Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

..............................

And so time slowly passed, year after year. Gradually, the company he managed rose and fell, and the same things his predecessor had experienced were repeated in his life.

The secret deal that had lasted five years finally escalated into a major scandal due to the expansion of their ambitions. Perhaps it started out as a fair and law-abiding business, but the profit-driven nature of capitalists quickly distorted everything. When a more powerful force intervened behind them, the law was trampled upon, and the truth could no longer be concealed. The events that had occurred in this very office twenty years ago were rewritten.

Zheng Zha looked up and saw a young man in a suit enter his office. Ten years ago, he had stood in the same spot doing the same thing. And now…

“Mr. Zheng, you should know who I represent and why I’m here.” The young man stared at him as if he were looking at a dead man. “It’s better for everyone if you take the blame yourself, for me, and for your wife. You should know that your time is running out, and some important figures hope that this matter can be resolved before today.”

“It sounds like I have no other choice.” Zheng Zha smiled, took a thin document from the table, and tossed it to the young man. “But I think I should.”

He had never trusted his partners or his backers. So he had anticipated and prepared for everything that was happening today. When the young man's calm face suddenly flushed red after reading the first two pages of the document, then turned pale, and then he carelessly pulled the phone out of his pocket, he knew that his plan had finally worked.

So, he went bankrupt when he was fifty. Because of his good attitude and good conduct, he was spared imprisonment and was granted the protection of a false identity as a major tainted witness. But all the wealth he had accumulated in the first half of his life was gone, leaving him penniless back to where he was twenty-five years earlier when he started his business.

A person lives for a hundred years, how many twenty-five-year periods does one have? Zheng Zha now knew very well that he wouldn't live to be a hundred. He had overdrawn his health too much in the past, and had no chance of a comeback. Fortunately, he wasn't completely broke. He had made some preparations beforehand, legally transferring a small portion of his clean and untainted assets to a secluded location long ago. While this money couldn't allow him to rise again, it could at least allow him and Luo Li to enjoy their later years in comfort.

And so, from that day on, the business world lost a not-so-well-known figure. Meanwhile, in a small, third-tier city, an elderly couple moved into a villa that was neither particularly nice nor bad. From that day on, Zheng Zha began a different, unchanging life—raising birds, watering flowers, fishing, and occasionally indulging in the trend of watching sports or playing video games. Luo Li's health was poor, so they never had children and didn't have to worry about the trivialities of children and grandchildren. And in this peaceful time, the two elderly people spent twenty years of their lives together.

In the year he turned seventy, Lori's body finally gave way before him. The aftereffects of the cancer she had suffered in childhood ultimately led her to a terminal illness that was beyond medical help in her late seventies. Even with the advanced medical technology of the mid-21st century, this damage originating from within her genes remained incurable.

The illness came on very quickly, extremely quickly. The day after Zheng Zha exhausted all his savings to send Luo Li to the intensive care unit, the attending physician issued a critical condition notice. And before Luo Li's final moments, he was allowed to quietly stay by his partner's side alone.

He held Lori's wrinkled hand, gazing at her aged face. He remained motionless and silent.

“You big bad guy.” Lori looked at him back and asked the question she had asked every day for the rest of her life. “Have you found what you were looking for?”

Zheng Zha stared at her, saying nothing.

A faint smile finally appeared on Lori's lips. She slowly closed her eyes. The electrocardiogram alarm sounded, and it was all finally coming to an end.

Within the abyss of the heart, Zheng Zha opened his eyes.

The black, spiderweb-like cracks abruptly stopped before they covered his eyes. And when he turned his head, he saw Lori, who had covered her eyes with her hands, slowly wither into ash.

He silently reached out, and the rusted, scarlet greatsword landed in his palm. Then he rose from the sofa, casting his gaze toward a certain spot in the void of the Heart Abyss.

The dream is over, and this farce should come to an end.

........................

This volume will end tomorrow.

Section 47 The Beginning of the Tao

He looked towards a spot in the void where gloomy black mist churned endlessly. He didn't intend to go over and slash the creature, because doing so would be pointless.

This is the abyss of the heart, the deepest recesses of the soul. The end of thought, the very bottom of the spirit. All longing and spirit converge here; even the strongest brute force can only target oneself. And the only thing one can rely on to achieve victory here, on any level, is simply this.

