Even as Reverend Silverlamp was looking at Meng Hao, a sinister gaze shot out from the black depths of the sea in the Second Ring, bearing a boundless evil. Despite the evil, it still exhibited a trace of Immortal Will as it peered towards Meng Hao.
“I bloomed at dawn,” thought the owner of the voice, “and my consciousness emerged…. On the day of vicissitudes, I achieved Immortal Ascension, and met someone I should not have met.
“Shui Mo stole away my heart, a heart… that contained all of the longing from my previous life…. It sank down into the Milky Way Sea and was sealed in a formation of stone, locked away in a copper coffin… restrained by countless chains.
“What was locked away was my goodness. Eventually, it transformed into a roc, which now weeps in the Rebirth Cave.
“The League of Demon Sealers. The Ninth is the pinnacle. Is he your hope…? I knew long ago that if I could not find you, then I would destroy the hope of the League of Demon Sealers.”
The gaze coming from the Second Ring looked at Meng Hao with complex emotions. There was coldness, confusion, hatred, and viciousness.
Meanwhile, in the Great Tang of the Eastern Lands, a woman was looking in the direction of the Milky Way Sea. Her gaze penetrated through the air, through the Milky Way Sea, all the way to Meng Hao.
It was a gaze filled with concern, worry, nervousness, and anxiety. All of that transformed into an endless love that wrapped up her heart.
She stood atop a lofty Tower of Tang, gazing far off into the distance. Next to her stood a man who silently clasped her hand. He could feel her trembling, and could feel the dampness of sweat in her palm. 1
“This is Hao’er’s tribulation,” he said softly. “I just wanted him to be able to live a normal, mortal life. And yet, he ended up choosing the path of cultivation…. Now there’s no looking back.
“If he fails,” he murmured, “then the both of us can go receive him when he is reincarnated. We can spend a whole life with him, walk a whole sixty-year cycle of springs and autumns….” He seemed to be speaking both to the woman, and himself.
“You know, you’re very cold-hearted,” said the woman. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
A tremor ran through the man, and he closed his eyes. Deep in his heart existed bitter pain, which spread out to fill his entire being. He seemed to be recalling the fragile child running through the fog that year, weeping as he cried out to his father and mother. He remembered how the boy limped about trying to find him. When the boy caught sight of him, he could see the tears in the boy’s eyes, and he realized how much the boy relied on him.