Evil Emperor Zun

Chapter 2004 Disaster
Qin Jia's days as a guest in the mysterious space are coming to an end.

In fact, it wouldn’t be a problem to play for a while longer, but Qinjia said she missed her mother.

She also missed Aunt Feifei, the dog Latte they were taking care of, the robot dog Doudou, and the other companions in the No Faction... But she missed her mommy the most. "If I can't act cute with my mommy before going to bed, it seems that even sleep is not so sweet."

Seeing a child pouting and looking for her mother pitifully, the demon clan leaders were reluctant to keep her. Black Dragon was secretly relieved. Qin Jia was not here, so it was convenient for him to continue to carry out those cruel plans.

"It's a pity that I still can't become friends with Brother Cain." This is probably the only regret of Kamiuchi Kotoka. "When he heard that I was leaving, he seemed quite happy."

"That's impossible." This was Baili Ji's first reaction as he accompanied Qin Jia to say goodbye to the big guys one by one. "That guy doesn't have the emotion of 'happy'. He won't be happy no matter what happens."

"Besides," since Qin Jia was about to leave, he was also considering whether there were some things he could explain to her so that she wouldn't still be upset after she returned, "'Happiness' is a sin to him, and he won't allow himself any right to be happy. This is his punishment for himself."

……

At the same time, Ye Yunyan went to visit Cain again.

The room was particularly dim today, as if it wanted to discard all the secrets along with the daylight. Ye Yunyan could only see him sitting on the sofa with his back to her. Since their communication became more frequent, he had not shown such an indifferent attitude towards her for a long time.

Obviously, he knew what he wanted to talk about. But he didn't want to talk to himself.

Despite this, Ye Yunyan still asked as if nothing had happened: "Do you have time now? Can I guess who you are?"

A faint sigh seemed to be heard from behind the sofa.

"It's okay not to rush. You still have more time to find the right answer."

Ye Yunyan's eyes were clear and cold, her voice was firm and calm, and there was a hint of long-awaited excitement in it.

"No need. I have a conclusion and I want you to hear it now. If it's wrong, please correct me."

"You are the law of heaven and earth itself, right?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the whole room fell into absolute silence so quiet that one could hear a pin drop!

……

"Brother Bat, it seems like he really knows Brother Cain." Shen Nei Qinjia didn't understand what Baili Ji meant. She just focused on recalling Cain's actions. "It's not that he showed a happy expression right away. It's because Brother Cain has always been reluctant to pay attention to me. But after hearing that I was leaving, his attitude towards me was not so resistant..."

"Besides, he said some very strange things to me."

——"You shouldn't be here." Cain stared at her deeply at that time, his eyes filled with unprecedented sadness, as if he was looking at a mistake that ruined the most delicate plan. He even raised his hand to hold her head for the first time, examining the little girl who was surprised and frightened by his actions, "Your light is very weak, it can't illuminate this endless darkness, but instead awakens the ghosts and monsters lurking everywhere, making them restless around the light source."

"The fire I sowed for hope, but what I got in return was desolation after everything was burned to ashes. Perhaps I shouldn't have lit you up in the first place."

"...But you still have to protect your light well." After a long silence, he added softly, "This light may one day cross the endless wilderness and ignite the dawn of a new era."

"Brother Bat, do you know what Brother Cain wants to tell me?" Kamuchi Kotoka could even remember the feeling of him putting his hand on her head. She wanted to ask clearly, but she was afraid. Later she realized that the look in his eyes was like a doctor looking at a patient he had given up on.

He won't hurt you, but he won't save you either.

"Really? It's already come to this..." Bailiji looked at Qinjia's eyes full of curiosity, and his thoughts surged. In fact, he hadn't decided whether to tell her this cruel secret, but if Cain thought "the time had come"...

……

"I have read the history of the rise and fall of several planes. Although it is just a drop in the ocean, I am beginning to understand your disappointment with the world."

Seeing that Cain had no intention of answering and didn't even turn around, Ye Yunyan continued to talk to herself, "Life at our level may really be born with bad nature. No wonder there is a saying that the only lesson humans have learned from history is that humans never learn lessons from history."

"But it's not all depressing. I saw our ancestors from all walks of life building the plane from scratch, making it more beautiful and richer day by day; generation after generation of people worked hard to fight against their own bad natures, blooming great brilliance in the ordinary, and creating many epic legends."

"I have been shocked and angry at the despicable side of human nature, and I have also felt ashamed and reflected on them. At the same time, I also praise those who have contributed their knowledge, passion, and even their lives in various fields. They have shown me the backbone that supports this group with many flaws... Because I am a part of this group, I am ashamed of them as I am proud of them. This is a completely inseparable sense of belonging."

