83: Chapter 82 Even the Great Emperor is powerless? Are you kidding me?

"Dad!" Pei Duo rushed over to support him, only to find his limbs were chillingly cold.

The sound of the ambulance was as piercing as if it were slicing people's eardrums.

At the entrance to the emergency room of Jiangcheng First Hospital, the red light shone like a bloodshot eyeball, coldly staring down the corridor.

Pei Duo huddled in the corner of the bench, trembling uncontrollably.

"Clang."

The emergency room doors opened.

The doctor walked out, took off his mask, and wore that look of weary regret he got from seeing too many deaths. He gently shook his head at Mother Pei.

"Acute massive myocardial infarction. He was brought in too late. We... did our best."

Those words were like a bolt of lightning, instantly shattering Pei Duo's world into pieces.

"Old Pei!" Mother Pei's eyes rolled back, and she fainted on the spot.

Pei Duo's mind went blank, her ears filled with a buzzing whistle. Her mouth opened, but not a single sound came out; her whole body collapsed onto the floor.

When Lin Sa and Xu Mo rushed into the corridor, they were met with this scene of utter devastation.

"Pei Duo..." Lin Sa's eyes were extremely red. She wanted to help but couldn't utter a single word.

Faced with the iron law of a close relative passing away, even if they had slaughtered gods in the instance, even if they held S-rank killing techniques in their hands, they currently felt as useless as cripples.

They could kill ghosts and slay gods, but who could revive a heart that had already stopped beating?

Despair, like quicksand, spread throughout the corridor.

"Brother... find my brother..."

Pei Duo clung to what felt like her last straw. She suddenly looked up, her eyes frantic, and with a trembling hand, she pulled the cracked black jade pendant from her collar.

That was the token of the Underworld Son of Heaven. That was her omnipotent brother!

"Brother! Dad's gone! Dad is gone!" Pei Duo shrieked at the jade pendant, her voice so mournful it made one's heart tremble. "Brother, save him! You are the Underworld Son of Heaven! You have the Book of Life and Death! You must have a way, right? Right?"

Xu Mo and Lin Sa also held their breath, staring intently at the jade pendant.

If there was truly anyone in this world who could defy fate, it could only be that man.

The black jade pendant flickered faintly twice.

The next second, Pei Fei's familiar voice came through.

"Duo Duo."

The voice was still deep, but this time, it carried a chilling weariness.

"Brother! Come back quickly! Dad, he..."

"I know," Pei Fei interrupted her, his tone almost cruelly cold. "When a person dies, the lamp goes out; life and death are fated. The Underworld governs wandering souls, not lifespans. This is the iron law of the Heavenly Dao, and even I... am powerless."

Powerless.

Those four words were like a heavy sledgehammer, brutally smashing Pei Duo's final defense line.

She froze.

The hand clutching the jade pendant slowly dropped, and the fire in her eyes completely extinguished.

Even her brother had no way? Even the master of the Underworld who dictated eternity had to bow to the 'Heavenly Dao' and accept fate?

"No."

In that dead silence, a harsh sound suddenly exploded.

Xu Mo abruptly looked up. The eyes behind his lenses were bloodshot but terrifyingly bright. He grabbed Pei Duo's shoulder, his fingernails nearly digging into her flesh, and roared fiercely:

"Pei Duo! Snap out of it! Don't let that damn logic trap you!"

Pei Duo looked at him like a wooden doll, her gaze vacant: "What are you saying... My brother already said..."

"That's not your brother!"

Xu Mo swore for the first time. He was in a state of crazed fury, pointing at the jade pendant and roaring:

"Think carefully about what kind of person your brother is! He dared to trample on the rules of the Western Hell, so why is he talking about the 'iron law of the Heavenly Dao' here?"

Xu Mo took a deep breath, his voice trembling: "If the person lying inside is your dad, what would Pei Fei, that fiercely protective maniac, say about being 'powerless'? He would just draw his sword and charge straight into King Yama's palace, tear the Book of Life and Death apart, beat King Yama into the ground, and forcibly snatch your father back from the Underworld!"

"Life and death are fated? In his eyes, his rules are destiny!"

"This completely contradicts his behavior logic! If the Great Emperor can't even handle this small matter? Then what path is he cultivating? What Underworld Son of Heaven is he being? He might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes!"

Xu Mo's outburst was like a thunderclap, directly shattering the fog before Pei Duo's eyes.

Pei Duo froze.

She looked at the cold jade pendant in her hand, and the weakness and despair in her eyes slowly receded.

In their place was the ruthlessness rooted in her bones, belonging to the Pei family.

That's right. When has my brother, that lawless lunatic, ever bothered with reason?

If he really couldn't do anything, he would have already brought his blade and stormed over, even if it meant tearing this hospital down to ruins, instead of sitting there engaging in bureaucratic talk with me?

This is fake!

"You're right."

Pei Duo pushed up from her knees, roughly wiping the tears from her face. She stared at the jade pendant, a chilling, cold smile curling her lips.

"Someone like my brother... Even if King Yama truly dared to take my dad, he could overturn the entire Underworld!"

"Lying to me? Daring to use my dad to lie to me?"

The rage in Pei Duo's eyes completely ignited. She raised the black jade pendant high, putting all her strength into it, and hurled it fiercely against the hospital's snow-white wall!

"Go to hell with 'life and death are fated'!"

"It's all fake! Break for me!"

Crack!

A crisp sound.

There was no sound of jade hitting the ground; instead, the entire world collapsed amid a roar.

The walls of the ward exploded like shattered mirrors. The doctor's sigh, her mother's cries, her father's corpse—everything instantly twisted, stretched, and turned into countless black fragments.

Darkness surged back in like a tide.

"Hoo—Ha!"

Pei Duo sucked in a large gulp of cold air, like a drowning person finally breaking the surface. She opened her eyes in horror.

No hospital, no sunlight, and certainly none of that week of leisurely days.

The three of them were still standing in the middle of that dark, foul-smelling, cold circular altar.

Beside them, the rusted mechanical lever stood there like a dead thing, having not moved at all.

That heartbreaking funeral, along with the supposed 'escape to safety,' was nothing more than an absurd nightmare experienced in this dark room.

Xu Mo's face was pale. He supported himself on his knees, gasping heavily, sweat dripping onto the obsidian floor with an extremely faint sound.

They were back again.

Despair layered like a Matryoshka doll. First, they used the 'sweet dream' to numb you, then the 'reality' to trick you to death, and finally, the 'parting in death' to completely crush you.

If they hadn't realized at the last moment that the 'reasonable Pei Fei' was the biggest flaw, they would have already suffered a mental breakdown in that illusion and died on that cold bench.

"This broken room..." Lin Sa's hand gripping the dagger was shaking, and for the first time, true fear showed in her eyes. "How many more layers are there?"