Chapter Ninety-Five: He Had Truly Done His Best

“She survived. Even battered and bloodied all over, she still survived. But she said that when she woke again, she found herself by your side—yet weren’t you supposed to be unconscious?” Yu Daoyi asked, which was also the part he could not understand.

“I do not possess such great ability that I could save her every time over such a long span. Besides, at present I am only hanging on by a thread. I gained enormous power in a very short time, but I also paid an enormous price.”

“As a tree spirit, I should have had a long life, but now I have already reached the limit of mine. I can no longer keep watch over that child every moment.”

“But why? The villagers hurt her, yet they did not kill her?” If the old peach tree’s words were to be believed, Yao Yao should not have survived those times when the villagers seized her.

“Not everything in this world is evil. At the very least, my plan succeeded halfway.”

“In this illusion there is no concept of time. All time stops at the instant they die, then their lives repeat day after day. Of course, they do not realize this. In their memories, they simply believe they have passed one peaceful day after another.”

“I sealed away all the memories from their lifetimes so that they could live carefree, and that is also why you keep experiencing it again and again. You are someone from outside the formation, so you can clearly see that they are merely repeating their lives over and over.”

“And the child called Xiao Qian was discovered by Yao Yao, who was only a few years older than him. She took him in, treated him as family, and became his elder sister.”

“Yao Yao could be said to have been the person closest to him. For that child, she suffered a great deal. She watched him grow up, and precisely because of that, Xiao Qian’s condition improved.”

“From the deepest hatred can also be born the deepest love. That child truly came to regard Yao Yao as the one he loved most, but none of this was something he could decide.”

“In truth, even without Yao Yao deliberately drugging him into unconsciousness, Xiao Qian would not awaken at night. At night, he would become another version of himself—a self filled with all negative power. As my seal weakens, the kindness in his heart will be devoured by that negative force, and that is the consciousness of a second personality.”

“At the same time, the Xiao Qian of the day will fall completely into slumber. That personality of negative power will seize the dominant consciousness. Perhaps, every time he saves the one he loves most at the very last moment, that already is his limit.”

“Young man, that child—he really did his best.”

The old peach tree spoke softly. He had seen that child’s efforts with his own eyes, yet there was little he could do to help. More than half of everything here had originated because of him; he had no right to condemn anyone else.

“It truly is... laughable.” Yu Daoyi twitched the corners of his mouth into a bitter smile, his eyes somewhat moist.

“If I could, I would hope they could receive true salvation. If they must hate, then I hope they can hate only me.”

“Everything began with my selfishness. If, in that moment, I had chosen to let them pass on peacefully, they would not have become like this.”

“I carried guilt for ten thousand years. I tried every possible way to ease their suffering, but by then it was already too late. All I did was futile.”

“Do you know how I felt the first time I saw Yao Yao being bullied by the villagers? I actually, just like the way she used to be before her death, began to beg that man to appear, begging him to save her for the sake of the life Yao Yao had once spared.”

True despair appears only at the very moment when hope fills your heart.

Ludicrous, isn’t it? Ironical, isn’t it? How theatrical. At the moment everything had changed beyond recognition, he had actually begun to long for a demon to come and redeem despair.

Hope appears in those who believe in it and struggle with all their might.

Despair appears in those who merely wait for hope to favor them.

“Whether by coincidence or not, he really did appear, only his appearance again came after nearly a hundred years.”

“He appeared?” At this, Yu Daoyi also cried out in shock, his expression grave. Yet after everything that had happened before, he only felt that this still was not the end.

“Yes, but he did not come to help us. He took me away, refined me, refined Peach Blossom Village, seized me and this world for his own use, and turned the villagers, including Yao Yao, into his instruments of slaughter!”

“He made sure no one could ever be reborn into peace! He imprisoned everyone until this very day! Even now, after he is dead, he still has no intention of letting us go!”

“He tampered with me. As long as the blood formation exists, then even after I die, this illusory world will continue to exist. So I cannot die. At the very least, I cannot die before they obtain salvation!”

“I beg you, please, help me, help them! I can give you nothing, I can do nothing! I know this is selfish, but even if they are reduced to ashes and are thereby freed from here, that would be better than the inhuman suffering they endure now!”

“End them, end Yao Yao, end the blood formation, and end this illusion. After that, I will finish myself, so that all of this can vanish forever.”

The old peach tree had never fled from anything. It was only that he had never once been able to do otherwise. From the very beginning, apart from those villagers, even this small and ordinary peach tree had existed within that man’s design. It could only bear, again and again, the weight of its own remorse.

“So, whether it is the world inside this place or the world outside, the village bathed in peach blossoms and peace is already gone.”

Baili Mo refined everything, occupied everything, destroyed everything. This world was both real and false.

“All these years, how did Yao Yao endure it? Yes, she was a fool—a complete and utter fool.”

“I need nothing. That girl and I made a promise. So before that promise ends, I will not leave!”

He and she had made a promise, a casual, ordinary promise that, against this backdrop, had become the goal for ending everything.

“This is the cause I planted, and it is also the consequence I must bear. But this pain does not need to be borne by them.” The old peach tree spoke softly, his tone unbearably heavy.

“This is not your fault, nor is it theirs. You only wanted to help them, and they only wanted to live properly. I will make that man bear all of this. I will bring all of it to an end.”

“Yu Daoyi, go find Yao Yao. There are some things she will not forget. As the eye of the formation, she must know where the blood formation is.”

“I leave the rest to you. And also... th-thank you.”

His voice grew weaker and weaker until, at last, the peach tree once more sank into slumber. Perhaps one day in the future he might wake again, but whether what he would see then would bring him pain—after ten thousand years, after bearing ten thousand years of guilt, even now, old as he was, he did not dare to die lightly.

He was afraid. Afraid that if he died, this world would truly become a living hell that would continue forever, and all those he loved would suffer eternal torment because of him. So he kept himself alive with the last thread of breath he had, never once giving up, not even now.

“What the hell kind of mess is this? Sleep again, then. I promise you, I’ll fulfill your wish. When you wake once more, this place will truly be filled with peach blossoms everywhere. It will be beautiful.”

Yu Daoyi gently touched the peach tree’s rough bark and murmured softly, as if speaking to the tree, and as if speaking to himself.

After a long while, he slowly turned and walked toward Peach Blossom Village. The gentleness from before had once again vanished. His face was filled with suppressed fury, ferocious and terrifying, and his eyes revealed anger with nowhere to go. His tightly clenched fists left faint traces of blood.

“Baili... Mo.” He softly mouthed the name.

Fire burned in his heart, the earth beneath his feet trembled, and he sank three inches into the ground.