Lan Changsheng's gaze settled on his stunned face as he slowly continued, "The people in this hell are steeped in evil to their very bones. They fear might but feel no gratitude for kindness; they dread death yet know no repentance. They beg for mercy today only to cling to life. If spared, once the danger passes, their nature will remain unchanged, and sooner or later they will plague the world again."
Tang San's lips trembled slightly. The sight of tens of thousands of vicious criminals turning to ash in an instant kept churning through his mind, and the chill in his heart refused to fade. He looked up at the green-robed outline that had not yet fully dissipated in the air. His throat dry, he asked quietly.
"Uncle, was there not a single person who could have been forgiven?"
Lan Changsheng looked at his stunned face with a trace of puzzlement. "You shouldn't be this weak, should you? Did your trials in that spacetime rift still not accustom you to scenes like this?"
Tang San froze. "Un... Uncle, you know what I went through!"
He could no longer concern himself with anything else. He only wanted to know whether Lan Changsheng, too, was arranging his fate.
He feared that all the suffering, all the choices, and all the twists of fate along his journey had never been under his control, but were a script someone else had written long ago!
Lan Changsheng nodded lightly. His tone was calm, yet carried a barely perceptible melancholy. "I know..."
He paused. "But I'm sorry. Once, I arrived too late."
"Thankfully... you were all right."
Tang San understood what Lan Changsheng meant. The time he had arrived too late was Ah Yin's sacrifice, when Tang San lost his mother as a child-the beginning