Chapter 90: CH 90

Zong Yan absolutely, 100%, hadn’t expected things to go this way.

How risky was it to close your eyes in front of an evil god, let alone one of the foremost evil gods?

The feeling of a ruptured lens and corneal burn was pretty terrible, so Zong Yan didn’t have much choice but to accept the evil god’s dishonest advice, despite how uneasy he felt.

The black-haired teen had no expression on his face, but his softly trembling eyelashes and slightly pursed lips clearly betrayed his emotions.

‘This appearance is so much more appealing than when he was floating lifeless and soulless in the void.’

The evil god’s eyes darkened.

As this inexplicable thought occurred to him, the evil god finally understood: the thing he cherished and was interested in had always been the insignificant soul of a tiny ant.

Something had changed.

If Zong Yan’s death was a seed, the seed had now quietly sprouted from the soil and begun to grow branches and leaves.

Yog-Sothoth could only stare at him intently. For the first time, the god’s chaotic eyes reflected the tiny figure of a human.

What was it that had changed?

Even the great and all-knowing, all-seeing god, the omniscient master of knowledge, could feel confused at times.

But since he was genuinely confused, he separated a wisp of divine consciousness from his true body, compressed time around it, and sent it to an unexplored and undiscovered timeline to ponder the matter for hundreds of millions of years. And he still didn’t reach a conclusion.

When the fragment of consciousness returned, a feeling of loneliness and absence came with it. The wisp vanished inside the evil god’s vast spiritual sea, but it left an indelible mark.

Yog-Sothoth had never felt anything like this before. He was always the one who laughed last.

For him, everything was worthless. There were very few things in the universe he would ever call “valuable”.

Of course, a being that could please him was valuable in itself.

Zong Yan didn’t hear the evil god speak for a long time, but his sixth sense was acutely aware of looming danger.

So he cleared his throat and said in a hoarse voice, “Why do you have my body?”

His mind was spinning rapidly. First of all, Yog-Sothoth’s attitude was ambiguous. He wasn’t like Nyarlathotep, who really wanted Azathoth to awaken, or Shub-Niggurath who didn’t want Azathoth to wake up ever. The Lord of Time and Space had never expressed a position from beginning to end.

If Zong Yan fell into the hands of Nyarlathotep, that crazed fanatic might have observed that Azathoth was still asleep and decided to give Zong Yan a complementary knife, point first; if he fell into Shub-Niggurath’s control, Zong Yan might get a proper bruising.

All things considered, Yog-Sothoth was the best choice.

Besides, since Yog-Sothoth hadn’t taken a side, their interests didn’t conflict. Since there was no conflict of interest, it was possible to achieve a state of friendly coexistence while they interacted.

So Zong Yan asked.

Because he couldn’t open his eyes, he didn’t see the deepening gaze of the Lord of Time and Space.

The evil god didn’t answer. Instead, almost playfully, he threw out a question. “Why don’t you tell me where you went this time?” 

After he confirmed that Zong Yan’s body was dead, Yog-Sothoth spent a considerable amount of effort searching for him.

He investigated very carefully, almost turning modern Earth upside down. After that, he looked through the timeline of the past from the rise of human civilization, then went through the future when human beings left Earth and set out for the universe. He didn’t find the slightest trace.

However, Yog-Sothoth had previously left a mark on Zong Yan’s soul. Whenever the black-haired teen used his strange ability to draw cards from the void, the Lord of Time and Space could trace his time coordinates.

To his surprise, those coordinates came from 350 million years ago on Earth’s timeline.

In fact, given enough effort, Yog-Sothoth would have been able to find Zong Yan in the vast axis of time eventually.

But he’d only inspected the era after the emergence of human civilization, never thinking the other party would end up in prehistory.

The most frightening thing was that from beginning to end, Yog had never considered a certain possibility. Rather, he’d ignored one particular issue—

That Zong Yan might be dead.

The real kind of death. Flesh no longer alive, soul scattered in heaven and earth.

The evil god placed his pale, cool fingers on the black-haired teen’s white neck in what seemed like a careless action. He gently rubbed that portion of skin with his fingertips, feeling the sensation of his nails against the pulsating heartbeat below.

Dangerous. Dangerous in the extreme.

Zong Yan felt apprehensive.

“I, uh, I went on a trip to Earth, hundreds of millions of years ago.” The black-haired teen scratched his head.

It wasn’t some unspeakable secret that could never be told. Anyway, the evil god knew all about his superpower, and Yog-Sothoth was omniscient. There was no point trying to hide or conceal anything.

Of course, Zong Yan had no idea that the other party’s “all-seeing, all-knowing” power didn’t apply to him. In order not to be exposed by the evil god on the spot, Zong Yan began to relate a dry and unexciting version of his tale.

“I don’t know exactly what happened. Before I used the card of the Lord of the Universe, I accidentally drew a card I’ve never seen before and crushed it. After that, I felt my soul floating in the universe. When I woke up, I was 350 million years in the past.”

The black-haired teen looked bewildered and spoke without embellishment.

In fact, this remained a point of confusion for Zong Yan. His other persona cards had never caused the timeline to change. This was the only card to do so. If the omniscient, omnipotent Lord could clarify things for him, wouldn’t that be good?

“Then I became the half-self of an evil god.” Zong Yan made a gesture.

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“Hmm.” Yog gave a light hum. He didn’t state his opinion.

His fingertips were pressing on the main artery in the black-haired teen’s neck. Beneath the skin, he felt the vibration of Zong Yan’s blood, a clear, interwoven melody of life.

