Ye Wanqing seemed unable to hear anything.
Her entire world had shrunk to the gaping, bloody hole in her son's chest.
Her maternal instinct overwhelmed all fear. She suddenly wrenched free of Ning Fengzhi's hand!
"Get out of my way! That's my son!"
Her voice was hoarse and raw, her eyes bloodshot. "What do I care if she's a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast? She dared hurt my Ling'er... I'll tear a piece of flesh from her, even if it costs me my life!"
The force of Ye Wanqing's shove was shocking.
Caught off guard, Ning Fengzhi stumbled and nearly crashed into Bone Douluo Gu Rong behind him.
The composure and elegance he always wore shattered completely.
All that remained was his stunned, helpless pallor.
His fingertips reached out futilely, barely brushing the hem of Ye Wanqing's fluttering clothes.
Su Ling abruptly raised his head.
His pupils contracted with sheer terror.
His mother was rushing toward him without a thought for herself!
He tried to shout, but something seemed to clog his throat. All he managed was a mouthful of dark-red blood.
Pain and blood loss blurred his vision. The whole world twisted and warped around him.
"Mom! Don't come any closer—!"
His scream mingled with bloody spittle, fractured by agony and utter terror until it was barely recognizable.
With the last of his strength, he clung tightly to the cold, rigid body of the girl in his arms.
Dragging his nearly broken body, he scrambled backward on his hands and feet, retreating into the deeper shadows.
With every movement, more warm fluid poured from the gaping wound in his chest.
A long, glaring trail of dark-red blood streaked across the cold ground.
He didn't dare stop.
The curse the girl in his arms had uttered—"I'll make everyone connected to you fall into the Abyss forever, for all eternity!"—still thundered in his ears.
Ye Wanqing's steps came to a dead stop just three paces from her son.
The look in his eyes... the terror and rejection surging within them cut into her heart like a dull knife.
She saw it.
The vast, bloody cavity in her son's chest, with shattered bone almost visible inside.
His once-handsome face, now pale as paper and streaked with tears and blood.
And the nearly soul-freezing aura of danger radiating from the silver-haired girl in his arms.
"Ling'er..."
Ye Wanqing's voice trembled, light as a wisp of smoke.
Scalding tears poured out, streaming down her pale cheeks.
She reached out with a trembling hand—not to embrace her son, but toward the cold, empty air.
As if she could grab hold of something and stop the only light in her life from plunging into the abyss.
"Put her down... Be good, put her down... Listen to your mother... Let's go home..."
Her voice sank into utter humility, steeped in a mother's heartbroken terror.
"Mother was wrong! I'll never try to control you again!"
"From now on, you can do whatever you want! If you want to look at the stars, I'll pluck them for you! If you want Soul Beasts, I'll have your grandfather catch them!"
"Hundred thousand years! A million years! Whatever you want, I'll give it to you!"
"Just put her down... Come home with me..."
"I'm begging you!"
"Look at how badly you're hurt... Come home with me..."
"I'll find the best physicians and give everything the Su Family has. I'll make sure you're healed!"
She staggered forward, trying once more to approach him.
Her trembling, tear-streaked hands reached for Su Ling's bloodstained clothes.
She only wanted to touch him, to make sure that faint, lingering breath was still there.
"Ling'er... You're all I have... Don't scare your mother..."
That desperate, abject pleading seared Su Ling's battered soul like a red-hot brand.
Every barrier, every layer of feigned coldness and distance crumbled before the same unreserved maternal love he had known in his Previous Life.
"Mom!"
A broken, anguished scream burst from deep in his throat, mingled with blood and unbearable pain.
He suddenly knocked away his mother's outstretched hand!
The force sent Ye Wanqing stumbling backward, nearly knocking her to the ground.
He stopped retreating, as if her humble pleas had crushed his spine.
His knees slammed into the cold, hard ground strewn with rocks!
Thud!
The muffled impact rang like a death knell in everyone's heart.
Like a rag doll with all its bones removed, he bent forward and drove his forehead into the blood-soaked dirt.
"Mom! Please, stop trying to control me."
"What am I even worth... I'm a good-for-nothing! Scum! A hopeless piece of trash!"
His hoarse sobs came out broken and ragged, every word steeped in blood and tears.
Each breath tugged at the fatal wound in his chest, bringing suffocating pain.
His fingernails dug into his palms, but he couldn't feel it.
All he felt was the despair of his soul being torn apart again and again.
"I got Grandpa killed! I got my father killed! I got you killed—isn't that enough?"
"Why are you still trying to help me?"
"I'll only drag you all down with me! I'll only pull you into hell!"
Tears mingled with blood, carving muddy rivulets down his face.
Like a child who had become completely lost in the dark, he shed every pretense in front of his mother and fell apart.
"Mom! Just pretend I'm dead! Pretend I never existed! Please, Mom—!"
"I don't deserve it... I really don't... Please, just stop trying to control me..."
He knocked his forehead against the ground again and again, each muffled thud heartbreaking.
Ye Wanqing was completely stunned by his sudden, heartrending breakdown.
She couldn't understand his cries about having "gotten Grandpa and Father killed."
Su Qingtian and Su Zhantian were both still fighting on the front lines!
Yet the despair and guilt surging from his words, almost tangible, swept over her like a towering wave and drowned her completely.
Watching her son sob helplessly in a pool of blood, she felt her heart break again and again.
All she could do was reach out helplessly, choking on her words as she tried to comfort him:
"Ling'er... What nonsense are you talking about? Your grandpa and father are fine... Come home with Mother. We'll go home and get you treated..."
Qian Renxue, standing nearby, was stunned too.
Su Ling, so cold and ruthless, so deep in thought, had such a fragile, broken side to him.
She watched him tremble as he knelt in the blood and listened to his incoherent confession.
The "Grandpa," "Father," and "you" he spoke of...
Could he mean... his Previous Life?
But in her Previous Life, after becoming a god, she had never... never exterminated the Su Family!
Qian Renxue abruptly turned toward Gu Yuena.
Looking at the girl's rigid back, she felt her suspicions take on a dangerous certainty.
Could it be... she wasn't the only one reborn?
Could there be another timeline?
Had the young man suffered some even more painful, even more despairing calamity in that timeline?
Qian Renxue watched Su Ling tremble and sob in the pool of blood, utterly broken, and felt a rush of conflicting emotions.
She could hardly imagine what kind of living hell he had endured.
What could have tormented a once calculating, far-sighted soul into this shattered, self-loathing state?
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