Chapter 203

After confirming her mission, Wu Shu said her goodbyes to the two of them and returned to the Upper District.

She now both worked and lived in the Upper District, and hadn’t gone back to the Middle District for a very long time.

Her hometown didn’t welcome her. She had refused the dragon bone, and in the eyes of the people, she’d essentially traded their safety for her own advancement. They saw her as a selfish, short-sighted, white-eyed wolf. Even her own family couldn’t understand her decision.

But Wu Shu didn’t defend herself with a single word. If she revealed the truth, that exposing the dragon bone wouldn’t protect them but would instead bring disaster, how many people would actually believe her? It would only bring calamity down on her.

There was also a flame of anger burning in Wu Shu’s heart. So what if she really had traded her hometown’s safety for her own future? Without her, the Middle District would never have had the chance to obtain the dragon bone in the first place. No one had supported her before she won the championship, yet afterward they’d all come rushing to share in her success.

Did they really think she was some saint who would sacrifice everything without complaint?

After returning to the Upper District Security Bureau, Wu Shu ignored the subtle looks and whispered gossip along the way and walked straight into her private office.

The office wasn’t large, but it was quiet and tidy. It was a place where Wu Shu could sit in peace and think.

Not only did the people of the Middle District resent her, even the Security Bureau in the Upper District didn’t welcome her. She had parachuted into her position thanks to her title as captain of the ability championship team, but she had no other background. She was merely a young woman from the Middle District.

Her ability rank was only B-class. Any random member of her action team had a higher Class than her and came from a far more noble background as proud residents of the Upper District.

Under layers of discrimination and pressure, she was almost completely sidelined. The people in the Security Bureau had tacitly agreed to treat her as nothing more than a figurehead.

Wu Shu casually flipped through the documents on her desk. They were all trivial matters: some nobleman’s dog had gone missing, two parties were fighting over land disputes, or there were suspicions of Lower District residents illegally entering the Upper District…

Whenever she ordered her subordinates to handle tasks, they would come up with all kinds of excuses to push them aside.

Wu Shu rubbed her slightly tired brows, picked up the calendar on the desk, and circled a date in red ink.

Ye Zheng appeared far more glamorous than her, the revered Papess who enjoyed the adoration of the masses and the support of the people. But Wu Shu was certain the Church wouldn’t accept Ye Zheng so generously. Perhaps she too was trapped in a quagmire-like deadlock, desperately needing an exit to break the situation.

No matter what kind of exit Ye Zheng sought, for Wu Shu, Papess Ye Zheng was her exit.

The game of power wasn’t something one could master through hard work alone. She held too few chips in her hand and carried too little weight herself. She needed a sufficiently powerful backer to help her quickly step into the real arena of power.

Ye Zheng was the best choice.

The newly appointed young Papess held great power but faced enemies from both front and back. She hadn’t yet built a reliable and loyal faction around her, making this the perfect time for Wu Shu to join. Ye Zheng also urgently needed someone like her.

Wu Shu twirled the pen in her hand, her gaze fixed in deep thought. A trace of hesitation and struggle appeared on her face, but it quickly faded with a soft laugh.

Using Ye Zheng’s power to climb higher was a shortcut, but it also meant she’d have to bear the corresponding risks. Walking alongside Ye Zheng was undoubtedly extremely dangerous. One misstep and she could fall into the abyss together with her.

However, the greater the risk, the greater the potential rewards in the future.

“Going straight for killing the Crown Prince right from the start… you really know how to play big.”

Wu Shu casually tossed the pen onto the desk, drew a small knife from her side, and with a sharp whoosh, threw it with precise accuracy. The blade embedded itself straight into the head of the figure in the hanging painting.

A smile surfaced in Wu Shu’s eyes. Without even realizing it, her courage and boldness had grown by quite a bit. Just one year ago, she had been nothing more than an ordinary student, hoping to make a name for herself in the ability tournament.

Ye Zheng possessed a kind of bewitching power. She could pull people willingly into her storm and lead them down a path with no way of turning back.

