Chapter 2092 - 690: The Only One

Chapter 2092: Chapter 690: The Only One

He Province, Tian’an County, Dayuan Village.

Villager Wang Dalong feels as if he’s trapped in an endlessly long dream, one from which he’ll never awaken. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

In the dream, every day feels pleasant for Wang Dalong.

The days in this dream aren’t much different from before.

Every morning he goes to work in the fields, and at sunset, he returns to bed and fields with his wife, living a life reminiscent of an old ox.

If there’s any difference, it’s that now he’s happy every day, living with ease.

As for why he feels at ease and happy, Wang Dalong can’t quite say.

Perhaps it’s because life under the Holy King is easier, with light duties and low taxes, causing life to improve steadily?

It’s said that, after the court’s great defeat at the hands of southern rebels, the current Emperor turned over a new leaf, striving to govern diligently, and exerted significant effort to punish corrupt officials, finally reviving the Daning Dynasty and extinguishing the southern rebellion half a year ago.

Now, in Daning, rivers are clear and seas calm, the country prospering and people living in safety, returning once more to an era of prosperity.

Yet, oftentimes, Wang Dalong doubts.

He is perplexed by many things, such as his family’s grain jar.

If these are prosperous times, why is there no grain left in the family’s jar?

Clearly, it’s been less than two months since the autumn harvest.

Why has the wheat, painstakingly gathered from the fields, run out so early?

Although the court’s tax is light, they say it’s reverted to the country’s initial period, with the Holy Emperor not only removing various heavy taxes but also reducing the land tax to ten percent.

Wang Dalong tries hard to remember but always fails to recall where the wheat went.

He also feels urgently hungry, restless with hunger from morning till night, desperate enough to want to eat human flesh.

Speaking of humans, it seems there are fewer people in his home.

Previously, his home was lively; at dinner time, several children would chase and play around the house, his father sitting in the hall smilingly watching his grandchildren, while his wife and mother busily worked in the kitchen.

It was a dreamlike scene.

But now—

The home is always bleak, with few people silently and happily eating dinner.

Wang Dalong feels happy every day but always senses something amiss, unable to pinpoint what it is.

Until this midnight, when the sun and moon simultaneously reflect in the sky, illuminating it into an expanse of whiteness.

Wang Dalong suddenly wakes up from his sleep, and then hears the heart-wrenching screams from his wife beside him.

Wang Dalong himself also abruptly sits up on the bed.

He realizes what is wrong.

His mother had starved to death, lying in the kitchen for three days till the body started to stink, only then to be buried like trash in the vegetable garden.

His father also died, exhausted by the field edge, collapsing into the ditch and never climbing out again.

That was half a year ago, by now his father’s corpse should have turned into a skeleton.

He saw it in the field the other day, mistaking it for a dog’s bones and tossing it aside.

Furthermore, the wheat in the jar has been taken by the government.

The court’s tax is indeed ten percent, but additionally, there’s the ’sacrificial money’.

It’s said to be an additional tax for supporting the country’s sacrificial rites, requiring money and grain six times the land tax to be paid to the court.

He was confused, unknowingly forgetting this matter.

"Children~ children!"

The wife beside him, after a bout of screaming, begins weeping again, tears streaming incessantly: "Husband, in the kitchen, our child, the child!"

His wife, disheveled, body emaciated, face bloodless, her complexion lifeless, completely unlike the plump, rosy appearance from the dream.

Wang Dalong finally recalls the most important thing he forgot.

His young son Wang Xiaoman—

He too cries out in heart-wrenching pain, like a madman staggering and crawling, rushing toward the kitchen behind.

※※※※

Inside Ji Yang’s Tomb, Yu Kunlun and Emperor Jianyuan are surrounded by intense bloodlight.

The Dragon Energy that Emperor Jianyuan summoned has even transformed into overwhelming Karmic Fire, gnawing and eroding his body.

Emperor Jianyuan feels a chill throughout his body, experiencing intense pain in both his Primordial Spirit and skin.

He finds that the ’Twelve Dragon God Heavenly Guardian’ he conjured for protection have actually become manifestations of countless resentful spirits and evil ghosts.

The twelve red dragons circling around him all have decayed bodies, full of holes and scars.

Their scales have turned pitch black, piled with skulls and dismembered human limbs, along with countless blood-red flames spewing from their bodies, scorching his form.

Emperor Jianyuan couldn’t help but feel shocked and angry.

—He is the Emperor of Daning!

These disgraceful peasants, these ants, dare to resent their monarch!

These filthy resentful spirits, dare to offend the Human Emperor of the age?

He tries his utmost to increase pressure, yet the Karmic Fire burns ever fiercer.

Even the Dragon Energy within the Inverted Yin Yang Formation transforms into a mass of Red Blood Flames.

The once intrigued Heavenly Dog from the Initial era, finally unable to remain calm.

It unexpectedly lets out a wretched howl, containing extreme pain.

Yu Kunlun’s body is also covered in blood-colored flames.

His form even surpasses Emperor Jianyuan in its tragedy.

Yu Kunlun, whose skin originally resembled crystal, has dulled without shine, even developing scores of boils, with his body breaking into countless tiny wounds, like a porcelain vase about to shatter.

He stares at his increasingly grotesque hands: "Such intense Karmic Fire and resentment, I truly have sinned."