While the Northern Divine Region was resting, the God Realm had entered its greatest turmoil in history.
This was especially true for the Western Divine Region. One might even say that their world had changed overnight.
When the news that the Dragon Monarch had forcefully mobilized all the Divine Masters of the six western region king realms, and descended upon the northern region current headquarters like magic using the World Dragon City, every profound practitioner in the God Realm was shaking with joy.
When Long Bai laid down the order to wait for Yun Che for twelve hours, the news that the Northern Divine Region’s line-up was completely surpassed by the Western Divine Region’s was unveiled as well. In that moment, almost everyone was certain that the Dragon Monarch’s unnaturally fast and brutal counterattack would wipe out the Northern Divine Region for sure.
The ensuing battle had caused more than half of the Southern Divine Region to shake like the apocalypse was upon them. Countless southern region profound practitioners had dropped everything they were doing and escaped in the opposite direction of the battlefield with all their strength. However, when the dust settled, and the news of the final outcome of the battle was spread, what they heard nearly caused their hearts to implode on their own.
The Western Divine Region had lost. Long Bai was dead. All the Divine Masters of four realms—the Dragon Gods, the Emperor Chi, the Hui Dragons, and the Myriad Manifestations—were dead, and yes, that included the Dragon Gods and the Dragon Sovereigns! Everyone!
The only survivors of the battle were the Qilin Realm and Blue Dragon Realm.
Of course, everyone’s first reaction was to disbelieve the news, every word of it. Only the profound practitioners of the Blue Dragon Realm and the Qilin Realm were beset by a seemingly permanent sense of dizziness after receiving confirmation from their own kind that the seemingly impossible news was in fact, horrifyingly true.
————
At the World Dragon City.
After the barrier disappeared, Yun Che stretched and let out a refreshing breath of air. Then, he saw Caizhi sitting on the jade bed and examining him expressionlessly.
His lustful smile immediately froze on his face. The corners of his mouth twitched repeatedly before he was finally able to stutter out the words, “Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-you woke up… Caizhi?”
“I’ve been awake for six hours,” replied Caizhi coldly. In fact, she had flown around the entire World Dragon City three times already.
“[email protected]#\%…” A short distance away, Mu Xuanyin hurriedly turned away, dispelled a certain smell with her ice energy and vanished into thin air. She had acted so quickly that Yun Che didn’t even have the time to react.
For a time, Yun Che was paralyzed by the decision to chase after Mu Xuanyin or leave her be for the moment. The peerless northern region Devil Master who just buried the entire Dragon God Realm in the abyss half a day ago looked red enough to die from embarrassment. The man certainly felt like cutting himself in half so he could take care of both Mu Xuanyin and Caizhi at the same time.
“Is this how you plan to fulfill your promise to my sister?” Caizhi’s milky white face was so cold that not a trace of emotion could be seen from her face. “To drown yourself in another woman’s pleasure right before me, your formal wife?”
Yun Che’s entire body stiffened when the word “sister” escaped Caizhi’s lips. All the consoling words he wanted to say suddenly died inside his throat.
“Caizhi, I…”
He was about to say something when he heard a sudden snort. When he looked up, he saw in disbelief that the girl’s lips were pressed into a trembling straight line, and her eyebrows were curled into crescents. She… she was trying to stifle her giggle! He realized in a daze. For a second, he felt like he had traveled back in time to when Caizhi was still the cute and devilish “Little Jasmine” he knew.
“Hmph. Devil Master or not, it looks like your ability to handle scares is as bad as ever, heehee,” a smirking Caizhi said while shaking her head and swaying her legs to and fro. The intimidating aura that surrounded her a moment ago had vanished completely. “If it was a random woman—especially that damned Qianye—then yes, I would’ve been absolutely livid. I would’ve ignored you for an entire month.”
“But Sister Xuanyin? No, I would never be angry at her. If it wasn’t for her sacrifice back then, you would’ve…”
She stopped there and beckoned Yun Che to come closer. “Sit with me, Brother-in-law.”
Caizhi’s behavior seemed to have changed drastically after she awoke from her slumber. She was clearly aware of what had happened while she was unconscious. Maybe this was why she had finally removed the heavy chains she had wrapped around her own heart all these years.
Yun Che obeyed and sat down beside her. He then asked in an affectionate voice, “Are you feeling okay, Caizhi? Is there anywhere you would like me to check?”
