The Meeting

Late at night, New York County. At the seaside villa, the waves crashed against the reef with a booming roar, white foam swallowing the beach again and again, surging and shoving at one another in a clamor of water. Zhang Yuanqing made a round of the houses and villas held in Winnie Berrent's name, found no one, and finally arrived at this grand villa with two gardens attached. It was the love nest he and Winnie Berrent had once shared. After he captured this Heaven's Punishment prosecutor's heart, he had said he wanted to live facing the sea, with spring flowers blooming. And so Winnie had bought this exceedingly expensive villa. The two of them spent a stretch of shameless days in it—until another of his lovers, Chris, tracked him down to New York County. Winnie Berrent and she came to blows, and both were thrown into confinement. After that, he who could never repress his lustful impulses was seduced by Donna. Winnie, once released, had her love turn to hate, and refused to see him ever again. At the time he hadn't cared a whit about her coldness. He went on carousing with the women of the Association of God of Beauty, and until he fell in battle early last year, the two of them never exchanged another word. The treasure map fragment—he had hidden it in this seaside villa before the decisive battle. And left Winnie a letter along with it: I'm gone. Consider this your breakup fee! Who would have thought that after all that circling he would end up back here: that he had handed over the treasure map fragment here, and now had to come back here to take it away. That fragment he had given Winnie—there truly had been the notion of a "breakup" behind it. The woman was domineering and fierce by nature, and he had coaxed her into bed with lines like "Those others were all ex-girlfriends" and "You're my only little darling." So when she left confinement and found that the Demon Lord had betrayed her, Winnie Berrent drew the line between them without a flicker of hesitation. At the time, Zhang Yuanqing—no, the Demon Lord—considered the relationship finished. Only now did he learn that the woman's coldness had been an act. After the Demon Lord's death she had started no new relationship; she had been unable to let go of the Elvis Presley speaker, hoping to find in it proof that the Demon Lord had not truly perished, that he had left some contingency behind. Zhang Yuanqing stood outside the villa, gazing at the imposing building ablaze with lights, and hesitated. Winnie Berrent loved him to the bone and hated him to the bone. She might not be willing to part with the treasure map fragment, and a creditor like that could neither be threatened nor robbed outright. It was a tricky knot. Why not take the treasure map fragment first under the identity of Yuanshi Tianzun, and confess his identity to her afterward? ... Her bath finished, Winnie Berrent put on a silk nightgown and stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of her bedroom, silently gazing at the pitch-black sea. Now and then a cargo ship blinking with warning lights passed by, or a cruise liner spilling colored light across the water. The glass reflected her face with its lovely jawline—finely cut features, deep-set eyes, slightly wavy chestnut hair falling over her shoulders, cold, beautiful, mature, and commanding. She stood there in silence, letting the seconds slip by one after another. Then a maid from the villa knocked at the bedroom door and said respectfully: "Miss Winnie, someone is here to see you." Winnie did not turn around. "Who?" The maid answered, "He calls himself Yuanshi Tianzun!" Hearing that, Winnie snatched a trench coat from the sofa, put it on, and said, "Show him in." The maid withdrew, and a dozen or so seconds later led Zhang Yuanqing into the bedroom—hair shining gold, skin a dusky gold, a golden blazing sun branded between his brows. Her senses were clouded by illusion. She never noticed that the young man she had shown in was a demigod, inhuman in appearance. Winnie Berrent waved the maid out. Studying Yuanshi Tianzun's appearance, she sighed: "To think the one who became Lord of the Sun in the end was you. Heaven's Punishment headquarters poured out its heart and blood to raise a Night Wanderer, and in twenty years that one never stepped into the realm of peak Dominator. "The Lord of Taiyin and the Lord of the Stars schemed with every trick they had, and in the end they wove your wedding clothes for you." Zhang Yuanqing was studying her in turn. His unsmiling face showed nothing as he said: "Not so dramatic. I was simply a step ahead of them. "Minister Winnie, I'm paying a late-night call because I'd like to collect something." Winnie Berrent's rosy lips curved into a smile: "For the Demon Lord's treasure map key? The last time you proposed a trade, my price was the Elvis Presley speaker. It's the same now." Zhang Yuanqing nodded and opened his palm. A black, palm-sized miniature speaker stood in it. From the speaker's horn came a crackle of static, then a woman's aggrieved voice: "Back when we watched the moon together, you called me your little sweetie. Now you call me Madam Niu..." Winnie Berrent opened her hand as well, and a fan-shaped shard of jade appeared in that pale, tender palm. Zhang Yuanqing beckoned and the jade shard flew to him. He set the Elvis Presley speaker on the tea table beside the sofa and nodded: "My thanks. "I still have one crucial final battle with the Lord of the Stars ahead of me. If I win it, the world will have peace, and I'll come back and catch up with you, Minister." He dissolved into starlight. Winnie Berrent stood where she was, dazed. A long while later, a line of tears slid down her cheek. At dusk, Heaven's Punishment headquarters convened an emergency meeting. Every Gold Executive and prosecutor was required to attend, and Winnie Berrent was among them. The meeting announced the return of the twin gods of Wind and Thunder; the two leaders of Heaven's Punishment—no, only one of them now—made public the outcome of the struggle for the Sun Origin. Winnie Berrent still remembered it: when word came that the newly ascended Lord of the Sun was Yuanshi Tianzun, the uproar in the meeting room was like a crowded