Shrouding the Heavens: The Years I Was the Empress's Strictest Master

The boy's consciousness jolted awake from unconsciousness, his eyes wide open—but this was his last moment of clarity.

The pigtail-haired girl in the Bronze Mask darted forward and struck both men on the crowns of their heads with her palms. They died at once.

Whoosh...

The Rule Puppet merged into heaven and earth at that moment, vanishing without a trace.

The girl stood where she was and instinctively reached out her small hand toward where the puppet had disappeared. Her lips parted, her eyes filled with complicated emotions.

Though she knew it was merely the manifestation of this place's rules, incapable of speaking or answering her, she still could not help wanting to call out to it.

To ask when her master would return.

Or, if he was somewhere within this place, when he would come out and see her.

Master, Can I... Hug You?

Whoosh...

Amid the windblown sand.

The pigtail-haired girl withdrew her hand, looking at where the Rule Puppet had vanished as she pursed her lips, which were full of the taste of rust.

This was neither the first time she had seen such a Rule Puppet nor the first time she had wanted to ask it that question.

But the Rule Puppet disappeared too quickly every time, and she never had the chance to speak.

Without standing there for long, she silently cleaned up the battlefield, gathered the spoils, erased the traces of battle, and dragged the corpses to the hidden corner where she often stayed.

Thud...

After finishing all this, Li Qingjue could no longer hold on. She collapsed to the ground, without even the strength to move a finger.

Beneath the Bronze Mask, blood continuously spilled from the corners of her mouth.

Another day survived...

She sat cross-legged and adjusted her breathing for a while. Once she felt a little better, she painfully shifted her gaze toward the three... no, two corpses and the puddle of mush.

At this moment, there was no joy of victory in her eyes. There was only a deathly coldness.

Those bodies were not bodies in her eyes. They were merely resources that could make her stronger.

Nothing more than objects...

She needed their origins to keep strengthening herself.

Yet just as she circulated the demonic art and tried to devour and refine all the remaining origin within that puddle of mush—

A faint sigh, as though it had crossed the endless ages of time and space, carrying an indescribable complexity, softly sounded beside her ear.

"Ah..."

The sigh was quiet, yet it exploded like thunder in her nearly numb heart, stirring up a tremendous wave.

The vicious flood dragon that had recently surfaced in the waters of her heart, often swimming about and poking its head out, seemed to be frightened by something at that moment and immediately dove back down.

Li Qingjue's petite body suddenly stiffened. It was as if she had been struck by a binding spell, and she froze on the spot.

Naturally, she was not unfamiliar with that voice.

Once, she had thought its owner was too strict and too demanding toward her. Later, through certain details, she came to feel that he treated her well after all, that his words were harsh but his heart was soft...

And later still, she grew accustomed to that faint tone and stern manner.

Until the day they parted, when she could no longer hear it.

Over the past year and more, she had silently hoped countless times that this voice would once again sound beside her as it did now.

Was she hearing things?

"Has the demonic art already corroded my mind... Have I lost control..."

In her daze, Li Qingjue incredulously turned her neck bit by bit toward the direction from which the voice had come.

Her movements were exceedingly slow, as though she feared that when she quickly found the source of that voice, there would be nothing there, and it would prove to be another illusion.

However.

This time was clearly different from the hallucinations that came after the loneliness overwhelmed her.

When she finally turned around, she saw a phantom yet incomparably familiar figure silently appear not far away.

Though he was merely a remnant soul, he still exuded a towering presence that made her feel incomparably safe, washing over her small face.

His eyes remained as deep as a sea of stars. When she met his gaze, it felt as though everything about her had been seen through.

It really was Master!!

It really was Tan Lin...

He simply stood there, his phantom figure seeming as though it had existed there since time immemorial.

At that moment, his deep gaze calmly fell upon Li Qingjue's petite body, covered in wounds and bloodstains, before finally sweeping over the Bronze Mask concealing her face.

"M-Master?!"

Under the Bronze Mask, Li Qingjue's voice trembled uncontrollably.

Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision.

Yet in this past year, aside from the time she found her brother's remains within Cang Yuhang's Feather Artifact, no matter how severe or painful her injuries had been, tears had never appeared in her eyes.

But now, she truly could not control her emotions. Her nose felt unbearably sore.

When she had first entered the tower and parted from him, she thought Master would return within a few days. Yet she had waited for one year, three months, and seven days!

During that time, she had accumulated too many questions and too many experiences that she wanted to tell him about.

Every transformation of her Mortal Body, she had wanted Master to witness.

Every tempering, every gain in strength—if she could receive even a single word of approval from Master, then all the suffering and exhaustion would have been worth it.

"Master, this disciple has disappointed you. I seem to have... cried again..."

Li Qingjue removed the Bronze Mask. Her little face was full of tears and misery. She wanted to smile brightly at Tan Lin, but her voice was still choked with sobs, making her feel even more frustrated.

She remembered that on the day after the Relay Station Incident, she had sworn before Tan Lin that she would never cry again in this life.

Yet it seemed she had failed to keep that promise...

