Qin Empire Ming's head throbbed as if a not particularly sharp axe were hacking into it again and again. It felt as though his skull had been smashed to pieces; his vision darkened, and the pain nearly made him faint.
He drew a deep breath, yet still could not control himself. He staggered on unsteady feet, his emotions surging violently as though flames were burning within him.
"Why did you do this to me?" he murmured through the agony. He had entertained all kinds of guesses, but never had he imagined that his parents had wanted Cui Hong to treat him this way.
It felt as though his heart were being torn apart bit by bit, making his entire body tremble. It hurt even more than the day the Feather Robe Youth had broken his arm and cracked his skull with the Purple Bamboo Staff.
Qin Empire Ming swayed as he backed away. Fragmented scenes surfaced in his mind. No wonder that during his Third New Life, he had dipped a finger in coarse tea and written a single character on the tabletop: abandon.
Now he remembered more. Before the Feather Robe Youth found him, while he was living in that peaceful village, he had silently written that same character—abandon—one night.
Even when that village was swallowed by a sudden inferno, breached by a large number of experts, with cries of battle shaking the heavens, he had remained silent. Faced with a Life and Death Tribulation, he had watched calmly without uttering a word.
"Had I already stopped wanting to speak back then? Did I seem to have foreseen what would happen? Was that utter despair? Perhaps there had also been bitterness and loss." Qin Empire Ming stood in the wasteland, enduring the splitting pain in his head. It felt