91: Chapter 91 Fireworks are going off in her head

...A certain point in the Void Realm.

That focal point pierced through the Light Cocoon, pierced through the viscous swamp of information, as if falling toward a coordinate that did not exist in this place at all.

Shen Xiao did not move.

He even deliberately slowed the depth of his breathing, keeping the rise and fall of his chest at a steady, almost death-like frequency.

The ice fragment at his fingertips had its faint glow suppressed until only a thread-like hint of blue remained, pressed tightly against the skin of his palm, like a piece of cold, thin ice that could shatter at any moment.

He was observing.

Not observing her eyes, but observing the slightest twitch of every muscle on her face, and how the light gathered and dispersed in the depths of her pupils.

That was not the reaction one should have after receiving a massive amount of information.

Too quiet, so quiet it was like the final deathly silence before boiling.

The hand Xia Lengbai had been using to grab her own chest had let go, but her five fingers remained slightly curled, maintaining the shape of a hooked claw.

Beneath her lapel, those dark patterns had already faded, leaving only a few deep creases in her clothing, silently telling of the strength she had just used.

She maintained her head-tilted posture, locking onto Shen Xiao.

That gaze was no longer the previous confusion, fanaticism, or the painful emptiness when enduring the impact.

It became extremely "clear."

A clarity that had stripped away most emotions, leaving only the most core, cold "cognition" and "confirmation."

Like a scanner, it read, archived, and analyzed every detail of him: the composure he deliberately maintained beneath his pale complexion, the tension in the knuckles hidden in his sleeves, the center of gravity he had slightly shifted back, and even the vigilant glimmer of the System Silver Pattern within his Dantian that he was struggling to suppress but still leaked out.

Then, the arc of the corners of her mouth finally stabilized.

No longer the previous twitching or flashing away.

It stayed there, a standard, perhaps even beautiful arc.

But combined with her gaze at this moment, it only made one's whole body go cold.

In that smile, there was not a shred of warmth.

What it had was the cold pleasure after a sudden realization, the satisfaction of a puzzle finally finding its most critical piece, the thrill mixed with cruelty and anticipation that a hunter feels when looking at prey that has finally stepped into a carefully laid trap.

But what made the alarm bells in Shen Xiao's heart ring the loudest was, beneath that layer of ice, a trace of almost imperceptible... twisted dependence.

Like a drowning person who has finally grabbed a piece of thorny driftwood, knowing it will cause bleeding, yet refusing to let go even in death.

"So that's it..."

Xia Lengbai spoke.

Her voice was no longer ethereal, nor was it cold.

It became flat, lacking inflection, like machine-synthesized syllables, yet because of the pressure of some extreme emotion, it carried a subtle, almost inaudible tremor.

"...It's you."

Two words, light and airy.

Yet they were like two cold magnets, precisely adhering to the invisible barrier around Shen Xiao, emitting a harsh buzzing sound that only he could perceive.

A silver light flashed rapidly in the depths of Shen Xiao's pupils, then instantly vanished.

His expression remained unchanged, he simply raised his lowered eyelids slightly, meeting Xia Lengbai's ice-blue, bottomless eyes with a calm gaze.

"Me?" His voice was hoarse, carrying the weakness of an unhealed serious injury, his tone mixed with just the right amount of confusion, "Miss Xia, what did you see?"

He did not retreat, nor did he circulate his spiritual power; he merely maintained the posture of a "barely standing wounded man," hiding the ice fragment in his palm further into his sleeve.

Probing.

He had to probe what she had "interpreted" and to what extent.

The smile on Xia Lengbai's face did not change in the slightest; it even deepened a little.

She slowly turned around, facing Shen Xiao completely. The layer of ice-blue light around her had long since dissipated, leaving only the Tomb Guardian Seal flickering faintly between her brows, the frequency of its light gradually synchronizing with her terrifyingly steady heartbeat.

She floated a small step closer.

The movement was light and slow, yet carried an unquestionable sense of oppression.

"I saw the heavenly dao chessboard place the First Child."

She said flatly, as if reciting a cold document that had just been recorded into her mind,

"I saw 'emotional stripping' become the cornerstone of rule construction. I saw... how 'variables' were marked, guided, harvested... and finally, became the nutrients for the maturation of the 'Fruit of Heavenly Mandate'."

Her gaze traced Shen Xiao's face inch by inch, from the undried cold sweat on his temples, to his tightly pursed lips, and finally, resting on his slightly contracting pupils.

"I also saw..."

She suddenly paused, and in that flat tone, extremely abruptly, leaked a trace of an almost uncontrollable, high-pitched tremor, like a string stretched to its limit.

"A 'variable'."

"Someone who should have been in the North Sea Ice Abyss, used as a stepping stone by Lin Yun, and discarded after his last bit of value was squeezed out... a cannon fodder."

