Free Web NovelChapter 593: Chapter 86: Holy Demon Unity
The Book of Hidden Emotions, as the name suggests, is a special literary form that hides true emotions beneath the text.
As everyone knows, humans, as intelligent beings, are inherently highly deceitful, and writing, as a crystallization of human intelligence, frequently becomes a breeding ground for deceit and lies.
The classic examples are the assignments often given to children during their early education, like "An Unforgettable Event," "My Dad," "A Good Deed I Did"...
Virtually from the time children start their education, this kind of deceitful literary creation becomes a necessary part of life.
Essays written in school and various summary reports written after entering the workforce are all without exception using lies to distort true feelings.
Aside from private diaries, people rarely have the chance to freely write down their true feelings. As the saying goes, words are the voice of the heart. Humans, as social creatures, have an objective need to express their emotions, which is a basic need no different from eating and drinking. Even many deranged serial killers, after committing murder, feel compelled to find an outlet to express their emotions, let alone ordinary people.
However, in human civilization, there’s often no opportunity for a person’s heartfelt thoughts to be genuinely expressed. The feeling is like being constipated for a hundred years, making one feel swollen to the point of bursting.
Thus, the Book of Hidden Emotions was created, using special techniques to subtly hide the author’s true emotions in the text. There are various techniques for concealing emotions, the simplest of which is the acrostic, where the first character of each paragraph is extracted to form a new text. More complex methods include skipping characters and hidden characters, but these are merely the methods of mortals. In the world of cultivators, the ways authors hide their true emotions are even more diverse.
One of the most common methods is to express emotions that cannot be publicly shared through calligraphy.
It’s often said that one’s writing reflects their personality. When someone writes, no matter what they are writing about, the specific style of the characters always reveals some personal information. Characters that are bold and sweeping often indicate a straightforward personality, while delicate and neat writing might suggest a meticulous and orderly person.
Of course, these characteristics alone are not enough to fully express a person’s rich emotions, but the calligraphic skills of cultivators are far more diverse than those of ordinary people, whether in terms of tools like brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, or the details of technique. Therefore, it’s entirely possible to convey more precise and nuanced emotions through these details.
The Book of Hidden Emotions is invented and perfected based on these technical principles.
Cultivators who master the art of hiding emotions can clearly write "thank you" while expressing something entirely different in the writing style, like "curse you." The more advanced the technique, the harder it is to correctly interpret.
The Holy Record now laid out before everyone is undoubtedly an example of highly advanced hidden emotion techniques. Even in the Jiuzhou Era, it can be considered top-notch. Ordinary people wouldn’t even think there might be other meanings beneath the text, let alone interpret them.
But Zhao Chenlu is precisely a master of hiding emotions. When she collaborated with Shang Lanfei, nearly all their written communications were Books of Hidden Emotions. On the surface, they appeared to be perfectly cooperative sisters, but beneath the text was all the sarcasm one could muster, taking their sisterhood to its fullest extent.
As Zhao Chenlu’s pen pal, Shang Lanfei was one of the foremost wise individuals on the Jiuzhou Continent, her Intelligence Index comparable to the Celestial Divine Sword. Her skill in hiding emotions was naturally exceptional, and Zhao Chenlu had to strain every nerve to barely keep up with her rhythm, lest she suffer humiliation. Over time, Zhao Chenlu naturally became skilled in this art and immediately recognized that the Holy Record penned by the First Generation Sect Leader was a Book of Hidden Emotions!
"So... what does it say?" The Sect Leader was utterly baffled, staring wide-eyed at the two-thousand-year-old ancient tome, unable to see how anything else could lurk behind that upright calligraphy.
He knew a bit about the Book of Hidden Emotions, but was clearly no expert, so despite his top-tier cultivation on the continent, he could only turn to Zhao Chenlu for help.
Likewise, Wang Jiu couldn’t make sense of it. Most of his intellect was devoted to Immortal Dao cultivation, and he was virtually a blank slate when it came to this sort of human intrigue.
Zhao Chenlu, however, did not immediately answer the two people beside her. Instead, she earnestly studied the Holy Record, her expression growing more grave with each passing moment, then turning to disbelief, and finally to visible confusion.
"This, this is simply..."
As she spoke, Zhao Chenlu grabbed the book and began shaking it up and down.
"What are you doing?!" The Sect Leader was astounded and quickly stepped in to stop her from damaging the important artifact. Fortunately, his cultivation was strong enough that, powered by his deep True Essence, he managed to suppress the somewhat frenzied Zhao Chenlu.
"Are you crazy?"
Zhao Chenlu bit her lip tightly, remaining silent. Moments later, a few drops of blood rolled down from her lips. Her lips were bitten through, yet despite her usual meticulousness regarding her appearance, she seemed oblivious.