Caizhi didn’t answer the question. Instead, she lay her head gently on Yun Che’s chest, closed her eyes and just listened to the sound of his heartbeat. A very, very long time later, she finally whispered, “It’s all over, right?”
“Yes. It’s all over,” Yun Che replied. “Long Bai is dead. Everyone who deserves to die is more or less dead as well. I kept Zhou Xuzi alive though. There’s no way I’m going to let him die quickly after everything he has done.”
“There is nothing left in this world that can threaten us. We are also free to make or unmake the laws of the world as we wish.”
“Mn,” Caizhi responded shortly before letting out a sudden murmur, “This is all a dream come true, so why… doesn’t sister get to witness the future she wanted? Why… only her…”
Her voice was as quiet as a dream, but each word shattered Yun Che’s heart again and again.
Yun Che wrapped his arms around Caizhi before exhaling heavily.
The Blue Pole Star was unharmed. His homeworld, his family and his beloveds were all safe and sound. He had successfully exacted revenge on his enemies, he had reversed the irreversible fate of the Northern Divine Region, and he had even reclaimed Mu Xuanyin, the person he thought he had lost to death forever.
But Jasmine…
He could torture Zhou Xuzi for another ten thousand years, but she would never return to him.
————
The second Mu Xuanyin escaped the bedroom, she immediately ran into Chi Wuyao. The Devil Queen had been guarding by the entrance all this time.
“So? How many times did you do it?” Chi Wuyao teased smilingly.
“…” Mu Xuanyin barely resisted the urge to hit her.
If her complexion hadn’t been frozen for tens of thousands of years, she would look as red as an apple right now. She had never felt this meek in her life.
In just six hours, Yun Che’s treatment of her had gone from being forceful and disrespectful to almost violent and violating. He had used the most insolent and extreme methods possible to remind her that their former master-disciple relationship was well and truly a thing of the past.
Unable to withstand Chi Wuyao’s gaze any longer, Mu Xuanyin strode away in an attempt to escape the woman. However, when a thought suddenly struck her, she stopped in her tracks and conjured a light blue sound isolation barrier around herself and Chi Wuyao.
“What did you see during Long Bai’s final moment?” Mu Xuanyin asked softly and seriously.
The Devil Queen’s smile vanished like it was never there.
She raised her hands and constructed another sound isolation barrier within Mu Xuanyin’s sound isolation barrier. She even imbued it with her Nirvana Devil Soul.
This way, not even Yun Che and Shui Meiyin’s abnormally strong souls would be able to pierce the double-layered veil.
Finally, Chi Wuyao said in a mosquito’s voice, “When Shen Xi died, she… was with child by Yun Che.”
“…” Mu Xuanyin faced toward Chi Wuyao with a look of uncontrollable shock. “Wh… what!?”
“Obviously, Yun Che wasn’t aware that Shen Xi was pregnant when he left the Forbidden Land of Samsara,”said Chi Wuyao in the quietest voice she could manage despite being surrounded by two sound isolating barriers. “Shen Xi knew of Long Bai’s abnormal feelings for her. That is why she kept her pregnancy a secret until the very end.”
“This does confirm one thing though, if only indirectly,” continued Chi Wuyao. “Shen Xi wasn’t exploiting Yun Che purely for whatever purpose she had in mind. She must’ve had some degree of feelings for him, or she would’ve acknowledged the grave danger her child represented and aborted it from the start. She also loved her child… very, very much.”
Not even Chi Wuyao could remain unmoved after hearing the black oath Shen Xi uttered upon losing her child.
It was to the point where she chose not to repeat the exact words to Mu Xuanyin because it felt like a violation of something.
A long silence later, Mu Xuanyin finally muttered to herself, “No wonder… no wonder…”
It was difficult, no, impossible to believe that Long Bai would murder Shen Xi. After all, part of the reason he was famous was because his love for the “Dragon Queen” didn’t waver in the slightest despite the passing of three hundred thousand years. Therefore, it was difficult to believe that he would murder Shen Xi no matter how angered he was.
But now, she understood. That child was the last straw that broke Long Bai’s reason completely.
“Was it a boy, or a girl?” Mu Xuanyin asked. Her hands had clenched into fists, and her heart felt like someone was squeezing it painfully.
“I don’t know,” Chi Wuyao answered. “However, Shen Xi addressed the child as ‘Xi’er’ in Long Bai’s memory, so there’s a good chance that she’s a girl.”
