Chapter 427: The Weight of a Cup of Iced Tea

Shi Hou didn't die from the fall.

He didn't even know when the fall stopped.

His body was held up by an invisible force, hovering lightly in Mid-Air like a rootless withered leaf.

Nothing remained around him.

Mount Huaguo was gone.

There were no peach trees.

The false monkeys were gone.

There was no sunlight, no wind.

Even that tranquil, creepy sound had vanished.

Only he, a single monkey, and boundless darkness remained.

The prison dropped the pretense.

Coaxing and deceit no longer worked; he simply tore off the last disguise.

I won't let you see any scenes.

I won't explain the Principle to you.

I won't give you sweet peaches or warm breezes.

I won't give you anything.

Just stay here.

Stay until you rot.

Shi Hou initially struggled.

He flailed his limbs and shouted curses.

But there wasn't even an echo.

His voice issued from his throat only to be swallowed whole by the void, as if he had never made a sound.

He touched his own face—did it have any sensation?

It seemed to.

But it also seemed not to.

He could no longer tell.

Time had no meaning here.

He didn't know how long had passed.

There was no day or night, no hunger, no fatigue, not even a heartbeat could be heard.

Maybe it was a day.

Maybe it was a hundred years.

Maybe it was ten thousand years.

No difference.

Shi Hou's thoughts began to slow, slower and slower.

Like a puddle of mud about to dry, growing thinner and thinner, harder and harder to keep its shape.

He began to lose grasp of some things.

Was he alive or dead?

Did he exist or not?

If he felt nothing, was he still 'I'?

The boundaries of his consciousness blurred.

It was disintegrating.

It was merging bit by bit into the endless darkness.

But one thing never faded.

A single character.

Master.

It was lodged deep in Shi Hou's Divine Soul, deeper than anything could reach.

It did not glow.

It made no sound.

It did not move.

It simply existed.

Like a stone buried beneath scorched earth.

Fire couldn't melt it, water couldn't rot it, and not even this boundless void could gnaw at it in the slightest.

Shi Hou gradually gave up all other thoughts in the long darkness.

He no longer wanted to think of those scenes.

He no longer wanted to think about whatever Yao not Yao.

He no longer cared whether the Three Realms needed him.

Only this single character remained.

He focused all his remaining attention on it.

Like a person about to freeze to death clinging to the last warm iron post.

Master.

He silently recited this word in his heart.

Once.

Ten times.

One hundred times.

As he chanted, some vague thing seeped out from the cracks of this word.

Not an image.

It's a feeling.

Is it warm?

A little.

Like a winter stove that isn't burning strongly, it doesn't scald your hand, but once you get close you don't want to leave.

Is it strict?

It also is.

Like a finger tapping your head—not too light, not too heavy—it hurts but you don't bear a grudge.

Is it lonely?

A lot.

A lot, a lot.

So much that Shihou's chest felt suffocated, as if something were blocking it.

He couldn't say why, but the strongest emotion this word evoked in him was neither kindness nor authority.

It is loneliness.

It is the loneliness of someone who has been alone for a long time.

Long enough that even waiting itself became a punishment.

That person must have suffered greatly.

Shihou thought in the dark.

Then, that debris surfaced again in his mind.

An old wooden desk.

A cup of tea that had gone cold.

The thin, grayish film on the surface of the tea.

Same as last time.

But this time, there was one more thing.

Beside the teacup lay an open book.

The pages were yellowed and brittle, the edges curled up, looking like something aged.

There were words on it.

Messy handwriting.

Crooked and uneven, as if written absentmindedly, or as if the hand shook from exhaustion.

Shihou couldn't make out exactly what was written.

But he could feel it.

What those words carried was too heavy.

Fatigue.

Fatigue deep in the bone marrow.

Stubbornness.

The stubbornness that gets up after being knocked down ten thousand times.

And there is a particularly foolish thing.

Knowing it cannot be done, yet doing it anyway.

That's just foolish.

Besides foolish, there is no other word to describe it.

Who would be so stupid?

Knowing you can't win, yet still going all out.

Knowing no one will say thank you, yet still doing it.

Knowing the likely outcome is nothing, yet still pressing on.

What a twisted person must be to do something like this?

Shihou's train of thought paused here.

Then it broke.

Because he suddenly thought of a question.

The "him" in those visions.

The monkey, bloodied all over, still charging forward.

Number of losses.

Number of charges.

What's the difference between him and the person who wrote this?

Aren't they all the same sort?

They're all fools.

They're all idiots.

They're all the stubborn sort who dive in and never look back.

Something slid from the corner of Shihou's eye.

He didn't even notice.

That drop of fluid left his sunken eye socket and fell into the endless darkness.

A crimson-gold light particle.

Tiny, incredibly tiny.

Like a spark, like a star that hasn't had time to brighten yet.

It floated in absolute void, flickering twice faintly.

The darkness couldn't swallow it.

Shihou wiped his face; his palm was damp.

He didn't want to ask that question anymore.

What "Does the world need me?"

Who cares.

What's the point of worrying about so much?

He was thinking about something else.

The person sitting behind the broken table.

The tea had gone completely cold, yet it sat there untouched.

What does it feel like to drink cold tea alone?

Shihou knew.

Bitter on the tongue, astringent going down, and chillingly cool in the stomach.

How many cups of cold tea has that person drunk?

How many years has he sat behind that broken table?

What is he waiting for?

No.

Who is he waiting for?

He…… is he still waiting?

That thought exploded like a muffled thunderclap in Shihou's mind.

Deep in his chest, that dim, nearly extinguished crimson-gold light point——

Thud.

It jumped once.

Not the weak, feeble twitch from before.

It was a fierce, all‑out beat.

Like a heartbeat.

Like a drumbeat.

Like something that had lain dormant in his body for ten thousand years, finally awakened by a single word.

Shihou shuddered all over.

His scattered consciousness, unknown how long it had been dispersed, was like shattered glass scooped up from the ground and snapped back together, click‑click.

His fingers clenched.

His teeth were clenched tight.

Each jump of the light point made his fragmented awareness solidify a bit more.

The image of that glass of iced tea surfaced again.

Cold.

No one drank it.

Lone and abandoned on the empty table.

Shihou's lips moved.

His voice rose from the depths of his throat.

Hoarse.

Rough.

Like a rusted knife being forcibly drawn from its sheath.

In the boundless dark void, a withered, frail stone monkey spoke.

"Whoever you are."

"Whoever I am."

"Don't you dare keep waiting—"

"I've come to find you."

The crimson‑gold light point jumped again.

Brighter than before.

Hotter.

Shihou felt that warmth spread from his chest outward, flowing through his limbs, his fingertips, and his empty skull.

Not much.

Only a thread.

But it was enough for him to clench his fist again in this darkness where who knows how many tens of thousands of years have died.

Deep in the darkness, something moved slightly.

It wasn't that sound.

It was another kind of…… an older tremor.

As if some slumbering existence had been half-awoken by those words.

Then, far, far above the stone monkey's head, a crack split the void.

A thread of light seeped in through the crack.

It wasn't reddish-gold.

It was white.

Ice-cold white.

Accompanied by a completely unfamiliar woman's voice——

"……Abnormal fluctuation detected. The target's spiritual form did not dissipate as expected. Initiate……second plan."