No matter what, he couldn’t bear to let the half-elf Xiao Nu leave.
Yue Yang had no choice but to change his mind.
Since she wouldn’t go, then she would stay. Making her leave was itself a sign that his resolve was quietly surrendering to death. Sovereign Intent ought to fear nothing at all. If he wanted to walk out of the Desire Valley, he had to transcend life and death. What was the Fourth Gate, anyway? He had already made up his mind — to surpass Vivienne, to clear every gate to the very end, to win the final recognition. How could he let the Fourth Gate, the Desire Valley, defeat him!
Never mind that he still had the protection of the Phoenix Sisters; never mind rebirth through Nirvana.
His very state of mind ought to make one great leap forward.
Calamity god-force, a hundred thousand years of resentment, and the Desire Valley’s own power — was it truly impossible to overcome?
Why had Pandora been sealed here? There had to be a reason. Whoever sealed her surely had some deeper intent. As long as he could awaken to that one point, not only could he leave this Desire Valley — he could surely break Pandora’s seal outright, and free this natural airhead who had suffered enough of imprisonment.
“All right — it’s fine if you stay!” Yue Yang relented. Xiao Nu cheered, her tear-streaked face breaking into both smiles and tears at once, like a rainbow first appearing after the rain. She threw her arms around Yue Yang without restraint, kissing his cheek without restraint. So long as he was willing to keep her by his side, she wouldn’t care even if she died the very next second. If she had to leave him in exchange for her own life, she would rather not have it at all.
“Master is the best, boo-hoo!” The half-elf Xiao Nu hadn’t even finished before Yue Yang pressed her over his knee and gave her fragrant bottom a few hard smacks.
“You’re forbidden to disobey my orders again. This isn’t over — once we’re out, I’ll settle the account with you!” Yue Yang tried his hardest to play the part of a fierce slave master.
“Xiao Nu understaaands!” Yet the half-elf Xiao Nu wasn’t the least bit afraid, and cutely stuck out her little pink tongue.
“……”
With this kitten-like Xiao Nu, Yue Yang really was at his wits’ end.
If he didn’t drive her away, she was more obedient than anyone.
But on that point, she was more stubborn than anyone!
Yue Yang cast aside every knot in his heart and entered the ever-expanding World within, meditating amid the endless resentment, hoping to find the key to breaking the deadlock. Only by awakening to the truth would he have any chance of surviving. Otherwise, he would have to gamble on death itself — to see whether he could break free of the barrier between life and death and step into the divine realm… He still had half a day left, and Yue Yang hoped he could turn passivity into initiative.
Only by walking out of the Desire Valley through his own effort would it count as true success.
Otherwise, how could he possibly win the recognition of the gates that lay ahead?
Within the World, Yue Yang sank into deep contemplation. He withdrew the Nirvana Flames that had been purifying the resentment, fused his own aura with the power of resentment as one, offered no resistance at all, and let more and more resentful power flow into the World — and there, he searched for the truth.
Seeing that Yue Yang had already begun his measures to save himself, Pandora and Xiao Nu naturally didn’t dare disturb him, and watched quietly.
After a while, Pandora shifted her gaze.
She looked toward the half-elf Xiao Nu.
Sizing her up and down, marveling at how smoking-hot the other girl’s figure was, she couldn’t help asking: “What did you eat growing up? How did your chest get so big?”
The moment she heard it, Xiao Nu lowered her head and shook it, overcome with embarrassment: “I don’t know — maybe I was just born this way! Honestly, too big isn’t all that good either. Walking’s fine, but running makes them jiggle terribly… Being like Mistress Wuxia is the most perfect of all! Of course, Mistress Qianqian’s are lovely too, everyone’s are lovely, it’s not necessarily that bigger is better — Lady Xiayi’s aren’t big, but they’re still lovely!”
Pandora felt that, if she still had her body, she certainly wouldn’t have lost to the other girl — but now she no longer had one, so she was envious all the same. She asked again: “Does he beat you all the time?”
