Dawnless Sovereign-Chapter 118 (3): Lifelong Pain

That night, Fang Che trudged back to the Virtue Manor, completely exhausted.

Yin Shengong and Mu Linyuan were playing Go in the guest hall, and the former took a cold glance at Fang Che, then gave a cold sneer at his vulnerable display before returning his attention to the game at hand.

Even though the four of them had said that they were leaving, they hadn't truly departed. Instead, they had remained at the entrance of the cave the entire time, listening in on Fang Che, and they had only truly departed after Fang Che emerged with the ten bodies.

Fang Che washed his face, then returned to the guest hall to attend to the four old men.

Yin Shengong could see that his complexion had improved slightly, and he remarked, "You seem to be in a slightly better mood."

"I'm alright," Fang Che replied with a nod. "I've had an entire afternoon to recover. I've had some time to reflect, and I've realized that I was indeed playing with fire."

"Good," Yin Shengong said as he set down the Go stones in his hand. "We'll be returning to the One Heart Church headquarters tomorrow, and the inspection team from the main church will be coming soon, so make sure you're prepared."

Fang Che dragged over a little stool and sat down beside Yin Shengong as he protested, "You can't leave so soon! If someone hears about what happened, they'll think you left because we had a falling out over what happened this afternoon."

"You think you'd still be alive right now if we had a falling out?" Yin Shengong scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

Following the conclusion of the game of Go, Yin Shengong shooed the three elders away, then summoned Fang Che to the guest room that he was staying in.

Meanwhile, the three elders were gathered in Mu Linyuan's room.

"Pope Yin was in too much of a rush to take this step," Qian Sanjiang sighed.

"Indeed, the way he did it was too cruel," Hou Fang and Mu Linyuan agreed. "He should've arranged an encounter in which those people ran into Night Demon by chance and saw through his identity, thereby leaving him with no choice to kill them. At the very least, that would've been a little easier on him psychologically.

“One moment, he was playing the role of the benevolent senior orchestrating Night Demon's marriage, only to put him through something so cruel the next. I'm sure that's going to leave some deep psychological scars."

The three elders were putting themselves in Fang Che's shoes, and knew that they wouldn't have fared any better than him.

In fact, it was already quite impressive in their eyes that he had mentally recovered to this extent so quickly.

"Pope Yin didn't say a single word on the way back," Mu Linyuan remarked. "Clearly, he was also regretting his actions a little."

"That's why he's called Night Demon to his room to talk things out," Qian Sanjiang sighed.

"This has undoubtedly been a very heavy blow for Night Demon. We advised him so many times to take a more tactful and delicate approach, yet he still chose the cruelest and most aggressive approach possible."

"I suppose it's understandable. Pope Yin has such high hopes for Night Demon that he refuses to make any compromises."

"After this, Night Demon's most likely going to become even more bloodthirsty than before."

"It may not serve any real purpose, but I think we should try and talk to Pope Yin again once we get back."

"I agree. I am truly very fond of Night Demon. Even though we have to make him draw a clear line in the sand between himself and the Protectionists, we can't drive him to become completely heartless and lose all of his positive traits."

***

In the other guest room, Yin Shengong and Fang Che were seated across from one another with the door closed.

With a sweep of Yin Shengong's sleeve, a soundproofing enchantment was cast onto the room, following which he turned to Fang Che with a smile and asked, "Do you resent me?"

"I wouldn't dare."

"You wouldn't dare? So you do," Yin Shengong sighed. "I know you resent me. There were countless ways that I could've taught you that lesson, yet I chose to make it as painful for you as possible, so it's only to be expected that you're upset with me. However, you're different from everyone else. Even though your cultivation base is still nothing special, I have high hopes that you'll surpass me in the future, perhaps even by a significant margin.

“Hence, I can't allow you to walk down an ordinary path, and this is a hurdle that you must overcome. We often say that us demonic church members are heartless and devoid of emotions, but ultimately, we're still humans. How could we possibly be actually devoid of emotions?

“I understand the pain that you experienced this afternoon, but you have to understand that these emotions will only be of detriment to you. I once made the same mistakes as you, and I suffered the biggest setback of my life, and that taught me something, which is that when you don't possess enough worth, power, and status, then your feelings are completely worthless.

“That might be too general a statement for you to understand, so I'll give you an example. Say you fall in love with a girl, but she's from a very wealthy family, while you're so poor you can barely afford to eat. You tell her that you don't have any money, but you harbor deep feelings for her, and you ask her to marry you. Do you think those feelings of yours are worth anything in that situation?

