Chapter 450

Soon, the two finished their report and mentioned that they would let Lin Qing undergo a second awakening half an hour later before leaving.

Their steps were very agile.

The Efficiency of the Concluding Assembly is still quite high.

It cannot be otherwise; being slow and dragging would invite misfortune if the Heavenly Punishers came knocking.

"You haven't undergone awakening before? Didn't you see him back then?" Tang Luo asked.

Awakening after the first time requires the assistance of the President.

"I have awakened, but the method was entering a pool," Zhu Bajie said, "I also don't know what connection I have with this President."

"Could it be his blood or something like that?" Ao Yulie said.

The blood of the strong, to the weak, can be a deadly poison or a miraculous elixir that enhances strength and regenerates flesh from bone.

"Hard to say. Actually, after I became fully clear-headed later, those original memories were not as clear as before," Zhu Bajie said.

"That's also true..." Ao Yulie nodded.

As one truly awakens, the original host's various experiences become like movies and books one has watched, the feeling of "this is me" gradually detaching, making it impossible to empathize again.

To be honest, not everyone is like this.

Many people, even after becoming clear-headed and recalling who they are, still fall into past emotions and cannot extricate themselves.

After all, just reading books or watching movies can evoke a flood of emotions.

Let alone having personally experienced them.

Ao Yulie, Zhu Bajie, and others are also of firm will, and only at the end do those influences completely fade.

As for Tang Luo, with a heart like steel and a nature like blazing fire, he rejected those things from the start, becoming purely an observer.

The three spoke while approaching the cylindrical pillar.

This cylindrical pillar is two meters in diameter, with two-thirds of it wrapped in steel, and the remaining part made of transparent glass.

Inside, it is filled with an unknown transparent liquid.

The President of the Concluding Assembly floats within the pillar.

It is half of an adult male, with black hair like waterweed floating near the head, covering the face, making appearance indistinguishable.

It is called "half" because the portion below the waist has already vanished.

The left arm is also missing from the elbow down.

The three stood before the pillar, gazing at this President of the Concluding Assembly for a while.

Tang Luo extended his hand and lightly tapped the glass twice: "Are you there? I have something I want to ask you."

The floating black hair suddenly stilled, spread out, and a voice came forth: "How is it you? Long time no see..."

"Huh?"

"Hui'an?!"

"Li Muzha!"

Everyone's reaction threw back the first half of this person's words.

Upon reaching a certain realm, when people recognize others, they no longer rely on appearance, unless possessing special "vision" that can see through illusion to perceive essence.

Many people's transformation arts and divine abilities are of a level where truth and falsehood are indistinguishable—Tang Luo, who only knows how to fight and kill, is an exception.

Transformation divine abilities can conceal appearance, but sometimes the aura cannot be fully hidden.

Thus, people mostly distinguish others by aura—well, it sounds like the howl of a heavenly dog.

Before this President of the Concluding Assembly spoke, Tang Luo and the others had not realized at all that this would be an acquaintance.

Only when he slowly lifted his head, the waterweed-like black hair spreading apart to reveal a face that seemed quite unfamiliar, did everyone momentarily fail to confirm that the person before them was Li Muzha.

Li Muzha is most often called Muzha.

Second son of the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li Jing, and also the Hui'an Wanderer under Guanyin's seat.

The two colossal entities of the Heavenly Court and the Thunder Sound Temple of Ling Mountain have connections far deeper than imagined.

Someone like Muzha can be considered a microcosm of the "Two Teachings."

"Is it really you?" Ao Yulie asked with a hint of uncertainty.

"It is me." Li Muzha lifted his head to gaze at the three, his main focus on Tang Luo.

"Hiss..." Zhu Bajie felt a sudden toothache, yet also rejoiced that he had not acted rashly.

Li Muzha's strength is not weak; he has ended up like this, and I was fortunate to have kept a low profile back then—if I had acted rashly, I would surely have suffered greatly.

Or perhaps, this fellow sustained his injuries during the shattering of the Mountain-Sea Realm and is now clinging to life?

"How did you end up like this?" Zhu Bajie asked, looking at Li Muzha.

Tang Luo and the others have had little contact with Li Muzha, but Zhu Bajie's relationship with him is somewhat deeper.

Regardless, both of us once mingled in the Heavenly Court.

One was demoted to the lower realms and eventually became the Envoy of the Pure Altar; the other is a nominal disciple of Guanyin, becoming the Hui'an Wanderer.

Unlike Zhu Bajie's traditional "taking refuge in the Buddha," Li Muzha did not sever ties with the Heavenly Court; he "holds dual offices," and the symbolic significance of his Hui'an Wanderer identity is greater.

Although his contact with Tang Luo and others is primarily as the Hui'an Wanderer, not as the "Second Prince."

Li Muzha raised his hand: "This appearance, is it hard to look at?"

"Not bad." Zhu Bajie replied dryly.

"What is going on with this world? Were you injured during the shattering of the Mountain-Sea Realm?" Tang Luo asked directly.

"The Mountain-Sea Realm, it truly shattered." Li Muzha sank inward, his face—slightly better than bare bones—showing an expression of reminiscence.

"Thump-thump."

Tang Luo tapped the glass cover in front of him: "Stop mourning the spring and autumn, hurry up and say something useful—if you have any enemies, we'll deal with them for you."

