Leng Yaozhu

Within Spirit Academy, the nine soul rings surrounding the female teacher gradually faded away. Enthusiastic applause and cries of amazement erupted from below, enveloping her as though the stars were gathered around the moon. She smiled reservedly, her gaze sweeping over the young faces filled with longing as she enjoyed the reverence and appeal brought by her strength.

Yet to Gu Yuena, this magnificent scene—this attempt to use power to attract geniuses—was like an invisible key that abruptly opened an emotional floodgate sealed deep within her soul for ten thousand years. The elemental soul power flowing around that female teacher, carrying its distinctive aura, especially her confidence and her attempt to recruit talent, suddenly overlapped with an incomparably clear figure from Gu Yuena's memories, one threaded with lingering pain.

Her purple eyes instantly lost focus. The noisy crowd and splendid academy before her receded like a tide, and her consciousness was violently dragged back to that era when storms were first brewing, when she and Tang Wulin had only just begun to make their names in Eastsea City...

Ten thousand years ago, Eastsea City, Spirit Pagoda's Ascension Platform.

At the time, she was still the black-haired "Gu Yue." Together with Tang Wulin, Xie Xie, and Xu Xiaoyan, she formed Class Zero and entered that strange place—a simulated soul beast forest—for the first time. Faced with powerful simulated soul beasts, she barely needed to use much soul power. With only her exquisitely terrifying elemental control, ice walls, fireballs, wind blades, and earth traps came at her fingertips. Every element was like an extension of her arm, working together flawlessly and turning what appeared to be dangerous battles into a dazzling display of elemental mastery.

Tang Wulin's unmatched brute strength and tenacity, Xie Xie's elusive speed, and Xu Xiaoyan's precise starlight control were equally dazzling. But after footage of the four of them was uploaded to the upper ranks of Spirit Pagoda, the one who sparked the greatest shock and discussion was undoubtedly her—"Gu Yue," whose elemental affinity and control were nearly as absolute as natural law.

That footage also alerted an important figure far away in Shrek City—Leng Yaozhu.

At the time, Leng Yaozhu was already a powerful four-word battle armor master. Her martial soul was the Sky Phoenix, and she was particularly skilled in the use of the fire element. At a single glance, she saw the potential and talent beyond common sense that the black-haired girl displayed in elemental control. It was not merely mastery of a single element, but command over every fundamental element between heaven and earth as naturally as moving one's own limbs! Such talent was close to the origin itself, one in ten thousand.

Her desire to nurture talent, combined with considerations for Spirit Pagoda's interests, led Leng Yaozhu to make a decision that seemed rather grand at the time—she personally left Shrek City and traveled thousands of miles to the small coastal city of Eastsea City, all to recruit this girl named "Gu Yue."

When Leng Yaozhu truly stood before the black-haired Gu Yue, Gu Yuena was intensely wary. She could sense the immense fire-attribute energy contained within the woman before her, like a dormant volcano, as well as the presence belonging to a superior and a powerful expert. Once she understood the other party's identity and the massive force represented by Spirit Pagoda, Gu Yuena's thoughts raced.

Her identity as the Silver Dragon King could never be exposed, and her own cultivation had yet to recover. Yet Leng Yaozhu and Spirit Pagoda were links she had to make contact with in her plans, perhaps even forces whose power she needed to borrow. It was a situation where risk and opportunity coexisted.

Out of caution and long-term planning, Gu Yuena drew upon the power of the Star Dou Great Forest. She secretly contacted two fierce beasts who had already reached Rank 98 cultivation at the time—Zi Ji and Xiong Jun.

"...That is the situation. I need the two of you to temporarily pose as my parents. Your human forms are far less recognizable than Di Tian's. Go deal with that Spirit Pagoda expert first, then carry out my plan."

Gu Yuena's voice reached the ears of the two great fierce beasts far away in the Star Dou Great Forest's core region through a special method. It was calm and unruffled, carrying the majesty of the soul beasts' co-ruler.

Although Zi Ji and Xiong Jun were filled with disdain for human experts, they did not dare show the slightest disobedience toward their lord's command. Before long, two powerful "heads of reclusive clans," whose cultivation reached the heavens and whose presences were overwhelming, appeared before Leng Yaozhu.

Zi Ji transformed into a noblewoman with a cold, striking temperament and eyes like deep pools, while Xiong Jun disguised himself as a steady man built like a mountain, imposing even without anger. The soul power fluctuations they deliberately restrained yet could not fully conceal, along with their detached bearing, immediately made Leng Yaozhu inwardly wary. She did not doubt their identities, assuming only that they belonged to some ancient clan that had long hidden from the world and possessed deep foundations.

"My daughter Gu Yue is fortunate to have caught Tower Master Leng's eye. It is truly an honor." Xiong Jun, transformed into "Gu Yue's father," spoke in a low voice like muffled thunder, carrying an undeniable sense of power.

Leng Yaozhu was naturally happy to befriend such powerful figures. It could only benefit Spirit Pagoda. More importantly, she was determined to secure "Gu Yue's" talent. Thus began a contact in which both sides harbored their own agendas.

