The wax burned out, leaving only darkness.

     The fire was extinguished, leaving only embers behind.

     However, the darkness had also once been bright and the embers once warm. He had also experienced years of light and warmth. At this moment, no one knew about it, and it would never be mentioned again.

     Mo Ran had used up his last bit of spiritual force.

     He watched as the sparrows dispersed and the ghost soldiers sank into the ground. He watched as the living were no longer under control, and the chess pieces cracked. He watched as the black tide that was about to engulf Sisheng Peak retreated in a daze. He watched as the calamity of hell finally came to an end.

     Everyone said he was a wicked person beyond redemption, and he himself also felt that way. But this demon finally did the exact same thing as the god. Chu Wanning was his wax torch, and he followed after the light, walking the same path.

     “Ge!”

     “Ran-er!”

     He vaguely heard someone calling him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Xue Meng stumbling towards him. He saw Xue Zhengyong and Madam Wang break through the encirclement and run towards him.

     He felt so relieved by their calls that he smiled as if he wanted to laugh, but tears ran down his bloodied face.

     He wanted to say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t do well.”

     But his throat was choked, and in the end, he begged, “Don’t hate me.”

     I really…

     I really love you all.

     I love Uncle and Auntie. I love Sisheng Peak. I love this stolen warmth, this stolen family.

     Uncle, Auntie, Xue Meng.

     Don’t hate me.

     The million soldiers retreated, and Mo Ran fell heavily onto the ground, covered in mud and dust.

     In his previous life, when Chu Wanning was unconscious due to his severe injuries, his clothes were stained with blood, but his body still looked very clean. He was different from Mo Ran. Mo Ran had always been very dirty.

     When he lost consciousness, he felt Madam Wang put her arms around him. Her arms were warm and soft as she called him with heartache, “Ran-er.”

     He heard Xue Zhengyong and Mu Yanli arguing and shouting angrily. “Evil plan? What evil plan can it be? If they were chess pieces he summoned, why would he go to this extent for them to retreat?!”

     He heard Xue Meng yell, “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him! Don’t take him away!”

     It was a mess.

     Mo Ran wanted to explain more, but he was really too tired, too exhausted.

     He closed his eyes.

     —

     In Mount Jiao’s Hall of Sages, the everlasting lamp glowed faintly. The wax torch was made from whale oil and was as thick as the mouth of a bowl. There was no sign of the sun or moon here, only the flickering light of lanterns flowed, forming candlelight tears, indicating the passage of time.

     Shi Mei was draped in a white fox fur brocade robe as he sat on the high seat. He rested his forehead on his hand and closed his eyes to rest.

     This seat was originally occupied by Xu Shuanglin. Back then, he watched as Xu Shuanglin refined the Zhenlong chess pieces, creating Paradise and Purgatory and hoping with all his heart that his Shizun could return to the mortal world.

     He thought that this person was very interesting, but it was a pity that he couldn’t keep him.

     In front of him, there was a piece of cloth covered with illusory spells. On it, dragons and serpents were flying, along with many densely packed dots of various colors.

     This was the “sand table” created by Taxian-Jun in his previous life, which was synchronized with the Zhenlong Chess Formation. The black dots were black Zhenlong chess pieces, the silver dots were white chess pieces, and the red dots were the abandoned chess pieces that had been killed. The small squares on the silk cloth represented the opposing forces. As long as he had this sand table in hand, he could clearly see the situation of the battle, even if he was thousands of miles away.

     Shi Mei spread the silk cloth on the table but didn’t look at it closely. He knew very well what choice Mo Ran would make in the end. He put the cloth there just for fun. There were countless ways for Taxian-Jun to get out of this predicament, but Mo-zongshi only had one, so there was nothing to see.

     After an unknown amount of time, the door of the hall suddenly opened, and light footsteps sounded in the hall. Shi Mei didn’t look up but asked lightly, “You’re here?”

     A man stood still on the illuminated bricks.

