Chapter 487: Who doesn't like power? It

Zhenmo Pass.

Tang An's Primordial Spirit returned to her body, and she opened her eyes.

Nezha stood to her front right, leaning against a pillar, watching her intently.

When Tang An opened her eyes, Nezha immediately looked away, lowering his head in a guilty manner, his cheeks slightly flushed.

"Little face, you're turning into a red apple," Tang An said, not feeling the least bit bashful.

"Since your master is so outstanding and so good-looking, it is only natural that you cannot help but admire your master's magnificent beauty. Your master understands, I understand it all."

Nezha closed his eyes, unable to bear looking; they say a youth's blush is more eloquent than any words.

But when it came to her, it was simply a waste of breath. Even if there were any pink bubbles of romance, she would have pricked them all to pieces.

Forget it, he was used to it; let it be.

"Where are Wukong and Yang Jian?" Tang An asked.

Nezha pointed to the roof.

The scene shifted, and Tang An and Nezha flew up to the attic.

Tang An plopped down and then lay flat like a starfish, wavering between rotting away in idleness and going out to commit robbery.

"What is wrong with Master?" Yang Jian noticed Tang An's unusual mood.

Tang An sighed, "I just want to be a salted fish who rots in idleness, eating and drinking for free while getting paid; why is that so hard?"

"Huh?" Yang Jian was puzzled. Eating and drinking for free while getting paid? That didn't sound easy to begin with.

Tang An sat up, "I might be the new Heavenly Dao in the future."

"What?!!"

Nezha, Yang Jian, and Sun Wukong were all shocked at once; how was she going to become the new Heavenly Dao again?

Tang An roughly recounted to the three of them the ins and outs of her Primordial Spirit leaving her body this time to visit the Heavenly Court, Doushuai Palace, and Nuwa.

"Tell me, why am I so unlucky? Do you know that a worker's wish is to never have to work, yet still have endless money to spend, and freedom that even the wind cannot block?"

"I have money now, I have leisure now, and I was just one step away from reaching the peak of a life of lying flat. But then, capital suddenly tells me I have to work for free for the rest of my life?"

"Isn't this a global joke?"

"Besides, I always thought I would definitely die; it was just a matter of dying sooner or later. I had long prepared myself for a heroic sacrifice and Reincarnation."

"And this is it? They won't even let me die?"

After her rant, Tang An realized that Sun Wukong and the others were all looking at her with serious, complex, and slightly angry expressions.

Nezha frowned, anxiously grabbing Tang An's arm. "What do you mean you knew you would definitely die?"

"What are you hiding from us?"

Tang An covered her mouth; sure enough, her mouth was too fast, always prone to losing its brakes, and her brain simply couldn't keep up.

Sun Wukong and Yang Jian also came over, clearly needing Tang An to explain exactly what was going on.

"Uh..."

Tang An scratched her hair, "Haven't you noticed?"

"Whether it is my mother or Pilanpo, no matter how the process changes, they all follow the rules of Causality and Reincarnation."

"After Susu died, she became Bai Suzhen, and only after Bai Suzhen's life ended did she become my mother, Tang Zhenzhu."

"Although Pilanpo was an immortal, she also fell in the battle of Lingshan, thus reincarnating to become my grandmother."

"And the reason I became me might also require following the laws of the cycle of Causality."

"In other words, perhaps only through my death after my Merit is complete can I trade everything for the mortal life I want."

"It is precisely because of this that I have been desperately earning Merit. I just want to be able to trade it for my mother and grandmother to be well after I die."

In other words, the moment she saw through Pilanpo's cycle of life and death, she had already seen through her own.

In the middle of the story, she saw her own inevitable end and had long since made all the preparations.

Such an ending might be hard for those close to her to accept. But for her, it was extremely, extremely good.

Therefore, she had never told Sun Wukong and the others about this.

If she hadn't been so annoyed today that her head ached, she wouldn't have let it slip and said it all out.

After Tang An finished speaking, Sun Wukong, Yang Jian, and Nezha all fell into a deep silence.

They could not accept that Tang An would fall. But as the people who knew her best, they also knew deep down that this was what Tang An was looking forward to and what would make her happiest.

"Oh my, oh my~"

"What's wrong, what's wrong? I'm perfectly fine here."

"And what we are talking about now is that my wish might not come true, and I might have to become some broken Heavenly Dao."

"So, I have a new plan; do you want to hear it?"

Nezha looked at Tang An seriously, "You don't want to become the Heavenly Dao."

"Of course."

"You... just want to abandon us and start over?"

The question filled Tang An with overwhelming guilt, "Oh my, what kind of talk is that?"

"With your current cultivation, you are almost as long-lived as heaven and earth. If I fall and enter Reincarnation, can't you just come and find me?"

"And what if it's not the same?" Nezha dared not think, dared not imagine what he would be like if, after losing Tang An and finally finding her reincarnation, he was met with a pair of unfamiliar eyes.

He would... probably go mad.

Tang An could not look Nezha in the eye and guiltily rubbed her nose.

Stupid mouth, why couldn't you keep it shut? Now look at this.

"I was speaking in hypotheticals, and there is a high probability I might become the Heavenly Dao; once I become the Heavenly Dao, I won't be able to die even if I want to, right?"

Nezha stopped speaking and instead turned and flew away.

"Hiss..." Tang An wanted to chase after him, but she didn't know what she would say if she caught up.

"He wouldn't shed golden beans, would he?" She looked at Yang Jian and Sun Wukong.

Sun Wukong's expression was complex; he sighed, said nothing, and went to the side to drink.

Yang Jian sighed with heartache, "Master, do you really have no will to survive at all? Not even for our sake?"

Tang An felt even more guilty, "I..."

Yang Jian signaled that she didn't need to say more, "Master, if that day truly comes, Yang Jian will respect Master's choice. But... that is truly cruel."

With that said, Yang Jian also left to go calm down.

Tang An looked like a child who had done something wrong; she pursed her lips, not knowing what to do.

She had never said it because she was afraid of this current situation. She also knew that it was too cruel to the three of them to put it that way.

But she couldn't control herself; ever since she realized the truth that she had lived her whole life in a Truman Show, the breath in her heart had already dissipated.

The setbacks she experienced afterward only made her increasingly exhausted.

From the moment Pilanpo died in front of her while singing her a nursery rhyme, she no longer had the strength to go on living in this man-eating world.

The word "death," to her, felt more like a release.

She knew her mental state was problematic, and she even had self-destructive tendencies. Because whenever she was severely injured, she would experience a twisted pleasure in tormenting herself.

Yet on the surface, she seemed no different than she had been in the past.

Or rather, in her daily life, she herself could not perceive the abnormality of her emotions. She still laughed and cried just like a normal person.

"Wouldn't it be good to become the Heavenly Dao and rule over all living beings in the Three Realms?" Jin Chanzi appeared behind Tang An at some unknown moment.

"Is ruling over all living beings in the Three Realms really good?" Tang An countered.

"Power is what everyone seeks their entire life; even gods, demons, ghosts, or you yourself are no exception," Jin Chanzi replied bluntly.

"Yes," Tang An smiled, "Who doesn't like power? It is not only a tonic, but a great tonic at that."

But then Tang An asked another question, "But should the Heavenly Dao really be above all living beings, ruling over them?"