novelraw Chapter 84 : I Thought No One Wanted This Fruit Anyway
Chapter 84 : I Thought No One Wanted This Fruit Anyway
Chapter 84: I Thought No One Wanted This Fruit Anyway
Lu Changyuan shook the Three-Life Fruit in his hand.
“Has Third Royal Highness ever eaten a Three-Life Fruit before?”
Su Youwan shook her head.
The last time the Nether Kingdom emerged, she had not even been born yet.
Lu Changyuan thought so as well. “If Heaven gives yet one does not take, one will suffer for it.”
The silver-haired girl said, “Is that phrase really meant to be used in such a situation?”
Lu Changyuan smiled, then suddenly snapped the Three-Life Fruit open with a crack. Strangely, inside the gray-black fruit, there were no gray-black worms of ghosts or the nether, but instead, soft and tender pink flesh that looked rather appetizing.
“Don’t mind those things. Here—half for you.”
He handed half of the fruit to Su Youwan, then stuffed the other half into his mouth and chewed.
Lu Changyuan had already eaten this fruit once; the second time could only be for the taste.
It was unlike any fruit growing on ordinary trees.
This Three-Life Fruit was so bitter that it made one want to spit it out.
It was like the life of a mortal—when one was poor, one could only work hard for a few taels of silver; when life finally became easier, one could no longer move about, could see no more scenery, nor enjoy fine food.
In helplessness and sorrow, a whole life simply passed away.
Lu Changyuan swallowed the fruit without expression.
Su Youwan’s brows, as delicate as a painting, furrowed slightly. After a long moment, she also took a gentle bite.
The imagined illusion of the three lives did not appear—there was no feeling at all.
Those who had reached the Supreme Realm would not be bewitched by the illusion of the three lives, nor tempted by a false Dao.
Thus, it was as if both of them had eaten, and yet had not eaten.
The cultivators of the Fourth Realm and the crazed ones had already fought each other to the brink of heaven and earth collapsing, no longer in sight. Lu Changyuan and Su Youwan did not linger either, but continued walking toward the eastern edge of the city.
As they went deeper into the Nether Kingdom, what they saw were crumbling ruins burning with blue flames. The once-majestic palace now remained only in fragments, faintly revealing its former glory.
The eaves, once shaped like swallow tails, and the bronze bells hanging upon them had all turned to shadows, vanishing into death.
Lu Changyuan said softly, “If the Nether King never returns, this place will remain eternally broken.”
Su Youwan extended her pale hand, brushing over the ancient markings. On the nearby wall were traces of stone carvings depicting what seemed to be a figure—pointed ears, holding a spear, fighting a monster.
“The Lord of the Nether lived three thousand years ago, but judging from this scene, it seems older than that. A few years ago, someone brought out similar totems and indecipherable characters from ancient ruins.”
“Perhaps the Lord of the Nether once found the same kind of totem. After all, the era of the Three Thousand Great Demons of antiquity is far too distant.”
Lu Changyuan did not intend to delve further into this matter.
“So, does Young Master Lu intend to enter the palace?”
“It’s impossible. Within the palace remains the Dao left behind by the Lord of the Nether. To enter is to seek death.”
Moreover, the Sun-Moon Sundial was not within the palace before them.
Lu Changyuan looked at the ruined gates of the palace, half-smiling. “If the Sun-Moon Sundial truly returned to the Nether Kingdom, it must be beneath us.”
Su Youwan waited silently for him to continue, but instead, Lu Changyuan lifted Severed Thought and stabbed it forcefully into the ground.
Clang!
A clear, spring-like sound echoed as ripples spread through the space before them.
Lu Changyuan gazed at the familiar scene. “The Nether Palace has two faces—above lies the resting place of the king, and below, the prison of guilty souls.”
Not only that.
The Dead Path was also below.
If a soul of the prison could traverse the Dead Path, it would be granted pardon.
