Amethyst tiles glistened beneath his feet. The azure sea surged with invisible tides, responding to his presence.
Those deep violet eyes seemed to contain the vastness of heaven and earth, the torrents of time itself—eons compressed into a single gaze.
Bai Shuo looked upward, beholding him as though he were a deity descended from legend.
Because he was.
Tian Qi lowered his gaze, the moment snapping him back to reality with a sense of absurdity that prickled at the edges of his ancient consciousness.
This was a mere mortal. One whose fate bore no ripple in the cycle of reincarnation. A candle flame destined to flicker and die in the span of a single breath compared to his existence.
In his hundreds of millennia of existence, he had seen that very look before—those eyes filled with desperate hope and absolute trust. But when? Where? The memory danced at the edge of his mind, and Tian Qi refused to pursue it, pushing it back into the depths where forgotten things belonged.
His indifferent gaze lingered only briefly on the kneeling Bai Shuo, blood-stained and trembling, before he turned to leave.
His act of saving her was nothing more than divine whim. A passing fancy. The idle mercy of one who could afford to be generous without cost.
His black dragon-embroidered boots had taken but a single step when they halted.
Tian Qi glanced down with something approaching surprise. Trembling little hands clutched the hem of his robe, small fingers twisted in the pristine fabric with desperate strength.
The cyan silk—ancient, priceless, woven with threads that predated mortal civilization—was now stained with blood and dust. The owner of those small hands seemed to notice, jerking them back momentarily as if burned. Then, with even greater desperation, she gripped tighter.
For reasons unknown—reasons he refused to examine—Tian Qi sighed inwardly and turned back.
He had merely paused at a desperate cry, casually obliterating a demon that slaughtered mortals for sport. What had transpired here, who this mortal girl was, the story behind her blood-soaked clothes—he knew nothing, nor did he care to.
"D-Divine Lord."
Bai Shuo's voice trembled like wind through autumn leaves. One hand clung to the corner of his robe with white-knuckled intensity, the other gripping Bai Xi's cold hand. Her upturned eyes, now meeting Tian Qi's, brimmed with a cocktail of emotions—hope, desperation, sorrow, and something fiercer burning beneath.
"Please, Divine Lord, save A-Xi. Save A-Xi."
Those small hands never ceased shaking, yet they held fast to Tian Qi's ancient robe with unyielding determination—as though releasing it would mean relinquishing Bai Xi's life, as though her grip alone could anchor her sister to this world.
Unseen by Bai Shuo, transparent and ethereal, a tiny spirit stood nearby. Bai Xi's soul watched her sister's pleading form with tear-filled eyes, reaching out with ghostly hands that passed through nothing but air.
Tian Qi observed the spirit, mildly surprised by what he saw written in the threads of fate surrounding her.
The child who had perished in this imperial tomb bore the destiny of nobility—a Rear Star constellation, no less. Her fate was not that of a simple mortal destined to live and die in obscurity.
A pity she was already dead. Mortal reincarnation follows its ordained path, as immutable as the turning of seasons.
Just like the Qian Brothers nearby—their lives had been sustained by the nine-headed serpent's demonic power, borrowed existence stretched beyond its natural span. With the serpent's demise, the brothers' borrowed power vanished like morning dew. Their bodies crumbled to bones in an instant, decades of decay claiming them in a single breath.
"She is already dead. This lord does not interfere with mortal affairs or alter their fates," Tian Qi stated impassively, his tone carrying the finality of absolute law.
Bai Shuo sobbed to the point of choking, tears carving clean tracks through the blood on her face. Yet with startling acuity—the same sharp intelligence that had let her negotiate with a demon—she grasped the implication hidden in his words.
He could save Bai Xi. He simply disdained meddling with mortal life and death.
It wasn't about ability. It was about willingness.
"Divine Lord, I beg you to save A-Xi!" Bai Shuo's plea burst forth with renewed urgency. "If you save her, I'll repay you someday—I swear it! On my life, on my soul, I swear it!"
"Repay me?"
Tian Qi, whose lifespan rivaled the heavens and earth themselves, whose existence predated the formation of mountains and the carving of seas, found this laughable. A mortal child—barely out of infancy by his reckoning—offering repayment. His gaze drifted almost lazily to the Qian Brothers' skeletal remains as he mused aloud.
"This lord's next descent to the mortal realm may be millennia or even eons from now. A mortal like you won't live past a century." His tone held cruel pragmatism. "How exactly would you repay me?"