Xiao Nu grew even more bashful.
She reached a hand secretly behind her and gently rubbed the spot — where Yue Yang had just spanked her really did hurt, still burning and hot.
Had Pandora not brought it up, she wouldn’t have paid it much mind — she was far more taken up with her joy that Yue Yang had agreed to let her stay.
“No, this is the first time he’s ever punished Xiao Nu! Master has always been so gentle — he never scolds, never hits anyone. It’s only because Xiao Nu didn’t obey nicely this time that she made him angry.” To Xiao Nu, this punishment was nothing at all, and it didn’t even really hurt — just a bit of a sting, a strange sort of feeling.
“He’s pretty terrifying when he’s angry!” Pandora, recalling how it had been at the time, blurted out: “Back then I really was afraid he’d spank me too!”
“He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t!” Xiao Nu comforted her in turn.
“Ah, even if I wanted to be spanked, it wouldn’t be possible… I don’t even have a body anymore.” Pandora sighed with a touch of gloom.
“Your head was cut off — but then where’s your body?” Xiao Nu found it a little strange. Wasn’t a divine body supposed to be eternal and indestructible? If the head had been severed, the body ought to still be there.
“My body may have turned into Calamity god-force. Ah — that’s right, I remember something now. It seems it was because my Calamity god-force was too powerful that someone cut off my head!” Pandora exclaimed in astonishment.
“Isn’t powerful god-force a good thing?” Xiao Nu was even more confused.
“I don’t know either — that was just a fragment of memory that flashed through my mind just now. Never mind, I won’t think about it. A hundred thousand years have passed; I’m long used to living without a body. Say — you have a body, so why not lend it to me for a bit? I want to borrow your body to hold hands with him. Just now he said that couples in love start with holding hands!” Pandora struck upon a sudden whim.
“But Xiao Nu hasn’t held hands with Master yet — could you wait until Xiao Nu has held his first, and then borrow it?” Xiao Nu was easy enough to get along with, but in her heart she felt there were certain things she simply had to do herself first.
“Eh? After all this time, you still haven’t held hands with him? I thought he’d already tumbled you into bed!” Pandora was greatly surprised.
“No, no — I’m only the little slave at Master’s side. My main duty is to look after Master’s daily life.”
Xiao Nu blushed so hard she kept waving both hands.
In truth, she too dearly wished to serve Yue Yang more fully — but she had never had the chance.
Seeing that Yue Yang was still meditating within the World, the two kept chatting, and the more they talked the more they hit it off — no doubt because the two airheads were kindred spirits! Pandora asked about Yue Yang, and Xiao Nu told her everything she knew. Pandora listened with relish, and now and then Xiao Nu’s topics even helped her recall little fragments of memory.
From Xiao Nu’s lips, Pandora came to know of Xue Wuxia, and of Princess Qianqian and City Lord Luohua, and of Yue Bing and Yue Yu — of all the little details of Yue Yang’s life.
Moved by a sudden feeling, she sighed with emotion: “Honestly, living the way you two do is far happier than the way we lived. I remember, long, long ago, back when I still had a body — because I gave off Calamity god-force every moment without cease, anyone who came near me met with misfortune, so everyone kept far away from me. To stand before me and chat without holding anything back, the way you and he do — I don’t think that ever happened, not even once. Everyone wished for me to fall, wished that my god-force would never appear again… Though I’m not quite sure whether this has anything to do with why someone cut off my head, I do know that I was a creature of misfortune!”
Xiao Nu waved her hand: “It doesn’t matter! Xiao Nu is only a slave girl — it’s Xiao Nu’s honor to speak with you.”
Pandora looked at her: “Even if your master were to be killed by me — would that be all right too?”
Xiao Nu fell silent at first, and only after a while did she shake her head: “That isn’t what you want to do… Besides, it hasn’t happened. Xiao Nu believes in Master. He is the finest, the most one-of-a-kind person in all the world; nothing can stump him, and this death-gate too he will surely break through. I believe in miracles, and Master is the one who creates them. I’ve witnessed it countless times before, so I believe in him — whether in the past, the present, or the future, I will always believe in him!”
