Ze Tian Ji Chapter 719-720

Chapter 719 – The Person in the World Who Understands You the Most Has Come

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

(TN: Way of Choices will be on break from December 25th, 2017 – January 7, 2018)

The palace beauty walked to the window, silently gazing at the courtyard basking in sunlight.

The sunlight shone upon her face, yet it was unable to bring too much warmth. A haggard and cold aura continuously lurked behind this beautiful face, impossible to get rid of.

The kitchen was very quiet, the sight within extraordinarily strange, persisting and fermenting under the sunlight.

After some time, the medicine was ready. The woman carried the medicine pot into a prepared jar of ice water and waited for the medicinal broth to cool.

Just like Zhou Tong, the palace beauty was also skilled in mental techniques. It was highly likely that the woman could not see the beauty by the window because her senses had been confused by an illusion.

Ultimately, the woman still raised her head to glance at her, proving that none of this was delusion, all of it was real.

The palace beauty leaned on the window and lightly waved her hand, indicating that all should proceed as normal.

……

……

The medicinal broth could not be completely cooled before drinking, as this would harm its effectiveness. The bowl of broth brought before Zhou Tong was still exuding a thick cloud of steam.

Zhou Tong was somewhat enchanted by the heat carried by this steam, as this sort of feeling filled him with energy. However, when he drained all the medicinal broth in the bowl, he felt somewhat dissatisfied, as the broth had scalded the roof his mouth and his gums. He did not blame the woman, but rather was dissatisfied at his own attitude: he had been in too much of rush.

Though no blisters had arisen from this scalding, it still felt rather uncomfortable, so he used his tongue to lick at it.

His tongue sent back a slightly sweet feeling, somewhat akin to the taste of rust.

He knew that this was the taste of blood and couldn’t help but frown a little. He took a mirror from the table and examined his mouth.

He didn’t find anything too strange, only that the gums around his teeth were slightly swollen and bleeding.

The taste of blood gradually receded, leaving only the bitter flavor of medicine. He took two sugar-coated peanuts from a dish on the table, threw them into his mouth, and began to assiduously chew on them.

Ever since he was very young, he was very afraid of drinking medicine. He found it too bitter, so each time he had to take medicine, he always prepared a few sweet snacks.

As he chewed on the sugar-coated peanuts, he thought about all that he had encountered today.

Xue He spent his entire year in the snowy plains of the north, leading the army, so it was to be expected that he could get his hands on this sort of poison, but how he had managed to poison him in the underground prison cell?

Had Xue He wanted to poison him to death to take vengeance for Xue Xingchuan and make the world feel that this was an appropriate retribution delivered by the cycle of the Heavenly Dao?

The problem was that poisoning him to death was no easy task.

A cold smile floated on Zhou Tong’s lips, a sense of pride appearing in his dark and frigid eyes.

Sugar-coated peanuts were delicious, their only downside being that they somewhat clung to his teeth. He took out an exquisitely crafted silver toothpick, picking at his teeth while he continued to ponder his worries.

Xue He had probably already escaped Zhou Prison, but that did not matter. Although the world was vast, there was no place that could hold the people of the Xue clan now.

Zhou Tong gazed out the window at the neighboring courtyard, thinking to himself, after this matter is settled, I’ll catch Xue He as quickly as possible and poison him to death, poison him very, very slowly.

He had already thought of which poisons could make Xue He die in the slowest and most painful fashion.

A soft crack came from his mouth, snapping this extremely tangential and delightful train of thought.

One of his teeth had snapped off at the root. It lay quietly in his palm, its snapped end stained in blood, a most sinister sight.

As he stared at this tooth, Zhou Tong felt his just-warmed body turn cold once more.

He silently thought for a few moments, then looked at himself in the mirror again.

This sight frightened him out of his wits.

His gums were already purple and black, his teeth incredibly loose, liable to drop off at the slightest gust of wind.

His teeth were sending an ever clearer and ever more unendurable pain, causing his body to tremble once more.

He had only wanted to scrape the sugar from between his teeth, yet he ended up prying out a tooth.

The point of the exquisite silver toothpick was already a ghastly black like coal.

This is all an illusion, he said to himself.

