Evil Emperor Zun

Chapter 2018 Distinguishing Loyalty from Treachery (Part 1)
"I think it was the effect of the curse that caused the timeline to collapse and dragged me back to this time and space." This is how Chen Shiyu, who has a pair of pure blue eyes and is known as "Lan Shiyu" for short, described his experience: "There are two of us, but only one of us can move towards the future."

“I am looking for a way to restore time and space. If all goes well, we won’t have to kill each other. But the other ‘me’ who has been corrupted will do anything to get rid of me. When I have no choice but to fight him, Tianyao, I hope you can stand on my side.”

At that moment, Chu Tianyao pondered for a while before slowly and deliberately speaking:

"Touyu, I mean no offense. But how can I be sure that you are the Touyu I know?"

Because of his good manners, he always tried his best to avoid making others feel uncomfortable. After a pause, he added almost considerately, "What I mean is, another version of you might come and say the same thing to me, asking me to help him deal with you. How would I tell who you are then?"

Lan Shiyu was clearly prepared and immediately replied, "He has sided with the Devouring Clan! The me you know would never do such a thing, right?"

Lan Shiyu also promised him that she would take him to see another piece of evidence that Shiyu had submitted to the Gnawing Clan that night, so he shouldn't rush to sleep.

Time passed as Chu Tianyao pondered. Then, around midnight, Lan Shiyu's knock on the door sounded as expected.

Chu Tianyao followed him out the door, and the two walked through the winding corridors until they arrived at the cage of the Devouring Clan.

In the dead of night, someone was already waiting there.

Chen Shiyu, his eyes pitch black, stood facing the Gnawing Clan Chief, his head slightly raised, arms outstretched at his sides. Around the Gnawing Clan members, large and small, wisps of dark mist rose continuously, surging out of the cage and pouring into Chen Shiyu's open body. What he couldn't absorb swirled around him, eventually coalescing into a colossal, towering tornado centered on him, its dense, malevolent energy permeating the entire space.

It was obvious to everyone that the Gnawing Clan was channeling energy into Chen Shiyu. Their generosity was clearly because they intended to use him for their purposes, and thus they were first arming their pawn.

Seeing that Chu Tianyao had seen it clearly, Lan Shiyu gave a hand gesture, and the two of them quietly retreated.

……

Do you believe it now?

As soon as he returned to his room, before he could even sit down in his chair, Lan Shiyu asked impatiently.

"...So, the Devouring Race really does possess intelligence?" Chu Tianyao didn't answer immediately; his thoughts seemed to be lingering on something else. "The information circulating in the Cosmic Sea is wrong. We have all underestimated them."

"Yes." Lan Shiyu lowered his eyelids and gave a vague reply, "It seems so."

Chu Tianyao nodded thoughtfully, remaining silent for a long while. When he raised his head again, a dark purple whip suddenly materialized in his hand. His eyes flashed sharply, and he slashed down fiercely at Lan Shiyu!

“I’m sorry, but if only one of you can survive, I think he’s more useful to me.”

Lan Shiyu suddenly felt a strong gust of wind strike his body and hurriedly spun around to avoid it. With a "crack," the chair that was still in its original position was smashed into pieces, and the shattered wood fragments were swept away by the overflowing energy. It was clear that Chu Tianyao had not held back at all in this attack; he was aiming to take Lan Shiyu's life.

"You... what do you mean?!" Lan Shiyu was both shocked and angry. Chu Tianyao's next attack followed immediately, forcing him to dodge continuously. He couldn't even speak coherently. "Didn't you see everything just now? If you still have any questions, just say so, and I can explain it to you!"

Chu Tianyao still controlled the light whip with one hand, guiding it to sweep across the room like a flexible snake, while raising his other hand flat, a large amount of spiritual power gathered in his palm, transforming into high-speed spinning energy shuttles, their sharpness aimed directly at Lan Shiyu.

"What I mean is..." As he said this, his eyes turned pitch black, the thick ink filling his entire eye sockets without leaving a single gap, "I have also joined the Devouring Clan."

……

Beneath Chu Tianyao's gentle and refined exterior lies an almost fanatical obsession with power.

From a very young age, he was single-mindedly pursuing power.

