Realms In The Firmament

Qiu Luo was walking on the street alone, and the street was full of people. His skinny body was shaking, and he was staggering ahead. His eyes were blurred as if he could no longer tell the white and the black in the world.

Howling horses were running by his side. There were people in bright color clothes talking and laughing around him. He just felt unbearably sad, walking along the street adrift.

‘Before long… I, Qiu Luo, was also just as high-spirited and vigorous as these people.’

‘I was even more high-spirited and vigorous than these people. I had it… I had my days…’

‘It is such a shame… When I was tired of chasing after the wealth and fame in the world and decided to live a normal and peaceful life, I fell from the heavens to hell. I fell into hell from my happy life with my family, with my dear wife.’

‘I was severely injured in the fight, and my beloved wife was tortured, and then killed… The murderer didn’t stop torturing me, and sometimes I really wanted to end my miserable life, and free my soul from the enemy.’

‘It is that tiny bit of hope and the raging anger which I have nowhere to vent to inside me that gives me the power to live on this tragic life.’

‘But… Now it seems… I am never going to take my vengeance… There is no hope for me anymore… All I have is only desperation…’

‘My great power is gone. No matter how good I was, I am not anymore. My enemy has been rising up in the world, and now he is upon the clouds. He never stops rising.’

‘Back to the days, he was just a useless young lord, and I was a famous cultivator who had my glorious days. Now I am just an old man who is dying in misery, and my enemy is a powerful man who lives inside the golden house.’

‘He and I, we are like cloud and mud! He is in the sky and I am under the ground!’

‘What should I do to take my revenge?’

‘What can I do?’

‘The Heaven’s Corrupting Worm is getting deeper and deeper. It is going beyond my tolerance. My spiritual energy is almost drained. I am totally broken down. I can feel that the Heaven’s Corrupting Worm is going to break my spiritual mind and my soul very soon. It means I don’t have much time to live anymore.’

‘A few months… I guess that is what I have left in this world, and I am sure it will be the most painful time in my life.’

“Fine… Forget it…” Qiu Luo said with tears down.

“Juan’er, I am so sorry… I am useless… I am a useless man… I can’t take revenge for you, and I have gotten myself fooled and played by the enemy for so many years… I should have given up on this ridiculous fantasy and killed my soul with my own hands when I still could… It would be easier. Now… I can’t even kill my soul even though I want to… I…”

Two drops of tears quietly fell off his cheeks.

He looked so upset, staggering ahead, heading to a corner of a ruined house. He made himself a small cottage with some wood sticks and dry grass at that corner.

It was a cottage for sure, but it looked more like a wild doghouse, even smaller than a doghouse.

All those years, he had been living in that small cottage, struggling to live, waiting for an opportunity…

From time to time, his enemy would send people over to beat him up and humiliate him…

“Just let me go… Free my soul…” Qiu Luo bitterly smiled and said, “What a bloody world! What a bloody fate of mine… I give up. I submit!”

He shakily got into the cottage and reached his skinny hand to the pillow. He took out a sharp knife under the pillow. The knife was the only thing he had now.

It wasn’t the weapon he used to hold in his hand when he was still that capable cultivator.

It was the short knife that his wife used when she was alive.

“I will take revenge for you someday, and then kill myself with this knife of yours.”

That was the words he said when he vowed.

It was the only thing he lived for!

However, the cruel reality had crushed him down. He had been suffering for so many years, but what awaited him, in the end, was completely hopelessness and desperation…

Qiu Luo stared at the knife and took it closer to his lips. He kissed the knife emotionally, and his eyes were filled with tears. He sobbed and said, “Juan’er…”

And then he fiercely moved the knife toward his throat. He was going to cut himself and end his own life.

Qiu Luo had closed his eyes, and he moved the knife fast and decisively.

He knew that when the knife touched his throat, it would be the most enjoyable moment in his life…

However, when the knife touched his throat…

The cold blade of the knife was on the skin of his throat, but it stopped right there. It stopped moving.

A powerful hand had grabbed the blade before it cut him.

The hand stopped the blade from cutting through the skin on his throat.

No matter how hopeless and powerless Qiu Luo was, he still had the sensation of a cultivator. Before he opened his eyes, he already knew that there was a man standing right in front of him who had just stopped his knife.

Qiu Luo’s entire face turned colorless, and he was even more hopeless now. He kept his eyes close, and said in desperation, “I am already this miserable now… Why don’t you just let me finish my life? What do you want? Do you still enjoy humiliating me after all these years? Why can’t you let me die?”

A soft and warm voice sounded, saying with an indifferent tone, “Is that it? So you just give up? Are you really that desperate? Don’t you want to kill your enemy anymore?”

‘It is a stranger’s voice. I don’t think I have ever heard this guy’s voice before.’

‘He is not one of those men!’

Qiu Luo abruptly opened his eyes and looked at the man who just spoke to him.

It was a young man with a pretty face standing in front of him, who was staring at him with a pair of sharp eyes.

“Who are you? You are not from the Grey Parasol Sword Sect, are you?” Qiu Luo’s eyes had a hint of confusion. Apparently, he was surprised and confused by the young man’s sudden appearance.

