Qiu'er Returns, and the Three See the True Pull

Before dawn, the rain outside the sanctuary suddenly stopped. Something had passed through the curtain of rain from the direction of Star Dou, forcibly pressing down all the moisture in this stretch of heaven and earth.

When Huo Yuhao opened his eyes, Wang Dong'er was still nestled in his arms. She slept lightly, her fingers still clutching his lapel, as though even in her dreams she feared that one day she would be dragged away from his side.

The sound of the Golden Dragon Spear tapping the ground came from outside the tent, once, very softly. Wang Dong'er woke at the familiar sound. She and Huo Yuhao exchanged a glance, but neither spoke. Last night's intimacy and awkwardness still lingered in their breaths, but this was not the time to lose themselves in it again.

Huo Yuhao straightened her collar. Wang Dong'er pressed down on his hand and said softly, "I'll do it myself." Her voice was still a little hoarse, but steady. By the time they stepped out of the side tent, Wang Qiu'er was already standing before the sanctuary entrance.

She carried the scent of Star Dou's rainy night. Her blue-gold hair was slightly tousled by the wind, and she held the Golden Dragon Spear at an angle in one hand. She saw Huo Yuhao, then Wang Dong'er, and her gaze paused between them for a moment.

Of course, she could tell. A faint blush still lingered on Wang Dong'er's cheeks, and Huo Yuhao's cuff still bore the wrinkles from where she had gripped it. The warmth left behind by excessive intimacy could not escape the senses of the Emperor Auspicious Beast.

Huo Yuhao did not explain either. Wang Qiu'er's golden eyes darkened slightly, but her lips did not curl into an immediate taunt as they once would have. She merely said coldly, "Looks like I came at a bad time."

Huo Yuhao's throat tightened. Ma Xiaotao, leaning against a stone pillar nearby, nearly laughed aloud. Ye Guyi turned her face aside as though she had heard nothing, though the tips of her ears showed a hint of red against their cold pallor.

Wang Qiu'er looked at Huo Yuhao. "This time, I didn't come because of you."

Huo Yuhao nodded. "I know."

"But neither was I drawn here by this altar."

Those words startled Wang Dong'er. Wang Qiu'er raised a hand and touched the faint golden mark between her brows with her fingertips.

"When that so-called Divine Seal Reaction lit up last night, I saw something. But it was only a sensation, as if someone had taken the true pull between you all as a key and wanted to open a deeper door." She paused, and the chill in her golden eyes deepened.

"Behind that door was me."

Huo Yuhao's heart sank. "You saw yourself?"

"I even saw myself before I took human form," Wang Qiu'er said in a low voice. "And I saw your Spirit Sea." Wang Dong'er's breath caught for an instant.

Wang Qiu'er looked at her. "And you."

Wang Dong'er did not speak at once. They all understood what those words meant. Qiu'er's transformation into a human had not simply been fate pushing her forward, nor had it been solely because of Huo Yuhao.

She had seen the light in Huo Yuhao's Spirit Sea, seen that radiant shadow that resembled Dong'er yet stood above Dong'er, and so for the first time, she had wanted to enter the human world. But the lingering divine aura from last night had made everything more complicated.

What if that light had never been merely Huo Yuhao's imagination?

What if Wang Dong'er and Wang Qiu'er resembled one another not by coincidence?

Ye Guyi stepped forward. The white crystal fragments in her hand and the damaged soul tool component in Huo Yuhao's palm lit up at the same time.

"We shouldn't delay. Let's explore the sanctuary again now." Her voice was very soft.

"If we wait any longer, I'm afraid Sun Moon and the Holy Spirit Cult will get there before us."

The entrance to the third level of the altar opened again. This time, Huo Yuhao did not let Wang Dong'er stand at the front. He reached out, clasped Wang Dong'er's hand, then proactively drew Wang Qiu'er under his protection as well. Wang Qiu'er glanced at him.

"You dare now, don't you?"

Huo Yuhao said quietly, "This altar is targeting you two. No matter what, I have to ensure your safety."

Wang Dong'er said nothing, only tightened her grip on his hand. Wang Qiu'er paused for half a breath before finally stepping closer.

Three auras pressed into the third level of the altar at once. The darkness beyond the stone doors gradually dispersed. At last, they clearly saw a corner of the truth: deep within the altar floated a half-finished Polluted Return-Flow Core. Three partial names were carved into its shell—

Dong. Qiu. Wu.

The character "Dong" connected to the Goddess of Light Butterfly behind Wang Dong'er, and dragon-scale-like patterns faintly emerged along the edges of its wings.

The character "Qiu" connected to the auspicious beast's golden mark between Wang Qiu'er's brows, like a lock that the old fortune of the Star Dou Great Forest refused to release.

And the character "Wu" did not fully appear. It hid deeper within, wrapped in a layer of pink-gold residual divine aura. It resembled neither a Sun Moon soul tool nor an evil formation of the Holy Spirit Cult. Huo Yuhao saw it clearly: the so-called "Divine Seal Reaction" of the Sun Moon Empire was merely the name they had given this residual divine aura because they could not understand it. The real thing stood higher than they imagined—and was more dangerous.

Wang Dong'er said softly, "The Sun Moon Empire didn't create this."

Huo Yuhao nodded. "The enemy only contaminated it and exploited it."

Wang Qiu'er's golden eyes turned cold. "So there really was a pull between Dong'er and me from the beginning. Am I not simply myself?"

"Yes." Huo Yuhao did not lie to her.

The fingers gripping Wang Qiu'er's spear turned white. "Then what is Wang Qiu'er? Who is Wang Qiu'er?"