Thinking of this, she lightly bit her lower lip, dissatisfied with herself. She lowered her head before Tan Lin as though waiting for his criticism.

Perhaps she had long forgotten that even now, she was only an eleven-year-old girl. Being unable to control her emotions was perfectly normal.

Even great emperors and Ancient Emperors would shed tears at certain moments when they thought of sorrowful people and sorrowful events.

Whoosh...

Tan Lin's remnant soul slowly drifted closer. His gaze swept over the several corpses nearby, lingering for a moment on the puddle of mush.

He fell briefly silent as he looked at Li Qingjue. He had wanted to say that she had already done very well, but in the end, all that came from his mouth was a bland remark.

"After a year apart, you can barely be said to have improved. And you have become more ruthless."

His calm tone made it impossible to tell whether he was praising or criticizing her.

His tone was so indifferent that it sounded as though he were commenting on something entirely unrelated to himself, as though the girl lowering her head before him was not his disciple at all.

Even so, Li Qingjue keenly caught an exceedingly faint hint of another emotion in his words.

As for what sort of emotion it was, she could not quite make sense of it for the moment. Still, she figured she was probably not doing too badly...

Thinking that, Li Qingjue cautiously raised her head and looked up at Tan Lin.

"Master... You were gone for so long. This disciple... missed you..."

Her cracked lips moved. A thousand words, endless grievances, the hardships of her journey, and her daily longing ultimately condensed into this one call, tinged with a sob.

At that moment, all her strength, all her disguises, all her defenses crumbled the instant she saw Tan Lin.

At that moment, she seemed to become that little girl in the abandoned brick kiln once more, with nothing at all except the Bronze Ring she could clutch tightly.

At that moment, what ruthlessness?

What coldness?

What viciousness...

All of it temporarily receded in the moment of their reunion.

Seeing and hearing this, a slight ripple passed through Tan Lin's deep eyes.

Naturally, he could sense the genuine emotion in the girl's expression and words. But he would not express too much. A slight nod toward her was already his greatest response.

However, the girl's next request truly left him unsure how to respond.

"Master, can I... hug you?"

Li Qingjue's clear eyes were filled with pure affection, like that of a child toward an elder and a loved one. Looking at Tan Lin, she asked uneasily.

Tan Lin's remnant soul remained silent, his expression indifferent, offering no response whatsoever.

Rustle... rustle...

Wind and sand swept across the ground, and the hidden corner fell silent for a moment.

"Is that not allowed..."

Li Qingjue pursed her lips. A trace of disappointment and dejection flashed through her eyes. At some point, she had come to see him as another family member besides her brother.

Although Master was strict and cold, during the days when he was with her, her heart had never felt too burdened.

In the silence, she slowly held up the Bronze Mask she had been wearing all this time and softly said to Tan Lin, "Master, I know you made this. This disciple..."

"You talk too much!"

Before she could finish, Tan Lin coldly interrupted her.

"It is nothing more than an artifact that conceals one's aura and hides one's appearance. If there is nothing else, then do what you should be doing."

With that, Tan Lin's remnant soul turned into a wisp of green smoke and entered the void within the ring where it had remained for nearly a million years.

Three months had passed since his invisible confrontation with Xiaoyao Heavenly Venerable's incarnation.

During those three months, he had traveled throughout the Big Dipper, retrieving and merging the scattered fragments of his true soul.

Now that he had returned to the Drill Tower, he had naturally completed that step, at least roughly.

Next, once his remnant soul had stabilized and he had rested for a while to recover from the damage to a wisp of his remnant-soul consciousness caused by entering and leaving Undying Mountain, he could begin stripping away the remaining batch of true-soul fragments lingering here.

Because these fragments had merged into the bodies of certain strange creatures, he had previously used them as ears, eyes, and pawns.

When he prepared to leave for the Central Plains for his final attempt, he would retrieve them all, whether those pawns still had any value or not.

After all, whether his remnant soul was complete directly affected the process of reincarnation and unraveling the mystery within the womb.

"Too much to say... But it has been so long since we met. Nannan truly wanted to talk to you more, Master..."

Outside, Li Qingjue blankly spread open her palm and looked at the Bronze Ring.

Seeing Tan Lin's remnant soul reside within the ring once more, she "felt" the ring become a little heavier, and an inexplicable sense of reassurance rose in her heart.

Though she knew that the ring's weight had not changed at all. It was merely her illusion.

"Do what I should be doing... Right, do what I should be doing. No matter what, Master has returned..."

As she murmured, her gaze shifted back to the corpses beside her.

She sat cross-legged, palms facing upward, and the embryonic form of the Heaven Devouring Demonic Art quietly began to circulate.

Whoosh...

At that moment, Tan Lin's remnant soul silently reappeared outside the ring.

He raised a finger and pointed through the air. A thread of clear radiance shot from his fingertip and entered Li Qingjue's brow.

Li Qingjue's body shook, and she was about to rise.

"Do not open your eyes. Close them, focus your mind, and carefully comprehend the ancient scripture I am imparting to you."