The Dead Path and the Prison of Sins were, by nature, inseparable.
Passing through that thin layer of rippling space, heaven and earth seemed to overturn. When the two raised their eyes again, they were surrounded by endless darkness. From the nether aura that seemed to devour all light, rows upon rows of prisons faintly appeared.
The cages were set in intervals, and within each was a formless spirit—at a glance, all of them looked as though they were barely clinging to existence, on the verge of fading away.
The spirits of the Prison of Sins would be ground to nothing here, eventually becoming the very foundation of the Nether Kingdom.
Lu Changyuan did not look too long at the spirits, but quickly made his way toward the deepest part of the prison. There stood a stone sculpture shaped like an hourglass. At its very center was a great circular hollow—completely empty.
It was as if a perfect statue were missing its head.
Lu Changyuan had seen this sight before.
The last time he came here, it had been the same.
But it should not have been so now.
“Young Master Lu?”
Su Youwan walked to his side. “Why do you stand still?”
Lu Changyuan’s expression turned grave. “Are you certain that the Palace Mistress of the Sun-Moon Palace truly ordered someone to return the Sun-Moon Sundial to the Nether Kingdom back then?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
The silver-haired girl repeated, “There’s no mistake. Back then, the Palace Mistress of the Sun-Moon Palace instructed a cultivator named Chen An to deliver the Sun-Moon Sundial back.”
“And what became of that cultivator?”
“That, Youwan does not know.”
Lu Changyuan pointed to the center of the hourglass. “If the Sun-Moon Sundial truly returned to the Nether Kingdom, it must have reappeared here, for this place is the beginning of the Dead Path.”
Yet the center of the sculpture was empty.
“Either Chen An never returned the Sun-Moon Sundial that year…”
That was impossible—the records clearly indicated that the Sun-Moon Sundial lay within the Nether Kingdom, meaning Chen An must have indeed brought it back.
Then only the worst possibility remained.
“Or someone stole the Sun-Moon Sundial, and has been hiding within the Nether Kingdom for hundreds of years.”
From the time the Palace Mistress of the Sun-Moon Palace returned the Sun-Moon Sundial until now, when the Nether Kingdom opened once again—
The Nether Kingdom had opened three times in total.
“Young Master Lu, look over there.”
Su Youwan suddenly spoke. Lu Changyuan followed the direction of her finger and saw a cell, within which a spirit had gone mad, desperately ramming against the prison bars.
That spirit had only half a body left; judging by its state, it must have been imprisoned for countless years and was about to dissipate.
Lu Changyuan suddenly spoke, disbelief in his voice. “Luo?”
He recognized that spirit.
The reason he knew it was because this spirit had once been strong—it had even tried to stop Lu Changyuan from stepping onto the Dead Path, and Lu Changyuan had beaten it several times.
But that spirit’s status in the Nether Kingdom should have been quite high—why was it in the Prison of Sins?!
When the spirit saw Lu Changyuan, it let out a hoarse roar, as though using all its strength to warn him of something.
In the next instant, Lu Changyuan raised Severed Thought and blocked toward the darkness.
Clang!
Sparks lit up the gloom.
A giant axe appeared before Severed Thought.
Someone had ambushed him.
Lu Changyuan kicked forward, sword strikes falling like raindrops. Only then did he see clearly what the enemy was.
It too was a spirit—
But armored, holding a spear, with horns growing from its head, its whole body pitch black.
Lu Changyuan parried the spear, and his continuous spring-like sword strikes followed, slicing the opponent clean in two.
Spirits were born of resentment.
Severed Thought could sever the Six Dusts, and naturally could sever the resentment of spirits.
The spirit was not strong and soon perished under Severed Thought.
Lu Changyuan finally exhaled in relief and turned back to look at Luo.
The spirit named Luo was still roaring.
“Be careful... Xiao Qingfeng?”
Wasn’t that a memorial tablet?