Finally Dead

Half a month later.

While playing cards, Niu Xiaowei mentioned that Su Wenhao had died in the Imperial Prison.

It was said that when he died, there had not been many intact bones left on his body.

"Working in our line of business, remember to watch what you say. Watch what you say!"

Niu Xiaowei warned, "Especially you, Little Yi. When delivering food to prisoners, do not chat with them. Vice Minister Liu asked me to tell you: do not listen to what you should not hear, and do not say what you should not say!"

"This one understands."

A lingering fear stirred within Zhou Yi. This had truly been a harsh lesson.

Fengyang Kingdom was not a society governed by law. A person's life, death, honor, and disgrace all depended on the will above.

A single poem or a single sentence could become a capital crime!

For example, Zhou Yi had brought Wei Chang wine and meat, even calling him a hero and speaking many words of praise. If someone with ulterior motives reported it to the court, he might be exiled at best—or branded Wei Chang's accomplice at worst.

Then the Longevity Dao Fruit would have transformed into nothing but an empty dream!

"Never force your way to the front in anything!"

Zhou Yi warned himself that he would surely see more injustice and more infuriating things in the future. He had to learn indifference.

He would only stand to one side and watch. He would not ask, meddle, or, even less, save anyone!

Mingling in the mortal world while keeping himself beyond it.

Having grasped the crux of it, Zhou Yi became an expressionless food-deliverer in the Heavenly Prison. He smiled only at prisoners who had paid silver.

After all, a prison guard's monthly salary was only five qian of silver—not even enough to hear one song at Spring Breeze Pavilion.

The better the prisoners ate, the more silver Zhou Yi received each month. Calling them his providers of food and clothing would not be an exaggeration!

One day.

A new prisoner entered the Heavenly Prison. It was said he was the leader of rebels somewhere in the south.

Dark, scrawny, and covered in sorrowful wrinkles, he looked nothing like a general commanding tens of thousands. He was entirely like an old farmer from the fields.

The old farmer general's arrival brought a bit more liveliness to the Heavenly Prison.

Niu Xiaowei and several runners took turns torturing and interrogating him in ever-changing ways. Within only a few days, the old farmer no longer looked human.

The old farmer did not possess Wei Chang's steel bones and iron frame, yet his endurance was even greater. The thumb screws, branding irons, barbed whips, heavy cangues... all manner of tortures were used in turn, yet he did not let out a single scream.

After every session, the old farmer would spit out bloody foam and still have the strength to curse.

"Dog officials!"

"Go on if you have the guts! If this grandpa begs for mercy even once, I'll take your surname!"

"..."

Standing nearby and listening, Zhou Yi suddenly felt that this man did resemble a general more closely.

After the general had been imprisoned for several days, he was sent to the Execution Grounds for beheading. Dozens more were executed on the same day, from generals down to squad leaders. Their spurting blood splashed across the entire execution ground.

The watching commoners cheered loudly. They only wanted to watch the spectacle and did not care why these people were being beheaded!

Zhou Yi stood at the edge of the execution ground, watching the general's head roll far away. His eyes remained open, fixed in a deathly glare at the executioner, without the slightest hint of surrender.

That night.

Zhou Yi returned to his small courtyard and meditated and practiced as usual.

After more than half a year of cultivation, the Return to Origin Skill had accumulated several hundred wisps of inner energy within his Dantian. He had already become thoroughly proficient in circulating the technique.

"Heaven and earth are dark and boundless, without end or limit. When united, they become primordial qi; mingled together, they return to one... Damn it, why can't my heart calm down!"

The old farmer's image kept surfacing before Zhou Yi's eyes. He had heard him say that several southern provinces had suffered severe droughts year after year, with starved corpses littering the ground and people exchanging children to eat. The grain the court had sent for disaster relief had all been embezzled by officials.

People eating people!

Three simple words—yet the more one thought about them, the more terrifying they became. How many human tragedies lay behind them?

"People with too much empathy live too tired a life!"

Zhou Yi shook his head. If he did not vent the gloom in his heart and continued cultivating the Return to Origin Skill, his inner energy might become disordered and he could suffer deviation.

"How should I soothe my mind?"

After turning it over and over in his mind, he finally came up with a method.

In his previous life, many people under too much pressure from work and life, to avoid falling into depression, vented their emotions by cursing at fake people and beating fake people. It was said to work quite well.

"The person I want to curse is too taboo. If anyone heard me, I'd be dead for certain. But I can write it down!"

Zhou Yi bought brush and ink along with a blank book. He wrote in the simplified characters of his previous life, so even if someone saw it, they would not recognize them.

