160: Chapter 160 Marshal Zhennan! Valkyrie! Are my parents characters from textbooks?!

The Shen family study.

It was less of a study and more like a small military archives room.

There were no traditional writing tools, only metal cabinets reaching the ceiling, plastered with labels of various security clearance levels.

Kong Ming stood in front of a massive star map, his long silver hair cascading to his waist.

The star map was marked with countless bright and dim points of light, a few of which were circled in bright red.

Shen Qingci stood behind him, her gaze sweeping over those red markings one by one.

She was silent for a moment before asking softly, "Uncle Kong Ming, the training... why now?"

Kong Ming did not answer directly; he traced a line through the air, and a holographic projection unfolded.

In the Federation's top ten trending list, Su Ming occupied six spots alone.

Tongyuan Society attacks Jiangcheng No. 1 High School. Su Ming solo kills a Tier 7 Scorpion King. A Tier 8 Void Dark Spider flees with a severed limb. Six top universities fighting madly over one person... The whole screen was filled with his name.

Kong Ming switched pages again and logged into an encrypted dark web account. The Tongyuan Society wanted list. Number one on the list. Bounty: 10 billion Federation Credits. Additional reward: A fragment of Space Element.

Shen Qingci's pupils constricted. 10 billion. That was the entire GDP of Jiangcheng for a year.

"The boy by your side is more eye-catching than anyone else right now."

Kong Ming turned off the projection. "The entire Federation's gaze is fixed on him. This means no one will notice you!"

He turned around, his silver eyes watching Shen Qingci calmly. "Your father has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time."

"He originally planned to wait until your fourth year to unseal it. But Su Ming's appearance disrupted his plans and also gave him an opportunity."

Shen Qingci caught the keyword. "Unseal?" She frowned. "My dad has been... suppressing my strength all this time?"

Kong Ming shook his head. "It's not suppression. It is a Seal."

Shen Qingci's breath hitched. "The Geng Metal Blade Bone within you is your mother's Bloodline Legacy."

Kong Ming spoke slowly, as if stating a long-past fact. "You didn't just Awaken at eighteen. The day you were born, the Blade Bone had already autonomously formed."

For humans in the Federation, Awakening at eighteen is an iron rule. What did it mean to be Awakened at birth?

"Your Aptitude rating is at least SSS." Shen Qingci froze completely. An SS-Rank Geng Metal Blade Bone was already a top-tier talent that could Rank in the top forty of the heavenly pride ranking. SSS...?

"If such an Aptitude were exposed, it wouldn't bring olive branches from academies." Kong Ming's voice was very faint. "It would be kidnappings and assassinations by evil forces, live experiments by the Tongyuan Society, and so on. Your father had too much to do at the time and couldn't stay by your side at all times."

"So, he used his Rank 9 power to set a Restriction within you, sealing away most of the Blade Bone's power. The Restriction gradually unlocks as your strength grows—your current strength is just the tip of the iceberg of this talent."

Shen Qingci stood there, feeling a bit confused. "Is he... afraid that I'm too strong?"

Kong Ming glanced at her. He was silent for two seconds before speaking slowly. "What he fears... is that you are too much like your mother."

...

This sentence was like a needle, precisely piercing a soft corner of Shen Qingci's heart. Mother.

Shen Qingci's shoulders stiffened imperceptibly. In her memories, her mother's image was blurry; she only vaguely remembered seeing an electronic photo when she was a child, where her mother's smile was very gentle.

Her father, Shen Hongyuan, never brought her up voluntarily. Every time she asked, her father would either walk away in silence or use even harsher training to change the subject.

She only knew that her mother was a very powerful soldier who had sacrificed herself during a mission.

"My mother..." Shen Qingci gritted her teeth and asked the question that had been dwelling in her heart for eighteen years. "...Did she die?"

Her voice was very light, the tail end almost dissipating into the air.

Something surged in Kong Ming's silver eyes for a moment. Pain, reminiscence, and also reluctance.

He looked at the face before him, which was seventy percent similar to a certain woman in his memories, and was silent for a long time. Finally, he spoke. "Her name was... Luo Qingyi."

A buzzing sound went off in Shen Qingci's brain, and she couldn't hear anything anymore. Luo Qingyi. A must-learn point in the Federation's history textbooks.

Just a few short lines, yet she possessed a title that could make the entire Federation tremble—the only valkyrie in the entire Federation.

A legend who held the dark Source Abyss alone for thirty years, carving out a golden path of development for the Human Race.

She... was her mother? The woman who only existed in her blurry memories, with a gentle smile, was that Rank 9 valkyrie who had slaughtered her way through the entire Source Abyss?