The evil god didn’t care too much about Zong Yan’s words. He was a bit distracted at the moment, absently feeling the silken touch under his fingers. His thoughts began to turn.

Look how fragile a human life was. It was so fragile that the slightest touch of his finger could separate this beautiful body from its head, turning it into a dull and lifeless corpse again without any warmth at all. Blood would splash everywhere, and the sticky crimson liquid would leave a shocking stain on that white shirt, but it would also become the most beautiful stroke of color surrounded by a thousand points of light…. The young man’s eyes would open in surprise, despite the risk of having his corneas burned again.

The sudden agony would make the young man furrow his beautiful brows. His ink-colored eyes would faithfully display the fading of his life force, and the light would disappear little by little, changing from a pair of glittering stars to fathomless black pits. And after the last bit of light dispersed, the fatal beauty of death would be revealed.

In his last moments of life, the black-haired teen would speak, asking the evil god “Why?”, just like the genie who trusted the fisherman, foolishly believing in a miracle.

The blood gushing out from the young man’s nose and mouth would erase the evil god’s reply.

By then, Yog-Sothoth would surely wear a pleased, superior smile, and he would casually wipe the bloodstains from his fingers, or bring them to his lips to smell the rusty scent of human blood, as if he were tasting a delicacy of the highest order, then mock him openly:

‘Because I am an evil god. Why does an evil god choose to do anything?’

From the perspective of most creatures, evil gods were an aggregate of malice, malevolent by their very nature. Evil gods didn’t need a reason to destroy the world, and they didn’t need a reason to kill. They were so incredibly powerful they could kill as they pleased, anyone or anything at all. Weaker creatures couldn’t even speak out in defiance, because they were dead and buried before they could even make a sound.

But Yog wouldn’t. He would not kill Zong Yan.

It was true the great Lord of Time and Space could kill the black-haired teen if he chose. Time and space were under his control. He could reverse time again and again and bring the dead back to life.

But he wouldn’t.

For a type of being that by its very nature was born amoral and free, lacking any fetters at all, it was a terrible conundrum to discover he suddenly had a weakness.

Would a high and superior evil god ever allow himself to have a weakness?

No, he would not.

Or, to put it another way—an evil god who had such a weakness could no longer be called an evil god. Only good gods could love. 

Love was something an evil god could never understand. An evil god would destroy the source of his weakness without hesitation. After all, the lives of evil gods were too long-lasting. No matter how stunning a jewel might be, it wouldn’t make the slightest ripple in an evil swamp. All an evil god might do was swallow up the gem in his malice and become one with it forever.

And yet it happened.

The foremost existence among evil gods, the ruler of the cosmic order, the Lord of Time and Space, the all-knowing and all-seeing Lord of the Gate, Yog-Sothoth.

Somehow a seed had been planted in the midst of this silent, evil-filled, barren earth. Gmbling with everything that was most precious to tiny humans—its very life—it had slammed into the eyes of the highest evil god and sprouted like a thorn.

He would never willingly admit that a human emotion like “reluctance to part with someone” existed within his lofty intellect.

He merely thought to himself that the dead version of the black-haired teen was far uglier than the living one, and such a fragile human being couldn’t bear the pain of death. Blood and tears were boring things to evil gods, but on the body of this young man they stung his eyes.

He seemed to be saying these things to himself.

This tiny human was obviously insignificant and not worth mentioning, but he could still influence the god’s emotions.

He influenced the evil god’s emotions, but the evil god still tolerated him. Without realizing it, the Lord of Time and Space had reached a staggering level of tolerance for the black-haired young man.

As Yog-Sothoth thought with great concentration, his hands roamed freely between the youth’s cheeks and neck, like an evil god patrolling his territory.

He was the master of knowledge, and he refused to be denied an answer.

The Lord of Time and Space suddenly remembered the divine consciousness he’d split off from himself. The moment it returned, perhaps he felt some kind of hidden premonition.

Far more than answers, Yog-Sothoth enjoyed the process of exploration. He was eager, and he was excited.

He didn’t realize that when the answer came, he would willingly wear the noose called “emotional ties”, and openly claim a thing he’d once considered worthless.

—

The author has something to say:

“If you intend to love someone, you should think carefully whether you’re willing to give up your godlike freedom of mind for her, and from then on agree to be fettered.”

— Fitzgerald《The Great Gatsby》

This chapter was impossible. Oh, Bubbles, the author suffered for you.

TL Notes:

the genie who trusted the fisherman – 魔鬼信任的渔夫 – According to Baidu, this refers to a story from the Arabian Nights (Wikipedia). A fisherman frees a genie from a bottle, and the genie immediately threatens to kill the fisherman. The fisherman then tricks the genie back into the bottle and eventually extracts a reward. I can personally think of other fables I think work better here (the Scorpion and the Frog? the Farmer and the Viper?) but whatever it’s all good

reluctance to part with someone – 不舍得 – not willing to give up, not willing to part with, not willing to run around and desert…

The Great Gatsby quote – I provided an English translation of the Chinese that appears in the raw (“如果打算爱一个人，你要想清楚，是否愿意为了他，放弃如上帝般自由的心灵，从此心甘情愿有了羁绊。”) The closest thing I could find in the original The Great Gatsby is this: “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.” On Baidu a Chinese netizen asked for the source of the Chinese version and was pointed to the same line I found

You can find the master list of transliterated names and titles in Chapter 0 – TL Notes. New in this chapter:

Fitzgerald – 菲茨杰拉德 – Fēicíjiélādé

Gatsby – 盖茨比 – Gàicíbǐ

[ Project Page | Ko-Fi ✿ | Other translations by Confectioner ]

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