“What the hell is the Grey Parasol Sword Sect?” The young man indifferently said.

Qiu Luo took a deep breath. ‘What the hell is the Grey Parasol Sword Sect?’

‘Well, I haven’t heard people saying words like this for a long time now.’

‘It sure doesn’t make me feel better, but at least I know this man is not a friend to my enemy.’

“Revenge?” Qiu Luo’s eyes flashed with the flame of anger for just a second, and then it was gone. He seemed to be frustrated, and said, “Of course I want to take revenge. I have never stopped thinking about killing them. But… I… I am done. This is my end. I am a useless man now. I have only a few months left to live. I can’t even kill my own soul to free myself… Those people, they are domineering. They are like an army… I do want to take revenge, and I do want to kill them, but I can’t even defeat a servant or a cook in their sect. What can I do to fight their prime master… How do I defeat him…?”

“So you are giving up now, aren’t you? You don’t want to do it anymore, do you?” Ye Xiao looked at him with a pair of cold eyes and asked coldly.

“No. I don’t! I just want to die! It is hopeless for me to live any longer… Don’t I even have the right to end my life? I just want to end this despairing and hopeless misery!” Qiu Luo sadly answered.

“You are not strong enough. That is why you give up. There is no need for further explanation.” Ye Xiao blandly said. His words were sharp like a knife.

“Not strong enough? I am not strong enough?” Qiu Luo laughed and said, “Do you know what I have been through? Do you know how much humiliation I have been through? Do you know how much I have suffered? Do you know how I lived these days in misery? How strong do I need? You don’t understand! You are nobody. You just talk and talk, yet you take no position in my miserable life!”

“I do.”

Ye Xiao deeply said, “I know, so I don’t think you are strong enough.”

Qiu Luo laughed bitterly. There was a tear in the wrinkles on his face. “I am not strong enough, huh? Hah hah hah…”

He suddenly laughed with madness.

“Who do you think you are? How can you say that?

“You have no idea what I have been through!

“You know what? If you were me, you might have died a hundred, even a thousand times to escape from that humiliation, that torture, and that pain!”

“Do you know how strong I have to be, to live these miserable days?”

Qiu Luo sadly and angrily looked at Ye Xiao, then shouted deeply. He was complaining and venting out the anger in his heart.

Ye Xiao coldly looked at him and blandly said, “You may think that I don’t understand how strong you are. Well, I must say, that you don’t understand what real strength means. Let me tell you what being strong means.”

Qiu Luo looked at Ye Xiao, and said nothing. He was waiting for Ye Xiao.

Ye Xiao blandly said, “If I were you, even though I was hopeless, powerless, I would still do my best to keep my eyes open and stare at my enemy. I might not be able to take vengeance anymore, but I do have my eyes full of hate. I would stare right into his eyes with the hatred in my eyes, until the moment I passed away. I would rather use up every second of my life to do it than use it on cutting my own throat. Killing yourself is escaping, which only makes you a coward.

“If I were you, even though I knew there was no hope, no strength, I would still wait for the miracle to come. I would wait till the day my enemy messed with the man he never should mess with, and I would wait for his death. I would like to know how he was tortured… Even though I might not be able to have that moment, I wouldn’t stop waiting until the last second of my life. It was not my decision to make, so I wouldn’t give up on my life by myself. Giving up means to surrender, which I would never do. No matter what reason do you think you have, it is barely the excuse you use to escape from the difficulty. That is all.”

Qiu Luo was shocked.

“There is nothing impossible in the world. There are only things that you haven’t thought of, but nothing is sure not to happen.”

Ye Xiao blandly said, “So if I were you, I wouldn’t stop waiting until death took me. Your enemy didn’t kill you. Instead, he let you live. No matter how he planned what to do to you, he gave you an opportunity!

“You may not have the strength to kill him, but there are people who do. Your enemy is a man in the martial world. He may still mess with some powerful cultivators that he should never mess with.”

“If I were you, I would wait. Only death could stop me.”

“I wouldn’t submit, not even when I knew I was going to die at the next moment.”

Ye Xiao’s cold eyes stared at Qiu Luo and he said, “That is how I understand being strong, and that is how I want to explain to you what being strong is.”

Qiu Luo was wordless, and then he lowered his head.

“Now, do you understand how I understand what being strong means?” Ye Xiao blandly said, “Now, do you still insist that you are strong enough?”

“Everybody can talk strong! Do you think you can really do it when the cruel life is before your own eyes, that you have to suffer in it?” Qiu Luo shouted.

“Life is cruel. You are still you, but I am never you.” Ye Xiao coldly looked at him and said, “I can just watch you die because it does not bring me any trouble. I can stop you again, or I can just do nothing.

“Well, it is simple for me, but not for you. You still have your miserable life ahead of you. You can end your life like a pathetic coward. You can let the anger and the grudge in your heart go into the air as if nothing ever happened. I have stopped you just now, and I assure you that I won’t do it again.”

What Ye Xiao said was extremely cruel and coldblooded…