Chapter 717 – The Human Emperor Realm, The Life Star Rekindled - Part 1

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

The sharp hiss of raw flesh hitting a hot pan tore through the still darkness of the chamber. Ye Lianhan’s fists clenched tightly, his entire body trembling on the edge of collapse under the excruciating pain.

A grey metal mask, etched with crescent-shaped patterns, had been seared red-hot and was now slowly pressed onto his disfigured face. It fused to his ruined flesh with a sickening finality, never to be removed again.

A few days earlier, the Tang Emperor had summoned the former Saintess and Wolf God of the Phantom Camp. He told them he had survived an assassination attempt.

The Saintess and the Wolf God, both fully aware of the truth, felt a chill run down their spines as they stood before the inscrutable emperor. His words, delivered with calm indifference, were as good as an accusation.

Ye Lianhan isn’t dead. He came for me. And you knew. You said nothing. What punishment do you deserve?

As they fell to their knees, preparing to plead guilty, the Tang Emperor waved a hand and said lightly, "The assassin is dead. We don’t know who he was. Go on, be good citizens of Tang."

Neither dared to breathe too loudly, let alone speak. But as they retreated from the imperial hall, a wave of relief washed over them. They had walked away from the edge of the abyss.

Ye Lianhan, his face destroyed, had

died

once already.

Then Li Yuan had killed him again, this time, in the mind of the last people who knew the truth.

Now, the man who once ruled the Phantom Camp was taken to the hidden heart of the Church of Light. There, his voice was silenced. And onto his face was affixed a mask that could never be torn away.

With that, Ye Lianhan was gone, truly and completely gone.

"Where there is light, there is shadow," Li Yuan said. "And all sins committed in the light will not be forgiven. They will only be buried in the dark."

He helped the man, half-unconscious from the searing pain, sit upright.

“From this day forth, your name is Li. Li Ying.” Then, closing his eyes slightly, he added, “For a hundred years. A thousand. Ten thousand. So it shall be.”

Huyan Hai, or Ye Lianhan, or now...Li Ying burned with pain so fierce it nearly dragged him into unconsciousness. But even through the agony, he knew one thing: he was truly alive.

Li Yuan looked at the man before him, once a formidable rival.

The Church of Light needed a true pillar, not the shallow, surface-level ones. Those young men who either clung stubbornly to doctrine or played petty games of power behind the scenes. None of them could hold up the shadows behind the light.

But this man, this beast who had been stripped of his fangs and broken into obedience could.

Cunning, patient, mad, but disciplined. A true emperor of his age, fallen but not extinguished.

Such a beast was, of course, dangerous.

But as long as Li Yuan lived, that beast would never dare turn the world upside down. If Li Yuan ever fell, he’d make sure to drag this beast down with him.

Of course, he had offered the beast one final choice, a sliver of freedom if he wanted it.

It was a choice between two paths.

The first was to abandon everything he’d cultivated until now. Start over, rebuild his strength in a new way. Li Yuan would personally destroy the

unity

(合) character that resided within Ye Lianhan, cutting it out like a rot. In exchange, Ye Lianhan would grant him the power of

darkness

(暗).

Now, unity was indeed a powerful character. But to Li Yuan, it was merely another singular path. And darkness could only devour so many other characters. He wasn’t about to waste one of those precious slots.

After all, to master even one

law

was already a feat bordering on the miraculous.

Because unless two characters could fuse, they could never truly coexist.

But how to fuse them? That was the great, unsolvable mystery. Maybe, with immense luck and fate, someone might stumble across it, maybe.

Take the

wood

(木) and

sun

(日) characters for instance. When these two fused, they became

dusk

(暮), a naturally harmonized dual-character law. That was why, when Li Yuan broke through to the Lesser Insight Realm with dusk, he had immediately surpassed someone like Lady Yu.

But for anyone else to forcibly merge two characters, to brute-force that kind of fusion, the difficulty was beyond imagining.

