He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, resting with his eyes closed, when a thunderous system notification suddenly exploded in his Sea of Consciousness without warning:
[Ding! Detected that the Child of Fortune, Tang San, has erupted with near-insane, tangible killing intent and venomous resentment amid extreme humiliation. Hatred has broken through a major threshold.] [Fortune deprivation mechanism triggered in succession!] [Congratulations, host. You have received another enormous influx of pure Soul Power.] [Host's Soul Power has increased by one level.] [Current Soul Power: Level 37.]
Holy shit.
Xiong Shaoqing's eyes snapped open. Joy blossomed in his heart, and he nearly did a somersault right there on the bed.
Level 37?
It's only been a few fucking hours. Has that brat Tang San been churning out more for me under his covers again?
Just how much resentment does that gloomy bastard have, to let me climb two levels in a single day?
Xiong Shaoqing trembled all over with excitement, but he glanced at the tightly shut door, unsure whether the soundproofing in this inn's top-class room was any good.
To keep Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing next door from hearing anything, he could only bite down hard on the edge of his pillow and bury his face in the soft bedding, his shoulders shaking as he laughed soundlessly.
Only after laughing for a good while did he roll over and sprawl spread-eagled on the bed. He let out a long breath and began furiously griping inwardly.
Whew... holding that in nearly killed me.
Keeping up this icy God King act every day, not even flinching when Mount Tai collapses before me, is going to be the death of me.
Xiong Shaoqing helplessly rubbed his cheeks, which had grown a little stiff from his recent expressionlessness, bitter complaints welling up inside him.
I used to be such a goofy, approachable soul.
Pretending to be profound, aloof, and weathered by life every day, while dreaming up new ways to write those restrained, long-suffering diary entries... it's a hundred times more exhausting than beating up Tang San.
He pillowed his head on his arms and looked at the canopy above his bed, a flicker of anticipation for the future passing through his eyes.
Once I get through this beginner phase, once my strength truly reaches the pinnacle, once I've openly won over all these heavenly beauties...
I'm going to let my true nature run wild. Who the fuck will still bother with this damned iceberg act then? I'll spend every day nestled among soft jade and warm fragrance, living as a happy, debauched ruler.
Chapter 70: Bibi Dong Could No Longer Abuse Qian Renxue
Several days later, in Heaven Dou City, capital of the Heaven Dou Empire.
Beneath the night sky, the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace was dimly lit. The royal knights guarded its perimeter tightly, with a sentry every three paces and a post every five.
Yet to Bibi Dong, already a Peak Douluo, the formidable defenses of this mortal emperor might as well not have existed.
Wrapped in concealed spatial fluctuations, she passed effortlessly through layer after layer of defenses like an untraceable ghost, descending straight into the innermost secret chamber of the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace.
Inside the chamber, Qian Renxue had shed her Xue Qinghe disguise and was sitting at her desk in a loose silk nightgown, rubbing between her brows.
Traveling through the nights to return to the capital over the past few days, only to face a summons from Xue Ye and a pile of complicated state affairs upon arriving, had left her exhausted in body and mind.
Yet amid that exhaustion, whenever she thought of that stern figure's back in Suotuo City, a hint of tenderness would unconsciously touch her lips.
"It seems that romantic interlude in Suotuo City has made your life as crown prince even more comfortable."
An icy, bone-piercing voice, mocking and laden with boundless pressure, rang out without warning from the shadows of the chamber.
Qian Renxue abruptly stiffened, her brilliant golden eyes instantly narrowing.
She knew that voice all too well. It was a nightmare carved deep into her soul.
She whipped her head around. In the shadows roughly five meters away, space twisted slightly, and Bibi Dong slowly stepped out in her sumptuous papal robes.
Her exquisite face was covered in bitter frost, while a terrifying fury burned in her violet eyes.
"Your Holiness..." Qian Renxue rose instinctively, her body tensing on reflex. But she soon forced herself to calm down and stubbornly met Bibi Dong's gaze.