At first, Gu Yuena approached all of Leng Yaozhu's attention, guidance, and preferential resources with clear calculations and plans in mind. She needed to use Leng Yaozhu's position in Spirit Pagoda to pave the way for herself and the soul beast faction. In the blueprint of her plans at the time, Leng Yaozhu was an immensely important chess piece, one she needed to keep firmly under control.

Naturally, she became Leng Yaozhu's disciple and her personal student. Leng Yaozhu taught her without reservation—not only deeper applications of the fire element, but also all kinds of cultivation insights, soul tool knowledge, and even the ways of dealing with people. She kept Gu Yuena by her side, teaching her with care and watching over her attentively.

Yet people were made of flesh and blood. Leng Yaozhu's path in love had been difficult throughout her life. She had loved the Skycross Douluo, Yun Ming, but never found a resolution, leaving a void in the depths of her heart. Gu Yuena's appearance—her astonishing talent, cool temperament, and intuitive understanding of cultivation—gradually filled that void without Leng Yaozhu even realizing it. Leng Yaozhu sincerely treated Gu Yuena as her own child, cherishing and nurturing her. That genuine, untainted affection of a teacher and a mother burned as fiercely as the flames of her Sky Phoenix.

Gu Yuena could clearly feel that emotion. She watched Leng Yaozhu spare no expense of her own source soul power to guide her cultivation; watched her remain cold as ice before others, yet reveal a gentle, helpless smile only to her; watched her fight for the best resources on her behalf and shield her from open and hidden attacks...

This complete trust and selfless devotion caught Gu Yuena, who had always regarded herself as the soul beasts' co-ruler and their revival as her highest goal, off guard for the first time. It also stirred a trace of guilt within her.

She still carried out her plans step by step, using Leng Yaozhu's trust and authority to place Zi Ji, Xiong Jun, and later other fierce beasts in important positions within Spirit Pagoda under various plausible identities, weaving a secret web that belonged to the soul beasts. Even when she changed from a delicate black-haired girl into a silver-haired, purple-eyed beauty of peerless grace, Leng Yaozhu was not entirely unaware. Holding a high position and possessing exceptional intelligence, she had not lacked doubts about some of Gu Yuena's seemingly coincidental arrangements or the faintly abnormal auras surrounding certain fierce beasts.

But she chose to trust.

She trusted her own judgment and trusted this disciple whom she regarded as her own daughter. At certain times, she would even take the initiative to find reasonable explanations for some of Gu Yuena's actions or secretly help clear away obstacles for her. This almost blind protection made Gu Yuena's guilt grow with every passing day.

On one side lay the weighty future of the soul beast race. On the other was her teacher's fiery, sincere kindness, which had warmed her from the coldness of calculation. Gu Yuena's heart was often torn apart by pain. Countless times, in the dead of night, she asked herself, Was this right? Using the feelings of someone who sincerely cared for me?

But whenever she thought of the soul beasts' habitats being constantly compressed, whenever she thought of her kin's cries beneath the slaughter of human soul masters, the heart belonging to the Silver Dragon King would harden once more.

"For the future of the soul beast world, I must keep going."

At the time, that was the only reason she could find to support herself in continuing her plan.

What Leng Yaozhu gave her was not merely cultivation resources and guidance, but also a warmth and bond belonging to "home," something Gu Yuena had rarely experienced throughout her long life. That feeling was no less than having a true mother. Though Gu Yuena's actual age was far greater than Leng Yaozhu's.

Her thoughts receded like the tide, and Gu Yuena's purple eyes refocused. Before her was still the bustling enrollment scene at Spirit Academy. The female teacher who had displayed her soul rings had already left, and the crowd was gradually dispersing.

But her heart seemed to have been immersed in an icy spring that had not thawed for ten thousand years, spreading a cool and lingering sorrow through her.

Ten thousand years... It had truly been too long.

Long enough for seas to turn into fields, for heroes to become dust, and for the love, hatred, gratitude, and grudges of the past to be buried beneath the dust of history. Long enough that even a four-word battle armor master like Leng Yaozhu, once unmatched in beauty and renowned across the continent, had been almost entirely forgotten by the world, leaving only a few cold lines of record in perhaps Spirit Pagoda's most secret archives.

"Gu Yue?" Tang Wulin's worried voice sounded beside her. He tightly held her hand and could clearly feel the chill in her fingertips and their slight trembling. "What's wrong?"

Gu Yuena turned and looked into Tang Wulin's concerned black eyes. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, only to realize she did not know what to say. In the end, countless words became only a soft sigh filled with endless melancholy, fading into Mingdu's dry air.

"I remembered a teacher... whom I owed far too much."

She gently rested her head against his solid shoulder, as though trying to draw warmth and strength from him to dispel the coldness and guilt that had suddenly surged up across ten thousand years of time.

Tang Wulin did not ask further. He merely held her quietly, telling her through his warmth—no matter what had happened in the past, he was here now.

And that female teacher, who belonged to the same Leng Clan as Leng Yaozhu, was like a stone cast into Gu Yuena's heart-lake. The ripples it stirred caused movement in her tranquil heart once more, even with spiritual power at the level of a God King.