“Are you certain?” The figure high above them rarely showed such compassion in their eyes.
Luo Yi froze, despair filling her heart. What could she possibly offer? With several heavy thuds, Luo Yi knelt straight, blood seeping from her forehead. “Three days. Just let me stay with her for three more days. Three days will be enough.”
“I beg you!” Tears had unknowingly filled Luo Yi’s eyes, streaming down her face.
“After three days, I’m willing to be a puppet, or be erased and disappear forever. I just want to stay with her a little longer.”
Luo Tangtang stood in a vast emptiness, watching it all unfold. It felt as if her chest was being crushed, making each breath a struggle.
Silence fell in the great hall. The Main God looked at Luo Yi with a complicated expression. “Go then.”
Outside, Yun Shayi carefully tended to her wounds. Only after confirming there was no scent of blood did she return. Night had already fallen. Yun Shayi had thought Luo Yi would be asleep, but unexpectedly, the light in the room was still on.
She hesitated for a moment, then pushed the door open and went in.
“Senior Sister.”
Luo Yi wasn’t asleep yet. She was staring blankly ahead, her gaze somewhat fixed.
“What’s wrong?” Yun Shayi asked, her expression unchanging as she looked at Luo Yi.
“Nothing. I made some food and was waiting for you to come back and eat,” Luo Yi shook her head and pointed to the dishes on the table.
Yun Shayi’s gaze softened a little.
The scene around Luo Tangtang seemed to shift, becoming a memory.
Faint morning light scattered over a small town, bathing it in a soft glow. With the arrival of rainbow-colored birds, clear birdsong occasionally echoed from the horizon.
“Senior Sister, I want to show you something,” Yun Shayi said, covering Luo Yi’s eyes. The wind howled past. When Luo Yi opened her eyes, the scenery had changed abruptly.
It was the valley where they first lived.
Amidst the rolling mountains, a deep valley could be seen. The mist was thick and heavy, and as it spread, Luo Yi’s breathing grew a bit heavier. Yun Shayi waved her hand gently, and rich spiritual energy parted the clouds to reveal the sun.
Luo Yi then saw a sapling in Yun Shayi’s hand.
It was a Fusang tree.
“I went to the Western Wilderness. I found it and brought it back on a whim,” Yun Shayi said.
“I thought Senior Sister would like it.”
Luo Yi smiled.
Yun Shayi’s eyes were very bright. She said, “If we plant it and water it with our blood, then it will also carry our bloodline.”
“It will be our child.” Yun Shayi tugged Luo Yi’s sleeve.
“What do you think?”
Luo Yi’s face was a little pale, but her tone was unprecedentedly gentle. She reached out her fair, delicate hand to grasp Yun Shayi’s and nodded lightly.
Their blood mingled and dripped onto the small sapling. A faint golden thread quietly sank into it.
The golden light from that memory seemed to fall into Luo Tangtang’s eyes in the present, constantly spreading. Deep in her soul, it felt as if a hand was gripping her tightly. A sharp pain shot through her mind, and Luo Tangtang’s expression became dazed for a moment.
“Huh?” She blinked, looking at her own hands. They were solid.
The surroundings were frighteningly silent. Am I back? Where’s Yun Shayi? Luo Tangtang abruptly sat up in bed. Perhaps because she had been lying down for so long, her limbs were stiff. She heard the crisp cracking of her bones, which sounded somewhat terrifying in the empty room.
She tried to alleviate some of the tearing pain in her spiritual sense.
“Luo Er, are you there?” Luo Tangtang swayed. When her body touched the cold floor, a sharp pain shot through her.
“Here. There was a problem with the temporal reflux. It needs time to be repaired now,” Luo Er’s voice sounded, tinged with exhaustion.
“You should first recover your functions…” Before Luo Er could finish, Luo Tangtang scrambled up from the floor, dragging herself towards the door.
Clang. She ran into an invisible barrier.
Yun Shayi had set up a barrier outside. People from the outside couldn’t get in, and similarly, Luo Tangtang couldn’t get out.
Luo Tangtang frowned and patted the barrier. The barrier, originally calm as lake water, suddenly began to crack and then abruptly vanished without a trace.
She stood stunned for a moment before jolting back to her senses. She then lifted her feet and hurriedly ran out.
Luo Tangtang didn’t know the way well. Yun Shayi didn’t allow her to run around, and this place was incredibly large. She wandered in circles but didn’t see a single person.
“Squeak.” A sharp, small voice.
Luo Tangtang then saw a large, round disk hiding behind a nearby rockery. At this moment, it was staring at her.
Luo Tangtang’s eyes lit up. She strode over in a few large steps and squatted down. “Do you know where Yun Shayi is? I can’t find her.”
The large round disk tilted its body slightly and nodded.
It then dashed off at great speed in a certain direction, and Luo Tangtang hurriedly followed.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, Luo Tangtang couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed the white disk and lifted it. “Are you tricking me?”
She felt like the white disk was leading her in circles, twisting and turning so much that she was getting dizzy.
“Squeak, squeak.” The white disk shook its head, its eyes wide.
Luo Tangtang narrowed her eyes, staring fixedly at the white disk. Anxiety and unease welled up inside her, the oppressive feeling almost becoming tangible.
She tentatively stretched out a foot in one direction, and a small, slender tentacle immediately wrapped around it. Luo Tangtang looked down, her gaze sharp as a torch, staring at the white disk’s glistening green tentacle.
