Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

Prosperity and Chaos

"It hurts..." Yin Hanjiang put a hand on his own heart.

"Of course it hurts. Pain on a son's body is pain in a mother's heart." A tear ran down Wenren Wu's mother's cheek, but she wiped it away and continued. "But he must take the beating. No matter relating to the civilians is unimportant!"

A tear that she missed landed on Yin Hanjiang's hand. He licked it. It tasted salty and bitter.

After the beating, Doctor Li bandaged Wenren È's wounds—none too lightly.

When it was done, he also needed to kneel in the memorial shrine for a day and night.

Little Yin Hanjiang wanted to accompany him, and the people around him had no choice but to prepare a cushion for him. Because of the flesh that had just been gouged out of his legs, he couldn't kneel and had to sit on a cushion, filled with indignation. "The Venerable wasn't wrong."

"No, I was wrong," Wenren È explained gently.

"How could the Venerable be wrong?" Yin Hanjiang lifted his head, his eyes filled with admiration.

"Is this how you've seen me all this time?" Wenren È smiled and flicked his nose. "No wonder I'm the phantom least like myself in your eyes."

At the mention of how he was unable to distinguish the inner demons, Yin Hanjiang's face creased, looking very troubled.

Since this was Wenren È's consciousness and Yin Hanjiang was in a spiritual body, he wasn't affected by his inner demons. In his eyes, there was only the young Wenren Wu. However, he was surrounded by Wenren È's mother and brother, who looked a lot like him. They had hurt his Venerable, yet since they resembled him so much, Yin Hanjiang couldn't find it in himself to punish them.

Wenren È rubbed little Yin Hanjiang's head and said seriously, "Yin Hanjiang, I wasn't born powerful or wise. In my youth, I thought my father and brothers were gods and could hold back all the world's calamities, and the border town would be peaceful forever, but this was a grave mistake."

Who was all-powerful? People only straightened their backs, not letting their weakness be seen even if their spine shattered.

Wenren È told Yin Hanjiang what happened after he was beaten. After he was punished for a month, his father, Marshal Wenren, came back to the town on break, and when he heard what had happened, he gave Wenren È another beating. Afterward, he had gone from strict to kind and told Wenren È Wang Whiskers' story.

The drunk was fifty years old, and forty years ago, when Marshal Wenren was still a child, the border was in a desperate situation, with the troops having fled and the tribesmen invading. Wang Whiskers, then only ten years old, was hidden in a wine cellar by his mother, and his innocent and tender eyes witnessed uncountable horrors.

Listening, Yin Hanjiang thought of his own past, and the pain in his chest made it hard to breathe.

Wenren È pulled him into his lap and continued. "Yet he survived until my grandfather stepped up during the crisis, leading troops into battle and taking back the town. Since he was a war orphan, he could accompany the army to the nearest governmental office, where there was an orphanage taking such children. However, he didn't leave the town, instead joining the militia. A few years ago, before I was born, he joined my mother at the city walls, dropping stones on the enemy tribesmen to hold them off."

"Then why did he say things like that?" Yin Hanjiang asked.

"Because it was all true. The Wenren clan was unable to protect the town." Wenren È's voice was filled with pain.

This was the past he had never been able to revisit. All these vivid lives were filled with both good and evil, whether crafty cheats or slippery businessmen. Nobody could be painted in black or white, all making up a frontier town filled with life.