Bai Tang: Then I'll Pluck Your Feathers Right Now!

["Bullshit! Let me leave the Family right now! I'm going to save my little brother!"

Bai Tang still remembered the little brother she had raised for several years, and she was so angry she wanted to pluck Gafium's feathers.

Gafium remained calm, probably because he had seen it all before:

"The 'Propagation' inside you will prevent you from living past eighteen if you leave the Family."

Bai Tang snorted. "So what? If I don't live that long, then I don't. You damn bird, let me go right now! I'm going to find my little brother!"

She hadn't lived past eighteen in either of her previous two lives anyway, so it made no difference whether she had "Propagation" or not.

"You can have an older brother and sister."

"Then I'll pluck your feathers right now!"

"Wait. There's no news of your brother right now, so going out won't do you any good. If you stay here, you can get more of the information you want."]

Robin guiltily averted her eyes. She hadn't expected Gafium to force Bai Tang to stay. Clearly, Bai Tang must have become their little sister.

Aventurine remembered when Bai Tang had asked him to call her big sister. He hadn't expected her to still have that on her mind.

March 7th's attention was elsewhere. "Bai Tang won't live past eighteen! How old is she now?!"

She didn't look like a child! Surely she didn't have just a few years left!

That wouldn't do!

Jing Yuan froze, then recalled Bailu's words. "Seventeen."

March 7th said, "Huh?! She only has one year left to live?!!"

Was she going to die just after arriving?

March 7th refused to accept it.

Damn "Propagation."

Dan Heng seemed quite calm, as if he had a backup plan.

What followed was no longer a lengthy sequence. As before, scattered fragments of memory flashed past.

There were scenes of Robin comforting Bai Tang, of Bai Tang finally accepting the brother and sister, and of Bai Tang searching for Kakavasha.

Though she continued to dislike Gafium and followed Robin around everywhere, leaving Sunday behind.

["It's my fault."

Bai Tang touched the product code on Aventurine's neck, furious enough to want to tear those people limb from limb.

Her own little Kakavasha, whom she had kept clean and raised until he was fair and chubby, had been abused until he was thin, and even branded with a humiliating product code.

Did they really think she had such a good temper?!

"I'll twist their heads off right now and give them to you to kick around like balls!"

Bai Tang was a military commander, and even after becoming a general, she was still a military commander. Even if she was quick-witted and had used her brains to search for Kakavasha and the like, she was still a military commander!]

Big sister.

It felt so good to be cherished.

Aventurine missed the big sister who had told him to run.

The images grew blurry again. This time, they couldn't tell what had happened. They only knew that Bai Tang's hair began to fade, the killing intent vanished from her eyes and turned to emptiness, and in the end, she was swallowed by a black hole.

Fu Xuan wanted to say something lofty, but when she saw the screen fill with static, she feared they would question her abilities and hurriedly said, "The rest isn't clear because the Heliobus didn't see it clearly."

She was going to become a general! They couldn't remove her from the post!

Jing Yuan coaxed Fu Xuan as if she were a child. "I know your abilities well, Master Fu. It seems the position of general belongs to none other than you."

Feixiao gave Fu Xuan another look and thought of Yaoguang's resentful face.

Yaoguang: I clearly came first, so why did Jing Yuan get to lure her away?!

Mm, if she really did lure Bai Tang away, she would probably see much the same feelings on Jing Yuan's face as on Yaoguang's.

Sure enough, the images that followed grew blurry and played in fits and starts. There were hardly any lengthy scenes, only fragments of memory flashing by.

This time, Jing Yuan picked her up and raised her alongside Yanqing. She really did go off to learn forging, and Jing Yuan sent her to the Zhuming. Then time flew by, Jing Yuan died, and Fu Xuan became general.

Fu Xuan: "!!!" Jing Yuan hadn't been stringing her along! She really did become general in the end!

Though she died not long after taking the position, she had still held it.

Bai Tang returned to her old profession, succeeding Fu Xuan as general. In the end, she probably failed to protect the Luofu, or why else would she and Yanqing have become Galaxy Rangers?

Wait, why had Bai Tang's ears turned into dragon horns?! She looked like a grown-up Bailu. Had Bailu brought her back to life?

Honestly, that Bai Tang! Jing Yuan had wished to become a Galaxy Ranger, and Bai Tang had ended up becoming one. Baiheng had wished to become a Nameless, and Bai Tang had become one too. She was also a first-rate swordswoman, knew how to forge, and had now even become a dragon.

She really had helped fulfill everything the High-Cloud Quintet had failed to do, hadn't she?

But Bai Tang died in the end. They didn't know how; all that content had played in just one minute, and they had to piece it together from the images with a fair bit of guessing.

The next part was hard to make out. Bai Tang already looked much like she did now, except without the charred hands and wounds that couldn't heal. The background looked like the train, and it quickly skipped to her fighting the Aeon of "Destruction."

It lasted less than half a minute.

In the final image, she looked exactly like the present Bai Tang apart from her eyes. She pointed her sword into the darkness, and the image began to flicker before finally settling on a pair of eyes that looked much like Bai Tang's, except for their color.

The image collapsed and vanished.

"Protect the Yaoqing! Protect the Luofu! Protect the train! Save our companions, kill %&...,."

Preservation-Destruction shouted the slogans, preventing the place from falling silent.

"General Jing Yuan, I think Bai Tang is better suited to the Yaoqing."

General Feixiao was all smiles, ready to snatch her away.

What a wonderful girl,

Jing Yuan countered, "Bai Tang was also a general on the Luofu. She's suited to the Luofu too."

Aventurine looked from one side to the other and decided to intervene:

"Please calm down, Generals. As her younger brother, I'm more than capable of supporting Sister Bai Tang. Would the two of you be willing to let me take care of her?"

Once Aventurine got involved, the two from the Xianzhou began to join forces.

Robin looked from one side to the other, recalling that the train's next stop seemed to be Penacony, and Bai Tang was on the list of people entering the dream. She could just as well ask her privately then.

So, after saying goodbye to Jing Yuan, she left first.

[Stelle: Herta, do you know what the strongest power inside Bai Tang is?

Herta: Has she agreed to do experiments with me?

Herta: What's inside her is power from the rarest Path. I have almost no samples of it here, and the Path is vast but largely unopened. I wouldn't even have noticed it if the Simulated Universe hadn't detected it.

Herta: When is she coming over?

Stelle: What Path is it, exactly?

Herta: "Wish."

Stelle: Beg me and I'll tell you.

Herta: Please.]

"Himeko, Herta says the energy inside Bai Tang is all from the Path of 'Wish.'"

Stelle's eyes held an untainted clarity. "What's the Path of 'Wish'?"

Give her a break. She didn't like reading the Data Bank and only remembered the common ones like Destruction and The Hunt. She had no idea about something this rare.

"'Wish'?"

March 7th looked at Dan Heng, the Data Bank's administrator.

Dan Heng: "..."

"There are very few records of 'Wish.' It seems to be one of the oldest Paths. The Aeon of 'Wish' was born with wishes as its foundation, but has long since disappeared."