Chapter 392 - 212: The Next Hundred Years

Chapter 392: Chapter 212: The Next Hundred Years

"Monk, take me back! Take me back!"

"Alright, alright! I’ll take you! I’ll take you!"

The man’s face was twisted and savage, like that of an evil ghost, as he spoke.

The Monk couldn’t refuse.

The once-bustling Richan Valley was now a giant pit. Everything he remembered was gone, as if an entire town had been gouged out of the earth.

The Valley, Richan Town, Sunset Mountain, the oasis, the pastures, the streets,

flesh and blood, corpses, camels, weapons,

soldiers, Knights, the great army of the Western Regions,

and the Jianghu.

Everything that had ever existed was gone without a trace, not even a speck left behind.

If not for the two of them still being alive, still remembering, no one would ever know what had happened here, what had once been. No one would know that people had once lived and worked here in peace, fallen in love and started families, made promises to one another.

"It’s all gone..."

The Monk’s heart was a tangle of emotions as tears streamed down his face. He dumbly kept wiping them away. He didn’t even feel that sad; after regaining his memories, he understood that Feng Bei wasn’t his "sister." But the more he wiped, the more tears fell. He couldn’t control it. ’It’s strange, why can’t I stop crying?’ the Monk muttered to himself, dazed, amidst the yellow sand.

The man on the Monk’s back, unlike the panicked and weeping Monk, simply stared at the great pit before them. He stared for a long, long time.

"Your hair... it hasn’t grown back since then?"

"Yes, and I don’t know why."

"Because that is your ’cognition’."

"Cognition?"

"You perceive yourself as bald, so your hair cannot grow here."

"Astounding."

"Quick, put me down!"

The man’s breath hitched as he remembered something.

The Monk placed the man on the sandy ground.

The man stretched out a pale finger and began to sketch rapidly in the sand.

He first drew a "cicada," followed by a riverbed, an oasis, and hills. The veins of the earth, the rough shape of mountains and rivers... gradually, a crude map took form under the man’s finger.

"What is this?" the Monk asked.

"A map."

The man answered, his head bowed.

"A map of where?"

The man closed his eyes, his finger pausing. He murmured, "So, this is why only someone from the Gongsun Family could see through the secret hidden in the Four Seasons Map. Heh... I sensed it long ago. I sensed it. The cicada resting on the Xiatu Tree... its markings are identical to the Golden Cicada of the Sun Tribe. In every painting, there are actually a few ’flaws,’ superfluous strokes that, if removed, would actually enhance the artistic conception!"

"And if you extract these ’superfluous’ ’flaws’ and piece them back together, you get the real map!"

"No one in the world would ever think that the Gongsun Painting Saint... made a mistake!"

"A secret that only someone from the Gongsun Family could discover!"

"Starting from the Golden Cicada, passing through the Green River..." The man pointed to an intersection. "The real Nie Gong’s Treasure Vault is here! This is the secret the Gongsun Painting Saint hid in his paintings!"

"You knew where Nie Gong’s Treasure Vault was all along?"

Without any warning, the Monk swung his fist, smashing it into the man’s face and filling his mouth with blood.

After punching the man, the Monk stared blankly at his own fist, hastily explaining, "No, ah, no, it was my fist... it moved on its own..."

But the man, unconcerned, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. His gaze burned like a raging fire as he pointed at the spot. "Take me there... Take me there!"

The Monk once again hoisted the man onto his back and crossed the Great Desert.

「Ten days later.」

They reached a desolate mountain not far from the oasis. The mountain was weather-beaten, its surface dry and cracked. Hidden on a cliff face was a sculpture resembling a Golden Cicada, so eroded by the elements that its original shape was barely discernible.

Twisting the Golden Cicada caused a huge boulder to move aside, revealing what was inside.

"I’ll go in by myself."

"Meow!"

The cat in his arms replied. The Monk could only watch as the man, using his hands as feet, crawled into the treasure vault.

「Five days later.」

The man crawled back out, his lips parched and dry. The Monk rushed forward to give him water. After drinking his fill, the man let out a hearty laugh. He tossed Little Feng Miao aside and gripped the Monk’s shoulders tightly with both hands.

