Today's second update: Chapter 2328! 2/4!
Xu Kun sorted out the complete line of thought behind the trial.
Every step he took was unraveling this massive problem.
The first step of the problem was to give up.
Xu Kun was certain that the method his second aunt had mentioned—killing Yuan and the Lord of the Nine Veins to elevate his phoenix blood—was absolutely wrong. It had even been deliberately intended to guide him toward making that choice.
However, no one should have doubted that Xu Kun would get this step wrong.
Just as Yuan Lichang had said, after all their calculations, they had still failed to account for this. If not for the child, if the hatred between Xu Kun and Yuan had not been resolved, then what his final choice would have been was truly uncertain.
Thus, Xu Kun easily passed the first step.
If the first step was giving up, then the second step was dedication...
Yet the one who needed to dedicate something was not Xu Kun alone, but Yuan as well.
"Resolving karma? I chose to strip away my phoenix blood, so I was right."
"Yuan refused my phoenix blood and chose death herself. She was right too."
"Only by both giving ourselves up to fulfill the other could we arrive at the perfect answer to this second step."
"Then what remains of the trial?"
If he stopped solving the problem at the current answer, the conclusion would be that he had gained nothing. Yuan had paid the price of death, and considering the bigger picture, the Phoenix Race had lost its ruler...
Two losses and one draw—the answer was wrong!
So this second step was actually using a wrong answer to test the truth, all to derive the final correct answer!
Xu Kun deliberated