The memory of Yun Che clutching the Glazed Sound Stones his daughter gave him flashed across Chi Wuyao’s eyes for an instant. This alone caused her breath to be caught in her chest for a very long time.
If Yun Che learns about this…
“Is she really… gone?” Mu Xuanyin asked.
“Long Bai used… everything. When he struck Shen Xi’s stomach.” Chi Wuyao sighed again.
The memory she stole was the memory circulating in Long Bai’s consciousness during the last hour of his life. The disintegration of his soul caused the quality of the images she saw to suffer greatly, but it was still enough for her to capture the outline so to speak.
“…” Mu Xuanyin closed her eyes and fell silent once more.
“However,” Chi Wuyao’s eyebrows knitted slightly as she said this, “Shen Xi’s death wasn’t among his final memory fragments. All of his focus was on the scene where he attacked Shen Xi… and the impossible amount of regret and pain that accompanied it.”
“Regret? Pain?” Mu Xuanyin’s voice abruptly iced over. “He dares!?”
Suddenly, she realized the implication behind Chi Wuyao’s words and asked, “Are you saying that Shen Xi may still be alive?”
Chi Wuyao shook her head. “I’m not sure. What I can tell you is that I spent the past couple of hours sorting through all the memory fragments I obtained from Long Bai, and I noticed something strange.”
Mu Xuanyin: “?”
“Before the man passed away, his final thoughts were that of desire for Shen Xi, not hatred toward Yun Che,” Chi Wuyao finished with a complicated expression on her face.
During the last hour of Long Bai’s death, Yun Che had crushed him and made him witness the Northern Divine Region butchering the Western Divine Region with his own two eyes.
Normally speaking, he should be filled with despair for his situation and hatred for his enemy, Yun Che.
In reality though, thoughts of Shen Xi had dominated more than half of Long Bai’s consciousness!
This was especially true when he fought against Yun Che. The only thing that was going through his mind at that moment was the mad desire to prove himself to her.
His infatuation with Shen Xi had evolved into something so ill and extreme that probably no one but himself could understand it.
“His final desire wasn’t the desire to find Shen Xi in the afterlife.” Chi Wuyao paused to consider her words carefully before continuing, “…it was the desire that Shen Xi will appear and save him again.”
Mu Xuanyin continued along that line of logic, “So that means Shen Xi could very well be still…”
“We shouldn’t indulge in too much optimism.” Chi Wuyao shook her head again. “Shen Xi carries with her a special light profound energy that belonged to her and her alone before she trained Yun Che.”
“Long Bai knew her for hundreds of thousands of years, so he must know her aura better than anyone. Assuming that she was still alive, and considering the vast amount of power the Dragon God Realm wielded, he should’ve found her a long time ago.”
The hope in Mu Xuanyin’s eyes immediately dimmed when she found that she was unable to refute Chi Wuyao’s words.
“It could be that Long Bai was unable to believe or accept the fact that he had murdered Shen Xi. He could have deluded himself into believing that Shen Xi had just disappeared to somewhere unknown, if only to ease the pain and regret he was feeling.”
“Of course, it is possible that Shen Xi is still alive, and that she has vanished to somewhere where even the Dragon God Realm cannot find her.”
“However…” She looked straight into Mu Xuanyin’s eyes. “Do you think we can share this hope with him?”
“No.” Mu Xuanyin shook her head without a shred of hesitation.
Yun Che had come to accept Shen Xi’s death during those black, painful years.
If they told him that Shen Xi could still be alive… knowing that there was a high chance that he would suffer a similar level of pain and disappointment again…
On the other hand, if they kept quiet about this, and Shen Xi herself returned to the world someday, the pleasant surprise he received would be akin to that of a miracle.
“And we definitely don’t tell him about the child.” Mu Xuanyin turned away and gazed toward the horizon. “He has already suffered too much in his life. All I wish for him is to enjoy the rest of his lifetime carefree and without worry. Even if he became drowned in his desires and degenerated into a tyrant, I will never allow an unfixable hole to appear in his soul again.”
In her eyes, the world already owed Yun Che too much. No amount of atonement and compensation would be enough to make up for what he had gone through.
She wouldn’t stop Yun Che even if there came a day where he turned the entire God Realm into a living hell.
After all, unlike everyone else…
She had already experienced true death.
Chi Wuyao nodded deeply. “This will stay between you and I.”
