One cannot love without heartbreak, nor cultivate oneself without bodily suffering.
Three thousand years within the mirror, three thousand years beyond it: in the end, it was all just a dream.
Can a god exist without a heart? This demon truly has no heart.
He borrowed someone else's heart for thousands of years. The price was that he loved, and he was hurt. Sure enough, in the end, he was the one left without a heart.
What goes around comes around.
Qi Hong was a demon lord in the far northern secret realm, murderous by nature, and an altered holy god who had never been granted a place among the Thirteen Palaces. After Father God Pangu created heaven and earth, his eyes transformed into a branch bearing thirteen fruits. Just as they were about to fall and become gods, Kuafu, while resting during his pursuit of the sun, caught sight of Qi Hong and took a fancy to him. He plucked him, tucked him into his robes, and wandered north and south. Eventually, Qi Hong ended up in the far northern secret realm and became the bloodthirsty demon lord he was.
Then the old Jade Emperor, out on an incognito visit simply to amuse himself, slapped him with an unfounded charge based on some conspiracy theory about a potential threat.
A grand execution of the immortals, rehearsed for a thousand years, was about to begin. The demon lord was tricked into heaven and made an idle immortal lord, Qihong, then tricked down to the mortal world, all so he could be eliminated once and for all. So many lies, from heaven to earth. It was hard to understand these immortals as anything but terribly bored. What had Qi Hong ever done to deserve all the great immortals plotting so carefully, just to lay a trap for him?
After discovering the truth, with no other choice, he had to make himself guilty of the crime of destroying heaven and lead the demons of the far north into battle.
It turned out that god and human were merely different titles. All he wanted was for you to remember me.
He kept watch by the pool, gazing at his reflection in the rippling water as he lingered for years amid romance and pleasure, until he forgot his obsession.
He silently weathered the years beneath the Buddhist lamp, watching him vanish without a trace from the mortal world, until an obsession took root.
After waiting so long, had time still forgotten him in the end, or had he finally forgotten time? The corner of his mouth lifted in the darkness. With his withered fingers, he wiped away the smile.
Only then did he understand: what is forgotten will indeed never be remembered again. In the blink of an eye, so many more years had passed.
