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Meng Fuyao yelled and dashed towards the mountain of ice without hesitation. Without reservation, she delivered an attack, and the two collided with a bang. They rolled across the floor as Meng Fuyao struggled to get out of Zong Yue's tight embrace. The floor that they rolled over cracked into pieces as trees started falling due to her inner energy. Zong Yue hugged her, protecting her from the falling trees as well as preventing her from harming herself. As a result, Zong Yue was badly injured.

With a purple flash, Zhangsun Wuji appeared, ready to pull Meng Fuyao back up.

”Don't!” Zong Yue stopped him urgently.

In a single instant, he was already heavily injured by Meng Fuyao's inner energy. His white outfit was stained with fresh red blood, yet his eyes were still clear and bright, stopping Zhangsun Wuji's help.

As he hugged Meng Fuyao rolling about, enduring her inner attacks, he quickly pulled out the golden needles and applied acupuncture onto her. Meanwhile, Zhangsun Wuji protected the two by redirecting the falling trees away from them.

Meng Fuyao continued struggling and rolling about. Other than Zong Yue, one of the best physicians in the world, no one else would be able to accurately apply acupuncture for her in such a berserk state. He had to bear the repeated attacks, risking his life just for the very second she would pause between these attacks. Making use of that break, he would accurately insert the needle. One needle after another, Meng Fuyao finally calmed down.

She gradually calmed down. The inner energy, as if alive, slowly went back into her body. This energy, compared to previously, was thicker and stronger that resembled a jade from afar.

She had leveled up.

In that moment, she had managed to convert the power from the medicine Zong Yue had given her back then and broken through the two levels consecutively, directly entering the seventh level and third section. She was not far from reaching the eighth level.

Of course, Zong Yue's sacrifice played a very big role in this success. As he hugged Meng Fuyao, not only did he have to apply acupuncture for her, he still had to transfer his inner energy while she attacked him, making up for the deficit that her inner energy had, protecting her as she was breaking through.

Meng Fuyao collapsed on the floor and slowly controlled her inner energy. Zong Yue went into a coughing fit but rejected Zhangsun Wuji's offer to help up. Slowly, he climbed back up.

He sat there in a daze for a while. Then, he broke the silence: ”… She… really is?”

Zhangsun Wuji turned away as if he could not bear to answer.

The two sat in the devastated surroundings quietly. One coughed quietly, while the other craned his head back and stared at the moon. The one coughing coughed out mouthfuls of blood, while the one watching the moon stared on with a face of melancholy and pain.

Meng Fuyao continued laying on the floor. ”You two can go,” Meng Fuyao said wearily, completely fatigued.

In that silence, Meng Fuyao closed her eyes. She no longer wanted to say anything nor ask anything.

She did not want to ask what happened after her mother had left. She had been forced away by the monsters in her memories that she had refused to confront. Instinctively, she had woken up, running away from the tragic ending.

She did not want to ask why Zhangsun Wuji hadn't returned back then. What was there to ask? It was but her fate.

Her life, one that was admired and looked up to by the entire Five Regions Continent—leader of the three states, King Meng, Preceptor of Xuanyuan. This was how the life of the brilliant, glorious Meng Fuyao actually was.

Filled with darkness, pain, and despair.

”Don't kill—”

The beast-like howls continued. Old Lu, awakened by Zong Yue, did not know that in this instant, not far away, the child he had abused in the darkness, looked up.

He was just confused, his memories murky. The color of blood dyed the earth and the sky as the memories of his recent years faded, leaving only the unerasable memories from 14 years ago… That little girl in the dark… The tender and soft skin… The child secretly given birth by the maid Xu Wan and who had been found out by the Empress… The torture of ”grooming” where a metal brush, soaked in boiling water, would be dragged across a person's skin, exposing the bones beneath… That pair of bloodshot eyes watching everything from the cupboard.

That pair of eyes were red like burning charcoal, bearing no form of resemblance to a five-year-old child. Rather, it looked like a thousand-year demon being imprisoned in the Nine Serenities Ηell, with the world's hate and pain carved in her eyes. That burning charcoal scalded him, torturing his mind, slowly chipping away the last of his sanity.

In this moment, he saw that pair of eyes again.

Blood red, charcoal black. Those chilling, deadly eyes.

Meng Fuyao's eyes.

The moment she saw Old Lu, she jolted up. With a flash, she transversed across many miles and then, her hand had already stabbed through Old Lu's chest.

The wind howled and then fell silent once more. The girl's plain dress fluttered with the wind as if one was mourning with α white flag.

The dress swayed in the wind, but her body and fingers remained unmoved, firmly stabbing into Old Lu's chest.

In the dark night, two living statues.

After a long time, Old Lu's lips broke into a smile. A smile of relief.