He had far too much experience in the use of poisons, so he believed that there was no flaw in his judgment. Although his method of detoxification might not have completely cleansed his body of the poison, it could not at least have failed to halt its progress. He would then have much more time to slowly resolve it.

But why was it that after he had drunk the medicine, not only had the poison in his body not come under control, it had become even more terrifying, already affecting his teeth?

Zhou Tong could not understand and fell into a prolonged silence.

Even now, he did not think that there was something wrong with the medicine, that something might have happened as it was being brewed.

He never once doubted the woman.

He took out two precious pills and swallowed them, temporarily preventing the poison from breaking out.

He was somewhat dazed, his vision blurry.

If his vision was not blurry, how could he be seeing the woman walk to the gate of the small courtyard?

A bundle wrapped with a flowery blue cloth was in the woman’s arm.

It was a very small and simple bundle, unable to hold too much.

Yes, of course, he had bought so many expensive things for her in these past few years; how could such a small bundle suffice to take it all away?

So she could not be intending to leave, she could not be intending to abandon him, she could not be the problem, she could not have poisoned him.

So his vision was truly getting blurry, this poison was far too strong—he was even starting to see things.

Zhou Tong said all this to himself, and then stood up from the chair.

The distance between the house and the main gate was ten-some zhang, the courtyard in between filled with sunlight.

Separated by a ground awash with sunlight, he and the woman looked across at each other.

The woman’s expression was calm, warm, and serene. She slightly bowed, just as she did every time he said farewell, only today she was the one saying farewell.

It turned out that none of it had been an illusion.

Why? Zhou Tong did not ask, because he clearly knew that there were numberless reasons, but since he had not realized before, there was no need to know it now.

The cruelest thing in the world was when you didn’t want to know the answer and someone insisted on telling you the answer.

“She doesn’t like you. She has never liked you.”

The palace beauty walked to the door and said to him, “She was only afraid of you, so she did not dare leave.”

Why was she not afraid today? Naturally, because he was going to die.

Zhou Tong was not shocked at her appearance.

In reality, he now completely understood why the medicine he had taken had been of no use: someone had put another poison in the medicine.

Upon understanding this fact, he knew that someone had come to this courtyard, and he even knew who this person was.

The person who understood you the most was naturally not a relative, or else Xue Xingchuan would not have died so miserably and then almost had his corpse exposed in the plains after his death.

And the person who understood you the most was also not necessarily, as often written in books, your enemy, because you would always have some wariness towards your enemy and develop many safeguards against him.

The person who understood you the most was also not necessarily your friend. To be friends until your hair turned white was a beautiful thing, but you would spend too little time with each other, the distance between your two cities would be too far. When you met, you would always drink wine while recalling old times, speculating on the future, cursing your past teachers or the current government. There were few opportunities to chat about more in-depth things.

So the person who understood you the most was often your partner at work.

With year after year, day after day of working together, it would be very difficult to not understand each other. You would drink together many times, chatting about many in-depth things, and for the sake of both open and hidden competitions, you would remember all these things with remarkable clarity, preparing to use them at any point in the future. For instance, he might learn which restaurant is your favorite for buying box lunches and you might learn which restaurant has his favorite noodles. He might learn which group leader you hate the most and you might learn which TV channel is his favorite. He might know of all the girlfriends you’ve talked about in the past few years while you would know how many people he’s been cheating on in the past few months. On the morning after Christmas Eve, the two of you might even come out of the same pub and then smile at each other, because this pub was the place where the company could negotiate the best discount.

Logically speaking, Zhou Tong had no partners at work, as the Department for Purging Officials was a very special government office, under the direct management of the Divine Empress, not requiring interaction with anyone from the Imperial Court. Cheng Jun, the other Eight Tigers, and the redcoated cavalry were all Zhou Tong’s subordinates. However, there were also rather special existences in this world, like this palace beauty.

The Tianhai Divine Empress had relied on Xue Xingchuan, Tian Chui, Xu Shiji, and other such Divine Generals to control the Great Zhou Army. To control the Imperial Court and thus reign over the millions and millions of people of the Great Zhou, she had relied primarily on two people. The first was Zhou Tong, and the other was naturally Mo Yu.

