"...There's nothing left."
Everything he ought to ask, everything he wanted to know, Ji Zhao had already asked. As for what remained — why Liu Qing had been stabbed in the back by his own descendants, for instance — could it be that the descendants of a traitor to the planet were traitors to the planet as well?
But Liu Qing had turned traitor to the planet because of thousands of years of accumulated feeling. What reason did his descendants have?
Most likely, Liu Qing had asked that question precisely so that Ji Zhao would raise the matter himself, and he could pour out his heart in this last stretch of his life... But Ji Zhao had no interest whatsoever.
He did not care in the slightest about things that had nothing to do with him.
Perhaps Liu Qing understood this as well. He gave a bitter smile and said nothing.
"But there is one more thing I want to do."
Liu Qing asked, "What?"
"I want to go and see my grandma one more time."
"...Of course." Understanding dawned on Liu Qing, and then he smiled bitterly. "I've been too selfish. You should go and see her. That's your right."
With that, he snapped his fingers lightly, and Ji Zhao was instantly transported to a street.
In the black-and-white world, a pixel figure that could only just be made out as an old person was pacing back and forth along the street.
She paced back and forth along a fixed route, as though she would never tire.
Suddenly, another pixel figure came walking from the other direction. The two pixel figures met, and a speech bubble popped up above each of their heads.
【"Aiya, I really am getting old. A couple of steps and my legs ache."】
【"Do you know 《Life and Death》? Then you must know my grandson, Ji Zhao. Hehe..."】
The bubbles vanished, then popped up again.
She paced back and forth along this road, the same line of dialogue popping up over and over, as though this were the whole of her life.
Ji Zhao had achieved fame and success... He was the most highly valued sports star in the world, with money enough to squander for a hundred lifetimes. And yet it seemed he had never once found the time to keep company with the people he should have kept company with.
"Would you like me to listen while you get it off your chest?" Liu Qing spoke up. "You may not be willing to listen to me, but I'm willing to listen to you."
"..." Ji Zhao was silent a moment, then squeezed a few words out of his throat. "There's no need... Send me back."
Liu Qing made no reply. He only snapped his fingers, and Ji Zhao was back in that room.
Ji Zhao turned around without a word. At some point the computer behind him had vanished without a trace, and in its place stood a door of a deep, fathomless color... In this world that had become nothing but black-and-white pixels, only this door and the two of them, Ji and Liu, still kept the appearance of the 'real.'
Liu Qing asked, "Are you ready?"
Ji Zhao answered softly, "Not at all. Half a day ago I was still thinking about how to spend this off-season, and now, half a day later, someone is telling me the world is going to end and I have to go and save it... You've explained everything very clearly, and I've understood the gist of it, but every time I think it over, my head feels like a pot of paste. Maybe even now some part of my mind is still clinging to the fantasy that 'this is all a dream,' hoping I'll suddenly wake up and never have to think about any of this mess. But no matter what, I can't wake up. This senseless nightmare just goes on and on without end."
He paused, and ground out each word, almost through gritted teeth: "It's just fucking — exactly like bullshit reality!"
After a single instant of contortion, Ji Zhao's expression returned at once to calm, as though the gritted teeth of a moment ago had only been Liu Qing's imagination. "So no, I'm not ready at all. It's just that what's done is done — ready or not, I have to go."
"Yes..." Liu Qing smiled as though there were nothing to be done. "That's how everything in this world is. Fate doesn't give every traveler the chance to shake the pebbles out of his shoes before he sets off. When the starting gun fires, willing or not, you have to run. Sometimes you simply have to bear that grinding pain in your feet and break into a run, and even if the soles of your feet are pierced through until the blood pours and they're a bloody mess, you cannot stop... Go, Ji Zhao. Go and make the choice that is yours, one you won't regret."
Ji Zhao made no reply. He reached out, laid his hand lightly on the door, and slowly pushed.
CREAK...
The deep door swung open and boundless light swallowed the world. Ji Zhao's figure was gradually swallowed by that deep doorway, and with every measure of him it swallowed, Liu Qing's figure dimmed by several degrees.
Liu Qing watched Ji Zhao's back as it gradually disappeared, then suddenly gave a soft sigh. After that, he took a photograph from inside his robes. It was a large group photo, taken in Liu Qing's twenty-sixth year in the immortal-cultivation world, when the classmates — young, and not yet able to make the world tremble — were in the full flower of youth, carrying lives not worth a single copper and dreams worth a thousand in gold, about to set out into the world.
Liu Qing reached out and touched the photograph, a hint of nostalgia showing in his eyes. He spoke softly, as though moved.
"What a pity. So many stories, and in the end there's not even anything to prove we ever existed... How lonely."
By the end of it, there was even a trace of tears in his voice.
As Ji Zhao's figure vanished completely, Liu Qing, too, dissipated without a trace. The photograph drifted and swayed a few times in the air, fell to the ground, and dissolved into ten thousand motes of light.
...
...
In all four directions, above and below, from ancient times to the present, a torrent with no end in sight surged all the way to the deepest reaches of the universe. In a haze that seemed eternal, countless scenes of memory flashed past, and yet carved themselves deep into his mind.
CRACK, CRACK...
In what might or might not have been a world of chaos, the 'Ji Zhao' in the attribute panel gradually shattered. In counterpart, the chains that bound True·Ji Zhao were loosened bit by bit, until at last 'Ji Zhao' vanished without a trace and True·Ji Zhao broke free of every shackle.
He did not know how long it was — perhaps an instant, perhaps tens of millions of years — before Ji Zhao felt the presence of a body again. He opened his eyes in a daze. What met them was a somewhat dim ceiling, and the faint smell of herbal medicine hung in the air.
"You're awake."
A cool, refined voice sounded beside him. Ji Zhao turned to look. It was Ji Tan, her glossy jet-black hair falling past her shoulders. Her face, bare of any powder or rouge, reminded Ji Zhao of Kanzan cherry blossoms in brilliant full bloom at the end of March — dazzling, radiant, blinding.
"Mn..."
Having only just woken, his head not yet fully clear, Ji Zhao answered by reflex — and then came to himself out of that almost endless sea of memory.
...He was in another world.
It was not a dream. However much he wished that when he opened his eyes he would see the ceiling of his own home, with the world just as it had always been, fate — or rather, Liu Qing — had chosen him with no regard for reason at all.
And so the traveler could only bear the gravel in his shoes and break into a headlong run, even if it left him bleeding and torn to a bloody mess.
Ji Zhao sat up, feeling this body, weaker than any he had ever known, and suddenly gave a bitter laugh. Then he spoke.
There was some helplessness in his voice, some bewilderment, some relief — but more than any of that, it sounded as though he were declaring something.
He said...
"I'm awake."
(End of Volume One: Descent of the War God)