The ocean-going fleet departed from South Fragrance City in the summer of year 4 of the Divine Realm Calendar.
The fleet included the White Tiger and the Spirit Ice, their two current principal warships, with the Dragon Butterfly accompanying them as a supply ship, along with other vessels.
Sea Soul Beasts still ran rampant in the oceans. Without warships, setting out to sea was simply impossible.
Since their purpose was exchange rather than conquest, the envoy sent to the Douluo Continent was Sima Lanxiao, the energetic, witty minister of foreign affairs.
Over a hundred people accompanied the envoy, including scholars, soldiers, and attendants. They gathered in South Fragrance City, ready to depart.
Three Titled Douluos sailed with them. Besides the two imperial retainers, the most unusual was a mysterious man who hid in his room and wore black robes every day.
Everyone aboard was rather curious about who he was, but Envoy Sima Lanxiao forbade his subordinates from asking.
Naturally, some people took their questions to Long Yue instead.
"Who... is that man?"
"About that, all I can say is that those who know, know. As for his identity, well, the specifics are there for everyone to see. You might not quite understand what you're hearing, but it means what it means. Those who know, know."
"..."
Long Yue was responsible for delivering meals to the mysterious black-robed man every day. He was the only person allowed near the room.
"Heh heh heh-here comes the chicken soup!" Long Yue cheerfully packed the food into a Soul Tool, then dashed into the tightly shut room and quickly closed the door behind him. "Senior brother, time for soup."
The burly man in black slowly raised his head. A layer of multicolored scales covered his face, frightening enough to silence a crying child.
"Mm." Tong Yu, the Qilin Douluo, rested with his eyes closed. After nodding, he paid Long Yue no further attention.
"Senior brother, stop looking so down. So what if you're a murderer who's spent a few decades under house arrest? Once we reach the Douluo Continent, nobody can tell you what to do." Long Yue grinned.
Tong Yu opened his eyes. Their colors were strange as well: one blue, one red.
His blue eye seemed capable of freezing a person's soul, while flames seemed to burn within his red eye.
Tong Yu truly looked rather frightening. No wonder he dared not show himself aboard the ship, even relying on Long Yue to bring him his meals.
"You don't understand. By doing this, our teacher is letting me run away, not atone." Tong Yu lifted the chicken soup and drained it in one gulp, crunching the entire chicken to pieces in his enormous mouth.
"Eat slowly, senior brother." Long Yue crouched in front of Tong Yu. "You didn't do anything wrong. When the old man spoke to me in private, he still acknowledged you as my senior brother."
"Heh." Tong Yu's smile was bleak. "Want to hear my story?"
"Sure, sure." Long Yue gave him a thumbs-up. "I love hearing stories from you older folks."
The Qilin Douluo's story, put simply, went like this:
He was born with a very weak Martial Soul and secretly loved his childhood friend. She treated him like a lapdog, and his peers looked down on him too.
When he saw her getting together with a tall, rich, handsome man, he fell apart and tried to kill himself by taking poison.
After taking poison, his Martial Soul grew stronger. He threw himself into cultivation, then sought out his childhood friend again. When his relentless pursuit met with rejection, he fell apart once more and hid away in Monster Academy to continue cultivating.
Having mastered his powers and become a Titled Douluo, the prodigal son returned to find his mother. She lay bedridden and paralyzed-and when he asked who was responsible, it turned out to be her!
The woman he loved had broken his mother's legs, leaving her disabled and bedridden. Tong Yu fell apart yet again and tortured his former crush to death.
After hearing the story, Long Yue had only one thought. "That childhood friend was older than you, right?"
"Yes." Tong Yu did not understand why Long Yue was asking.
"Then she was an older schoolmate!" Long Yue's eyes lit up. "Was that tall, rich, handsome guy blond?"
"...Yes." Tong Yu thought to himself that Long Yue had actually guessed what his romantic rival had looked like.
"Then he was a Caesar-like figure." Long Yue slapped the table in delight. "Who would've thought that beneath that respectable-looking exterior, you'd had your own days of feeling inferior, senior brother?"