marketplace, high-ranking Dominators losing their composure one and all. She had been the calmest of them. Of everyone there, she knew Yuanshi Tianzun best. Beyond his enviable talent, that young man had an iron will and an unyielding spirit in the face of hardship. Add to that the backing of the Merchant Guild and the Association of God of Beauty, and he had the potential to become a peak Dominator and make a push for demigod. Both the Five Elements Alliance and Heaven's Punishment acknowledged that Yuanshi Tianzun had the makings of a demigod. But none of them could accept that a young man who had only cleared the Killing instance and entered the Dominator stage at year's end had, two months later, leapt two levels at once to become a peak Dominator. And that after rising to peak Dominator he had overpowered the Lord of Taiyin and the Lord of the Stars to become the first Lord of the Sun since the Spirit Realm came into being. In their own country's manner of speaking, that was a tale out of the Arabian Nights. Yet the corresponding resentment, confusion, and bewilderment were swept away by the twin gods' next words—the Lord of the Stars had betrayed the orthodox faction and would soon fight the Lord of the Sun to decide the fate of the world. In an instant, no one had any attention left to question the speed of the new Lord of the Sun's advancement. Dread and unease took hold in every Dominator's heart. Yuanshi Tianzun might be the first Lord of the Sun in all of history, but the Lord of the Stars held two great Origins in his grasp, and might well be no weaker than he. And judging by the attitude of the chief prosecutor and chief executive, they seemed to put little faith in the Lord of the Sun. On top of that, the demigods of the Second District had all fallen into slumber together... At least the two chiefs had recovered their senses. When the meeting ended, Winnie meant to step into the teleportation array and return to New York County, but Milton Mack, a First-Class Gold Prosecutor, called her into his office. This peak Dominator of the prosecutor system looked at her with pity and dropped a bombshell: Yuanshi Tianzun was the Demon Lord, revived! In that moment Winnie Berrent turned into a statue. Beneath that calm, blank exterior were surging waves, thunder and lightning, the sky caving in and the earth splitting apart—and wild, incredulous joy... It was hard to describe what she had felt then in short, exact words. If it had to be put into words at all, it was like a five-flavored bottle overturned, every emotion churning and spilling at once, bursting past reason and soul. Back in New York County, Winnie Berrent had waited—waited for the faithless man who had once sworn he loved only her to come knocking at her door. And he had come! Yet he pretended not to know her; all he wanted was to take back the treasure map fragment he had given her. The hope, the longing, the gladness in Winnie Berrent's heart shattered in pieces in that moment. She had pretended not to know the news that Yuanshi Tianzun was the Demon Lord, and in truth she had held on to a tiny hope—that he would speak of it himself, that he would ask to rekindle what they'd had, that once the corruption was purified he would show her true affection and let her believe, firmly, that his pursuit of her back then had not been mere lust at the sight of a pretty face. But the outcome was the exact opposite of what she had imagined. Yuanshi Tianzun, purified of corruption, wanted no tangled involvement with her at all. Pat, pat... tears dropped one by one onto the elm floorboards. After a year and a half, Winnie Berrent felt that heart-tearing pain once more. It was then that the Elvis Presley speaker crackled, followed by Yuanshi Tianzun's low voice: "Winnie, honestly, I don't know how to face you. In the days when I was the Demon Lord, I met a great many women. Most of them were passing flings. They didn't care how many women I had, or whether I had feelings for them; they only wanted to get something from me, and the more straightforward ones simply wanted pleasure. "You were different. You fell in love with me. I've met a few women like you, and I feel guilty toward every one of you. Even at the depths of the corruption, I never treated any of you as toys to be cast aside—which is why I gave each of you a fragment of the treasure map. "The man I was then was a madman walking on the edge of a blade. When the sun rose the next day, the first thing it lit upon might have been my corpse. So when I found that you truly loved me, leaving was my only choice." The voice paused for a few seconds, then went on through the crackling static: "If you can't let me go, then wait for me. If you can, then let us each live well." Winnie Berrent hugged the Elvis Presley speaker to her chest and, unable to hold it in any longer, burst into loud sobs. ... Late at night. At a night market somewhere in the northwest, in a food stall, the Fear Heavenly King sat at a grease-smeared square table—crisp suit, silver stud earring—skewers in his left hand, mutton soup in his right, eating with relish. Dressed like a corporate elite, he was utterly out of place in the noisy, chaotic night market, and so stood out sharply. His handsome looks and upright build drew plenty of young girls and older women over to chat him up, and he ignored every one of them. Northwest women are bold and fierce, and they would not take the hint and leave. Some even meant to force themselves on him, but usually they had no sooner sat down than this roguishly handsome man gave them one sidelong glance and frightened them out of their wits; off they fled. Just then a man in a flat cap and a face mask slipped silently through the bustling crowds of the night market and sat down at the square table. "Weren't all the demigods supposed to be in the Killing instance? How are you still in reality?" Sect Master Chunyang raised his head slightly, revealing grim, crazed eyes beneath the brim of his cap. Fear Heavenly King kept his head down, noisily slurping his mutton soup, and smiled: "The fight over the Sun Origin is already over." Beneath the cap, jealousy and fury flickered through Sect Master Chunyang's eyes. Almost involuntarily, he pressed: "Who won?"