Chapter 187

Bai Muqing was quietly waiting inside the reception room. Suddenly, she turned toward the door just as Ye Zheng pushed it open and walked in.

“Congratulations, Ye Zheng… Your Holiness the Papess.”

Bai Muqing awkwardly said the final title out loud, still clearly struggling to get used to her friend’s new identity.

A soft laugh slipped from Ye Zheng’s throat. She stepped closer and placed an arm around Bai Muqing’s shoulders. She rarely made such intimate gestures, but today was different. A small lapse in etiquette, driven by excitement, was completely forgivable.

The empire’s unprecedented youngest Pope smiled as she wrapped her arms around her friend in an embrace. Bai Muqing’s shoulders and neck stiffened just slightly in response. It was clear she wasn’t used to this kind of physical closeness.

“There’s no need to be so formal. Just keep calling me by my name.”

Bai Muqing looked straight ahead, yet her vision still captured Ye Zheng beside her very clearly — her figure, her condition, her emotions, everything laid bare before her. For a brief moment, Bai Muqing’s expression turned somewhat dazed.

Since when had Ye Zheng stopped being that model lady who moved with perfect grace beneath the Saintess’s veil? She no longer lowered her head in obedience, and she no longer hid her ambition. Instead, she now openly revealed emotions and a sense of aggression that made others instinctively retreat. The once gentle, harmless smile had now become layered with an unsettling shadow. Every movement she made influenced the very breathing of the entire nation.

Ye Zheng really did seem to have changed quite a lot. Even the long hair Bai Muqing was most familiar with had been cut short. Unless they were this close, the wind would no longer carry strands of her hair brushing against Bai Muqing’s hand.

From a mascot-like Saintess to the high position of Papess, many people in the Upper District had been shocked beyond words. But Bai Muqing knew Ye Zheng hadn’t truly changed. Her soul was more stable than anyone else’s. Every step she took was full of danger, yet still extremely firm and unwavering.

In the future, Ye Zheng wouldn’t stop moving forward. Bai Muqing understood this very well, which was exactly why she had come here today to wait for her.

“Ye Zheng, I came to tell you something.”

Ye Zheng tilted her head slightly, released her arm from around Bai Muqing’s shoulders, and then looked at her with a serious expression.

“On the day you gave your sermon, when the Aberrant Realm suddenly descended, Sykes was there.”

Sykes was there?

It wasn’t strange for him to show up just to join the excitement that day, but she had already sent people to closely monitor the sermon site. No one had discovered that the noble Crown Prince had actually been present. Since when had Sykes started acting so secretly?

What concerned her even more was that Bai Muqing had specifically emphasized “the moment the Aberrant Realm suddenly descended.”

“Muqing, are you saying that he had something to do with the sudden descent of the Aberrant Realm?”

Bai Muqing blinked slowly. Her pale eyelashes trembled lightly as she replied, “At the moment the Aberrant Realm descended, there was a strange energy fluctuation at his location. After that, I went to look for him, but I couldn’t find him.”

“However, at the place where he had been hiding, I found something unusual.”

“It was buried deep underground, and it seemed to be concealed by other forces. I couldn’t truly ‘see’ what it was.”

Upon hearing this, Ye Zheng’s eyes flickered. She lifted one hand and suddenly cut open her palm. A few drops of blood splattered onto Bai Muqing’s face. Bai Muqing parted her lips slightly in surprise.

“It’s that.”

The deep wound closed in an instant, but Bai Muqing still clearly caught that fleeting scent. It was the same as the thing buried underground.

“What is it?” Bai Muqing asked.

“Dragon bone.”

Bai Muqing drew in a soft breath. “It’s inside your body?”

“I only placed a small fragment in. It can amplify power.”

“Then the one buried underground is a large piece of dragon bone. The Lower District shouldn’t have such a massive amount of dragon bone… Ye Zheng, did you already know the empire has been deceiving the people?”

