Whoosh~
The cold autumn wind came rushing through the broken window as if it cost nothing, sweeping away every last trace of the violent heat outside the Library Pavilion.
Su Chen sat steadily in his bamboo chair, putting away the amused smile in his eyes.
He did not move in a hurry. Instead, he closed his eyes and sank his mental power into the deepest reaches of the Sea of Divine Consciousness.
In that vast expanse of consciousness, the newly acquired Fire Source Seed gave off a deep, dark-red glow.
With a thought, Su Chen summoned the Angel Feather he had previously held back as well.
The dark red and pure gold—two domineering, incomparable divine powers—made contact. Rather than repelling each other in the slightest, they seemed to be drawn by an ancient force of gravity, and both sank into the World Tree Origin that had been pretending to be dead for so long.
Hum!
An immensely complex emerald-green array pattern lit up on the dry, rough bark.
The pulse of its life essence had never been clearer than at this moment.
Su Chen could feel it plainly: the World Tree evolution path that had troubled him for so long was now completely secure.
He had just suppressed the Soul Power stirring restlessly inside him and was getting ready to go back to being a perfectly content slacker for a while.
Suddenly, the faintest sound of footsteps came from outside the door.
The steps were steady, one after another, yet they carried an anger that could barely be contained.
They were nothing like the metallic clatter of the Judgment Knights' armor.
The footsteps passed straight through the layers of security outside and finally stopped in front of the Library Pavilion's battered wooden door.
"Creak."
The wooden door slowly swung open.
A cold gust swept in with the darkness outside. The tiny oil lamp on the tea table swayed wildly, and the shadows on the wall instantly transformed into clawing, snarling demons.
Bibi Dong's familiar, intensely imposing figure crossed the threshold and walked in.
Su Chen lifted his eyelids slightly. The moment his gaze met hers, his heart missed a beat.
Tonight, Bibi Dong was not wearing the glittering papal robes that practically screamed "power" from her forehead.
She had changed into a plain, dark outfit without a single ornament. Its close-fitting cut outlined her breathtaking curves and long legs to perfection.
More alarming still, her hands were empty. She was not carrying that bulky food box.
Without a second thought, Su Chen summoned the Eye of Omniscience in his Sea of Divine Consciousness.
A pale-blue Light Screen appeared instantly.
[Target: Binder No. 001 · Bibi Dong] [Current system status: No current system tasks]
At the sight of those words, Su Chen's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
No task countdown.
No threat of punishment.
No outside force compelling her.
Good grief!
In sixteen whole years, this was the first time the Pope, who had always put benefits and power above everything else, had entered this shabby little room purely of her own volition, driven by her own feelings.
Bibi Dong walked over to the tea table, pulled out the bamboo chair opposite Su Chen, and sat down.
She said nothing.
The pressure in the cramped space plummeted to freezing point.
Bibi Dong leaned forward slightly, her back ramrod straight. In the dim light, her deep, inscrutable phoenix eyes pinned Su Chen to the spot.
Her gaze no longer held the humiliation and perfunctory indifference she had shown while carrying out missions, nor the condescension of someone high above him.
Now there was only knife-sharp scrutiny, restraint, and an emotion so complicated it defied description.
A suffocating, dangerous aura silently enveloped the entire room, radiating from her.
Su Chen felt his breathing stop. The air was as thick as mercury. He maintained his awkward, helpless pose, not daring to move.
A full half-quarter of an hour passed.
A deathly silence filled the Library Pavilion, broken only by the oil lamp's wick crackling.
At last, Bibi Dong broke the silence that was driving him to the brink of madness.
She raised her right hand, her long, slender fingers unconsciously rubbing the bamboo chair's armrest. She pressed so hard that her knuckles turned slightly white.
"You saw what happened tonight, too."
Bibi Dong's voice was quiet and flat as a straight line, revealing no emotion.
She stared intently into Su Chen's eyes, speaking very slowly, each word like a chunk of ice slamming onto the ground.
"What do you think of that Liu Erlong?"
The moment the words fell.
Su Chen's fingers, resting on his knees, stiffened.
In the Sea of Divine Consciousness, the edges of the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen flashed with blinding red light like mad!
[Monitoring current emotional state...] [Wariness: Extremely high!] [Probing intent: Extremely strong!]
This was no casual question.
This was a deadly "answer wrong and die" question, drenched in the gunpowder stench of a love-triangle battlefield!
Su Chen understood Bibi Dong all too well.
Fear of betrayal and pathological possessiveness ran through this woman to the bone.