"Hmph."

Li Muzha smiled. "Haven't seen you in years, Holy Monk — your temperament still hasn't changed."

"Since you know, stop beating around the bush," Tang Luo said.

"Since the Holy Monk could come here, it proves you've already discovered the clues of this world. That's right — this world isn't entirely real; it's illusory, a false world situated between life and death," Li Muzha said.

Tang Luo looked thoughtful. "No wonder I felt those celestial soldiers didn't even amount to a wisp of remnant soul — they're all already dead, right?"

That feeling had nothing to do with strength.

It wasn't because their strength was weak that he judged they didn't even amount to a remnant soul.

"Correct," Li Muzha said. "One hundred thousand celestial soldiers — all dead!"

"This world was formed by Father using his Thirty-Three Heavens Golden Relic Seven-Treasure Exquisite Pagoda, combined with the lingering obsessions of the one hundred thousand celestial soldiers that had not dissipated," Li Muzha said.

"What about you?" Tang Luo pressed his hand against the glass, looking at Li Muzha, repeating, "You?"

"Me?" Li Muzha said. "I've naturally already died as well."

The Li Muzha before his eyes, just like those celestial soldiers that appeared, didn't even amount to a wisp of remnant soul — it was a stretch to even call it that!

Merely a "single lingering thought" living in this specially formed world, and could only live within this world.

The difference was, those celestial soldiers' thoughts weren't like Li Muzha's — able to maintain their wits from when alive; as time passed, they gradually turned into some kind of mechanism.

Their existence was a component part of this world.

When the celestial soldiers vanished, that part of the world ceased to exist; death descended, devouring everything.

Why would a black tide that devoured everything, utterly erasing everything, appear after the celestial soldiers died?

This was the reason.

"Because the Mountains and Seas Realm shattered?" Zhu Bajie asked.

"Probably..." Li Muzha said. "Back then the Mountains and Seas Realm suddenly suffered a cataclysm; the whole thing shattered. Who knows how many divine immortals were either heavily injured or died in that heaven-and-earth upheaval where no one escaped unscathed."

Tang Luo was among the particularly unlucky batch.

But he wasn't the most unlucky — the most unlucky died directly.

Even Li Muzha might not count as the most unlucky — at least he doesn't count as truly dead right now.

"So that means Li Jing is here too?" Tang Luo asked.

Since this world was formed by Li Jing using the pagoda combined with the celestial soldiers' obsessions, he himself was most likely here as well.

"Yeah," Li Muzha said. "It's precisely because of Father that I became like this."

"... You're not Nezha," Zhu Bajie couldn't help saying.

The Li family's father-son discord was known throughout the Mountains and Seas Realm.

Tang Luo had once planned to pick up his pen and write something like "In the Father's Name," "Dad Hit Me Again," "Father Kind, Son Filial" — but after researching, he ultimately gave up.

On one hand, many things everyone already knew; the spread was quite wide.

On the other hand, some things were indeed rather dark — not like "My Little Sister..." which was mainly teasing.

Incidentally, all the way until the Mountains and Seas Realm shattered, no Liu Yanchang ever appeared.

Nor did anyone have any chance to run up to Yang Jian, that cold-faced man, and say: "Your sister was slept with by a mortal!" — to see what his expression would do.

Though Tang Luo had vaguely prophesied it at the end of "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute" — this was also one of the reasons Yang Jian chased Tang Luo for 108,000 li.

Back to the Li family's father-son discord.

Everyone knew, but this discord referred to the third son Nezha and Li Jing — not anyone else.

Including the Lady Earth-Surging encountered during the Journey to the West — yes, Li Jing's adopted daughter, that white rat spirit — she didn't have any discord with Li Jing either.

The eldest son Jinzha and second son Muzha were even more "father stern, son filial" toward Li Jing.

Li Jing was that kind of traditional patriarch — his word was law; besides Nezha, Jinzha and Muzha were also model filial sons.

If Li Jing said go east, they wouldn't go west.

"Heh." Li Muzha chuckled. "If I were Nezha, perhaps this situation wouldn't have happened. Surviving on remnant thoughts — I'm already sick of it."

"Wait," Ao Yulie said. "If going by the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li's temperament, this world should actually be unchanging, right..."

Li Jing constructed this false world using the pagoda and the celestial soldiers' obsessions; the greater likelihood was that the world would remain forever stuck in an ancient agrarian feudal society.

Extremely difficult to develop into the modern society Tang Luo and the others saw.

"Samsara, that's all," Li Muzha said. "In a few more years, it'll turn back into 'Heaven, Earth, Monarch, Parent, Teacher' — ruler ruler, minister minister, father father, son son."

"And..." Li Muzha paused, a cruel look appearing on his face. "Since I've become like this, Father himself isn't actually doing too well either."

The implication: the reason this false world could 'develop' to today's extent, he had a share of 'merit' in it.

Of course, this kind of merit, to the patriarch Li Jing, was definitely not good news.

Simply put, over the long years, Li Muzha grew weary, had enough of this completely rotten false world constructed entirely according to Li Jing's will.

Finally he chose, like Nezha, to slap his old man in the face.

Father-son drama.

This is a true father-son drama.