Chapter 111.2
Gu Xiyu was arrogant. Even if he was not as powerful as he was, he was strong enough and had the greatest power in this fortress. Wen Xinghan had been at the top in his old world and had even been able to run amok in different worlds after breaking away, so he had a similar arrogance etched in his bones.
He used to think that after all this time, the relationship between the two of them was a little better than before, so he would occasionally lose his temper whenever Gu Xiyu gave him a cold attitude.
But his little temper soon subsided.
It started when he complained to the svelte man outside his prison: “Has your commander always had such an attitude? Don’t you find him difficult to work with?”
The svelte man was more talkative than Gu Xiyu, and he patiently answered his question, “No, Commander Gu is actually quite nice and is very kind to his colleagues in the fortress.”
Wen Xinghan didn’t see it. He curled his lips and snickered, “Then he must be furious, did he get beaten up? I wonder which warrior dared to do that to him. He must have whipped them to death, right?”
Unexpectedly, the svelte man looked at him with a strange smile, and only after half a second did he push up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and while withdrawing his eyes, he said, “It is true that he was a warrior, but that warrior was not punished. Isn’t he standing in front of me now?”
Wen Xinghan froze, and he soon realized what the other man meant.
It turned out that the seizures had gotten worse the last few times, so Gu Xiyu entered his prison to prevent him from hitting it with his power and acted as an opponent for him to vent his madness. Although Gu Xiyu had changed the data parameters of this prison system and restricted the spiritual power in the space to slightly suppress his powers (Wen Xinghan’s)—a solution that had been put forward to control the strength of his attacks during his seizures—but when it was against an opponent from the higher realm like him, no matter how strong Gu Xiyu was, he would more or less suffer injuries.
It was just that he would always let the attacks fall where they could be covered by clothing. This time, he accidentally got hit in the face.
Wen Xinghan sat in the corner of his cell for a long time in contemplation. He did not sleep and stayed like that until the next day. When the familiar sound of boots on the ground rang out outside the cell again, he immediately looked up.
Gu Xiyu, still wearing the same uniform he had worn for years, walked past with a black, intimidating whip pinned to his waist, his eyes glancing at him with no emotion. However, he was wearing a black cloak today, the collar of which was high enough to cover the corners of his injured mouth when viewed from a side angle.
He habitually clocked In at the console, and Wen Xinghan’s Adam’s apple rolled, not holding back the question, “Actually, you have a very good system in this prison, and you can kill the prisoners at any time after capturing them, so why doesn’t the fortress do that?”
Gu Xiyu’s eyes were a little puzzled. “The fortress doesn’t exist to forcibly destroy you, it just doesn’t want you to continue causing trouble outside. Unless you go too far and threaten the safety of the entire fortress and time-space realm, then….”
Wen Xinghan could feel that the latter half of his sentence carried a bit of a threatening tone.
There was a long silence before he heard the man outside the cell continue, “No matter who it is, every life created and born has its own existence and meaning, and should not be treated so casually. Of course those who trample on the meaning of their existence don’t need pity.”
As he said this, he suddenly gave him a small, cold smile: “For example, in my opinion, the evil things you have done in the past are one of the ways you have trampled on yourself.”
He left after leaving these sharp words, leaving Wen Xinghan alone in his prison to contemplate.
No one had ever said such things to him. In his world, life was only about strength and weakness, and the weak deserve to be trampled and eliminated. Even his birth was unblessed, and his parents hated him, so he was forced to wander around and struggle from a young age.
He was also disgusted with his existence several times, and in that chaotic world, he could not find the meaning of his existence.
After that, whenever Wen Xinghan looked at Gu Xiyu again, he felt that this normally obnoxious-looking guy had changed. It was as if, on closer inspection, one could find the softness that he had deliberately hidden beneath his coldness, the temperament that was different from his rigid appearance, and the positive outlook on life that came through as he talked.
