Endless darkness swept in.
Xue Yuheng felt pain all over his body. His consciousness sank like it was plunging into the depths of the sea, deeper and deeper.
After an unknown amount of time, blinding sunlight suddenly tore through the darkness.
He opened his eyes.
The familiar grassy field on the outskirts of Douling City lay before him, not the dense woods of Star Dou Forest. A breeze carried the scent of grass and wildflowers.
He looked down at his hands.
They were small and chubby, just like when he was two.
"Hey! Who are you? Why are you here all alone?"
A clear little girl's voice came from behind him.
Xue Yuheng stiffened and slowly turned around.
On the grass not far away stood a little girl with a pale green ponytail, dressed in a pale yellow dress.
She held a bunch of freshly picked wildflowers in her hands. Her bright green eyes studied him with curiosity.
It was Xiao Xiao.
Two-year-old Xiao Xiao.
No, that couldn't be right.
He had clearly been struck by the Three-Eyed Golden Lion's Eye of Destiny. How had he returned here?
Back to the day he and Xiao Xiao had first met?
Xue Yuheng instinctively sank into his Spirit Sea.
It was empty.
The Wordless Heavenly Book that had floated there for seven or eight years was gone. The Ice Jade Empress Scorpion's source aura, accumulated over four hundred thousand years, had vanished. Even the Power of Creation had left no trace.
He really had become the two-year-old prince who had just sneaked out of the imperial palace, full of curiosity about the world outside.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" Xiao Xiao trotted over to him and tilted her head. "My name is... Xiao Xiaoxiao. What's yours?"
Xue Yuheng looked at Xiao Xiao.
This wasn't real.
It was a Heart Tribulation illusion, like Ice Empress's.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion had used the Power of Destiny to weave a dream for him.
"My name is Xue Yuheng," he said softly.
The days that followed seemed to have been fast-forwarded.
There was no Wordless Heavenly Book in this world.
He was still Prince Gan of the Dou Ling Empire. He had Innate Full Soul Power, and he had awakened the royal family's ancestral Martial Soul.
Relying on his powerful soul, Xue Yuheng threw himself into the study of Soul Tools.
At ten, he entered Shrek Academy's Soul Tool Department as a specially admitted student, becoming the youngest Soul Tool student of his year.
Xiao Xiao's Martial Soul didn't undergo any miraculous evolution, either.
She awakened Twin Martial Souls, the Soul-Suppressing Cauldron and the Nine Phoenixes Flute. Gifted with a top-tier pair of Twin Martial Souls, she had no Four Symbols Divine Dragon Cauldron, no inheritance from the Wind Dragon King, and none of those two terrifying God Level Soul Rings.
She entered Shrek Academy alongside this world's Xue Yuheng.
The two studied at Shrek together and grew up together.
Xue Yuheng became the continent's youngest Level 9 Soul Engineer. The Soul Engineer corps he built gave the declining Dou Ling Empire renewed confidence.
Xiao Xiao, meanwhile, cultivated step by step until she reached the Super Douluo level, becoming the youngest clan leader in the history of the Soul Suppressing Family.
There was no Xue Qingwu, no Yu Mengdi, and none of the other gifted girls whose fates he had changed.
In his world, there was only Xiao Xiao.
When they were twenty-five, the imperial family of the Dou Ling Empire and the Soul Suppressing Family arranged their marriage.
There was no passionate declaration of love, no earth-shaking ceremony.
On a night lit by swaying red candles, Xiao Xiao sat at the edge of the bed in her red wedding dress and looked at him shyly. "Xiao Xue, we're husband and wife now."
Xue Yuheng took her hand.
"Mm. I'll protect you from now on."
Their marriage began as a family arrangement, but ended in love.
After more than a decade together, they had become indispensable to each other.
They stood by one another through thick and thin, managing the storm-tossed Dou Ling Empire together and resisting the Sun Moon Empire's relentless advance.
The Moon Shadow Squad still existed, but none of its members became Limit Douluo-level powerhouses.
They were Xue Yuheng's most loyal guards, and the highest rank any of them reached was Titled Douluo.
And under Xiao Xiao's watchful eye, none of them became members of Xue Yuheng's harem, either.
Their peaceful days were inevitably shattered.
The Sun Moon Empire could no longer conceal its ambition to unite the continent.
A team of more than a dozen Titled Douluo assassins slipped into Lingdou City in the dead of night and launched a decapitation strike against the Dou Ling Empire's leaders.
In a single night, the imperial family suffered devastating casualties.
With meticulous Soul Tool arrangements and swift, ruthless action, Xue Yuheng rooted out the traitors hidden deep within the empire. He laid a trap and killed seven Sun Moon Titled Douluo, dragging the Dou Ling Empire back from the brink of collapse.
The Dou Ling Empire gained another two years of peace.
But everyone knew it was only a stay of execution.
News came from across the continent: the Tianhun Empire had fallen, and the Star Luo Empire had lost most of its territory.
The moment the figures of Death God Douluo Ye Xishui and Dragon Emperor Douluo Long Xiaoyao appeared above Lingdou City, everyone despaired.
The might of two Limit Douluo pressed down like the sky collapsing, engulfing the entire capital.
