What is Love? Watered with Hate

This was a gray world, everything around it hazy and dim, as if it were an illusory landscape constructed from spiritual power.

There was no grand platform here, nor were there any prompt tones or floating bubbles, and certainly no divine sense lingering in the sky.

Everything related to the gods seemed to have been swept away by the turbulent currents following the great space-time catastrophe that had ravaged the God Realm.

When a brilliant purple light, like a falling sun, illuminated this long-desolate secret realm.

Only then did this gray valley reveal its true form.

This place was the true Universe Asking-Love Valley.

The tomb of the Goddess of Love.

At the very bottom of the valley, there was a pool of stagnant water like a dust-covered ancient mirror.

By the lakeside stood a withered, hollow tree stump.

A woman in red with white hair sat there in the gray shadows, perched on the edge of the lake filled with dead water.

Her lower legs were submerged in the water, hanging listlessly.

She was like a wilted, ruined flower, her youth frozen at the very moment of decay.

She leaned against the lakeside of the graveyard, leaning against her withered tree.

When the Amethyst Crystal Dragon descended into this secret realm, she merely flickered her eyes once before falling still again.

Her entire being seemed as if she had already died long ago.

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon looked down at the woman and the lake, murmuring, "The soul of the Goddess of Love, and..."

"Are these your dried-up tears?"

Hearing this whispered dragon speech, the soul of the Goddess of Love finally stirred.

She seemed touched by the dragon language, offering a half-dead response: "You are a being without emotion or love, and your cultivation is far, far higher than mine; I cannot subject you to any trial."

"Please, leave my resting place."

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon ignored the dismissal from the Goddess of Love.

It coiled its formidable dragon body, hovering in the gray valley, and chanted in resonant dragon speech: "Universe Asking-Love."

"The universe is overturned; the Goddess of Love in the heavens fell to the earth because of hatred."

"Interrogating true love—if you do not ask... how can you know whether I have love or not?"

Waves of emotion stirred in the dead eyes of the Goddess of Love.

Her soul body sat up from beneath the withered tree.

She looked up at the giant dragon spanning the sky, her tone forever dead: "What do you seek? Speak plainly."

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon was not the least bit polite, getting straight to the point: "I want the cornerstone of the Universe Asking-Love Valley..."

"To reshape a new life."

Hearing this, a hint of mockery flashed in the eyes of the Goddess of Love's soul: Heh.

But, bound by the principle of answering all requests, she still extended her palm and gestured toward the lake before her.

In an instant, the entire lake surged upward, all the water gathering in the air to condense into a massive, pitch-black stone.

The Goddess of Love pointed at this giant stone and introduced it: "Before I died, my tears flowed into a lake, and this object is called the Crow-Absolute Stone; inside it lies a divine-grade medicinal herb with a million years of cultivation."

"Lovesick Heartbreak Red."

"It has the power to reverse life and death. If your soul attaches to it, you can use the regrowth mechanism of a plant-type soul beast to utilize its million years of cultivation and be reborn."

"However..."

"So they were blood-tears; no wonder it turned pitch black." The Amethyst Crystal Dragon picked up the Crow-Absolute Stone, which was huge but no larger than its palm.

It took over the Goddess of Love's words: "However, one must possess the most sincere and ultimate love to move this most resilient creation in the world, correct?"

"Correct." Seeing the other party was so knowledgeable, the Goddess of Love said no more.

Her dead eyes revealed a trace of disdain.

She firmly believed this Amethyst Crystal Dragon would not succeed, for the Crow-Absolute Stone was a barrier that had manifested after she had given up on love.

It was also a trial of the Goddess of Love.

Only by nourishing it with the most ultimate and sincere love could the Lovesick Heartbreak Red be made to bloom and successfully pass the trial of the Goddess of Love.

Otherwise, wanting to take away this cornerstone of the Universe Asking-Love Valley was nothing more than a fool's dream.

Yet, she could see through the other party's foundation at a glance: it was merely a dragon soul devoid of love or emotion...

"Hmph," the Goddess of Love chuckled, the grayness on her body fading by half.

Suddenly, a dragon-speech voice came from above her: "I have only two questions."

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon examined the Crow-Absolute Stone in its palm and asked, "Is familial love, love?"

The eyes of the Goddess of Love fluctuated slightly, and she replied without hesitation, "It is."

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon asked again, "Does the bond between siblings count as love?"

The Goddess of Love tapped her index finger against her chin, and after questioning her own heart, she replied firmly: "It counts."

"Then I have no further questions." The Amethyst Crystal Dragon cast its gaze past the Crow-Absolute Stone, looking down at the Goddess of Love standing by the dried-up lakeshore.

It offered a well-intentioned warning: "I hope you can withstand... the obsessions of my life and death."

Under the Goddess of Love's puzzled gaze.

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon's eyes suddenly filled with sorrow, and it gripped the Crow-Absolute Stone in its hand tightly.

The next moment, the expression of the Goddess of Love changed abruptly, her face turning deathly pale!

The pallor hidden beneath the red radiance of her form suddenly surged out from within her soul body, causing her to collapse to the ground in agony.

"This isn't right!" The Goddess of Love clutched her forehead with both hands, suppressing her own hysteria: "This is not... this is not love."

"This is hatred, it is hatred!"

The sorrow in the eyes of the Amethyst Crystal Dragon suddenly transformed entirely into fury, into a hatred that sought to destroy everything.

Ignoring the Goddess of Love writhing in pain on the ground below, it poured all the hateful obsessions from its soul body into the Crow-Absolute Stone in its hand.

In an instant, the Crow-Absolute Stone melted, and vivid, blood-like tears cascaded down from between its fingers like a torrential downpour.

"Don't... stop!"

The Goddess of Love knelt by the lakeshore, repeatedly slamming her head against the ground, screaming hysterically: "I beg you, stop, I beg you to stop—"

The divine power within her, manifested from emotions, shifted from gentle to sharp; her soul body, which she had painstakingly settled and stabilized, was thrown into turmoil by the hatred.

The pale white representing hatred surged out from her soul body in wave after wave, stimulated and relentless, covering the red that symbolized love and claiming the majority of the color on her form.

"No!"

With eyes turned completely pale, the Goddess of Love suddenly lifted her head and face, two streaks of crimson sliding from the corners of her eyes.

Clutching her temples with her ten fingers, she let out a shrill cry toward the sky: "Qing, Qing!"

"Why did you betray me, why did you betray me!"

"Ah—"

Monstrous resentment erupted from the soul body of the Goddess of Love, rendering the already gloomy Universe Asking-Love Valley even more desolate.

The reason why the blood of estranged lovers was required to open the Universe Asking-Love Valley was finally revealed at this moment.

Because the lake at the bottom of the valley had never been filled with clear water, but with the blood and tears the Goddess of Love had wept until she died.

The Amethyst Crystal Dragon closed its eyes, leaving only a whisper to linger in the valley's sky: "A-Jin..."

"Why did you lure and kill me and the Phoenix for the sake of that creature with the mottled bloodline?"

"And why did you slaughter your own nephews and nieces to the last?"

"We were all your own kin..."

The blood-tears of the Goddess of Love fell like a torrential rain, cascading from the sky to refill the dried-up lakebed.

The Universe Asking-Love Valley, the foremost of the three great treasure basins of the Douluo world, where the sun and moon are inverted to question the heart—at this moment...

It guarded only two broken-hearted souls.