     The man was wearing a white cloak, and the brim of his hat was very low, so his face couldn’t be seen clearly. He stopped in the middle of the hall, his posture like a lotus.

     The man spoke with a clear and elegant voice, but his tone was low, “There was movement outside just now. Mo Ran destroyed all Emperor Taxian-Jun’s chess pieces.”

     Shi Mei didn’t even bat an eyelash as he replied indifferently, “Yes, he had no other choice.”

     The man continued, “...Emperor Taxian-Jun’s body is already on the verge of collapse. The chess pieces he controlled have already begun to turn against you. Now that Mo Ran used the power of his spiritual core to break them all, you are free. This is good.”

     Shi Mei smiled, “Oh? Are you worried about me?”

     The man didn’t answer. After a while, he said, “What are you going to do next?”

     “Just follow the old plan.” Shi Mei finally moved. He stretched his waist and opened his peach blossom eyes. He smiled, and the entire room was filled with spring. “Didn’t I tell you long ago?”

     “...I know you’ve thought through it carefully. But you have to think clearly. Mo Ran paid such a high price to prevent the Zhenlong chess pieces from wreaking havoc. The cultivators of these sects aren’t fools; they won’t just have no doubts about the entire matter.”

     Shi Mei smiled. “I know what you mean. In order to prevent a calamity in the cultivation world, he didn’t hesitate to shatter his own spiritual core. He’s a hero.”

     “Do you think the cultivation world will interrogate their hero?”

      Shi Mei didn’t answer directly. He was still smiling, with his fingers intertwined and placed under his chin, before he gently asked the visitor, “Does what Mo Ran did look like what Chu Wanning did in the previous life?”

     The man was silent for a while, then said, “...Yes. It’s almost like a reenactment.”

     “Okay, then let me ask you again. In the previous life, when Chu Wanning was imprisoned by Emperor Taxian-Jun, how many people in the cultivation world truly cared about him and remembered him?”

     “...”

     Seeing that he didn’t answer, the smile on Shi Mei’s face became even more enigmatic.

     “Almost none, right? I’ve already told you. In those years when Xue Meng traveled all over the place, at first, there were people who shed tears of sympathy and promised him that they would lend a helping hand and go to Sisheng Peak to save him. But what happened later? Under pressure from Emperor Taxian-Jun, those promises were just empty words. And as time passed, the initial emotion dissipated, and people started to feel more and more annoyed with Xue Meng. When he went to ask for help, everyone told him that Chu Wanning had been in the palace for so long and that he might have already died. How could they sacrifice other people’s lives for a person whose life or death was unknown?”

     The unknown man shook his head. “Chu Wanning’s whereabouts were really unknown at the time, but now, Mo Ran is still by their side. No matter how cruel they are, they probably won’t hurt someone who has just shed blood for the cultivation world.”

     Hearing his rebuttal, Shi Mei couldn’t help but sigh. “Ah, compared to me, you’re still a few years younger, so you’re still too naïve.”

     As he spoke, he put the silk cloth on the table away. The chess pieces on it had all turned red, meaning that they were all rendered ineffective. He didn’t care at all and returned the silk to his qiankun pouch.

     “People can be very noble when their own interests aren’t involved. But once they’re hurt, they’ll gradually reveal their animalistic nature.”

     He tied a knot on the qiankun pouch with his slender fingers as he raised his head. “Now, in their eyes, there’s a fifty percent chance that Mo Ran is a good person who has been wronged and a fifty percent chance that he’s a scheming villain. It’s a pity to harm a good man by mistake, but to wrongly free an evil villain could lead to a bloody storm in the cultivation world.”

     “...”

     Seeing that the other was listening silently, Shi Mei continued calmly, “Therefore, even if he shattered his spiritual core to prevent a great calamity in the cultivation world, there are still too many doubts about him. Human nature is very suspicious; if there is something that can harm them, they will choose to eliminate it completely. This small variable will not change the end result.”

