Chapter 56 – Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

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Chapter 56 – Lord’s return

This person was Wenren È. He had asked Zhongli Qian to tell Yin Hanjiang that he would return after one year, a figure he had arrived at after repeated analysis. He thought it was enough, but only the heavens knew in the end. Some things, he had no way of anticipating.

He looked at the red stone in his hand and said quietly. “At least I got this. It wasn’t a pointless trip.”

This stone was the second reason he entered the Blood Hell.

The Blood Hell was a vital location in both Abusive Romance and God of Annihilation. In Abusive Romance, Wenren È died in the Blood Hell, after throwing Baili Qingmiao a blood-red stone. Treating it as his parting gift, Baili Qingmiao hid it on her body. The first time Yin Hanjiang tried to kill Baili Qingmiao, he mistook Liu Xinye for her, and the second time, as he pursued her as the Ghost Mask, he occasionally took off the mask and pretended to protect her, all in order to lure her to the Blood Hell.

At the time, the book’s Yin Hanjiang was on the brink of victory. Baili Qingmiao’s strength was far below his, and there was no one near the Blood Hell, so no one could possibly have come to the protagonist’s rescue. Since victory was within his grasp, Yin Hanjiang purposefully let Baili Qingmiao see the ghost mask. He wanted to kill Baili Qingmiao as she was filled with despair, at the closest place to Wenren È.

He had wounded Baili Qingmiao, about to yank out her soul in order to refine into a lampwick. With that red stone in hand, Baili Qingmiao had fled to the edge of the Blood Hell. Staring at the stone, she thought about how Wenren È had died to save her. Hearing Yin Hanjiang darkly tell her to accompany him in death, she said, “You’re right. I own Wenren È my life and ought to repay him with it, but it won’t be at your hands.”

With that stone the size of a man’s fist clasped in both hands, she leapt into the Blood Hell. Within the sea, the stone unleashed a mystical radiance, protecting Baili Qingmiao from the corrosive energy.

From a seal at the depths of the Blood Hell, a ray of light shot up to the surface, entering Baili Qingmiao’s body. As she merged with the divine nature, she inadvertently struck a blow against Yin Hanjiang, her divine power instantly disintegrating his soul. Only one wisp escaped, clinging to its obsession, and returned to Xuanyuan Sect to hide within the Burning Sky Drum, enduring for a thousand years to finally become the Burning Sky Immortal.

The moment Baili Qingmiao merged with the divine nature, she regained all memories of her past life. It turned out that she had hid the divine nature at the depths of the Blood Hell. Her divine power was great and might be sought by greedy people, so the Blood Hell was the safest place to put it within the three realms. The power of chaos could incorporate all other energies, so it would be able to hide her divine power.

And after Baili Qingmiao gave up her divinity, she automatically hid it within the Blood Hell again, wanting it to remain a secret forever.

To the end, the book never mentioned what the red stone was, and how it could protect Baili Qingmiao within the Blood Hell and allow her to obtain the divine nature before she was ready. There was no clear explanation, and the readers had been so mad at Baili Qingmiao giving up her divine nature to follow her man that they couldn’t think straight, so they were in no mood to ask about the red stone. Thus it became an unresolved thread.

Wenren È had never understood how he’d managed this in the book. From the book’s depiction, Wenren È had had no knowledge of the divine nature before falling into the Blood Hell, so how could he suddenly come up with a stone?

The readers had all assumed it was a plot device the author made up because she was stuck, but Wenren È didn’t think this way.

Everything in this world was logical. Baili Qingmiao’s love for Hè Wenzhao, Wenren È, Zhongli Qian, and Yin Hanjiang’s love for Baili Qingmiao, the unconditional loyalty Zhongli Kuang and Cen Zhengqi showed toward Hè Wenzhao, and the Violet Spirit Master’s willingness to be his wife, had all had reasonable explanations behind them. The red stone also couldn’t appear out of nowhere.

If there was no description of it at all in the book, then there was only one possibility. Wenren È could only obtain it at the moment he fell into the Blood Hell, while he was still conscious.

After reading God of Annihilation: Volume 3, Wenren È had more questions. First, who was the supposed god who slaughtered Hè Wenzhao’s village? In the first volume, the Blood Demon deceived him into thinking it was Wenren È, while the third volume didn’t mention it at all. Second, Hè Wenzhao had become a god in the third volume, yet never regained the memories of his past life. Only at the end as he faced the divine nature did he remember everything. How did that make sense?

The readers had brought up these questions too, but everyone just said that the story was too long and the author had forgotten the beginning. Wenren È understood this was possible with a mortal’s memory, but if the world was real, then there must be a cause behind these two points.

It seemed everything was pushing Wenren È to go to the Blood Hell. Thus, after preparing properly, he had entered the sea.

“So that was it.” With the red stone in his hand, Wenren È understood everything.

Reading through the revisions to God of Annihilation, he saw how Yin Hanjiang had snapped, and, controlling the Burning Sky Drum, scared Hè Wenzhao and the Shangqing Sect Master into shutting themselves at home. Wenren È sighed slightly. It seemed Yin Hanjiang’s madness after his death was impossible to prevent.