"How should I write it?"

After pondering for a moment, he put brush to paper: The thirty-ninth year of Chongming, the Gui Mao month, the Wu Chen day...

"Today I watched a rebel general beheaded. It left a very bitter taste in my heart. This dynasty is rotten through from top to bottom."

Zhou Yi frowned slightly, feeling that something was off. He was writing a diary to curse people; there was no need to be so solemn. So his brushstroke turned.

"Emperor Chongming is no good thing. He dreams of Eternal youth—may he one day be poisoned to death by the pills he eats.

Here, I must criticize the imperial palace alchemists. They use cinnabar, lead, mercury, even gold. Drinking that stuff is guaranteed to send Emperor Chongming to heaven.

Or perhaps the alchemists really do understand pill refinement? After all, this was a world of immortal cultivation. It was only natural for Rogue Cultivators with no hope of longevity to come enjoy themselves in the imperial palace.

Then I curse Emperor Chongming: may each of his eight princes have a different father!

Thinking of it that way immediately made me feel refreshed and satisfied. I shall continue practicing.

Set a small goal: a century of cultivation!"

Half a month passed.

Zhou Yi opened the book and began writing in his diary again.

"Today, that playboy surnamed Long was thrown into prison again for murder. It is said he deliberately set a fire and burned many people to death.

That bastard was still arrogant in the Heavenly Prison. Just because there was too much salt in one dish, he had his guards beat both me and the cook.

Lord Zhou will remember this!

This isn't over!

Long, Lord Zhou will be waiting for you in the Heavenly Prison..."

Even after writing that, Zhou Yi did not feel at ease. He wrote several hundred more words cursing Emperor Chongming before finally letting the matter go.

Another month passed.

Zhou Yi opened the book and wrote down what he had seen that day.

"There is only one month until the New Year, yet they still will not let anyone celebrate in peace.

Everyone knows the treason charges are fabricated, but all the court officials tacitly approved the beheading of all three hundred members of the General Who Guards the Nation's residence.

I heard the rebel army has already fought its way into Yu Province, only several hundred li from Shenjing. Rather than sending troops to suppress them, the court is still tearing itself apart.

Fengyang Kingdom is finished!

Writing this, I cannot help but curse Emperor Chongming a few times..."

The fortieth year of Chongming.

"Today was truly eye-opening. Someone could actually use disguise techniques to turn from man to woman, leaving no one able to distinguish male from female, true from false.

That rapist infiltrated women's bedchambers and committed crimes everywhere.

In the end, the Brocade Guard also had masters of makeup and disguise. They dressed as beautiful women and waited for the rapist to take the bait, finally capturing him alive.

I recorded this because I discovered a new method of venting. For example, mixing some croton powder into the rapist's food.

Does that seem a little perverse?

It is all that dog emperor's fault..."

Zhou Yi fed the flower-plucking rapist several packets of croton powder and obtained the art of makeup and disguise. When he grew older in the future, he could disguise himself as an old man, so his colleagues would not notice anything unusual.

Outside, war and chaos raged, and danger was everywhere. How could anywhere be safer than hiding in the Heavenly Prison!

The forty-second year of Chongming.

An army of one hundred fifty thousand rebels surrounded Shenjing, their leader calling himself the Eight-Armed Heavenly King.

The civil and military officials were terrified. The dynasty was unstable.

Zhou Yi had thought that a change of dynasty would come that very day. He prepared much grain and vegetables, hiding them in the underground cellar beneath his home, enough to last half a year.

Then the Eight-Armed Heavenly King suddenly died violently.

The Imperial Guards seized the chance to charge out of the city gates, routing the rebel army and lifting the siege of Shenjing.

"Human strength cannot contend against fate. Fengyang Kingdom's fortune has not yet run out!"

Zhou Yi recorded the matter in his book, and naturally could not avoid fiercely cursing Emperor Chongming at the end.

"With chaos under heaven, the dog emperor still wants to levy birthday tribute. I heard that taxes in some provinces have already been collected through the one hundred twentieth year of Chongming..."

Three years passed. Zhou Yi had saved five hundred taels of silver and found a cheap martial arts school, beginning to practice martial arts body-tempering techniques.

At such a time of storms and swaying winds, even the Heavenly Prison was not so safe.

Body-tempering martial arts did not merely make one good at fighting—they also made one run fast!

The forty-fifth year of Chongming.

A special prisoner came to the Heavenly Prison: the dog emperor's eldest son, the former Crown Prince.