Once she asked that question, every sound in the sanctuary seemed to be muffled. Wang Dong'er looked at her and suddenly recalled the sensation of being pulled in by the altar yesterday. She remembered herself last night; perhaps she, too, had only wanted a real place of her own. Wang Qiu'er was the same now. She feared that the truth would erase everything she had lived, loved, and fought for, reducing it to traces that did not belong to her.

Wang Dong'er slowly reached out and grasped Wang Qiu'er's wrist.

Wang Qiu'er stiffened. "What are you doing?"

Wang Dong'er's voice was very soft. "At least right now, you truly exist here. This concerns both our futures. We'll face it together."

The altar seemed to sense those words. A crack opened in the half-finished core's shell, and a pale golden beam shot directly toward Wang Qiu'er. Wang Qiu'er did not dodge. It was as if something ancient had pressed down on her shoulders, and her body trembled slightly.

Huo Yuhao immediately stepped forward. But Wang Dong'er was faster. She tightly gripped Wang Qiu'er's wrist, and the platinum glow of the Goddess of Light Butterfly surged from her palm, forcibly blocking the pale golden beam by half an inch.

Wang Qiu'er looked at her. Wang Dong'er's voice tightened, but she did not let go.

"Wang Qiu'er, I don't know why you have the same face as me, and I can't forgive what you did before." Wang Qiu'er froze. "You and Yuhao... even thinking about it now still hurts. Yuhao has you in his heart, and I still get jealous." She spoke slowly, each sentence seeming to be carved from her heart.

"But you can't just let this damned altar take you away."

The altar's light pressed down again, making Wang Dong'er's glowing wings tremble under the pressure.

Wang Qiu'er asked quietly, "Why?"

Wang Dong'er gritted her teeth. "Because you are still Wang Qiu'er. You are an independent, real, living person."

As those words fell, the golden light in Wang Qiu'er's eyes shook violently. The damaged soul tool component in Huo Yuhao's palm lit up as well.

He saw Wang Dong'er's light aura and Wang Qiu'er's auspicious beast fortune cease rejecting each other for the first time. Instead, they twisted into a single thread—a thread of fate that was incomplete, yet truly existed.

The altar seemed to notice as well. It no longer called only to Wang Qiu'er, but seized Wang Dong'er too. Within the half-finished core, the characters "Dong" and "Qiu" lit up together.

Return Flow... Return Flow...

An ancient will echoed again and again.

"Don't listen." Wang Dong'er and Wang Qiu'er spoke those words to each other at the same time.

Huo Yuhao's heart grew warm. He knew this moment was dangerous, and he also knew it was important. This was not reconciliation. Dong'er would still mind, and Qiu'er still could not calmly face the relationship between the two of them. But when fate tried to swallow either of them, the other could not simply stand by and watch.

For the first time, they held onto each other not for Huo Yuhao, but for Wang Dong'er and Wang Qiu'er themselves.

Ye Guyi drew her holy sword.

"Don't destroy the core." Huo Yuhao hurried forward to stop her. Ma Xiaotao raised an eyebrow. "It's come to this, and you still don't want to destroy it?"

Huo Yuhao's gaze turned cold. "I want it to remain. Otherwise, I'll never know the truth."

"I want to know who wrote Dong'er, Qiu'er, and that shadow of 'Wu' that has always surrounded the fates of the three of us into it."

The damaged soul tool component unfolded. Icy blue light enveloped the half-finished core, and the altar began to resist. The blood patterns of the Holy Spirit Cult and the Sun-Moon Conduction Pattern lit up simultaneously. Huo Yuhao did not rush to attack. First, he locked down the intertwined thread of fate between Wang Dong'er and Wang Qiu'er.

"Dong'er, Qiu'er, hold on! Don't let go!"

Wang Dong'er and Wang Qiu'er nodded together. Their blue-gold soul power auras overlapped in midair. Before Return Flow, they were witnesses to each other's existence.

The half-finished core shook violently. Huo Yuhao forcibly peeled the characters "Dong" and "Qiu" half an inch away from the core's shell.

But the character "Wu" did not move at all. It seemed to be a root buried deeper within.

Huo Yuhao's eyes darkened. This character had not been carved onto it; it had been there from the beginning. Dong'er and Qiu'er realized it as well. The wall of light no longer pressed down on them, as if it had finally completed some sort of confirmation.

From deep within the altar came a soft laugh. It sounded like the call of a distant god, like someone hidden behind fate finally seeing that they had reached the correct position.

In an instant, an extremely thin black-red brand hidden on the outer layer of the damaged soul tool component appeared. It was a backdoor the Holy Spirit Cult had previously left within the component.

It was not an attack.

It was a transmission.

At the same time, a Sun Moon sensing soul tool outside the sanctuary was lit by the three of their auras. Silver-blue ripples silently spread from the outer side of the mountain wall. The Holy Spirit Cult did not want to kill anyone here, and neither did the Sun Moon Empire intend to act here.

What they wanted was for Huo Yuhao to unravel this mystery, then bring the answer back to their table.

Huo Yuhao's gaze turned ice-cold. Ultimate Ice instantly sealed the component's outer layer. Ye Guyi's Holy Light Slash fell, severing the black-red brand. Ma Xiaotao's Phoenix Flame swept outside the sanctuary, burning through the Sun Moon sensing soul tool in one stroke. But they were still half a breath too late.

Two signals had already been sent.

Wang Qiu'er sneered. "They used us to probe the truth."

Wang Dong'er added, "What a fine scheme."

Huo Yuhao put away the damaged soul tool component, his voice heavy. "Then let them know that seeing the answer does not mean they can take it."

The sanctuary's wall of light slowly dimmed. At this point, a corner of the altar's mystery had been revealed. But the real trouble had only just begun.