That is thought.

One's own thoughts.

Zheng Zha gently planted the knife into the ground, and the spiderweb-like patterns on his body vanished like wisps of smoke. A small patch of smooth ground was cleared around the point where the knife had landed, serving as his footing. Then he gently exhaled a long breath.

“I made a mistake before. I thought Lori was everything to me, but that’s not actually the case.” He turned his head, and a blurry, slender female figure appeared and disappeared around him. The woman’s face was indistinct, but Lori’s figure could be barely discerned from her build and height.

"Would I die without Lori? No, I wouldn't. If that were the case, I would have gone with her when she was terminally ill with cancer. And it turns out that even though Lori left me, I was able to live a perfectly normal life in my twenties... although it was a boring and rotten life."

“I love her, I value her very much. If she dies, I will find a way to bring her back to life. If she is hurt, I will find a way to heal her and make the person who did it or something else pay a heavy price. I value her, and I would do many, many stupid things for her, and I might even die in the process. But she is not everything to me.”

“She isn’t, Zhan Lan isn’t, and neither are Margot Lloyd or Chu Xuan. Each of them is very important to me, but they are not my everything. Because I am an independent person, an independent tree, not a vine parasitizing a tree. Trust can certainly give me strength, but I can live without trust.”

"An interesting method of self-justification. Trying to prove your inner strength to negate me?" The black smoke gathered and solidified, instantly reappearing as the 'disbelieving' Zhan Lan. Its face remained indifferent, its eyes still gleaming with a subtle and contemptuous light. "Your realization that you are an independent entity does surprise me somewhat, but surprise... well, it's not really that surprising. I expected that you, as the true form, wouldn't be so easily defeated. But so what?"

“You withstood the most fatal blow, but the previous wounds still remain. Even now, you still deeply believe in Zhan Lan. But you still completely ‘disbelieve’ in me, who has taken over the individual concept of ‘Zhan Lan’. From this spiral of trust and disbelief, I will gain endless, inexhaustible power. You can no longer disprove me, you can no longer completely eliminate me, and sooner or later you will gather the light of your soul, and then face an indestructible inner demon.”

'Zhan Lan' shrugged. "You've been given a chance to survive, but it's only temporary. The fact that you didn't perish directly in the collapse of the Dao might be considered a minor flaw. But it won't actually affect the final outcome you'll achieve."

“I will win, and you will disappear. The Zheng Zha who ‘disbelieves’ will replace the Zheng Zha who ‘believes’. One day I will replace you today. I am already the destined winner, while you are destined to fail. Even if you can continue to delay for a while, what can you do? You are finished.”

“You’re finished.” Zheng Zha gently chewed on the words 'disbelief' had uttered, and slowly repeated them. “Yes, you’re right, you’re finished.”

"...Stubborn to the end? Zheng Zha, the loser shouldn't be so ugly."

“No, I’m just stating a fact.” Zheng Zha clenched his fist slightly. “If this had happened in the past, before my false path collapsed, I would have been finished after such a blow. Because back then, I would have lost my goal to strive for, and even if I lived a strong life, I would have been nothing more than a walking corpse. But now… perhaps I should thank you for helping me shatter my false path. You’ve done me a great favor.”

Within the abyss of the heart, the atmosphere suddenly changed.

"...What?" A look of astonishment appeared on the face of 'Zhan Lan' before him. For the first time, that mask-like face showed real emotion, as if it were a living person.

"In that short period of time, maybe a few seconds, maybe a few days, maybe more than ten days, I thought a lot about things that I could never understand before. To be honest, I have never been able to figure out what I really want deep down, that primal desire, that most essential pursuit. I have never been able to figure out what it is."

“Is it Lori?” He shook his head slightly in denial. “No, it’s not. Lori is certainly an important treasure and a pillar of support for me. But she is not the ultimate manifestation of the path I seek—after all, it would be too absurd to regard someone as the end of one’s path. She can indeed walk with me, but she is not my ultimate goal.”