"So you still remember that I am the Pope?" Standing five meters away, Bibi Dong slammed her scepter against the floor with a dull thud. "Qian Renxue, I sent you to infiltrate Heaven Dou to seize the empire for Spirit Hall's grand undertaking."
"And what did you do? You slipped off to Suotuo City behind my back to cruise a lake and admire the snow with a man, then bid him a lingering farewell? Have you forgotten even your own surname?"
Faced with this head-on torrent of condemnation, Qian Renxue merely pressed her lips tightly together, neither arguing nor begging for mercy.
But deep within her brilliant golden eyes flashed profound shock and bewilderment.
How did she know?
Suotuo City was thousands of li from Spirit City. Even Spirit Hall's highest-level informants traveling day and night, or messages sent by carrier pigeon, could never have delivered the news to Spirit City so quickly, let alone allowed her to come here in person.
Uncertainty churned inside Qian Renxue as her mind raced.
Besides, never mind the lake cruise and snow, only a few of us were there for that lingering farewell outside the inn that night.
She was far away. How could she know even the details of our parting so clearly? It's practically as though she were pressed against my ear, eavesdropping.
Could an undetectable, top-tier informant have been hiding at my side and watching me all along?
Even if Qian Renxue turned every scrap of conventional wisdom on the Douluo Continent upside down, she could never have imagined that her lofty Pope mother possessed a Diary Instance identical to her own.
Facing Bibi Dong's thunderous wrath, Qian Renxue's gaze remained stubborn.
After all, she had heard far too much of this rhetoric and these reprimands throughout her life.
In the end, it was only another whipping. She had long since grown used to it.
She bore the vital mission of usurping the empire, after all. She knew perfectly well that however much Bibi Dong hated her, she could not truly kill her.
Yet beneath that numb stubbornness, Qian Renxue's heart bled.
How could there be a mother like this in the world?
Qian Renxue gave a miserable, bitter laugh inwardly.
This was the woman who had given her life.
Ever since childhood, she had desperately yearned to draw close to her, to receive a mother's embrace like any normal child, or even just a gentle word of approval.
Over the years, she had endured agonizing pain to strip away her feminine nature and disguise herself as a man, maneuvering with care at every step in this man-eating palace. How perfectly she had performed, how hard she had worked.
And what had she received? Always years upon years of cold indifference, or harsh condemnation at the slightest misstep.
"Do I disgust you that much?" Qian Renxue looked at the lofty woman five meters away, her eyes gradually reddening. Yet she gritted her teeth, like a hedgehog bristling with spines.
She used that cold, resistant stance to conceal the desperate longing for maternal love deep within her heart.
Seeing Qian Renxue's utterly unrepentant expression, her eyes even holding a measure of scrutiny and defiance, the suppressed, twisted rage and frenzied jealousy in Bibi Dong's heart erupted completely.
"Good. Very good. That lecher really has fed you a bewitching potion, to make you dare look at me like that."
Bibi Dong laughed in her fury. She abruptly strode two steps forward, instantly closing the original five-meter gap between them.
As the distance shrank sharply, Bibi Dong swept her right hand out, and a long whip condensed from violent purple-black Soul Power instantly took shape.
A piercing shriek tore through the air. The Soul Power whip, laden with the pressure of a Titled Douluo, lashed viciously toward Qian Renxue's slender shoulder like a venomous snake flicking its tongue.
Qian Renxue closed her eyes without dodging.
She knew she could not evade it. She merely waited, out of habit, for the searing agony of torn flesh.
Yet one second passed, then two, and the anticipated pain never came.
Humm.
Just as the Soul Power whip was about to touch the hem of Qian Renxue's clothes, the distance between them closed.
A strange golden ripple suddenly spread through the void.
The purple-black Soul Power whip, powerful enough to shatter a boulder, seemed to strike a wall of absolute law existing in a higher dimension. Without even a sound, it melted away like ice and snow an inch before Qian Renxue, dissolving into nothingness.
"What?" Bibi Dong's expression changed drastically, her violet pupils contracting sharply.
