Inside the Library Pavilion, Su Chen glanced at the glaring blood-red warning on the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen. His gaze remained as still as an ancient well.
With a thought, the Light Screen silently sank into his Sea of Divine Consciousness.
The surging Soul Power of a Soul King who had just broken through level fifty was still rampaging through his meridians. He quickly circulated his cultivation technique, bringing it under control.
He activated the World Tree Martial Soul's concealment to its fullest. Its vast, godlike pulse of life was locked deep within his Sea of Divine Consciousness, without a trace leaking out.
His shoulders and back hunched slightly, his breathing grew shallow, and his entire presence plummeted.
In the space of a breath, the sickly, lowly servant without even a single ring was back.
He leaned against the bamboo chair, closed his eyes, and waited for the storm to arrive.
At that moment, outside Spirit City.
The night was as thick as ink that could never be dissolved. An entirely black iron carriage, bearing no crest, tore through the darkness, its wheels rolling across the wilderness before it stopped soundlessly in the shadow at the foot of the city wall.
A slender, fair hand lifted the carriage curtain.
No longer disguised as "Heaven Dou Crown Prince Xue Qinghe," Qian Renxue wore a neat white-and-gold outfit for the Young Master. Her military boots struck the bluestone pavement of Spirit City with a crisp clack.
The instant she landed, the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul within her leapt wildly without warning!
"Vmm~"
Even her blood seemed to boil!
This yearning and pull, rooted in the deepest part of her bloodline, ignored every obstruction and pointed with absolute precision toward the northeast corner of Spirit Hall.
That was the Library Pavilion!
Immediately afterward, the blood-red system panel in her mind forced its way out.
[Novice Mission: Comb Su Chen's hair ten times.]
[Countdown: 20 days, 11 hours.]
The blood-red numbers were like a death warrant, frantically assailing her Sea of Divine Consciousness.
Qian Renxue's brows drew together. A flash of sacred Soul Power glimmered at her fingertips as she brutally forced the agitation of her Martial Soul back down.
"Young Master!"
From a blind spot just inside the city gate, a trusted subordinate in black robes darted forward and slammed down onto one knee!
"Speak." Qian Renxue's voice was icy, without a word wasted.
"Spirit City... has undergone a major upheaval!"
The subordinate spoke at a breakneck pace, sweat pouring from his brow. "A few days ago, His Holiness the Pope publicly crushed the Elder Token from the Worship Hall to protect a servant in the Library Pavilion's northeast corner!"
"This morning, the Great Worship personally went to the Pope Palace to demand an explanation. The two nearly came to blows! It was a bloody battle on the level of Limit Douluo!"
Qian Renxue's pupils contracted sharply.
The subordinate swallowed, his voice trembling. "The Pope refused to yield an inch and practically tore the sky open! She designated the Library Pavilion a first-level forbidden zone, and the Great Worship has already been forced back to the Elder Hall!"
"What's the security like?" Qian Renxue demanded coldly.
Her mission target was in there. Whether it was a dragon's pool or a tiger's den, she had to get inside.
"Impenetrable!"
The subordinate's voice turned plaintive. "For three hundred paces around the Library Pavilion, there are only the Pope's most elite Judgment Knights!"
"Her Holiness issued a death order: anyone who approaches is to be killed without warning! Two days ago, a high-ranking spy from the Worship Hall had barely crossed the line with his toes when his bones were shattered and he was thrown out of the inner city!"
The night wind howled.
For the first time, utter astonishment appeared on Qian Renxue's face.
For a servant with no Soul Power at all?
Had she gone mad?!
As far as Qian Renxue knew, Bibi Dong was a cold-blooded, unnaturally calculating power-hungry madwoman who would stop at nothing to achieve her goals!
She even regarded her own daughter as the greatest humiliation of her life!
This almost frenzied protectiveness toward someone she considered her own had completely overturned Qian Renxue's impression of her mother, formed over twenty years.
Was that woman out of her mind?
The carriage entered the inner city through a hidden passage and headed straight for the Young Master Palace.
Inside the palace, the lights were dim.
Qian Renxue sat behind her desk. In her Sea of Divine Consciousness, the system's warning of a punishment that would "tear her soul apart until she died" flashed like an alarm, leaving her no way out.
Storming the Judgment Knights?
That would be pure suicide, practically offering her face for Bibi Dong to slap.
Qian Renxue narrowed her eyes, rapped her knuckles against the desktop, and issued a decisive order. "Activate 'Heavenly Net.'"
Her subordinate was horrified.
"Heavenly Net" was a secret Dark Web that the Young Master had built over many years of infiltration in Heaven Dou, pouring astronomical resources into Spirit Hall's lowest ranks. It was never to be touched unless their lives were at stake!
"Avoid all of the Pope's informants. Investigate the man in the Library Pavilion. His name is Su Chen."
Qian Renxue's voice was as cold as ice. "Start with the most inconspicuous corners, like the Imperial Kitchen and the low-ranking stewards. I want you to dig up his family's history going back eighteen generations and find a weakness in the defenses!"
"Yes!"
The Dark Web had only just begun to stir.
Outside the Young Master Palace, the air suddenly twisted.
