Pursuit of the Truth

1

Zhu You Cai stared at the long spear letting out the sound that was akin to a woman’s wails echoing in all directions while it charged towards him. With an extreme speed, the spear sliced through the air and closed in to arrive in the blink of an eye right in front of him.

Zhu You Cai fell silent. His body stopped in midair, and at the instant the spear approached him, he lifted his right hand to form a seal. When he did so, the act was very choppy, but it still gave off a feeling as if he was incredibly familiar with it.

These two feelings that should not coexist were mixed together in Zhu You Cai’s lifted right hand. It appeared in a flash, and the shrill screeches from the Life Inclination Spear went silent.

The spear… appeared swiftly in Zhu You Cai’s hand. Once he seized it, he gave it a simple swing in front of himself, and the screech immediately rang out again. It stirred up a loud bang as if air had been sliced apart, and an even stronger screech echoed in the air.

This scene caused the incoming body of the supreme treasure to freeze in midair while disbelief appeared on its face. By Su Ming’s side, Flame Fiends’ Progenitor also widened his eyes. He had known Zhu You Cai for thousands of years, but this was the first time he saw such a presence about him!

This presence was formed from a will which made it seem as if he was looking down on the entire universe naturally erupting from his body once he held the Life Inclination Spear. It was as if at that instant, Zhu You Cai had turned into another person. He was somebody whose ugly appearance could be ignored, whose gigantic size could be ignored…He became a person about whom the only thing that mattered was his shocking ability when holding the spear.

The shock was especially felt by Su Ming. As he stared at Zhu You Cai, the astonishment in his heart was difficult to describe with words. He remembered the seal Zhu You Cai had formed just then, and it was this seal that allowed him to snatch the long spear out of thin air. In fact, the spear had not shown a hint of resistance, and Su Ming had even seen… the spear trembling when Zhu You Cai held it, but it was not trembling in fear. It was trembling in surprised delight!

Su Ming did not know whether this was just a figment of his imagination, but this surprised delight made it seem as if the spear had finally been reunited with its master after a long, long time.

As a myriad of thoughts spun in Su Ming’s head, Zhu You Cai lowered his head and stared at the long spear in his hand quietly. Complicated emotions and anguish appeared in his eyes. After a long while, he averted his gaze, lifted his head, and looked at Su Ming.

“Is this… yours?”

Su Ming stared at Zhu You Cai and nodded slowly. Only at this moment did he realize that Zhu You Cai, who was originally the weakest among the old monsters, was clearly a person with secrets, and he definitely did not merely possess the power he showed to others.

Su Ming remembered the half of the skeleton that had held the purple-black long spear… He also remembered the Fire Spirits mentioning that the skeleton’s soul… was still around.

“The name of this spear is Life Inclination. This is what it was once called, but it also has another name, and it is Life Inequity. This has an absolutely different meaning from inclination… Do you understand?”

Su Ming frowned. He did not speak, and Xuan Shang was momentarily stunned while in the body of the supreme treasure, which he had made to stop in midair. He could understand what Zhu You Cai said on the surface level, but if he had to think about them more in-depth… He would not understand them.

And he wasn’t the only one. The other people were also at a loss. Only Progenitor Long Hai seemed to be deep in thought.

The eyes of Flame Fiends’ Progenitor focused, and he fell into a pensive silence.

“If you don’t understand, then it’s better… if you don’t have this spear.” Zhu You Cai sighed softly. He lowered his head to look at the spear in his hand again, and a hint of grief as well as regret appeared in his eyes.

At the instant Su Ming saw the grief and regret in Zhu You Cai’s eyes, a thought suddenly formed in his head. He remembered the pictures that had flashed before him the first time he held that spear.

“When holding the corpse of your lover, your sadness and the sense of injustice will become the rulers of your life. So what if you reach the Great Realm of Life? You will just waste away,” Su Ming said calmly.

