Zhang Yong looked at Jiang Wang again, his gaze filled with sorrow. “Perhaps I should have killed you in this state of decay. This moment… perhaps it is the best choice. But I don’t want to kill you.”

He then offered a sad smile. “Perhaps I couldn’t kill you either. My eyes just now told me… that a terrifying divine ability resides within you.”

His eyes at this moment appeared ordinary, devoid of any peculiarities.

But Jiang Wang had already witnessed his pupil technique and knew its terror. That night that stripped away everything, that night that carried away the sword of the fallen scholar…

“You are indeed in league with Cui Zhu,” Jiang Wang stated.

At this point, the identical state of disintegration was enough to explain everything.

“Cui Zhu…” Zhang Yong murmured, looking at Jiang Wang. “Jiang Wang, you are also from a small country. You should understand me.”

“You ask me why.”

“Why do you ask?”

He questioned, “We are also sons, daughters, fathers, mothers. Why must we die in the mountains, in the fields, by the roadside?

Why do our people live in utter misery, constantly under the fear of fierce beasts?

Why can the people of Qi be so happy, even commoners can go on outings in the countryside?”

Why do our warriors fight with their lives, yet cannot protect the resources we deserve?

Why do we sacrifice so much, yet the majority of the gains are taken by the powerful nations?

Why, no matter how hard we try, no matter what we do, no matter how much we sacrifice! Can we not see hope, cannot see a future?!”

Jiang Wang suddenly thought of the State of Yang.

He thought of the white-haired old general, Ji Cheng.

That old general with white hair, how much life and death had he witnessed?

The entire Tianxiong Ji clan, from male to female, from young to old, fought to their deaths, yet could not reverse the fate of their homeland’s destruction.

He also thought of Sanshan City.

He thought of those who shed their blood on Jade衡 Peak, of Dou Yue Mei who severed her path and opened five palaces, possessing the divine ability to move mountains, yet still helpless against that mountain!

He, of course, also remembered the elderly demon race he saw in the beast lair within the pine forest outside Songtao City in the State of Xu.

Beasts are catalyzed into fierce beasts, and fierce beasts cultivate their foundation after rampaging and thirsting for blood.

Then, living demon race are used as raw materials to catalyze demon beasts, thereby yielding pulse-opening pills one after another.

The essence of the pulse-opening pills was stained with blood.

Powerful nations capture the demon race and distribute them to smaller nations. Smaller nations establish beast lairs and refine pulse-opening pills, presenting them as tribute to the powerful nations. Through this system, powerful nations firmly control the growth of smaller nations…

Jiang Wang knew these things.

Jiang Wang had witnessed all of it with his own eyes. He had seen many truths about pulse-opening pills, but he could not answer Zhang Yong… why!

Therefore, he could only ask, “Which country are you from?”

“Which country I am from is not important. What is important is…”

Zhang Yong said bitterly, “We want Jiang Shu, that tyrant, to know,

That someone has always hated him. Someone will always hate him.

So that in his lifetime, he will not find peace.

So that forever, he can never truly trust anyone!

Thus, Cui Zhu fought with his life, and so I!”

He did not continue.

His hands had disappeared, his legs had also disintegrated.

Jiang Wang remained silent.

And Zhang Yong looked at him and said, “Jiang Wang, you are different from those people. I know it. You are different from them.”

His ears were also gone, but his eyes looked at Jiang Wang with a look of yearning for recognition.

His mouth said, “This world should not be like this.”

Then his mouth also disappeared.

At this moment, noise suddenly erupted from outside.

First, the voices of the guards: “Who is causing a disturbance in the Grand Ancestral Temple?”

Immediately followed by a hurried voice: “The Capital Patrol Office is acting under imperial decree! Make way!”

Although Jiang Wang had dispersed his sound-hearing immortal state at this time, he quickly captured the information from the sounds.

There were fourteen people who pursued him into the Grand Ancestral Temple.

And the hurried voice of the leader was that of an acquaintance he had encountered before. It was Ma Xiong, a Fourth-Rank Azure Plate Constable, who had once faced the King of Corpses in a duel of death.

It was the Azure Plate team!

Almost as soon as the first voice faded, the sound of wind approached his ears.

Before the words had even stopped, Ma Xiong had already rushed forward, leading the charge, into the Hall of Protecting the Nation, into this ancestral shrine of the Marquis of Nine Returns.

At this point, Zhang Yong had disintegrated, leaving only a pair of eyes. With his remaining eyes, he glanced outside the shrine.

That glance carried mockery.

But the eyes also disappeared.

He had the strength for one attack in this state of disintegration, but he did not use it against Jiang Wang. If Ma Xiong had arrived a step earlier, he might have been able to leave something behind, but he could not continue at this moment.

Nor did he need to continue.

Jiang Wang did not understand what the mockery in Zhang Yong’s final look represented.

But the moment his eyes disappeared.

He suddenly understood what that sense of familiarity he had felt from Zhang Yong a long time ago was…

It was the shared sense of a desolate homeland, the wandering of being far from home with nowhere to rely on, the pain of a shattered home that brought him to tears.

As Zhang Yong said, he did not control Jiang Wang with his pupil technique, but rather stirred the emotions deep within Jiang Wang’s heart. Including empathy, including pity, including familiarity…

Therefore… Zhang Yong, like him, was a person who had lost his home, a guest without a family.

Now, with Zhang Yong’s death, the effect of the pupil technique had also disappeared.

Only then could Jiang Wang think about some things more clearly.

Zhang Yong being here today was indeed not for him. He was just in the right place at the right time.

So why did Zhang Yong come here?

Was it simply because he had assumed the identity of “Zhang Yong” and came to pay respects to his ancestors?

No.

Jiang Wang suddenly smelled a faint scent of blood – Zhang Yong had died by disintegrating his flesh, blood, soul, and life; there should not have been a scent of blood.

No…

The scent of blood had always been there, only before it had been concealed by Zhang Yong’s pupil technique.

Jiang Wang suddenly looked up at the statue of the Marquis of Nine Returns.

And Ma Xiong, who was more skilled in investigation, had already stepped forward quickly and ripped off the purple robe from the Marquis of Nine Returns!

Thus, everyone who entered the shrine saw what Zhang Yong had left behind before his death.

It was a blood indictment written on the statue of the Marquis of Nine Returns.

It was a poem that had left a deep impression on Jiang Wang.

The blood writing read—

“Death-defying entanglement for wealth and longevity, sacrificing oneself for the country, a nameless general!”

“The world praises Li of Shimen, but who remembers Zhang of Fengxian?”

That was a poem written by the great Confucian Mo Ya of Qingya Academy.

That great Confucian was a man who hated evil and was as outspoken as he was. He would curse anyone he wanted to and never held back.

The first time Jiang Wang heard it was when Xu Xiang Qian intervened to help Zhang Yong when he saw an injustice, and recited it to mock Gao Jing of the Gao family of Jinghai.

Speaking of which, although this poem was merciless, it was not a big deal.

Mo Ya himself did not need to make a living in the State of Qi, and the Qi Emperor would not send people to hunt down Mo Ya just for this one poem. There were too many eccentric scholars in the world.

Moreover, the world was so vast, and power would eventually reach its limits. Even a farmer in a village in the State of Chu, who dared not offend the local ruffians, dared to curse the Qin Emperor for three days and three nights.

So a satirical poem was really nothing.

Except…

This poem was written in blood on the statue of the Marquis of Nine Returns.

And the person who wrote this poem was the last bloodline of the Marquis of Nine Returns!