     The unknown man asked, “So, do you think Tianyin Pavilion can still capture Mo Ran without any trouble?”

     Shi Mei smiled and said, “Tianyin Pavilion is on our side, so everything is going according to plan. This is inevitable. Now, as long as I can find a way to obtain the fragments of Mo Ran spiritual core, I’ll be able to put Emperor Taxian-Jun in line again. With his power, there’s nothing else that can’t be done.”

     The man didn’t reply immediately. After a while, he said, “But in the other world, you’ve been controlling him for nearly ten years, and what have you done?”

     Shi Mei was slightly startled, as if he were stung by the man’s questioning. His face slowly darkened, and after a while, he narrowed his eyes and asked, “What do you mean? Are you doubting me?”

     “...No, I’m not doubting you.” The man sighed. “You and I had the same original intentions. I’m afraid there’s no one in this world who understands you better than I do.”

     Shi Mei’s cold expression softened a little, but his beautiful eyes were still fixed on the man’s face, as if trying to determine which of the man’s words were true and false. Finally, he pursed his thin lips and said, “It’s good that you understand. Every step I take is to take back what we deserve, so some sacrifices are unavoidable.”

     “Yes.”

     “You’re right. There is no one who understands me more than you.” Shi Mei said softly, “In these two lives, I’ve lived every step carefully, in fear. Apart from you, there’s almost no one I can trust.”

     “...”

     “Don’t let me down.”

     Shi Mei’s voice fell and lingered like a butterfly circling in the air. After a complicated silence, the unknown man said with a calm tone, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a while now.”

     “What is it?”

     Outside of Mount Jiao, thick, dark clouds covered the sky. The wind had picked up, and the grass and trees were bleak as they swayed. It was as if countless homeless people were wailing in grief—the whistling of the wind.

     The man said, “I really want to know. In the previous life, how much did you sacrifice for us? Tell me the truth.”

     Shi Mei didn’t expect him to suddenly ask such a question. His brows furrowed, and his eyes were bright. “Didn’t I already tell you? It’s expected for some innocent people to die. If you think about the trampling we’ve suffered in the past, then—”

     “How much is ‘some’?”

     The man’s gentle yet firm voice interrupted Shi Mei’s words. Shi Mei seemed to be mute for a moment.

     His face began to look obviously gloomy. This was very unusual because Shi Mei was a person who didn’t express his emotions easily. But in front of this unknown man, he didn’t seem to care about baring his fangs and brandishing his claws, as if the killing intent on his face wasn’t visible to the man at all.

     “Some is just some. Don’t tell me that you want me to make a register of all the innocent people who died for you to see?”

     The man smiled faintly, and then said softly, “Well, you also know that I can’t see it anymore.”

     “...”

     “I’ve always been very cooperative with you. Ever since you came to find me and told me the truth about the previous life, I’ve been helping you for so many years. You hid in Guyue’ye, and I did everything you asked me to do at Sisheng Peak.”

     The man continued, “Although there were some things I didn’t understand, and I occasionally had some doubts, your thoughts are my thoughts, and your intentions are my intentions. For the things we have in common, I have long put my own life and death to the back of my mind. I have always thought you were the same, so I don’t mind sacrificing myself as long as we can succeed.”

     Shi Mei suddenly stood up and started pacing back and forth.

     “What do you mean by saying this? You have put life and death aside, so you mean that I'm just living in peace?”

     He flicked his sleeves and looked back, staring at the man in white with an ice-frost expression.

     “If you know what kind of person I am, you shouldn’t say such things.”

     “I know,” the unknown man said. “But I was thinking—after you faked your death in the previous life, you hid behind the scenes as Hua Binan and controlled the gu worm in Mo Ran’s heart… for ten years.”

     “Eight years.” Shi Mei interrupted him. “Later, Chu Wanning split his earth soul and transferred it to his body, which brought back some of his identity. He committed suicide after eight years, not ten years.”

