Chapter 72: Off To Slay The Emperor |
Outside the mirror.
All the cultivators fell silent.
Even though they had expected this long ago, when they finally confirmed that the little fox was dead, the moment they heard the little fox’s final message for the Heavenly Emperor.
Their hearts could not help but well up with endless grief and pain.
Their hearts were greatly stirred!
“Did the rest of you hear that? The little fox said just now that her name is…Bai Su,” just then, someone spoke up.
That remark was met with the agreement of many others.
In that moment, many of them looked in shock toward the Qingqiu Empress.
This was too coincidental! It was almost unbelievable!
Bai Su herself was reeling in shock and did not even notice the stares. She couldn’t help but murmur repeatedly to herself, unable to process what just happened.
“How can it be? How can it be? Why is her name Bai Su too?”
“Does she just happen to have the same name?”
But even she dared not believe that.
“That’s definitely impossible!”
“How can she be me?! I’ve been looked upon kindly by the Heavenly Dao and I have never suffered any curse before.”
“And I’ve definitely not shared such a past with the Heavenly Emperor!”
“And I would definitely never try to rescue the nemesis of my Demon Race!”
“There’s something wrong with the memories of the Heavenly Emperor! That’s definitely it! That’s definitely it!”
Bai Su’s expression was one of shock and horror as she continued murmuring to herself in disbelief. She couldn’t believe the woman in the mirror might be herself.
But even so, she still felt goosebumps all over herself.
It was simply too coincidental! Everything was just too much of a coincidence!
Buzz after buzz resounded in her head suddenly. Fragments of her memory and vague images began to slowly flash in her mind.
Bai Su clutched her head with pain written on her face. Her state of mind had actually been thrown into some confusion.
“Empress Bai, are you alright?”
Ye Chen had chosen a very appropriate time to ask after her, but he was completely ignored by Bai Su.
His expression looked a little awkward.
And when he noticed the look on Bai Su’s face, a bad feeling arose in his heart.
If that little fox was really Bai Su, then he was going to lose it.
One Gu Youwei had already rebelled and Jiang Minghuang’s vengeful heart had wavered too. If even Empress Bai switched sides and stood on the Heavenly Emperor’s side…
The Justice Alliance was going to be in chaos!!
“Impossible!”
“It definitely can’t be Bai Su! At most, they just happen to share the same name and looks, that’s all.”
“That’s all, that’s all…”
Even Ye Chen was beginning to feel panicky as he kept trying to console himself like this.
…
Inside the mirror
Gu Changqing just remained seated by the bonfire.
The image projected from the crystal pendant had already dissipated.
His head felt terrible pain, as though a thousand bolts of lightning had struck it at the same time.
In that moment, he felt that everything had just been a dream.
The little fox wasn’t dead.
The image he saw earlier was just his imagination.
“It’s just my imagination. That’s right, it’s just my imagination. How could she be dead? I was the one…who brought her back to life.”
“She’s probably just run off to play and got distracted.”
“Oh! She loves eating fish, so she must have gone somewhere to catch fish.”
“I’ll wait for her. I’ll wait for her to come back.”
He sat listlessly and expressionlessly in front of the fire with no tears or sign of sorrow on his face, like an old Daoist that had transcended any form of human emotion.
…
“So…the Heavenly Emperor doesn’t intend to avenge the little fox?”
Outside the mirror, the cultivators couldn’t help but get angry at the way Gu Changqing was behaving.
They thought that the death of the little fox would surely drive him insane!
But instead, the Heavenly Emperor was calmer than ever before.
The little fox in that final projection had her face covered in tears when she delivered her final message.
Many of the young female cultivators watching from outside the mirror felt their eyes reddened too.
Yet this Heavenly Emperor never shed a tear throughout.
This was very different compared to how hysterical he had been when he found Gu Youwei dead inside the mass grave back then.
“Perhaps the little fox really never held a special place in the Heavenly Emperor’s heart. After all, she’s a demon and perhaps he never saw her as an equal right form the start,” suggested one of the cultivators.
“But inside the Forbidden Zone, the Heavenly Emperor fought the crocodile ancestor, defeated the nine Supremes and used all sorts of techniques that required tremendous amounts of power for the sake of breaking the little fox’s bloodline curse, without any regard for how much injury he had to suffer in the process. I don’t think any of that was just for show,” another cultivator stood up for Gu Changqing.
“Perhaps all of that had been sincere efforts, and perhaps he’s really sad now. But it doesn’t look like he has any desire to take revenge!” muttered one cultivator with a sigh, his gaze filled with disappointment with the Heavenly Emperor.
“I think so too. The Heavenly Emperor is an extremely intelligent character with great foresight and meticulous thoughts.”
“Perhaps the old Golden Crow that the little fox mentioned is a Great Emperor existence. He’s not good enough right now to offend someone like that.”
“So even though he’s filled with sorrow right now, it’s possible that based on rational thought, the Heavenly Emperor will just swallow his hatred right now and take revenge only after he reaches Great Emperor.”
The cultivators sighed among themselves.
That did sound like the kind of thing the Heavenly Emperor would do.
After all, it would be impossible for an impatient or rash person to become a Heavenly Emperor.
Once he weighed the pros and cons, the choice would be obvious. Instead of sending himself to his grave right now, it would be a much better option to level up.
Better late than never – surely the Heavenly Emperor understood that.
“Haven’t any of you noticed? The Heavenly Emperor is so calm, it’s a little terrifying?” someone suddenly spoke up.
If nobody had said so, they wouldn’t have noticed. They now felt an eeriness crawling across their skin.
That’s right, an eeriness.
The Heavenly Emperor’s reaction was simply too strange.
Regardless of whether he wanted to take revenge or not, the little fox’s death should have triggered some sort of hysterical response as a way to vent his emotions.
But there was none of that. He just sat there, unmoving. As though he had no idea that the little fox had died.
…
The sky lit up as the sun rose.
The warm sunshine covered the people in the world below.
This warm sunshine also forced Gu Changqing to snap back to reality.
The bonfire had already been reduced to nothing but ashes.
The sun in the sky was glaringly brilliant.
Gu Changqing stretched his arms out and felt the warmth of the sun. Everything felt so real.
He turned his head.
He stared at the huge waterfall, then at the huge tree that lay horizontally at the top of the waterfall.
That familiar person still had not come back.
Gu Changqing picked up the crystal pendant on the ground. The crack lines on it as well as his own senses of everything around him told him one very cruel truth.
None of that had been a dream.
The little fox was really dead.
The woman who had once warmed his heart had completely disappeared from this world.
Gu Changqing slowly got up.
That beautiful voice slowly echoed in his head.
“The fact that one out of two people with such tragic fates manages to survive, is a wonderful thing already.”
“Changqing, will you forget me?”
Gu Changqing turned to look at the fallen tree behind him. The playful girl who used to sit on it and play with the water with her bare feet was gone forever.
He leaped into the heavens with one stomp and left without turning back.
“Off to slay the Emperor!”