"I know! I know how to get out of here!"

"When we left the Darkness, I subconsciously said ’she was taken away,’ not ’she died’ or ’she’s gone.’ I was steeped in the Darkness then, so even though it was just a slip of the tongue, it was the answer closest to the Source of the Darkness! She was just taken away. No one can paint the Darkness, no one! ’I’ have never seen the Darkness with my own eyes, so how could I possibly depict what’s inside it! ’He’ could never have painted the Darkness! And ’I’ couldn’t either!"

"What was recorded in the treasure vault wasn’t a way to ’return to normal,’ but the secret to everything! Someone, that person, the Sun Chaser, deliberately recorded everything he knew in the vault so that ’I’ would see it with my own eyes!"

"For... the next hundred years!"

"Every hundred years, the Darkness and the Common World converge. The various mysteries of the Darkness will invade the Common World. Once the Darkness is fully opened, the Common World will be swallowed in the blink of an eye, and no one will survive! That’s what it says, that’s what it says!"

"There’s no mistake! Human Pillars... Human Pillars! That’s why it’s a ’hundred-year period.’ He saw the ’Darkness’ with his own eyes and barely survived! Every hundred years, he starts his machinations, spending a century to select suitable ’Mystics’ to become ’Human Pillars’! Three Mystics, buried in the Darkness, can form three ’Human Pillars’ to stabilize the two realms, thus securing another hundred years of peace for the Common World!"

The man was laughing and crying, his expression growing more and more unhinged. "And for the next hundred years, he chose ’me’! Me! It’s ’me’! But I won’t let him have his way. All of this is fake, and yet it’s real! It’s all scenery that has appeared before! Things that have happened before! But it’s impossible for me to have seen the Darkness with my own eyes. You can’t paint a scene you’ve never seen! She was just temporarily locked away, trapped! Trapped in the seams of the painting! Or maybe outside the painting entirely!"

"This was his original intention for creating this painting, and it was his wish! Now, it has become my wish too!"

"Anyone with a weak Will will be worn down and killed here, their true self erased! No matter who it is, after being ground down for a year, ten years, a hundred years, they will become him! And in that way, he succeeds!"

"I won’t let him get his wish! I will never let him succeed!"

"That’s why in ’my’ painting, the Night Lord, Zhu, that person who has lived for over a thousand years, has an indistinct face. He became ’his’ greatest fear! He’s afraid. He knows his entire life has been manipulated, like a puppet on a string! And at the same time, that person is also the object of ’my’ hatred!"

"He painted his ’hatred’ in a way that ordinary people can’t understand!"

"Do you understand? Do you get it? ...No, Monk, it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. It’s fine. It’s enough that I understand! You have to help me. You have to help me finish this! We can both get out of here alive!"

After drinking the water, the man had unleashed a long, incoherent torrent of words. The Monk’s eyes glazed over as he listened. The man used "you," "I," and "he" so randomly that if the Monk hadn’t known the full story, he wouldn’t have understood a single thing the man said after coming out of the treasure vault.

After being tossed aside, Little Feng Miao squatted on a rock in displeasure, grooming its fur. Its tail swished three times to the left, three times to the right. From time to time, it would look at its paws, then at the man, its gaze eerie and glowing green. As the man spoke more and more, Little Feng Miao’s swishing tail suddenly stopped. It tilted its head, and the corner of its mouth quirked up as if in a smile. "Meow? Meow meow meow."

Neither of the two men noticed Little Feng Miao’s transfixed stare. The Monk, still dazed by the rant, felt a dull ache in his shoulders from the man’s forceful grip. When the ten fingers finally let go, they left ten bright red marks on the Monk’s shoulders.

The Monk paid it no mind, however. He just frowned and asked, "What is it you really want to do?"

"From the very beginning, there has only been one way to crack this painting!"

A sharp glint flashed in the man’s eyes. He clenched his teeth so hard that blood seeped from between them. The white of his teeth and the red of the blood made his expression at that moment resemble a man-eating Fierce Ghost.

"The one who tied the bell must be the one to untie it!"

"I will paint the cause of everything!"

"That... Cannibal Painting!"

"For... the next hundred years!"

"It is, after all... only a hundred years!"