Li Shiyi's Illness

Had these demons and monsters in the Old Ye Residence killed Li Shiyi?

Lu Ziyou's lips trembled involuntarily, and his face grew paler and more ghastly by the second.

Hadn't they said his fellow Transmigrator, Li Shiyi, had already proven the Dao and become a Great Emperor?

How could he have been killed by these people in the Mansion?

The slaughter of a Great Emperor?

What a shocking, earth-shattering thing!

If word got out, the entire continent would be rocked to its foundations.

But if the people in the Old Ye Mansion had killed Li Shiyi after he became a Great Emperor, why were they still guarding his grave in the Mansion?

What, exactly, were they trying to do?

Compared with Lu Ziyou's loss of composure and terror, Gu Baishui's expression was much calmer and more subdued.

It wasn't that he had guessed Li Shiyi's fate. He simply felt that things couldn't be this simple.

The people in the Old Ye Residence could kill a Great Emperor. That alone was deeply shocking to him.

But what he found even harder to understand was why the people in the Old Ye Residence had killed Li Shiyi. What had happened to him?

"Li Shiyi did indeed prove the Dao and become a Great Emperor. But in the final moment of his tribulation, just before he became one, we, who had been lying in wait, swarmed him and killed him outright beyond the starry sky."

"Soul shattered, bones ground to dust!"

The Red-Robed Judge narrowed his eyes, and his face openly betrayed delight and pleasure.

He was reliving it, savoring an event from long ago that he still couldn't forget.

If he could, he would even proclaim it to the world before he died, so everyone could share in his joy.

The thrill of revenge always brought incomparable satisfaction.

"Li Shiyi was the Great Emperor who existed for the shortest time in the history of the Human Race. We paid a horrifically steep price to kill him. Even after planning for thousands of years, even after only one in ten of us survived our costly victory, we were still filled with joy and satisfaction."

"Not because we could kill a Great Emperor, but because the one we killed was Li Shiyi. At the brightest, most important moment of his life, we dragged him down from the clouds and into hell."

"Even with only half a corpse left, our dead comrades still opened their mouths to tear away a piece of his flesh. They burned their source and souls, dying as Li Shiyi fought back in a panic, yet they still laughed wildly without restraint."

"That was the happiest day of our lives, and one of the grandest acts of revenge in the history of the continent."

The rain outside the window suddenly grew wild and furious.

Countless raindrops pelted the window, filling the room with a ceaseless clatter.

The four figures outside stood silently beneath the eaves. But a gigantic Ox-Head also raised his head to gaze at the night sky, baring his wide mouth in a smile both gentle and cruel.

"Actually, you guessed right. Li Shiyi really was a Transmigrator."

The Red-Robed Judge reined in his terrifying, uncanny smile and continued speaking in a calm, cold voice.

"He personally killed his younger sister outside Luoyang City, dug up his Master's grave, and wiped out every living soul in his sect."

"But no one knew that after reaching sainthood, he pretended to return to Chang'an City, coveting the throne and the imperial treasury."

"Li Shiyi's mother had always been clever and perceptive. That woman, who had lost her daughter, guessed at things she couldn't accept and ultimately chose to hang herself."

"Tell me, why did all this happen? When did the story of that boy in Luoyang City begin to change?"

The Red-Robed Judge looked at the two young men.

Lu Ziyou's mind had long since gone blank. Unable to think, he could only lean against the pillar behind him in a daze.

Gu Baishui was silent for a long while before letting out a wistful sigh.

"Was it when he fell ill?"

"Yes. It was that time between the end of spring and the start of summer, and that long, long season in Luoyang City."

The Red-Robed Judge gave a silent smile, though the feelings in his eyes were too complicated for an outsider to understand.

There was disgust and hatred, but also helplessness and sorrow.

In those years, they had indeed wanted to kill Li Shiyi. They had wanted to grind his bones to dust, drink his blood, and tear out his tendons.

But they... had never wanted to kill the boy from Luoyang City.

As their Miss had once said, he was a good person.

But good people never lived long.

It was a terribly sad thing, and the knot in Miss's heart that she would never untie in this lifetime.

Outside, the night rain poured down.

Beneath a quiet candle flame, the Red-Robed Judge parted his lips, his voice cold and calm.

Yet his words struck like thunder tearing open the night, unveiling the secret buried for countless years.

"Li Shiyi was a Transmigrator, but before that spring rain came... he wasn't."

After returning from the Cloud and Mist Mountain Range, Li Shiyi fell ill.

He coughed nonstop from morning till night. The palace physicians couldn't find anything wrong and simply told him to rest and treat it as a cold.

Aside from a girl in a neighboring courtyard, no one in Luoyang City paid much attention. Only Li Shiyi himself sensed something strange and different.

This cold had come too suddenly, and at too convenient a time.

Li Shiyi didn't tell anyone that every night he had the same dream.

In the dream, thick fog filled the air, and everything around him was damp and still.

Li Shiyi couldn't see anything but the fog. He couldn't leave his place in the dream or figure out where he was.

Darkness and clouds of mist surged toward him until it seemed he was the only person left in the whole world.

So lonely, so quiet.

No sound, and no figures.

In early spring, a light rain fell over Luoyang City.

Li Shiyi's cold grew worse.

He could feel the strength ebbing from his body. His mind grew weary and low.

He didn't want to go out into the fields and feel the wind, nor did he want to get too close to anyone. He rarely even went to tend the Willow Tree on the back hill.

His dreams were the same every night, but something had changed: this time, faint sounds came from within them.

Like raindrops falling on the ground, and into a lake.

When sounds appeared in his dreams, Li Shiyi discovered he could walk through the fog. He was no longer like a puppet, stuck in one place.

Though every step left him exhausted, Li Shiyi still wanted to explore deeper into the fog and find where that faint sound of water came from.

Could the sound of water have something to do with his illness?

Why did it always feel... so familiar?

And so, during the day, Li Shiyi was listless, staring up at the sky and the Willow Catkins in a daze.

But every night, he would rouse himself and search for the sound of water in the fog of his dreams.

He found it when Luoyang was struck by the second spring rain.

When Li Shiyi reached the end of the path in his dream, a massive stone wall stood before him.

The sound of water came from behind it, drop after drop, clear and slow.

Li Shiyi touched the wall in his dream, yet, for some reason, he could feel its icy surface.

He stood before the wall, hesitating for a long time, but finally knocked on its iron window.

There was someone on the other side of the wall.

Li Shiyi had seen his shadow before, just as he had begun to fall ill, when the fog had first arrived.

Silence stretched for a while beyond the wall. Then a man's voice came through.

It was unfamiliar and distant.

He asked Li Shiyi how things had been lately.

Li Shiyi said that he was sick and didn't feel very well.

The man chuckled and said that illnesses always passed. When the next spring rain came, Li Shiyi would recover.