First, a person had to comprehend one character. Then, they had to push themselves into grasping a second. But that second would almost always reject the first. Because if one’s obsession was divided between two concepts...was it even true obsession?

That was unless the two characters were one to begin with. But chances like these were rare, so rare they might come once in a lifetime or never.

And if that person failed, everything they had worked for would be ruined in an instant.

It wasn’t until Li Yuan absorbed the darkness character that he realized the secret behind it. Darkness and dusk didn’t truly coexist. It was only the devouring nature of darkness that forcefully bound them together.

In other words, the moment he claimed the darkness character, it had used up one of its devouring slots.

Ye Lianhan had theorized that the darkness character’s devouring chances scaled according to cultivation rank.

So, in the Greater Insight Realm, Li Yuan only had one more slot left. That last slot...was priceless. There was no way Li Yuan would waste it on the unity character.

So if Ye Lianhan had chosen that path, Li Yuan would’ve erased the unity character from him and stripped it out completely.

Ye Lianhan would still be talented, yes, but no longer exceptional, just another bright mind fading into mediocrity.

Still, Li Yuan would’ve let him go. He could’ve changed his name, married, had children, and lived out his life as a wealthy gentleman in Cloud Capital.

But Ye Lianhan refused. He chose the other path, silencing his voice, surrendering his face, and becoming Li Ying.

Now, as Li Yuan looked at the former enemy standing before him, slender, cloaked in grey, and his face hidden behind a mask etched with crescent marks. He knew no one would ever find this man again in the light.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Li Yuan turned and walked away.

Li Ying followed, silent and steady, matching each step without a sound.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

“Slow down, Your Highness’! Careful, slow down!”

From deeper within the palace, a few palace maids were calling out, flustered.

Born from Li Yuan’s celestial constitution, the children in question clearly hadn’t inherited much from their father, except, perhaps, his precocity. Though barely three by the calendar, they already looked six, sprinting through the palace courtyard with effortless ease.

But even so, these dragon-phoenix twins, boy and girl, were not celestials. Celestial beings were formed through transmutation. These two were born through the womb, the first descent of two pure, untainted souls forged in the Soul Furnace of the Wheel of Reincarnation.

Li Yuan came to a stop.

Li Ying stopped as well.

Their eyes turned to the two rosy-cheeked toddlers bounding ahead, with two personal maids scrambling behind them in worry, clearly afraid the twins might tumble.

But the little boy and girl were surprisingly steady on their feet.

Li Yuan glanced to the side and smiled. “Regretting it yet? If you hadn’t become Li Ying, you'd have children like that of your own, chasing each other through the courtyard in a couple of years.”

Li Ying only shook his head, silent. He had no interest in such things. All he sought was to transcend reincarnation, to set his eyes on the vaster worlds beyond. In his past life, he had already ruled as the Emperor of the Great Yu and had tasted every flavor of mortal luxury. There was nothing left for him to miss.

Li Yuan turned toward the secret training sanctuary at the rear of the palace. Once he entered, he wouldn’t be seen again for a long time.

But his gaze lingered for just a moment longer on the two children.

His step hung in mid-air.

Tap.

The boot came down.

With a swirl of his platinum robe, he turned and walked toward them instead.

The boy and girl blinked curiously at the approaching figure.

The palace maids gasped, immediately dropping to their knees. “Your Majesty.”

Then, each took their young charge by the hand, whispering quickly, “It’s the Emperor, call him Imperial Father.”

The children rarely saw Li Yuan. Now, prompted by their maids, they hesitantly followed suit, kneeling, peeking up shyly as they called out in their soft, childish voices, “Imperial Father!”

Their tones were innocent. Their faces held that faint wariness children showed toward strangers.

You could always read a child’s heart in their eyes.

In the past two years, Li Yuan had barely seen them. He had been consumed by cultivation, matters of state, and most of all the careful vigilance required to finish absorbing the darkness character.

A mix of emotions stirred in his chest.

And in that brief moment of stillness, the twins had already leapt back to their feet, dragging their maids away to play again. Laughter floated through the autumn air as they vanished into the garden.