The final match of the ability tournament was still vivid in her memory. Ye Zheng had promised her that they would win together, all the way until the very end. Even if it was only to witness the scenery at the farthest end of that road, Wu Shu still wanted to try walking forward together with her.

✧✧✧✧✧

Inside the base, Ye Zheng asked Bai Muqing to stay behind. The two of them walked into an empty training field together.

“Muqing, don’t hold back. Treat me like a real enemy and fight me seriously,” Ye Zheng said all of a sudden.

The vast training field had been deliberately cleared of all personnel. Only the shadows of the two girls stretched longer and longer beneath the warm sunlight.

“Ye Zheng, are you sure?” Bai Muqing asked in her cool voice.

Ye Zheng nodded. She needed a strong enough opponent to help her gain real combat experience, especially with 【Mother of All Things】, which she had only just obtained. This was her greatest trump card against Sykes, and she had to master it in actual combat as quickly as possible.

Ye Zheng was about to say more when she suddenly sensed the surrounding airflow turning chaotic. Her brows lifted slightly as she dodged the raging air currents in a swift motion.

Her body suddenly swayed. When she looked down, she saw that the ground beneath her feet had already cracked open.

Unbeknownst to her, Bai Muqing had already activated her 【Divine Domain】. She stood not far off and asked once more, “My ability will cause some destruction. Can you accept that?”

“Of course.”

The instant the words left her lips, a powerful sense of weightlessness struck her without warning. Ye Zheng’s body was suddenly lifted into the air, unable to keep her balance steady for a brief moment. She raised her gaze toward Bai Muqing in the distance. The shattered stones scattered across the ground gathered around Bai Muqing, gradually forming a solid wall.

Bai Muqing made no unnecessary motions. She simply lifted her hand and flicked her fingertip. Sharp stone fragments shot toward Ye Zheng at incredible speed.

Ye Zheng’s pupils quivered faintly, then the corners of her lips curled into a brief, fleeting smile. It seemed Bai Muqing had improved quite a bit during her time training with the Royal Knight Order.

【Stream】 swiftly wove a net of water in front of her, intercepting the incoming sharp stones. The fragments dropped one after another at her feet.

Sensing her opponent’s actions, Bai Muqing tilted her head with slight confusion. Based on the gravity and velocity she had applied, Ye Zheng’s 【Stream】 shouldn’t have been able to block the attack so directly and easily. Yet she had neutralized it without effort.

Bai Muqing closed her pale white pupils and let herself merge more deeply into her 【Divine Domain】. She sensed that the aura surrounding Ye Zheng felt extremely strange. She intended to probe further, but suddenly opened her eyes and drew several deep breaths, as if she’d been struck by some unseen force.

“Muqing, continue,” Ye Zheng’s gentle voice rang out.

She was suspended in midair due to the weightlessness, but she’d already regained her calm, composed posture. She extended her hand toward Bai Muqing, as if inviting her to continue their dance.

At some point, her fair and slender hand had transformed into a fluid, watery form, rippling softly like a cluster of dancing sky-blue flames.

Ye Zheng had devoted a long stretch of time to studying it. She discovered that 【Mother of All Things】 and 【Stream】 formed an exceptionally compatible pair, perfectly capable of complementing one another. 【Mother of All Things】 could be directly applied to her own ability, 【Stream】.

Acquiring 【Mother of All Things】 wasn’t as simple as one plus one equals two. Instead, one plus one had turned into three. In the system’s terms, 【Stream】 had undergone an upgrade as well.

In the past, 【Stream】 had only been water under her control. But now, under the influence of 【Mother of All Things】, 【Stream】 felt as though it had truly become a part of her. She herself had turned into flowing water, endless, ever-renewing water.

A whirlwind surged up from the ground, sweeping dust and shattered debris into the air. Bai Muqing stood at the heart of the vortex with a grave expression. Her pale lashes trembled slightly, and a sky-shrouding gale carrying sand and stone roared forward, swallowing the figure not far away.

