305: Chapter 305 Don't look back at me, I'm ugly.

In the fifth frame...

The era of Spiritual Energy Recovery has fully arrived.

On Blue Star, martial artists are springing up like mushrooms after rain.

The small worlds where Zhuge Jinyu, Ye Jingjun, Cang Mingyue, and others reside have also merged with the main world one after another.

In the images, every one of them is present.

There are scenes of Zhuge Jinyu setting up arrays to subdue demons on the snowy plains, Ye Jingjun slaying monsters with a single sword strike at the Great Wall, and Cang Mingyue resisting invasions at the top of Wangchen Temple.

Su Daji, standing in the void, watches from a distance.

For the first time, a trace of genuine joy appears on her face.

“It's so good... everyone is working so hard.”

“Blue Star has gained so many experts; they are all such capable and earnest children.”

“With them around, Demon Concubine Su Daji can finally feel a little bit more at ease.”

“Great King, do you see?”

“The world you hoped for seems to finally be taking shape.”

As soon as the sixth frame appeared, Su Chen immediately held his breath.

Because what was being depicted in the images was the time he had been imprisoned by Su Daji in the Suochen Tower.

Inside the inner chamber of the Star-Plucking Tower.

Chains, silk curtains, and figures entwined in passion.

Su Daji snuggles in Su Chen's arms, looking up at him with a smile.

The images flash back rapidly: her feeding him porridge, combing his hair, carrying him to the washroom, humming a tune in his ear, and pressing her cold cheek against his warm neck at night.

In every single moment, she is smiling.

“I found you, Great King.”

“After a thousand years, Demon Concubine Su Daji can finally hold you again.”

“These ten days were stolen by Demon Concubine Su Daji; they are the happiest ten days of Demon Concubine Su Daji's life.”

“Even though I lied to you, locked you up, and made you angry...”

“But being able to look at you like this, hold you, and feel your heartbeat and warmth, Demon Concubine Su Daji feels that all the suffering of these thousand years was worth it.”

The final frame.

It returned to the Star-Gazing Platform, the night Su Chen was teleported away.

After the light of the instant teleportation skill faded, the woman in red, with her back to the camera, suddenly slumped over.

Large mouthfuls of blood gushed out.

She struggled to move back to the bench, curled up as she lay down, and gazed up at the starry sky.

Blood continued to overflow from the corners of her mouth, staining her clothes red.

Her breath grew weaker and weaker, and her eyes gradually lost their focus.

“Great King, Your humble servant's comet has already burned out.”

“Go quickly, don't look back at Your humble servant's current appearance.”

“It's very ugly.”

“Great King, I hope you never see this part.”

“Because you are too foolish and too stubborn; if you saw Demon Concubine Su Daji end like this, you would surely be sad for a very, very long time.”

“But... if you do see it, Demon Concubine Su Daji will be very happy too.”

“Because this way, the Great King will see that Demon Concubine Su Daji did not break her promise. Demon Concubine Su Daji is very strong; Demon Concubine Su Daji truly guarded it for you for a long, long time.”

Her voice paused as she exhausted her last bit of strength.

With a smile, she said softly.

“In the thousands of years after you left, I missed you so much I thought I'd go crazy.”

“At that time, I thought that to love someone meant to possess everything of theirs, to lock them by my side so that their eyes and heart only held me.”

“But when Demon Concubine Su Daji's life was truly nearing its end, I met you again.”

“Seeing your innocence, your shyness, your little schemes, and your surging love.”

“Your reluctance, your saying one thing while meaning another.”

“Demon Concubine Su Daji suddenly understood.”

“It turns out that being willing to personally push the Great King out of my cage and back into that world of light that needs you more...”

“Watching you walk towards them, towards other people who can give you warmth...”

“Is also a kind of love.”

The fragmented and reconstructed images froze here, on her final appearance—looking up at the stars with a smile on her lips.

On the Star-Gazing Platform, there was a deathly silence.

Only the mountain wind blew through the railings, making a sound like sobbing.

Zhuge Jinyu, Ye Jingjun, Cang Mingyue, Jiang Luoli, Su Wanyue, and Teacher Wang Jin—all six women stood frozen in place, their eyes hollow.

The content of the seven frames Su Daji had shown them was too overwhelming.

It solved the problem that had been troubling everyone in the Great Xia and even the entire Blue Star martial arts community.

So...

The truth behind the Spiritual Energy Recovery was this.

The source of the Otherworldly Demons was this.

So...

As early as nearly a thousand years ago, the Otherworldly Demons had already set their sights on Blue Star.

The relative peace of these thousand years was because one person had stood alone before the flood of destruction, using her life and soul as a dam.

So.

The sudden intensification of the Otherworldly Demon plane's invasion recently, the frantic spread of spatial rifts, and the frequent natural disasters...

Were because the 'dam' that had guarded the world for nine hundred years had finally completely collapsed.

And that person, in the final moments when her life's lamp was running out of oil, did not seek help from anyone, nor did she attempt to prolong her own life.

She merely used the last ten stolen days to lock up the lover she had sought for a thousand years.

Then, after sending him away...

Quietly and lonely...

She died in the place where they had last watched the stars.

Thinking about their purpose for accompanying Su Chen to the Star-Plucking Tower.

It was actually because of jealousy, because they were unwilling to accept Su Chen's primordial yang being taken.

For a moment, the hearts of the six women were filled with a complex mixture of emotions.

So ridiculous, so petty.

Some of their legs went weak, while others felt a deep sense of shame.

Because they were also Transcendent Heroic Spirits.

Having worked alongside Su Daji for so many years...

They had actually noticed nothing at all.

Ye Jingjun's delicate hand gripped the sword in her grasp even tighter.

“Vixen... you didn't even give me a single chance to defeat you head-on.”

Among the Transcendent Heroic Spirits...

The battle-maniac Ye Jingjun loved sparring with others the most.

And among the Heroic Spirits of Great Xia...

Only Su Daji was a powerful opponent whom she felt she had never been able to defeat head-on in a spar, and whose trump cards she had never even managed to force out.

When she learned not long ago that the Saintess of the Hehuan Sect who had stolen Su Chen's primordial yang was Su Daji...

Ye Jingjun's thought had been to defeat her fairly and squarely today.

But now, she only felt that the sword weighed a thousand pounds, so heavy that she could barely lift her hand.

That Vixen, who always smiled lazily and seemed as if she didn't care about anything—just what had she been carrying alone?

The malice of one plane against another, if placed upon any single person...

Would be enough to crush anyone's spine.

Yet she had carried it for nine hundred years.

Carried it until her soul was scattered and her form and spirit were both destroyed.

Although Su Wanyue and Teacher Wang Jin did not know the full context as clearly as the others...

After watching the images left by Su Daji...

They had also roughly guessed the sequence of events.

Sadness, shock, guilt, and admiration.

Complex emotions, like a massive tidal wave, crashed against everyone's mind.

And what about Su Chen?

From the moment the divine sense images unfolded, he had turned into a stone statue.

He kept his eyes open, watching those images flash by.

Listening to Su Daji's gentle voice flowing through his mind.

There was no expression on his face.

Not even tears.

He just watched everything that had happened after he left.

Watching her hold his body on the ruins of the Heavenly Court, watching her struggle alone before the void rift, watching the internal conflict deep in her eyes when she secretly opened a tiny crack, and watching the gratified smile she showed when the local Blue Star martial artists appeared.

Watching her forced smile during those last ten days.

Watching her collapse after he left, her blood staining her skirt.

He watched, motionless.