Shen Qingci opened her mouth, but found she couldn't make a sound.

Kong Ming didn't give her time to digest it and continued, his tone as calm as if he were narrating a history unrelated to himself. "Eighteen years ago, shortly after your mother gave birth to you. The Federation military received news... In a high-dimensional ruin deep in the Star Domain, a stone tablet covered in ancient runes was discovered."

"That stone tablet was not built by Source Beasts, nor was it the work of humans. It came from a civilization older than the Source Abyss, perhaps one that had long since vanished in the river of time."

Kong Ming walked to the star map and pointed his finger at a dim star point that was almost about to extinguish. "The content recorded on the stone tablet was a forbidden Legacy called the 'Ancient Star Remains Method'. The origin of life, the ultimate evolutionary path... That was a core secret that could rewrite the fate of the Human Race."

"But... the news leaked." Kong Ming's tone suddenly turned cold. "The high-level officials of the Divine Court Empire, in order to seize that secret leading to 'becoming a god', leaked the coordinates of the ruin to the Tongyuan Society."

Divine Court Empire. Tongyuan Society. Shen Qingci's nails dug into her palms. The former was an old opponent that constantly clashed with the Federation at the borders of the Star Domain, and the latter was a malignant tumor that had infiltrated the Federation and committed all sorts of crimes. These two forces had actually colluded long ago.

"When your mother returned with the rubbing of the stone tablet, they made their move." "Several Councilors of the Tongyuan Society set up a death array at the exit of the ruin. The fleet of the Divine Court Empire blockaded the entire Star Domain."

Shen Qingci could almost see that scene. A woman who had just become a mother, in the depths of the isolated Star Sea, facing the siege of two top forces alone.

"What about my father?" she blurted out.

"Your father was guarding the Abyss crack on the other side at the time and couldn't get away." Kong Ming said, "Military communications were completely jammed. By the time he forcibly tore through space and arrived..."

"The ruin had already been mostly destroyed. Everyone had disappeared." "Your mother, the fleet of the Divine Court Empire, the Councilors of the Tongyuan Society... all were gone without a trace."

A flash of confusion crossed Kong Ming's eyes. "Your father went to the ruins several times and finally discovered a residual power that didn't belong to any side." "A trace of... 'anti-gravity matrix' strike." "That is definitely not a technology that the Tongyuan Society and the Divine Court Empire could master."

He looked at Shen Qingci, enunciating every word. "We suspect that there was a fourth force involved at the time. A higher-dimensional... alien civilization!"

Shen Qingci's brain was about to overload. So the world she had lived in since childhood was nothing more than a 'newbie village' built by her father for her. So the real world was hundreds of times darker and more cruel than she had imagined.

"So..." her voice was hoarse, "my mother..." "She didn't die in battle?"

Kong Ming gave the final answer. "Your father found a space beacon belonging to your mother at the scene. The last flashing signal pointed to an unknown, twisted Void Realm."

"We speculate... she detonated the core of the ruin at the last moment, dragging all the enemies into the spatial turbulence." "She is just... lost outside the Star Domain." "One day, she will return..." Kong Ming's voice was light, but carried an unquestionable firmness.

Not dead. Just lost. Shen Qingci's tense body finally relaxed a little. Her eyes burned, and eighteen years of grievances and longing welled up, almost breaking the dam on the spot. She forcibly held it back. She was Luo Qingyi's daughter. A valkyrie's daughter could not cry easily.

"After this battle, your father returned and announced his retirement to the public, living in seclusion in Jiangcheng." "The Federation's high-level officials knew they were in the wrong, and coupled with the continued threat of the Divine Court Empire and the Tongyuan Society, they classified this matter as top secret."

"More than a decade has passed, and people only remember that there is a 'Master Shen' in Jiangcheng who dares to walk sideways in the Imperial Capital..." Kong Ming paused for a moment. "But they have forgotten the... Marshal of the South from back then!"

Shen Qingci was nailed to the spot. Her father! Was actually... the Marshal of the South!

How could she not know him? When the teacher played documentaries in class during her childhood, all the girls in the class would scream, and she was the loudest! The legendary Marshal who was deified in his youth, unrivaled in the Space Element, holding the frontier alone, settling ten thousand enemies with a laugh. The universally recognized most perfect military role model in the Federation. A top-tier idol for decades across the entire web. The cover person for all Military University recruitment promotional videos. Who knows how many people applied to military academies because of that face!

But her father, Shen Hongyuan... spent all year squatting at the entrance of the Scrap Yard, hair graying, face full of stubble, drinking tea and rolling walnuts all day, looking exactly like a gatekeeper whose edges had been smoothed out by time.

