Chapter Two: An Injured Monkey

The black mist roiled violently behind Nangong Wen, and from within it came a heavy sigh, deep as summer thunder muffled on the horizon.

“Does anyone still remember me?”

The voice rolled out of the mist, carrying a domineering force that swept the dark vapor toward Nangong Wen.

“Heh. You’re not the oldest one here, so why pretend to be some ancient monster?”

As Nangong Wen spoke, a faint white power, like immortal qi, spread from his body and gently dispersed the fierce energy blowing out of the mist.

The black haze fell silent. No sound came from it for a long while, until at last it said, with a trace of anger, “In this world, I am clearly the oldest one of all. Who are you, old fellow? How dare you come here? Are you tired of living?”

Nangong Wen looked at the black mist and quietly tightened his grip on the cane in his hand.

“Now I’m finally certain you are not him. Or perhaps, after all this time, you have developed a mind of your own.”

“Who exactly are you? You know quite a lot.” The voice inside the mist went on, “Of course I’m not him. How could I be him? I am only myself. I hate him. I hate myself. Fortunately, all of this is about to end. I am finally going to be free. Heh-heh-heh.”

By the end, the thing within the mist had let out a cold, sinister laugh, ghostly and inhuman.

Nangong Wen nodded, a hint of sympathy surfacing in his eyes.

“If I’m not mistaken, all these years you have been waiting for the Child of Destiny to arrive. Now that he has come, may I take a look at him?”

“Why should I let you look?” The voice from the black mist suddenly quivered, sounding forced and uneasy. “Get lost while I still don’t feel like slaughtering anyone.”

At that, Nangong Wen said nothing more. He lowered himself to the ground and sat cross-legged.

“I can feel it. You are growing weaker by the moment. I don’t know why, but I do know you are not suited to fight me now, otherwise you would have already made your move. Besides, though I am already very old, it seems I am not so easy to kill. I have more than enough time to wait until you become even weaker.”

“You...” The voice inside the mist carried a note of helplessness, as if it wanted to say more but could not.

After a very long silence, the thing within the black mist finally relented. In a low voice, close to a sigh, it said, “I know you mean no harm, so I will let you see it once. But you must also tell me what you see.”

There was, in fact, no contradiction in those words, for Nangong Wen possessed the power of foresight. The being in the mist clearly already knew who he was.

Nangong Wen nodded.

“That is fair.”

The black mist churned, then slowly parted in the middle, revealing what lay within.

Zhou Yu was lying motionless in midair. Around his body was wrapped something red, a substance that seemed half liquid and half flesh. At the outermost layer of the unknown red material was a thin shell of red armor. Because only a small portion was exposed, it was impossible to tell exactly what that thing surrounding Zhou Yu really was.

Zhou Yu had his mouth open, greedily sucking in the red liquid, while his hand occasionally pushed at something nearby, causing the red armor to tremble.

Nangong Wen gently closed his eyes, a look of pain and pity crossing his face.

“Why must it be this way?”

From somewhere within the mist came an impatient voice, and the red armor shook again.

“Enough nonsense. Look quickly!”

Nangong Wen said no more. He shut his eyes, and a light began to shine at the center of his forehead. Gradually, that spot split open, and as the crack widened, a vertical eye appeared within it.

“The Eye of Heaven! So it really is you!” came a shocked voice from the mist.

With his eyes still closed, Nangong Wen let the one vertical eye at his brow open. A beam of golden light shot out and swept across Zhou Yu. After scanning his entire body, the third eye closed again and slowly faded away.

“How is it?” The black mist once more covered Zhou Yu’s figure, and its voice was anxious.

Nangong Wen slowly opened his eyes.

“This child is not the reincarnation of Hades.”

“How is that possible?” The voice from the black mist was profoundly shocked.

“He bears only the faintest traces of the divinity of Minos and the other two. There is no divinity of Hades.”

“Those three bastards from Minos actually brought me someone who never inherited the divine seat?” The voice within the mist was already filled with fury.

“But this child’s body is a primordial divine body,” Nangong Wen said seriously.

“A primordial divine body?” The voice in the mist also turned grave.

A primordial divine body was the physique possessed by those who first became gods while still human. With the decline of the human body and its endless so-called evolution, such a constitution had vanished for thousands of years.

Throughout history, the gods who reached the highest peaks, or who possessed overwhelming combat power, were for the most part primordial divine bodies, cultivators who had ascended from humanity.

For example, the five Saints who once shook the Six Realms were all primordial divine bodies. When they possessed only B-rank strength, they could already defeat A-rank, and even S-rank, opponents.

It was said that Hades, the King of the Underworld, had also once been human, and had likewise evolved from a primordial divine body.

But none of that was the key point. The key was that Zhou Yu had not inherited Hades’ divinity. A primordial divine body was rare enough, but Hades’ divine seat was clearly far more important, for that was the truly unique thing.

“This really is giving me a hard time,” the voice inside the mist said, wavering.

After a brief silence, Nangong Wen said, “Perhaps this is another turning point. I have seen it: this child will be crowned king. Though the image is faint, it is not impossible.”

“Maybe you’re right. Back when they sealed me here, they only said that a successor would descend from the heavens and come to my side. They never said he had to possess a divine seat. Still, without a divine seat, even if he could transform all my power into his own, could he defeat the entire Heavenly Way? What a joke.”

