"She sent me to infiltrate the Heaven Dou Empire, disguised as Xue Qinghe, intending to dismantle this empire from within."
"The plan was perfect, and it had been progressing smoothly."
"Until you appeared."
Qian Renxue's gaze grew somewhat heated.
"You were the only variable in this plan."
"I don't know what secrets you carry, but I can sense that you pose an enormous threat to me."
"So I began watching you, investigating you, even trying to win you over."
"And naturally, those actions of mine could not be hidden from my dear teacher far away in Spirit City."
"She was suspicious by nature and possessed an extremely strong desire for control."
"She would not allow anything to slip beyond her control, much less permit her most perfect tool to develop thoughts of her own."
"You made her feel threatened."
"She believed you would become an opportunity for me to break free of her control."
"So she wanted to kill you."
"To kill you with the most decisive means."
"First, to eliminate a potential threat."
"Second, to tell me who the true master was. My fate had to, and could only, remain in her hands."
Qian Renxue's voice was very calm.
Yet Tang Shuo could hear the endless turmoil suppressed beneath that calmness.
So that was it.
Everything made sense now.
Spirit Hall had laid this inescapable net not because Tang Shuo himself was so important.
It was because he had become a pawn in that earth-shaking power struggle within Spirit Hall.
A pawn Bibi Dong used to warn the monkey by killing the chicken.
How laughable.
And how tragic.
He looked at Qian Renxue before him, a woman burdened by a sea of blood-deep hatred yet forced to acknowledge her enemy as her mother.
She possessed peerless beauty, supreme status,