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Gods are selfish.
It was a fact you had to come to terms with from the very moment you ascended.
When you were a child, hiding from a demon, trying to live life undercover, your parents taught you to worship the gods. They taught you gods are kind and merciful, that they would listen to your prayers.
You believed that. When your parents died, when your brother and you had to run away, you believed that.
When your brother ascended, you felt happy. You weren’t so sure about merciful, but he was kind. At least, back then, you thought so.
And you’d never boasted about it, but you always tried your best to be kind, too. So when you ascended, you thought you’d meet many more people like you.
Instead, you were met with selfish, prideful assholes.
Well, you wouldn’t have originally called them assholes, but nowadays that is the best word to describe them. It’s not as if they can hear you, anyways. They’re not worth worshiping, so you don’t. The only God you’d willingly worship is Xie Lian, but if you wanted a favor from him you could just head to Puqi shrine and ask him directly. Plus, praying to your best friend would be weird, even if he does deserve more followers.
Best friend. No longer Second Best Friend. Just best friend.
It hurt to say that, but you do anyways. It’s the truth.
He was the only God who truly embodied being kind and merciful like your parents taught you Gods were supposed to be.
Not like most people in Heaven. Because that is all they were, and still are. People. Humans, who got particularly lucky.
Or humans who took someone else’s luck, like you.
You were never meant to be a God.
You were never meant to be saved.
In a world where your brother was truly kind, where he was truly a good person, you are dead. You are buried, and he would visit your grave. There would be no Wind Master, but instead a Civil God with the title of He Sheng-zhenjun and an Earth Master Ming Yi, getting to experience life in the Heavenly Court.
In this world, your brother did everything he could to save you, and it cost you both everything. You are alive, but you would rather not be. He Sheng is dead, and in his place is Black Water Sinking Ships. The Earth Master died, too. And it was all because of you.
You have nothing left, and yet you cannot die.
And isn’t that cruel?
Certainly not as cruel as taking away someone’s fate and life, to you, so you’d say you got off easy.
At least, that’s what you think. The looks of pity you get from the few people who actually come visit you pretty much say that they almost certainly don’t think the same.
But you don’t really care.
You don’t deserve to be saved.
This is your own fate.
In that moment, with your arms chained and the corpse of your brother before you, being stared at with pure hatred by someone you once thought of as a friend, you were forced to accept that fact.
You couldn’t get the look out of your mind.
It was almost laughable. Just how much a single gaze could convey, wasn’t it?
“Stop acting so righteous. Neither you nor I deserve to be saved,” Their eyes said.
But, though you would have never dared to say it then, their sentiment was wrong.
After all, though salvation could not come to those who had already died, you do believe that they deserved it, with your entire heart.
Maybe in their next life, they will be happy. After all, since their goal has already been reached, you’re sure they’ll finally move on.
You don’t think you’ll have a next life.
But if it does turn out you have one, you wonder how things would go.
You almost hope to find and meet them again. But they shouldn’t be subjected to the same suffering again, and if meeting you at one point means suffering before that, then you don’t want that to happen.
So you hope you don’t ever meet again.
But that’s enough thinking about the past and the future. You have things to do.
What use is it to keep wondering?