They were the Tianhai Divine Empress’s left and right arms in the Imperial Court and were often privately reprimanded as villains colluding together. They had cooperated for many years, and although it could not be said that their hearts were connected, they did possess a tacit understanding. Whether it was confronting the Tianhai clan or going against the powerful will of the military, this tacit understanding had always displayed a very positive use.

This tacit understanding meant that the two of them had a deep understanding of each other.

Zhou Tong knew of that rebellious heart and unwillingness in the deepest depths of Mo Yu’s soul, and even had a vague idea of her thoughts about a certain person. Mo Yu knew of Zhou Tong’s well-concealed fear of the Divine Empress and also of that small courtyard basking in the sunlight. Thus, she had sought out this place today and delivered unto him a most fatal strike.

……

……

Upon seeing Mo Yu come in through the door, Zhou Tong quickly calmed down, faster than he had imagined. In the days after the coup of the Mausoleum of Books, he had ordered the Department for Purging Officials to constantly trace and confirm her whereabouts in the south. Perhaps because of this, he had long since mentally prepared himself to see her in the capital.

He said to Mo Yu, “I knew that you would come back to the capital, but I didn’t expect it to be now.”

Mo Yu asked, “Why?”

Zhou Tong explained, “Since you clearly understand that if you come back to the capital, your death is assured.”

Mo Yu stared at him and said, “I really don’t care much about that, as long as you can die before me.”

Zhou Tong was unaware that Chen Changsheng had said something similar not too long ago.

He looked at Mo Yu and asked, “You’ve returned to take vengeance for the Empress?”

“I don’t have the ability, nor are you my foe. You are not worthy of that right.”

In Mo Yu’s view, he was a dog raised by the Empress. “I have come to punish the Empress’s dog in her place.”

After a pause, Zhou Tong asked, “How are you prepared to punish this dog?”

Mo Yu proposed, “Stew it in a pot? I think that’s not bad.”

Zhou Tong said very seriously to her, “You don’t have to be that hare.”

“I don’t mean ‘cook the hounds after killing the hares’, I just don’t have as much experience in torture as you, so I can only think about cooking you to death.”

(TN: ‘Cook the hounds after killing the hares’ is a Chinese idiom that originates from the Warring States period. Essentially, once you’ve hunted all the hares down, you kill the hounds and cook them. Similarly, you kill your trusted aides once they’ve outlived their usefulness.)

Mo Yu earnestly asked, “Do you have some other suggestion?”

Chapter 720 – The Avenue of Blood (I)

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

(TN: Way of Choices will be on break from December 25th, 2017 – January 7, 2018)

“I have no suggestions, but I have an explanation.”

Zhou Tong gasped for a few breaths of air, then continued, “My explanations have no meaning to anybody else, but I think that you are different. After all, both of our situations have been rather similar in these past few years. My so-called betrayal was out of fear and self-defense, while you have done many things for similar reasons.”

This referred to how Mo Yu had kept the Divine Empress in the dark and obeyed the wishes of the Pope, secretly arranging for Chen Changsheng to enter the Orthodox Academy.

Mo Yu shook her head and refuted, “My fear and self-defense that arose from the world after the Empress have nothing to do with the Empress.”

“No matter what you say, in my view, since the Empress had never once cared about our eventual fates, why did we have to live for her sake? On that night, Chen Changsheng came to the alley of the Northern Military Department to kill me and I nearly died, but what did the Empress do?”

Zhou Tong jeered, “She simply didn’t care about my circumstances, only about how she could acknowledge her son. It’s pity that she went blind, even mistaking someone else for her own son.”

As he sneered, his black and purple gums contrasting with his pale face presented a ghastly sight.

Mo Yu somewhat proudly said, “The Empress cared about me; she had me and Yourong leave the capital beforehand.”

Zhou Tong fell silent for quite some time, then suddenly said, “You don’t actually think that since you’ve poisoned me, you can just easily kill me?”

Mo Yu gave no explanation, only declared, “I will kill you.”

“The greatest difficulty stands before you: you are simply too young.”

Zhou Tong expounded, “To be young means that you have not accumulated enough years. No matter how talented you are, there isn’t enough to bring your cultivation level too high. Moreover, your patience is poor. You should have appeared a bit later, letting the poison in my body dig deeper. In addition, you should not have chosen this place. This place is my home, and to kill someone in their home is always a more challenging task.”

