HTCYH Ch 12

Chapter 12: The End (Middle)

“Honorable benefactors, since you’ve come, how do you intend to help this humble woman take her revenge?” The bride’s smile was bewitchingly seductive, carrying a foxy allure that made her seem almost like an enchantress.

Tu Si watched her coquettish posture and the sultry charm between her brows, yet that allure felt unnatural—forced. It wasn’t born of true seduction but rather an imitation, and thus appeared awkward and discordant.

Frowning, Tu Si spoke bluntly, his words like a sudden thunderclap: “People call you a fox spirit, and you really believe you’re one?”

At that, the three others present—excluding Wuming—turned to him in horror, retreating another step and leaving Tu Si isolated on his own.

The bride, upon hearing Tu Si’s words, did not grow angry. Her crimson lips curled faintly, her eyes arching in a delicate hook as she raised her hand to teasingly brush her hair aside, smiling lightly at Tu Si. “And why not? What’s wrong with being a fox spirit? Am I not beautiful?”

Tu Si, unflinching, replied earnestly: “Beautiful. But you lack that… sultry wildness fox spirits have. You can’t imitate that feeling—you just end up awkward.”

The bride paused, then chuckled. “You say that as though you could imitate that sultry wildness yourself?”

Tu Si nodded seriously. “Mm. I can’t. Each craft has its master. A fox spirit should be a fox; anything else isn’t worthy of being one.”

The bride finally understood what Tu Si was implying. So this whole time, he wasn’t insulting her for being a fox spirit—he was saying she wasn’t even worthy of being called one. Her eyes flashed as she swooped toward Tu Si, lifting his chin to study him. “You certainly seem to think you’ve earned the right to judge others. What if I rip apart what gives you that right—would your words be sweeter then?”

Tu Si looked at the bride before him, cheeks faintly flushed, anger simmering beneath the surface. Reflecting on what he’d said, he realized it carried unintended meaning and hastily rephrased: “No one has the right to judge you. It’s just… you clearly aren’t a fox spirit, yet you try to imitate one. If you truly loved their charm, you should know their allure comes from bewitching hearts and tender coquettishness. But you’re only copying the coquettishness—worse, the vulgar kind of courtesans—it insults actual fox spirits.”

Tu Si’s original intent was to urge the bride to be herself, not to degrade herself, and to point out that “fox spirit” wasn’t inherently an insult. But his words instead poured fuel on the fire. Even Wuming, standing nearby, couldn’t help laughing aloud at the mess.

As expected, the bride was enraged. Her crimson silk sashes whipped through the air, lashing toward Tu Si. After Tu Si’s earth-shattering remarks, Fang Xia, Rui Qiuyue, and Yang Huahao had long since bolted, nowhere to be seen. Tu Si, left alone to face the bride’s assault, dodged nimbly, weaving between the strikes of the red silk.

Still unwilling to give up, Tu Si tried to explain: “You! You misunderstood! I wasn’t insulting you! I just meant—you have a stereotyped view of fox spirits! Look at your own idol—you’re clearly radiant and beautiful! You can be dazzling without pretending to be a fox spirit!”

Listening to Tu Si dig himself deeper, Wuming covered his face and muttered, “Grass*… this little thing’s practically an NPC!”

(*Note: “Grass” [草] is often used as a euphemism for swearing in Chinese internet slang.)

But seeing Tu Si flustered, dodging while anxiously stomping his foot, Wuming couldn’t help but laugh.

After watching the show for a while and realizing Tu Si might provoke the bride into a true frenzy, Wuming finally stepped in.

White flames—soft and ethereal—blossomed around Wuming, drifting lazily toward the bride. The instant they touched the red sashes, the silks combusted and vanished, not even leaving behind ash.

The bride froze mid-attack and turned to Wuming. Tu Si, recognizing the change, wisely shut his mouth.

When the bride ceased moving, Wuming finally spoke. “What if I grant you freedom?”

The bride stared at him blankly. Upon hearing his words, she suddenly cradled her face and let out a piercing, bitter laugh—shrill and despairing. When the laughter faded, her eyes turned pitch black, void of pupils, as she stared at Wuming. “Freedom? What is freedom? Am I not free now? Married, with children, a happy family—now I can kill as I please. What more freedom could I want?”

Ignoring her collapse and sarcasm, Wuming continued, “What if I destroy this courtyard for you, burn this doll—would that suffice?”

The bride’s face twisted into a snarl, glaring venomously at him. “Ha. Shallow. You see my memories and think you understand me? Why is it men always claim to know me best—better than I know myself?”

With a low, feral laugh, she lunged at Wuming. Crimson silks whipped around, while sharp peach branches erupted from nowhere, sealing off Wuming’s retreat. Her claw-like nails slashed for his face.

