Huo Qiyuan stared blankly at Su Muqing, wondering what she meant by him being her first mission. He could understand every word she said individually, but strung together, he couldn't grasp a single meaning.
"Mission? You say I'm a mission of yours?" Huo Qiyuan thought he misheard and couldn't help but ask again.
Seeing his ignorant expression, Su Muqing knew that if she stopped now, he might never know. After a moment of thought, she nodded, confirming his question.
"Yes! You are a mission of mine. I am a divine envoy from the Three Thousand Small Worlds, responsible for traveling through different worlds and completing missions."
"You were my first mission. You were severely injured at the time, and as a beginner, I had no tools or helpers. By the time I found you, you were already..."
Su Muqing licked her lips with difficulty. She didn't know what kind of situation they would be in after speaking today. However, if she didn't say it, given Huo Qiyuan's determination to fight his way back and avenge his parents, they likely wouldn't get very far.
"Because I was late, my mission was considered a failure after you died. But I was unwilling to accept that! If my first mission was deemed a failure like this, I might be beaten back to my original form. So, I privately activated the Time Wheel, intending to return to your small world and save you..."
"But during the Time Wheel, I set the wrong time. The wheel erased my memory and sent me to another small world, where I spent nineteen years."
"During this time, the High God managing me used her own cultivation to create two twenty-year periods to maintain the operation of this small world. If I didn't return within these two twenty-year periods, this small world would collapse. If I returned successfully, I could continue the mission."
As Su Muqing spoke, Huo Qiyuan's gaze shifted from initial affection to shock. He had always known Su Muqing was special and had harbored doubts about her previous talk of ancient deities.
However, no matter how much Huo Qiyuan doubted, he had never expected the truth to be like this. Seeing the shock in his eyes, Su Muqing continued her story.
"The High God sent another divine envoy to temporarily replace me. To ensure there were no gaps between these two twenty-year periods, that envoy wrote some stories... to fill the time."
"Including the poison in your body. In the first life, the poison could have been completely removed with spiritual spring water, but it was tampered with by him. Also, the fates of your parents and relatives... He did this to punish my tardiness and increase the difficulty of my mission, causing you to suffer so much in the process!"
"This is why I have always been helping you, and never thought of giving up, even when facing immense difficulties..."
"You were so good to me all these years. I thought you were good to me because you liked me..." Huo Qiyuan looked into Su Muqing's eyes, uttering the words with great difficulty.
"I truly like you! Although I didn't recognize it at first, I later understood my heart. I know I like you."
"But this affection is also mixed with your guilt and compensation, isn't it?"
Su Muqing did not answer Huo Qiyuan's question, as she herself was unsure if her feelings for Huo Qiyuan were more about affection or guilt. After all, in her previous life, she had only lived for nineteen years as a human, and she hadn't fully learned about emotions or many other things.
"Since you want me to get revenge and have been helping me all these years, why are you stopping me this time? Why did you come to stop me when I was about to succeed?" In reality, Huo Qiyuan wanted to ask why she was telling him the truth.
"You once asked me why I helped those common people. Even if they were from the Da Yu Dynasty or unrelated passersby, I treated them all equally. At the time, I told you it was for contribution points to the space, but there was another reason..."
"Because I privately activated the Time Wheel and left without proper follow-up, this small world completely collapsed, with landslides, earthquakes, natural disasters, and man-made calamities, until its complete destruction!"
"Four years ago, I transmigrated into this body. Later, I awakened my memories, but I was very scared. I never dared to tell you the truth, or I waited until after you avenged your parents."
"The tribulation of the small world has already begun! In fact, it began long ago... from drought to war, and there will be countless natural disasters in the future. I... I don't want man-made calamities to be created by you, because then we won't be able to be together anymore..."
"Brother Huo, as long as the space can be upgraded to level seven, I can completely cleanse your bones and marrow, giving you immortality. You can become a divine envoy like me, and then we can go to any small world to perform missions..." Su Muqing looked at Huo Qiyuan with sparkling eyes, desperately hoping he could feel her sincerity.
Huo Qiyuan pushed away Su Muqing's hand that was clinging to his clothes. Looking at her now, he couldn't find any trace of familiarity. "You are noble gods? For the sake of creating difficulty for you, he treated my parents so cruelly? Are you truly gods?"
"Perhaps to you, we are just insignificant specks of dust in the vast world, but to me, they were all living people! They were relatives who doted on and loved me! Just to make this period less boring, you arranged such tragic endings for them. How can you be so detestable! You are even more detestable than Emperor Rui!"
"Divine envoy? You want to cleanse my bones and marrow too? Do you want me to become like you, gods who stop at nothing to complete so-called missions, casually harming others' lives? You are too terrifying! You are simply too terrifying!"
"When you decided on the tragic deaths of my parents, did you ever, for a moment, think that they didn't deserve such an ending? Or did you simply treat their fates as a mission?"
"Su Muqing, how can you tell me all this so calmly after knowing and personally orchestrating all of this?"
Huo Qiyuan, with reddened eyes, pointed at Su Muqing. He couldn't even imagine what expression the so-called divine envoy in Su Muqing's words had when writing the fates of his parents and over a hundred people from the King of Pingbei's mansion.
How powerful! With a casual stroke of a pen, the lives of so many people were decided!
And Su Muqing! She was truly a god in his heart once! The girl who extended a helping hand when he was most lost, helpless, cowardly, and incompetent.
The girl who selflessly took care of him along the way, detoxified him, trekked thousands of miles for him, tirelessly searched for medicine, and even handed over the empire she had personally built to him.
It turned out all of this was merely her penance.