Xianyu kept his hand around his subordinate's throat. At first, he was silent. Then, for the first time ever, he apologized to Guan Liang.
He said, "Sorry. I can't think of a better way."
Guan Liang raised his eyes and met his superior's gaze.
The moment he saw those utterly placid eyes, his frustration and anger vanished.
All that remained was helplessness.
The Marshal did not want to leave Guan Liang and Chenzhen alone after his death.
But the Marshal's own flesh and blood could break the curse of "undeath"... could resolve the "mara-struck" condition...
How could Guan Liang possibly bring himself to say that?
And so, death became a problem that he and Chenzhen had no choice but to face.
In all fairness, the Marshal had never made a wrong decision in all these thousands of years.
If he had to nitpick and find fault... it would be that he spoiled the Xianzhou natives too much.
The Marshal doted on them too much, granting their every request.
He fulfilled the wish of generation after generation of Xianzhou natives, granting them "longevity."
Only, at the time, no one knew the price behind it.
As for Guan Liang and Chenzhen, who had been the first to eat the fruit of the Aeon of Abundance, what they received was not longevity, but immortality.
Had Guan Liang ever, at some point, hated the willful, self-centered, autocratic Marshal?
By now, he no longer remembered.
Unlike his superior, Guan Liang was one of the rare normal people on the Xianzhou, by conventional standards.
Both physically and mentally, he was a normal adult.
He believed that everyone ought to pay the price for their choices and bear the consequences.
Whether the outcome was good or bad, it was theirs to bear.
Only, the Marshal was not