Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing looked at the diary in their minds, then at "Young Master Xue" opposite them, whose eyes had already reddened slightly. A powerful wave of heartache rose in both girls.
They finally understood the heartrending restraint hidden behind their big brother's icy words: "No banquet under heaven lasts forever."
It was not that he did not want her to stay. To protect the work she had poured years of effort into, he had no choice but to let go.
Meanwhile, Qian Renxue sat opposite him, staring fixedly at the golden-roasted winter chestnut Xiong Shaoqing had personally placed on her plate. Her vision had blurred completely.
His heart aches for me... He actually understands everything.
Qian Renxue trembled silently inside.
This man, whose exterior was as cold and hard as iron, had not tried to keep her with false sweet talk. Instead, with the deepest understanding, he had embraced all the circumstances that left her no choice.
Chapter 62: Bibi Dong's Conflicted Struggle
Those words, "How could I destroy the work she has spent years planning over my own selfish desires?" and "Once I stand at the pinnacle again... I will bring her back openly and honorably,"
struck like a sledgehammer, utterly shattering the last line of defense in Qian Renxue's heart called "reason."
"Brother Xiong..."
Qian Renxue abruptly raised her head, an astonishing light gleaming in her golden eyes.
Abandoning all decorum, she reached out and seized Xiong Shaoqing's large hand resting on the table.
Of those two hands, one was as cold as jade, the other as hot as a furnace.
Xiong Shaoqing arched a swordlike brow. He had just been about to withdraw his hand to maintain his aloof God King persona, but Qian Renxue held it fast.
"Mountains rise high and rivers run long on Qinghe's journey from here." Qian Renxue stared into his eyes, her voice trembling slightly yet carrying unprecedented affection.
"But Qinghe believes that the tea left unfinished today, the game of chess left unplayed, will someday... be resumed when we reunite. Brother Xiong, you... take good care of yourself."
As Xiong Shaoqing looked into those eyes that seemed determined to carve him into her soul, his heart gave a fierce tremor.
He no longer withdrew his hand. Instead, he turned the tables, tightening his broad hand slightly around Qian Renxue's cool fingertips. For once, his stern face softened a little.
At that moment, thousands of miles away, above a sprawling mountain range.
Biting winds howled as Bibi Dong drove her Six-Winged Purple Light Wings, streaking like a beam of purple light tearing through the sky. She skimmed the towering ridgelines, hurtling desperately toward Suotuo City.
Suddenly, the Diary in her mind updated.
Bibi Dong came to an abrupt halt in midair. Violent Soul Power surged outward, instantly stunning the flocks of birds startled into flight from the mountain forests below.
She stared fixedly at those shimmering golden words in her mind, especially the line, "Once I stand at the pinnacle again and sweep away every storm and scheme in her path, I will bring her back openly and honorably."
Indescribably complicated expressions intertwined on her stunning face.
"Sweep away the storms for her? You, an ant barely above rank thirty?"
Bibi Dong scoffed aloud, yet she had to admit that seeing Xiong Shaoqing lay his heart so bare for Qian Renxue, even showing such meticulous consideration for the plans she had spent years laboring over,
had made an intense, bitter ache rise uncontrollably in her heart.
But immediately afterward, she confirmed that Qian Renxue would leave for Heaven Dou City early the next morning.
Bibi Dong's taut nerves strangely relaxed a little.
At least that unfilial daughter still knows what matters. She hasn't been completely bewitched by that lecher and still remembers the responsibility on her shoulders.
Bibi Dong thought coldly to herself.
Since Qian Renxue was leaving, there was no point in going to Suotuo City only to find her gone.
Given that unfilial daughter's current circumstances, she would certainly travel at full speed on her return to the capital.
Running off to Suotuo City behind my back to meet a man in secret. I still haven't properly settled that score.
A chilling glint flashed through Bibi Dong's purple eyes, and the purple wings behind her abruptly changed direction.
Since I've already come this far, I'll go to Heaven Dou City and wait for her there.
It seems that without anyone disciplining her lately, Qian Renxue is truly itching for a beating. It's time to teach her a proper lesson with family discipline.
Yet at the thought of "family discipline," Bibi Dong's body trembled involuntarily as she flew through the cold wind.
In a daze, her thoughts were drawn back to that dark, freezing secret chamber in Spirit Hall.
In her fragmented memories, throughout Qian Renxue's childhood, even the slightest misstep had always brought her merciless punishment.