Gu Xiyu may have learned from the svelte man that he knew how he had helped him during his seizures, and from that day on, there was a subtle, imperceptible change in their relationship. Mostly because Wen Xinghan was no longer so hostile towards him, nor did he say harsh things to deliberately provoke him, and when he looked at their relationship from a different perspective, he unexpectedly found the man to be quite pleasant at times.
Gu Xiyu didn’t try to hide how he was helping him, and he even compared the data of each of his episodes and found that his recovery time was shortening. According to Gu Xiyu’s projections, it might not be long before the power in his body is stabilized, or perhaps reach a point where he can control it through his efforts and he will no longer become like a wild horse out of control.
Gu Xiyu said to him, “You just indulge yourself too much.”
The words that suddenly came to Bu Tianhan, the soul fragment in the cultivation world, turned out to be something that Gu Xiyu had said to the great demon.
At that time, they were arguing about his past while growing up, and he received more contempt from Gu Xiyu, “Who hasn’t experienced darkness and met a few disgusting people as they grew up?”
For the first time, he saw a depth in Gu Xiyu’s eyes that he could not understand, as if he were sinking into a very unpleasant memory.
After a while, Gu Xiyu withdrew his gaze and said calmly, “I have also experienced something similar to what you encountered, but I didn’t share your thoughts of revenge and destroying the world.”
“The body and mind are your own, you have to be the one who can control them, not be controlled and manipulated by them at will.”
Wen Xinghan later learned that Gu Xiyu’s right eye was blind. And it was not from birth, but from his parents’ manipulations after birth. No one knew the specific situation, and Gu Xiyu himself would not say.
By the time he came back to his senses, Wen Xinghan found that such a small thing might be something that Gu Xiyu had long been used to, but he cared about it for him. He didn’t know why he had such a mentality, but he suddenly realized that he paid more attention to this chief.
He didn’t know when It began, but he started to look forward to seeing that familiar figure pass by his cell and stop at the console by the cell gate. He was thankful that his cell had a gate with bars so he could see the clear figure of the person outside. During those brief moments, they would talk like normal friends. They would even exchange insipid or boring questions and answers, and it was only on closer reflection that he was surprised to find that Gu Xiyu now answered whatever he asked.
Except for some key confidential questions related to the fortress or the special prison.
Finally, one day, Gu Xiyu, who had perhaps unconsciously lowered his guard against him, granted his request and stood in front of the cell gate. The distance was close—so close that he reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer despite being separated by the gate.
Gu Xiyu’s eyes changed instantly, becoming alert and dangerous.
As a qualified commander who had seen it all, his tone was still calm: “What do you want to do?” But it was obvious that if he dared to do anything further, he would immediately show him by his actions *why flowers were so red.
*The implication is that the other party will beat you until you bleed.
Wen Xinghan didn’t want to do anything, he just stared at him for a moment and asked with a teasing smile, “Commander, do you want to try to see the world with two eyes?”
He didn’t miss the flash of surprise and shock that passed through Gu Xiyu’s eyes, and he took advantage of his moment of surprise to cast the spell.
As the leader of the demon realm in his world, his demonic pupils were naturally different from those of ordinary people. His eyes carried a very large amount of power, a spiritual power that ordinary people could not withstand. His left eye could access yin and yang, and his right eye could access the power of heaven and earth. This was also the secret to the source of his continuous power.
Gu Xiyu was blind in his right eye, and in exchange for allowing him to regain his sight, he would lose all the power in that eye, turning it into an ordinary one, and to some extent, his vision would be weaker than an ordinary person’s. All that spiritual power would be transferred to Gu Xiyu, which would become an even greater help to him at a later stage, and even though Gu Xiyu was not cultivating any techniques from the Chaos realm, it was a big boost to his power.
At the same time, he (Wei Xinghan) would be half as fast in his future cultivation or in his ability to attack or defend himself, which would be absolutely fatal to a great demon with several enemies at his back.
It had been a long time since he had trusted anyone or done something like this for anyone. But at this moment, he just had a strong urge to bet his last time on this man.
Gu Xiyu closed his eyes because of the sudden stinging pain in his right eye, and no matter how hard he struggled, Wen Xinghan never let go of him until he opened his eyes again, and another shock flashed through his eyes before he smiled silently.