Not only she, but even Qian Renxue, who had been waiting for punishment with her eyes closed, opened her eyes in astonishment.
Before mother and daughter could recover from their shock, a majestic, icy mechanical notification, carrying an absolutely irresistible force, erupted in both their minds at once.
[Warning. Absolute law triggered!] [Detected a malicious attack between Diary Instance holders.] [The system's highest restriction has been activated: all Instance holders are in a state of absolute peace with one another. Harming one another in any form is strictly prohibited. The attack has been forcibly nullified.]
Along with this earth-shattering warning, another notification window abruptly appeared before both their retinas:
[Ding! Social System triggered: goddesses possessing Instances have been detected within one zhang of each other.] [Would you like to add each other as friends?] [Note: after successfully adding each other as friends, both parties will receive the Bond Bonus "Soul Power Purity Permanently +5%" and join "Xiong Shaoqing's Notes Instance Gossip Group" by default. Numerous features, including "Letter" and "Trading," will be unlocked.]
The entire chamber was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
Only the golden "Add friend" button in their minds kept pulsing wildly.
Chapter 71: Fleeing in Haste
Bibi Dong stood frozen like a clay statue or wooden carving, dumbly holding up her right hand, which still carried a trace of fluctuating Soul Power.
Her exquisite face, always cold, imposing, and confidently in control, was now filled with undisguisable horror.
An... Instance holder?
Towering waves surged through Bibi Dong's heart, countless thoughts colliding wildly in her mind.
The system said she's an Instance holder too. That means this unfilial daughter could read every Diary entry Xiong Shaoqing has written all this time.
Now she knows I've read the Diary, and I came charging here to call her to account...
This... this is nothing short of a joke.
Bibi Dong felt her cheeks burn as intense shame mingled with shock surged through her heart.
What she found even more inconceivable was that this strange Diary possessed an absolute law that surpassed her power as a Peak Douluo, forcibly stripping her of the right to attack Qian Renxue.
It had happened when she attacked Xiao Wu before, and now it had happened again with Qian Renxue.
If it had happened only once, she could have called it a coincidence. But now it had been confirmed again.
There truly was a power in this world that could directly erase her attacks.
Meanwhile, Qian Renxue was no less shaken than Bibi Dong.
She stared blankly at the golden panel displaying "Would you like to add each other as friends?" before looking up at her stunned mother, whose hand was even trembling slightly. The confusion in her eyes instantly became utter shock.
Her Holiness the Pope was actually an Instance holder too.
Qian Renxue's heart pounded wildly, her mind utterly blank.
Every unanswered question connected in that moment.
No wonder she knew every detail of what happened in Suotuo City.
No wonder she even knew all about that "lingering farewell."
There was never any informant. It was because she could also read the Diary entries Brother Xiong wrote.
Then doesn't that mean everything Brother Xiong wrote about me in his diary, about how he willingly suffered injury to protect me, about all his restraint and deep affection toward me in the Diary...
The Pope knew it all.
She hadn't received an informant's report at all. She'd read the Diary and seen how well Brother Xiong treated me. That was why she'd flown into a thunderous rage and rushed through the night over countless miles to Heaven Dou City to whip me.
Less than one zhang apart, mother and daughter stared at each other in the dim chamber.
In the air, that golden "Would you like to add each other as friends?" notification window looked unbearably glaring.
Bibi Dong remained rooted to the spot, her exquisite face alternating between livid and pale.
She, the dignified Pope of Spirit Hall, had charged over furiously to demand an accounting, only to be forcibly disarmed by this strange system before her whip could land. It was even forcing her head down and demanding she add this unfilial daughter as a friend.
Utter bewilderment and embarrassment pinned Bibi Dong to the spot. Her lofty pride made it impossible for her to lower herself and speak at a time like this.
Watching Bibi Dong's stiff, restrained expression, Qian Renxue soon recovered from her initial shock.
She understood this woman's arrogance all too well. Even if the sky fell, the Pope could never lose face.
"Your Holiness..."
Qian Renxue drew a deep breath and was the first to break the suffocating silence.
Before you continue