The air in the Hall of Senluo stood still.
Diting lay down beside the Lotus Pedestal again and closed his eyes. He had spilled everything, both what he ought to have said and what he ought not to have said. He wanted no further part in the mess left behind.
In the center of the hall, King Qin Guang and the other Kings of Hell exchanged looks.
At last, however, their hearts dropped from their throats back into place. They let out long breaths, their bodies relaxing.
Now that his fate was known, the case was easy to judge.
King Qin Guang flicked his python-patterned robe and strode up the jade steps, his feet stirring the wind, before seating himself behind the presiding judge's desk.
He raised the gavel high and brought it down hard.
Crack!
The crisp sound silenced the entire hall.
"In the case brought by Tuo Jie against the Holy Monk Xuanzang of the Great Tang and his companions for treating lives like worthless grass, the facts are now clear, and the circumstances established!"
King Qin Guang pronounced his judgment in a loud, authoritative voice.
"Master Xuanzang never harmed you. On the contrary, he spent his merit in an attempt to deliver you from suffering."
"This case is nothing more than the plaintiff's deliberate attempt to implicate others, turn black into white, and waste the Underworld Bureau's manpower!"
"The plaintiff's claim is dismissed!"
One strike settled the matter.
"Heh..."
An exceedingly faint sneer, laced with bone-piercing cold, shattered the hall's brief silence.
Naturally, it came from Tuo Jie, who lay sprawled on the floor.
Ordinarily, upon hearing that he had been spared eight hundred years of torture, and could even leave the Animal Realm to reincarnate as a human in his next life-
Even the most