The color of that eye was still light, turning from dead white to light gray, and it looked more lively compared to before.
“…… Are you crazy?” Gu Xiyu’s first reaction after coming to his senses wasn’t joy, but anger.
Seeing Gu Xiyu’s eyes fall on his right eye, which had failed to hold back the physiological tears that had fallen due to the stimulation of losing its spiritual power, with a serious expression on his face as if he were crazy, Wen Xinghan could not help laughing.
He didn’t tell Gu Xiyu the secret of his eye and only said, “Don’t worry, I’m not so kind as to just give you my eye. You also know that I am very powerful, so helping you regain your sight is an easy operation.”
When Wen Xinghan grabbed Gu Xiyu, he noticed that he was wearing a chain around his neck. So when he let go of his collar, he quickly took the necklace around his neck and casually said to him, “If the commander really feels pity for me, just give me this in exchange.”
Gu Xiyu stood outside the cell, his gaze as calm as water, making it difficult for people to guess his emotions. He just stared at him and the necklace he held in his hand for a long time before finally not asking for it back. After confirming that he was indeed fine, he said in a cold voice, “This is my last warning to you, don’t do anything unnecessary again.”
“I have lived a good life and don’t need anyone’s pity.”
Wen Xinghan’s grip on the chain tightened; the pendant seemed to be designed into a silver flying bird or something, and the sharp edges pricked his palm.
Before Gu Xiyu left, he said in a deep voice, “I don’t pity you.”
In response, he heard Gu Xiyu’s footsteps as he walked away. He didn’t know how Gu Xiyu was feeling at the moment, but at least he felt content that Gu Xiyu’s reaction was different from the selfish, self-serving people he had come into contact with before, who could go out of their way just for their own selfish interests.
He just couldn’t resist asking himself repeatedly, “If it wasn’t pity that made him act like that, then what was the reason?”
By the time he got the answer to that question, it was a little too late.
It was a day not much different from any other—another awakening from his uncontrolled mental state. The svelte man in the white coat was at his post and keeping an eye on his real-time situation, and he reported to Gu Xiyu as soon as he woke up. The latter quickly came to the front of his cell, greeting him with his eyes as usual, and then started to focus on the system data.
Unfortunately, the calm didn’t last long, and just like the dream he had before waking up, something happened in the fortress.
A space beast from the second level strayed into the seventh level by mistake, and attacked the fortress. Unlike the self-aware prisoners held in the fortress, this monster was born to destroy and devastate. When such a monster dies, it brings benefits to the spatial level, bringing a measure of stability and new energy, provided it was in the spatial level to which the beast belonged.
The space beast from the second level was like a huge mountain to the people of the seventh level, there was no way to fight it and within moments, the whole fortress was destroyed. Not only did many staff members die, but even the prisoners were devoured.
Wen Xinghan, who was born with a strong sense of danger, knew that the beast that had broken in was an existence that even Gu Xiyu could not handle, so he tried to stop him from leaving.
But Gu Xiyu’s attitude was clear: he was in charge of the fortress, and it was his duty to protect it. He was not allowed to desert the battle, and even if he knew it was something he couldn’t fight, he had to make a last stand. Even if it meant death, he had to go down with the fortress.
Wen Xinghan hadn’t been able to stop Gu Xiyu; he didn’t even release him from his prison. Wen Xinghan’s prison was set up with a two-way backlash (backlash on the inside and outside). The space beast outside was clearly more powerful than him, and if it attacked him after dealing with everyone in the fortress, the prison would create a backlash from the impact, and it would die at its own hands.
What caused Wen Xinghan pain was that he couldn’t go through the prison door. He even tried to force his way out despite the repercussions, only to end up bruised and battered. At that moment, he suddenly loathed the fact that the gate of the prison had gaps that allowed him to see outside, and he could only watch with despair as Gu Xiyu, the last man standing in this crumbling fortress, carried out his duty with vulnerability and strength.