Bibi Dong's madness concerned not only her Divine Examination, but also which extreme her ultimate transformation would lead her toward.
Outsiders knew nothing of any of this.
As for Qian Renxue, she had already returned to the Holy Demon Continent through the contractual summoning.
"You broke through!"
The moment she arrived on the Holy Demon Continent, Qian Renxue sensed Jiang Li's improvement.
Not only that, but through the feedback from the Blood Pact, Qian Renxue had also advanced another step, her Soul Power rising by one level.
This was the first time Jiang Li had provided Qian Renxue with nourishment in return.
"I still have to thank you for your help. Without you, I would've only broken through to the Fourth Order during the Demon Hunt Squad Selection Tournament at best."
Jiang Li spoke with genuine sincerity.
Without Qian Renxue's help, he could never have reached this point.
"Our fates are one. There's no need to say these things now."
Qian Renxue always felt that Jiang Li was sometimes too rigid, like an old pedant. The things he did were nothing like what someone his age should have been doing.
To put it another way, he was too polite.
"I'm only being polite to you. Next, I'll do everything I can to gather things that can help you."
Sensing the shift in Qian Renxue's emotions, Jiang Li smiled calmly.
But he soon grew even more surprised.
For some reason, what he had just said had stirred Qian Renxue's emotions again.
"What's wrong?"
"Did something happen?"
Sensing that Qian Renxue was feeling somewhat low, Jiang Li couldn't help asking.
"Jiang Li, tell me, would a mother loathe and hate her own child?"
"Even... have wanted to kill her own child more than once?"
After hesitating for a long time, Qian Renxue still chose to speak these words in this other world, to someone she could trust.
For the first time, she opened her heart and decided to discuss this problem.
With Jiang Li's intelligence, perhaps he could see things others could not discern.
"This matter?"
Hearing Qian Renxue's words, Jiang Li fell silent.
He could give definite answers about anything else. Even when something was difficult to say, he could hint at it through other means. But this particular matter truly left him unable to offer a solution just then.
From Spirit Hall's perspective, Bibi Dong was utterly in the wrong, a textbook white-eyed wolf who bit the hand that fed her.
But from Bibi Dong's personal perspective, from her perspective as a woman, following her line of thought did not seem wrong either.
If Bibi Dong had done anything wrong, her only mistake was making the destruction of the world her ultimate goal.
Even if she had gone to the extreme of wanting to destroy Spirit Hall's ten-thousand-year foundation, solely to establish a power that honored women above men after taking her revenge, to better rule this world and prevent other women from suffering what she had suffered, Jiang Li would have praised her.
He couldn't be bothered to think about the matters involved, or face them.
But there was no helping it. Qian Renxue was now his Mount, and he was her Retainer Knight.
Some things had to be faced eventually.
"Come with me. I'll show you another side of this world."
Jiang Li neither tried to persuade Qian Renxue nor helped her analyze the situation. Instead, he planned to solve the problem at its root.
Romantic love, family bonds, brotherhood, blood-deep vengeance-none of these things mattered.
Bringing stability to the continent and saving its people were what she, as the Angel God, ought to do.
Otherwise, she was unworthy of becoming the Angel God.
Why had Long Haochen been able to win so many people's trust by the end? One major reason was that he had ended the war that had lasted ten thousand years on the Holy Demon Continent.
Why had the First-generation Angel God attained godhood through nothing more than the faith of the human Soul Masters on the Douluo Continent back then, while also wielding so many divine authorities? The Sea God ruled the seas, with hundreds of millions of living beings as his believers and far more power of faith than the Angel God, so why had their ultimate achievements been much the same?
The fundamental reason was that one had truly done something, while the other had done little.
Tang San, for instance, was a god in terms of power, yet he had never truly done anything for the plane in which he had attained godhood through the power of faith.
Instead, he had become a scourge.
If he had done some genuine, tangible good for the people as Tang Wulin had, his little faults and personal schemes would have amounted to nothing.