A whip soaked in salt water lashed the young Qian Renxue's back, splitting her skin and flesh, leaving blood streaming.
And she had stood above it all, her face frosty, watching coldly from the side as that stubborn girl with brilliant golden hair bit through her lip and steadfastly refused to beg for mercy.
She had once believed she hated Qian Renxue to the extreme, which was why she could bring herself to be so cruel.
Because whenever she saw that dazzling Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul, whenever she saw Qian Renxue's face gradually maturing,
that nightmare which had made her wish for death, which disgusted her beyond measure, would surface uncontrollably in Bibi Dong's mind.
Qian Xunji.
That outwardly righteous, revered, good teacher. That beast worse than an animal.
Simply because she had fallen in love with someone else back then, that demon had used the most despicable means to imprison her in a secret chamber and forcibly violate her.
She had been too weak then. Heaven would not answer her cries, nor would the earth respond. Every attempt to resist had been ruthlessly crushed by those filthy hands.
It had been the darkest, most humiliating abyss of her life, and Qian Renxue was the bitter fruit born in that abyss, carrying that beast's filthy blood.
Qian Xunji is already dead. I sent him to hell with my own hands...
Bibi Dong closed her eyes in anguish in midair, the fierce wind tossing her luxurious long hair into disarray.
Her great vengeance had been fulfilled, and she had become the lofty Pope, yet the countless wounds within her had never healed.
Qian Renxue had become the one stain and affliction she could not erase from this world.
So she tormented her with the strictest rules and wounded her with the coldest attitude, trying to vent the humiliation she had suffered back then.
But...
At some point, a cold tear slipped from the corner of Bibi Dong's eye, only to be instantly scattered by the frigid wind.
Why did she never feel the pleasure of revenge whenever she watched the whip strike that tiny body?
Why, whenever Qian Renxue looked at her with those eyes full of a child's yearning yet also despair, did her long-frozen heart suffer stabs of pain sharper than even the humiliation in that secret chamber?
I must be sick...
Bibi Dong abruptly opened her eyes, her purple pupils filled with agonized struggle and madness. For the daughter of that beast Qian Xunji, her heart actually ached. She actually felt unable to breathe.
Countless times in the dead of night, a terrible thought had arisen in her mind. If she killed Qian Renxue, if she erased this stain with her own hands, would she finally be free?
Yet whenever that thought had barely taken shape, Bibi Dong would jolt awake as though struck by lightning, followed by a piercing agony that seemed about to tear her soul apart.
She could not bring herself to do it.
Even if that demon's blood flowed through Qian Renxue's veins, she was still flesh of her own flesh.
She was a life nurtured from her own blood in the most despairing darkness.
"Qian Renxue... you debt-collecting tormentor..."
Bibi Dong let out a pained, stifled murmur amid the fierce winds. She clutched her chest tightly, where her heart was convulsing violently with that twisted, conflicted maternal love that nonetheless ran bone-deep.
In the end, she could not bear to kill her.
But without harsh punishment, how would that unfilial daughter learn her lesson?
How would she abandon those absurd thoughts about that lecher?
Bibi Dong drew a deep breath of icy air, forcibly pressing the vulnerability and pain in her eyes back into the deepest recesses of her heart.
To conceal that fleeting moment of softness, with an almost self-tormenting cruelty, she once again welded the cold, ruthless mask of the Pope onto her face.
Chapter 63: At Daggers Drawn
Spirit Hall's rules must never be trampled.
Since she has forgotten her status and thrown herself at a man, she's itching for a beating. Family discipline is a must.
Chilling light and a pathological desire for control gathered once more in Bibi Dong's purple eyes. The Six-Winged Purple Light Wings behind her suddenly erupted in dazzling radiance as she accelerated again, tearing through the sky toward Heaven Dou Imperial City.
Once I reach Heaven Dou City, I'll strip away that crown prince facade of hers and whip that shameless wretch awake with a thorned whip soaked in salt water.
If she dares say so much as half a word pleading for that Xiong Shaoqing, I won't show her the slightest mercy this time.
At this moment, Bibi Dong, whose mind was filled with plans to vent her fury through the harshest family discipline and forcibly sever her daughter's romantic attachment, had already lost her head to anger and twisted jealousy.
Suotuo City, Cold Fragrance Courtyard.
"Oh, Young Master Xue, we may be parting soon, but the world is so big. As long as our hearts stay together, we'll see each other again someday."
Grinning, Xiao Wu picked up a peeled chestnut and tucked it neatly into Qian Renxue's hand.
