Chapter 225

The moment she saw the three of them below, Ye Zheng's expression darkened even further. Without another moment's hesitation, she rushed toward the attic, her footsteps urgent.

But when she shoved the door open, the attic was empty. The two open windows creaked softly as they swayed in the wind.

The Emperor, Vincent Aston, was already gone.

"I should've acted decisively..."

Ye Zheng raised a hand and swept the loose strands of hair back from her forehead. A rare trace of regret surfaced in her dark eyes.

That man had fed her far too many misleading signals. The fragments of truth and lies had become so thoroughly intertwined that even her thoughts had grown tangled. From the very first moment they met, she should've pinned him against the windowsill and extracted the answers by more direct means.

He was already gone. Ye Zheng stepped out of the room once more. Bai Yi and the other two approached her. The instant the middle-aged man saw her, vigilance flashed across his face.

"Your Holiness, His Majesty is..."

"He's no longer inside."

Ye Zheng walked past the three without sparing them a glance and said quietly, "Your mission for today is complete, General Bai."

Bai Yi had been the Emperor's contingency plan. Just as he had prevented Wende and the others from coming to her aid on the day of the coming-of-age ceremony, his presence today was meant to stop her from making a move against the Emperor. Somewhere within the attic, the Emperor had likely prepared additional safeguards to preserve his life. A man who had gone to such extraordinary lengths to prolong his existence treasured his own life more than anyone else.

One thing, however, had become certain today. Aston XIV excelled at concealment and escape. Direct confrontation was never his strength.

Leaving behind a quiet remark that only she and Bai Yi could understand, Ye Zheng strode away. The hem of her black windbreaker fluttered lightly with each step.

Only after sensing Ye Zheng's departure did Bai Muqing, who had remained silently staring ahead, finally speak.

"Father, you didn't bring me here today because of Knight Order business."

"It was the Emperor's command, wasn't it?"

"What command?"

Normally reserved, Bai Muqing pressed him for an answer.

Already weighed down by his thoughts, Bai Yi's expression turned even grimmer at his daughter's words. He fixed her with a burning stare.

"Bai Muqing, it's enough that you understand it was an order. As a member of the Royal Knight Order, a child of the Bai family, and a citizen of the Empire, your only duty is to carry out your responsibilities."

"What responsibilities?" Bai Muqing shot back. "The kind that demand abandoning innocent people, including your own daughter, in the face of disaster?"

"No, it's more than abandonment. You even stopped others from rescuing them."

Bai Yi suddenly stepped forward. He raised one hand high, his palm poised to strike. Bai Muqing noticed the movement, yet she kept her chin lifted and her expression cold, refusing to retreat even a single step.

Bai Mulin hurriedly caught his father's arm, stopping the confrontation before it could escalate. Looking at Bai Muqing with pleading eyes, he said, "Muqing, Father has his reasons..."

"I don't believe there's any righteous reason that requires someone to become cruel and cold-blooded."

"...It's about deceiving me in order to deal with Ye Zheng."

Her pale white eyes seemed to sharpen with newfound focus, catching the cold light. Bai Muqing "looked" at her father and brother, the disappointment on her face impossible to miss.

"Bai Muqing, even if Ye Zheng tried to kill the Emperor or your own father right in front of you, would you still stand there this indifferent?"

Bai Yi looked back at his daughter's icy expression with equal disappointment.

"Ye Zheng doesn't kill innocent people indiscriminately. Even after you harmed those close to her, she never sought revenge against you."

Bai Yi parted his lips, but it seemed he'd completely lost the will to reason with his stubborn, naïve daughter. Rubbing a hand across his face, he turned away and prepared to leave.

"I came here today to ask the Emperor to approve my resignation from the Royal Knight Order."

"I won't leave until I've seen him."

"His Majesty isn't here anymore! Your Papess friend just told us!"

Bai Muqing remained perfectly still.

"I can sense him. He's somewhere within this castle."

Bai Yi stared at her in disbelief, his gaze trembling ever so slightly.

"Bai Muqing, stop probing immediately! That's not something you can..."

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed slowly through the stairwell.

Bai Yi instinctively turned toward the noise and looked down the staircase.

The Emperor stood several steps below them, gazing up with a faint smile.

✧✧✧✧✧

Ye Zheng descended the stairs and spotted the two knights hurrying toward her, breathing heavily. The moment one of them saw her walking down unharmed, she let out a sigh of relief and patted her chest.

"Thank goodness you're alright."

