Beneath the motorcycle's wheels, the road stretched through the night.
Long, so long—so long it was like a hiatus, with no end in sight.
Ling Xingjian sat silently on the back seat without saying a word. Her mind was a tangled mess, and she did not know what to do. She felt that Shi Tiexin's words were a grave disrespect to the Holy Light, yet deep down, she also felt that Big Guy had a point.
She had fallen into immense conflict and turmoil.
On one hand, if she accepted Shi Tiexin's view, everything she had believed in until now would collapse. She would question all that she had once upheld and sink into vast confusion.
She would not allow herself to be confused.
She was like Prometheus struggling through a dark wilderness, sworn to bring the fire stolen from beyond the heavens back to the human world. Harsh Winter was about to descend upon humanity. Without fire, humanity would perish. If her navigation failed at such a time, if she lost her way, the entire human world would wither and collapse in the Harsh Winter. No matter how inaccurate the Ferry Map was, it was still roughly right—better than being unable to tell north from south at all.
Yet on the other hand, she had no choice but to consider another question, one that had long made her hesitate, troubled her, and left her uncertain.
Was the fire in her hands truly a seed of light that would benefit countless households? If she went through untold hardship to bring it back, only to discover that it was karmic fire meant to burn the human world to ashes, what then?
The immense contradiction meant she could neither stop walking nor press onward without fear. Calamity lay outside, struggle within. Besieged