     “Okay, eight years,” the man said. “In these eight years, you amplified the hatred in his heart and made him commit all kinds of despicable crimes but moved further and further away from our original intentions. When you see him like this, why didn’t you stop him in time?”

     Shi Mei was so angry that he laughed. “Do you know how difficult it is to cultivate an Eight Sufferings Everlasting Hatred Flower?”

     “...I know.”

     Shi Mei stopped laughing, and anger flashed in his eyes. “Then what else do you want to ask? If it were you, what would you do?”

     The man was silent for a long time, then sighed. “Didn’t you already make the choice for me?”

     Shi Mei was suddenly at a loss for words.

     The man said, “I have never personally done anything like this—walked the path you have walked. I know I would have made the same decisions if I had encountered the same situation, but I…”

     Shi Mei narrowed his eyes, walked down the long stairs, step by step, and stopped in front of the man. “But you?”

     “...But I still have a guilty conscience.”

     Dead silence.

     Suddenly, Shi Mei grabbed the man by the lapels of his robe. Such a beautiful hand, wearing a snake ring, an extremely elegant hand, tightly grasped the person in front of him, the meridians on the back of his hand protruding.

     He gritted his teeth and said, “What guilty conscience? What’s the difference between you and me? Everything that occurred one after another in the past—which of them wasn’t planned by the two of us? Didn’t you understand it well in the past? Weren’t you so cruel and merciless? Now you have a guilty conscience? Why?”

     “...”

     “Because you know that Xu Shuanglin saw you as a friend, but you’ve always been deceiving him, teaching him the fake Rebirth technique and letting him open the Gate of Time, Space, Life, and Death for us. Are you ashamed?”

     The man said softly, “He never betrayed me until death.”

     Shi Mei was stunned for a moment, his eyes flashing with despair and grief. “Fine, fine—I was wondering why you were so unwilling at that time—what else? You saw thousands of chess pieces, and you feel heartache for those people and blame yourself?”

     The man was very calm. “Don’t you feel any remorse in your heart?”

     “You…” Shi Mei gritted his teeth, his eyes almost crazy and mocking. He stared at the person in front of him for a long time, as if he were looking at a huge joke or a traitor who made him feel cold.

     Suddenly, he seemed to have thought of an extremely vicious phrase, and he sneered, revealing his poisonous claws, and stabbed into the man’s blood.

     “Okay, very good. You said so many beautiful words. You blame yourself and feel shame. But in the end, you still feel pity, right?”

     Seeing the blank look between the other person’s brows, the light in Shi Mei’s eyes became even brighter. He was like a vulture pouncing on prey, soaring and circling, waiting for the moment the prey breathed before swooping down to kill.

     “You’ve suddenly come to denounce me. You probably think you’re regretting it because you saw the million-strong Zhenlong Chess Formation. You probably felt that you saw Xu Shuanglin’s death and were moved. But I know you. I know what kind of person you are—self-blame and shame don’t exist for you. You’re as cold-blooded and fickle as I am.”

     The vulture’s wings cast a shadow of death, descending lower and lower, growing colder and colder.

     “You’re not repenting at all. Don’t lie to yourself.”

     He smiled proudly and gracefully.

     Shi Mingjing, who had always grasped other people’s weak points, who was always elegant and calm.

     He paused after every word.

     “In my opinion, you are just lamenting your eyes.”

     As soon as he finished speaking, Shi Mei quickly pulled a dagger from his waist. Slowly, he used the handle of the dagger to lift the hood of the man’s low-hanging white cloak. Then, little by little, he ripped it off.

     The cloak fell, and behind the white fur hood was a devastatingly beautiful face.

     He had a peerless appearance and elegant features.

     The two of them actually had the exact same face!

     Only, this cloaked Shi Mei’s eyes were covered by a snow-white bandage, and a few strands of hair fell in front of the silk.