In the very next moment, Bai Muqing’s eyes widened. She felt her attack pass straight through Ye Zheng’s body.

Despite the sheer violence of the assault, it was like a fierce wind skimming across the surface of water, or stones cast into a river. After a fleeting ripple, Ye Zheng returned to stillness like calm water, completely unscathed.

Dust and smoke thickened in the air. Gravity finally reasserted itself, and Ye Zheng descended from the sky, landing steadily back on the ground.

At the exact instant she’d been struck, she had activated 【Mother of All Things】 to fully merge 【Stream】 into her body. A human body already contained a vast amount of water. With the amplification of both abilities, her body had instantly transformed entirely into water, making any attack meaningless.

This state could only be sustained for a brief moment, but on a battlefield where everything shifted in an instant, that single moment could be lethal, or it could overturn the entire tide and reverse the situation completely.

Suddenly, Ye Zheng’s gaze flickered. She froze briefly, then couldn’t stop herself from laughing out loud.

She seemed to have figured out how the “Ye Zheng” from the original plot had faked her death and escaped the fate written for her.

That night, heavy rain had poured relentlessly as a merciless blade pierced the girl’s heart. The atmosphere had been tragic and solemn. But for “Ye Zheng,” who had stood at the very center of death’s spotlight, every single detail had been a chance to escape.

【Stream】 inherently possessed healing properties. Sykes’s sword had appeared to pierce straight through her heart, but as long as it had deviated even slightly, 【Stream】’s healing ability could’ve preserved her life.

What was even more intriguing was why “Ye Zheng” had been perceived as dead by Pei Xi and the others, as well as by the readers outside the manga. Ye Zheng couldn’t see the complete plot, but based on that single spoiler scene alone, “Ye Zheng’s” body had scattered like water droplets splashing onto the ground.

Everyone would instinctively assume it had been caused by Sykes’s ability 【Destruction】 obliterating her body. Even Sykes himself would suspect that he had unconsciously activated his power. No one would question “Ye Zheng’s” death.

Only Ye Zheng herself knew the truth. That had clearly been her own ability — she had transformed her body into flowing water and slipped away into the rainy night.

Such a state couldn’t be maintained for long. Ye Zheng figured there must’ve been something like a sewer or drainage system near the stage of the “Saintess’s Death” that helped her make a swift escape.

But what surprised Ye Zheng the most was that the prerequisite for using this ability was possessing 【Mother of All Things】. In other words, even within the most passive version of the original plot, “Ye Zheng” had still managed to obtain 【Mother of All Things】!

This made Ye Zheng intensely curious about the world line of the original plot. Perhaps the very moment the manga’s story came to an end was when “Ye Zheng” truly stepped into the center of the stage.

Her body suddenly felt heavy, and even her mind turned sluggish. Ye Zheng quickly pulled her thoughts together. Bai Muqing, sword already drawn, stood right in front of her.

✧✧✧✧✧

At the same time, in a certain corner of the Lower District.

The old, dilapidated shelter had been renovated into a fully furnished living space. Servants moved back and forth, arranging luggage and preparing meals. The golden-haired Crown Prince watched the people bustling around him with cold eyes, an inexplicable wave of irritation rising in his chest.

Ye Zheng’s words lingered in his mind like a persistent ghost. She’d invited him to attend her coming-of-age ceremony and said she would help him recover all his memories.

Sykes looked up at this luxurious cage and let out a cold laugh. To keep him imprisoned here, his father had truly gone to great lengths. Was he really that afraid of him?

The more they tried to restrain him, the stronger his urge to tear everything apart became.

Sykes called one of the servants over and asked when the Papess’s birthday was.

After getting his answer, Sykes’s golden pupils suddenly shrank, and then he burst into loud laughter. The people around him exchanged uneasy glances, confused and on edge.

“Coming-of-age ceremony… how interesting.”

What a coincidence. His actual birthday happened to fall on the exact same day as Ye Zheng’s.