“The dragon bones can’t repel Aberrant Realms at all. They’re clearly summoning them…”

Bai Muqing’s voice was very soft, almost like a trembling breath. Ye Zheng simply looked at her quietly, giving her time and space to sort out her emotions.

The Imperial History recorded that five hundred years ago, Aston XIV had ordered the empire’s marshal to supervise the burial of the dragon bones. That marshal was the ancestor of the Bai family.

Such an important secret meant it was very likely that the current head of the Bai family, Bai Muqing’s father, also knew about it.

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Bai Muqing left not long after. Ye Zheng remained alone in the reception room, recalling the expression on Bai Muqing’s face as she departed.

Her ice-carved, snow-like face seemed to have developed a faint crack. Beneath that frozen surface, turbulent currents were surging, though it was unclear where they would eventually flow.

When Bai Muqing formed new thoughts, she would probably come to find her again.

Ye Zheng walked over to the windowsill and looked down at the people coming and going below. She pondered over the matter of the dragon bones and Sykes.

On the day of the sermon, she had already felt suspicion in her heart. The Aberrant Realm had arrived too coincidentally. If it hadn’t been a type she could handle, her reputation might have fallen sharply, and she might not have been able to rise to the position of Papess so smoothly.

So, had Sykes deliberately summoned the Aberrant Realm to disrupt her actions?

Ye Zheng rested her cheek on her hand as she thought. Sykes himself was a creation of the dragon bones and had a special connection with them. The location where she had given her speech that day was close to the dragon bone site in the Lower District. He must have used some method to stir the power of the dragon bones, causing it to become active and summoning the Aberrant Realm.

However, this didn’t seem like Sykes’s usual behavior. From Ye Zheng’s observations of him, he had little interest in the dragon bones and was always focused on his own power.

　It seemed she hadn’t been paying much attention to Sykes for quite some time. He might’ve been growing in secret as well, and his methods had become more refined than before. Ye Zheng recalled the Emperor’s hypocritical face once again. This kind of growth was very likely being secretly guided by someone with ulterior motives.

Ye Zheng guessed that the method used to summon Aberrant Realms probably wasn’t something Sykes had suddenly figured out on his own.

Unfortunately, his luck had fallen short, and instead, it had allowed her to discover another location where dragon bones were buried.

“Only by completely destroying the dragon bones can we end the curse of the Aberrant Realms.”

Ye Zheng unconsciously bit her lip. If what Mercè said was true, then she really needed to find a way to locate all the dragon bones and figure out how to destroy them entirely.

As long as the Aberrant Realms existed, this country would never be able to establish normal order.

Fortunately, as the Papess now, she could mobilize the power of the Church. Whether it was searching for the dragon bones, destroying them, or directly confronting the royal family, she finally had enough backing behind her.

However, she still needed some time to coordinate everything. Just dealing with several disobedient cardinals was enough to slow down her decisions and efficiency, not to mention the many people underneath who all had their own agendas.

Ascending to this position didn’t mean she held absolute power.

Ye Zheng walked out of the reception room and took a stroll through the Church grounds. A middle-aged man wearing a knight’s uniform decorated with medals saw her and stopped in his tracks. He greeted her respectfully.

Ye Zheng gave a slight nod and asked, “Any news on Pei Xi?”

The captain of the Church’s knight order looked a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry, my lady. It seems they escaped into the train station. We’re still not sure where they went.”

“If you don’t know where they went, then search everywhere. From the city center to the country roads, the Church never lacks manpower.”

Hearing the new Papess’s calm, indifferent voice, the man nodded and respectfully watched her leave.

Ye Zheng calculated things in her mind. Since she had successfully taken office, she could start promoting her own people. She needed a Church that was completely loyal to her.

Not one that dragged its feet even when chasing three boys, like some stupid villain organization in a story.

