Chapter 1107: Burying Meritorious Deed and Name
Killing Dark Ancestor Xie Sanxiao was world-shaking news. Going instantly from an ordinary cultivator to a hero revered by the people, a normal person would find it very hard to bear the halos and sugar-coated bullets that followed.
But Zuo Butong calmed down in the end; he knew very well how a blameless person could still rouse the envy of others, as well as the danger of tall trees attracting the wind.
He decided to bury his meritorious deed and name, not only for his and his descendants' safety, but also for the future of the entire Zuo family.
Even if he was tempted to accept this lucky windfall and receive this gargantuan honor which didn't belong to him, he couldn't guarantee that the descendants of the Zuo bloodline wouldn't be puffed up with arrogance in the future.
People who were swollen with arrogance made mistakes very easily.
Before a lot of successful figures reached the top, they were bound to experience all sorts of trials and hardships; if they leapt to the top in one go, they would only hurt themselves in the end.
What Zuo Butong feared was that because of the halo effect, he and his descendants would lose the motivation to work hard and progress.
Thus, he chose to lay low.
He gave up everything and even changed his clan name.
Zuo Butong and Huaxiu Alliance acted on a secret mission to erase the memories of friends and family who knew about his glory back then.
Zuo Butong even erased his own memory.
The next time he woke up, his appearance had changed, and even his name had become Zhuo Tong.
That hero Zuo Butong became a legendary Huaxiua hero in Zhuo Tong and everybody's memories...
When Zhuo Tong visited the heroes' memorial every year on behalf of his organization and saw Zuo Butong's face, he was always struck by the sense that the latter seemed familiar.
Of course, these were already stories of the past.
So, in some sense, White Hair felt that this Zuo Butong was also an extraordinary person.
His realm couldn't be considered high, but he was farsighted.
It was just that even Zhuo Tong himself never thought that his ability to win at life would be passed down to his descendants, especially to the one called Odd Zhuo...
Where Odd Zhuo differed from Zuo Butong was that he was still pursuing progress, even now.
This was because Odd Zhuo had always been keenly aware that what he had now didn't really belong to him, and he needed to work harder to prove that he was worthy of all of it!
Nightmare was greatly shaken when White Hair was done talking about the basic situation, and had yet to completely digest this history from back then.
"Lord, rest assured. I now understand the situation, and I'll leave for the Residence of Reincarnation right away."
Naturally, it was impossible to learn this information through normal channels, but White Hair had his own unique means.
He had calculated the time, and initially planned to take advantage of the moment that Wang Nuan was born into this world to use the power of Shadow Dao and directly blast open Nine Dragon Mountain's main vein... Unfortunately, Wang Ling was far more vigilant than he had imagined.
He was running out of time, and couldn't continue messing around with Wang Ling; he had no choice but to switch to plan B.
Whether it was Nightmare, Xia Ming, or that Dark Ancestor Xie Sanxiao who was on the verge of being resurrected -
When all was said and done, they were nothing more than his pawns.
...
The Prison of Reincarnation was also called the Residence of Reincarnation.
It was the largest underground prison situated in Huaxiu nation's Jinghua city, and the main prison for all top-level criminals.
The Old Devil, Master of Immortal Mansion Cheng Yu, and Evil Sword God would have been sent here, but the head of the Ten Generals, General Bai, had them stay back to be reorganized into the three-person Mahjong Squad and to carry out missions to atone for their crimes. It was for this reason that their prison transfer wasn't carried out.
The prisoners locked up in the Residence of Reincarnation had conducted truly heinous crimes... Actually, whether it was Old Devil, Cheng Yu or Evil Sword God, their crimes didn't seem as bad in contrast.
Old Devil back then had simply lost his head over love — he didn't want to let go of this past fate, and had thus invaded the National Palace to look for the Wheel of Time, creating enormous havoc. Plenty of people had also further distorted the truth of a lot of things behind the scenes, when they weren't as terrifying as the rumors made them out to be. The Old Devil had in fact actually only committed a trespassing offense...
When it came to Master of Immortal Mansion Cheng Yu, his Immortal Mansion hadn't gotten the approval of the dark forces. He had initially wanted to use Immortal She Pi's magic array to refine an exceptional divine sword and create chaos. Unfortunately, he just had to steal Jingke... Before he could do anything, his entire organization collapsed! It was like a newly-established company which had the license and staff, and was about to open for business, but the industrial and commercial bureau suddenly dropped by to take the boss away on grounds of operating illegally...
As for Evil Sword God, nothing much needed to be said.
To surpass his master, he cultivated an evil art, which caused him to be possessed by his inner demon. Simply put, he was a mental patient with multiple personality disorder...
As everyone knew, mental patients couldn't break the law...
Of course, there were logical explanations for their behavior, but the fact was that their actions had adverse effects. It thus made sense for them to be sentenced to a thousand years in prison. In addition, General Bai had put forward the condition that their thousand-year sentences could only be reduced through their service and not through the regular application procedure.
In other words, if there were no missions to run, they could only wait for one... right up until their prison sentences were up.
It seemed very wretched, but at the very least, Warden Liang treated them quite well in Songhai First Prison, and would occasionally play mahjong with them.
In contrast, the truly hideous criminals in the Residence of Reincarnation weren't treated as well.
This was Nightmare's first time at the Residence of Reincarnation.
After White Hair brought him back to life, he had also gained some power of Fate Dao, like Bai Youquan, which made him stronger than before he died.
Nightmare couldn't quite imagine how terrifying that Dark Ancestor would be after he was resurrected.
He snuck inside without being noticed.
The art which Nightmare cultivated was extremely unique; he had refined his material body into a virtual one - this was the peak of the Nightmare Art!
Criminals in fact weren't held on the eighth floor of the underground prison.
The Residence of Reincarnation divided criminals into seven classes: the deeper underground the criminals were imprisoned, the higher their class.
The eighth floor was an exhibition hall which displayed the remains of some Super S-class criminals.
When these criminals were found, they were basically executed on the spot by Huaxiu's Immortal Arts Mobile Squadron or the Alliance Peacekeeping Force.
Displaying these remains, firstly, acted as a warning about how dangerous these criminals were, and secondly, demonstrated how difficult it was for law enforcement to crack down on criminal activity.
And the skull of Dark Ancestor Xie Sanxiao which White Hair had mentioned was placed in this eight zone... .
Apart from Xie Sanxiao's skull, Nightmare also discovered a lot of interesting things during his search.