He stood there, watching the now-empty space before him. Then, slowly, a smile broke across his face.

He had been debating whether he should join them. But now, well, that choice had already been made for him.

He shook his head.

Time doesn’t wait for me. The world doesn’t wait for me. They have their own destinies to fulfill. They shouldn’t...be too close to mine.

The son of the founding emperor. The crown prince and eldest princess. Future sovereigns adored by the world. They were the living bridge between the Li Clan and the Ancestor, symbols of a united bloodline, of the family finally becoming one.

Their lives were destined to be filled with glory, along with moments of pure joy.

They had a purpose waiting for them, to inherit the past and shape the future, to bring peace to this era, and to lead the dynasty into its golden age.

It was a task Li Yuan himself could not accomplish. Perhaps no one could. But it would fall to these two children.

It was their mission, their burden from the moment they drew breath.

But that mission belonged to a world very different from Li Yuan’s.

Letting them too close would only pull them off their fated path. It would help no one.

They should stay far from the Primordial Emperor...but close to the Tang Emperor.

From a distance, the palace maids watched as the Lord of Light, an image of untouchable divinity, casually stripped off his platinum imperial robe, casting aside all the sanctity and power it represented. Then, to their utter disbelief, he ran toward the children, scooping them into his arms with a grin.

“Let’s play,” he said. “We can fly kites. Or...sneak out of the palace?”

The children, still timid at first, lit up at the mention of sneaking out. Their eyes widened with mischief, and they shouted in unison, “Yes~!”

But the little boy hesitated, frowning. “Mother won’t agree.”

The girl struck a pose, hands on her hips. “Who cares? The Emperor outranks the Empress.”

Li Yuan burst out laughing. He lifted the boy onto his shoulders, cradled the girl with one arm, and started walking away with both of them in tow. As he went, he tossed instructions over his shoulder to the two dumbfounded maids:

“Don’t tell the Empress, and get a carriage ready.”

The maid tasked with fetching the carriage hurried off in a panic.

The other maid, ordered to keep secrets from the Empress, stood frozen and utterly shell-shocked.

But Li Yuan was already far down the path. Behind him, the young prince and princess laughed without restraint, their joy echoing in the crisp autumn air.

Li Ying followed at a respectful distance.

He would remain by Li Yuan’s side for a long time to come. That much was certain.

Still, the scene unfolding before him took him by surprise.

He had never imagined that the fearsome, calculating Emperor of Tang could simply tear off his sacred robe and become...this. A man, unburdened by power, chasing after his children like any ordinary father.

It was as if he didn’t care at all about the sanctity and authority that robe represented.

Li Ying, for all his grim resolve, was not a man without emotion. Back in the Yu Dynasty, he had witnessed too many tragedies, imperial clans treated like meat on the butcher’s block, loved ones discarded like animals. It had driven him to the darkness.

But the truth was that those born wicked could only fall so far. It was the ones who came from pure, blinding light, that had the potential to become the darkest of all.

When goodness was mocked, stifled, and crushed by the world, when the soil is ripe and the wound deep enough, it didn’t simply wither...it transformed. That’s when good became evil.

That’s when darkness was born, not the kind born of cruelty but of heartbreak. The deepest kind. The kind that devoured everything.

Why? Because the wicked, at least, were evil for something.

But those who came from the light were the ones truly capable of embracing darkness for darkness’s sake. Not for revenge. Not for power. Not for any grand purpose. They simply wanted to let the darkness inside them spill into the world. That was all.

Li Ying was one such person. And yet, he had moved past that phase. He had died, been reborn, been stripped bare, and rebuilt. Twice buried in the dust, twice risen again.

Now, he stood in a place beyond good and evil, clear-eyed, painfully self-aware, with no illusions left about who he had once been.

And perhaps because of that, something inside him had begun to return to its origin.

Watching Li Yuan carrying the two children on his back, some long-forgotten warmth stirred quietly in his soul.