"But I didn't feel any similar emotions from your writing. Obviously, your perspective on these disputes is different from ours. You always record our fate from a bird's-eye view. It was only after reading your book that I truly felt that you and we are indeed different."

There was no emotion in Cain's voice: "Is it just because of this?"

Ye Yunyan calmed down and continued, "At first I guessed that you came from the legendary upper plane. It just so happened that there were also figures of the upper plane in your book. I observed them and understood them through your descriptions, and even collected several samples for verification. Then, I overturned my own conclusion."

"Their style and persistence are different from yours. Although people have different personalities, people of the same class or identity always have something in common in their pursuits. For example, titles for officials, wealth for businessmen, and strength for practitioners. Unfortunately, I have also seen these traits in those supreme gods."

"Behind every action of theirs, there is a clear purpose. For example, intervening in a war in the middle plane is because they are interested in a rare treasure; or providing unreasonable protection for a certain evil interstellar pirate is to cultivate their own power. And you, you seem to have never taken the initiative to manage anything, but you don't fight for it not because you don't want it, but because you don't need to fight for it, you have already easily possessed it..."

"More importantly, even people from the higher planes don't have the 'omniscience and omnipotence' you mentioned. Although I don't know the upper limit of their abilities, but analyzing their series of actions, if they had that level of magical power, they wouldn't have needed to make such a hard plan. This shows that your status is even higher than theirs."

"What else is there above the upper plane? Perhaps it is only the origin of the laws of heaven and earth."

"At first, I found it incredible, but as I thought along this line of thought, many things became explainable."

"You are indifferent to the heir of the Lord of Hell because you are the most noble being in the entire universe;"

"Those demons respect and fear you because you are the only one qualified to 'judge' them;"

"In the historical records of different planes, there are legends about gods sending down floods to destroy the world. I don't think this is a coincidence. You told me that you are looking for a reason for the world to continue to exist. This means that you still want to give humans a chance to continue, right?"

There was another long silence.

Perhaps out of confidence, Ye Yunyan finished her guess in one breath and waited quietly. She also had some secret expectations in her heart. Since she met him, he has always surprised her. If the answer she brought now can also surprise him, she would be happy to let this process continue for a little longer.

“…I would rather it be this way.”

Cain finally responded, and this time, the sofa chair slowly turned around.

"But unfortunately, you only guessed half right."...

"Cain is neither a god nor a demon." After a mental struggle, Baili Ji finally decided to tell Qin Jia everything he knew, "He is the incarnation of 'disaster'."

……

“Good people may not always be rewarded, and evildoers may not always have a bad ending. So while people curse the blindness of heaven, they also enjoy the freedom to do whatever they want.”

“But this is not absolute.”

"Heavenly punishment does exist. It is not targeted at a specific person, but rather, it comes randomly."

"To the laws of heaven and earth, all sentient beings in the world are a whole. When someone in this whole makes a mistake, the original will, being arrogant, will not bother to carefully distinguish the 'only' individual who should bear the responsibility, and will only punish the entire group equally."

"War, killing, pollution, lies... all the evil deeds in the world are accumulating negative energy. When the concentration of malice is high enough to alarm the laws of heaven and earth, disaster will come."

"Earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues, a large number of lives have been taken. These victims are not necessarily guilty, and most of them are good people who have worked hard all their lives. They have accepted the punishment for the real evildoers and have become the 'price' that has been sacrificed to ensure the continuity of the whole."

"I feel sad for them. I am immersed in their blood and tears day after day. Their fear and despair fill my consciousness, forming the entire background of this long dream, and also my first impression of the world."

"In the midst of this intense sadness, one day, I saw them."

Ye Yunyan held her breath.

……

"Perhaps because he had carried too much sorrow of separation and death, the grief and guilt for the dead, and the disgust for having created all of this with his own hands, the 'Heavenly Punishment', which was originally controlled only by the power of law, actually developed self-awareness one day. From then on, he began to walk in the world in human form, seeing with his own eyes, and thinking with his own brain."

“That’s Cain today.”

"Because he is part of the laws of heaven and earth, he can do everything his origin can do. However, other than continuing to follow orders to carry out heaven's punishment, he is not allowed to have any right to act independently. It's like the brain issues an order, and the limbs are naturally not qualified to resist. Similarly, the limbs cannot exist independently from the torso. I have to say, it's really sad."

Apart from him, even if one is the most humble beggar, even if poverty has blocked most of the possibilities in life, as long as one is still a real person, he will always have some choices of "want or don't want" that belong to him. But Cain never had such an opportunity from beginning to end.

