Madness

His hand rose and fell, the sharp hand blade slashing out without mercy.

"Pfft."

Countless sprays of blood splattered across Bai Ye's cheek.

"You..."

The "Bai Ye" behind him cut off abruptly, utter disbelief flooding those madness-filled eyes.

"I know what you are."

Bai Ye lowered his eyes and spoke calmly.

"And I know what he is."

Everyone in Ying Longcheng said he was sick. Gravely sick.

He had never denied it. He knew he was sick. From the moment he was born, he had been an abnormal patient.

He had been precocious from birth, seeming to possess the deepest understanding of everything in the world.

He knew why snowflakes danced through the air. He knew why birds soared. He knew what his mother's smile was for.

But he was sick. His mind had always been utterly calm, as though he possessed no emotions at all.

If Mother had not taught him how to smile, taught him gentleness, taught him what "grief" was, then perhaps when he left the Sin Domain, he would still have been a monster that frightened everyone.

But he was still himself. Even though Qing Yanjing had taken him through every corner of the Great Thousand World, letting him see every living creature in all its myriad forms, this strangeness within him could never be erased.

It was rather laughable. He could clearly sense the torment of this state, yet he had to admit that this was his true self.

True Self.

He thought that if he had not chosen to follow Aunt Jing back then, perhaps he truly would have been consumed by that rationality by now.

Reason was a good thing, but excessive reason was something terrifying.

He could look at the corpse of a little bird without the slightest emotional stir, even considering dissecting it to study its structure.

He could remain unmoved while villagers begged Aunt Jing for help, even thinking, after consideration, of turning around and leaving.

Other than Aunt Jing and Ling Xi, there was nothing he needed to care about.

He even dared not imagine that perhaps even this concern was merely rationality after weighing the pros and cons.

That was what he had been like then.

This was the True Self, his most genuine self.

It was that terrifying.

Even he himself was afraid. Perhaps under such suppressed emotions, he had somehow learned how to erupt.

Ying Madman of Ying Longcheng had been born this way. Every bout of godlike madness was a release for his mental state—a venting, and also a new suppression.

This was the self, another personality that had been forced into existence under the suppression of the True Self.

Just as in history, this madness had been born from the cold energy of the Ancestral Vein.

Under the suppression of the True Self, coupled with the torment of the cold energy, such a twisted personality had come into being.

Mad and unhinged, reckless and wanton, temperamental, unable to distinguish right from wrong.

This was Ying Madman of Ying Longcheng.

The self.

The True Self was him. The self was him. They were both him.

So he had to kill the True Self, kill the self, and also kill... "me"?

"We all have to die."

Bai Ye slumped to the ground and laughed neurotically.

"You all have to die."

"Then why don't you do it?"

As he spoke, the "Bai Ye" whose body had been pierced by the hand blade faded away, then reappeared beside him completely unharmed.

"Come on. Kill me, kill him, then kill yourself. Everything will be over."

That bewitching voice was full of temptation.

Like a demon's whisper, it teased at one's desires.

Killing himself was what Bai Ye had wanted most.

He had carried that thought with him ever since he was three years old.

He bore the deepest sins in the world, and they weighed on him until he could scarcely breathe.

He had entertained that thought countless times, but the one time he had truly gathered the courage, Ling Xi had interrupted him as though it were fated.

Afterward, he could only bury that thought deep in his heart and never bring it out again.

Because those words had always echoed by his ears, that blessing that was like a curse.

He had to live, because Mother wanted him to live.

As though all vigor had left him, Bai Ye lay upon the cold ground, feeling that familiar chill. It was a temperature he would never forget. This was his homeland.

He gave up.

He could not do it.

Before coming to the Northern Azure Spiritual Academy, he had become lost because he could no longer find the direction of his life or the meaning of cultivation.

He did not even know why he fought or why he advanced his cultivation.

So he shut himself inside a dark little room and struggled alone.

