Chapter 495: I Just Want You to Live a Carefree Life, Nothing More

Tang An looked straight into Nezha's eyes, seeing in his gaze nervousness, caution, longing, and a readiness to be hurt by her words.

That look was so complex, so complex that Tang An could not bear to speak.

"My emotional threads... have truly been severed."

Nezha's eyes widened, his look of disbelief carrying an anger that was hard to accept.

"Who was it?"

"Was it the Heavenly Dao? Or Nuwa? Or Tongtian Jiaozhu?"

He could even accept Tang An not loving him, but he could not accept Tang An being manipulated to this extent, becoming a puppet whose very love and affection were controlled!

Tang An reached out to catch a snowflake; her calm, water-like mood formed a sharp contrast with Nezha's anger.

"Me."

"What?" Nezha gasped, unable to believe it.

Tang An gently stroked the Flower Ornament between her brows, the mark of one about to become a Great Dao Saint.

"On the day I obtained this mark, I had a dream."

"I dreamed that I was struggling bitterly in this world, but in the end, due to Fate, I still became that high and mighty, yet endlessly desolate and sorrowful Heavenly Dao."

"So, I calculated one game after another for myself, repeatedly restarting a repetitive life, searching for new variables."

Tang An leaned against the roof ridge, the tea in her hand turning into wine.

"In those repeated lives, I also found the most suitable helpers."

"Namely Wukong, Yang Jian, and you."

"We were all resisting; although our methods of resistance differed, the will and conviction in our bones were the same."

"Therefore, that time was also when I was closest to success. Just a little more, just a little more and I could have cast off my Fate and not had to become the broken Heavenly Dao."

"But the variable within that variable was that you and I came to know and guard each other, becoming confidants, becoming a bond, becoming the most important people in each other's lives."

Tang An took a bitter sip of wine, "Love is truly the most terrifying thing in the world."

"It can control a person's reason, control a person's thoughts, and control a person into easily going mad, becoming obsessed, suffering, and feeling joy."

"I originally thought that as long as two people were firm in their resolve, love could overcome ten thousand difficulties."

"Yet in the final battle, we fell for the dying counterattack of the Primordial Demon and both fell into a deep sleep. Interfered with by the Primordial Demon, we spent two lifetimes in the Heart Demon Extreme Realm, intertwined with love and hate."

"The so-called unbreakable trust, under the weight of repeated tests of human nature and various unavoidable circumstances and unsolvable misunderstandings, eventually crumbled to pieces."

"I thought that being together was the beginning of happiness, but it turned into a nightmare of endless entanglement that was hard to cut away."

"Until I saw with my own eyes you killing my grandmother and mother, my hatred for you also reached its peak."

"The Primordial Demon took the initiative to wake us up, but after waking, it was time for the two of us to turn our blades against each other."

After hearing all this, Nezha asked Tang An only one thing.

"In the dream, did I hurt you?"

Tang An turned her head to look at Nezha with surprise and complexity, "You..."

"Did I?"

Tang An shook her head, "No, it was I who killed you with my own hands, and in the end, you were still humming the song my grandmother used to hum to me, waking me up completely."

The look she gave Nezha was full of guilt.

Nezha, however, let out a sigh of relief and murmured, "That's good, that's good."

If that dream were real, if he had truly hurt Tang An, he feared he would have gone to seek revenge on himself.

Tang An took another sip of wine and continued, "And I, all my hatred turned into guilt; in order to resurrect you, I lost my reason."

"I merged my body into the Heavenly Dao and completely annihilated the Primordial Demon. And I reversed the Time Law to resurrect you."

"But the moment I became the Heavenly Dao, it meant that I had still failed."

"And it was after that, whether out of guilt or out of a bloody lesson, that I personally severed my own emotional threads and reset that chessboard."

Speaking of this, Tang An could not help but smile.

"If that dream is true, then for the sake of freedom and the life I have consistently pursued, I have truly paid too much and lost too much."

"But even so, the probability of me winning is still just as slim."

Is it possible that the so-called Fixed Number is truly something that, no matter how much effort one makes throughout their life, can never be changed?

After hearing everything Tang An said, Nezha simply held her hand silently and swapped the wine flask in her hand for a lollipop.

"I have long since stopped caring whether the two of us can achieve a positive result."

"I only want you to be happy and live a carefree life, nothing more."

They both knew perfectly well that what they sought was so simple.

Yet the simplest things were the hardest.

Tang An smiled, but her eyes turned red.

Nezha was the same; the corners of his eyes were crimson, his gaze full of heartache.

When the two looked at each other, they smiled in unison.

In fact, whether Tang An had emotional threads or not was no longer important; what Nezha needed was just an opportunity to speak everything out loud.

Regardless of whether Tang An had romantic love for him, he would always be the same toward her.

After all, for Nezha, as long as Tang An was still alive, as long as he could stay by her side and face everything with her, he was already very satisfied.

Anything else, he no longer hoped for.

Inside the pavilion at Zhenmo Pass.

Yang Jian and Sun Wukong, who were drinking by the window, could not help but sigh and shake their heads after hearing the conversation between the two.

"Brother Yang Jian, are we doing the right thing or the wrong thing?" Sun Wukong and Yang Jian could both vaguely guess that behind Tang An's all-out effort to clear out the demon race, she must have had some plan in mind.

And Wukong had always followed his heart in all things, which was why he discussed with Yang Jian to persuade Nezha to confess his thoughts to Tang An.

Exchanging it for peace of mind, so as not to leave behind regrets for the future.

Yet upon learning the truth behind Tang An severing her threads of affection with her own hands, Sun Wukong feared it would have a great psychological impact on Nezha.

Yang Jian, meanwhile, poured wine slowly, appearing very composed.

"I believe in our third brother; he is no longer the reckless youth he once was."

"Perhaps it is better for him to know these things than not to know them at all."

Sun Wukong drank a cup of wine, but for a moment, he could not make up his mind.

"Brother Yang Jian, how much truth do you think there is in what Master said?"

Yang Jian smiled, "Half true and half false, I suppose."

"Oh?"

"The fact that we could hear it means Master did not intend to hide it. This also means that besides us, there might be others who could hear it too."

"For example..." Yang Jian glanced upward, and Sun Wukong immediately understood.

However, that was not what Sun Wukong wanted to know, "Old Sun is asking whether Master's matter of the threads of affection is true or false."

Yang Jian opened his fan, thought for a moment, and said, "It should be true."

"Oh? Why?"

"Whether in the future or the present, whether it be our third brother, Kong Xuan, Jin Chanzi, or others, Master has never felt the stirrings of a young girl's heart for anyone."

"Having no romantic love between man and woman is perhaps not a bad thing for Master."