Xuanyin: Perhaps She Was the One Who Chose the Eternal Night Time Falcon?

"Xuanyin... Sister."

Wei Lin hesitated, but in the end, he succumbed.

As the saying went, marry a woman three years older and you'd get a gold brick. She was more than five hundred thousand years older than him, so that ought to come with an empire.

Living off a woman wasn't anything to be ashamed of.

Besides, who wouldn't take the chance to live off a woman if it came along?

"I came to find you because I wanted to find a thousand-year-old Eternal Night Time Falcon for Qingfeng's First Soul Ring."

Xuanyin glanced at Qingfeng, who looked a little nervous, and gave her a gentle pat on the head.

"I'm nervous too. I don't eat people. We Eternal Night Time Falcons are aloof and solitary by nature. You could almost say none of us gets along with anyone else. Sometimes, even my words as patriarch carry no weight."

There wasn't a trace of deception in Xuanyin's words.

She had become patriarch only because she was the sole Time Ice Falcon, the only one of her kind.

As long as she lived, no new Time Ice Falcon could possibly be born.

Her two vice leaders wanted her dead even more than outsiders did.

Of course, they only dared entertain the thought. If they actually dared say it aloud, she, Xuanyin, would make them drop their equipment.

Only then did Qingfeng breathe a sigh of relief.

She knew full well that Xuanyin would be one of her brother's powerful fighters in the future, yet she was asking her to give up the life of one of her own kind. How could she not be nervous?

She was terrified that one careless mistake would cost her brother a great general in the future.

"For this little one, it would be best to choose one just over a thousand years old. After all, Eternal Night Time Falcons primarily wield time."

Xuanyin selected an Eternal Night Time Falcon just over a thousand years old.

"Eternal Night Time Falcons are born with Time Disorder. If one is too old, accidents can easily happen."

Wei Lin nodded. As the patriarch of the Eternal Night Time Falcons, she understood her race's innate abilities better than anyone.

Wei Lin might not have been particularly smart, but he listened to advice.

Xuanyin briefly extended her senses and locked onto a twelve-hundred-year-old Eternal Night Time Falcon.

The hourglasses in her ice-blue eyes turned slightly, and a time falcon clad in silver-white feathers stared at Xuanyin in confusion.

She couldn't quite wrap her head around it.

Hadn't she just been foraging? How had she suddenly ended up hundreds of years in the past?

Once she got a clear look at the person before her, anger flared in her eyes. Eternal Night Time Falcons will never be slaves!

Xuanyin sneered and slapped her across the face.

Eternal Night Time Falcon: "???"

Wait... Sister, don't you know you shouldn't hit a beast in the face?

I'll fight you to the death!

"Smack!"

"..."

You've gone too far, bullying a bird like this!

"Smack!"

"..."

Every time the Eternal Night Time Falcon flew into a rage, she got slapped. After each slap, she got angry again and received another.

And so the cycle repeated...

Xuanyin even manipulated time, stretching the flow of time around her without limit.

No one knew how many times Xuanyin slapped her, but the Eternal Night Time Falcon was beaten into submission.

This was an exceptionally proud being, yet Xuanyin had slapped her into submission by sheer force.

"So... it can be settled like this?"

Wei Lin's mouth twitched. This had truly opened his eyes.

Sure enough, he was still too young and had seen too little.

Xuanyin tossed the bird in her hand, now lying there swollen like a pig, in front of Qingfeng.

"This one was far prouder than the others before her. It took five googol slaps to make her submit."

Xuanyin rubbed her hand and sneakily gave Wei Lin a thumbs-up.

Her meaning was clear: Look how well I trained her.

Wei Lin looked at the Eternal Night Time Falcon with a hint of pity. The poor thing had really suffered, running into such a terror.

And... if Xuanyin's own words were anything to go by, she might have experienced this very scene countless times in the river of time. Didn't that mean... this one had been slapped an infinite number of times?

At the thought of that scene, he suddenly felt that he had been so kind all along.

Qingfeng took out the contract ball her brother had given her. When the ball hit the ground, a Hexagram Array appeared simultaneously beneath her feet and the Eternal Night Time Falcon's.

The Eternal Night Time Falcon did not resist, but there was still a hint of disdain in her gaze as she looked at Qingfeng. Even without her resistance, the backlash of time was not something a little girl could withstand.

A purple Soul Ring streaked with silver slowly rose from her body and settled around Qingfeng.

The next second, Qingfeng's face turned deathly pale, and time around her began to fall into disorder.

One moment, she was a little girl; the next, she was an old man on the verge of death, the kind not even the Astral Express could cover for.

For a six-year-old girl who cared about her looks, this was an extreme psychological and physiological challenge.

The disorder of time brought more than physiological and psychological harm; it also caused physical damage to her body.

Every cell underwent countless deaths and rebirths in a moment. Some even abruptly shifted to rebirth halfway through dying.

The distortion of every cell was magnified infinitely. Could she... still remember who she was?

Wei Lin's expression changed slightly. He was just about to use the system's authority to forcibly interrupt the ritual when Xuanyin caught both his hands.

"Little Brother Lin, don't underestimate this little one."

"But..."

Xuanyin said nothing more, then spoke softly, and her words made Wei Lin lower his hands completely.

"Why did you choose an Eternal Night Time Falcon? Out of so many time-type Soul Beasts, why did you choose Time Disorder, the most dangerous of them all?"

Xuanyin gently pointed at Qingfeng.

"Is it possible that she chose it? Is it possible that, in the future, she found she couldn't help you and could only remain under your wing without end, and that she couldn't accept it?"

She looked at Qingfeng, whose complexion kept changing, a trace of admiration in her eyes.

"Across countless choices in time, you chose the chance best suited to traveling the universe. So, can you endure it?"

Qingfeng didn't know what was happening outside. She couldn't feel anything.

It hurts so much... Brother... don't... look at me like this...

She didn't know what she looked like, but she knew that right now... she must look terrible.

"Can you accept it?"

Qingfeng seemed to hear her own voice...

"Can you accept being a parasite forever? Forever sheltered beneath Brother, unable to help him at all..."

"I..."

"You feel inferior. You know who Brother is, and you think your own status is lowly. You're afraid-afraid you can't help Brother at all, afraid you'll be abandoned. Admit it. You're just a lucky country girl. You have no talent. Everything you have was given to you as charity. You're a parasite. No! You're not even a worm."

"..."

"In front of him, that little bit of self-respect of yours can't even compare to an ant by the roadside..."

The pain on Qingfeng's face suddenly faded into calm. Or rather... she no longer cared about anything... she... had nothing left.