After that, he accepted Zhao Mingya's invitation and fought a life-or-death Desperate Struggle that outsiders knew nothing about.

When he emerged, he seemed to have found something.

In the eyes of Old Man and the others, his state of mind seemed to have become more complete.

But only he knew it was fake. It was a lie.

He was still himself. He had never changed in the slightest.

He knew the reason. If someone did not even know why they lived, what right did they have to contemplate the meaning of cultivation?

What a ridiculous joke.

"Living is so exhausting."

Bai Ye lay on the ground, covering his eyes with his palm. Though the Sin Domain was perpetually swept by wind and snow, the blazing sun still hung overhead.

For no reason at all, he thought of Bai Jingliu.

She was someone similar to him. They both yearned for death, yet were helpless to attain it.

That was why she had said,

"We are the same kind of people."

That was why she had said with a smile,

"See you in our dreams."

What an unattainable dream.

The two false Bai Yes had long since vanished without a trace. With his eyes closed, his brain felt as though it were being torn apart over and over again.

He had long grown accustomed to such tearing pain.

So accustomed that he was nearly driven mad by it.

Sometimes, he wondered: since one was absolute rationality and the other unrestrained madness, why could the two not balance each other out?

Why could they not turn him into an ordinary person?

Seriously.

"Whatever."

Bai Ye suddenly remembered where he was. But so what if it was an illusion array?

Being able to remain in this place was already something wonderful.

He did not want to think about anything anymore. This place wore away everything within him.

Perhaps fading away like this would also count as following the "instruction" Mother had left behind.

He was happy, and free.

"Heh, who are you trying to fool?"

Just as his thoughts sank completely into oblivion, a teasing voice sounded beside him.

Bai Ye opened his Gilded Gold eyes, devoid of the slightest emotion.

Hollow. Numb.

Following the sound, he looked toward its source.

It was a smooth, jade-like stone, a stone carved with inscriptions.

The voice just now had apparently belonged to a man.

As though sensing Bai Ye's gaze focused on it, the stone emitted a faint glow. A large screen was projected across the snow, unfolding clearly before Bai Ye.

"What is this?"

Bai Ye sat up, his tone carrying a hint of curiosity.

But in the next instant, more than half the emptiness in his eyes vanished.

Because among the two figures projected on that screen, one was someone he knew very well.

Even though they had been apart for thirteen years, he had always kept that memory in his heart.

"Like this, then this, then this. All right, are you sure there's no problem?"

The speaker was a man Bai Ye had never seen before, yet for some reason, the moment he saw that face, his heart calmed considerably.

He made a silly face at the woman beside him as he spoke.

And that woman was his mother. In other words, this handsome man with blue hair and blue eyes was his biological father.

Realizing that, he sat upright and watched them.

"You don't trust me?"

Strong dissatisfaction flashed through Bai Yu's voice. Of course, that dissatisfaction was more like coquettish pouting, a skill reserved exclusively for certain people.

"It's not that. I'm just a little nervous. The whole thing about our child seeing this more than a decade later..."

The man scratched his head and pursed his lips in a smile.

"Will he really be able to see it?"

Still somewhat uneasy, he asked his wife.

"He definitely will." Bai Yu nodded, a gentle smile on her face. "I have never miscalculated anything about our lives."

"All right, that's a very willful ability."

The man made a quip, then sat up straight beside Bai Yu.

"Cough, cough. Should you say it, or should I?"

The man asked awkwardly.

Bai Yu gave him a charmingly exasperated look, then once again turned her gaze toward Bai Ye beyond the screen.

"Mm, if you've seen this, then you should already understand."

Bai Yu's voice was calm, yet filled with hope.

This was a recorded scene, one that had somehow appeared here.

"I guessed as much."

Bai Ye spoke calmly, the warmth in him gradually fading.

Yes, this was merely a recorded scene.

They were not really here...

"The ones speaking with you now are the real us."