"..." Tong Yu fell silent.
Had En Ci not warned him beforehand that his junior brother had a particularly vicious tongue, Tong Yu would almost have wanted to slap Long Yue dead on the spot.
What did he mean, 'respectable-looking exterior'?!
"Feeling inferior... you wouldn't understand, would you? You've been a genius all your life." Tong Yu lowered his head, loneliness hidden in his eyes. "Even a boy who feels inferior should have a chance to love a girl."
"Everyone falls in love with a girl. Some people meet at the right time, like encountering flowers blooming in spring, and everything turns out well. Others meet at the wrong time, like seeing a fish through the ice in winter as it rises to take a breath. Once it has breathed, it sinks beneath the water, never to be seen again. Nothing ever comes of it."
Long Yue recited those words in a low voice, as though declaiming Shakespearean verse, sadness hidden in his eyes.
Tong Yu's heart trembled. It felt as though a crack had opened in a knot buried in his heart for years, and beyond that crack, sunlight shone brightly.
"But, senior brother."
Long Yue had been wearing an empathetic expression just moments before, yet now a devilish smile appeared on his face.
"Your crush got your mom killed, you know~"
"..."
After his silence came an explosion of rage. The pressure of a Super Douluo nearly crushed every bone in Long Yue's body.
"What did you say?!"
"I said there's nothing wrong with liking a girl, but she not only treated you like a lapdog, she also crippled your mother. Was your love really that cheap? What would your mother think?"
Long Yue collapsed limply to the floor, utterly unable to withstand the pressure of an enraged Super Douluo.
Tong Yu froze. With those words from Long Yue, his past infatuation, persistence, self-reproach, and guilt all seemed to lose their meaning in an instant.
Mother... what would she have thought? Mother...
Tong Yu remembered his mother: an utterly shabby room, a sickbed, and an old woman lying there, already on the verge of death.
She had no legs, her face was sallow, and she had only one last breath left... Those legs had been broken by the woman he loved.
"She held on to that last breath because she wanted to see you, didn't she? No matter what girl you liked, no matter how you ran away, she stayed right there waiting for you. That's what a mother is."
Long Yue stood up again, his back drenched in cold sweat.
Tong Yu had genuinely intended to kill him just now, if only for an instant. And now the Qilin Douluo seemed about to crumble again...
Why did he crumble so easily?
No wonder he'd tried to kill himself with poison after failing to win over that older girl.
"You've let a lot of people down in your life. Your mother, the old man who nurtured you... But the one person you owe no apology to is your crush."
Long Yue straightened his clothes and said softly:
"Your mother endured every hardship to raise you. The old man provided resources to help you cultivate all the way to Super Douluo, and even saved your life amid a raging storm of public outrage.
You feel guilty because you tortured that child's mother to death right in front of him.
But doesn't the girl you liked need to atone too?
She broke your mother's legs. Doesn't that count as deliberately inflicting bodily harm?
Of course it does."
Long Yue stared into Tong Yu's eyes and said sincerely:
"Senior brother, let me help clear your name."
"Enough. In the eyes of the empire's people, I'm nothing more than a murderer." Tong Yu felt some regret. He should have thrown Long Yue out sooner.
What good did saying any of this do now?
Tong Yu had understood it all back then: a real man had to bear responsibility for his own deeds. So after taking his revenge, he had turned himself in, ready to bare his neck for the executioner.
Long Yue rose and put away the large bowl that had held the chicken soup. "You'll probably spend the rest of your life at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. Senior brother, you're only moving to a different prison."
"I'm used to it."
Tong Yu watched Long Yue leave the room.
"Used to it? But you're not guilty. If you go down to hell still wearing the label of murderer after you die, your mom won't recognize you when she sees you."
Long Yue's voice drifted back, though he was already gone.
Tong Yu lowered his head and continued resting with his eyes closed. His emotions, undisturbed for so long, had finally developed a crack today.
During his decades under house arrest at Monster Academy, he had been stripped of his Battle Armor and deprived of his freedom. All he had been waiting for was death.
But...
"If it were possible..."
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