To the vast majority of people, their home was the place they were most familiar with, their final fort, their true home court.

Zhou Tong had placed all his treasures and his most precious serenity in this small courtyard, so he had naturally made the appropriate arrangements, installing all sorts of mechanisms and arrays here.

As he spoke, the sounds of many gears springing into action could be heard from outside the window. The sunlight coming in from the sky well dimmed as the energies from several powerful arrays sprang from the earth.

Those two precious pills had already been digested into their essence in his stomach. Their medicinal power circulated throughout his body along his meridians and temporarily restrained any further corrosion from the poison, allowing him to gain back a portion of his strength.

The sun in the sky brought no real warmth, and the gentle breeze was somewhat chilly. Together with the arrays, a stench of blood enveloped the courtyard.

Without hesitation, he used his Great Crimson Gown technique. If someone were to observe this sight with their spiritual sense, they would discover that this courtyard was already immersed in a sea of blood.

The Great Crimson Gown was his most powerful technique and had correspondingly vicious demands on his spiritual sense and true essence. Given that he now had two fierce poisons coursing through his body, he was even less able to keep up the technique for long. However, Mo Yu could also not remain in this sea of blood. If she did not want to die together with Zhou Tong, she would have to retreat for a moment.

He just needed to take the chance offered by her temporary retreat to escape this courtyard. As long as he could get to the street, he could preserve his life.

This was the most effective method Zhou Tong had come up with as the shadow of death lingered over him.

The small courtyard seemed very ordinary, but the street on which it sat was home to many extraordinary figures of great importance. This had been one of his considerations when he first chose this place.

What happened next exceeded Zhou Tong’s expectations. To be more precise, it exceeded his understanding and knowledge of Mo Yu.

Mo Yu did not leave. She stood next to the door, letting the invisible sea of blood paint her palace dress a most frightening color.

She was very calm and focused, the exhaustion on her face completely supplanted by a deathly stillness.

Starlight twinkled in her dress, penetrating through the blood in a beautiful spectacle.

A slender sword, outwardly delicate yet containing the tribulations of time, pierced through the sea of blood, a condensed stream of starlight.

With a squelch, this delicate sword pierced through Zhou Tong’s belly, the edge poking out from his waist, dyed with black blood.

Zhou Tong did not give a wretched yowl or painful howl, only stared at her, his face brimming with incredulous shock.

Mo Yu’s sword had pierced through his body.

His sea of blood had also swallowed Mo Yu’s spiritual sense.

Let alone the fact that Mo Yu was only at the middle level of Star Condensation, even if she suddenly broke through into the peak of Star Condensation, she still would not be able to leave this sea of blood and this courtyard.

To put it another way, her death was assured.

Why? Zhou Tong very quickly understood: she had never planned on surviving.

He had wanted to use the threat of bringing her down with him to make her retreat, but that was what she had intended in the first place.

Her return to the capital had always been a path to death; she just wanted to bring him along.

Whether they were falling into an abyss or entering the sea of stars, she wanted to bring him along and bring him before the Divine Empress.

Zhou Tong’s face became exceptionally pale.

He did not want to die together with her.

This courtyard was still under his control; there were still mechanisms and arrays that he had not activated. He still wanted to put up one last struggle.

However, he did not succeed. His failure was not because of the sword running through his body, but because his body had turned stiff.

A pair of hands fell on his shoulders.

These hands were thin and withered like tree branches. They were white as if they had not seen sunlight for many days. The nails were pointed, long, sharp, and covered in dirt.

It was a pair of wolf claws, their sharp nails digging deep under Zhou Tong’s shoulder bones, stabbing holes through which black blood surged out.

Zhou Tong knew that his injuries were about to get even worse. His shoulder bones were already showing signs of cracking.

His body felt an absolute cold, a horrifying fear. He did not dare turn his head to look.

He had already guessed the identity of that person who had appeared behind him as noiselessly as a ghost.

He had seen the cases concerning the people that this person had killed on the snowy plains. He knew that if he turned his head, this person would absolutely bite through his neck.

At the border of life and death, Zhou Tong no longer cared about those two poisons in his body, and squeezed out every last drop of his true essence.

A massive wave rose up in the sea of blood that enveloped the room.

With a howl, he transformed into a bloody streak of light that charged out the door.

