Ah Yin fell silent when she saw what Lu Chen had written in the Notebook.
For some reason, she kept feeling as though she were guilty of monstrous crimes.
Even when Lu Chen had spoiled her future and told her that, ten thousand years later, she would actually be audacious enough to seize the Douluo Plane's Life Core, Ah Yin had never felt this way.
[Ah Yin: What do you think I should do?]
[Yanzi: My verdict is that a miserable life beats a glorious death.]
[Xiao Wu: Auntie, you have to stay strong!]
[Liu Erlong: Don't make things hard on yourself over someone who isn't worth it.]
[Angel: If you really want to die, come find me. There's nothing interesting about a cowardly act like suicide.]
[Little Princess: I've been wanting to say this. Ah Yin, haven't you-and everyone else-gone down the wrong path here?]
[Ah Yin: ?]
[Little Princess: Is there a possibility-and I do mean a possibility-that none of this was your fault, and the only thing you did wrong was abandon your subjects?]
The women: !!!
These words stunned not only the group members, but even Lu Chen.
You're not Ning Rongrong. Who are you really?
Whoever you are, just make sure you never leave her body!
Who would've thought that you, the most unreasonable Little Demoness of all, would be the one to see the truth in the end?
[Little Princess: Did you kill a lot of people when you were a Soul Beast?]
[Ah Yin: No. I always cultivated in the Ancestral Land. It wasn't until many years after I became the Blue Silver Emperor that I chose to take human form out of curiosity about the human world.]
[Little Princess: Then did you ever take the initiative to kill anyone after taking human form?]
[Ah Yin: After taking human form, I wandered through villages and small towns. Aside from a few times when I was forced to fight back, I never attacked humans first...]
[Ah Yin: Since I hadn't reached the maturity stage, rashly entering densely populated places could have exposed my identity to powerful soul masters. It wasn't until I met Hao... the Tang brothers, and was close to reaching the maturity stage, that I visited a few big cities. As for what happened afterward...]
Ah Yin did not continue. Everyone already knew what had happened afterward.
Her child was born, Tang Hao reached Level 90, and the previous Pope led an attack. Everything had been such a coincidence-so much so that it all seemed to have been arranged in advance.
[Little Princess: Doesn't that settle it?]
[Little Princess: You never attacked anyone first, the person closest to you schemed you into sacrificing yourself, and your so-called son dragged you along... Leaving aside what you did afterward, what sins have you committed as you are now?]
[Little Fox: Ahem. Under Spirit Hall's laws, if they learned Ah Yin was still alive, she'd most likely be held guilty of the same crimes as Tang Hao.]
The women: ?
Lu Chen: ?
[Little Princess: Do you think you're funny (╬￣皿￣)?]
Spirit City, the Pope's Hall.
Bibi Dong set down the documents in her hands. Veins bulged on her previously smooth forehead as she called toward the doors:
"Tell Saintess Hu Liena to come see me right now!"
"Yes, Your Holiness."
The guard outside answered respectfully, then his footsteps quickly receded.
When a child kept clowning around, her backside probably needed a spanking!
Setting aside the loving clashes between Spirit Hall's master and disciple.
Through the feedback from the Soul-Calming Domain, Lu Chen keenly sensed the change in Ah Yin's emotions.
Unlike her earlier utter despair and deathly stillness, Ah Yin's mental fluctuations were now extremely active, as though she were engaged in an intense internal struggle.
Time to fan the flames. I'd held back the most devastating part of the spoilers precisely to deal with unexpected situations like this!
[Lu Chen: Thinking about it carefully, I really feel Ah Yin got a raw deal.]
[Lu Chen: She probably never would have imagined that Tang Hao had long known Tang San wasn't their biological son.]
The women: ?
[Netherworld: There's an expert still to come?]
[Spirit Cat: A peerless expert!]
[Angel: Hiss... This should be true. If he really were the only flesh and blood left behind by his beloved, no matter how much of a beast Tang Hao was or how utterly disheartened he felt, he should still have raised him with care, right?]