Nangong Wen rose, brushed the dirt from his clothes, and turned away with his cane.

“As kings and lords are born, are they all of a certain kind? If all things in this world truly had rules and reason, then how could you have been defeated a billion years ago?”

His figure grew farther and farther away, and before long vanished into the heavy fog within the forest.

After Nangong Wen left, silence returned to the center of the Black Bamboo Forest. It was so still that not a sound could be heard, with only the black mist continuing to churn restlessly.

“I’ve had enough of this damned place. Since I’m going to let you take advantage of me, it’ll just depend on whether your fate is hard enough to withstand it.”

After all that tossing and torment, Zhou Yu finally felt exhausted, and so he fell into a deep sleep. No one knew how long that sleep lasted. Whenever he was hungry, he opened his mouth and sucked on the liquid; whenever he was thirsty, he did the same. He drifted through a foggy haze as if crossing endless years, while his body grew stronger and stronger.

Within the Black Bamboo Forest, the black mist gradually thinned. The enormous thing once hidden within it slowly revealed its shape. It looked like a small mountain, entirely red, with a hole in its body that had clearly been smashed open when Zhou Yu landed. By now, however, it had almost fully healed.

One day, the area outside the Black Bamboo Forest erupted in commotion. Dozens of demon beasts came thundering from afar, but all stopped outside the forest and did not dare take even a single step inside.

With a dull thud, a monkey covered in wounds was hurled heavily to the ground.

The monkey stared weakly at the towering ox-headed brute before it, its eyes filled with murderous intent and hatred. When the two were mingled together, they became madness.

“This time let’s see if you die or not, hahahaha!”

The ox-headed brute suddenly burst into laughter. He tossed the monkey down in front of him, stepped back a few paces, and then charged with all his strength.

Once he reached the monkey, he lashed out with a fierce kick, sending it flying into the Black Bamboo Forest like a soccer ball.

The ox-headed soldiers on either side raised their tridents and cheered, shouting, “The Great King is mighty!”

“Damn it! Let’s see if you can still make it out alive!” the ox-headed brute spat into the woods and said bitterly.

Ever since this monkey, hunted by the Demon Emperor White Bone Cry, had fled from the heartland of the demon race onto his territory, the bull-headed man’s nightmare had begun.

Because the monkey had an extraordinary background: it was the sworn son of the former Demon Emperor, Black Mountain Old Demon.

Since Black Mountain Old Demon was the former emperor, he had obviously already been slain. The one who killed him was the current Demon Emperor, White Bone Cry. During the purge of Black Mountain Old Demon’s remaining forces, only this monkey had escaped.

And precisely because this monkey had survived White Bone Cry’s pursuit, it was extremely troublesome. A monkey taken in as a sworn son by Black Mountain Old Demon, one that could escape White Bone Cry’s hunt, was clearly no ordinary monkey.

The monkey’s greatest trait was its ability to take a beating. It was so hardy it was almost impossible to kill. The bull-headed brute himself possessed the strength of a demon king, and when the monkey first ran onto his territory, he had been overjoyed at first, thinking that this was a perfect chance to earn merit before White Bone Cry. If White Bone Cry was pleased, perhaps he would allow him to lead his tribe to the front lines. That would be a great opportunity. It was said that the human world was practically paradise, with endless houses and countless cattle and sheep.

But on the day after he first captured the monkey, it escaped. So he caught it again, and it escaped again. This repeated ten times, until the bull-headed brute finally lost all patience. He decided to kill the monkey and present the corpse to White Bone Cry instead; that ought to count for the same thing. Yet when he found that no matter what he did, he could not kill the monkey, he finally realized how troublesome it was. And he also understood that if the monkey had crossed the demon heartlands, passed through so many clans, and still managed to reach his territory, then all the other demon kings must have had no way to deal with it either, and had simply turned a blind eye.

But the bull-headed brute was, without question, stubborn as an ox. Since an ox’s temper is usually obstinate, he simply had to kill this monkey. By coincidence, the demon forbidden zone lay right on the border of his territory. For demon beasts, that place was terrifying. Ordinary wild beasts could live there quite well, but demon beasts that entered it had never come out.

So on this day, after capturing the monkey once again, the bull-headed brute brought his underlings to the edge of the Black Bamboo Forest and, with a full-force kick, sent the monkey into the woods like a ball.

Watching the monkey disappear into the forest, the bull-headed brute stared for a long while. Seeing no movement, he wondered if the monkey had not died. But he did not dare go in himself, so in the end he could only give up. After wandering around the outside of the Black Bamboo Forest for a while, he found that the nearer he drew to it, the more an inexplicable fear stirred in his heart. Thus, leading several of his ox-headed soldiers, he departed.

Crash after crash, the monkey smashed through who knew how many black bamboo stalks as thick as a man’s waist before falling to the ground. Like a lump of rotten mud, it collapsed onto the clearing at the center of the Black Bamboo Forest. In front of it lay nothing but the skeletons of demon beasts. The monkey’s eyes rolled anxiously as it looked around, terror flooding its face. It was injured too badly to move even a little.

The black mist roiling among the skeletons changed as the monkey’s sudden impact disturbed it. A strand of dark vapor slowly drifted toward the monkey, forming a rope of mist. At its tip, the strand curved like a black snake and slipped into the monkey’s nostrils. The monkey’s eyes immediately began to roll wildly, and then it fainted dead away.