Turned into Stars

Shen Ranxi decided to tell Little Bell the facts and the truth.

For the time ahead, she was destined to be unable to take proper care of Little Bell.

She had to collect everyone's bodies and carve gravestones for them. That way, she could come back to visit them in the future. At the very least, they would not be ants scattered by the wind—they had truly existed in this world.

Become stronger!!!

She needed to carefully consider her way out. She would not stay here for long.

She would be letting everyone down by going against the plans they had made for her.

Little Bell had to know the truth. Shen Ranxi could not hide it from her forever, and she had to take Little Bell with her.

Shen Ranxi brought Little Bell to that bloody land.

Little Bell saw her dad and mom lying on the ground and ran over to push their bodies.

"Dad, Mom, the ground is cold. Don't sleep on the ground. Get up quickly," Little Bell said anxiously, her head drooping. "Dad, Mom, you always loved teasing Little Bell. If you don't get up, Little Bell will get angry."

Shen Ranxi could not bear to watch and turned her head away.

"Really, Little Bell will be well-behaved. I won't eat so much candy anymore. Wuwu, I'll behave."

"If you don't get up, I'll eat all the candy at home. My teeth will all fall out..."

"Waaah—waaah—" Of course Little Bell knew something was wrong with her parents. Usually, even a tiny cut on her little hand that bled would hurt terribly.

But now her parents had lost so much blood. It had to hurt enough to kill them. Their bodies were cold, too.

Shen Ranxi went over and held her, pressing her head into her embrace and muffling her cries.

"Little Bell, Dad and Mom aren't dead. They went to the sky and turned into stars. They'll watch over us from the heavens forever."

"R-Really?"

"Look at the sky."

At that moment, dawn was breaking, and a strip of fish belly white seeped across the horizon. Against the black sky on the other side, the stars shone especially brightly, twinkling one after another.

"The two brightest ones are Little Bell's dad and mom."

Shen Ranxi spent a week burying everyone on the Back Mountain, where they could overlook the entire village.

She carved everyone's names onto wooden markers.

Kneeling before the Village Chief's grave, she said, "Village Chief Grandpa, My Instructor had a poem in my previous life: 'For sacrifice breeds lofty resolve, daring to change sun and moon to new sky.' I may not have his abilities, but I still want to try—see whether I can change the sky of this Douluo Continent!"

Her pale face formed a bitter smile as she poured the wine in her hand onto the ground.

"May everyone rest in peace!"

Oh, right. She had smashed the Evil Soul Master's body apart and thrown it into the forest, then watched with her own eyes as a pack of wolves devoured him clean, leaving no future trouble behind.

Who knew whether this world had some method of reviving someone as long as their corpse remained intact?

With things like Martial Souls already existing, resurrection would not be so strange!

Holding Little Bell's hand, Shen Ranxi returned to the village once more. Little Bell had been very well-behaved these past few days. She neither cried nor made a fuss, but she clung tightly to Shen Ranxi. Shen Ranxi knew it was a sign that she lacked a sense of security.

She was afraid Shen Ranxi would disappear too. The sight of Shen Ranxi vomiting blood that day had frightened her badly.

Sitting at the table outside the house, Shen Ranxi saw that Little Bell had already fallen asleep.

Now, she finally had time to think carefully about what path she should take next.

The village had work-study student slots, but she did not want to waste time. The Junior Soul Master Academy would be of too little help to her, and the Martial Soul it could help her find would not be of particularly high quality.

She had neither money nor backing. She would only become a target for bullying. Though she was not afraid of trouble, she disliked trouble too.

And she had Little Bell with her.

After going through all the useful information in her mind, she finally decided on Shrek Academy. The only thing she still remembered from that anime in her previous life was this academy. She could not remember anything else at all.

It had powerful teaching staff and was relatively free. She could also entrust Little Bell to the aunts in the village and not worry about her safety.

Next, she needed to study her own Martial Souls.

During her Martial Soul Awakening that day, she had awakened two Martial Souls, but she had hidden the other one. A tall tree in the forest catches the wind first.

She was still far too weak. Staying low and developing was the proper course.

Just as she was about to use Soul Power to see what her other Martial Soul was—

"Hmm?"

It had not been this difficult when she used Soul Power to activate the Golden Cudgel.

She refused to believe it. Increasing her Soul Power Output, she finally summoned it at the very moment her strength ran out.

