Hateful Water

"What should I say—were you lucky, or unlucky?"

Russell sighed softly. "If you were unlucky, you might never have found a relic so suited to you. But if you were lucky, the Water Flow Spear just had to be incomplete. Otherwise, it wouldn't be Xiang Jun, but a fourth-tier Lord of the Clouds... It's delicately troublesome."

If the Water Flow Spear had still been intact, it would itself have been Lord of the Clouds' Stigmata. Huai Shi would not have needed to seek out something containing Oceanic Divinity to prepare for his advancement; a Crystal of Returning Light alone would have completed the final ritual.

But the problem was that Lord of the Clouds had already regressed into Xiang Jun, and the former Water Flow Spear had become a broken iron rod—wild and untamable, brimming with terrifying malice.

It was not far from being completely corrupted by Hell.

"In this state, rather than Water Flow, shouldn't it be called Hateful Water?" Russell said. "Until the very end, he was probably hating himself... What could anyone even say about that man?"

Huai Shi stroked the Water Flow Spear in his hand, feeling the bleak resonance within it. He could not help asking, "Ying Fangzhou? Was that his name?"

"Yes. Your senior predecessor—he was even earlier than I was. By the time I became a member of the Ideal Kingdom, he was already one of its pillars.

"He always worked alone. He didn't like dealing with others, nor did he like placing his hopes on anyone else."

Russell said, "Looking back now, I don't know whether to call it arrogance or brutality. When you worked under him, he protected you like a baby.

"Sometimes even his subordinates couldn't stand it. They complained and filed grievances more times than anyone could count.

"That