Qian Renxue had been born into privilege, standing at the pinnacle of this world from the very beginning. Even while undercover, she had dealt with royalty and powerful nobles, witnessing their schemes and the ugliness of the nobility.
She had never truly come into contact with the people at the bottom.
On top of that, her cultivation had been directly poured into her, and Qian Daoliu had gone easy on her during her Divine Examination. She was destined to fall short of the First-generation Angel God.
Now, Jiang Li was taking Qian Renxue along precisely to show her how the people at the bottom lived.
Although Qian Renxue did not understand, she still followed Jiang Li.
Then Jiang Li showed her what the bottom was, and just how varied people could be.
There was a boy who roamed the city, stealing chickens, snatching dogs, and committing theft, only to turn around and support seven or eight children barely a few years younger than himself.
There was an old woman who went through the streets and alleys doing small business, toiling all day just to earn dinner for her drunkard son.
There was a mother who, to cure her sick child, followed some folk remedy she had heard from who knew where, feeding the child her own blood.
There was a father who ate, drank, whored, and gambled outside, then came home to beat and curse his family.
There was a boy whose stomach was already growling with hunger, yet he lied to his younger sister that he had eaten his fill, giving her the last mouthful of food while filling his own stomach with river water from the wilderness.
All kinds of people, all the myriad faces of life, were living in their own ways.
"What did you see?"
Only after wandering for two full days and seeing all kinds of people did Jiang Li stop and ask Qian Renxue.
"The ugliness of human nature... no, its radiance..."
"That's not right either!"
"You're trying to say that human nature is complicated!"
For a moment, Qian Renxue did not know how to answer. Jiang Li had simply shown her far too much.
"Yes, precisely-the complexity of human nature!"
"That old woman seemed pitiful, still caring for her drunkard son in her old age. But did you know that she, his mother, single-handedly brought him to this state? Her desire for control made her destroy her son's happy, wonderful life with her own hands."
"That boy who stole seemed to be supporting several younger brothers and sisters, but he also once stole money someone needed to save a life, causing its owner's daughter to die."
"That abusive man looked vicious and utterly inhuman, yet he had pain others knew nothing about. He knew perfectly well that his children weren't his..."
"These are all things you couldn't see."
"Besides, did you really think these were what I wanted you to see?"
Jiang Li spoke again, this time staring intently at Qian Renxue.
"What... else did you want me to see?"
Hearing Jiang Li's explanation, Qian Renxue was utterly shocked. She had never imagined that what she had seen was not the whole truth.
Moreover, she truly could not understand what Jiang Li wanted her to see.
"Your gaze has remained fixed on that small minority of extreme people, yet you haven't seen that most people in this world, though their days are ordinary, are striving to survive at every moment."
"Even through hardship, they look forward to tomorrow."
"They're the norm. They're the majority."
"Remember, this is under the protection of the Six Great Temples, and their lives are already this hard. Without the Six Great Temples, with the Demon Race running rampant, what kind of lives would they lead?"
"Don't always fix your gaze on that tiny handful of people. Look at more people."
"For many people in this world, even staying alive is an extravagant hope. Compared with them, what do the things you've experienced amount to?"
"You're an Angel. Your radiance should bathe the entire world, and your eyes should hold a broader world too, not just those so-called simple matters of romance and parental affection."
At that moment, Jiang Li was doing nothing but spinning a persuasive tale. Ordinary methods really could not resolve the problems with Qian Renxue's mindset.
He needed to reshape her worldview, values, and outlook on life, forging a steadfast state of mind.
Only then could she undergo a fundamental transformation.
"Don't always stare at that tiny handful of people... should my horizons be broader?"
Hearing Jiang Li's words, Qian Renxue fell into thought.
At that moment, she seemed to understand something, yet did not understand it completely.
But at least one thing had become clear to her: her world should not be so small.
In that hazy moment, Qian Renxue grew more closely attuned to her Martial Soul, the Six-Winged Angel.
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