"If my path isn't Lolita, then what is it? The so-called path of the Human Emperor is nothing more than a side effect of the Dao Erosion during the ritual. It's false, it's an imposter. It may look magnificent and solemn, but that's not what I truly want. In fact, I don't really care much about those so-called innocent masses. If I really cared about them, I would have turned against my teammates long before the sociological experiments in other people's hands even started, and I would have done everything in my power to stop all of my teammates' actions from the very beginning. But in reality, I just have a slightly excessive amount of sympathy... or rather, I'm just acting out of kindness."

He slowly exhaled, his fingers gently tracing the deep red broadsword planted on the ground.

"So, I thought about it carefully. The Human Emperor's path is not my true path, but I accepted it easily and regarded it as my true pursuit in the past. Based on this, I deduced that what I really want is not the same as this indiscriminate kindness extended to mortals. It's just that some parts overlap. And after thinking about it, the part that is most likely to overlap... should be 'salvation'."

He suddenly raised his head and looked at the 'disbelief' in front of him.

"Hey, do you remember what I was thinking before I clicked on that YES or NO window?"

He provided the answer without waiting for a reply of 'disbelief'.

I want to change something; I want to have my own meaning.

"Do you understand? What I really want is 'change'. Change of the status quo, resistance against oppression, exploration of predicaments, and breaking through the maze. My 'change' is different from Margot Lloyd's; her change is closer to 'development.' The change I long for is more inclined towards 'opening up'."

“If I were emperor, I would be a pioneer. I would overthrow oppression, shatter the cage, and destroy all the rules and regulations that are pinned to my head. Saving the people would be merely a byproduct of my ‘pioneering’ process. I do not necessarily save them; they are simply saved incidentally as I accomplish my goal.”

He raised his broadsword and walked step by step toward 'Disbelief'. With each step he took, 'Disbelief' retreated a step. And the darkness beneath his feet was instantly replaced by pure white, which rapidly expanded into the distance.

“I give people fish, but I don’t teach them how to fish. Because I am only responsible for opening up a ray of light, and whether those who benefit from it can grasp it depends on themselves. I save people, but I don’t save them completely. I send people off to the Buddha, but I don’t send them to the Western Paradise. I only open up a new path, and I don’t care about the rest, nor do I need to care. Because I am the one who opens up the path, I don’t need to do the work of the one who maintains the status quo or manages it.”

The pure white beneath his feet gradually took on a concrete form, a magnificent hall with twenty portals replacing the previously cracked and crumbling scene in the Abyss of the Heart. The blurry Lori beside him solidified, and this time, upon her appearance, all traces of artificiality on her body vanished completely, leaving not a trace.

One of the twenty portals landed on Zhan Lan, and a cloud of black mist was quickly expelled from her body. The other dozen or so portals followed, revealing distinct human figures within them—all of Zheng Zha's companions had appeared within his heart's abyss. Unlike before, they no longer carried the symbols representing various strange meanings; they all appeared as usual.

The outline of the Main God Space reappeared, and everything was exactly as Zheng Zha knew it, except for the obstructive large sphere of light above. And once everything had stabilized, true power was in his grasp for the first time.

"Do you understand? The path I walk is the path of creation, and what I crave is the fruit of creation. I am destined to stand at the forefront in the darkest darkness, forging ahead through thorns and brambles. As for how much I trust my companions, or how much my companions trust me, it is not really that important."

With each word he spoke, the black mist in his eyes thinned a little, and when the final period was completed in the form of longing, the thin black mist faded into a blurry, faint shadow amidst the silent scream.

Zheng Zha looked around, his gaze meeting that of everyone he saw.

“My companions have long been with me. Whether or not I trust them is not something I need to consider. And you were right about something earlier, you are not my inner demon yet—perhaps you think you can become my inner demon in the future, but unfortunately, there is no place for you as the villain in my path.”

"You don't deserve to stay here."

The next moment, the layer of black mist completely vanished, as if it had never existed in the first place. Zheng Zha then closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was back in the outer world. The gravity and high pressure within Iron Star still bound him, but they could no longer hinder him.

His power hadn't increased; what had increased was his heart. And when he opened his eyes, even though the magic ring on his finger wasn't activated, a pure, clear light quietly shone in them.

Clear light, pure light. The light contains no impurities, no tints.

"So this is the true limit, the position Margot Lloyd is in now. Yes, I have truly understood my own path, so naturally I should shine my own light. The so-called 'disbelief' is nothing but a ridiculous clown. And the true inner demon corresponding to my 'opening up' was suppressed by me before it was even born."

