Chapter 24: Reversing Life and Death (Patreon)

Given the Third Young Master's temperament, if he'd had his way, he probably would have annihilated that entity outside the cycle running the reincarnation process long ago.

He'd even destroyed the Bitter Love Tree before, but it could never actually be wiped out, which was the only reason it kept surviving and growing.

But Gusttave paid no mind to matters of reincarnation. He'd come here for one purpose alone: to take Wise's and Belle's souls away.

After days of deliberation, Gusttave decided against pursuing any Pledge of Love reincarnation. Instead, he'd take Wise and Belle's souls and keep them by his side forever.

[Guinaifen: Whoa! He actually stormed the underworld! This guy really doesn't take the underworld seriously at all!]

[March 7th: So cool! Punched clean through the underworld with a single strike, all just to bring back the one he loves!]

[Hu Tao: This is outright contempt for life and death. Once someone's dead, you shouldn't keep obsessing over one last look at them! And you definitely shouldn't just drag people out of the underworld on a whim!]

Hu Tao didn't approve of what Gusttave was doing. In her view, the dead should behave and go quietly into reincarnation, while the living shouldn't keep pining for one last glimpse of them.

Alive is alive, dead is dead — you shouldn't keep trying to reverse the natural order of life and death.

[Jing Yuan: This is likely just how obsession works for a long-lived race — to keep the person they want to keep, they commit sins that can never be undone.]

Gusttave found the two sisters' souls without the slightest obstacle.

After using a treasure to contain their souls and making sure there was no danger, Gusttave left the underworld.

Having found their souls was one thing, but without physical bodies, it still wouldn't work.

So what Gusttave needed to do next was use his own genes to create new bodies for them.

Why his genes, and not Wise's or Belle's own? Simple — his genes would grant the two of them immortality, sparing them from ever having to face separation again.

In Tushan, inside Gusttave's private "laboratory," an indescribable smell hung thick in the air.

Belle's and Wise's spirit forms were being gently nurtured inside two soul-guiding lanterns, pale golden halos tracing the slender outlines they'd had in life. The two spirits floated side by side in midair, hurling a barrage of complaints down at Gusttave, who stood at the workbench below.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Belle's spirit pressed her face against the lantern's wall, squishing it into a ridiculous flat oval. "Gusttave, can you even do this or not?! How many tries has this been now? Last time, I'd barely wiggled my big toe before the whole body went off like fireworks! Boom! Scared me half out of my soul!"

Wise's spirit was much quieter, though a trace of worry still showed through her gentle, soft-featured eyes.

She looked at the newest female body fresh off the workbench, its joints bending backward at angles no human should manage, and let out a soft sigh. "Daoist, maybe... let's just forget it? Honestly, I think being a ghost by your side isn't so bad. No need to eat, no need to sleep, and it even saves on clothes."

"No way!" Gusttave didn't even look back, focused entirely on guiding the rainbow-hued strand of energy at his fingertip, carefully feeding it into the new body before him. This was already the fifteenth version he'd cloned using his own Ultimate Life Form genes.

Gusttave wiped at a smudge of dirt that wasn't actually on his face, eyes burning with fervor. "If I can't even sculpt a body for my wives, where would I put my face as the Daoist of Great Peace? Just sit tight — I'm calling this fifteenth version 'Perfect Wife 15.0'! Absolutely stable, absolutely perfect, and with a brand-new feature added!"

"What feature?" Belle's curiosity briefly won out over her worry.

Gusttave flipped the activation switch without turning around. "I used my own genes as the base and added two passives — 'Localized Enlargement' and 'Super Regeneration.'"

"That way, you can adjust whatever size and style you want on your own. Belle won't have to keep agonizing over being flat-chested anymore."

Wise's spirit covered her face with both hands, ears burning red, her voice dropping to a near-inaudible murmur. "Daoist... you really didn't have to add a feature like that."

Gusttave explained, "You don't need it, sure, but Belle does. You two sisters — one's got perfect curves, the other's completely flat. I really don't know how that happened."

The moment he said that, Belle's temper flared.

"GUSTTAVE!" Belle's spirit bristled up like a hedgehog inside the lantern, slamming herself against its walls. "The second I'm back among the living, the first thing I'm doing is shaving your head bald! And your eyebrows too! I'm going to turn you into the shiniest boiled egg in all of Tushan!"

"Don't you dare talk nonsense! Who wants your stupid enlargement technique?! I'm naturally gorgeous — why would I need your reckless tinkering?!"

Even as she shouted, she made a shaving gesture with her spirit-hand at the back of Gusttave's head, as if she might pounce on him the next instant and yank every last strand of black hair from his scalp.

Beside her, Wise's spirit had already buried her face entirely in her hands, the lantern swaying gently along with her. Her gentle voice was full of helpless resignation. "Daoist, stop teasing Belle. Besides... that feature really isn't necessary. Just being able to stay by your side is enough for us."

"How could that possibly be enough?" Gusttave still didn't turn around, guiding the rainbow energy at his fingertip with precision into the two bodies before him — perfect replicas of Wise's and Belle's faces and figures. His tone was full of righteous conviction. "My wives have to be immortal, and free to be as beautiful as they please. I can't let you two follow me around without even that much of a perk, can I?"

Half a month later, thanks to Gusttave's efforts, the fifteenth version of the bodies was finally nearing perfection, needing only for Wise and Belle's souls to be fused into them.

Gusttave carefully used a device to transfer Wise's and Belle's souls from the soul-guiding lanterns into their new bodies.

Soon, the two bodies that had been lying still began to rise and fall gently at the chest, settling into steady, even breaths.

[March 7th: Whoa! It worked, it worked! He actually pulled it off!]

[Kiana Kaslana: Gusttave is amazing!]

[Lumine: In a sense, this counts as reversing life and death.]

[Otto: No, no, no. This is nowhere close to reversing life and death.]

[Otto: All he did was move consciousness from one vessel to another.]

[Otto: Understand this — the world allows consciousness to be matched to a new vessel, but it does not allow a vessel to gather consciousness that has already dissipated.]

[Otto: True reversal of life and death means being able to bring a soul and consciousness back even after they've completely dissipated.]

Otto wasn't particularly shocked by what Gusttave had done — after all, he himself had lived five hundred years by transferring his own consciousness into a Soulium body.

As far as he was concerned, this was merely a means of extending life, not a true supernatural feat of reversing death.

Only when consciousness could be recovered after it had already dissipated would that count as truly reversing life and death.

And that was exactly what he'd been pursuing all along.

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