Su Ling's Breakdown! Mom... I Beg You... Stop Controlling Me

Ye Wanqing seemed to hear nothing at all.

Her entire world had narrowed down to that ghastly, bloody hole in her son's chest.

Maternal instinct overrode every shred of fear; she violently shook off Ning Fengzhi's hand!

"Get away! That is my son!!"

Her voice was hoarse and on the verge of shattering, her eye sockets red enough to drip blood. "What Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast! If she dares to hurt my Ling'er... I will risk this life of mine to tear a piece of flesh off her!"

The force of Ye Wanqing's shove was terrifyingly immense.

Caught off guard, Ning Fengzhi stumbled, nearly colliding with Bone Douluo Gu Rong behind him.

The habitual composure and elegance on his face shattered completely.

All that remained was a pale, stunned look of helplessness.

His fingertips reached out in vain, barely brushing against the hem of Ye Wanqing's fluttering robes.

Su Ling snapped his head up.

His pupils constricted sharply from overwhelming terror.

His mother was charging toward him, heedless of everything!

He wanted to scream, but his throat was tightly obstructed by something, forcing out only a mouthful of dark, congealed blood.

The intense pain and blood loss made his vision blur and sway; the entire world was twisting and deforming.

"Mom! Don't come over--!"

His roar, mixed with blood foam, cracked completely from the agony and extreme panic, barely forming a coherent sound.

He used his last ounce of strength to hold the cold, tense body of the young girl in his arms tightly.

Dragging his nearly broken body, he used his hands and feet to scramble pathetically into the deeper shadows behind him.

With every movement, more warm liquid gushed from the black-hole-like wound in his chest.

A dark red trail of blood dragged across the cold ground, leaving a glaring, long mark.

He dared not stop.

The curse from the girl in his arms—"I want everyone connected to you to fall into the abyss, life after life, forever!"—still roared and thundered in his ears.

Ye Wanqing's footsteps were nailed to the ground, a mere three steps away from her son.

The look in her son's eyes... the fear and resistance surging within them were like a dull blade, carving viciously into her heart.

She saw it.

The massive, mangled hole in her son's chest, where shattered bone was nearly visible.

That face, once handsome, was now pale as paper, streaked with tears and blood.

And the dangerous aura radiating from the silver-haired maiden in his arms, an aura that threatened to freeze the very soul.

"Ling'er..."

Ye Wanqing's voice trembled uncontrollably, light as a wisp of smoke.

Scalding tears gushed forth, washing over her pale cheeks.

She reached out with trembling hands—not to embrace her son, but toward the cold, empty air.

As if trying to grasp something, to stop the only light in her life from falling completely into the abyss.

"Put her down... be good, put her down... listen to Mother... let's go home..."

Her voice was humble, ground into the dust, saturated with the heart-shattering panic of a mother.

"Mother was wrong! Mother will never restrict you again!"

"From now on, do whatever you want! If you want to see the stars, Mother will pluck them for you! If you want Soul Beasts, Mother will have your grandfather catch them!"

"One hundred thousand years! One million years! Whatever you want, Mother will give it to you!"

"As long as you put her down... and come back with Mother..."

"Mother begs you!"

"Look at how badly you're hurt... come home with Mother..."

"Mother will find the best physicians, exhaust everything the Su Family has, and we will heal you!"

She staggered, attempting to step forward once more.

Her tear-streaked, trembling hands reached toward Su Ling's blood-stained lapel.

She only wanted to touch him, to confirm that faint, lingering breath.

"Ling'er... Mother only has you left... please, don't scare Mother like this..."

That desperate, humble plea felt like a red-hot iron brand, searing deep into Su Ling's riddled soul.

All his defenses, all his feigned indifference and detachment, crumbled completely before this motherly love—identical in both his past and present life, given without reservation.

"Mom!!"

A broken, agonizing howl erupted from the depths of his throat, carrying flecks of blood and unbearable, searing pain.

He violently swatted away the hand his mother reached out to him!

The force was so great that Ye Wanqing staggered backward, nearly falling to the ground.

He stopped retreating, as if his spine had been completely crushed by that humble plea.

His knees slammed heavily onto the cold, hard, gravel-strewn ground!

Thud!

The dull sound struck everyone's heart like a funeral bell.

Like a ragdoll with its bones pulled out, he bent deeply, his forehead slamming hard into the blood-stained mud.

"Mom! Please, stop caring about me."

"What am I even worth... I'm just a piece of trash! A scumbag! Hopeless garbage!"

His hoarse cries were shattered and broken, every word dripping with blood.

Every breath tugged at the fatal wounds in his chest, bringing suffocating agony.

His fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms, but he felt no pain.

There was only the despair of his soul being torn apart over and over again.

"I killed Grandfather! I killed Father! I killed you—isn't that enough?"

"Why do you still care about me!"

"I only drag you down! I only pull you into hell with me!"

Tears mixed with blood, carving muddy furrows into his face.

Like a child completely lost in the dark, he shed all his pretenses before his mother, collapsing entirely.

"Mom! Just pretend I'm dead! Pretend I never existed! I'm begging you, Mom--!!"

"I don't deserve it... I really don't deserve it... Please, I'm begging you, stop caring about me..."

His forehead struck the ground again and again, emitting a heartbreaking, dull thud.

Ye Wanqing was completely stunned by his sudden, heart-wrenching breakdown.

She could not understand the cries coming from her son's mouth about "killing his grandfather and father."

Su Qingtian and Su Zhantian were clearly still fighting bloodily on the front lines!

Yet, the surging despair and guilt pouring out of those words, almost solidifying into reality, drowned her like a monstrous tidal wave.

Watching her son wail helplessly in a pool of blood, her heart was crushed over and over again.

She could only reach out in vain, choking back sobs as she incoherently comforted him:

"Ling'er... what nonsense are you spouting... your grandfather and father are perfectly fine... come back with Mother, let's go home and get you treated..."

Qian Renxue, standing to the side, was also stunned.

That cold, ruthless, and deep-thinking Su Ling actually had such a fragile and broken side.

She watched him kneeling and trembling in the pool of blood, listening to his incoherent confessions.

The "grandfather," "father," and "you" he spoke of...

Could he be referring to... a past life?

But the problem was, after she became a god in her previous life, she had not... she had not wiped out the Su Family!

Qian Renxue turned sharply toward Gu Yuena.

Looking at the young girl's stiff back, the doubts in her heart seemed to find some kind of dangerous confirmation.

Could it be... that she wasn't the only one who had been reborn?

Did another timeline exist?

Had the young man experienced some even more tragic and desperate turn of events in that timeline?

Qian Renxue looked at Su Ling, who had completely collapsed, trembling and wailing in the pool of blood, her emotions surging.

She could hardly imagine what kind of living hell the young man had endured.

To have tortured a soul that was once deep-thinking and calculating into the shattered, self-loathing state before her eyes.