The readers of God of Annihilation were flaming it in the comments, saying the author was insane for revising a perfectly good harem novel into something like this, moving the immortal lord from the second volume into the first volume to terrorize the protagonist, turning his main wife into a man, letting his shimei be kidnapped by the demonic cultivators for a year. Even Liu Xinye kept avoiding Hè Wenzhao for some reason. A perfectly good protagonist had been kicked around by the villain and lost his wives and followers. It seemed like the author was taking revenge on society.

Wenren È put away God of Annihilation and opened Abusive Romance. He was in an unusual situation and needed to use Baili Qingmiao’s viewpoint to confirm the leadership of Xuanyuan Sect before he decided whether or not to go back.

The revision used a good thirty thousand words to describe how heartbroken Baili Qingmiao was by Hè Wenzhao’s act, how she didn’t want to live on, how she sobbed even in her sleep. She seemed like a completely different person from the previous silly but pure-hearted protagonist.

The comments here were cursing the author for getting back in her old habit of abusing the protagonist. Only when Yin Hanjiang woke Baili Qingmiao and Zhongli Qian spoke his conjecture did the comments calm down.

[The ten straight chapters of wishing for death made me so scared I almost didn’t want to follow anymore, but when I was about to give up, somehow the author came up with such an amazing plot twist! This revision really is legendary!]

[I knew with Zhongli Qian’s brains around, everything would be fine. Xuanyuan Sect sure is crafty to take our Qian as Altar Master. They really have an eye for talent.]

[I feel a bit bad for our Qian. He’s herding a bunch of cats and can’t make them do anything.]

[The brooding ghost cultivator fifth love interest has now become a little nanny, wiping down his martial ancestor and looking after his master, so good and obedient. I suddenly want to steal him away. Have I gotten old?]

[Hold on a minute, was Qian’s words telling us that there’s a reason behind Baili Qingmiao’s blind love for the male lead? That she’s being controlled by something?]

[Anyone know who Shi Congxin is? Has he been mentioned before? Why does it seem like he likes the MC?]

[Shi Congxin said Baili Qingmiao sucked away his sickness qi while unconscious. Why is a good little female lead being described like some life-sucking demoness?]

[I thought daddy Wenren È had died like in the original story, but now Qian said there’s a possibility he survived. Will he come back? Will he explain everything after he does? How come this story doesn’t seem like a masochistic romance anymore? It’s become a suspenseful mystery?]

[“Suspenseful mystery”, I’m dying, adding in Yin Hanjiang will make it horror suspense, hahahahaha!]

[No matter how the story changes, Yin Hanjiang still wants to slaughter the MC. When he was making motions at the little flower’s face with his weapon, he really gave off the feeling of a horror story serial killer.]

[I want to know just what relationship Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang have. How come Yin Hanjiang always goes dark after Wenren È dies?]

[After scrolling through the comments for half an hour, the word that appeared the most was “know”. This story’s title should be changed to “The Readers Also Want to Know”]

Seeing the current leader of Xuanyuan Sect was still Yin Hanjiang, Wenren È let out a breath. With his current condition, if someone else were leading the sect, he’d find it difficult to act.

Looking at the stone, he furrowed his brows slightly, and replaced it and the books within an extradimensional storage space. The moment the stone left his hand, the robe he wore slipped off his body.

As if the person wearing them had vanished, the grey outer and white inner robe passed through Wenren È’s body and gently landed on the ground. Though both his clothes had fallen, Wenren È still appeared to be wearing the black robe he had used to protect Yin Hanjiang.

With a small sigh, he vanished into light and arrived at Xuanyuan Sect. The sect was protected by an array, and anyone who wanted to enter had to either break it, defeat the gatekeepers, or secretly enter along with someone else. Of course, each member of Xuanyuan Sect had their own password to open it, so whenever someone entered, the guards instantly knew who they were.

Wenren È used none of those methods. He passed through the barrier tracelessly, not alerting anyone.

He had to first find Yin Hanjiang and let him know he was alive.

He had seen from the book that Yin Hanjiang had already deviated. It was the outcome Wenren È least wanted to see.

He first came to Yin Hanjiang’s room, which looked like no one had been in it for a long time.

Thinking that Yin Hanjiang was now in command of Xuanyuan Sect, he was probably staying in the Sect Master’s room. Their rooms were only separated by a wall, so Wenren È directly passed through it, but found no sign of Yin Hanjiang.

Coming to the spiritual spring in the back mountains, he finally found Yin Hanjiang there.

Yin Hanjiang sat silently by the spring, holding an empty wine cup. Dipping his head, he carefully put his lips on the cup’s edge. He appeared normal for now.

Wenren È let out a breath and called to him, “Sect Leader Yin, this Venerable has returned.”

Yin Hanjiang didn’t turn his head, acting as if he hadn’t heard. Pouring wine into his cup, he threw it back in one gulp.

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Thank you for reading. If there are any mistakes, I hope my fellow cultivators will offer guidance.

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