Wuming stood his ground, utterly unafraid, enveloped in a faint mist-like white flame. The soft glow barred her from approaching; her silks and branches probed cautiously but dared not touch, growing increasingly frantic and restless.

When the bride accidentally grazed the flame and recoiled with a scream, retreating several meters, Wuming finally spoke again. “Then what do you want? If it’s reasonable, I can grant it.”

The bride dropped to her knees, clawing at the ground, glaring up with hate-filled eyes. “All of them dead! Dead, every last one! Leave none alive!”

Wuming’s tone remained calm. “There are no living humans here anymore, are there?”

The bride shrieked, “So what?! So what?! Are they all dead yet? Are they?! I’m asking you—are all those wretches truly dead?!”

“Evil will never vanish completely,” Wuming answered. “As long as humanity exists, there will always be evil men.”

“Then why not wipe out humanity?” the bride howled. “What has humanity ever brought to this world? By what right do they deserve to live?”

“Humanity has already perished in your world,” Wuming replied evenly. “So why do you keep luring humans in here to slaughter each other? Haven’t you avenged yourself enough?”

“Yes!” she screamed. “I’ve killed them all! Then why are there still humans coming in?! Tell me, why?!”

At her words, even Wuming was momentarily stunned. He turned toward the scorched trunk of the peach tree behind her and murmured, “The tree… needs nourishment?”

The bride laughed through tears, her face streaked and grotesque—cracked crimson lips, eyes brimming with sorrow. She looked like a pitiable clown, a puppet on strings. “Tell me—how does a powerless woman, the lowest of society, gain the ability to slaughter every human here? Who gave me that power? And why? Because I had no one? Because I had nowhere to run?”

Not far away, Tu Si—who had been silently watching—snapped his head toward the charred peach tree trunk at those words. Yes! That was the missing piece—the perspective! The countless visions he’d seen weren’t from the bride or the maiden, but from above, as if watching from a high seat, witnessing her despair and fall like an amused spectator.

Wuming fell silent. He tossed the doll into the air, and the white flames devoured it instantly. With a wave of his hand, the entire courtyard turned to ash.

The bride watched all this unfold, her laughter dying away. She reached up to remove the peach blossom ornament from her forehead, stripped off her wedding dress, cast aside her ornate headdress, and bowed deeply to Wuming. Then, without hesitation, she flung herself into the white flames—disappearing in an instant, reduced to nothing.

The moment the girl dissipated, the peach tree went berserk. Peach blossoms swirled in the air, blackened branches thrashing violently. Petals fell like a torrential storm.

Branches stabbed wildly toward Wuming, like a frenzied madman swinging weapons at any who dared block its path.

Wuming did not budge. The white flames around him formed an unyielding barrier; any branch that touched them ignited instantly, disintegrating to nothing. Yet the tree continued to grow new branches endlessly, striking again and again. The petals above spun wildly, turning the courtyard into a vortex, engulfing both Wuming and Tu Si as if they’d been hurled into a washing machine.

Tu Si, still dazed by the maiden’s disappearance, unconsciously tugged at his own hair, yanking strands free one by one. He was steeped in remorse, reflecting bitterly on his words. He hadn’t meant to mock or condemn her—he had only felt sorrow at her self-abandonment and wanted to comfort her, to encourage her confidence. Yet in the end, she believed his words were insults, that he was shaming her wounds by saying she wasn’t even fit to be a fox spirit.

Lost in regret, Tu Si barely noticed as the whirling petals sliced across his face, leaving thin lines. Clear, greenish liquid seeped from the cuts, snapping him back to his senses.

He raised a hand to his cheek; the wounds closed instantly. Gazing at the raging peach blossom vortex—petals so dense they obscured Wuming’s figure—Tu Si saw, at the center, a strange radiance: a ball of blossoms emitting a multicolored black glow. Its light spread in hues of blue and violet, giving him the unsettling impression of a poisonous mushroom.

The moment Tu Si laid eyes on that eerie sphere, a feeling welled up inside him: This is the law that governs the game’s operation. Filth. Corruption. Infection. It must be destroyed, purified, ended.

The sensation arose instinctively. He knew—this was his destiny.

Without hesitation, Tu Si extended his tendrils and enveloped the floral sphere. He didn’t even need to consciously absorb it—the mass dissolved into him instantly. The sensation was indescribable: like biting into what appears to be beef, only for it to liquefy in the mouth into a vile, nauseating slurry sliding down the throat—a sickening texture that made him want to vomit but left him unable to.

That vile mass coursed through every corner of Tu Si’s body—down to the very tips of his hair and tendrils—filling him with revulsion so intense it bordered on madness. He wanted to vomit, to tear out every strand of hair and tendril, to peel off his skin and throw it into a washing machine for violent cleansing, to rip out his organs and toss them into a river for the fish to devour.