Just you wait, you really couldn't make this stuff up.
Qian Wuyou and Qian Renxue had been childhood friends. Only a year apart in age, they had grown up together in Spirit City, trained together in the Angel Family, and received Qian Daoliu's careful guidance side by side.
In the eyes of many Angel Clan members and senior figures, Qian Wuyou and Qian Renxue were a perfect pair, destined to become partners and the ideal candidates to carry on the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul bloodline.
It was precisely because they had been so close as children that Qian Renxue had always believed, deep down, that no matter how far Qian Wuyou had changed, he wouldn't go so far as to kill his childhood friend.
But only when she witnessed that world-ending strike with her own eyes did Qian Renxue finally awaken to the truth: Qian Wuyou didn't seem to be the same boy who used to gently indulge her, his eyes always alight with a warm smile.
"I think I've been gone too long..."
"I lost the boy who was so good to me when we were children..."
Qian Renxue murmured in a daze.
To earn Bibi Dong's approval, she had left Spirit City at the age of nine. She had left the Angel Family, too—and Qian Wuyou, the person who had been best to her as a child.
Sixteen years. Sixteen whole years undercover in the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace.
She had successfully assumed Xue Qinghe's identity and secured the position of crown prince of the Heaven Dou Empire.
But in the end, she had lost Qian Wuyou.
Qian Renxue questioned herself over and over in her heart.
To win the approval of that woman, Bibi Dong, she had sacrificed sixteen years of her life, distanced herself from her family, and given up her childhood. She had trapped herself in the schemes and disguises of the imperial palace. Had that choice really been the right one?
If she hadn't left Spirit City back then, hadn't left the Angel Family, hadn't left Qian Wuyou...
If she hadn't been so fixated on what Bibi Dong thought of her, would Qian Wuyou still have been the same boy who was so good to her?
Qian Renxue gave Qian Wuyou one last look, her expression conflicted.
"Maybe... I need to find some time to have a proper talk with Wuyou!"
Noticing Qian Renxue's complicated gaze, Qian Wuyou couldn't help rolling his eyes.
"Tsk!"
"Poor Qian Renxue..."
He didn't feel much of anything toward Qian Renxue.
As a child, Qian Renxue had often been scolded into tears by Bibi Dong. To him, she was just a crybaby who always made a scene.
The sixteen years they had spent apart had long since worn away their childhood memories, leaving only the faintest traces.
The days they had spent side by side in their youth, their everyday training, the brief tenderness and indulgence of childhood—all of it had long been buried beneath the years, blurred and distant.
Flowers bloomed again, but youth never returned.
Tell me, how many sixteen-year stretches did a person get in life?
After unlocking the mysteries of his birth and awakening the memories of his past life, he had been exasperated by the sheer stupidity of Qian Renxue's actions in the original story.
How had Qian Renxue, an Angel God with a First-Level God position, been killed by Tang San back when he was still merely a Titled Douluo...
She had even fallen in love with that little scumbag, God King Tang...
That was... just ridiculous...
What was this?!
Did Qian Renxue have some kind of masochistic streak?
The more that little scumbag, God King Tang, abused her, the more she liked Tang San?
It had left him utterly speechless.
And that wasn't all. In the original story...
Qian Renxue was practically "brain-damaged," letting Tang San off the hook again and again.
If she could spare Tang San once today, she could spare him twice tomorrow, and keep sparing him countless times after that.
In the end, Qian Renxue had practically become a horse-rancher...
Qian Renxue: "Hey! You bastard, I'm not a horse-rancher!"
Qian Wuyou: "No! You, Qian Renxue, are a horse-rancher!"
"Xiao Xue, I hope you'll know better from now on..."
If it weren't for Qian Daoliu's careful cultivation of him over the years—and the six Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones—Qian Wuyou wouldn't have bothered warning that idiot, Qian Renxue.
That was Qian Wuyou's truest thought, and the shared consensus of everyone in the Angel Clan's Radical Faction.
They didn't agree with Qian Daoliu's constant forbearance and compromises toward Bibi Dong.
But they still respected Qian Daoliu, the clan leader who had held the Angel Family together.
As for Qian Renxue, that unlucky girl who wasn't particularly bright, the Radical Faction didn't like her, but they wouldn't go so far as to kill her.
After all, if anything really happened to Qian Renxue, Qian Daoliu, a Level 99 Peerless Douluo, would go berserk.
They had indeed rebelled against Spirit Hall and gone their own way, but there was no denying that they were still part of the Angel Clan.
They all had the blood of the Angel God running through their veins. No matter how sharply their ideals differed or how deep their internal conflicts ran, they wouldn't take things so far as to sever the last ties between members of their own clan.
Qian Wuyou gave Qian Renxue one last, lingering look. His icy voice, wrapped in Soul Power, rang across the skies above Heaven Dou City and reached the ears of everyone present.
"Everyone, I hope you'll survive the gift I've left you!"
"And then, our great Pontiff, Her Majesty Bibi Dong, will be waiting for all of you to come and attack her in Spirit City!"
Every word struck at the heart, stirring up the fury that every faction present had long harbored toward Spirit Hall.
Qian Wuyou deliberately emphasized the word "attack," pushing the Spirit Hall led by Bibi Dong into opposition to every force on the continent.
Even as the spatial tunnel was about to close completely, Qian Wuyou kept piling hatred onto Bibi Dong, not caring in the slightest whether Spirit Hall lived or died.
As the saying went, better for a friend to die than for oneself.
Bibi Dong having a hard time was better than him having a hard time—that was what he truly thought at that moment.
As long as he could make Bibi Dong the target of everyone's fury, he didn't care even if every force on the continent besieged Spirit Hall.
"Rumble—!"
A deafening roar shook the heavens and earth. The pitch-black spatial tunnel abruptly snapped shut amid the explosion, erasing all trace of Qian Wuyou and his group.
As the spatial tunnel closed, the remaining pillars of Soul Power in Heaven Dou City erupted completely.
"Ahhh!"
"Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong, Angel Family, Qian Wuyou..."
"I, Tang Hao, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, and the Heaven Dou Empire will never rest until we've wiped you out..."
Tang Hao's eyes were bloodshot, his breathing ragged.
Ning Fengzhi, Sword Douluo, Bone Douluo, Ge Long, and the others were all trembling with rage, their faces ashen.
Qian Wuyou and the other Angel Clan members had swaggered into Heaven Dou City, then swaggered right back out. It was a tremendous humiliation for the Heaven Dou Empire and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
"Rumble—!"
The terrifying energy erupted in full force. Violent Soul Power swept across Heaven Dou City, swallowing every last person who had tried to resist.
The earth shuddered violently. Smoke and flames surged into the sky. Houses, city walls, and streets were all erased from the map by the raging force.
The once-prosperous Heaven Dou City was utterly destroyed. In its place, only an enormous, bottomless crater remained. Its former prosperity was gone forever.
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