"Cheng Cheng, Cheng Che, what happened?"

Of the two sisters, the more composed elder, Cheng Che, answered.

"We saw the attendants allowing unrelated people inside and got into a small conflict with them. If that caused you any trouble, we're truly sorry..."

Ye Zheng's eyes swept over the bloodstains on their clothing and immediately determined that none of it was their own blood. The younger sister, Cheng Cheng, still wore a stubborn, unconvinced expression. It had most likely been her who'd started the "small conflict."

"Neither of you is injured, so you haven't caused me any trouble."

"Let's go."

Accompanied by her knight attendants, Ye Zheng left the castle.

She didn't depart immediately. Instead, she stopped beneath a towering oak not far from the castle grounds. As long as Bai Muqing emerged, she'd be able to sense her presence.

Since the coming-of-age ceremony, Bai Muqing hadn't contacted her again. Ye Zheng knew she was burdened by guilt, even though her father's actions had never been her responsibility.

Ye Zheng stood quietly beneath the canopy, waiting in silence. When Bai Muqing still failed to appear after some time, she glanced at her wristwatch and stepped out from the shade.

She wanted to see Bai Muqing now not only to comfort her and ease the guilt weighing on her heart, but also to ask her to help with one more matter.

But it seemed Bai Muqing couldn't leave for the time being.

With no other choice, Ye Zheng decided to go on ahead.

She accepted a wide-brimmed black hat from one of the accompanying knights and placed it on her head, pulling the brim low over her face. Blending into the steady stream of pedestrians, she looked every bit like a handsome young nobleman.

Such attire hardly drew attention in the Upper District. Recently, extravagant spring fashions had become the latest trend among the nobility, with elegant hats adorned by the brilliant feathers of rare birds. By comparison, the clothes Ye Zheng wore both inside and outside the Papal Palace were strikingly modest. At most, passersby would spare her a second glance because of the unmistakable aura she carried.

"Imperial Central Station? Your Holiness, you never mentioned traveling to another district today."

"Mm, I'm not going to the Lower District. This station is my destination."

Ye Zheng lifted her eyes to the grand building before her, where the words "Imperial Central Station" were engraved prominently across its facade, then followed the flow of people inside.

Accompanied by the two knights, Ye Zheng advanced onward. Cheng Cheng's ability allowed her to move freely through shadows, while Cheng Che's let her weave illusions from light itself. Relying on their powers, the three of them entered a deep, secluded passageway. Green crystals spread in every direction like wild weeds that had multiplied beyond control.

Their eerie green luminescence bathed Ye Zheng's face in a faint, ghostly glow as she led the two bewildered knights farther into the corridor.

The last time she'd come here, Bai Muqing had been by her side.

In order to uncover the secrets surrounding Wen Xiaoxing, Ye Zheng had tracked down the raw materials Wen Jian had used to create him. They had come from the S-class Aberrant Realm 【Spatial Turbulence】 beneath the Imperial Central Station. The green crystal at the heart of that Aberrant Realm had bestowed upon Wen Xiaoxing the ability to manipulate world lines.

Unfortunately for him, Wen Xiaoxing had crossed paths with both Ye Zheng and Bai Muqing. Together, they had subdued him on the spot and sealed him inside the core green crystal. His life force had been slowly absorbed by the crystal ever since. At the same time, Wen Jian, who had been forced to sustain him with a constant supply of life force, had rapidly withered with age. By now, Wen Jian had long since died, and Wen Xiaoxing should have been completely dead as well.

Yet for the first time, Ye Zheng found herself thinking it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Wen Xiaoxing were still alive.

The ability to leap across world lines was, at its core, a higher-dimensional command over time and space. In Ye Zheng's eyes, it was even more extraordinary than the male protagonist Pei Xi's power. It reached into the very foundation of the world itself.

"System," Ye Zheng called softly in her mind. "Wen Xiaoxing's birth was the result of the so-called company's interference, wasn't it?"

The system remained silent for a moment. Ye Zheng couldn't tell whether the pause meant it was occupied with something else or simply uncertain about how to answer her. Lately, its replies had always come with a noticeable delay.

『Sorry, I've been upgrading recently.』

『You're talking about Wen Xiaoxing? He and his master were abandoned by the company a long time ago.』

"His master... was that the person who pushed for his creation and arranged for him to be inserted into the manga's main storyline?"

"A very foolish person. You can tell just by looking at the Wen Xiaoxing he created. It's no surprise the company abandoned him."