The white disk shrank back as if feeling a bit guilty, but its tentacle still held Luo Tangtang’s ankle firmly, refusing to let go.
Luo Tangtang directly scooped up the white disk, ignoring how its tentacle was stretched from her foot all the way to her waist, and walked forward expressionlessly.
“Tangtang,” someone called out.
It was the little Qilin.
Luo Tangtang’s brows knitted tightly. She quickened her pace, bypassing the little Qilin running towards her. She knew something must have happened. Otherwise, Yun Shayi wouldn’t be avoiding her, even having the white disk and the little Qilin try to stop her.
Thinking of this, Luo Tangtang moved even faster. She seemed to sense something and sprinted towards a certain direction until a sliver of colorful sunlight appeared at the end, and only then did Luo Tangtang stop.
The scene before her: blood-red flower petals rustled down from above, floating lightly to the ground and scattering all around.
Yun Shayi stood under the tree. A vine from the tree was bound around her waist. That vine was incomparably blood-red, as if soaked in fresh blood. Golden particles emanated from Yun Shayi’s body, and at the same time, Yun Shayi’s face grew increasingly pale.
“Yun Shayi!” Luo Tangtang’s pupils contracted.
Hearing her call, Yun Shayi seemed to turn her head with some difficulty, watching the flowing light. It was like fireflies gradually lighting up in the dark night, converging into a dazzling sea of stars.
Yun Shayi’s lips moved, and an expression akin to relief appeared on her face. This made Luo Tangtang’s heart feel as if a sharp blade had pierced it. She hurriedly ran forward, wanting to cut the vine.
“Remember this tree? We planted it together.” Yun Shayi was completely unconcerned. She looked at Luo Tangtang, her expression somewhat weak but gentle.
“I remember.” Sweat beaded on Luo Tangtang’s forehead. The vine seemed rooted to Yun Shayi’s waist; she couldn’t pull it off no matter how hard she tried. In her panic, Luo Tangtang wanted to draw her sword to cut it, but Yun Shayi stopped her.
“Don’t hurt it. This is our child, after all.”
Luo Tangtang’s eyes reddened. She gritted her teeth and said fiercely, “Child, child! What child are you talking about now? Just focus on staying alive! Once you’re safe, you can have as many as you want!”
“Really?” Yun Shayi’s eyes lit up.
Luo Tangtang, however, grew even more furious. She couldn’t understand how Yun Shayi still had the mind to think about such things at a time like this.
“It’s alright,” Yun Shayi shook her head.
“I’m just returning something.”
“Alright, stop pulling.” Suddenly, this sentence echoed in Luo Tangtang’s mind. Luo Er’s voice also appeared. In an instant, Luo Tangtang was pulled into a strange space.
“Where is this?”
“The system interface,” Luo Er said.
“Don’t worry, she won’t die.”
“But…”
“No buts. She’s just returning the Main God’s things to the Main God, that’s all,” Luo Er interrupted Luo Tangtang, speaking calmly.
“Things? What things?” Luo Tangtang said, her voice wary.
“Don’t look like that. If the Main God wanted to do anything to you, you two would have died a hundred times over by now.” Luo Er glanced sideways at Luo Tangtang.
“It’s that drop of blood. The Main God originally gave it to you.”
“Blood?” Luo Tangtang suddenly remembered. In the Fusang Valley, when she planted the tree with Yun Shayi, she had given that small tree the drop of blood the Main God had initially given her.
“Remember now?” Luo Er looked at Luo Tangtang’s expression and said, her tone sarcastic.
“I knew you weren’t the sharpest, but I didn’t think you were this dense! Your very soul and life were sustained by that blood, and you gave it to the Fusang tree?”
Seeing Luo Tangtang’s confused expression, Luo Er became even angrier. “The Main God didn’t intend to do anything to you in the first place. But you yourself went and cut off all your own escape routes.”
“Exactly! Just as the Main God was about to send you to a new world, your soul became unstable and completely disintegrated.”
Luo Er twitched her eyelids, utterly speechless.
“Disintegrated?” Luo Tangtang hadn’t seen what happened afterwards and didn’t know the details.
“Yes, turned into flying ash right before our eyes.”
Luo Tangtang’s eyelids twitched.
“Even the Main God was shocked at the time,” Luo Er said, her expression full of disdain.
“I didn’t realize the consequences would be so severe,” Luo Tangtang said, a bitter taste in her mouth. Back then, I actually intended that drop of blood for Yun Shayi. Without the protection of that world, she would have been vulnerable. That blood would have helped her greatly.
But I hadn’t expected that the world created by the Main God would be so unstable. The moment I touched the world barrier, my soul was torn to pieces.
“So…” Luo Tangtang began, then asked somewhat awkwardly, “what should I do now?”
Luo Er stared at her fixedly for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes dramatically. “Do whatever you want to do. After Yun Shayi finishes returning the blood, you can do whatever you please.”
Luo Er swayed as she walked away, not looking back.
Luo Tangtang called out from behind but only saw Luo Er wave a hand nonchalantly. “You’re free now.”
The light, airy voice drifted by her ears, leaving Luo Tangtang stunned for a moment. In a daze, the surrounding scenery changed abruptly. She looked up and saw that cool and aloof person, Yun Shayi, smiling with utmost gentleness, like the clear radiance of the bright moon.