My master was a very upright man. He always said that as his disciples, we didn't have to be powerful, but we absolutely could not be wicked. In life and in work, character was always the first priority. So naturally, he viewed forbidden spells as if they were a monstrous flood, strictly forbidding his disciples from practicing them.

Chu Tianyao deeply respected his master, but he did not agree with his master's philosophy. In his view, the essence of the world was always the survival of the fittest, and the weak could die at any time, so what was the point of having good character? In this respect, he admired Xu Wuji, the leader of the Burning Heaven Sect, more.

He could imagine how disappointed his master would be if he spoke frankly, and how disdainful his fellow disciples would look at him. He couldn't make them understand that even if he gained power, he wouldn't do evil; this was his way of being a good person, and it was more valuable than empty talk about morality and civilization.

After arriving in Tiantan, he saw countless people who admired Jiang Liechen and wanted to become him, but few dared to admit it, and on the surface, they all pretended to be more righteous than the last. Chu Tianyao, who always cherished his reputation, naturally couldn't propose anything that would make him stand out from the crowd. He just often felt lonely, a loneliness that had continued from reality to the present, a loneliness of "being out of place with the external environment."

Some time ago, a group of demons attempted to seize the power of the Devouring Clan, a move that greatly appealed to Chu Tianyao. Since his strength was insufficient to forcibly establish a master, he took a different approach, attempting to communicate with them.

Time and again, when no one was patrolling, he would kneel alone before the Devouring Clan's cage, communicating his thirst for power through telepathic means. He said he was willing to serve them, as long as they granted him power. He would also talk about how he viewed the world and others. He poured out his heart, which had been suppressed for many years and had nowhere else to be spoken, to these alien races without reservation. Throughout this process, the Devouring Clan never communicated with him directly, but one day, he did vaguely sense that he had been "marked." Some subtle changes occurred within his body, and a strange power, not belonging to him, appeared that he could control. When he mobilized this power, he could see his eyes, now pitch black, through the mirror. That was exactly the same as Chen Shiyu's appearance after being corrupted.

……

"Thank you for telling me this information. It makes me certain that the Devouring Clan will win the final victory, and I can stand more firmly on their side." Chu Tianyao flicked his five fingers in succession, and the sharp energy shuttle was like a bullet fired from the barrel, chasing Lan Shiyu from all directions, exploding in the room with smoke everywhere.

"Also, I was worried about not finding someone who could speak to them. It is also thanks to you that I was able to see the way."

“I believe you are the good one, Shiyu. But I don’t care who is good or bad among you. I only care about what you can bring me.”

Lan Shiyu, who was dodging and weaving among the various colored orbs of light, listened to him finish speaking in a daze. When he saw the light whip whistling through the air again and engulfing his entire field of vision, he seemed to suddenly remember something and hurriedly raised a hand towards Chu Tianyao.

"Wait, you should be the one who needs me!"

"Weren't you looking for someone who works for the Devouring Clan? It's me! The real Chen Shiyu knows nothing!"

"The person in the open space just now was also my companion. We put on a show for you!"

It turned out that the person Lan Shiyu had specially taken Chu Tianyao to see was Hei Shiyu.

After Lan Shiyu revealed itself to be a fellow traveler, Chu Tianyao temporarily ceased his attack. He sat down with it and listened to it explain their plan.

Lan Shiyu said that the Gnawing Clan wanted to eliminate Chen Shiyu and replace him with an obedient clone. They also wanted to obtain his genes.

The other cloning machine was originally in Hei Shiyu's possession. While Chen Shiyu and Ye Yunyan were searching for it everywhere, it swaggered to the empty space in front of the prison, copied the recorder with golden and orange eyes again, left the sample in place, and took away the second-generation clone.

After that, Hei Shiyu went to Chen Shiyu, intending to deceive him with lies, making him mistake Jing Shiyu, who came to warn him, for an evil clone, and thus ignore his warning. On the other hand, it was also to buy time, so that he wouldn't think about retrieving the clone, giving the two "subprograms" more time to grow.

He hadn't expected Jing Shiyu to be there, and even earlier than him. But there was still a chance for Hei Shiyu. Even if he couldn't gain Chen Shiyu's trust, he at least had to make him believe that neither of them were trustworthy!
Mirror Ten Feather is not of the same kind as them. It is indeed the future Dust Ten Feather that was corrupted, and also the original sample from which Black Ten Feather was born. As long as it survives in the mirror space, Black Ten Feather can never become the original body.