"This..." her voice was dry, "impossible."

Kong Ming raised his hand and traced lightly in the Void Realm, silver-white spatial ripples spreading out. An image appeared. A figure standing tall, brows like knives, the star general's cloak rustling, a war blade hanging at his waist. Wherever his gaze landed, the air trembled.

"Your father is a Rank 9 Space Element Awakened. Changing his appearance is something he can do with a snap of his fingers." "All these years, he has been showing himself with a false face. To let you grow up safely."

Shen Qingci's brain went blank, and countless childhood memories surged up. She turned and rushed to her childhood room, rummaging through boxes and cabinets, and pulled out an old, yellowed photo from the deepest part of the bookshelf.

The paper was slightly faded, but it couldn't hide the peerless elegance of the people in the picture. The man on the left, with sword-like brows and starry eyes, wearing a gilded star general's cloak, was wrapped in the biting sharpness of a hundred battles. The woman beside him, in white clothes whiter than snow, held a sharp war blade across her chest, her brows and eyes cold and fierce, her bearing peerless. This was a photo of the Marshal of the South and the valkyrie.

Shen Qingci remembered that when she was a child, she would hold this photo and stare at it, mesmerized. Her father would always lean over from the side, pouting and muttering: "What's so good about it? Neither of them is as handsome as me."

She had rolled her eyes to the back of her head at the time: "Dad, you narcissist! Comparing your looks to the Marshal? Are you serious?" Shen Hongyuan hadn't said anything then. His expression carried a bit of grievance, but also some pride.

But she never dreamed—that the legendary war god she looked up to every day was the biological father she had mistaken for an ordinary Scrap Yard owner for eighteen years.

"You are all terrible, you all lied to me!" She finally understood. She understood why her father always had a 'stay away' attitude. She understood why he tested Su Ming in every way while secretly protecting him. She understood where that unyielding pride in her bones came from.

To protect his daughter, to search for his missing wife, the former Marshal of the South willingly shed his military uniform, hid his sharpness, lived in the city for decades, and lived as the most ordinary person. The daughter of the valkyrie, the descendant of the Marshal of the South. At this moment, she was crying uncontrollably.

...

Kong Ming walked out of the study, and the silver-white spatial crack closed silently behind him. He didn't return to his room but dived into the depths of the Void Realm—no light, no people, only endless darkness and silence.

Then he squatted down, hugged his knees, and cried silently. His silver hair fell, covering that face which was unrealistically handsome. His shoulders shook, and repressed, intermittent sobs came from his throat.

A Tier 8 Imperial-level Source Beast, having lived for who knows how many years, having seen the shattering of the Star Sea and the changing of civilizations, was now crying just like an abandoned puppy.

"Wuwuwu, silly child..." he muttered, his voice hoarse, "Lying to you is because Master doesn't know how to face you yet. Every time he sees your face, he thinks of Mistress!"

He thought of Shen Hongyuan's last eighteen years. Sitting alone in the courtyard, drinking tea, rolling walnuts, staring blankly. Not speaking, not crying, not laughing. Sometimes sitting for a whole day, the teacup cooling and being refilled, refilled and cooling again.

He thought no one saw him. But Kong Ming saw it. He saw him secretly standing by her bed after Qingci fell asleep, standing there for half the night.

He saw him go to the back mountain alone every Qingming Festival, speaking to an empty direction. Saying that Qingci had grown taller this year, saying her temper was becoming more and more like hers, saying she had won a fight with a classmate but he pretended to be angry...

He saw him occasionally take out that yellowed photo, look at it for a very long time, then put it away as if nothing happened, and continue rolling his walnuts. ...

Kong Ming buried his face in his knees and cried even harder. "Master has hated himself for eighteen years..." he choked out, "If it weren't for guarding that damned crack, he would definitely have gone with Mistress... He thought there would be enough time, thought Mistress was so strong that she would be fine... He was wrong, and this mistake lasted a lifetime..."

The more he cried, the more aggrieved he felt, and finally he simply lay down, floating in the Void Realm spread-eagled. "Wuwuwu... Damn it! Why do I, a Source Beast, have to manage your human affairs! Wuwuwu! Ahhh, I don't want to manage it, I'm also just a child! I won't manage it anymore...!"

Deep in the Void Realm, no one answered him. Kong Ming finished crying, turned over, and curled into a ball, his silver tail unconsciously emerging from under his clothes.

He muttered softly, as if speaking to himself, and also as if speaking to that distant, twisted Void Realm that led to who knows where. "Mistress, please come back soon." "If you don't come back, Master is going to drive me crazy too..." "...Please!" ...