If he dared to say even half a word wrong now, if his tone revealed even the slightest admiration for Liu Erlong's wildness, flamboyance, or even her looks...
The woman before him would absolutely snap on the spot, unleash her Rakshasa Death Qi, and blow the Library Pavilion—and him along with it—to kingdom come!
There was no time to hesitate!
Faced with this deadly test, Su Chen's body reacted instantly.
His shoulders jerked inward, his back hunched, and his head bowed low.
He clenched his hands together until his fingers were tangled tight, looking for all the world like a coward on the verge of a breakdown.
His voice trembled with the terror and timidity he had practiced countless times, now etched into his DNA.
"Y-Your Holiness..."
Su Chen struggled to swallow. His voice was as faint as a mosquito's. "This subordinate... is just a good-for-nothing without even a Soul Ring. There was fire and a dragon outside just now. It nearly scared this subordinate to death..."
He paused, lowering his head even further, his tone conveying utmost humility and dependence.
"This subordinate was so terrified that I didn't even dare look out the window. H-how would I dare judge someone of that stature? Your Holiness gave this subordinate his life. All this subordinate sees is Your Holiness's protection."
This perfectly airtight, textbook-level declaration of desperate survival struck precisely the most sensitive nerve in Bibi Dong.
The frost on Bibi Dong's face finally thawed ever so slightly.
Her tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed at the words, "All this subordinate sees is Your Holiness's protection."
Even the oppressive atmosphere in the room seemed to ease a little.
However, just as Su Chen thought he had weathered yet another crisis with his flawless "good-for-nothing act"...
"Beep!"
The Eye of Omniscience's radar exploded with the brightest red light, nearly blinding him.
On Bibi Dong's data panel at the center of the Light Screen, a string of scarlet numbers began jumping wildly.
[Current jealousy: 62% (continuously rising)]
Right beneath the number, a bold pop-up appeared:
[Emotional state analysis: Has officially evolved from "passive dependence" into "exclusive possessiveness"!]
Good grief!
A tempest surged through Su Chen's heart, and the corner of his eye twitched uncontrollably.
Looking at those words, he finally understood.
The feelings of this cold-blooded Pope had undergone a fundamental change.
Before, the system's punishments had forced her to come to him for warmth.
But now, not only had she come of her own accord, her subconscious had also begun to reject anyone who tried to get close to him!
Even though Liu Erlong had only looked at him from three hundred paces away, that alone had stirred such intense possessiveness in her!
Bibi Dong did not ask anything else.
Su Chen's timid yet loyal answer had soothed her surface emotions. But she was clearly not ready to face the churning, unfamiliar, uncontrollable possessiveness deep inside her.
She stood up abruptly. The bamboo chair behind her scraped across the floor with an ear-piercing squeal.
Without leaving a word or even looking at Su Chen again, she turned and strode toward the door.
Su Chen slowly lifted his head.
His gaze fell on Bibi Dong's back. He sharply caught the unprecedented stiffness and agitation in the departing steps of the usually composed Pope.
Her hands hung at her sides, clenched into fists in sheer discomfort.
She was... fleeing in disarray.
The wooden door creaked shut, sealing the night wind outside.
The Library Pavilion sank back into silence.
Su Chen let out a long breath and slumped against the back of his chair, boneless.
The Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen still shone before his eyes. The three high-risk markers representing Bibi Dong, Qian Renxue, and Liu Erlong flashed wildly red on the map of Spirit City, each one like a powder keg ready to blow at any moment.
Su Chen raised a hand and rubbed his aching brow, his mouth twisting into a bitter smile.
"Whew... three already."
He muttered to himself in the empty room, his voice full of self-mockery. "Managing the fishing pond at this high-level table is getting a little out of hand."
Meanwhile.
Deep in the boundless night, hundreds of miles from Spirit City.
Several ghostlike shadows sped soundlessly between ancient trees that blotted out the sky.
The person in front wore a wide black cloak, hiding his signature golden hair completely.
Only the occasional flash of his eyes showed, like a falcon in the night, fixed on the distant horizon.
Qian Daoliu.
To uncover every secret behind Su Chen's "special constitution," the Great Worship of Spirit Hall had chosen not to keep up the pointless public sparring with Bibi Dong in the city.
He had brought several of the Worship Hall's most loyal core members and left the city in the dead of night.
Avoiding every pair of eyes in Spirit Hall, they became phantoms in the darkness, stealthily making their way toward the old site where Su Chen had been discovered sixteen years ago—and farther still, into a darkness more distant and unknown to all.
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