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He sat on the ground, hands covering his face. He couldn’t breathe—he choked on air. He cried and laughed, laughed and cried.
“I…I…I…I…”
He rambled incoherently to no one, then he added, “It wasn’t…no. I, wait…you can’t, I…”
In the end, he couldn’t even form a complete sentence. He turned around and screamed, smashing his head against the wall over and over.
He should’ve known. His father was such a conservative, traditional king, and his mother couldn’t bear the sight of her loved ones suffering, let alone suffering for her sake. They were both nobility, raised in prestige. It was already a miracle that they’d hung on for this long.
Xie Lian smacked his head against the wall hundreds of times. “Feng Xin, my father and mother are gone,” he mumbled.
No one was listening.
Only then did he realize he needed to get his parents’ corpses down. After he lowered them, Xie Lian acted like he had nothing left to do and walked around the house. He saw that there were a few plates of horrid-looking food on the table, long gone cold. They were the dishes that Xie Lian had made the queen take away the night before without eating a single bite. Now, he pulled them over absentmindedly and ate everything, not daring to leave behind a single leaf, afraid to miss a single grain of rice. After he ate, he heaved and began to vomit.
Suddenly, Xie Lian grabbed the white silk band and threw it over the beam, then put his own neck through its knotted loop.
Waves of suffocation assaulted him, yet his mind remained clear. Even when his eyes filled with blood, even when his collarbones cracked, he still remained conscious. As he hung there, the white silk band abruptly loosened on its own. Xie Lian fell heavily to the ground, and in the midst of his dizziness, he saw that the silk band had actually started moving by itself with no breeze to aid it. It was coiling like a venomous snake.
It had conceived its own spirit!
It had been dyed with Xie Lian’s blood, had hung two royals to death—if Xie Lian could die, then it would have been three. Saturated with such deep resentment and evil, it would be stranger if it didn’t turn into a spirit.
The little spirit had only just arrived in the world and didn’t understand at all that it had been born from such despair. It happily drifted over to the one who had given it a soul like it was hoping for a gesture of affection. However, Xie Lian had no eyes for it, and he clutched his head and roared.
“Somebody! Somebody come kill me!”
He could only pray that someone would come right that second to take his life and help him break free from this endless pain and torture!
Just then, in the far distance, he heard the roaring sounds of gongs and drums. Xie Lian panted harshly, his eyes bloodshot. Who? What is that? he wondered.
Something drove him to his feet, and he stumbled outside to look. He walked for a long time before he finally realized that it was the sounds of celebration—they were commemorating the imperial palace’s construction in the newly established royal capital of the newly established kingdom of Yong’an.
The entire nation had joined in jubilation! All the former citizens of Xianle were now cheering for Yong’an. On the main street, everyone’s faces bore bright smiles; it was such a familiar sight. Xie Lian remembered now. This was how the people of Xianle’s imperial capital had cheered during the Shangyuan Heavenly Ceremonial Procession.
Xie Lian staggered back to the cottage and sat listlessly on the floor.
Why did he have to witness the laughter and cheers of the Yong’an people when the corpses of the king and queen of Xianle lay at his feet?
Xie Lian buried his face in his hands, crying and laughing. Ha ha ha ha…
A moment later, he giggled. “Don’t think it’ll be that easy for you.”
Memories flashed in his mind of a voice telling him, “Human Face Disease is resentment… This is how you create Human Face Disease…”
A savage light glinted in his eyes, and his voice softened. “I won’t let any of you off so easily.”
The expression on his face was like he was both crying and laughing, like joy and sadness mixed together. Using the wall as support, he slowly rose to his feet.
“Yong’an, Forever Peace?5 Dream on. Keep dreaming forever! I…curse all of you. I curse all of you! I want all of you to die—all of you, to the last! Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
Xie Lian laughed and laughed and rushed forth like a whirlwind. When he passed the mirror, he suddenly paused and whipped his head around.
His reflection had already changed completely.
He wasn’t wearing his white cultivator robes, which were threadbare from the wash. Instead, he was wearing snow-white funeral robes with expansive sleeves. His face was no longer his own, but a half-crying, half-smiling mask!
Xie Lian would have once screamed in horror at the sight of himself like this. However, the Xie Lian of today wasn’t scared at all. He laughed maniacally and ignored the change. He stumbled to the door, crashing through it before breaking into a dash.
***
The former imperial capital of Xianle was now nothing more than a field of ruined wreckage.
There were still some who lived near the wreckage—residents who had been lucky enough to survive and refugees who had nowhere else to go. Ever since the plague of Human Face Disease had erupted and the imperial city had fallen, the once-glamorous capital was subject to frequent sinister, chilling winds. Today they seemed especially cold. The few disheveled beggars who had remained were fleeing, watching the skies as they ran. They sensed that something ominous was approaching and knew better than to linger in the streets.
The battlefield sprawled in front of the broken imperial city gates. Not many dared visit it. Now there was only an old cultivator scurrying around trying to catch some lost, wandering souls. He stuffed them into his sack once they were caught, ready to take them and tie them into lanterns. As he darted around, the old cultivator unexpectedly discovered that a strange, white-clothed figure had appeared at the edge of the battlefield.
Truly strange, truly peculiar. The man was wearing white funeral robes with expansive sleeves, and he had a band of white silk tied to one arm. The white silk band floated in the wind like it was alive. On the man’s face was a ghastly white mask, half of it crying, half of it smiling.
The old cultivator shuddered violently, and before he knew why he was fleeing, his legs had already carried him away from the battlefield. He stopped before the fright had left him completely and looked back.
The white-clothed man didn’t speak a single word as he strolled across the battlefield. Chilling wind whipped around him, and with every step, he trampled the bones of those who had died in the war.
Countless souls of the dead were struggling and wailing on this soil; even the air was black from resentment.
“Do you hate?” the white-clothed man asked coldly.
The dead souls wailed and cried. The white-clothed man took another few steps.
“The people you swore to protect, the people for whom you swore to die—they have now become the people of a new kingdom. Do you hate?”
The wails of the dead souls now had shrieking mixed in.
“They’ve forgotten those who died on the battlefield, forgotten your sacrifices. They are cheering for the ones who stole your lives away,” the white-clothed man said slowly. “Do you hate?”
Amidst the shrieking there came howling and snarling.
The white-clothed man called out sharply, “What’s the use in screaming? Answer me: do you hate?!”
The battlefield’s air began to echo with i