Chapter 256: You are me? Then who am I?

"I know your temperament, and I also know how much bitterness you have endured along this journey, how many cold words and insults you have suffered, and how much groundless abuse and slander you have faced."

"It is precisely because I know that I believe you can be reborn and reshaped, even though this process is very painful."

"I also know that I should not have given you such a cruel environment, and that I should have tried my best to make you happier."

"But Tang An, please believe that I have truly done my utmost to make it up to you and give you the best life possible."

"I also wanted you to grow up happily and without worries. It is just that my personal power was too weak; what I wanted to do and what I could do were, in the end, far too different..."

Tang An continued to look at Pilanpo; she thought she should be shedding tears, yet she did not have a single tear.

"I do not blame you." She had nothing to blame Pilanpo for, nor did she have the qualifications to blame her.

Pilanpo's pupils trembled slightly, her eyes brimming with tears.

"I actually... wish you would blame me."

"If you blamed me, your heart might feel a little better."

Tang An stopped speaking and continued to look at the bed curtains, leaving only silence.

Pilanpo did not speak again either; after she finished wiping Tang An's body, she carried the water away.

As she left, Tang An looked at her back.

When she was a child and fell ill, that was exactly how her grandmother used to wipe her body.

Clearly, just a few days ago, she had been willing to risk being controlled by a Heart Demon just to see her grandmother one more time. Yet now that her grandmother was right before her eyes, it was as if an uncrossable chasm lay between them.

So close, and yet so far.

After Pilanpo's figure turned and left, Tang An saw the figures of Sun Wukong, Yang Jian, and Nezha outside the door.

They were all outside, all so anxiously worried about her.

She also wanted to recover as before, she also wanted to get up and continue the journey to the west, to smash Rulai's face.

But she truly had no strength left; whether in body or mind, she did not have a shred of strength remaining.

Thinking and thinking, Tang An closed her eyes; one could say she fell asleep, or one could say her body reached its limit and she passed out.

"Master..."

The three of them walked toward Tang An, but Tang An could no longer see them.

She was now at a critical point between life and death; she could no longer hear anything being said outside.

In a daze, Tang An's body seemed to drift into a space.

It was not the underworld; it was more like the moment the chaos first opened, filled with clouds across the sky.

Tang An was enveloped by the clouds, feeling a comfort and warmth radiating from her soul.

When she went to examine this space further, a woman stood in the air not far in front of her, dressed in gorgeous and graceful light blue robes, her skirt and ribbons fluttering without wind.

Her appearance, while perhaps not the most beautiful in the world, could be considered a beauty detached from the secular, one that ordinary people could not reach.

Her eyes were filled with divinity, and her expression was a faint smile, incomparably calm and gentle.

Her temperament was a kind of gentleness that almost encompassed all things, just like the clouds, yet it also hid a mysterious aura.

"Who are you?"

Why would she see such a person at the moment of life and death?

Why did she feel that the other person was so strange, yet inexplicably familiar, as if there were a resonance from the depths of her soul?

"I am you."

Tang An was not angry; she had no emotions at all.

"You are me, then who am I?"

"You are Tang An."

Tang An's eyelashes trembled, as if she had grasped a feeling that was profound and ethereal.

"This game of chess was set up for you, wasn't it?"

"Taishang Laojun, Lishan Laomu, Zhenyuanzi, Zhao Gongming, and that... Tongtian Jiaozhu."

"They got close to me and took special care of me all because of you, right?"

The woman had a faint smile on her lips, "I am you, and you are Tang An."

"You and I are a Causality of one life, but you, are only you."

She waved her hand, creating a screen of light, letting Tang An see a scene.

Nezha was sitting on the steps at the entrance of the room, while Sun Wukong and Yang Jian were leaning against a pillar, one of them drinking and looking troubled.

"I know, this matter is a heavier blow to you than anything else."

"But no matter who you are, no matter what your origin is. The one we have known, from beginning to end, is you."

"You are not perfect, you get scared, you provoke others, and you also act like Xiaotian Quan, bullying people by relying on the influence of the three of us."

As he spoke, Nezha laughed. But as he laughed, tears welled up in his eyes.

Scenes of the past floated before his eyes: how he first met Tang An, and how the master and disciples traveled together to the west.

Along the way, they bullied so many demons, and even caused all the Buddhas of Lingshan to become pregnant with Magic Treasures.

They could sing to the moon, and they could hide in the bustling city. Only she, every time she drank a mouthful of strong liquor, would become hopelessly drunk.

Gradually, they went from distrust to accepting her as their youngest master. Then from master and disciple, to friends, to family...

It was clearly so joyful along the way, how did it suddenly become like this?

"I only know Tang An, that unique Tang An who never asks about her origins."

"But I seem to have said it too late, you cannot hear..."

Tang An saw this scene, tears rolling in her eyes; she finally recovered the emotions a person should have.

Sun Wukong jumped onto the railing, "Sigh, it is my fault for not protecting Master well."

"It is my fault for not realizing sooner that the methods of Western Heaven could be so sinister."

Yang Jian did not speak, only drinking wine one mouthful after another.

He had lost too much in this life, living a life beyond his own control; yet he never expected that, having finally encountered a little master who was more than family, a little master full of sunlight, she would now be tortured by Lingshan to the point of losing all will to live.

"Lingshan, you truly are something else."

Cold killing intent surged in Yang Jian's eyes, his emotions on the verge of exploding at any moment.

And the mutual bond formed by Tang An using her body as a lock with the three of them had also reached the verge of being on the brink of snapping.

If the bond were to truly snap, what would the consequences be?

Unknown.

But it would certainly be a storm that the Three Realms would remember forever.

The vision vanished, and Tang An's consciousness withdrew.

She was very happy; they were so good, and they were people who treated her with sincere hearts.

Not asking about her origins, not asking about Causality, only acknowledging her as a person.

"You, have you ever fought against Heaven?"

"I have; my body perished and my Dao dissipated, yet it was a case of one rising as the other fell, with no clear winner or loser."

"To fight against Heaven, how should one fight?"

The woman smiled faintly and corrected Tang An, "You are obsessed with fighting against Heaven, and thus you are trapped by the obsession of the three words 'fight against Heaven'."

"How do you know that fighting against Heaven is not Heaven's own intent? How do you know that what you consider a win is not Heaven winning?"

"If you are trapped by the word 'obsession', limiting yourself and confining your heart, that is truly a defeat beyond all hope."

"Moreover, in fighting against Heaven, winning or losing is of no importance; rather, by completing what you wish to do, regardless of whether Heaven wins or not, you, however, will certainly win."

Tang An seemed to receive a massive amount of information entering her brain all at once, and she clutched her temples in pain.

"I am me, I am not me."

"Winning is losing, losing is winning."

"No, I am me; no matter who I am, I am me."

"I am Tang An, I am Tang An, I am Tang An..."