The icy beam of Weird Qi pierced the lunging Weird Body like the fingertip of the Grim Reaper.
There was no gruesome spray of flesh and blood, no desperate scream, only a muffled, faint sound like tearing cloth.
Rose's back as she shielded An Xiaoran seemed to freeze into eternity at that moment.
Time seemed to stretch, then compress in an instant.
Luo Fan froze mid-lunge, his pupils contracting violently as they reflected the sight of Rose's resolute figure being swallowed entirely by pitch-black Weird Qi.
He remembered the scene Zhao Chunfeng had glimpsed among countless fragments of the future: Rose taking a fatal blow for An Xiaoran.
Now that scene had indeed come to pass. Had Zhao Chunfeng's Peering skill seen this far ahead? This was at least half a year later.
"Rose... big sister..."
An Xiaoran's eyes widened blankly, her clear pupils reflecting Rose's back as all strength suddenly left her.
That alluring face, always wearing a sly smile, was now within reach, yet filled with a complexity she could not understand.
Concern? Guilt? And a trace of... almost tender relief?
Why had she lunged over?
Why had this "big sister," who always told her stories and chatted with her over the phone in that sugary voice, shielded her with her own body?
An Xiaoran's mind went blank. Only her heart felt gripped by an invisible hand, leaving a suffocating tightness.
Just when everyone thought the outcome was decided and that slender figure would fall like a kite with its string cut, something suddenly changed.
The body of "Rose," whose chest had been pierced, suddenly rippled with an unreal shimmer.
Its colors blurred, its texture rapidly fading like an oil painting soaked in water.
The next moment, before Luo Fan's abruptly widening eyes, as An Xiaoran suddenly held