Bibi Dong's foot stopped dead at the threshold.
In her mind, the system's crimson countdown, [00:59:59], flashed frantically, its light stabbing her Divine Consciousness with pain.
The early autumn moonlight was cold as ice.
Su Chen didn't do as he usually did and tumble to the floor begging for mercy. He didn't even look back at her.
He simply sat quietly by the window.
The loneliness of being abandoned by the whole world clamped around her heart like an invisible hand, making it stop!
The air in the room froze solid.
The night wind lifted the slipping blanket, brushing it across the brick floor with a soft rustle.
Bibi Dong took a deep breath, forcing down the bitterness rising in her throat. She stepped over the threshold and gently shut the wooden door behind her.
The room was dark.
The system's prohibition weighed on her like a mountain.
She couldn't speak to guide him or hint at anything through her expression.
All she could do was stand stiffly like a puppet, five paces from Su Chen, watching him huddle in the shadows.
Time crawled by, one second at a time.
[00:20:00]
The countdown was closing in on twenty minutes!
Bibi Dong's clenched fists trembled violently. Her nails dug once more into the scabbed wounds in her palms, and beads of blood seeped out one by one.
The system's death warrant and the wordless pain in her heart, beating in sync with Su Chen's, clashed wildly inside her mind.
This was the most helpless, agonizing moment of her forty years of life!
[00:10:00]
Just as the countdown entered its final ten minutes, Su Chen moved.
He slowly turned his head and looked at Bibi Dong, hidden in the gloom.
Beneath the moonlight, all the timidity had vanished from his eyes, leaving behind only a startling, unguarded honesty.
"Your Holiness..."
His voice was low, as though scraped raw by sandpaper. "I've lived like a dog in Spirit Hall for sixteen years. I have no family, no friends. Everyone thinks I deserve to rot in the mud."
Those few words became rusted, blunt nails, each one driven into Bibi Dong's eardrums with deliberate force.
Her pupils contracted sharply!
The dim secret chamber, Qian Daoliu's icy face, Yu Xiaogang's resolute silhouette... Memories of being used by those closest to her and abandoned by the one she loved exploded all at once!
A terrifying resonance between their souls rocked her Sea of Divine Consciousness, frozen for years, like a tsunami!
Su Chen didn't stop.
His gaze was deep, locked firmly on Bibi Dong's eyes. A ring of red spread around his eyes, visible to the naked eye.
"Until you appeared... I don't know why you've been so kind to me, but these past few days, I've felt like maybe being alive isn't so hard to bear after all."
The moment he finished speaking—
His words struck like a perfectly aimed hammer, smashing Bibi Dong's already crumbling defenses to pieces!
The Soul Devouring countdown in her mind had turned a glaring blood-red.
But at that moment, all she could see was Su Chen: unbearably lonely, yet desperately yearning for the light.
Her shoulders, taut as iron, slumped half an inch against her will.
Su Chen lowered his eyes slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling into a miserable smile, humble yet content.
"The porridge you made was burnt, Your Holiness, but it really... tasted good. It was the warmest thing I've ever tasted."
In the dead silence of the Library Pavilion, the impact of those words multiplied geometrically!
Bibi Dong's eyes suddenly stung, and something seemed to lodge in her throat.
For forty years, she had given everything and received nothing but betrayal, exploitation, and fear.
Never had anyone offered such devout gratitude for her clumsy, even unsuccessful, efforts.
Su Chen's words were a blade that stripped away her shell as the Pope without mercy, dragging two souls struggling in the dark onto the same level.
[00:02:00]
Two minutes remained on the countdown!
In Su Chen's mind, the data on the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen surged like a tsunami.
[Bibi Dong's resistance: 0%]
[Heartache: 100% (off the charts)]
He slowly stood up from the window.
Without the slightest hesitation, he took one step, then another, crossing the pallid moonlight toward Bibi Dong.
His pace was unhurried, yet he moved with the resolve of a moth flying into a flame.
Bibi Dong stood where she was, watching him draw closer, step by step.
Her heart pounded like a war drum, nearly suffocating her.
At that moment, she'd even forgotten the executioner's blade about to fall in her mind. Only one absurd, wild thought remained.
He's crazy! He's crazy, and I'm crazy too!
Cross the line!
Su Chen stopped half a foot in front of Bibi Dong.
He was close enough to catch the crisp, cool fragrance on her.
He looked at her reddened eyes and tightly bitten lower lip, then slowly raised his hands.
They trembled violently in midair, stopping three inches from her shoulders. They couldn't move any closer.
Su Chen's Adam's apple bobbed. His voice broke like sand blowing in the wind, full of tentative humility.
"Your Holiness... may I hug you?"
The instant those words fell—
All of Bibi Dong's defenses crumbled to nothing.
She didn't speak or retreat.
She simply closed her eyes slowly, accepting her fate.
The next second, Su Chen thrust his arms forward, slipped them around her waist, and drew her gently into his embrace!
The moment they touched—
The World Tree Martial Soul erupted in Su Chen's Sea of Divine Consciousness, radiating light across the heavens!
An ancient, vast source of life surged from his body into Bibi Dong's, flowing along their pressed-together forms like a river bursting its banks!
The Rakshasa malice buried deep in her soul shrieked like melting ice beneath the warm current, purified in an instant, most of it swept away!
```
[30]
[29]
The thirty-second hug countdown began!
Time stretched endlessly.
Held in his arms, Bibi Dong's back, once stiff as iron, softened inch by inch.
She listened to his steady heartbeat, greedily drawing in the woody fragrance that soothed her soul.
[03]
[02]
One second before the countdown reached zero—
After several seconds of fierce inner struggle, Bibi Dong's hand, hanging at her side, finally lifted with slow, resigned reluctance.
She didn't hug him back.
She merely laid the back of her hand, ever so gently, against Su Chen's back.
But that light touch was the first time in forty years she had willingly lowered every thorn and reached out to touch a man's back.
A genuine stirring, no longer something she could excuse as a "system task," tore open a crack in her heart.
[00]
[ Ding! High-difficulty interaction task "Embrace of Trust" completed perfectly! ]
The system's mechanical voice and the hundredfold critical-hit alert exploded simultaneously in their Sea of Divine Consciousness!
[Received a hundredfold critical-hit return! Ultimate source Soul Power feedback!]
The Soul Power inside Su Chen detonated!
Level forty-one!
Level forty-three!
Level forty-six!
His meridians widened frantically, the World Tree's branches grew taller once more, and his raging Soul Power smashed through every bottleneck, surging forward until he firmly reached the realm of a level-fifty Soul King!
On the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen, the numbers made an epic leap.
[Bibi Dong's current favorability: 36→50 (breaking through the critical point of qualitative change)]
The two slowly parted.
Bibi Dong didn't say a word.
She gave Su Chen a long look. Her usually cold phoenix eyes now shimmered with tears.
Her ears were scarlet. She turned and left, her footsteps unsteady as she vanished into the night, as if fleeing.
The Library Pavilion fell silent once more.
Su Chen sank back into his chair and let out a long breath. He was just about to settle the surging Soul King power inside him—
When the center of the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen was suddenly engulfed in a blinding blood-red glow!
The highest-level emergency alert seized the entire screen!
[Warning!]
[Binder 002 · Qian Renxue has crossed the outer defensive line of Spirit City!]
[Target has entered the system's core monitoring range and is rapidly approaching the inner city!]
Leaning against the chair, Su Chen gazed out the window with deep eyes.
In the dark night sky, two massive tides of destiny had already converged!
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