When his words landed in Zhu You Cai’s ears, he lifted his head and looked at Su Ming for a long, long time before suddenly beginning to laugh. He laughed long and hard. At that moment, the presence he exuded and that ugly as well as huge body of his formed a great contrast.

As he laughed, he hid away a grief that no one else could see. Zhu You Cai swung his hand, and the Life Inequity Spear turned into a purple-black light that charged at Su Ming. It stopped before him and did not move, but there was a buzzing coming from within it. After listening to that noise, Su Ming seemed to have come to understand something.

“This spear is yours!”

Zhu You Cai laughed loudly. When he turned around, he took a huge stride forward. He did not even cast a glance at the three-headed statue at the bottom of the ocean in the whirlpool, which was already not too far away from him. It was as if even if this item was a supreme treasure, it could not catch his attention. He left into the distance.

“The statue of the Sea God has not completed the Fate Realm. Don’t touch it. If you do, you will bring a great disaster upon your own heads. Take care.”

Zhu You Cai strode into the distance until he stepped into the exit of the dimension. He fused into the distortions in the air and disappeared without a trace.

Su Ming watched him for a time. When he disappeared, understanding appeared on Su Ming’s face. He lifted his right hand and seized the floating long spear in front of him, then swung his right arm. The Life Inequity Spear disappeared, turning into a ring that appeared on Su Ming’s thumb.

“Well, aren’t you coming here?” Su Ming lifted his head and looked at the hesitant body of the supreme treasure.

At that moment, Xuan Shang was the one in control, and his heart was in incredible conflict. He had become the main soul after much difficulty, and if Su Ming fused into the body again, he would immediately become an existence akin to an auxiliary soul. This inevitably caused him to be hesitant.

“You aren’t willing for me to fuse with you?”

When Su Ming said this faintly, he sent his thought forward. At the instant he did so, a powerful light shone on the body of the supreme treasure. As it sparkled, several overlapping shadows instantly stepped out.

The first to appear was Xu Hui!

She pulled back a lock of her hair when she took a step forward. With a single move, she appeared right next to Su Ming. She smiled while looking at him.

“I still prefer you with this appearance,” she said with a soft chuckle.

The second overlapping shadow that appeared on the body of the supreme treasure was the bald crane. It was still unconscious, but with Su Ming drawing it out through the connection between them, it was separated from the body of the supreme treasure and charged towards him. With a swing of his arm, it was put away into his storage bag.

The third to appear was Progenitor Long Hai, who was a Nascent Divinity, the same existence as Flame Fiends’ Progenitor. That old man moved and immediately left the body of the supreme treasure. When he appeared beside Su Ming, he looked at Flame Fiends’ Progenitor.

“Long Hai!” The expression of Flame Fiends’ Progenitor changed swiftly, and he instinctively took a few steps back. Needless to say, he knew Long Hai. Forget how the both of them knew each other previously, just the fact that Flame Fiends’ Progenitor had once wanted to devour his physical body when they were at the one thousand feet tall tree alone was enough for them to have formed a relationship.

“Fellow Daoist Huo Kui, it’s been a long while.” Long Hai stared at Flame Fiends’ Progenitor with the ghost of a smile on his lips. There was a strange look in his eyes. The two of them were both Nascent Divinities, but it was precisely because of this that it would be easy for them to devour each other.

As Xu Hui, the bald crane, and Progenitor Long Hai left, the presence of the body within the supreme treasure weakened swiftly. At that moment, its offensive power was only equivalent to those in Solar Kalpa Realm. Even if Xuan Shang, Yun You, Hua Yu, and Nian Yin had skills they had yet to execute… at most, they would only be capable of fighting against someone who had fully completed Solar Kalpa Realm.

This power could perhaps allow them to run amuck in the world outside, but in the fifth kiln, this power was insufficient for them to even move an inch forward.