With a crack, the delicate sword stabbed through his body was snapped in half by his charge.

That ghostly person behind him had no time to break his neck. There was only the sound of several tears as several gouts of blood shot into the air.

Countless mechanisms activated at once and several arrays displayed their final use, exploding like fireworks. The fake mountains and screen wall of the courtyard were knocked over, followed closely by the house itself. Dust filled the air, the green bamboo became kindling, the flagstones shattered, and even the sunlight seemed to shatter.

Zhou Tong lay collapsed in the remnants of the bamboo.

He immediately pushed at a fake bamboo shoot, causing what remained of the wall to collapse.

He was pushed out of the courtyard by a wave of Qi and heavily fell onto the snow.

His blood-drenched body against the pure white snow produced no beautiful sight, nor did it imbue him with a sense of heroism.

His blood was black and infused with an awful stench as it flowed out of the wound in his belly.

His back was a wretched sight, with his clothes in tatters, his flesh mangled, and ten scratches so deep that one could see bone.

Zhou Tong had lived many years and this was his most miserable hour.

But his eyes brimming with fear and pain finally saw some hope, causing him to feel ecstasy.

He had finally reached the street.

……

……

Dust filled the air and stone shards flew everywhere. In a very short amount of time, this small courtyard had become a ruin.

Mo Yu was not surprised by this. She knew that a person like Zhou Tong would assuredly cause a massive ruckus before he died, and this place truly had been his home court. What somewhat surprised her was that there was actually someone able to follow Zhou Tong through the tunnels. Even though she had a detailed map of the tunnels of Zhou Prison, she had never thought about going down there. However, when she saw that this person was Zhexiu, the unexpected became the expected. She knew that this wolf cub was an expert at tracking and concealing, followed by murder.

She and Zhexiu exchanged glances, then walked out of the courtyard. They were both injured, but not too seriously.

Zhou Tong’s cultivation level was much higher than Mo Yu’s and Zhexiu’s. Under normal circumstances, even Mo Yu and Zhexiu together might not have stood a chance.

Mo Yu and Zhexiu were the two people in the world who most wanted Zhou Tong dead, and so they had made ample preparations. Without even speaking with each other, they had both chosen to use poison.

Even under these circumstances, Zhou Tong had survived and escaped the courtyard.

But Mo Yu and Zhexiu were in no rush. Zhou Tong was barely alive and his death was not far.

By the time they walked onto the street, Zhou Tong was just a little way ahead of them.

……

……

Zhou Tong had already become a person of blood. Let alone using a movement technique to charge forward, he couldn’t even walk very fast, and staggered to and fro as he forged ahead.

Blood constantly dripped onto the snow, its shade so dark as to seem like ink.

Zhexiu had vanished, but the shadows of the street seemed to slightly deform.

Mo Yu arrived behind him, her hair a little disorderly, brushing against her slightly pale face.

She said nothing, but gazed expressionlessly at his back.

She had returned to the capital for the exact purpose of dying together with Zhou Tong. She had not expected to be alive right now.

She did not care if anyone else discovered that she had returned to the capital, did not care if anyone saw.

Zhou Tong knew that she had come, and put his all into walking faster, yet it was impossible.

The snowy street was very quiet, the only sound his panting gasps.

Mo Yu gripped her broken sword and slashed down.

With a plop, Zhou Tong fell to the snow, a wound on his left thigh.

He still did not turn his head. Gasping, he struggled up and continued forward.

On the side of the street was an estate with a cinnabar gate. Sticking up from the corner of the wall was a white banner, somewhat tattered.

With a creak, the gate of this estate opened and a person walked out.

Zhou Tong knew who this estate belonged to. His bloodstained face displayed no change in emotion as he continued forward.

With another flashing sword glow, another wound appeared on his body, and he fell once more into the snow.

A cry of shock rose from the stone steps.

Zhou Tong lay collapsed in the snow, painfully coughing, blood flying everywhere.

After some time, he dragged himself up once more, an anguished wail of some beast bursting from his lips.

Mo Yu was right behind him, hand wielding sword, sword covered in his blood.

He did not turn around, only looked forward, hurriedly and painfully gasping.

The snowy street ahead was deserted, with not a single person in sight, so where did he want to go?