The strong wind carried a chill, and a pitter-patter sounded outside.
Huo Yuhao opened the window and peered out, discovering that rain had begun to fall.
Ye Guyi gazed out the window, her voice as faint as smoke scattered by the rain.
Though the rain was loud, Huo Yuhao heard her breathing with unusual clarity.
"She's my older sister," Ye Guyi began, her voice calmer than he had expected. "Though we aren't related by blood."
When Ye Guyi was three, three older children cornered her in an abandoned church. They pelted her with stones, calling her a "Spirit Hall bastard." She huddled in a corner, covering her head, until a golden-haired figure rushed over.
"Get away!" Yu Mengdi, only a few years older than her, spread two illusory white wings. Though she had only just awakened her Martial Soul, that radiance was enough to frighten off the bullies. She crouched down and wiped the mud from Ye Guyi's face. "Don't be afraid. I'll protect you."
At this point, Ye Guyi's vision blurred. "She always went with me to chase butterflies in the woods. There was a little freedom there." Ye Guyi continued, the corners of her lips lifting slightly. "We spent our childhood in that dark, abandoned church. She said that once we grew up, we would leave together and go somewhere no one knew us."
Huo Yuhao nodded gently without interrupting. The rain outside filled the brief silence.
On her tenth birthday, Ye Guyi found Yu Mengdi crying atop the wing of the broken-winged angel statue on the church dome. The setting sun stretched her shadow long, like a bird with broken wings.
"I have to marry that cripple from the Yue Family." Yu Mengdi pressed the colorful butterfly she was cradling into Ye Guyi's hands. Its wings seemed wet with her tears, leaving it barely able to fly. "They said this would wash away the family's disgrace. As though the only reason we're alive is to prove to them that we aren't a source of evil."
Ye Guyi released the butterfly, letting it dance between heaven and earth. Yu Mengdi's nails, however, dug into her palms. Beads of blood seeped out and dripped onto the battered angel statue's wings.
"I can't escape." The last thing Yu Mengdi said to her that day was, "But at least I'll make them understand that I don't need a marriage alliance to prove anything."
Ye Guyi remembered returning home on vacation three months earlier, when Yu Mengdi knocked on her window in the middle of the night, her eyes astonishingly bright.
"I'm entering the Soul Fighting Tournament." Yu Mengdi's backpack bulged with a few old clothes and a comb. "If I can make it to the finals, the family will have no choice but to recognize my worth."
In Ye Guyi's memory, the older girl from next door had sounded a little shrill despite her silvery voice. "They said if I win the Soul Fighting Tournament, they'll make me the heir, and I won't have to get married!"
Ye Guyi had pressed half the Gold Soul Coins she had saved from working at the Mingyue Hotel over the past few years into her hands. Yu Mengdi smiled, took the little angel pendant from around her neck, and put it around Ye Guyi's. "Wait for me to come back."
Now the little angel pendant lay against Ye Guyi's skin, and all she felt was its icy chill.
That afternoon, only after returning with the batch of alloys Huo Yuhao had asked her to buy did Ye Guyi learn that a murder had taken place at the Mingyue Hotel. The victim was a student from Zhengtian Academy who had been resting after an injury.
Trembling, Ye Guyi lifted the white sheet. Yu Mengdi's golden hair was matted with blood, and her lips still held the astonishment of her final moment. The wound piercing her chest resembled a mocking mouth.
"On the day the Yue Family came to propose, Mengdi even stole the candied fruit I'd hidden." Ye Guyi suddenly smiled. A vivid fissure opened across her porcelain-white face. "Her cheeks were puffed up like a hamster's, and she shouted as she ran, 'Come catch me, little Yi!' But that day, she was wearing her engagement gown, with all those diamonds set into its hem-a gown only nobles were entitled to wear."
The rain outside the window grew more turbulent.
"When she gave the candied fruit back to me..." Ye Guyi's throat bobbed. "There were a few extra figs inside. She said, 'These are your favorites. Once I'm back from the tournament, I'll take you to Qiming City for a meal. The fig pastries there are especially delicious.'"
As thunder rolled across the sky, she finally began to sob aloud. Huo Yuhao offered her a handkerchief. Ye Guyi did not take it. She clasped the little angel pendant in both hands, and the rain drifting in from outside mingled with her tears as it fell onto the pendant.
"Do you know?" Ye Guyi said softly. "She hated rainy days more than anything."
"Qian Yuhan... Everyone on the Douluo Continent says that was the first Angel God's name, that it was our ancestor's name." Her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the feather pattern subtly embroidered into her cuff. "That Angel God who first unleashed a plague, then pretended to save the world so she could become a god." Rain wound down the glass like trails of tears. "They say that's our original sin."
"They say the hypocritical angel's wings were as cold as rain and snow, unlike the gentle Sea God's Eight Wings, so upright and honorable."
Huo Yuhao closed the window.
"Miss Guyi, go ahead and do what you must!"
"No matter what happens, I'll stand behind you."
"So what if they're Evil Soul Masters? So what if it's the Holy Spirit Cult? Whatever stands behind it, I, Huo Yuhao, will spend this lifetime tearing it out by the roots."
Huo Yuhao began tidying the room.
That night, Huo Yuhao said nothing more.
After the night passed, when a faint glow appeared in the eastern sky, turning it the pale white of a fish's belly, Huo Yuhao was already awake.
The rain had fallen all night, but at last it stopped.
Ye Guyi and Snow Girl were still asleep. They had not risen early as they usually did, so Huo Yuhao went downstairs to buy breakfast.
"Snow Girl, your match against Chen Zifeng is today. Be careful in everything you do. He's a Six-Ring Soul Emperor, a rank above you as you are now." Returning with breakfast, Huo Yuhao handed the food boxes to Snow Girl and Ye Guyi, then addressed Snow Girl.
Snow Girl looked at the young man's solemn face, then at Ye Guyi, who was eating with her head lowered. Planting her hands on her hips, she said, "That Chen Zifeng has the highest cultivation on the Shrek Team, right? I'd certainly like to see what he can do."
"Don't get careless. I'll go with you!" Huo Yuhao glanced at Ye Guyi and said, "Guyi, wait for me before you act. We're partners, after all!"
Having been a standard-bearer of faith in Shrek Academy in his previous life, Huo Yuhao knew better than anyone just how remarkable it was for a Soul Master of common birth like Chen Zifeng to become one of the Shrek Seven Devils.
Unlike those Divine Descendants who relied on their forebears, people like Chen Zifeng were actually much the same as Huo Yuhao.
For someone like that to become one of an era's Seven Monsters in Shrek Academy's brutally harsh environment was itself a testament to the tenacity of life and will.
The atmosphere at Mingdu's Soul Fighting Arena was as lively as ever that day. In particular, the successive setbacks suffered by the Divine Descendants on Shrek Academy's side over the past few days had heartened the people of the Sun Moon Empire.
"This Soul Fighting Tournament is different from all the previous ones. Have you heard? Those descendants of gods actually lost to a young man one after another. It's unbelievable."
"Exactly. Those Divine Descendants have divine blood flowing through their veins. How could mortals defeat them?"
Sitting in the stands on the Sun Moon side, Huo Yuhao listened to the whispers around him, his heart filled with a jumble of conflicting emotions.
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