The scarlet in Qi Yu's eyes suddenly faded, her face pale from the headache.
Ling Ru, seeing Qi Nian and Feng Si Qian break through the barrier and enter, smiled and pushed Qi Yu towards them.
Qi Nian, unable to attend to anything else, continuously regulated Qi Yu's internal energy to prevent her from falling into demonic possession.
Feng Si Qian looked at Ling Ru, her face filled with anger. "You call yourself the daughter of the High God Liu Yu, yet you act like this! How did Qi Yu offend you? Why won't you let her go after chasing her for so many years!"
"She didn't offend me, nor did she provoke me," Ling Ru said with arrogance. "I simply cannot stand to see her alive."
As she said this, Ling Ru appeared at ease, but her gaze towards Qi Yu was like a poisoned knife.
She had transmigrated into this novel, "The Path of Cultivation," countless years ago.
In this book, Qi Yu, whom she had possessed, was the favored protagonist, protected not only by her High God parents but also doted on by lords of various races and her siblings.
She had thought that after transmigrating and occupying Qi Yu's body, she would live out Qi Yu's original protagonist's storyline, cherished and adored by everyone.
Unexpectedly...
The original Qi Yu was still alive!
It was because this woman refused to disappear that she couldn't fully inhabit the current divine body.
She had to make Qi Yu die!
And not just die, but die a slow, agonizing death, reliving fragments of memories daily, savoring the pain until she was consumed by it.
With this thought, Ling Ru looked at Qi Yu, uttered a parting phrase, "Enjoy yourself," and then flicked her sleeve, leaving.
Qi Yu propped herself up with one hand on the ground, her gaze fixed on the direction Ling Ru had left. She opened her mouth to speak, but before any words could escape, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Her vision swam, and at some point, she lost consciousness completely.
When she woke up again, Qi Yu found herself in a room at the Bei Yuan Sect.
She was covered with a quilt.
The room was pitch black, so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
Qi Yu sat there blankly, her hands clutching the quilt.
During her unconsciousness, she had a dream. In it, she was confined in a dark room, her soul being flayed inch by inch.
Outside, a child of her age was crying out for his sister with all his might.
Qi Yu felt an unbearable pain throughout her body.
She shivered uncontrollably and used a spell to transport herself through a mirror to a dense forest, the location unknown.
She found a cold spring and submerged herself in it.
The bone-chilling cold lessened the pain in her body considerably. She sat in the cold water, trembling, the pain in her soul making it difficult to breathe, making her wish she could just die.
Meanwhile, at the Bei Yuan Sect.
Yu Zhen, Li Yue Zhi Yin, Si Qing, Feng Si Qian, and others, who had not yet realized Qi Yu was missing, were gathered around Qi Nian.
Qi Nian pursed her lips. She was wearing the attire of a demon princess and had not managed to conceal her demonic aura.
Yue Zhi Yin stared at Qi Nian for a long time before finally asking, "Qi Nian, no, Your Highness, why would the chieftain of the demon race come to our Bei Yuan Sect to seek apprenticeship?"
Yu Zhen silently looked at Yue Zhi Yin, thinking, then why did you, the Crown Prince of the Northern Sea Dragon Clan, come to the Bei Yuan Sect to seek apprenticeship?
Don't you feel guilty asking that?
Qi Nian met the curious gaze of Feng Si Qian, who was watching the commotion, cleared her throat, and said with feigned seriousness, "It is indeed my fault for concealing my true identity, and I apologize to everyone. However, I believe that at this moment, Qi Yu's matter is more important than mine."
Upon hearing this, everyone's expression turned solemn.
Qi Nian frowned deeply and recounted her past encounter with Ling Ru over two hundred years ago, when she fought Ling Ru to rescue Qi Yu's wandering soul from the underworld.
Li Yu frowned tightly. "That High God Ling Ru is the daughter of High God Liu Yu? What connection does our Qi Yu have with her?"
"I don't know," Qi Nian shook her head. "Up to now, I still don't understand what misunderstanding or conflict exists between them."
