Chapter 383: The Daughter of the Human Deity

The cycle of fate is a suffering that all living beings find difficult to escape, but it is also a way of continuation.

To not know one's past life, ignorance is bliss; it is a continuation.

Once the past is seen, and one is powerless to change it, that is suffering.

If a person knows that what has already happened must happen again, and what has already been done must be done again, and that the person doing these things is actually the same, that they are always repeating the same mistakes, then they will feel the weight of an absurd fate pressing down upon them like the whole world, and in an instant, they will feel as though they have lost the motivation to live, never wanting to move a single inch again.

However, when that person discovers that even their own wallowing in life is part of the cycle, then they will surely feel what true, powerless despair is.

……

"Brother Laoban, tell me a story, and I'll go to sleep after I hear it."

That was back when Li Yuning was still in elementary school; she would come to the Forest Cabin before bedtime as usual, pestering Lin Ling, who seemed to have nothing to do all day, to tell her a story.

Lin Ling would almost always gladly agree to the little girl's request, though whether his answer was perfunctory depended on his true mood, and thus the quality of the story he told Li Yuning was entirely at his whim.

Of course, Li Yuning had spent some time with Lin Ling and knew this Brother Laoban's character well, so she specifically added a reminder: "I don't want to hear stories like 'Once there was a mountain, and in the mountain, there was a temple' anymore. Listening to that now doesn't make me sleepy like counting sheep; instead, the more I listen, the more annoyed I get, and I can't fall asleep."

"Don't worry, I won't tell that one today." Lin Ling looked at the little girl who had climbed onto his chair and sat on his lap, and said with a straight face, "I'll tell you a story you definitely haven't heard before."

Li Yuning: "Does that mean you'll still tell those stories that make people annoyed in the future?"

Lin Ling acted as if he hadn't heard her, ignoring Li Yuning's retort, and began to tell the story for today on his own:

It is said that there was once a young girl—yes, a little girl about your age—who was the offspring of a human deity. She was not a god, but she possessed a certain amount of magic, stronger than the average human.

She was full of a sense of justice and held a strong sense of mission and responsibility toward the human race. She believed that as the daughter of a human deity, she naturally had to shoulder the duty and obligation to guard humanity and help humans develop and grow stronger.

Although her abilities were limited, she still used her magic to help many people.

One day, while passing through a town, she discovered a vicious beast wreaking havoc there, committing evil deeds and harming the common people.

Seeing this scene of devastation, the girl immediately fought the vicious beast. Her magic was slightly superior to the beast's abilities, so she barely managed to save the living beings of that place and drove the monster out of the area.

But failing to eliminate the beast in time was a mistake the girl made. That beast had a significant background; it was the offspring of an overlord of the sea. Because of the girl's intervention, the escaped beast harbored a grudge and had made up its mind to take revenge on the girl, or even kill her.

Thus, after returning to the sea, the beast from the ocean deliberately stirred up storms, constantly destroying coastal cities and harming the humans living there, hoping to lure the justice-filled girl to its home turf.

As expected, the girl's appearance confirmed the beast's impression of her, and it watched with great excitement as the other party fell bit by bit into the trap it had set.

To protect the humans living by the sea, the girl, with her limited abilities, found that two fists could not fight four hands; she truly could not manage to protect everyone, so she had no choice but to run to the sea to negotiate with the beast, asking it to stop doing evil.

But the beast would not let it go at that. Recalling the miserable way it had been humiliated by her last time, it could not swallow this insult. It stated that it could stop, but the other party had to become its slave and obey its commands.

The girl was quite unyielding. Upon hearing the conditions proposed by the beast, she naturally refused without any hesitation, and because she sensed the mockery and malice hidden in its words toward the human race, she directly fought the beast again.

At the end of this battle, the girl lost. She was dragged into the cold seawater and never floated up again, drowning completely in the ocean.

When the human deity learned the news of his daughter, he was devastated. Every year, when it was time to pay respects to his daughter, he would go to the seaside.

Until one day, the human deity discovered that his daughter's grave had split open, and a giant bird flew out from within.

The human deity thought his daughter's grave had been desecrated and was furious, wanting to shoot the bird down. But when he saw the giant bird picking up things and throwing them into the sea, and met the bird's eyes, he suddenly realized that the giant bird was actually transformed from his dead daughter, and he was moved to tears.

To commemorate his daughter, the human deity decided to bestow his daughter's original name upon the giant bird, naming it Jingwei.

Jingwei was a particularly foolish bird, just as she had been before transforming into a bird. The Jingwei bird inherited part of the girl's will, but it was out of an obsession, not out of kindness.

It was destined to use its limited abilities to transform the sea bit by bit, to fight against great power, even if it ended the same way as last time.

Lin Ling finished the story and then looked calmly at Li Yuning, who was sitting on his lap.

Those big, confused eyes blinked, and she tentatively asked: "That's it?"

Lin Ling knew what Li Yuning was confused about, and he smiled and said: "Not all stories have an ending, and not all endings are beautiful. Isn't a story that ends so abruptly also quite interesting?"

Li Yuning, who had been enthralled, pouted and hugged Lin Ling's arm, acting like a spoiled child: "Brother Laoban, you must know the end of the story. Please tell me, otherwise I won't be able to sleep."

Hearing this, Lin Ling shook his head, patted her head, and said with a smile: "Next time you meet Sister Yu Lianyun, ask her. If she says she doesn't know, then ask her how the sister surnamed Li who used to work with her went missing, and you'll know."

Li Yuning was completely bewildered. She didn't know why she had to ask a second person for the ending of this story, but seeing Lin Ling finish his tea and lie down on the recliner with his cat to rest, she considerately stopped bothering him, obediently got off him, returned to the Real World, and went to sleep.

It is unknown how much time passed. Li Yuning's schedule could not perfectly overlap with the daily lives of the Mysterious Investigators, who often had their days and nights reversed and irregular hours, but after waiting for many days, Li Yuning finally waited for the arrival of Yu Lianyun.

The little girl couldn't wait to pull her aside and ask her for the full story of Jingwei filling the sea, and the ending she cared about most.

Yu Lianyun was also confused. She had never heard this story, and even less did she expect that Lin Laoban would say he knew the ending of the story.

Could it be that Li Yingqi, who disappeared after becoming a Guhuo Bird, had the same fate as the Jingwei in the story?