Chapter 44

“Saintess, we should leave.”

Yu Tianming followed closely behind the furious Sykes, noticing that one teammate had fallen behind. 

Before Ye Zheng could ask Wu Shu what she thought of the “return gift,” her teammate urged her onward. She quickly said goodbye to Wu Shu. Judging from Wu Shu’s bright expression, she must have been quite pleased.

Ye Zheng herself saw no appeal in Sykes.

“What are you staring at?”

Sykes sensed her gaze and turned abruptly, glaring at Ye Zheng with a sour expression.

“I’m checking whether you’re injured. The Pope just instructed me to take good care of you.”

Sykes sneered inwardly. A delicate saintess caring for him? She should worry about her own safety first. The mockery nearly escaped his lips, but recalling Ye Zheng’s performance earlier, he swallowed his words.

At the mention of the Pope, Yu Tianming’s gaze flickered as he subtly glanced at Ye Zheng.

The imperial family sent a new vehicle to retrieve the crown prince. The lost beast cart was not a serious concern. Monsters without intelligence often ran off. It could be recaptured later.

At the Royal team’s temporary residence, the team overseer Qin Lu waited in the hall. Seeing the teenagers return, she smiled in congratulations.

“Congratulations on clearing another aberrant realm. You’ve firmly secured first place.”

Qin Lu noticed that aside from Ye Zheng, the three boys all looked disgruntled. Too lazy to bother with teenage moods, she pulled the gentle girl aside as they walked and talked.

“I heard about your performance this time. What, you’re not pretending anymore?”

Dusk settled in. In the quiet, empty garden, the relaxed woman strolled leisurely beside the girl.

“It was just luck. You know my shooting is terrible.”

Qin Lu laughed heartily. “At least you’re self-aware. That’s why I had a gun prepared without rifling.”

Sacrificing accuracy and treating the firearm purely as a close-range weapon was an audacious choice. Among her students, only Ye Zheng would attempt something so bold.

Although Qin Lu taught marksmanship at the Royal Academy, most students took the class for easy credits. For those prodigies, nothing surpassed their innate abilities. The only one genuinely eager to learn was this saintess who rarely attended because of church.

Qin Lu happily gave extra lessons to good students.

“No books you like here, no shooting range. Bored? Still, I didn’t expect Teacher Qin to take this job.”

Qin Lu grinned, her short ponytail bouncing as she turned her head.

“My grandnephew is annoying, but the lower district is more interesting than I expected. No wonder you like coming here.”

She had only returned recently. Rumors about Ye Zheng desperately fighting monsters to save the shelter had spread everywhere. The lower district’s obsession with the competition bordered on fanaticism. Any scrap of news spread instantly.

Qin Lu found the locals’ attitude fascinating. They hoped fervently for Cloud Soarers’ victory. Every action of the team was discussed with fervor, as if they were saviors.

At the same time, they revered the invincible crown prince, their greatest rival. People spoke of Sykes’s noble strength with awe. His arrival meant swift destruction of realms and guaranteed salvation.

The only discussions that truly pleased Qin Lu were those about the saintess. The tournament hype had briefly overshadowed this former star of the lower district. But after today, Ye Zheng’s reputation would rival anyone’s.

Pei Xi, Sykes, Ye Zheng.

These three teenagers had become the shared spiritual pillars of the lower district.

One represented an underdog’s miracle. One embodied the protective might of the upper class. The lone girl symbolized transcendent, divine salvation.

Qin Lu rubbed her brow, amused.

Could these three truly coexist?

She looked at Ye Zheng’s softly contoured profile. Like an evening breeze, gentle enough to soothe unrest.

Qin Lu did not know what her good student was planning, but she sensed a storm quietly gathering within her.

“Ye Zheng, you…”

“Duchess! Saintess!”

At the end of the path, a panicked attendant spotted them and hurried over.

“There’s no need to panic. What happened?”

The attendant struggled to speak. “Th-The competition has been suspended for several days.”

“My lords are requesting immediate evacuation from the lower district.”

Ye Zheng’s eyes widened slightly. The competition had barely begun. How could such a nationwide spectacle be halted so abruptly? And with an evacuation order?

Qin Lu sensed something wrong. Her expression tightened. “Speak slowly. What happened?”

“This afternoon, teams from Elo Academy and Central Academy entered an aberrant realm. Both are upper-district teams. They sent distress signals.”

“The Royal Knights stationed in the lower district went in to rescue them. There has been no news. An hour later, another knight unit entered to search. Still nothing.”

Ye Zheng exchanged a glance with Qin Lu. Both saw the gravity reflected in the other’s eyes.

The attendant trembled. “It’s still expanding. Everyone nearby fled. The lower district is in chaos. People say they say the prophesied super S-class realm is coming!”

The round-faced girl bowed deeply, unable to stop tears from falling. Ye Zheng watched them drip onto the grass. She gently straightened the attendant, her gaze calm and soothing.