Si Qing clenched his fists tightly beside them.
In that instant, he desperately wanted to reveal the truth, to let his father and mother know their true identities, and to reunite with them.
But the words stopped at his lips, and Si Qing ultimately did not speak.
Because he had not yet figured out how to help his father and mother return to their original divine forms under the watchful eye of the Heavenly Dao.
Without returning to their original divine forms, Yu Zhen and Li Yu could not regain their powers, making them unable to confront Ling Ru or recover all their memories.
With this thought, Si Qing pushed himself up by his knees. He used the excuse of checking on Qi Yu and turned to leave. But as he opened the room door, he saw the empty room, and Si Qing's expression immediately changed.
Upon learning of Qi Yu's sudden disappearance, everyone else also descended into chaos, scattering in all directions to search for any trace of her.
In an unknown dense forest.
Qi Yu had been soaking for an unknown amount of time.
With the pain emanating from the depths of her soul, more and more memories surfaced in Qi Yu's mind.
She remembered using Ling Ru's face to play hide-and-seek with the young Si Qing and their divine parents in the Nine Heavens Palace.
She remembered Si Qing eating dragon beard candy with her.
Qi Yu tilted her head back in pain, feeling that even the cold spring could no longer suppress the agony within her.
She hugged her knees, so heartbroken that she couldn't even cry.
Just then, a sound of footsteps suddenly approached from nearby. Si Qing, running and shouting, called out, "Sister, Sister! Sister, are you here? I'm Si Qing!"
Qi Yu looked up.
Her gaze met Si Qing's, who was disheveled from searching for her.
Seeing Qi Yu huddled in the cold water, hugging her knees, Si Qing's heart ached. He stumbled into the spring and embraced Qi Yu.
Finally, he found her.
"Sister, where did you go?" Si Qing knelt in the pool, holding Qi Yu tightly, his voice choked with sobs. "Sister, do you know how long I've been looking for you..."
Qi Yu's body, originally cold as a Yan Zhen Mirror, was now even colder after being soaked in the icy spring for so long.
Qi Yu looked at the sobbing Si Qing before her. Her dazed gaze gradually refocused. She gently touched his face, and after a long while, she whispered, "A Qing..."
Si Qing trembled, his expression clearly changing. He looked at Qi Yu cautiously, belatedly realizing what he had called out in his panic and what Qi Yu had called him.
"A Qing..." Qi Yu's cold hands tightly embraced Si Qing, and hot tears streamed down her face.
"Sister, you... you remember?" Si Qing hugged Qi Yu incredulously. Heaven knew how painful it had been for him to see his long-lost sibling so close yet unable to acknowledge each other during these past days.
Qi Yu nodded and suddenly burst into loud sobs. "A Qing, I miss Mother so much, I miss Father so much, and it hurts so much..."
Si Qing was so choked with emotion that he couldn't speak. He sat in the spring, holding her tightly.
This was his full-blooded sister.
Besides his parents, she was the most important person to him.
After crying for a while, Qi Yu's emotions gradually stabilized, though she still sobbed intermittently.
"Sister, don't cry anymore," Si Qing wiped her tears and carried her out of the icy lake. "Why did you hide here alone? What did that woman Ling Ru do to you? The barrier was up then, and Qi Nian and Feng Si Qian didn't hear much."
"...She restored my memories," Qi Yu said, her hand unconsciously clenching the grass.
Si Qing's face instantly changed. "All of them?"
Qi Yu nodded.
Si Qing's eyes reddened with heartache, and his hatred for Ling Ru reached its peak.
His sister had been possessed, forced to separate from him and their parents, her soul flayed alive, whipped with soul-stripping whips, and corroded in the River of Oblivion filled with vengeful spirits, nearly scattering her soul to the winds.
And that woman Ling Ru had forced his sister, who had experienced little in this life, to suddenly accept so many memories of torment!
This kind of pain could ache from the soul to the bones.
It was comparable to the slow slicing torture in the mortal world.