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That kind of faint rising and falling, as though he was just tapping his hand unintentionally, an action that was as faint as a butterfly landing on a flower, or a slight wind rippling the water. Nobody noticed the relentless struggle within the person's heart.

Finally, Zhangsun Wuji slowly let go.

He closed his eyes. Nobody could hear the long, melancholic sigh within his heart.

Once he let go, Bagu returned to normal, looking as though he had forgotten that he was frantically struggling just a few moments earlier. He opened his eyes and looked at Meng Fuyao, suddenly saying, ”So what if you see it? It's the same as not seeing.”

”That's my business!” Meng Fuyao tightened her grip on her sword and swallowed the blood in her mouth as she roared, ”If you want to die, then hurry up!”

Her state of mind was already slightly off, even getting her words wrong. Bagu straightened his neck as though intending to rebel, staring at Meng Fuyao with a fiery expression, but eventually he said, ”Given my abilities, I can only show you for a very short amount of time.”

”Deal!” Meng Fuyao felt extremely frustrated, her insides squirming as though they were forcefully being kneaded together. She felt excruciating pain as though she was being torn apart and she clenched her teeth, refusing to pass out within the next moment. She hadn't seen what she had been fighting to see yet, how could she pass out before that?

The two of them were locked in a stalemate in the middle of the palace, and nobody knew what they were doing, thinking that Meng Fuyao was again displaying her strange habit like the time when she defeated Xuanyuan Yun and began to laugh at her.

Fourth Prince Feng received the brocade that the eunuch had picked up and leaned against the armrest of his throne as he turned to Princess Lotus and laughed. ”This Meng Fuyao is indeed formidable. You mentioned that you two have met?”

”It should be him.” Princess Lotus stared fixedly at Meng Fuyao, saying, ”This was easy to recognize, but Big Brother, you know that I specialize in distinguishing human scents. When he walked past me earlier, the scent I picked up was the same as the person who saved me back at Dade Temple.”

”Then after you leave the stage you'll have to go thank him,” Fourth Prince Feng said, ”Such a talent will definitely be known throughout the world after today's battle. You should make use of this chance to build your network earlier.”

”Whatever Big Brother says so.” Then, Princess Lotus rubbed her lips, laughing. ”Such a person, how could I not meet?”

Her laugh was cold. It carried the high quality of a lotus floating above the water, its stalk swaying slightly, casting a thousand brilliant rays, ever-shifting, and within the numerous folds of leaves, nobody noticed the dewdrops that rolled off quietly.

That familiar scent… It actually appeared on a person it should not appear on!

Bagu finally faced Meng Fuyao once again and opened his palms.

With the blink of his ”eyes”, the sinister light appeared again.

The mysterious forbidden technique split open a slit in space-time and the scroll of an alternate universe slowly unraveled.

It was still that sick room, still the same evening colors, the yellow glow of dusk reflecting against white bedding, reflecting against her mother's white hair. Her mother's gaze was focused; she was reading a book.

That book was extremely old, dirty and already curling at the edges. The cover was filled with flowers and trees, as well as a crooked little duck, badly drawn beyond comparison.

A row of extremely ugly words were written beside the duck, varying in different sizes: 'Meng Fuyao's book, whoever steals it will be beaten'.

In that instant, Meng Fuyao's tears erupted.

That was her book, 'The Little Prince', the only children's book she ever had in her childhood. Her mother had bought it for her after working overtime for a month, and she had treasured it as though it were pearls and jewels, flipping through it countless times every day and even adding her own mark. Her mother had told her to draw a dragon since she was born in the year of the dragon, but she didn't like it since dragons looked like earthworms. She liked fluffy ducks instead and hence decided that she would be born in the year of the duck from then on.

Afraid that others would steal it, she even added a few words. If she didn't remember wrongly, at the part where her mother's finger was covering, was a skull and the words written in red—Curse, whoever steals will be poisoned to death.

Several bottles were drawn beside the skull—'Poison', 'Must Die'.

Ah… Since young, her personality was that ruthless…

Meng Fuyao snorted through her tears. The book she was looking at seemed older than the one in her memories, its broken edges having been carefully mended over. It also looked rather delicate. The book probably had been touched multiple times by her mother, and its corners were smooth and shiny. She watched as her mother's fingers tenderly trace over that ugly duck.

The hand was withered and bony, sickly pale with its joints poking out against the skin which was covered with the remnant scars of needles.

Meng Fuyao reached out with trembling hands, wanting to hold onto those hands which she had not seen for eighteen years, yet where she touched turned into fragments of broken light and the image of her mother began to shake. She hurriedly retracted her hands, not daring to ruin this scene.

They were so close, yet she couldn't touch anything.

Her mother was still looking at the duck, her eyes filled with affection, as though she was seeing her little daughter sitting in front of her, tittering away as she drew. The unique scent belonging only to her daughter would remain lingering even after so many years.

The hand touching the duck suddenly reached forward tentatively as though she could feel the silhouette of her daughter.

Yet, she too couldn't touch anything.

Separated by time and space, a pair of mother and daughter passed each other by.

Meng Fuyao's tears finally fell from her eyes, streaming down her face and mixing with the bloodstains on the corner of her mouth, turning pink as it fell onto her shirt collar.

The Little Prince said—it is precisely because you spent so much time nurturing your rose that she became so famous and precious.

And it was precisely because it was so difficult persevering through those eighteen years that Meng Fuyao's tears fell unceasingly at that moment.

The entire palace had gone silent as though everyone had lost their voices. They did not understand what Meng Fuyao was doing; they could only see her standing fixedly in front of Bagu and suddenly burst into tears. They stared at her suspiciously, yet when they saw her expression they were struck with such an incomprehensible sorrow that they couldn't help but remain silent.