"Don't look so gloomy. Big Brother is really amazing. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll go to Heaven Dou City to visit you."
Zhu Zhuqing also nodded slightly, a trace of consolation in her cool voice. "That's right. The moonlight should be lovely tonight. We've rested enough this afternoon, and we're still going to the Great Soul Arena tonight."
"If you don't mind, Young Master Xue, why not watch one last soul fight of ours?"
With the two girls stirring things up, the heavy atmosphere of parting immediately grew much livelier.
Qian Renxue smiled through her tears, and most of the heaviness weighing on her heart dispersed.
Outwardly, Xiong Shaoqing remained like an ice sculpture, merely turning the coals in the brazier in silence.
Yet beneath that seemingly unmoved exterior, the diary in his sea of consciousness had quietly opened to a new page:
[The winter's waning sunlight shines into this warm chamber. It really does create something of an illusion of peaceful days.]
[Seeing her force herself to act carefree yet fail to hide her loneliness honestly doesn't feel good. This girl always liked shouldering every burden herself in our previous life. In this life, beneath the shell of "Xue Qinghe," she still lives as though treading on thin ice.]
[Parting isn't necessarily the end. The seeds of reunion have already been planted in the bitter winter. Since she still wants to watch another soul fight, tonight I'll show her that even at the beginning of cultivating anew, I can still hold up a sky for her.]
[It's just that the tea in my hand seems to be cooling a little too quickly. Perhaps those stray thoughts I shouldn't have are playing tricks on me.]
Inside the carriage, Qian Renxue's fingers trembled gently as she read those words.
That man had not uttered a single plea for her to stay, yet the restraint between his lines, that sense of sharing her every feeling, broke her heart more than any confession could.
Just then, Xiong Shaoqing felt a surge within his Qi sea. It was the reward the system had returned after sensing the three goddesses' intense emotional fluctuations.
[Ding! A substantial deepening of the three goddesses' emotional bonds has been detected.] [Feedback reward: Soul Power increased by one rank!] [Current Soul Power: rank thirty-four!]
"Whew..." Xiong Shaoqing secretly let out a breath. Rank thirty-four. His confidence in facing Tang San had grown another notch.
Night fell, the Great Soul Arena.
Tonight, the Soul Fighting Arena roared with voices, its atmosphere even more heated than usual.
Because tonight, a peculiar group had appeared: the "Shrek Trio."
With Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing, Xiong Shaoqing accompanied "Xue Qinghe" into the lounge area, where they happened to run straight into Tang San, Dai Mubai, and Ma Hongjun.
"Xiao Wu." The instant Tang San saw that pink figure, his eyes turned bloodshot. He rushed forward in several quick strides and reached to take Xiao Wu's hand. "Xiao Wu, come back with me. That despicable scoundrel has been using you all along. Can't you see that?"
Xiao Wu pulled her hand back as though shocked and hid behind Xiong Shaoqing, looking at Tang San with disgust. "Tang San, how long are you going to keep pestering me?"
"I told you, Big Brother is my benefactor and the person I trust most. A lying, sinister, vicious person like you needs to stay away from me!"
"You..." Tang San choked, his face flushing crimson. That falsely innocent, manipulative look surfaced again. "Xiao Wu, I'm doing this for your own good. How can you treat me like this? What bewitching potion has he fed you?"
On the other side, Dai Mubai stared fixedly at Zhu Zhuqing.
Seeing Zhu Zhuqing standing beside Xiong Shaoqing, looking like a little bird nestled against him, the fury within him erupted like a volcano.
"Zhu Zhuqing, have you no shame?" Dai Mubai pointed at her nose and cursed furiously. "You're my fiancée, yet you're hanging around with a pretty boy like him. Do you even know what a woman's virtue is? What shame is?"
Zhu Zhuqing's cool, lovely face was covered in frost. She sneered and shot back, "Dai Mubai, you think you're qualified to talk to me about shame? When you were tossing clouds and stirring rain under the covers with the Twin Sisters in Suotuo City, did you ever think about shame?"
"When you lingered in the red-light district, reluctant to leave, did you ever think about your fiancée?"
"How is that the same?" Dai Mubai hardened his face and bellowed self-righteously, "I'm a man! It's only natural for a man to go out and have some fun!"
"In this world, what capable man doesn't have three wives and four concubines? Giving you the position of principal wife means I think highly of you. I'm giving you face."
"You, a woman, actually dare put a green hat on me? A bitch like you deserves death by a thousand cuts."
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