Her wide eyes stared as she muttered, "After taking so much effort, it should be an awesome Martial Soul, right?"

Something gradually appeared in her hand—a fish???

"Hahaha, good heavens, are you kidding me? After all that effort, she had thought it would be something incredible."

It was just a fish... Its pair of innocent round eyes stared at her in a stare-down.

Still, the fish was rather pretty... It was palm-sized and entirely sky-blue, with a body resembling a whale's. Two tiny fins on either side looked like wings, while currents of water swirled all around it. It looked utterly dreamlike.

Fine. For that appearance, she could accept her fate.

"Heh~" A soft laugh came from somewhere far away.

"Who?!"

She turned around, shock in her eyes. Other than her and Little Bell, there could not possibly be anyone else in the village!

A proud figure stood imposing with a staff over his shoulder, majestic and sacred.

"Wearing a Phoenix-Winged Purple-Gold Crown, clad in Chain-Linked Golden Armor, and stepping on Lotus-Root Silk Cloud-Treading Boots. Havoc in the East Sea, Tread the Lingxiao, Raid the Spiritual Mountain..."

One breathtaking scene after another flashed through Shen Ranxi's memories.

"Little girl, your words are quite pleasant to hear. This Great Sage likes them!" the figure said as he turned around.

Shen Ranxi froze in place and pinched herself. It hurt! This was not a dream!

"G-Great Sage, it really is you!" She had thought the Great Sage was merely a mythical figure from her childhood.

"Didn't you know that even calling a god's name might draw their gaze? Let alone that you copied Old Sun's weapon."

"This is only a strand of my Divine Sense. I quite admire your temperament, so I wanted to see whether you could reach the step you spoke of. Hahaha..."

The pure power of faith she carried for him had awakened him.

"Your Sea of Consciousness is quite lively. Consider this a meeting gift." With a casual flick, he sent a speck of golden light drifting into her forehead.

Shen Ranxi thanked him excitedly. Could the Great Sage possibly harm her? Of course not!

At the time, she did not yet know how greatly that casual flick would help her...

"For the Golden Cudgel, don't use Soul Power to activate it. You'll discover a surprise. Here is a Heart Method and a Body Tempering Method; use them together. If you can endure it, there will be another surprise," the Great Sage said, curling his lip in disdain. "That little body of yours is so weak that I could crush you without even needing one finger."

Feeling the concern beneath the Great Sage's disdainful words, Shen Ranxi knelt on the ground. Tears spun uncontrollably in her eyes as she slammed her forehead hard against the earth. When she raised her head again, blood seeped from her forehead.

"Thank you, Great Sage. I definitely won't let you down!"

The Great Sage flicked her forehead and said with a smile, "This Great Sage accepts your salute. I want to see just how far you can go..." With that, he slipped into Shen Ranxi's Sea of Consciousness.

She clutched the cultivation method tightly in her hand as tears dripped onto the ground, one drop after another.

She had been in this foreign world for so long, with no relatives to look to and no one by her side. She had buried her longing for her family, senior brothers, and junior sisters deep in the bottom of her heart.

Only in the dead of night would the slightest trace of it slip out for her to notice. Perhaps even the moon could feel it.

Now, her role model had appeared before her. At last, she could no longer hold herself together.

And besides... She touched the center of her brow. With the Great Sage accompanying her, the future held nothing to fear!

She gathered all the money in the village, which came to roughly nine Gold Soul Coins and forty Copper Soul Coins. Then she prepared clothes and dry rations and stored them in a Soul Tool.

This was the Soul Tool she had bought with the thousand Merit Points she gained from killing the Evil Soul Master.

It had cost four hundred Merit Points. Its twenty-square-meter space could hold living things. It was a Purple-Black Sparkling Earring, and the moment she got it, she pierced her ear by hand and put it on.

That week, she had been recovering from her injuries while also testing the Great Sage's guidance from that day.

Activating the Golden Cudgel without using her Martial Soul, she cried, "Fuck!" The instant she withdrew her Soul Power, the Golden Cudgel came crashing down like a towering mountain.

Bang— With a muffled boom, Shen Ranxi let out a scream and was smashed flat to the ground by the Golden Cudgel, which hammered a human-shaped deep pit into the earth.

"Great Sage, you're way too cruel!" She struggled to raise a middle finger.