Unilateral Guilt Turns into Love

Unilateral Guilt Turns into Love

"...I have to say, only shameless people can say something this shameless..."

"...If you have the guts, don't argue with the dean. Argue with Ye Qingcang instead. I'll make a post on the forum right now and call Ye Qingcang over to confront you face-to-face..."

"...What the hell are you, to think you deserve to sit at the same table and eat with this young lady..."

Blue Tyrant Academy, villa district.

Inside an unremarkable three-story villa.

In the study on the left side of the Second Floor.

The Level Seven Jade Seal Machine on the desk was playing Ning Rongrong's lossless audio recording.

Everyone familiar with Ye Qingcang knew that he was a man without taboos.

There were countless underhanded methods.

The difference was that, compared to those soul masters who used such underhanded methods to satisfy their own desires, Ye Qingcang had an extra layer of righteousness wrapped around himself.

He used evil to restrain evil and kindness to govern kindness.

He never judged others with the greatest goodwill, instead imagining them with the greatest malice.

He never faced others with the greatest malice, instead approaching them with the greatest goodwill.

On a grand scale, he could plot usurpation with Qian Renxue. On a smaller scale, he could manage Blue Tyrant Academy in perfect order. On an even grander scale, he had stirred up an endless wave of attacks against Evil Soul Masters. On an even smaller scale, he could target anyone who displeased him.

The Level Seven Jade Seal Machine had control authority over Level Five and Level Three Jade Seal Machines. This backdoor had been deliberately left behind by Ye Qingcang.

It seemed despicable, but that depended on how it was used.

Using it now to monitor the Shrek Seven Devils' calls was one application.

But it had other uses as well.

Its most common use was this: not long after Blue Tyrant Academy was founded, Ye Qingcang established a partnership with the Hall Master of Spirit Hall's branch stationed in the Heaven Dou Empire. They connected to Spirit Hall's wanted list for Evil Soul Masters and used high credit-point bounties to encourage all Blue Tyrant Academy students to hunt them down. After inflicting light casualties on Evil Soul Masters in the early stages, they soon suffered retaliation from large numbers of Evil Soul Masters. Quite a few students were hunted down outside, but the Jade Seal Machines they carried recorded who had killed every one of them. Then Ye Qingcang, the man who had created and controlled the backdoor, took note of it all, issued kill-on-sight orders, and established the Must-Kill List. Under the same hunting difficulty, the bounty credits for every Evil Soul Master listed on the Must-Kill List were multiplied tenfold. There was no upper limit to the rewards; according to how many Blue Tyrant Academy students they had killed, the corresponding bounty would continue to rise. Thus began five years of slaughter.

That was why Qian Renxue had learned the name Blue Tyrant Academy.

And that was why Ye Qingcang and Qian Renxue had come to know one another.

It could be said that, in terms of the results achieved in purging Evil Soul Masters, Blue Tyrant Academy had contributed at least one-sixth of the effort, greatly reducing Spirit Hall's burden. The only flaw was that Blue Tyrant Academy's students were not especially strong on average. Although there were students capable of killing Soul Kings or Soul Emperors, the Evil Soul Masters struck on a large scale were still mostly those below Level Forty. As for those who truly dealt blows to the upper ranks of the Evil Soul Masters—those who hunted Soul King-, Soul Emperor-, and Soul Sage-level Evil Soul Masters—that still depended on Spirit Hall's Angel Clan.

Using it for something like eavesdropping on others arguing really was a waste of its capabilities.

At least, that was how Violet saw it.

"Master, I don't understand..." The girl created through Alchemy sat quietly on the sofa beside him. Only after the argument playing through the Jade Seal Machine came to an end and Ye Qingcang pressed the stop button did she voice what she could not understand. "Why didn't you use more extreme measures to eliminate the roots? Why did you instead allow these people to scheme against you with such filthy thoughts?"

"You needn't call me Master. I have not taught you anything."

"I merely made a mistake in my youngest and most reckless years. I trampled on life, created you, and gave you memories like those in the original work, stopping only at the point when you stepped onto the battlefield."

"I quickly realized my mistake, because you are an independent individual. Your innocence and persistence also moved me deeply. But by the time I realized I had made a mistake, I no longer had the strength to correct it. Whether it was humanely destroying you or stripping away your soul, neither was the right way to correct a mistake. I could only try to make up for my wrongdoing by respecting you. You can live however you wish to live."

"I am not worthy of the title Master."

Ye Qingcang corrected Violet's form of address for him.

People grew gradually.

After he had brought Alchemy from Genshin Impact into reality through the Illusion Realization cheat, and after he became capable of creating life without relying on the cheat, his first thought had been to replicate the miracle of Rhinedottir creating Albedo and find himself an assistant he could trust absolutely. However, he was a man and had no interest in male assistants, so after some consideration at the time, he chose Violet from an anime as the template and created a female assistant who could beat a colonel one-handed, score full marks on exams, and was innocent, beautiful, and remarkably capable.

But after he created Violet, he realized just how absurdly wrong he had been...

Could anyone imagine how devastating it was to the heart when a little girl with independent awareness looked at you with the reverence she might show a saint?

In that instant.

The instant he saw Violet's eyes.

He realized that life was not his toy.

He also understood why Rhinedottir had raised Albedo in such a hands-off manner.

This was a forbidden creation of Alchemy.

Alchemists capable of doing it would never do it again afterward.

And alchemists incapable of doing it could not create one in the first place.

Yet even after Violet watched the anime—an anime about herself—that stubborn personality of hers had miraculously remained.

That was what had always troubled and bewildered him.

"You are my Master..." Violet repeated the words she had spoken for six years, a promise she had made after emerging from confusion. "The title Master does not mean master in a master-servant relationship. It means Master as in Creator. Whether you acknowledge it or not, I am your Violet, and Violet for you alone!"

What a sin...

Ye Qingcang held his forehead with one hand and avoided a subject he could not handle himself.

He was the culprit.

Others might be able to break this vicious cycle, but he certainly could not.

"Fine..." Ye Qingcang pointed at his Jade Seal Machine—simply put, a Soul Tool version of a mobile phone—and returned to the matter of eavesdropping on the Shrek group. "The reason I didn't eliminate them completely is that I can't be sure which version of the Shrek Seven Devils they are. No one can be certain whether they are living in a Parallel World. If they are loyal and righteous, but I target them through the lens of the original work, then they are not the ones in the wrong. I am, for being unfair. Besides, in many cases, living people are far more useful than dead ones. I am confident they cannot cause any trouble, not to mention that I have a plan requiring their cooperation..."

"Is it the plan codenamed 'Correction'?" Violet tilted her head and added the finishing blow. "Are you revising the plan again?"

"Plans are made to be used as references and revised." Ye Qingcang spread his hands. In a tone that could make one think of countless stories, he dissected Liu Erlong sentence by sentence, and human nature as well. "For a person with a conscience, it would be one thing if they never saw the truth. But if they do see the truth, it is impossible to make them pretend to be blind again. Unilateral guilt turns into love, while unilateral giving turns into hatred. Though there is an old saying that great kindness becomes enmity, if you do not bring it up, such kindness that can become guilt will never become enmity. That is why I said unilateral, rather than all guilt... Take this Jade Seal Machine to Mother. If you deliver it, she will understand that I am saving face for her."

"Understood." Violet did not ask questions like whether Liu Erlong would take on his shape. Without any unnecessary words, she accepted the Jade Seal Machine and walked outside.

The room was once again left with Ye Qingcang alone.

And the various documents Ye Qingcang kept flipping through and revising.