Yesterday's Events

"Your forbearance, your retreat, your cheap kindness—in their eyes, they're signs that you're weak and easy to bully!"

"They're the reason they can mock you and trample all over you whenever they want!"

"Today, if it hadn't been for me, take a guess at what that stupid fatty and the onlookers around him would have done to you?"

"Just laugh at you?"

"No!"

"They would have gone even further!"

"Turned you into a toy for their amusement!"

"Made it so you could never hold your head up in this class again!"

"Made your 'useless martial soul' into the punchline of their idle chatter!"

"Remember what happened today!"

Hei Lin's voice was resolute, carrying an indisputable conclusion. Like an icy iron law, it branded itself deep into Bai Lin's consciousness.

"In this world, what can solve every problem has never been some laughable forbearance or kindness!"

"Only strength!"

"Absolute strength!"

"Strength enough to crush everything, to make everyone who dares look down on you... crawl on the ground and tremble in fear!"

"That is the only truth!"

"That is the true foundation for survival!"

Hei Lin's icy words, sharp as a quenched steel blade, bore a heavy force in every syllable as they crashed into Bai Lin's innocent heart, stirring up stormy waves.

He blankly "looked" at the figure within his sea of consciousness—a figure identical to himself, yet emanating an utterly different aura. His little face was filled with confusion and disbelief.

"We..."

"Aren't we only six?"

Bai Lin's consciousness voiced a weak, trembling question, as though unwilling to believe that such cruel laws of the jungle had descended upon them so early.

At six, shouldn't they have been carefree, playing beneath their parents' wings?

"So what if we're six?"

Hei Lin replied with undisguised scorn, like ice water poured over his head.

"Bai Lin, have you forgotten what you said yesterday?"

"Weren't you going to be an older brother?"

"Weren't you going to protect that silver-haired little girl named Na'er?"

His cold thoughts were like sharp needles, piercing precisely into the softest and most steadfast place in Bai Lin's heart.

"What can a piece of trash who only knows how to back down and endure possibly use to protect his family?"

"That pathetic Blue Silver Grass martial soul of yours, which isn't even as good as weeds?"

Bai Lin's heart clenched.

Na'er's light purple eyes, full of confusion and dependence, clearly appeared before him.

Protect...

That weighty promise now seemed so pale and powerless beneath Hei Lin's cruel questioning.

Hei Lin's voice carried a strange, almost bewitching force as it continued.

"We are one, Bai Lin!"

"Your weakness is my shackle!"

"My strength will also be what you rely on!"

"How could I possibly... deceive you?"

He deliberately slowed his tone for the last few words, carrying an unquestionable certainty.

Bai Lin fell silent.

His sea of consciousness descended into utter stillness.

His beliefs about "kindness," "forbearance," and "being a good child" were like glass struck by a heavy hammer before cruel reality and Hei Lin's cold logic, covered in fine cracks.

He felt a confusion and bewilderment unlike anything he had ever known.

At the podium, Teacher Lin Ximeng's gentle voice seemed to come through a thick layer of frosted glass as she explained the most basic principles of soul power circulation and the fundamentals of obtaining soul rings.

This knowledge should have been the starting point of the Soul Master path Bai Lin had longed for, yet not a single word entered his ears.

He mechanically watched the teacher, but his gaze hollowly passed through her and fell upon the shadows of trees swaying outside the window.

All day long, he remained lost in this immense daze. Absentminded, he did not even notice the occasional looks from his classmates, filled with complicated emotions.

Hei Lin sensed Bai Lin's tangled thoughts and let out a faint, mocking snort before falling silent.

Like a drop of water melting into darkness, his figure retreated once more into the darkest, most lifeless corner of the sea of consciousness. He sat cross-legged, as though he had turned back into a cold boulder.

Time passed in a muddled haze.

When the crisp soul-guidance bell signaling the end of school rang throughout the campus, Bai Lin finally snapped back to himself as if waking from a dream.

He subconsciously packed his little schoolbag. Na'er's quiet little face and the warm lights of home filled his mind, and his feet involuntarily started toward the school gate.

"Wait."

Just as he was about to merge into the stream of students leaving school, Hei Lin's cold voice became an invisible chain that instantly rooted him in place.

"Go to the library."

Bai Lin froze, obvious confusion appearing on his face.

"The library?"

"You..."

"Was there something in class today that you didn't understand?"

He tried hard to recall the lessons that now felt as distant as another lifetime, trying to grasp at something.

"The teacher talked about condensing soul power..."

"And soul ring age limits..."

"I-I think I understood it!"

"I can explain it to you..."

Deep in the sea of consciousness, Hei Lin silently curled his lips downward in extreme speechlessness.

Watching Bai Lin's innocent-to-the-point-of-stupidity expression as he still tried to "help" him, a deep sense of helplessness rose within him.

Was this "kind" version of himself filled with nothing but Blue Silver Grass juice?

"Idiot."

Hei Lin's icy voice carried undisguised disdain.

"Who cares about those basic, worthless things?"

He paused, and a trace of gravity entered his tone.

"I'm talking about last night!"

"After you fell asleep, you started sweating, your body temperature shot up, and golden patterns even emerged!"

Bai Lin's body jolted!

As though struck by an invisible current!

The searing sensation from last night, as if his body were about to burst apart, and the strange feeling of patterns flowing beneath his skin like molten gold...

Instantly surged back into his mind with perfect clarity!

He had thought it was merely an especially vivid, especially strange nightmare!

"Then..."

"That wasn't a dream?"

Bai Lin muttered in his consciousness, carrying immense shock and a belated trace of fear.

"Of course not!"

Hei Lin cut him off irritably.

"Of course it wasn't!"

"After the golden patterns appeared, we were forcibly dragged into another strange space!"

"An endless plain of Blue Silver Grass, but above it was a frozen, golden sky!"

His voice lowered, carrying a probing note.

"Deep within that golden canopy..."

"I sensed something..."

"Something unimaginably huge, unimaginably terrifying!"

"It is definitely connected to the golden patterns that covered your body!"

The information exploded within Bai Lin's consciousness like thunder.

So that magnificent yet eerie sight had been real!

That suffocating pressure...

That immense shadow hidden beyond the golden heavens...

They were all real!

Inside his body?

Or rather, intimately connected to him?