“In contrast, if you were a wealthy young master confessing your love for a beggar girl on the streets, what do you think the outcome will be? Hence, your feelings are only worth something if you're worth something, whereas on their own, your feelings are completely worthless. It's not a bad thing that you cherish your bonds with others, but my hope is that you'll only invest your emotions and feelings into others once you've climbed high enough that no one can interfere with your actions and tell you what to do.

“When that time comes, those feelings of yours will be worth their weight in gold, but right now, you simply don't have the right to express your feelings. You feel strongly for others, but you're too weak to even protect those close to you. You can't even control whether your feelings are manipulated by others, so you're simply not worthy of having them, do you understand?"

"I understand, Master," Fang Che replied with a nod.

"Honestly, I regret doing what I did to you, but if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would still do the same thing," Yin Shengong sighed. "I would rather have you resent me than see you stray down the wrong path. With the Five Spirit Parasite in your body, you cannot afford to form emotional bonds with the enemy. Otherwise, you'll be subjected to a fate even worse than death, where you're constantly tormented by eternal conflict with no way out.

“At your lowest, you'll even wish for the relief of death, to put an end to this inescapable torment and begin anew in your next life. I've had to suffer through this torment my entire life, and I refuse to watch you repeat my mistakes. I had to stamp out any inkling that you would stray down the same path of self-condemnation as me, even if I had to do so through the most cruel means possible.

“You must remember at all times that you are Night Demon of the Church of the Self-Righteous, Night Demon of the One Heart Church, the disciple of Yin Shengong, and an undercover agent! Look after the branch helm well. I can assure you that I'm not the only one who's noticed your worth.

“Even though no one else knows that Starlight and Night Demon are one and the same, this branch helm of yours will be sure to impress some people at the main church, and before long, some of the higher-ups of the main church will have heard of Starlight. Once it becomes time for you to combine your two identities of Starlight and Night Demon into one, you'll come to discover that the path ahead will become a lot smoother for you.

“That is the future that you must aim for."

"I understand now, Master," Fang Che said. "I didn't know that you had been thinking so much for my sake. It was far too foolish and immature of me to have harbored resentment toward you this afternoon. Please forgive me."

Yin Shengong's mood was lifted slightly upon hearing this, and he smiled as he said, "I can map out your future all I want, but you have to be the one to actually bring my vision to fruition. As for whether you resent me or not, that's up to you. It's not something that weighs on my mind. Go on now. You're still a newlywed couple, so don't keep Ye Meng waiting for too long."

"Yes, Master. You have a good night's rest too. Make sure to come and tell me before you leave tomorrow morning. I took a bunch of stuff from the people at the branch helm to offer up as gifts to you and my uncle-masters, so make sure you take them with you when you leave."

"Ha! The gifts that you're using to flatter me have come from your subordinates? What a brilliant helmsmaster you are!" Yin Shengong chuckled.

A bashful look appeared on Fang Che's face as he said, "I don't have anything of value myself, so...."

"Piss off! You don't have anything of value? You're absolutely loaded!" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

***

After returning to his bedroom and closing the door, Fang Che was finally able to relax.

He stripped off his clothes and laid down on the bed, feeling utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally.

"What's wrong?" Ye Meng asked in a concerned manner. "You seem really tired today."

Fang Che heaved a long sigh, then wound his arms around Ye Meng as he said, "Don't say anything. Let's just stay like this for now."

Ye Meng gently pressed herself against him, resting in his embrace.

Fang Che closed his eyes, and as soon as he did so, the faces of the ten administrators instantly appeared before him, their faces twisted with fury, betrayal, and mockery.

The wave of mental anguish was so immense that Fang Che's entire body began spasming uncontrollably, and he curled up into a ball as he gritted his teeth with all his might.

Ye Meng enveloped him in a tight embrace with a pained look on his face, trying to give him some solace.

She didn't know what he had experienced, but she could sense his excruciating pain.

The entire night, Ye Meng held Fang Che as he trembled and struggled, and even after the tremors subsided, she knew that he hadn't fallen asleep at all.

However, she didn't utter a single word as she continued to hold him in her tight embrace.

Fang Che's teeth remained tightly clenched the entire night, and that, coupled with his deathly pale complexion, had Ye Meng extremely concerned.

The howling winds raged throughout the night, but it seemed that there was a far more ferocious storm wreaking havoc in Fang Che's heart.