As though she had heard Bai Ye's thoughts, Bai Yu spoke directly.

Huh?

Why did she know what he was thinking?

Bai Ye froze. Moreover, from the very beginning, there had not been the slightest thing unnatural about their conversation.

It was as though they were speaking face-to-face.

"Hello, my as-yet-unnamed son."

The man spoke, immediately revealing his identity.

"Oh, calling you my son might be a little early. It would be nice if you were a girl instead."

"It's a son."

Bai Yu said quietly.

"Hey, don't be like that, wife. You've ruined all the mystery."

The man cried out strangely, but Bai Yu did not react at all.

As he watched the two converse, Bai Ye's gaze gradually became entranced.

Then, the two figures on the screen became serious as well.

Especially the man, who had already straightened his posture.

"Let's start with a simple introduction."

The man spoke, pointing at himself as he stared at Bai Ye before him.

"Me, your dad."

Though it was exactly what he had expected, saying it like that made this father of his seem far too unreliable.

A trace of speechlessness appeared in Bai Ye's eyes. How should he put it? He was somewhat unlike the father he had imagined.

"Get to the point."

Bai Yu spoke calmly, reminding her husband.

"Oh, right, I understand."

The man raised his hands in surrender. "You must be very curious why we recorded this screen."

Bai Ye nodded.

"Of course it's because it's fun."

"Just kidding. Don't mind it."

The man smiled wickedly.

"Actually, the time I'm in now should be twenty years before where you are at sixteen."

Bai Ye was slightly surprised. So...

"Yeah, this is a conversation across time and space, between the past and the future."

Calculating fate and peering into the future?

Those were the only words he could think of.

"Surprised? Don't be. I'm not the one capable of doing this."

The man shook his head and pointed at Bai Yu beside him. "She's the real culprit."

Mother?

Before Bai Ye could figure out why, the man in the light screen spoke again.

"If I'm not mistaken, I should've been dead for several years by now, right?"

Bai Ye lowered his head.

So he knew.

"Then I must've died looking pretty good."

Bai Ye looked up and saw only the man smiling.

He was very handsome. His handsome face, paired with that incredibly sunny smile, was truly charming.

"Stop hanging your head."

The person in the light screen said so.

"It wasn't your fault."

"What do you mean?"

The only time he had spoken that night.

"You seem a little too stubborn. You really remind me of how I was when I was young."

The man smiled.

Bai Ye fell silent for a moment. "I'll remember that."

Yes, I'll remember it, but that didn't mean I understood it.

"Quit it, little brat."

L-Little brat?

He was already sixteen, okay?

"Look at how you've spent the past dozen years, locking yourself in a cage you drew for yourself. I can't even be bothered to criticize you."

"Heh."

Bai Ye laughed at the appropriate moment, though even he did not know what he was laughing at.

"Actually, I didn't want to record this, but as your father in the future, and with your Mother worrying about you, I felt I should say a few things to you."

"Go ahead."

Bai Ye watched the man, whose expression had turned serious, without saying anything.

This person was his father. Although they had never met, never spoken, and had never shared any memories.

Still, this connection engraved deep in their bloodline was the hardest feeling to erase.

"I'm sorry I wasn't part of your life."

The man's voice was filled with deep guilt. It was his greatest regret as a father.

"I learned a lot about you from your Mother. It seems you've been tangled up and struggling all this time, kid."

He could see even that?

Bai Ye wondered in confusion.

"What are you trying to say?"

"There's nothing to say."

The man smiled freely. Bathed in sunlight, that smile was utterly captivating, enough to make anyone fall deeply into it and be unable to break free.

That included the woman beside him.

"What do you mean?"

What did he mean, there was nothing to say?

"It means..." The man looked at him with amusement and did not deliberately drag it out. "Because I feel like it."

???

What an arbitrary answer.

"Why did you do this?"

"Because I feel like it."

He was starting to like this father of his.