This time it was Pandora’s turn to fall silent: “……”
Time slipped by, minute by minute, second by second.
The day was drawing to its close.
Night, little by little, descended.
Yue Yang, who all this while had been meditating in search of the truth, had now begun to move.
Within the ‘World,’ he slowly waved his arms, and bit by bit began to separate the power of resentment from the Desire Valley’s own original power.
Slow though the pace was, the fact that the two were successfully separating proved that Yue Yang had found the right method. Given enough time, he would break through the Desire Valley’s confines, break through the death-threat of the resentful power…
But even Xiao Nu could see it — there wasn’t enough time.
In just ten more minutes, the death of Pandora’s prophecy would come!
There was no time left!
Xiao Nu did not cry, did not shed a single tear. Instead she gave Pandora a brilliant smile: “I’m going now. I’m so glad to have met you, Pandora. Goodbye!”
A silver dagger had appeared in her little hand. This had originally been the dagger Yue Yang gave to Xia Yi. When Xia Yi returned to the Ancient Wind Continent, she’d wanted it to guard her chastity, terrified of being captured and violated while gathering intelligence, and so had specially asked Yue Yang for this dagger. Later, when Xia Yi came back safe and sound, she returned the silver dagger to Yue Yang — and today, Xiao Nu took it out.
As a swift and ready means of accompanying her master on his final road.
“For his sake, you don’t even mind dying?” Pandora understood what Xiao Nu meant to do — she surely meant to follow him in death, out of love.
“Mm!” Xiao Nu nodded with a smile, then shook her head: “I still believe in Master. But I want to be ready first. If Master goes, then of course I, his personal slave girl, must go with him. Wherever he goes, I’ll be at his side to serve him. Though the matter of my status makes me a little too shy to say it aloud, I really do love Master. He — he is my very life! With Master, Xiao Nu possesses the whole world; without Master, you could give me all the world and Xiao Nu still wouldn’t feel any happiness… Death is nothing to me. Even death, which everyone dreads, cannot take the happiness from my heart!”
“Happiness? A happiness that not even death can take away?” Pandora’s expression changed, and in that instant she seemed to attain complete enlightenment.
A supreme god-force welled forth.
Once again the entire Desire Valley was filled with terrifying Calamity god-force, a hundred thousand years of resentment surging like a storm across the face of the sea — and yet Pandora’s expression was one of awakened tears of joy, not the fury of a mind losing its reason.
Pandora gently let out a breath, wrapping the half-elf Xiao Nu in a tender energy so that she could remain safe and unharmed amid the raging resentful power.
She showed Xiao Nu the most dazzling, most moving smile in all the world: “Thank you — for making me understand what love is!”
“A hundred thousand years ago, I once swore an utterly vicious oath. I cursed those creatures of the Upper Heavenly Realm who cast me out. To bring the calamity to completion, the furious me of that time did not hesitate to cut off my own head, refining my body into the most impossible-to-dissolve Calamity god-force in all the world, and through a war of gods, in a single stroke felled dozens of those you call deities… But the Primordial God told me that when I met true love, I would come to understand — what hatred is, what love is, what sacrifice is, what immortality is!”
“Now, I’m beginning to understand a little.”
“What I, once the Goddess of Misfortune, lacked was exactly this — a true love!”
“You can defy death for the one you love, guarding your own happiness. You, a single human, can do it… and so can I!”
“When he awakens, please tell him that I once appeared, and that I once loved! In his life I was only a passing traveler, hurrying by — a fool who didn’t even understand love. But this fool, just like you, fell every bit as hopelessly in love with him, and just like you, for his sake, could give up everything she had!”
“Happiness — a happiness that not even death can take away… this time, it will not slip through my fingers!”
“Don’t forget me. Even if only once in a great while, please think of me!”
“Goodbye! My happiness!”
(End of Chapter 848)