"Prefect Qiu, surely you have seen the horrors left when those Demonic Beasts slaughter a city."
"We adults can die, but the children in the city are still so young. They understand nothing. They shouldn't meet such an end."
"Please, help them, Prefect Qiu."
Gongshu Bai kowtowed again, then knelt there trembling, his teeth clenched as he raised his head to look at Qiu Shanyuan.
For cultivators, especially a heaven-favored prodigy of his realm like Gongshu Bai,
dignity often mattered more than life.
So for Gongshu Bai to go this far now could only mean that he truly wanted to fight for the people of Thousand Mechanisms City.
To fight for that lone thread of possibility.
Suddenly, Xu Taiping had the illusion that he saw his own shadow in Gongshu Bai.
If saving Qingxuan, saving my senior sisters and brothers, meant giving up my dignity, could I go as far as Gongshu Bai?
Xu Taiping asked himself.
"Ah..."
Just then, Qiu Shanyuan suddenly gave a long sigh. He crouched down, patted Gongshu Bai's shoulder, and said,
"Child, I can give you all the Demonic Beast remains you wanted, free of charge."
"But if I simply let you take this Dragon Pearl away, I would be failing the countless people of Youyun Heaven."
"If it truly destabilized our fortune, the people who died in Youyun Heaven might number no fewer than those in your Thousand Mechanisms City."
At these words, Gongshu Bai trembled, and great tears spilled from his eyes.
"Is there really... really not even the slightest possibility?"
Still unwilling to give up, Gongshu Bai looked up at Qiu Shanyuan.
But now, his eyes held mostly despair, no longer the resolve they had held before.
"I told you last time: unless someone blessed with great fortune, like Zhu Huai or