Tuoba Feng stepped forward and came to a halt before the tomb door.
"I have returned."
"I have brought the Lord Bone God and Miss Su Xue with me."
The mummified corpse nodded vigorously.
She looked toward Su Xue again, the voice vibrating from within her chest trembling.
"The other sister... the one with different colored eyes."
"She... she didn't come?"
Su Xue felt a pang of guilt and was unsure how to explain it.
She was truly terrible at lying.
Su Xue could only retrieve a bouquet of flowers she had prepared beforehand from her sleeve.
It was a bunch of flowers that could never possibly be seen in the Western Region.
Layers upon layers of light purple petals were stacked together, their edges stained with a hint of white like drifting clouds.
The stems and leaves were a vibrant, dripping emerald green, still carrying the morning dew.
She had used her powers to grow them overnight.
"Piao has some matters to attend to and couldn't make it, so she asked me to bring this gift to you."
Su Xue held the flowers out and offered them toward the tomb door.
"They are called Purple Cloud Vetch, a very common wild flower in the Southern Region."
"They aren't particularly precious, but they are very drought-resistant and have a long blooming period..."
She rambled on, hardly knowing what she was saying.
She was simply trying to gloss over the topic.
The mummified corpse stared blankly at the bouquet.
She reached out a withered hand and, with extreme caution, touched a petal through the gap in the door.
"How beautiful."
"Are they called Purple Cloud Vetch? It is a lovely name."
Su Xue gently placed the flowers by the door.
The mummified corpse looked down at the bouquet and stopped asking about Piao.
Her attention was completely captivated by that splash of purple.
She squatted down, her hollow eye sockets facing the bouquet.
She extended a finger and gently, oh so gently, tapped it.
Then she pulled back.
Then she tapped it again.
She was like a child who had received a most precious toy, unable to bear playing with it all at once.
Chen Zhou also walked over.
His footsteps were very light, but the mummified corpse still noticed him.
She snapped her head up.
The black-robed figure stood before her.
He was not towering, nor was he hideous; there was no sense of oppression coming from him.
He merely looked down at her with a calm gaze.
The mummified corpse's voice grew lower and lower.
She retracted her hand and carefully tried to hide the bouquet behind her back.
Then, feeling that this was perhaps impolite, she hurried to bring the flowers out again and placed them by her side.
She lowered her head, her voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz.
"Lo... Lord..."
Chen Zhou crouched down.
He squated before the tomb door, level with the shriveled remains, and then produced two malformed, shriveled eyeballs.
They were grayish-white with wrinkled surfaces, looking like dried walnuts.
The mummified corpse froze, staring unblinkingly at the two eyeballs.
"They... they are mine..."
Her voice trembled.
"I... I thought they had escaped and were long gone..."
Chen Zhou held the eyeballs out to her.
"Your belongings."
The mummified corpse did not take them.
Her grip on the flowers tightened suddenly, and her previously joyful mood plummeted bit by bit.
She hunched her body like a child who had done something wrong, trying desperately to shrink into the shadows, as if this would prevent the noble god from seeing her hideous appearance.
She didn't dare take them.
It was too shameful.
Truly too shameful.
A few days ago, following the weak connection with her eyeballs, she had caught a secret glimpse of that battle.
She had seen the provincial capital.
She had seen the imperial city ruins.
She had seen the black-robed figure before her now, standing alone amidst a sky full of sinful karma.
A single glance was enough to make her feel ashamed and utterly humiliated.
So that was what a true god looked like.
He could judge the sins of the judge with a single word.
He could face the heavenly might of a false god head-on.
He even had countless devout believers willing to shield him of their own accord.
And what about her?
She was merely a monster who had usurped the divine remains.
A corpse-changed evil spirit who didn't even have a name.
The culprit who had brought a thousand years of calamity to the Western Region.
She could only use a pair of eyeballs to stealthily peer at the glory belonging to others.
Now, the true god stood before her.
Returning the eyes she had lost for a millennium.
Yet she didn't even have the courage to reach out and take them.
"I can't."
The mummified corpse shook her head, her voice breaking.
"I... I am not worthy. These are the eyes of a true god..."
"I am just... a monster..."
She shrank back, her withered spine pressing against the stone wall.
Chen Zhou did not move, the eyeballs still resting in his palm, his voice very flat.
"Take them."
"Return them to their original owner."
The mummified corpse trembled.
She looked up, her hollow eye sockets facing Chen Zhou's direction.
"Lord, do you not blame me?"
"It was I... who brought the black spots and caused you so much trouble."
"I also caused the deaths of so many of the Grave-keeper clan..."
"And Xiaoyun, it was also because of me..."
She couldn't bring herself to say the word.
Chen Zhou looked at her.
"Back in the provincial capital, were you the one who helped suppress the judge?"
The mummified corpse nodded blankly.
"I... I felt my own eyes."
"They were devouring the sinful karma and commanding the black spots."
"I didn't know what was happening; I didn't mean to peek. I just thought... if I could help even a little bit..."
Chen Zhou said.
"Thank you."
The mummified corpse was completely stunned.
She opened her mouth, her sewn-shut lips tearing, but she could not make a sound.
Thank you.
The true god was saying thank you to her.
Could a lowly monster like her actually receive gratitude from the true god?
She stared blankly in Chen Zhou's direction, her chest heaving more and more violently.
"...No... it was nothing..."
Her voice sounded as if it were being squeezed from her throat, panicked, hurried, and becoming increasingly incoherent.
"It... it was what I should have done..."
"As long as the Lord... as long as the Lord does not blame me... I..."
"I have already..."
She could no longer speak.
She had heard Su Xue and Piao mention before that they came from the distant City of the Wrongfully Dead and had come to the Western Region following the instructions of the Lord God behind them.
They all believed in the same true god, and they said that Lord was very benevolent.
So benevolent that he was even willing to forgive a filthy existence like her.
The mummified corpse kept her head bowed low, her fingers deathly gripped onto the hem of her tattered clothes.
She still didn't dare to take them, fearing she would soil the Lord's hands.
Chen Zhou gently placed the two eyeballs on her lap.
The mummified corpse shuddered.
She looked down at the two grayish-white, lusterless eyeballs.
Then, she reached out her trembling hands and gathered them up.
She pressed them against her heart.
Outside the tomb door, Su Xue had already begun working with the little demons.
She had chosen a patch of open ground to the southeast of the god's tomb, where it was sheltered from the wind and had plenty of sunlight.
Several little demons were vigorously tilling the soil.
Su Xue held the seedlings she had brought, carefully measuring the spacing.
Tuoba Feng was also helping nearby.
He had gently placed Xiaoyun on a flat stone slab, letting her sit against the wall, before rolling up his sleeves and taking the flower hoe handed to him by a little demon.
He dug with great concentration.
Hoe after hoe, he broke up the hardened yellow sand and spread the fertile soil brought from the provincial capital over it. Only then did he carefully plant a seedling, tamping down the roots and watering it thoroughly.
It had been a long time since he had done something with such peace of mind.
The mummified corpse sat kneeling inside the tomb, watching the busy scene outside across that insurmountable threshold.
She still held those two eyeballs in her arms.
The area over her heart felt burning hot.
Rate on N.U.
