Records of Mysterious Things in the Southern Dynasties

Chapter 544 Answer
"Don't put it so harshly. What do you mean by 'secretly having an affair'?" The witch glared at him disapprovingly and said, "I'm a fortune teller. He came to me for a fortune telling. This is normal business dealings, don't you understand?"

“But you kept it from Wu Yang.”

"Maintaining client confidentiality is a basic professional ethic," Wu Gu stated confidently.

"Besides, I haven't revealed any secrets about Wu Yang, nor have I secretly helped you. I have a clear conscience!"

"Loyalty that is not absolute is absolute disloyalty." Ren Yuan's words were a deadly blow.

"..." The witch was silent for a moment, then nodded and said, "Yes, I was confused at that time. We ten witches consider ourselves mentors of the human race. We once assisted the Yellow Emperor in defeating Chiyou and also helped Yu the Great control the floods."

"We witnessed the madness and tyranny of the ancient demon gods and believed that they would destroy everything. So we assisted the successive human emperors in banishing the demon gods from the human world and severing the passage between humans and gods, thus separating them forever. After the human emperor ascended and perished, we took on the responsibility of protecting the human race." The witch's tone became extremely weathered, and her golden eyes were etched with thousands of years of hardship.

"..." Ren Yuan was no longer the same as before. He thought to himself that the Ten Witches' contribution back then was probably the kind of "I and Kobe scored 83 points together", but he had no evidence and could only see through it without saying it.

Then the witch continued, "We originally thought that without the rampage of the demons, the human world should be heading towards a golden age of harmony. However, the reality has been getting worse and worse. By the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the human world had become a living hell."

"Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han throne became the last straw that broke the camel's back. It led us to believe that humanity has completely forgotten the virtues of unity, mutual assistance, selflessness, fearlessness, and public-spiritedness that our ancestors displayed when facing ancient demons and gods. All of these virtues have vanished."

"So we decided to open a small opening in the passage between heaven and man, and release some weaker demons back, so that people would remember the fear of being dominated by the ancient demons, and thus stop harming each other and rediscover their former virtues. So we spent ten years working together to build a Tower of Babel in Jianye."

"Is this the Xuanji Tower?" Ren Yuan looked at the ruins of Jiankang City. The Xuanji Tower and Hun Tian Platform of the Gouchen Division were still intact.

"Yes and no. After it was built, we only summoned the Demon God once, and the Tower of Babel was destroyed under the strain," said the witch.

"The meteorite shower of the first year of Gengshi?" Ren Yuan asked again.

“That’s right.” Wu Gu nodded and said, “Later, Wu Yang wanted to rebuild the Tower of Babel, but by then the Ten Witches had completely broken up. With only His and my power, we could only create this kind of incongruous thing.”

"Why did you two fall out?" Ren Yuan asked.

"The reasons are complicated, but the cause is certain. None of us expected that after those demons returned, they would become cunning and cruel, filled with hatred for the descendants of the Human Emperor. They even colluded with the Hu people and massacred the Chinese people."

"And the descendants of the Human Emperor, instead of rising up as we hoped and restoring their former glory, either fell into depravity and fled, or cooperated with the demons to harm the people," the witch sighed.

"The great chaos and calamity of the past three hundred years were unprecedented in ancient times. And the fact that we have never seen a glimmer of hope is also unprecedented in ancient times." "We, the ten witches, as the instigators, were naturally greatly stimulated and began to reflect on whether we were wrong. But the general consensus is that the fault lies with humanity for being too depraved and the demons for being too evil. Even if we were wrong, it was because we thought too highly of them and had too much faith in our own wisdom!" The witch sighed again.

Ren Yuan suppressed the urge to complain and listened as she continued, "In short, the result of our reflection is that we have decided to take matters into our own hands and end all of this with our own strength, and reshape an ideal world."

"After that, we began to hunt down demon gods, seize divine fire, and strengthen ourselves. Many of us even became gods. By the end of the previous dynasty, we had enough strength to finally step into the limelight, cooperate with Xiao Yan, overthrow the Great Qi, and also kill the guardian gods of the previous dynasty."

"I thought we should start building our ideal country now, right? But the leaders, Wu Yang and Wu Xian, began to eliminate dissidents and led us to kill the Little Immortal Ge Hong and eradicate Taoism."

"Who knew that Wu Yang and Wu Xian would have another dispute over the lineage of the Daoist tradition. Over the long years, both of them developed a large number of disciples and followers. Wu Xian wanted Daliang to worship ghosts, while Wu Yang wanted Daliang to worship Buddhas. In the end, they split into two factions and fought each other, which also caused our Ten Witches to fall apart. Some followed Wu Xian back to his hometown of Fengdu, while others, like Wu Peng, went overseas."

“Only a few of us are still following Wu Yang.” Wu Gu said with a self-deprecating smile, “Actually, I had a bad feeling back then… The ugly power struggle among the ten witches is no different from that of humans. Later, in order to get rid of the God of War and completely subdue Xiao Yan, Wu Yang caused the Fushan Dam to burst, killing millions of people. My heart grew even colder.”

"But Wu Yang told me that all of this was for the purpose of building an ideal state. Whether it's the Fushan Dam or the repeated creation of nightmares, it's all necessary evil to achieve that ideal state." Wu Gu said with a bewildered look:

“But I can no longer trust Him as completely as before, so I made a bet with Xiao Yan to send you to today, twenty years from now, to see if the ideal state has actually been realized.”

“If it had really come true, I wouldn’t have let you go back.” Wu Gu sighed bitterly, “But now it seems I have to help you go back and tell my past self from twenty years ago—Wu Yang was an irresponsible big liar, his ideal country has completely failed, and he has left behind a mess and disappeared completely.”

“I knew back then that He would not succeed,” Xiao Yan said with a smug smile. “Now it seems I won my bet.”

"No, then why are you aiding and abetting evil? You killed so many White Robe Army brothers, that can't be fake, can it?!" Ren Yuan glared at Xiao Yan.

“Essentially, Wu Yang and I are the same kind of people; neither of us will give up until we achieve our goals, and we are willing to sacrifice everyone for it,” Xiao Yan said frankly. “If His ideal kingdom can truly be realized, and if there is an invincible and fearless army of spirits to help me unify the world and establish an unshakeable foundation for all ages, then I wouldn’t mind setting aside my hatred and submitting to Him forever…”

"Alright." When faced with such an honest villain, any accusations are a waste of breath. Ren Yuan smiled bitterly, "It's true that when people are shameless, they are invincible."

"I don't have much time, let's get straight to the point." Xiao Yan said solemnly, "Now we have one more chance to change all of this—to send you back twenty years to destroy Wu Yang and stop him from turning the human world into the Hua Xu Divine Kingdom!"

“If you hadn’t sent us, we would have stopped Him twenty years ago too,” Ren Yuan said irritably. “Just so you two could see an answer, you’ve put us through all this trouble? Is this fair?!”

(End of this chapter)