The Pope Opens Her Screen and Finds News of Her Own Death First
The moment Qin Zhaoye's words, "it starts now," appeared on the scroll, the group had already burst into life.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: She's here, she's here! There's no faking the first-day real-name rule. It's really the living Bibi Dong!]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: Is the ticket post holding its spot? Don't let it drop!]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Holding steady, and I even prepared a big gift for her while I was at it. Just waiting for the person herself to open her eyes!]
But Bibi Dong's profile had hung in the group all afternoon without a stir.
Night fell. In Spirit City, ten thousand li away, inside the Pope's bedchamber.
Only two eternal palace lamps burned in the chamber. Bibi Dong had meditated for most of the day and had just gathered in the Soul Power around her when a bronze-colored screen suddenly appeared before her eyes without warning.
A line of text was fixed firmly at the top of the screen: First Era · Bibi Dong. Beneath it was a line in gray: Real name on the first day, do as you please from the second day onward.
Bibi Dong frowned slightly, her right hand instinctively pressing against the Pope's Scepter at her side.
She was already a level 94 Titled Douluo. Who could bypass the restrictions on the Pope's Palace and project an illusion directly into her sea of consciousness?
"What demon dares play gods and ghosts before me?"
She gave a cold snort, and purple-black Soul Power surged from her fingertips with a sudden jolt.
The Soul Power passed through the screen, but the screen did not so much as flicker. Instead, two pinned posts in its center struck her eyes head-on.
The first read: "A day trip to the Spirit Hall ruins: which angle makes the Pope's Palace look best in photos?"
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Sincerely recommend it. Students get half-price tickets, and you get a commemorative wooden Pope's Palace plaque when you go in!]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: That plaque cracks the moment you drop it, but the grilled sausages sold beneath the Pope's Palace steps smell amazing. Every autumn outing, the line stretches all the way outside the square!]
Bibi Dong had just picked up the teacup on the table when her fingers suddenly tightened.
The Spirit Hall ruins? Grilled sausages sold beneath the Pope's Palace steps?
Before she could erupt, the second post had already opened to reveal its contents.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: How can sightseeing alone be enough? Here's a historical fact-checking file for His Holiness the Pope: "Pope Bibi Dong died in the Battle of Godhood." Rock-solid official history, source: Official History of the First Era!]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: A sentence excerpted from the original: Bibi Dong, the last Pope of Spirit Hall, was defeated and killed in the Battle of Godhood. Spirit Hall was destroyed thereafter, its name struck from the continent.]
Crack.
The white jade teacup in Bibi Dong's hand was crushed to pieces on the spot. Tea and shards of jade dripped through her fingers onto her papal robes.
But in the blink of an eye, she opened her fingers expressionlessly, wiped the tea from her palm with a handkerchief, and forced herself to sit properly on the throne again.
She looked through the names one by one with cold eyes: Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor, Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion, The Bystander Sees Clearly, and the group owner at the very top. She remembered them all, putting every one of them on her death list.
Her gaze moved down another inch and suddenly stopped. There was also a [Historical Deviation Notice · Paragraph Level] up above, with a gray "Pending Revision" label in the corner and a sentence left by the group owner beside it: The pen belongs to the living.
Bibi Dong's fingertips lingered lightly for an instant on the words "died in the Battle of Godhood" and "Pending Revision."
It was only an instant. The next moment, she withdrew her fingers and typed a string of demands directly beneath the screen.
[Bibi Dong: You who play gods and ghosts, who gave you the nerve to fabricate news of my death?]
[Bibi Dong: Remove this sorcery at once.]
[Bibi Dong: Group owner, state your name.]
At Qihong Soul Master Academy in Suotuo City, Qin Zhaoye had taken advantage of the night to return to his grade-A single room. He had just fastened the door bolt when he saw Bibi Dong fire off three demands in a row.
Quite fierce. He smiled, sat down at the table, and spread out the Wordless Ancient Scroll. His fingertip swept across the group-owner permissions bar, selecting both rate limiting and muting, then tapped Bibi Dong's profile picture.
[Group Hub: Group rule three: one topic per session. Going off topic results in a mute. The current topic is "Fact-checking the news of Pope Bibi Dong's death." Member "Bibi Dong" repeatedly flooded the chat with unsubstantiated threats, deviating from the topic. Rate limiting applied; muted for thirty breaths.]
[Group Owner: Read the rules before you enter. Real name on the first day, one topic per session, and the historian only records hard evidence.]