A flash of pale-gold Soul Power appeared, and a messenger from Qian Daoliu materialized out of thin air. He presented a secret letter sealed with the crest of the Six-Winged Angel.
"Written personally by the Great Worship. He asks that the Young Master open it at once."
Qian Renxue took it and opened the letter.
There was only one sentence on the paper, but every word carried an unquestionable command: [Bibi Dong is hiding a divine artifact inside the Library Pavilion. It concerns the very foundation of our Hall. Come to the Worship Hall at once, and join forces to seize it.]
The few trusted subordinates in the palace only needed a glance at the letter to feel their necks turn cold and their breathing grow labored.
The Great Worship was directly trying to win over the Young Master!
That meant they were about to be dragged into the meat grinder of Spirit Hall's highest power struggle. How could anyone survive that?!
After reading the letter, Qian Renxue's face was impassive as water.
"A divine artifact?"
She let out a cold laugh, a faint wisp of sacred Soul Power rising from her fingertips.
"Fss~"
The golden letter instantly crumbled into ash.
Did he think he could use her as a weapon? She had no interest in getting involved in a dogfight between the Worship Hall and the Pope Palace.
Just then—
"Report!"
The Dark Web's most deeply embedded informant slid down onto one knee from the shadows, gasping for air. He had clearly raced back at the cost of his life.
"Did you find anything?" Qian Renxue leaned forward slightly.
"Young Master..."
The informant's expression was exceedingly strange, as if the absurdity had shattered his entire worldview. "Your subordinate... pieced together a top-secret report from the mouths of cooks driven out of the Imperial Kitchen and members on the fringes of the Pope's personal guard."
"Did they mention the divine artifact the Great Worship spoke of?"
"N-not a single word." The informant swallowed, his voice trembling. "The report... was all about daily trivialities..."
"Read it!"
"Yes! The report says that His Holiness the Pope personally carries a food box to the Library Pavilion every night and at noon to bring meals to that servant named Su Chen! She even has to watch him eat every last bite!"
The hand holding Qian Renxue's teacup stopped in midair.
"What else?"
"People from the Imperial Kitchen say... the Pope once went to the kitchen alone in the middle of the night to chop ginger. It seems... it seems she even cut her hand and wrapped it haphazardly with a strip of cloth!" The informant lowered his head further. Saying such things was practically blasphemy. It could cost him his life!
"Also... a guard on shift was scared half to death. He vaguely let slip... the Pope had personally... personally changed Su Chen's clothes, and even... tied his sash for him..."
Silence.
The entire Young Master Palace sank into deathly silence.
Clang!
The Ruyao teacup slipped from Qian Renxue's fingers and slammed against the desk.
Scalding tea splashed everywhere, soaking the precious documents.
"Tied his sash," "cut her hand," "personally brought him all three meals."
These phrases, so full of the humdrum warmth of ordinary life, so humble they seemed to scrape the very bottom of the earth, struck Qian Renxue's Sea of Divine Consciousness like one ten-thousand-ton hammer after another!
What sort of tall tale was she hearing?!
That cold-blooded Pope who sat high upon the throne, looked down on the world, and dared to stand against even her grandfather, Qian Daoliu, for the sake of power...
Learning to cook alone in the kitchen at midnight? Carrying food to someone? And even personally taking off his pants and tying his sash?!
Absurd!
The greatest joke under heaven!
Combined with the fateful vision the system had forcibly implanted in her mind, in which Bibi Dong hurled herself toward the Asura Blood Sword amid the flames of war as Spirit City collapsed, taking a fatal blow meant for her...
And now, Bibi Dong was showing this outrageous, almost self-abasing tenderness toward a man of low station with no connections!
Qian Renxue's worldview suffered a nuclear-level, devastating blow.
The image of the lofty mother she had resented for twenty years came crashing down in that instant, toppled from her divine pedestal and shattered into pieces!
Her phoenix eyes contracted violently. Her chest rose and fell, and even her breathing fell completely out of rhythm.
"Everyone, leave."
Qian Renxue's voice was slightly hoarse as she waved a hand.
Her subordinates fled in relief, scrambling out before shutting the palace doors firmly behind them.
Alone, Qian Renxue walked to the window of the tower.
The early autumn night wind lifted her golden hair. Her gaze pierced through the layers of darkness and fixed firmly on the Library Pavilion, shrouded in shadow at the city's northeast corner.
In her mind, the death-warrant mission to "comb his hair ten times" and the shocking intelligence she had heard tonight tangled and collided wildly!
She gripped the window frame until each knuckle turned white.
An extremely terrifying thought took shape in her heart.
That so-called "divine artifact" in Qian Daoliu's letter?
It was laughable!
That man named Su Chen... the one the system had defined as a "Fate Variable," the one who could make the arrogant Bibi Dong willingly become a kitchen maid.
He was a hundred times more terrifying than the ethereal divine artifact the Great Worship spoke of!
Qian Renxue slowly closed her eyes.
She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.
When she opened her eyes again, every trace of shock and astonishment had been ruthlessly crushed and buried deep inside.
In its place was absolute coldness and determination.
She had finished digesting the intelligence.
For the impending mission to break the ice at the Library Pavilion, she was as psychologically prepared as she could possibly be.
Before you continue