess of Misfortune had amassed over a hundred thousand years—

His Nirvana Flames were nowhere near fast enough to purify it.

At this rate, he would die within half a day.

That joke of a prophecy had, sure enough, been no mistake.

(End of Chapter 846)