"Who in this world could remain Crown Prince for forty years? No wonder he rebelled.

The Crown Prince appears mild-tempered, unlike the dog emperor's offspring.

What a pity he failed. Rumor has it that a Martial Grandmaster protects the dog emperor. Back then, the Eight-Armed Heavenly King did not die violently at all—he was assassinated..."

As usual, Zhou Yi cursed the dog emperor a few times, and his mood brightened.

The Return to Origin Skill had already given him five years of cultivation. At full power, he could shatter blue bricks with his palm. By the standards of the martial world, he should be below the lowest rank.

What Wei Chang had said back then was correct. For ordinary people cultivating inner energy, it was difficult to achieve much.

The body-tempering art Zhou Yi had learned at the martial arts school was called the Five Tiger Strength Fist. Its very name sounded like common roadside merchandise, far inferior to the profundity of the Return to Origin Skill.

After three years, he had reached major completion in the skin-and-flesh realm, and his arms possessed the strength of fierce tigers.

Blunt weapons such as clubs and staves lost more than half their force when they struck his body. He could already be considered a third-rate expert.

The forty-sixth year of Chongming.

After returning from Spring Breeze Pavilion, Zhou Yi took out his book and cursed Emperor Chongming.

"Dog emperor..."

After writing those three words, he suddenly did not know how to continue. No matter what phrases he thought of, flipping back through the pages showed that he had already written them before.

Zhou Yi leafed through the book. The frequency of his diary entries had grown lower and lower.

At first, he wrote one entry every half month. Later, he went whole months without writing. Later still, he wrote only once every two or three months.

In his most recent entries, he rarely wrote about wrongful convictions or tragedies. The pages were filled with curses for the dog emperor, yet the tragedies within the Heavenly Prison had never lessened.

"The more one sees, the duller one's feelings become!"

Zhou Yi muttered to himself. With time and accumulated experience, his emotional threshold seemed to be getting higher and higher.

"That's not right. I've never grown tired of the lovely young ladies at Spring Breeze Pavilion!"

By the time he wrote this, there was nothing left to curse.

Emperor Chongming had truly given up completely. For more than thirty years, he had not held court, hiding in Shangyang Palace to cultivate immortality and practice the Dao.

Helpless, Zhou Yi finally wrote.

"Why isn't the dog emperor dead yet?"

From then on.

Zhou Yi wrote one sentence every day, cursing Emperor Chongming to meet his end soon.

Early morning.

A thin mist shrouded the world, and the waning moon and a few dawn stars still hung at the horizon.

Zhou Yi darted and shifted through his courtyard, his fists striking the air in an unbroken series of blasts.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Like a great oxhide drum, like muffled thunder rolling across the sky.

In the depths of winter, Zhou Yi wore only a thin training outfit.

After several rounds of punches, his blood and qi boiled over, spilling from his body as billowing steam.

"Ha!"

After finishing his practice, Zhou Yi exhaled deeply. It became a three-foot stream of white mist that condensed in the air without dispersing.

"Having cultivated the Five Tiger Strength Fist to the sinew-tempering realm, I can already be considered a second-rate expert. But I have never fought anyone to the death, nor do I understand weapons. I possess only superficial strength!"

Zhou Yi had already grown into adulthood. Ever since five years ago, his physique and appearance had not changed in the slightest.

Having truly experienced the marvel of the Longevity Dao Fruit, Zhou Yi cast aside his last trace of worry. He had completely become an utterly ordinary Heavenly Prison guard, too lazy to concern himself with the court or the martial world.

After hundreds or thousands of years passed, Zhou Yi would remain unchanged, while Fengyang Kingdom would long be gone!

Returning indoors.

Zhou Yi applied a little makeup, making his skin appear darker and his face somewhat pale and sickly.

He was now twenty-seven years old. After spending so long in the dim, damp Heavenly Prison, it was easy to age prematurely. Looking like this was normal.

He went straight out to the morning market.

Zhou Yi found a stall and sat down, calling for the proprietress to bring tofu pudding and fried dough sticks. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a bell.

Deep and resonant, its lingering echoes drifted on without end!

Dong! Dong! Dong...

Nine chimes in succession. The bustling morning market suddenly fell utterly silent.

All the commoners looked up toward the imperial palace. Their movements were so perfectly uniform that it seemed they had rehearsed them countless times and waited for this moment for a very long time.

Zhou Yi continued lowering his head to eat tofu pudding, the corners of his lips curving upward slightly. It tasted a hundred times more delicious than usual.

"The dog emperor is finally dead!"