"So……"

He gripped the crimson greatsword tightly, no longer trying to control the complex external support energy within his body, but instead expelling and squeezing it into the blade of destruction. Those thoughts of sentient beings that he would never have abandoned in the past were expelled like garbage, until the crimson blade emitted a soft, dissatisfied hum.

For the first time, he heard the sound of the knife in his hand.

For the first time, he noticed the echoing of the Way within his heart.

A transformation far more powerful and pure than the Yinglong Transformation arose within him. He hadn't yet named this transformation, but he knew that his past vampire enhancements, internal energy, demonic power, true essence, five elements, and even the dragon blood he had injected to develop the Yinglong Transformation, had vanished in an instant. A power that unified and surpassed all of the above arose from the depths of his soul and was completely mastered by him in a flash.

"The path I follow is the path of creation. The principle I adhere to is the principle of creation."

“Margot Royd, witness the strength and determination I use to uphold the Way.”

The pitch-black iron star shattered with a deafening roar, and Zheng Zha, with dragon wings, emerged from the sealed space between earth and sky like a falling rainbow. He gazed at Alice, who had been waiting for him in the void for a long time, and for the first time, he saw genuine satisfaction in her eyes.

He sensed another battlefield on the moon, far away in space, but he didn't care. He noticed that Margot's aura had weakened compared to before, but he didn't care. He only knew that there was only one thing he needed to focus on now.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Margot Lloyd." Zheng Zha's entire body burst into colorless flames.

“I have indeed waited a long time, Zheng Zha,” Alice said softly. “Then your path and power…”

"—Prove it to me!"

"I'll prove it to you!"

The next moment, the boiling River Styx surged from the ground towards the sky, and eight powerful beasts of different shapes launched an unprecedentedly fierce attack. Zheng Zha, surrounded by flames, plummeted down, crashing to the ground along with fragments of iron stars that shattered from the sky!

Earth and heaven unite, the River Styx collides with stardust, and the forces of change and creation clash and fight!

When Zheng Zha broke through the River Styx, at the cost of a broken hand, a shattered foot, and the loss of three-fifths of his mass, he broke through the monsters' defenses and rushed into the airspace within a thousand meters of Alice. As he raised his sword, he also saw Alice's hand reaching out to him!

"Heavenly Grasp!"

Power versus power, ideology versus ideology, at this moment they must finally settle their differences.

"The primordial era..."

"—The creation of heaven and earth!"

The clear and pure light covered the entire sky.

....................................

The end-of-paper summary will be released at 11:00 AM...

There will be a side story later where we can really take a vacation and talk about what Chu Xuan and the others did...

End-of-volume summary and book recommendation

Alright, that concludes this volume, and the delightful Resident Evil vacation storyline comes to an end.

Okay, please don't hit me. Although this volume, like many others, has a late-stage opening, I think this kind of vacation... is actually quite nice. After all, no one died, and there were no missions to complete; it was just some minor internal conflicts... so it should be relatively relaxed and enjoyable.

Okay, that's all. Anyway, this volume is finished. The next volume will be about the little broken world, and the volume after that will be about the Saint's Legacy or Bloodborne's inner demons. Hmm… but before that, there should be a side story to describe the real vacation and what Chu Xuan and the others did in East Asia. I originally wanted to write more about the latter, but considering the water meter issue, I'll use a more subtle approach… Anyway, the ending of this chapter went smoothly, congratulations!

Well, one last book recommendation. It's by an author called Conch Bay. I'll postpone the title for now and first share my thoughts on the book.

My impression after reading it was that the writing style was quite gorgeous, and the descriptions were very detailed. The author is undoubtedly a seasoned enthusiast of setting the world, and this is a light fantasy set in a heavily modified medieval period. All the scene descriptions are quite detailed and appropriate, and the character storylines are interconnected, giving it a feel reminiscent of a seasoned author. Clearly, the author did a lot of research before writing, as many settings are self-consistent and perfectly integrated into the world-building, making for a very smooth reading experience. Aside from this, the occasional explicit scenes are just a minor bonus.

Finally, here's the book title: a yuri (lesbian) story, or to some extent, a yuri adaptation. *The Empress's Training Journey*