     Shi Mei looked at the man whose cloak had been lifted and sneered, “Shi Mingjing, look at yourself clearly. What you are lamenting is that you sacrificed more than me. That day, the situation on Mount Jiao was extremely dire. In order to disturb Chu Wanning’s mind, we had to use the last resort we discussed. With so many people watching, we naturally couldn’t act out of place. So, in the end, you lost your eyes, but I was fine. You are jealous.”

     “...If I were jealous, I wouldn’t have agreed to your plan from the beginning, nor would I have made the last resort plan of sacrificing myself. In fact, for me, it’s fine if either one of us lives long enough to conclude that unfinished business. Why should I—”

     Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted.

     “Who?!”

     The dagger was thrown, accurately hitting the pillar.

     Shi Mei looked back and said coldly, “Come out.”

     Huang Xiaoyue, with disheveled hair and a dirty face, weakly came out from behind the stone pillar.

     That day, he had betrayed everyone and searched for the treasure on Mount Jiao. But because he triggered a mechanism, he was trapped in a secret room and couldn’t escape. In Rufeng Sect’s secret chamber, there was no shortage of gold, silver, precious weapons, sword manuals, and secret books. The only thing missing was food.

     The group from Jiangdong Hall was trapped inside. Brothers and sisters killed each other, the strong bullied the weak, and people ate people. In the end, only Huang Xiaoyue was left.

     After eating the last disciple, he struggled his way out of the secret chamber, but he didn’t expect to encounter such a strange situation.

     —What did he see? Two Shi Mingjings?

     Huang Xiaoyue couldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t understand.

     With his brain, the most he could guess was that they were twins. He would have never thought that they were two Shi Meis who appeared in the same world under the effect of the Gate of Time, Space, Life, and Death.

     But the more he listened to the conversation between the two, the more strange it became. Huang Xiaoyue was a cunning old fox and vaguely sensed that something was wrong. He wanted to leave first, but who knew that Shi Mei’s eyes and ears were sharp enough to discover his presence?

     Shi Mei narrowed his eyes. “I was wondering who it was. Turns out it was an old rat.”

     His gaze shifted down and landed on Huang Xiaoyue’s robe. “Blood? …There are no animals on Mount Jiao, so what kind of blood?”

     He was quiet for a moment, as if he had figured it out.

     His mouth opened slightly, unexpectedly showing his disdain.

     “Human blood?”

     Huang Xiaoyue felt the killing intent and ran away.

     “Where can you escape to?”

     Shi Mei’s green robe fluttered, and his body was as light as a kite. He stood firmly in front of Huang Xiaoyue, raising a pair of cloudy eyes. It was a pity that his gaze was so cold that the rain in his eyes froze into ice.

     “Old man, you probably don’t know, but the most disgusting thing in my life is people eating other people.”

     —This was the last sentence Huang Xiaoyue heard.

     The hall was filled with the thick smell of blood. Shi Mei watched Huang Xiaoyue fall to the ground with blood surging from the hole in his chest and frowned in disgust.

     As he wiped the blood off his hands, he said, “Disgusting.”

     He turned around and looked at the other Shi Mei for a moment.

     Then his tone softened.

     “For two lifetimes, the world has been full of beasts like Huang Xiaoyue. Have you seen? Therefore, the cards of the cultivation world should have been reshuffled a long time ago. Also, don’t think too much. I told you that I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain. When this is over, I’ll find a way to cure your eyes.”

     “...”

     Seeing that the white-cloaked Shi Mei still didn’t say a word, he rolled his eyes and said indifferently, “Don’t be stubborn… Forget it—I promise you that unless I have no other choice, I won’t implicate any more innocent people. This way, you can rest assured now, right? Are you satisfied?”

     Hearing this, the Shi Mei in white slowly relaxed. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something to his other self. However, after this disturbance, the other Shi Mei from the previous life was in a bad mood and didn’t intend to listen to him. He had already walked out of the main hall of the ancestral shrine.