"Necessary sacrifices..."
Those words were the forbidden scale on Jiang Ling's dragon.
At that moment, the Immortal Realm of over a hundred thousand years ago and the Lonely Crag City before her seemed to overlap across endless time and space.
She seemed to see those lofty Immortal Emperors again, wearing those same self-righteous expressions as they pushed her father into a bottomless abyss.
What gave him the right to decide who should be abandoned?
What gave them the right to decide whether others lived or died?!
Beside her, Si Shuo knew trouble was coming the moment he heard the city lord's final sentence.
Sure enough, Jiang Ling had already drawn her blade.
"Jiang Ling! Calm down!"
Si Shuo hurriedly caught her arm. "What good would killing him do?! The plague is already out of control!"
"This city lord may be cruel, but this is the only solution he can think of right now!"
"He's doing what he should as city lord. He's looking at the bigger picture! Let me handle this!"
Si Shuo knew all too well that killing a city lord at a time like this would solve nothing. It would only send the situation spiraling further out of control.
"Even you... are going to preach to me about the bigger picture?"
Jiang Ling slowly turned her head and stared at Si Shuo as though he were a stranger.
"Si Shuo, let me ask you something."
She pointed at the Barbican, where anguished cries rose without end. "What if the person locked in there right now was you? Or me?"
"Would we also have to accept being burned alive in there for that so-called 'bigger picture'?!"
"Answer me!!"
Si Shuo shuddered.
What if Jiang Ling were in there?
What would I do?
He had no answer.
Because he realized