"Then the tale of the saber slave was true after all. Dragon King Meng, your Unrivaled Martial Arts have transcended the mortal realm—do you believe so as well?"
There were many, many reasons Xue Zihou was unwilling to believe it, but the most important and central one was this: if it were true, then the Sweet Dream he had always pursued, the Sweet Dream he had always woven for himself, would all become bubbles.
His feelings toward Bei Tangsu were indeed complicated. At first, he had probably envied him. Slowly, that envy had turned into jealousy; jealousy had become resentment; and that resentment had gradually evolved into an obsession to kill him and be done with it.
If Xue Zihou had known from the very beginning that Bei Tangsu was not the saber's master but its slave, perhaps he would never have developed such an obsession.
Without envy, perhaps it would have become pity. Would their lives have turned out entirely differently? Could opponents once locked in a fight to the death have instead become friends who drank themselves drunk and sang at the top of their lungs?
Xue Zihou could not be certain of his own heart, but he absolutely could not accept such a reality.
Thus, he still had to ask Meng Zhao: was this information true?
Meng Zhao understood Xue Zihou's feelings well. He nodded and said,
"It is true nine times out of ten. The matter of the saber slave came from Bei Tangsu himself; it was also his final words. There was no need for him to lie to me. Besides, I truly could sense that he was trapped and controlled by some inexplicable emotion.
"Perhaps that emotion was born from the gap between reality and ideals."
He could have become the protagonist of a