"Those who surrender will be spared," Long Xiaoyao's voice rang out like a great bell, reaching everyone's ears.
On the city wall, Xue Yuheng wore silver armor resembling Battle Armor and stared resolutely at the sky.
Xiao Xiao stood beside him, the Nine Phoenixes Flute at her lips and the Soul-Suppressing Cauldron floating above her head, ready to fight to the death.
"The Dou Ling Empire has no emperor who surrenders."
Xue Yuheng's voice wasn't loud, but it carried throughout the city.
The battle was about to begin.
The light of a Level 9 single-target Soul Guidance Ray tore across the sky, only for Long Xiaoyao to shatter it with a casual wave.
Xiao Xiao used all her strength to suppress Ye Xishui with the Soul-Suppressing Cauldron, but could barely block one of her attacks.
The gap in their strength was like a chasm.
Just as Ye Xishui's Death God Tower was about to descend upon Lingdou City,
everything changed.
"How dare you!"
Xiao Xiao let out a piercing cry.
Brilliant golden light burst from her body. Her Soul-Suppressing Cauldron shattered in an instant, replaced by an enormous Golden Dragon coiling through the sky.
Golden scales glittered in the sunlight, and a terrifying dragon's might swept across heaven and earth.
Her Soul Rings also underwent a drastic transformation.
The original two yellow, two purple, and five black rings instantly became one yellow, two purple, two black, and four red.
The nine Soul Rings revolved around the Golden Dragon, radiating a hair-raising aura.
A Golden Dragon Spear appeared in her hand.
"Roar—!"
The Golden Dragon roared, shaking the heavens. With an unstoppable charge, it lunged toward Ye Xishui and Long Xiaoyao.
The Golden Dragon Spear swept out, its golden beam tearing through the sky.
Ye Xishui's expression changed. Her eighth Soul Skill, Death God Demon Puppet, instantly appeared before her.
With a loud crash, the Death God Demon Puppet was hurled back by the spear.
Long Xiaoyao struck, too. His sixth Soul Skill, Dragon Emperor Claw, descended with world-destroying force, reaching for the Golden Dragon's head.
Xiao Xiao neither dodged nor retreated. She thrust the Golden Dragon Spear back at him, meeting the Dragon Emperor Claw head-on.
A terrifying shock wave spread outward, and the entire city of Lingdou trembled violently.
In the sky, a golden dragon shadow collided again and again with two black figures.
No one had imagined that this usually gentle and quiet woman had been hiding such terrifying power.
Alone, she stood against two Limit Douluo.
The Golden Dragon Spear was splattered with golden blood, and wounds covered her body.
Yet her gaze remained resolute as she held her ground above Lingdou City, keeping the attacks of the two Limit Douluo from reaching the civilians.
In the end, Ye Xishui and Long Xiaoyao retreated.
They hadn't expected the Dou Ling Empire to conceal such a powerful fighter. If the battle continued, both sides would suffer.
Xiao Xiao, too, had exhausted her last reserves of strength.
The Golden Dragon faded away, and she fell from the sky.
Xue Yuheng leaped up and caught her securely.
He held the blood-soaked Xiao Xiao, feeling her breath grow weaker and weaker.
In the middle of the solemn scene, "Xiao Xiao" suddenly smiled.
She raised a bloodstained hand and gently caressed Xue Yuheng's cheek. Her voice was weak.
"Why couldn't I simulate the book inside your head?"
Xue Yuheng held her, his expression calm and unreadable, as if he had seen through everything long ago.
"So this is the human world as you see it?"
"Xiao Xiao" nodded, a trace of confusion flashing in her eyes. "I saw your memories. I saw everything you went through.
"But I still don't understand. Why do humans kill one another?
"Why do they fight so desperately to protect things, even when they know they'll die?"
Xue Yuheng said, "When we get out, I'll take you to see the world. There's more to human life than cultivation, war... and carrying on the generations. There are plenty of other interesting things."
"But they won't let me go to the human world." "Xiao Xiao" lowered her head, dejected. "They say humans are all bad people and they'll hurt me."
"Then sneak out. You can handle that, can't you?" Xue Yuheng said.
"Xiao Xiao's" eyes lit up, but then she looked at him curiously. "You seem to know a lot of my secrets."
She had the feeling that what she had seen in Xue Yuheng's memories was only the tip of the iceberg. There were too many things about him that she couldn't understand.
Xue Yuheng smiled but said nothing.
The world around them began to blur.
Lingdou City, its walls, and the sky all gradually faded away like reflections in water.
"Someday in the future, we'll meet at Shrek," "Xiao Xiao" said with certainty, anticipation in her voice.
"I've also seen the continent's First Academy from afar, a few times, outside the city.
"There were so many pictures of it in the Imperial Library in your memories."
The world was about to disappear completely.
"You're not going to name yourself Wang Qiu'er, are you?" Xue Yuheng suddenly asked.
"Xiao Xiao" froze, then scrunched up her nose. "What kind of name is Wang Qiu'er? It sounds awful.
"I want the surname Xue. Mm, I'll be called Xue Xiaoxiao."
"Xue Xiaoxiao. That's a nice name."
Before you continue