Millennia? Eons?
The words crashed over Bai Shuo like waves of ice water. Her trembling hands stilled. In her world, in the world of humans who measured time in harvests and seasons and the turning of years, a hundred years was already a heaven-sent blessing. People spoke of centenarians with reverence, as if they'd stolen time from the gods themselves.
And he spoke of millennia as casually as she might speak of days.
"I—I..." Her voice cracked, stuttering with fear and desperation in equal measure. "I'll seek out sacred mountains, worship immortals, strive to live thousands—no, tens of thousands of years!" The words tumbled out in a rush, each one more impossible than the last. "I'll cultivate great power, and when we meet again, I'll repay you without fail!"
Desperate to convince him, she tugged at his robe with renewed strength, straining to lift herself higher despite her broken body's protests. "I pledge my life to you, Divine Lord! Save A-Xi, and for all the millennia to come, whatever you desire—even if it means dying ten thousand times—I'll fulfill it!"
The little girl's eyes seemed to ignite with a brilliant flame, fierce and unwavering, dazzling beyond measure. In that moment, covered in blood and kneeling in dirt, she looked almost divine herself—a mortal aspiring to immortality through sheer force of will.
Tian Qi's violet pupils reflected her bloodstained yet determined gaze. For a long moment, he simply studied her, this curious creature who promised impossibilities with such absolute conviction.
Then, suddenly, he spoke.
"Very well."
The words fell like stones into still water. "This Divine Lord accepts your promise. If one day you can break through the Three Realms and return to the Great Dao, atop the Purple Moon Mountain, I shall grant you one chance to repay your debt."
Even as he spoke, he knew the impossibility of it. Mortals without spiritual roots, without destined fate, without even a trace of cultivation potential—they didn't ascend. They lived, they died, and they returned to dust. This girl would be fortunate to live out her natural span, let alone achieve immortality.
But something in her eyes had moved him. Or perhaps he was simply in an indulgent mood. Either way, it cost him nothing to make such a promise.
As he finished speaking, a surge of Divine Power emanated from his hand—pure, radiant, absolute. It settled upon Bai Xi's corpse like falling snow. The bloody wound on her neck vanished instantly, flesh knitting together as if it had never been torn. Her nearby spirit saw only a flash of violet light, brilliant and overwhelming, before being drawn back into her body with irresistible force.
The body in Bai Shuo's arms suddenly grew warm. Not the cold warmth of fading life, but true, vital heat—the heat of a living being.
She looked up in joyful surprise, eyes wide. "Divine—"
But Tian Qi's figure had already disappeared before her, dissolving like mist in sunlight.
Dazedly, she gazed at the sky where only the silvery full moon remained, ancient and unchanging. The violet throne was gone. The purple moon had vanished. The black-haired, violet-eyed Divine Lord seemed but an illusion, a fever dream born of desperation.
Were it not for the Qian Brothers' skeletal remains nearby and the still-wet blood on her hands, cooling but undeniable, Bai Shuo might have believed everything tonight had been merely a nightmare conjured by her exhausted mind.
"Tian... Tian..." Bai Shuo murmured, trying to capture the name that had been spoken. Then panic flashed across her face as she realized she couldn't even remember the Divine Lord's name. It slipped through her memory like water through cupped hands. Panic and urgency flickered in her eyes—how could she repay a debt to someone whose name she didn't even know?
"Shuo'er!" A frantic shout came from behind as countless torches suddenly illuminated the dark clearing, turning night into artificial day.
Turning with effort, Bai Shuo saw her father's face—kind even in worry, etched with lines of fear and love. Overwhelming exhaustion suddenly washed over her like a tidal wave. The adrenaline that had kept her upright, kept her fighting, finally abandoned her.
She collapsed with closed eyes, consciousness fleeing.
Bai Xun leaped from his horse with warrior's grace, catching Bai Shuo's falling body before she could hit the ground. Seeing both daughters covered in blood—so much blood—his face paled in horror. His hands shook as he urgently checked their pulses, pressing fingers to delicate wrists and throats.
Only when he found them both stable, both steady and strong, did he allow himself to breathe. His gaze fell upon Bai Shuo and Bai Xi's clasped hands, still intertwined even in unconsciousness, and something like comfort flickered in his battle-hardened eyes.
His daughters. Both alive. Both breathing.
