Tang San Finished Reading the History of His Family's Ruin and Death
Qin Zhaoye glanced at the private-message icon in the lower right corner of the bronze scroll. The preview of Bibi Dong's message showed only the words "I'll name a price."
But he was in no hurry to open it. There was no harm in keeping Her Holiness the Pope waiting a little longer, so his finger landed on the moderator panel of the special session's host console first.
The public chat was more pressing, after all. Qian Renxue had only just sent "I want a separate session," and the cross-era spectators below had already sent the counter jumping wildly.
Qin Zhaoye wasted no words. He pressed the two bronze buttons marked "lock topic" and "pin split screen" on the console, then replied directly in the public chat.
[Group owner: No need to wait for another session. There was already a place for you in the second half of the Godhood special.]
With that, he opened the console's core archive slot and pulled out two more gold-edged dossiers. He pinned them to the very top of the public chat, side by side with Bibi Dong's dead-end dossier.
[Group owner: The second half begins. All three sides will lay their trump cards on the same screen and compare accounts. Microphone one goes to the main speaker.]
As soon as the message appeared, the bronze microphone on the moderator's console lit up with golden light. Three long charts unfolded at once in the pinned section, slowly forming a "master chronology of the three sides' fates in the first-era Battle of Godhood."
The left column held Bibi Dong's Rakshasa God dead-end dossier. Qian Renxue's "Complete Map of the Angel God Route" occupied the middle, while Tang San's "Complete Godhood Route Dossier" stood on the far right.
Who had ultimately attained godhood, who had fallen in defeat, and whose family had been ruined and lost on the road to becoming a god? It was all recorded line by line in the chronology. The three charts stood side by side on the same screen, pinned in plain sight above the entire group.
"The spectators erupted ×3850!"
The folded banner beneath the public chat shot up another notch on the spot.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: The second half's ultimate trump card is here! The master chronology of all three sides' fates, side by side on one screen! On the left, the Pope crashes and burns at level hundred; in the middle, the young master steals a kingdom and gets her wings broken; on the right, the Tang Sect's founder treads a sea of blood to become a god. I feel like every trump card in this whole grand drama is on this one page!]
Deep in the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's palace, Qian Renxue stood before the sand table, staring at the "Complete Map of the Angel God Route" in the middle column of the master chart.
The chart spelled it out: she had spent more than ten years undercover in Heaven Dou, only to fail on the verge of success when she finally drew in the net during the palace coup. Afterward, she had been forced to retreat to Spirit Hall and undertake the Angel Nine Trials. The Seventh Trial had left her with a flaw in the form of an inner demon. And in the end? Though she had barely managed to ascend to become a level-hundred Angel God, her opponent had shattered her godhood to her face, casting her below level hundred forever.
The wooden ruler in Qian Renxue's hand snapped in two. Her fingers tapped out three route details in succession on the light screen, and she fired off three questions at once.
[Qian Renxue: I spent more than ten years laying plans for the Heaven Dou Palace Coup. At what point did word leak out? What caused the inner demon in the Seventh Trial of the Angel Nine Trials? And that last line-how could a level-hundred Angel Godhood be shattered in a direct confrontation?!]
The three questions struck the public chat, and the spectator counter jumped another notch in response.
"The spectators erupted ×4390!"
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Don't rush, young master. It's all marked in the notes to the master chart!]
Lan Xuanyu pulled up the notes and read them out to the group one by one. In Heaven Dou, she had ventured deep into enemy territory alone, and Spirit Hall had failed to provide enough support from the rear. Instead, it had alerted the enemy prematurely. As for the inner demon in the divine trial and the shattering of her godhood, the notes were even more blunt: it was all because her entire route had been a rushed product from the roots up, built to save time.
The public chat was in an uproar, but Tang San, in Dorm Seven at Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy, barely looked at it. His gaze had been fixed from the start on the "Complete Godhood Route Dossier" in the far-right column of the master chart.
The top of the chart said he had become a god at level hundred, but what lay further down the chronology? The entire chart was a list of costs built brick by brick from the ruin and death of his family.
In his youth, the sect to which his father belonged had been surrounded and attacked by an army, its mountain gate burned to scorched earth. And his father? To protect him, he had severed two of his own limbs and thereafter retired into the mountains. That was not the end of it. Later, the loved ones and close friends who had shared life and death with him were gravely wounded and left at death's door, one after another, in the hunts. He himself had fared no better: in desperate straits, he had cut out his Soul Bone, and several times he had nearly lost his life.
How was this a record of becoming a god? It was plainly a ledger underpinned by the flesh and blood of his loved ones and half a lifetime of calamity.
Tang San sat on the edge of the wooden bed, sliding his finger down the light screen line by line, reading the entire list of costs from beginning to end.
When he finished, he tapped "save locally" in the corner of the scroll, locking the master chart into his archive alongside the earlier roster.