He has no way to come and no way to return. The blood and fire, bones and ruins that follow him like a shadow are all he has. Behind his life span that is as long as the heaven and earth, there is eternal loneliness.

At this point, people finally understood——

He named himself Cain because he considered himself sinful;
He was unwilling to accept any kindness because he did not want those sincere people who had gone through endless suffering on earth to be mistakenly given to "disaster";
No wonder his eyes are always filled with sadness - when a person needs to constantly go against his own will and hurt people he does not want to hurt, who can be happy?

No wonder all the demon clan leaders don't want to have anything to do with him, and even call him bad luck - a human-shaped "retribution" is standing in front of you, and although you don't know whether it is aimed at you, you will naturally avoid it if you can;

No wonder even though his hands were covered in blood, he still managed to maintain the purest soul - that's because he has always been just a tool, and how can a knife be good or evil?

Tools are not supposed to have consciousness, so no one would consider how a tool that accidentally becomes conscious would feel - no wonder he said that if he had never seen the truth, he might have been happier.

The curiosity in Kamuchi Kotoka's eyes had long since faded, and her mouth had become flat. If she saw Cain again, whether he was willing or not, she really wanted to hug him!

……

"The Heavenly Dao has only one metric to judge the world, and that is the concentration of malice."

"In the universal concept, everyone is only responsible for their own actions, good and evil, and cause and effect are clear. But the way of heaven is to judge by the results. In simple terms, even if a person has never done anything evil, if his existence causes the concentration of malice within a certain range to increase, he will still be considered a sinner who will be punished by heaven."

"We don't discuss right or wrong, we only look at the results."

"A pure soul is an opportunity bestowed upon the world by the Creator."

"If humans suffer from heaven's punishment many times but never learn their lesson and make any changes, then heaven will think that this increasingly corrupt world is no longer worth existing. Yes, it's similar to what you understand as the flood that destroyed the world."

"However, after all, this is a world that I created with my own hands. Before I start over, I still want to fix it. So the Heavenly Dao specially designed a group of brand new, 'ideal lives' to be released into the world. They are pure and innocent, likable, and will not be tainted by any evil. That is the origin of pure souls."

"They were born with a mission. Heaven hopes to use their kindness to purify the evil in the world. Only in this way can the entire land be saved from the fate of destruction."

"Unfortunately, if you add a drop of dirty water to a glass of clean water, the clean water will soon be polluted, but if you add a drop of clean water to a glass of dirty water, the dirty water will not become clear. The experiment of purifying the soul has failed, and the situation has developed in a worse direction because of it."

"It's like a black joke. People who have done a lot of evil have not been able to get positive guidance. Instead, they have targeted those extremely pure souls and regarded them as a tonic."

"There are only a limited number of prey, but there are many hunters. In order to compete for pure souls, various forces have launched a fierce fight. Planes of all sizes have been affected and turned into dust in this cosmic catastrophe. Too many people have died, either actively or passively, because of pure souls. They failed to become the people they longed to be, their ideals turned into nothing, and their deaths were meaningless."

"The data won't lie. Every time a pure soul appears, it will only promote the rapid growth of the concentration of malice in the world. The casualty ratio far exceeds the record set by interstellar pirates during the same period. This is a fact."

"No matter how brilliant the appearance is, if the existence of something can only inspire evil thoughts in others, it is just another form of 'evil'."

"Pure souls are the scourge of this world, that's the truth."

Although it was still the familiar victim-blaming theory, the audience fell into silence after hearing his mental journey with their own ears.

This problem is somewhat similar to the orbital problem, which directly puts human lives on both ends of the scale. Both sides are indeed innocent, but people generally believe that the interests of the minority should give way to the interests of the majority. This is why, after the tragedy of the two worlds of Fengyue, there are still some people who hate Fei Yu more than Jiang Liechen.

If the choice is between the lives of two people and hundreds of people, and the two people who bear the label of original sin are saved, it is natural that people will think that the deaths of hundreds of people are "not worth it." But Jiang Liechen has never been on the scale.

If a star thief appears and commits evil, causing over a million casualties; if a pure soul appears and the war he starts causes over a hundred million casualties, then in terms of the results, the misfortune brought to the world by the kind and pure soul is actually greater than that of the evil star thief - this is indeed not the subjective fault of the pure soul, but is their existence a good thing or a bad thing for the world? I'm afraid no one can tell.

"Now you know that we are destined to hate each other." Cain looked at Ye Yunyan calmly, and negated the weak friendship between the two of them in a casual manner, "So, there is no need to continue to be an eyesore to each other."

He knows everything, and he also knows when the end will be.

The final moment is approaching, and Qin Jia is the only variable. Her fate will determine the survival of the entire world.

The people who are accelerating all this are still unaware of it.