Su Ming, on the other hand, could already fight against a normal cultivator in Mastery Realm on his own. With Progenitor Long Hai and even a bit of power from Flame Fiends’ Progenitor as well as the two chances he still had for Sand Earthlings’ Progenitor to attack along with the God Ascension Nectar, not forgetting the three-leafed grass that allowed him to control the laws of fate too, his power was not that much different from before. He was not worried about what sort of thoughts or schemes Huang Mei or Zi Long would have once they noticed it.

He did not even cast a glance at the body of the supreme treasure, whose expression had changed drastically at that moment. Su Ming turned around and moved to the exit of the dimension. The people beside him immediately followed at. The group turned into a long arc and left into the distance, with Su Ming not paying any attention to the three-headed statue at the bottom of the ocean in the whirlpool.

He had instinctively chosen to believe in Zhu You Cai regarding this. Besides, the entire fifth kiln would definitely belong to him in the future. Unless he ran into a treasure that he was incredibly anxious to get right then and there, he would not be in a hurry to obtain it. This was something that was completely different about Su Ming compared to the others.

When Xuan Shang, Yun You, Nian Yin, and Hua Yu saw that Su Ming was leaving into the distance, they immediately panicked inside the body of the supreme treasure, especially Xuan Shang. At that moment, he came to a realization that Su Ming did indeed need the body of the supreme treasure, but the four of them needed Su Ming even more.

They were lucky that it was Su Ming. If it had been anyone else, they would have been killed a long time ago and their treasured snatched away.

However, this was also in part because Su Ming did not believe that there was a necessity for it. If he truly believed that he absolutely needed the supreme treasure, then even if that treasure was created by the Sublime Paragon who was the Master of the Life Inequity Spear’s owner as well as the teenager in red Su Ming saw in the pictures, it would not have mattered to him!

“Senior, please wait!” Xuan Shang’s heart was immediately filled with the other three’s anxious complaints. At that moment, he quickly chased after Su Ming.

“I understand my wrongs, please forgive me, senior, and please give me another chance. I will absolutely not harbor any other thoughts in my head, I swear with the soul of my family’s ancestor in heaven!” This was where Xuan Shang’s intelligence came into play. He did not try to argue or hide his hesitation just then.

Instead, he said it directly and lowered his stance to an extremely low degree to admit his wrongdoings. Because of it, he could avoid causing Su Ming to be displeased again when he tried to argue or hide.

While rushing after, Xuan Shang immediately scattered his soul. Once he showed his stance, Su Ming paused and turned his head around to look at the body of the supreme treasure, which had lost its main soul.

“I will allow this just this once. Do not let this happen again!” As he spoke, Su Ming moved. He swung his arm and swept up Flame Fiends’ Progenitor, who had come to understand what was going on a long time ago and was laughing bitterly at that moment. Then, with the others, he charged into the body of the supreme treasure.

They fused into it instantly, and Su Ming became the main soul, while Flame Fiends’ Progenitor was added to the auxiliary souls!

This was also part of the reason why Su Ming did not kill Flame Fiends’ Progenitor. In truth, he had come up with a different plan at the start, but he gave up on it midway. That plan was to have Flame Fiends’ Progenitor Possess the white-robed teenager and cause Huang Mei as well as Zi Long to misunderstand him, thereby shifting most of their attention to Flame Fiends’ Progenitor.

But after thinking carefully about it, he gave up on that course of action.

Translator’s Notes:

1. Inequity, not Inclination: I tried, honestly, but this was the best I could come up with. The original is 此枉,非往 (ci3 wang3, fei1 wang3). If you look at it, the word wang sound the same. 枉 means to perform injustice or waste, and 往 is look forward to something. They sound the same, but are very different from each other. The original translation is supposed to be: This wang… is not wang -> This injustice… is not aspiration.

Which made no sense in English, so I had to make some tweaks.

Also, there was a part where Xuan Shang said he could not understand Zhu You Cai’s words.

It’s supposed to be: If he could read it (since homophone), he could understand, but if he was only to hear it, he could not.

But when translated to English, the meaning is pretty clear, so I decided to make it seem as if Zhu You Cai had an underlying meaning to his words, which is what happened as well in the raws anyway.

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