"Flee... Great Chen?"
For a moment, An Jing could not grasp the meaning behind those words. Bai Qinghan lifted her gaze, the abyss-black depths of her eyes shimmering with a dark cyan and ink-blue luster.
Against skin as fair as snow, those serene eyes made her look all the more like an ethereal spirit stepped out from a painting, or a young fawn resting among verdant grass in the morning light—harmless and endearing.
Yet this very spirit uttered words brimming with bitter hatred.
"I despise Great Chen."
Under An Jing's astonished gaze, Bai Qinghan turned her head and looked north.
In the calmest tone, she spoke the truest words of her heart: "A demonic disaster struck my homeland, and no one came to save us. Father and Mother both 'died,' and no one came to save them.
"Great Chen cordoned off all three southern prefectures of Hannan, refusing to let a single person past the passes, refusing to give even a single drop of water to me... The garrison soldiers threw stones at me, calling me a ridiculous wild monkey."
Having never spoken so much before, the young girl turned back to meet An Jing's eyes, her voice trembling slightly as she laid bare the secrets buried deepest in her heart.
"That devil wanted to boil me alive, but from birth, I have never feared boiling water.
"Perhaps out of a fleeting sliver of mercy, or perhaps because he wanted to see if I was cooked through... I scalded him to death with the boiling water right then, and that was how I survived that winter.
"It was the Divine Sect that saved me. It was the Divine Sect that gave me new clothes, fed me until I was full, and let me sleep in peace until I woke, without the dread of being tied next to a fire pit before I could even open my eyes.
"Eldest Senior Brother, only you and the Divine Sect have been good to me."
As she spoke to this point, something akin to a full moon seemed to turn within Bai Qinghan's eyes, overflowing with bewilderment. "Has the Divine Sect not been good to you?
"Why... can't you stay?"
She raised her hand. From the river rushing out of Suspended Fate Valley, a stream of water vaulted into the air and flew straight into her grasp.
In the next instant, with a soft cry from Bai Qinghan, the water—already glowing with a misty cyan-white radiance—transmuted into a sharp arrow and shot straight toward An Jing!
Clang!
Unable to dodge in time, An Jing raised his sword to parry. The wooden sword shattered in an instant, and the residual force still hit like the strike of a four-to-five-meter-tall giant bear, forcing him back several paces before he could dissipate the momentum.
Yet this was not intended to wound... It was not even meant as an attack against An Jing.
It was to make him stay.
"What?!"
Having barely blocked it, An Jing discovered a chilling frost creeping along the broken hilt remaining in his hand. White frost spread like an icy palm trying to hold him back, freezing its way toward the crook of his thumb and his wrist!
Casting aside the hilt, An Jing looked toward Bai Qinghan with mixed emotions. "A divine ability!
"Mystic Yin Shape Manipulation, spell born of thought!"
Meanwhile, having caught wind of Bai Qinghan's true feelings, Manor Lord Yao's eyes blazed with eerie light. In utter delight, he cried in praise, "A divine ability! She has only just awakened her Destiny Pattern, yet she can already command a divine ability!
"Qinghan, you are the Mystic Yin Divine Maiden!"
At this moment, Bai Qinghan stood where she was, enveloped in wind and frost. Frosty mist and icicles drifted around her, threatening to shroud her figure in gloomy fog.
This was a divine ability.
Once a Destiny Pattern awakened within someone, it would gradually foster various divine marvels and supernatural abilities depending on the individual—such as commanding thunder and fire, or wrestling lions and tigers with bare hands.
Among them, an Inherent Destiny or higher could even nurture a divine ability.
However, the vast majority of people required a period of training and mastery after awakening their Destiny Pattern before they could wield and control it at will.
Yet if one could manifest supernatural abilities and divine abilities the very moment their Destiny Pattern awakened, it signified that the Destiny Pattern was in total harmony with the awakener's true nature—surpassing ordinary awakeners by leaps and bounds!
The emergence of a Holy Maiden filled Manor Lord Yao with boundless joy. Suspended Fate Manor was merely one of Tianyi Sect's many strongholds in the northwest of Great Chen, and far from one of the more valued ones.
With the manor raided and a century's worth of reserves going up in smoke in a single day, even if Manor Lord Yao managed to escape with his life, punishment was inevitable.
Yet so long as he secured a Mystic Yin Divine Maiden, it would not matter even if An Jing escaped; even if a hundred or a thousand Suspended Fate Manors burned, the headquarters at Mount Tianyi would not bat an eye. In fact, they would reward him handsomely!
An Jing felt only helplessness.
The convinced looks on the faces of the youths behind Bai Qinghan showed that her sentiment was not rare at all.
Yet, thinking carefully, was it truly so strange?
Ha. He, An Jing, had fled all the way from the Northern Frontier, shut out at the gates of Mingshan City and Two Rivers Checkpoint. Unable to go south, unable to enter the cities, he could only wait for death in a refugee camp alongside his gravely wounded mother.
There had been no relief, no porridge stalls, no free clinics—not even a shred of pity.
The Great Chen authorities had not reacted in the slightest, taking zero measures to address the Frost Calamity. Instead, they had redoubled their extortion and given free rein to mounted bandits—the gentry's black-gloved enforcers—to run rampant.
These were the authorities who collected taxes and ostensibly bore the duty of protecting all the subjects of Great Chen. To abandon the frontier calamities like this, allowing the gentry to exploit natural disasters to plunder refugees' possessions and annex land—how was that any different from devouring people alive?!
But... did he truly have to pick one? Why must one choose the most palatable option among a pack of fools? Couldn't they all just be killed?
Could they not...
forge a brand-new one instead?!
An Jing saw several more water arrows rise from the river, hovering behind the girl. He lowered his head and asked softly, "So you chose the Demon Sect? A Demon Sect that devours people just the same?
"You will be eaten, too..."
"I have already eaten human flesh. Shouldn't I be eaten?"
Bai Qinghan looked toward the distant Red Armored Guards storming the manor, speaking with genuine incomprehension: "And the Divine Sect truly bought my life. At the very least, they spent money, and they truly look after me.
"Both are oppression. If I must be oppressed, I would rather be oppressed by the Divine Sect than ever be oppressed by Great Chen."
Turning her head to look at An Jing, she offered an earnest invitation: "Come with me, Eldest Senior Brother.
"The reason Manor Lord Yao hasn't made a move to fight us is that he also knows Suspended Fate Manor is gone. He doesn't want to kill our companions, enrage you, and completely drive you away.
"He only wants to take us with him.
"Eldest Senior Brother, the ordinary ones who are different from us have already hidden away. If only you leave with me and we join hands, couldn't we achieve high positions within the Divine Sect?
"When that time comes, if you don't want the Divine Sect to oppress people, you can change it."
At this moment, even Manor Lord Yao could not resist chiming in: "Indeed, An Jing! Out of deference to your wishes, I refrained from taking action and indulged your willful behavior!
"As long as you become a Divine General, as long as you become the Cult Master, you can change it! When that time comes, your worth will surpass all those dead combined. Even the Divine Sect will change for you!
"Great Chen oppresses people too, and far more than we do. They don't oppress one by one—they oppress city by city, prefecture by prefecture!
"Frankly speaking, what we do is minimal by comparison, done only out of genuine necessity. The world outside will only rot further.
"You will understand—only by overthrowing Great Chen and overturning this world will there ever be a better world!"
Chapter 41