The dormitory was uncannily quiet. Tang San sat there on the edge of the bed without moving for a long while. Only after several rounds of pressing questions had flashed past in the public chat did he slowly type four characters into the input box.
[Tang San: I understand.]
Those simple words appeared in the public chat, but the spectators keeping watch all understood: the future founder of the Tang Sect was dead set on rewriting the original course of events.
"The spectators erupted ×5120!"
On the strength of those words, the counter broke straight through the five-thousand mark.
[The Bystander Sees Clearly: Put the three charts side by side and it's clear: in the original course, none of the sides won cleanly. The Tang Sect founder's route looks like it reached the summit, but the cost in loved ones along the early and middle stages was frighteningly high. And on Spirit Hall's side, the two routes from above and below simply collided with each other.]
Deep in the Heaven Dou palace, Qian Renxue followed Huo Yuhao's comment and shifted her gaze to the troop deployment records in the middle of the master chart.
That was when the problem emerged. In the very year she had ventured into danger alone, the Pope's Palace had transferred a large number of elite forces to open another front, leaving the network she had spent more than ten years building stranded like an island.
Qian Renxue gave a cold laugh. Without beating around the bush, she called Bibi Dong out by name in the public chat.
[Qian Renxue: This is the grand strategy you decided on? What am I in the Angel God route—a sacrificial piece to hold the north in check for you?]
In the Pope's Palace in Spirit City, Bibi Dong was also staring at a note in the middle of the master chart. It read, "After becoming a god, Qian Renxue bypassed the Pope's Palace and monopolized all decisions." She typed a cold retort.
[Bibi Dong: Is there even half a character for "mother" anywhere in the pages of your route? From your time undercover in Heaven Dou to taking command of the Angel God Armor, all you fought for was that old authority of the Qian Family.]
Back and forth they went, confronting each other over the gains and losses of their routes and old scores between factions, without so much as a trace of familial warmth.
Seeing that the two were about to continue tearing into each other, Qin Zhaoye pressed the console. A topic-lock box popped up and blocked further input.
[Group owner: The route confrontation ends here. One topic per session; going off topic will result in an automatic mute for thirty breaths. All three sides' trump cards have been revealed. The overall betting pool is open; everyone, please go ahead.]
At those words, the whole group's attention shifted as one to the cross-volume overall betting pool beneath the public chat.
With Tang San's motive to change his fate firmly welded in place and Bibi Dong and Qian Renxue having laid the rift between their routes on the table, notifications of additional wagers exploded one after another beneath the betting line "Will the Battle of Godhood still unfold as recorded in the history books?"
Several descendants and members of the group scrambled to place heavy bets. Chips surged across the group, and the overall prize pool burst its limit for the first time since betting had opened.
In the new residence, Qin Zhaoye watched the rapidly swelling prize pool before finally opening Bibi Dong's private message in the lower right corner of the scroll.
Bibi Dong's words appeared in the message box:
"I'll name a price. Take down the second half and seal the terms of the Rakshasa God inheritance. Spirit Hall's offer of goodwill is that you get to keep speaking alive."
Even while negotiating terms, the Pope kept up her lofty airs, using his chance to live as leverage to drive down the price.
Qin Zhaoye did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. His fingers typed twelve characters into the reply field, without changing the price:
"The history has been read, the ending is known; the price is negotiable."
Inside the Pope's Palace, Bibi Dong stared at the twelve characters that came back. Her fingers tightened, little by little, on the armrest.
A historian who held the whole story of Spirit Hall's destruction, the inheritance's dead end, and even all three sides' trump cards in his hands, as well as her only way out of the predicament, simply would not be swayed by threats against his life.
The Pope's authority, which she had intended to use to drive down the price, came to nothing on the spot. Her position had slipped from the one applying pressure to that of a buyer.
In the new residence, Qin Zhaoye closed the private-message box and posted a preview of tomorrow's finale on the console's top bar.
[Group owner: The cards for the second half have all been shown. As for whether the endings on these three charts can be changed, and how, this historian will mark the prices clearly at tomorrow morning's special-session finale.]
At the very moment the announcement was pinned to the public chat, heavy, measured footsteps sounded from the long street outside Perching Swan Academy.
The servant keeping watch at the front gate jogged through the courtyard corridor and cried out in a lowered voice through the window lattice, "Young Master Qin, this is bad! Manager He has arrived with an expeditionary force from Spirit City. They're sealing off the ends of the street!"
Hearing the servant, Qin Zhaoye rose and went to the window. He pushed it open a crack and looked outside.
At both ends of the long street beneath the night sky, the expeditionary force from Spirit City had joined up with the elites of the Suotuo Branch Hall and spread out along the academy's outer walls.
As the last torch at the street corner moved into position, the densely packed flames joined into a bright ring, surrounding all of Perching Swan Academy so tightly that not even water could have trickled through.