“I am the church’s saintess. I understand the First Pope’s prophecy better than anyone. This is not the prophesied realm.”

The attendant looked up cautiously at the saintess’s serene face and stopped crying.

“R-Really?”

“Really. Tell your colleagues and your family. It is only a stronger realm. Stay away from it.”

The attendant nodded vigorously. If these words had come from a city lord or official, she might have suspected mere appeasement. But the saintess looked so reassuring. How could her words be wrong?

The attendant straightened and left, visibly relieved. Ye Zheng’s gentle smile faded.

✧✧✧✧✧

Ye Zheng did not want to leave the lower district.

Unexpectedly, the imperial family ordered all upper-district contestants to evacuate temporarily until the realm was fully resolved. Its danger rating had been raised to A+.

Resting with her eyes closed on the train, Ye Zheng reflected that the two academy teams were likely already dead. Otherwise, the imperial family would not be panicking like this. From what she knew, those teams included many children of top noble families.

They were the elites most treasured by their houses.

If they truly perished inside the realm, even the combined authority of the imperial family and the church would struggle to suppress the nobles’ fury.

Even so, the evacuation order was laughable.

The third stage had been designed to appease the lower district, to showcase the brilliance of imperial prodigies. Yet at the first sign of disaster, they fled disgracefully.

Ye Zheng felt secondhand embarrassment for those cowardly decision-makers.

She suddenly opened her eyes.

The timing of this realm was convenient. Almost too convenient. It was as if someone had deliberately arranged it to slap faces.

You who claimed superiority. You noble talents. When disaster struck, you fled even faster than the commoners of the lower district.

A realm that swallowed imperial nobles, shook the empire, and triggered chaos.

The plot felt familiar.

“System,” Ye Zheng asked suddenly, “is this part of the original plot too?”

『Classic shonen trope. Competitions always encounter unexpected disasters.』

『And I warned you before. This arc has deaths. It’s not your turn yet, so don’t worry.』

“Thank you for the considerate spoiler.”

Ye Zheng stepped off the train. The Ye family’s car was already waiting. By the time she returned home, it was deep into the night.

In the grand hall of the mansion late at night, someone had deliberately left a light on for her.

“Zhengzheng! You’re finally back… back.”

Shu Wan hurried to the entrance and wrapped her returning daughter in a tight embrace.

The middle-aged woman, usually elegant and composed, rarely showed such urgency or loss of control. At least, since that incident, Ye Zheng had seldom seen her mother display emotions so openly.

She must have already heard what happened in the lower district. Ye Zheng allowed herself to be held, stiffly patting her mother’s back in return.

“It’s fine, Mother. I’m back.”

Shu Wan loosened her grip slightly. Her eyes were filled with worry and pleading as she looked at her tall, beautiful daughter. Ye Zheng’s expression, by contrast, was exceptionally calm.

“Promise Mommy, alright? Don’t go to the lower district anymore. I can’t lose you again…”

Ye Zheng gently disengaged from the embrace.

“This is something I must do, both as your daughter and as the church’s saintess. You don’t need to worry so much. I enter aberrant realms alongside the powerful and noble crown prince. Haven’t you and Father always looked forward to this?”

She paused, then added softly.

“I’m no longer a little girl that anyone can trample on.”

Shu Wan staggered back a step. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“You still haven’t moved on from that incident…”

“You… you still won’t forgive Mommy, will you?”

Ye Zheng looked down at her mother’s agitated expression. This was the second person she had seen cry today. She reached out, brushed away the tears, and pinched them between her fingertips with unexpected firmness.

“You haven’t moved on either. That’s why you don’t want me going there.”

“But if I don’t go, I’ll never move on.”

“It’s late. Go rest.”

“Good night, Mother.”

Hearing that long-absent word, Shu Wan finally released her daughter. She stood there in a daze, watching Ye Zheng walk away.

Of course she could not move on from that incident. In countless midnight dreams, Shu Wan had asked herself again and again: if she had not been so willful back then, would everything have turned out differently? Her parents, Ye Zheng’s maternal grandparents, would not have died in that disaster…

Her expression grew distant.

Ye Zheng was unlike her own younger, proud self, and unlike the hypocritical Ye Fanjing.

Back then, Shu Wan had wanted to give her long-awaited daughter a name containing the character for “strive.” Ye Fanjing, however, wanted a gentler, more ladylike name. He refined that character into something prettier.

Only later did Shu Wan realize that this elegant version of “Zheng,” one that wished to strive yet dared not fully do so, was in fact her own footnote.

Standing in the shadows of the second-floor stair landing, Ye Zheng looked down at the woman lost in the vast hall below. Only after Shu Wan left the hall in a daze did Ye Zheng finally return to her bedroom.

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Authors Note

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The next chapter will reveal a little more of the baby’s past.