[Group Owner: There's no papal throne in the Myriad Ages Douluo Group. If you can't produce hard evidence and still dare flood the chat, you'll sit in the little black room all the same.]
Back in the Pope's bedchamber, Bibi Dong had only typed half of her fourth rebuke when a small bronze lock dropped with a snap, sealing her message box tight.
She refused to believe it and tapped send again, but it was no use. The words she had typed were immediately bounced back.
Bibi Dong stared at the little bronze lock for a long time, then looked at the words "sit in the little black room" below it. Her fingers tapped heavily on the rosewood table, one beat at a time.
She was a dignified level 94 Pope, yet inside this strange screen, she could not even suppress a mere thirty-breath mute. What was this?
Meanwhile, in a dormitory at Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy, Tang San was leaning against the head of his bed.
He stared at the words "Spirit Hall" on the screen for a long time without saying anything. His finger slowly slid downward, and he read "Pope Bibi Dong died in the Battle of Godhood" three times in a row, from beginning to end.
The group fell silent for a moment. Then the trio of descendants exploded.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Hahahahahaha]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Group owner, you're awesome!! You even dared lock up the Pope directly, without so much as a warning]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: That was so satisfying, so satisfying! She even wanted the group owner's name? Go sit out your thirty breaths first]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: I'm going to bump that post about grilled sausages at the ruins again]
Tang Wulin said he would bump it, and he did. The grilled-sausage post was pushed straight back to the top.
[The Bystander Sees Clearly: To be fair, her troop deployment in the battle before she died actually had its merits.]
[The Bystander Sees Clearly: It was only because she rushed the endgame that someone caught her mistake.]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: That's savage! The person herself is still sitting in the little black room, and you're already reviewing the battle that killed her?]
In the Pope's bedchamber, Bibi Dong's hand had still been tapping on the table, one beat at a time. When she saw "her troop deployment in the battle before she died actually had its merits," that hand suddenly stopped, several fingers pressing deep marks into the rosewood. She was still sitting here, alive and well, and someone was already reviewing the battle before her death?
After she had finally endured thirty breaths, the little bronze lock clicked open.
[Bibi Dong: Good. Very good. Group owner, and you three as well, I'll remember you.]
She had only just sent the message when she sensed something was wrong. The more she responded, the faster the posts below were bumped and the chat was flooded.
In the single room at Perching Swan Academy, Qin Zhaoye watched the popularity bar on the scroll leap wildly as a line of golden text appeared.
[Golden Notice: First-day blockbuster revelation, "the news of Pope Bibi Dong's death," verified. First-day real-name bonus doubled. Group owner credited with 1,000 conversation points.]
"As expected of His Holiness the Pope. One round of her losing her composure is worth an entire paragraph-level deviation."
Qin Zhaoye whistled, casually sent the group messages to the background, and pulled from his robes the ledger of Suotuo City's covert operatives he had compiled the night before. He then opened the Suotuo City Hundred-Year Historical Materials Pack to the volume on the Suotuo branch hall.
He had to earn conversation points in the group, but he could not let the tangible benefits right under his nose slip away either.
So he turned up the oil lamp on the table, picked up a charcoal pencil, and compared coordinates on a map of Suotuo City's western outskirts bit by bit against records in the materials pack.
According to the records in the materials pack, if nothing unexpected happened, the Spirit Hall Suotuo branch would concentrate its enforcement teams in the next day or two and go to the western outskirts to raid a cache left behind by Soul Masters of the previous dynasty.
Qin Zhaoye held the historical records down with his left hand and sketched rapidly on the paper with his right, working out every detail in turn: three secluded routes in and out of the cache in the western outskirts, the time window for opening its mechanisms, and the shift-change schedule of the Suotuo branch's outer sentries.
By the time he marked the final gap between shifts, he could already hear the clappers sounding the fourth watch outside the window.
He blew on the charcoal marks to dry them, folded the paper and tucked it into a hidden pocket. "The routes, time window, and shifts are all accounted for. Tomorrow night, I'll collect this batch of goods on Spirit Hall's behalf first."
At the same moment, in the Pope's Palace in Spirit City.
An edict bearing the Pope's purple-and-gold seal was sent out from the bedchamber that very night: investigate the group owner, investigate the Myriad Ages Douluo Group, and start with Suotuo City.
Behind layer upon layer of bead curtains, someone answered in a low voice:
"Night Owl Terrace accepts the order."