"Tell me, do you want to be weak but righteous, or do you want to be strong but vile?" 

The mysterious man released his choke, and Han Shun dropped to the ground. He coughed a few times and looked up at the mysterious man. He looked at him with both fear and hatred, and the mysterious man repeated his question;

"Do you want to be weak but righteous, or do you want to be strong but vile?" 

Han Shun was now in a dilemma. Of course, he wanted to be righteous. Not because he was a kind-hearted person like Bai Gege, but the righteous path would lead him to Bai Gege in the end.

But he didn't want to be weak. He knew there was no place for a weak man, especially beside Bai Gege, who was already an absolute powerhouse. 

Honestly, Han Shun didn't care whether he needed to sacrifice some people or kill a few. He just didn't want Bai Gege to hate him.

He was afraid that Bai Gege would discover the truth about him and this mysterious man and probably try to kill Han Shun. 

"I... I don't want Bai Gege to see me as a monster. I don't want him to be scared of me," Han Shun said.

"Heh, don't worry, kid. As long as you don't outright tell him about our real identity, he will never know."

"But Bai Gege can detect evil energy around him. What if he knows that there is evil energy inside of me?"

"I will help you by masking it. Bai Shijue will never know," the mysterious man tried to be as helpful as possible to convince Han Shun to join the dark side. "Kid, I know that you don't hate my power. I know that you're a power-hungry bastard. I can give you everything as long as you follow my lead."

"Why… why are you so persistent about forcing me to join the demonic sect?"

"Demonic sect? Haha! Don't make me laugh! Those people are nothing compared to me. They are a literal speck of dust. I want you to be me, to be the God of Nothingness. You will be granted an enormous power that you can never imagine, and about your life with Bai Shijue... I will make sure that he will never know about this."

"You still haven't answered my real question," Han Shun insisted.

Again, the mysterious man only replied with a meaningful smile, "You're not ready to hear the real reason. You will know it once you are strong enough. Just follow my lead for now, and you will be more than grateful to me in the end."

…

….

…..

After long consideration, Han Shun finally nodded. He thought there was no way out anyway, especially because he got his power from this mysterious man.

"I will follow your teaching. I want to be the strongest man so I can protect Bai Gege, but I don't want him to know about us, about my true identity."

"Ah, I can handle that. Don't worry about Bai Shijue. He will see you as a perfectly righteous disciple that will do no wrong. He will keep you by his side forever."

Han Shun nodded in agreement, "I will do whatever you want me to, but I have another question."

"Say it."

"Who are you?" Han Shun asked. "I want to know who are you, really? I want to know your name and true identity…."

"Tsk, we've just agreed to work together in less than 5 seconds, and you already want to know more about me. Fine, I will show you something."

The mysterious man snapped his finger again, and they teleported on top of a lake. Han Shun's main power was mostly with water as his spiritual root preferred.

He sat on the lake's surface, looking down at his reflection and the mysterious man's reflection on the water. 

"We're basically the same person. My name is Han Ye. I am God of Nothingness."

"Han Ye…" Han Shun felt the name was very familiar in his head, but he couldn't remember it. "God of Nothingness, so you're truly the vile god."

"I am neither evil nor righteous. As a god of Nothingness, I create and destroy everything in a cycle. It is what it always should be. Until I found the love of my life and married him," Han Ye replied. 

…

"Your wife is a man?" Han Shun asked.

"Yes, he is a man. And I've fallen in love with him so hard. Unfortunately, my wife hates me so much. He keeps calling me a monster, evil and disgusting, and never appreciated my effort to mend our strained relationship since the beginning."

Han Shun saw the bitter expression on Han Ye's face from the lake's reflection. He looked like a man who was holding a lot of pain.

"Why don't you just leave him?" Han Shun asked.

"I will never be able to leave him. I cannot hate him despite all the suffering he put into me. So he punishes me so many times, forcing me to adapt as an evil god that he can punish at will, so he will be happy."

Han Shun tried to process what he had just heard, "You're married to a man, and he doesn't like you back. He punished you— a literal God, and you didn't fight back?"

"I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to, but I have to…." Han Ye's expression looked even more bitter than before. Han Shun couldn't believe it when he saw that a tear suddenly dropped from this vile man's eye.

The tear dropped into the lake, and the water froze instantly. Han Shun was shocked that he jumped to the lakeside. 

The whole lake had been frozen just because of a single teardrop from this man, "Unbelievable…." Han Shun mumbled. 

"Haha, sorry for that one," Han Ye wiped the tear at the edge of his eyes. "I just can't control myself whenever I'm talking about my beloved wife."