Chapter 979: Dice

Chapter 979: The Dice

"Dice?" Li Huowang stared at the spinning dice in his hand, the words he had once spoken echoing in his ears: "I shall aid whoever wins."

The Dice had indeed spoken the truth back then, only the one he believed would win was not Li himself, but Qing Wanglai!

And there were two dice, which meant the Great Liang Imperial Preceptor was also one of the Three Pure Ones!

"No! Perhaps it is even worse! Doumu's Heavenly Dao has long since been usurped by the Three Pure Ones!" Li Huowang whipped his head around to look at Zhao Lei, whose presence was fading into nothingness.

As the others around him turned their gazes toward him, Qing Wanglai gently pushed up the glasses on his nose and offered a faint smile. "It seems I cannot leave today without saying my piece?"

He then shifted his focus to Li Huowang. "Indeed, I am the one behind this. In truth, I have done far more, though it seems you have yet to uncover it."

"In reality, from the very beginning, you were merely one of my many chess pieces; everything has been within my grasp."

"But you, this piece, have always been far too restless, slipping from my control on several occasions, which has caused me no small amount of headache."

"I had only intended to craft a capable assistant for myself, yet to my surprise, you have managed to reach this stage. Sometimes I truly cannot fathom what goes on in that mind of yours. You ignore the optimal path every time, leaving me at a loss for how to guide you."

"Of course, that you possess your current status is due not only to your own volatility but also to those who have constantly hovered around you, obstructing my plans." As Qing Wanglai spoke, his gaze swept past the siblings Ba Shengqing and Ba Nanxu.

But then, his eyes shifted once more, finally settling on Zhao Shuangdian. "My hard-earned chess piece has ended up as a dowry for another. Zhao Shuangdian, I underestimated you."

Hearing this, Li Huowang looked at him—at the Three Pure Ones before him—in utter disbelief.

Ba Hui belonged to Zhao Shuangdian, while Doumu belonged to Qing Wanglai! Furthermore, beneath Ba Hui lay the Ao Jing Sect, and beneath Doumu lay the Zuo Wang Dao; thus, from the moment he left Qingfeng Temple, he had been entangled with these two cults.

Pain and lies had been his constant companions, torturing him, bringing him to the brink of death time and again. So, the source of it all was a struggle between two Siling?

Li Huowang had always assumed that a clash between Siling would be earth-shattering.

Yet, Qing Wanglai’s words made him realize that mortals could never perceive such a conflict, for the result of their struggle was simply the mundane events that mortals experienced every day.

"I do not know what you are talking about," Zhao Shuangdian said, her expression remaining perfectly rational. "Could you provide an explanation?"

Qing Wanglai gripped the two dice between his fingers and pointed a slender index finger directly at Zhao Shuangdian. "Of course you don't, because you are merely a projection. I am speaking to the true existence beneath that projection!"

Li Huowang stepped forward, his breathing ragged as he stared at him. "So you know of the Great Nuo world? You can even control the various phenomena within it! You have known everything happening over there all along?"

The Three Pure Ones had orchestrated various schemes to usurp the Heavenly Daos of other Siling; all of this proved he had been capable of this for a long time! Yet, he had kept it hidden from everyone.

"No, what I see is not what you see; after all, our identities differ, as does the extent of our education."

"But you are right, I certainly can. In fact, you could too, only your actions are subconscious, whereas mine are intentional." A faint, kindly smile remained on Qing Wanglai’s face.

"Three Pure Ones!!" With a thunderous boom, everything Li Huowang had experienced in the Great Nuo world exploded in his mind.

The three clay statues of the masters in Qingfeng Temple, the reason the nun’s son went mad, the sense of déjà vu when he accepted Red-Center’s memories, the ambush by the Zuo Wang Dao on the Great Liang Imperial Observatory, and the death of Zhuge Yuan.

All of it had truly happened, but it turned out that in a higher dimension, everything had a cause and effect.

Suddenly, that button surfaced in Li Huowang’s mind, and the rage in his eyes gradually curdled into a lethal, intense intent to kill.

"Three Pure Ones! What exactly are you trying to do? To achieve your personal goals, you would go so far as to use your power to help the Siling of Fusheng Heaven deal with me!? If not for you, Li Sui would never have died!!"

Back then, no one but the nun had known about that button. If the nun was dead, the secret should have vanished entirely, and it certainly shouldn't have been exploited by the Siling of Fusheng Heaven!

If the button could appear before him again, there was only one answer: the Siling in charge of the Heavenly Dao of Secrets within White Jade Capital had betrayed them! To deal with him, he had handed the secret of the button directly to the Siling of Fusheng Heaven!

Facing Li Huowang’s accusation, Qing Wanglai did not deny a thing. "Li Huowang, do you truly think you understand so much? Do you really believe your theory of Siling Heavenly Daos is the absolute truth?"

"No, you are wrong, Li Huowang. Do you truly think the so-called Fusheng Heaven is our enemy? You are wrong again."

Qing Wanglai’s expression grew cold. "With your eyes obscured by a single leaf, you focus only on the minor troubles before you, completely unaware of where the true cause lies. Only I know the secrets that outsiders can never fathom."

"Have you ever considered that the Fusheng Heaven you perceive as so incredibly dangerous is not an elephant, but merely a projection of a wrinkle brushed against the elephant’s skin?"

"Have you ever considered that they are not trying to invade, and that their 'invasion' is merely the manifestation of a projection from a true existence passing by unintentionally?"

"Do you know what is most desperate? The most desperate thing is that the enemies we exhaust ourselves to resist are nothing more than a breeze caused by some entity waving its hand in passing!"

Qing Wanglai’s face finally shed its easygoing mask, becoming cold, grim, and ferocious; perhaps this was his true self.

"You have no idea what true reality is!! Reality is far more terrifying than you can imagine!"

As he said this, a trace of fear gradually appeared in his eyes, and that fear began to deepen.

"Our projections have developed points of contradiction, and not just once. Their mere unconscious proximity has already begun to interfere with the projections. When the contradictions become great enough, the entire world will collapse! Everything will turn completely false!"

"Qing Wanglai, what difference does it make?" Zhao Shuangdian interjected. "Regardless of the form our enemies take, working together is better than you fighting alone."

"Rely on you? Hahahaha, rely on you? Rely on you bunch of lunatics and your infighting? I have never counted on you. The efficiency of communicating with you is too low; I only trust myself."

Qing Wanglai flicked the dice in his hand, and a young man wearing reflective toad-eye sunglasses burst through the door, catching the two dice firmly.

"Heh heh~~~ The young master has arrived~~" The man holding the dice chuckled as he looked at Li Huowang.