After a long while, Zhao Chenlu finally came to her senses and said, "The contents of this Holy Record are so bizarre that I still can’t believe it’s true. But the script used by the two authors when hiding their emotions is the Burning Blood Script. Each stroke is like pouring out their heart, an emotional concealment technique that’s extremely difficult to fake. What remains here must be their true feelings and intentions..."
Hearing this, the Sect Leader couldn’t help but interrupt, "What exactly did the two ancestors write?"
Zhao Chenlu fell silent once more. After a long pause, she sighed, "If I just state the conclusion, you probably won’t believe me, so I’ll read the contents from the first page to you. Believe it or not, that’s up to you."
The Sect Leader said, "Go ahead."
"Starting here: Year X, Month X, Day X. At first glance, it seems the author accidentally smeared ink on the page while writing. But if you magnify these ink spots more than a hundredfold and lay them flat, you can see countless uneven ink marks, resembling burning flames."
Upon hearing this, the Sect Leader skeptically spread the book open flat and strained his eyes. Sure enough, he was surprised to see the shape of flames.
"And the texture of these flames can serve as a cipher. For instance, the intersecting fire here can be understood as intense resentment. Combined with the blank spaces beforehand, it generally translates to being forced into doing something most detested."
The Sect Leader listened to Zhao Chenlu’s explanation but couldn’t at all connect those graffiti-like fire shapes with any cipher. However, seeing Zhao Chenlu’s serious expression, which was no joke, and Wang Jiu’s matter-of-fact demeanor, the Sect Leader set aside his doubts.
Let’s assume she’s a true expert, then, and listen to what on earth she has decoded.
"From these patterns, I can deduce that when the two first-generation Sect Leaders wrote the first page of the Holy Record, they were in an extremely resentful mood, as if forced into committing an enormous crime. And what is the content of the first page? It’s about the founding of the Saint Sect. So in combination with the text, the date column translates to: We regret founding the Saint Sect above all else!"
Upon hearing this, the Sect Leader widened his eyes in disbelief, "What on earth have you translated?! They regret founding the Saint Sect?! Are you in your right mind? This is the first page! When they wrote this page, they had just founded the Saint Sect. How could they already regret it upon founding it? If they truly regretted it, why go through the painstaking effort to develop and strengthen the Saint Sect over several years? Your translation makes no sense!"
Zhao Chenlu said, "When I first saw this, I thought the same as you, but as I read further, there was an explanation. The content goes: After much hardship, the Saint Sect was finally officially established. However, besides us two, the sect now has very limited manpower and resources we can rely on. We must grasp the essentials to establish a foothold in the chaotic world. Combining this with the Burning Blood Script translation I mentioned earlier, the key points here are: much hardship, manpower, resources, foothold in chaotic world. In other words, they were compelled to found the Saint Sect due to the harsh objective environment, just to accumulate sufficient resources for survival..."
"Absurd!" The Sect Leader retorted, "Given the strength of the two founders, no noble family head of the era did not hold them in high esteem. With their means, if they simply wanted to amass wealth, it would have been easy, even to the extent of completely wiping out a family or two with little effort. Why then, bother founding the Saint Sect?!"
Zhao Chenlu replied, "Don’t rush, let me continue translating..." She said while flipping a few pages ahead decisively.
"The content in the middle is mostly about branches, somewhat deviating from the main line, so I’ll skip that and look directly at the back...They founded the Saint Sect because of a colossal secret that absolutely cannot be uncovered. And to hide this secret..."
"Wait, this story is becoming more and more unbelievable—hiding a secret by becoming the continent’s top existence? What kind of secret hiding is this? When the two ancestors founded the Saint Sect, they were subject to countless malicious rumors by people with ulterior motives. If they truly harbored some unspeakable secrets, how could they maintain a revered name! They would have been disgraced long ago!"
Zhao Chenlu sighed, "Indeed, the process was like walking on thin ice. The sections I skipped translating earlier were about their experiences of tiptoeing between major forces, often filled with enormous trepidation. But somehow, in the end, they succeeded in concealing the secret because no matter how imaginative people might be, or the most malicious speculations made about their actions during those times, they came nowhere near the truth. Even if one or two individuals came close to the truth, it ended up buried amidst countless other conjectures. And that’s where their brilliance lies; to hide a secret, the best way isn’t to silence people, but to make everyone speak up."
Hearing this theory, while the Sect Leader still felt dissatisfied, he decided to listen further for now.
"...In the end, just what truth were they hiding? What could it possibly be that nobody in the world could speculate on what heinous act they committed?"
Zhao Chenlu said, "Heinous act? Their very existence is the greatest affront to natural order...Well, since I’ve said this much, I can reveal the mystery. In fact, the answer was written on the first page."
With that, Zhao Chenlu turned the Holy Record back to the first page, before the main text, on the back corner of the cover, in an inconspicuous blank corner.
"The texture of this paper is a standard Demon Script, used for noting the author’s name... That’s right, the two first-generation founders were entirely and utterly of the Demon Race."