『Mm. Even if the company hadn't wanted to abandon him, he would've never been able to get back up again.』

Ye Zheng caught the subtle inconsistency at once and asked, "'Couldn't get back up'... what do you mean by that?"

The system chose to tell her the truth.

『He was killed by you.』

"Ah, by me?"

Ye Zheng blinked, sounding almost innocent. She searched her memories carefully, yet couldn't recall anything related to it.

"Did I make him so angry that he died? Humans from the higher-dimensional world shouldn't be that fragile."

『……』

A slow smile curved across Ye Zheng's lips. "Or... did my power affect all of you?"

The system offered no reply. All Ye Zheng could hear was a faint mechanical hum, like the subtle vibration of machinery, a strange kind of breathing that was both silent and rapid.

She let the subject drop.

"System, we've known each other for so long. Do you have a name? Or at least a codename?"

『We don't have individual names.』

『But if you'd like a more personal way of addressing me...』

『You can call me "Hope," or Hope.』

[T/N- the "hope" was written in english in the raw, and 2nd hope is 霍普 (Huòpǔ) — the standard Chinese transliteration of the English name "Hope." It sounds similar to the English pronunciation.] 

Ye Zheng immediately caught the significance of the system's choice of words: "we." It seemed systems like this belonged to a much larger collective. She couldn't help wondering whether they, like social animals, also had a leader.

"Hope, look. I now possess 【Mother of All Things】, and I have the green crystal with dominion over space and time..."

Without realizing it, Ye Zheng had reached the end of the tunnel. Before her stretched an immense cavern carpeted with irregular green crystals. At its center sat a colossal green crystal puppet. Apart from a handful of artificially excavated pits and indentations across its surface, its flawless, mirror-smooth body looked as though it had been sculpted by the hands of a master artisan.

Ye Zheng knew the giant puppet wasn't the masterpiece of any human sculptor. It was the core of this S-class Aberrant Realm, a living entity from another dimension.

Around it, the chaos of distorted time and space had ground even the smallest impurities into nothingness. Only the emerald fluorescence remained, shimmering with absolute purity.

"I have 【Mother of All Things】. I have the green crystal. And I also have you, System... Hope."

"Tell me, is it possible for us to create another Wen Xiaoxing...? No, I don't need another him. I only need an ability like his 【Fate Singularity】."

“—I want to return to the past.”

With everyone else involved already dead and Aston XIV utterly untrustworthy, Ye Zheng had no choice but to rely on herself.

She needed to witness, with her own eyes, what had truly happened five hundred years ago. Why had the Demonic Dragon and the Aberrant Realms descended so abruptly upon an age that had been flourishing?

If those mysteries remained unsolved, Ye Zheng had a nagging premonition that the catastrophe looming over the empire would prove far more troublesome than she could currently imagine.

『Ye Zheng, are you seriously trying to play the emotional card with a system?』

The system's flat mechanical voice carried an unmistakably human note of disbelief.

“Hope, I've always considered you a friend.”

Ye Zheng deliberately softened her tone.

“If emotional appeals don't work on you, then I'll use something I'm much better at. My power can already influence your world. You can simply regard me as…”

“…a highly promising business partner. Who knows? You might need my help someday.”

The system had always displayed strikingly human behavior. And wherever there was humanity, there were weaknesses. Where there were weaknesses, there was room to exploit them, to seize control.

Standing at the end of the passage, Ye Zheng smiled quietly as she waited for the system's reply within her mind.

『…Then go ahead and try. I can't promise I'll be able to provide any useful help.』

Satisfied with its answer, Ye Zheng bent down, fixing her gaze on the enormous green crystal puppet seated at the center of the chamber ahead.

She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and tossed it forward. As it passed through the light refracted by the green crystals, it gradually fragmented before disappearing altogether.

The last time she'd come here, Bai Muqing had told her that every green crystal within this space formed part of the core. The instant anything touched the light they refracted, it would be torn apart by chaotic time and space until nothing remained.

With the support of Bai Muqing's 【Divine Domain】, the two of them had resorted to brute force, cramming Wen Xiaoxing into the green crystal puppet. This time, although Bai Muqing wasn't here, the two subordinates Ye Zheng had brought possessed abilities that would allow them to retrieve a fragment of the core for her.

“Cheng Cheng. Cheng Che. Bring me a piece of that puppet.”

Bathed in the eerie green fluorescence, Ye Zheng's eyes resembled those of a wolf locked onto its prey, unwavering as she watched the two knights move into action.