The mirror space is independent for each mirror image. Even if two mirror images enter the same mirror, they will only enter their own unique space. The only way to escape is for the person inside to willingly step out, or to unexpectedly destroy the mirror when the other appears, causing them to fall out due to spatial damage. However, mirror images cannot do this; even if they attack the mirror, the part that contacts the mirror surface will be trapped in the mirror space. In short, the Devouring Clan of the future timeline turned their attention to Dust Ten Feather of the past because they were unable to deal with Mirror Ten Feather.

Confronting Chen Shiyu directly with Jing Shiyu quickly brought Hei Shiyu its first problem. Chen Shiyu actually thought of using a cloning machine to test their identities. If the threat hadn't been imminent and a reason needed to be found, Hei Shiyu would never have wanted to utter the term "mirror entity." But since things had come to this, it decided to do the opposite.

The possibility of self-reflection, or even complete annihilation, is a consequence most people would likely believe. If Jing Shiyu were to enthusiastically advise against it while guaranteeing its own safety, it would not only fail to conceal the truth but also arouse even more suspicion. Therefore, it decisively agreed with Jing Shiyu's entire stance.

Logically, this would essentially confirm the intelligence, but Chen Shiyu is a smart person, and smart people are often more prone to overthinking. When the answer is too obvious, he might start to suspect that the two of them are deliberately playing good cop/bad cop, intentionally maintaining consistency on erroneous information—"when falsehood is taken for truth, even truth becomes falsehood." As Chen Shiyu's clone, it indeed understands Chen Shiyu's way of thinking very well.

If it's a lie, it must have a purpose. The "mirrorization" claim is clearly meant to make him put away the clones. As for why he was set up to put away the clones, he'll fill in the blanks himself: because the Gnawing Clan is afraid of letting him know the truth.

To reinforce this preconceived misconception, Hei Shiyu deliberately dropped the bombshell information of "seeing the King of the Gnawing Clan." This was a carefully laid plan specifically for Jing Shiyu. They both knew that to verify the authenticity of the information, the clone had to keep recording for a long time. And the more anxious and desperately urging the person who most wanted to stop the recording appeared, the more guilty it would seem.

If things go smoothly, this will not only destroy Jing Shiyu's credibility, but also lead to Chen Shiyu's self-destruction—even if the gamble fails, it doesn't matter, as there is still a "backup plan".

The reason why they didn't choose to take away the clones in the open space, but instead seemingly redundantly copied another one, was entirely due to Hei Shiyu's meticulous planning.

This is a clever trap. If the clone that was clearly visible disappears, Chen Shiyu's acceptance of the mirroring warning will increase dramatically, and he will spare no effort to find it, possibly even borrowing specialized locator artifacts from Qin Jia or other demons. If it really comes to that, Hei Shiyu isn't confident he can hide the clone properly.

Now, he has deliberately left a trap, letting the other man take it. Once he takes it, the man will relax his guard and think the crisis is over. It is this false sense of security that will toll his death knell.

This is why, even though Chen Shiyu managed to retrieve the clone in time, he still became a mirror image. Because one clone remained outside, and before he even realized it, it was accelerated to the point where it was enough to break him.

Afterwards, the second-generation clone—who is now Lan Shiyu—deactivated its pupil technique, restoring its normal blue eyes. Its mission is to find a reliable ally to use the cloning machine to capture Chen Shiyu.

Having witnessed Chu Tianyao's dark eyes and his ruthless attacks, Lan Shiyu was certain he was one of their own. They shared the same goals and understood each other perfectly well, which was far easier than trying to deceive him with a bunch of lofty excuses. Therefore, when Lan Shiyu spoke again, his attitude was noticeably warmer and more friendly.

Of course, what it would never tell Chu Tianyao was that after its "awakening," it hadn't unlocked many combat data packets yet, and its actual combat ability was still quite mediocre. This was precisely why, despite possessing Chen Shiyu's genome, it had been overwhelmed by Chu Tianyao just now.

"The cloning machine is now in my hands." At the end of his sentence, Lan Shiyu took out a machine that looked exactly like an old-fashioned camera and handed it to Chu Tianyao. "I will teach you how to use it."

"It's up to you to make the real Chen Shiyu disappear from this world."