『You want to find Pei Xi’s whereabouts? Don’t forget the manga has updated.』

The system’s anxious voice called out. Ye Zheng, who had been maintaining a calm expression, suddenly widened her dark eyes, and her gaze became clear. that’s right, she had almost forgotten that the manga had updated.

『While you were holding the coronation ceremony, the manga released a new chapter.』

From the coronation until now, Ye Zheng had received too much information and had been too busy. The system had stayed silent so as not to disturb her.

Ye Zheng quickly changed into casual clothes, left the grand cathedral where the coronation had been held, and returned to the base of the Order of Sacred Conduct in the Lower District.

According to the rules, she should have moved into the magnificent and imposing Pope’s Palace to demonstrate the supreme status of the Papess.

Ye Zheng had not moved in yet because she did not feel at ease staying in a place where Wen Jian had lived. She had sent people to inspect and renovate it, and to prepare a new bedroom. Only after the renovation was complete would she feel comfortable living in the Pope’s Palace.

The Pope’s Palace was not only magnificent and imposing, it was also a tightly designed and sturdy fortress. Ye Zheng needed such a place.

Back in the familiar rest room at the base, Ye Zheng took out her phone and opened the manga app.

She read the new update at a glance, ten lines at a time. Her expression became increasingly subtle. When she scrolled to the last page, in the manga she was raising the golden sword, while Pei Xi was raising the divine sword he had pulled out from the mire!

…The divine sword really wasn’t that easy to discard outside the plot.

『There’s no helping it. The divine sword is an important plot device in the manga. The plot will automatically correct itself and try to steer things back toward the original storyline.』

Ye Zheng stared at the divine sword in the manga. She scrolled down with her finger and read the part where Pei Xi found the divine sword once more.

It was that drop of golden divine blood that had guided Pei Xi and led him to the divine sword.

Ye Zheng enlarged the screen and examined the divine sword in Pei Xi’s hand carefully. After the divine blood climbed up the sword along Pei Xi’s hand, it disappeared without a trace, and the divine sword suddenly emitted a dazzling golden light.

Had it merged with the divine sword?

This thought suddenly jumped into her mind, and Ye Zheng felt a moment of surprise. She recalled Mercè’s memories. Throughout the entire inheritance ritual, the divine blood had never been used. Mercè’s memories also never mentioned the divine blood.

From the memories she had seen, Mercè had founded the Church several years after the God of Hope disappeared. Therefore, all items related to the God of Hope had initially been collected by the royal family, including the divine sword.

The prototype of the God of Hope, Hope, had simply been a human with immense power. She used many weapons, and the most famous and powerful among them was a golden sword of hers that was said to be invincible.

Ye Zheng had a bold guess in mind: could the divine sword and the divine blood have originally been one and the same?

Or perhaps, they had never belonged to Hope in the first place, but had instead been obtained by Hope through some coincidence or an unexpected fortunate encounter?

If that were the case, then Pei Xi, who was suspected to be a creation of the divine blood, might not actually be the successor of the God of Hope, because the divine blood was very likely not Hope’s blood at all.

Ye Zheng’s fingers, which were gripping the phone, suddenly tightened. At this moment, she very much wanted to possess the ability to travel through time so that she could interrogate Aston XIV from that era. He was the person closest to the truth from five hundred years ago.

She closed her eyes and slowly calmed her emotions. It was fine. She would simply take both the divine sword and the divine blood for further research and analysis.

Pei Xi could not escape her control, because every single one of his actions had already been drawn into the manga by the author. Every detail was clearly presented right in the palm of her hand.

Ye Zheng lowered her eyes, exited the manga interface, and then opened the reader forum once again.

Not only did the manga reveal his whereabouts, but the readers were also actively and intensely analyzing the protagonist’s next move.

“Hm? Why is everything about analyzing me?”

Ye Zheng looked carefully, and her previously composed expression gradually turned puzzled.

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Authors Note  

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Don’t worry, everyone. I’ll keep updating hard even during the Spring Festival.