"He survived. Not only did he survive, but he also snatched away the 'millennium cold marrow' that should have belonged to Lin Yun, plundered 'my' Heavenly Mandate points and part of my memories... From then on, the trajectory of fate shifted."

In that instant, Shen Xiao's heart felt as if it had been gripped by an invisible ice hand.

It was not fear, but a cold realization that the shoe had finally dropped.

She saw it.

Those memory fragments not only let her know the truth about the Heavenly Dao, but also allowed her... to connect all the key nodes he had changed after his Transmigration!

The Consciousness Entity's anxious mental fluctuations swept over again:

"Very good... continue... deepen... interpret... how the 'variable' interferes with... the Heavenly Dao process..."

It seemed a bit satisfied with Xia Lengbai's "progress," but the urgency remained.

However, Xia Lengbai still ignored it.

All her attention, her morbid and focused gaze, was firmly nailed to Shen Xiao.

"So, Shen Xiao..."

She gently whispered this name, her tongue seemingly savoring some forbidden fruit, carrying a scalp-tingling tenderness and malice,

"...Is that 'millennium cold marrow' easy to use?"

"The memory fragments you 'took' from me... how does it feel to piece them together?"

"Watching Lin Yun fail time and time again, missing the Opportunity that should have belonged to him... in your heart, aren't you very proud?"

With every question she asked, she floated an inch closer.

A cold aura, mixed with the strange smell of rust and old paper ash left over after the torrent of memories washed over, rushed toward him.

Shen Xiao did not answer.

He just lowered his gaze slightly, looking at the distance of less than three feet between them.

For a Cultivator, this distance was already an extremely dangerous range.

The internal injuries churning within his body, and the sluggish feedback from the System due to environmental suppression and his serious injuries, were all sounding warnings.

Fighting head-on was definitely not the best strategy at this moment.

But escaping...

His peripheral vision swept over the viscous, boundless swamp of information behind him, and the Light Cocoon that was floating quietly, with dark golden light threads squirming slightly.

There was no way to escape.

His silence, in Xia Lengbai's eyes, seemed to become another form of acquiescence.

In those ice-blue eyes, the last trace of the "Xia Lengbai" that belonged to her was completely extinguished.

Replacing it was a nearly tangible, twisted vortex.

"You changed my fate."

Her voice suddenly softened again, as light as a whisper, yet carrying a piercing power sharper than a blade.

"You dragged me down from that 'Heavenly Mandate trajectory' destined to sacrifice everything to fulfill Lin Yun."

"You made me see that my so-called 'mission,' my so-called 'Legacy,' was nothing more than a 'program' already written on the heavenly dao chessboard."

"You made me hurt, made me confused, made me... have to think about who I am and why I exist."

She raised her hand, her ice-cold fingertips seemingly wanting to touch Shen Xiao's cheek, but stopped at a distance of one inch from his skin.

Her fingertips were wrapped in a trace of extremely weak, unstable ice-blue aura, like a blade that could collapse at any moment.

"So..."

Xia Lengbai's pupils clearly reflected Shen Xiao's currently calm face, and a trace of extremely faint vigilance that even he himself could not detect.

The smile on her face was radiant to the extreme, and also cold to the extreme.

"Tell me, how should I 'thank' you?"

"My... 'Liberator'?"

The last three words were bitten out extremely heavily, mixed with bone-deep hatred, crazy infatuation, and a terrifying dependence that placed the meaning of her own existence entirely on this man in front of her.

Shen Xiao finally moved.

He did not retreat, nor did he defend.

He just took a breath, extremely slowly and clearly.

Then, in this suffocating standoff, he raised his eyes, looking into the ice-blue vortex in Xia Lengbai's eyes that almost wanted to suck his Soul in, and the corners of his mouth twitched upward extremely slightly.

That was not a smile.

It was an expression of near self-mockery, mixed with helplessness and a certain cold determination.

"Thank?"

His hoarse voice seemed exceptionally clear in the viscous swamp of information,

"If Miss Xia is referring to... letting you see the truth that you are nothing more than 'Heavenly Dao fodder'..."

He paused, facing Xia Lengbai's suddenly contracting pupils, and said slowly and clearly, word by word:

"Then I think what you should thank more is the... Heavenly Dao that arranged you in this position of 'fodder'."

"After all, without its initial setting, there wouldn't have been my subsequent 'plundering,' wouldn't there?"

As his voice fell.

The wisp of ice-blue aura at Xia Lengbai's fingertips, which was on the verge of collapse, trembled violently.

And in the Light Cocoon, the Consciousness Entity's anxious mental fluctuations also suddenly stagnated.

The viscous air seemed to solidify completely at this moment.