[Little Princess: Sure, Tang Hao drank himself senseless, made his child live in a dog kennel, and had the child cook every day, but he was still a good father?]
[Yanzi: Was this a try-not-to-laugh challenge? You win.]
[...]
Seeing that the group was buzzing and sensing Ah Yin's increasingly violent emotional fluctuations, Lu Chen struck while the iron was hot and revealed Ah Yin's entire storyline from Douluo I.
[Lu Chen: Unlike me, an extraordinary talent who cultivated to the God King realm in my teens, the otherworldly Tang San was already pushing thirty before he transmigrated-a middle-aged guy who'd spent years in an Assassin Sect and was cautious and guarded about everything.]
[Lu Chen: With Tang Hao's discernment, could he really have missed the change in the baby in his arms, from innocent and guileless to mature and wary?]
[Lu Chen: His drinking, his neglect of Tang San, even making Tang San handle their meals-he'd been observing and testing Tang San since he was very young, and even had a rough understanding of some of Tang San's secrets. In the end, he finally confirmed that Tang San wasn't his biological son!]
[Lu Chen: So here's the question. Why didn't he simply kill Tang San, who had taken over his son's body, to avenge his son?]
The women: Exactly, exactly! Why not?
[Lu Chen: Based on my observations, one reason was that Tang San was simply too "filial." Having been an orphan in his previous life, he desperately wanted to experience familial affection, to the point that he mistook Tang Hao's abuse for paternal love.]
[Lu Chen: The other reason was that Tang Hao had an even greater grudge. After Tang San successfully awakened Twin Martial Souls-the Clear Sky Hammer and Blue Silver Grass-the combination of Twin Martial Souls and Innate Full Soul Power gave Tang Hao hope of getting revenge for himself. That was why Tang Hao's attitude toward Tang San changed dramatically from that point on, and he even spent long stretches secretly following Tang San around as his nanny.]
[Lu Chen: If Tang San hadn't awakened Twin Martial Souls, then...]
At this point, the group members finally had a general understanding of the relationship between Ah Yin, Tang Hao, and Tang San.
Put plainly, it was scheming, compromise, and exchanges of interests between two adults.
Only Ah Yin was purely a tool.
Even Tang San resurrecting her afterward was probably just because he wanted to experience the wonderful feeling of having a mother...
[Xiao Wu: I finally understand everything. So I was just unlucky-Tang Hao discovered my identity right from the start, and I was schemed against from beginning to end?]
[Yanzi: My heart aches for you two.]
[Netherworld: +1]
[Spirit Cat: +1]
[...]
Inside the inn room, the Blue Silver Grass swayed more and more wildly. The golden patterns on its leaves flickered, like someone repeatedly taking deep breaths amid intense emotional turmoil.
At her core, Ah Yin was gentle, kind, and inclined to comply, and a defining feature of that personality was that whenever problems arose, she always looked for the cause within herself.
In other words, she could not make peace with herself and easily got caught in a dead end.
Was our whereabouts being exposed because I wasn't careful?
Did Tang Hao treat Tang San coldly because he was afraid of being reminded of me?
My son must have had my best interests at heart when he had me occupy Douluo Star's Life Core, right?
After the words Ning Rongrong and Lu Chen had written in the Notebook opened her eyes, Ah Yin finally turned around and walked out of that dead end.
Then she plunged headfirst into another!
Ah Yin: I'd wandered the human world for so many years without incident, and nothing had gone wrong even while Tang Xiao was around. Why did Spirit Hall discover my whereabouts after I got together with Tang Hao?
Tang Hao must have sold me out!
Ah Yin: Why did Tang Hao treat Tang San coldly?
Because he'd known all along that he wasn't my biological son. For the sake of revenge against Spirit Hall, he even refused to kill the murderer who'd taken over his son's body!
Why did Tang San have me occupy the Life Core?
Ah Yin: He wanted to use me as a coordinate and a tool, turning the whole of Douluo Star into his own backyard!
Tang Hao, Tang San...
You deserve to die!
Before you continue