Nearby soldiers fanned out through the clearing, searching for the kidnappers with weapons drawn and torches raised. But the clearing held nothing except mysteries—a fissure splitting the earth, two skeletons that looked decades old, and unexplained blood painting the ground in patterns that made no sense.
Though holding torches that should have banished fear, everyone felt uneasy. They'd heard screams from these woods half an hour prior—terrible screams that had chilled their blood—yet found nothing until the sisters suddenly appeared here.
Why was there a fissure in the earth? What of the skeletons? Why were the Young Misses bloodied yet somehow unharmed, their wounds vanished as if they'd never existed?
Had these not been the Bai family's elite guards, hardened by years of service and unwavering loyalty, they might have fled in terror from this cursed place.
Cradling his daughters—one unconscious, one miraculously revived—Bai Xun surveyed the imperial tomb's rear mountains with calculating eyes. Spotting the two skeletons nearby, his expression turned cold, hardening into the face of the Grand General rather than the worried father.
"Fill that fissure. Burn those skeletons here." His voice carried absolute authority. He glared sternly at his soldiers, making eye contact with each one. "Report to the City Defense and Judicial Offices that the Young Misses lost track of time at the lantern festival and got lost in town. Regarding tonight's events, I want no other rumors circulating. Understood?"
The message was clear: whatever happened here stays here. Whatever mysteries remain unsolved, let them remain so. His daughters were alive, and that was all that mattered.
"Yes, General!" The soldiers suppressed their fear, responding with military precision.
Satisfied with their swift compliance, Bai Xun nodded curtly. He tightened his hold on his daughters, cradling them against his chest, and headed back toward the city on foot, leaving his horse for the guards.
Some things were more important than appearances. Some nights required a father's arms, not a warrior's mount.
In the Ghost Realm, beyond the veil of mortal understanding, Tian Qi sat with rigid posture on his throne. The casual grace he'd shown in the mortal world had evaporated, replaced by tension that radiated from his frame.
Xiu Yan stood in the hall before him, his expression even stiffer than his lord's—none of the flirtatious charm he'd shown when teasing A Yin on Naihe Bridge remained. Now he looked like a man facing execution, trying desperately to maintain dignity.
Ghost King Ao Ge was known throughout the realms for his stern, unyielding temperament, perpetually irritable and impossible to placate. So the unpleasant task of receiving the True God always fell to Xiu Yan, his gentler counterpart—especially when the one seated above had arrived radiating anger today.
"Divine Lord, the Book of Life and Death in my possession follows predetermined fates." Xiu Yan's voice carried careful accusation wrapped in politeness. "By saving those two girls, you've disrupted mortal life and death, throwing decades of human destinies into chaos. If the Heavenly Court holds my Ghost Realm accountable, I won't take responsibility!"
He knew exactly why Tian Qi had come—not just passing through, but seeking something. Yet he deliberately skirted the issue, grumbling with a pitiful expression that might have moved a softer heart.
"That deceased child bore the destiny of a Rear Star." Tian Qi's response came with infuriating calm, each word precisely chosen. "Her constellation hasn't extinguished—today wasn't her fated day of death. Moreover, given her celestial fate, she should have been a Heavenly Immortal descending to experience Reincarnation trials."
He paused, letting that sink in. "Had I not passed by today and she'd been devoured by that nine-headed serpent, her Divine Soul would have been damaged, annihilating millennia of cultivation. Then you, Ghost King, would truly have trouble explaining yourself to the Heavenly Court, no?"
Tian Qi glanced at Xiu Yan as he spoke, tone perfectly reasonable, expression utterly unrepentant.
Xiu Yan's face stiffened. He cursed inwardly at the deity with every profanity the underworld had taught him.
Damn it, you knew everything all along! Then why trick that girl into repaying a debt of gratitude?
Making a wealthy, noble young lady wait millennia for a chance to repay you—what's the point! What game are you playing?
"Did I not save her?" Tian Qi's voice cut through Xiu Yan's thoughts as if reading them directly.
"Did I not save her sister?"
"I've given her rebirth—isn't it right that she repays me?"
Tian Qi could read Xiu Yan's unspoken thoughts just from the Ghost King's shifting eyes, the minute twitches of expression that betrayed internal monologue. Millennia of existence taught one to read minds without needing divine powers.
The Divine Lord on the throne arched an eyebrow with aristocratic arrogance, utterly unperturbed by the moral implications. In his worldview, saving lives and accepting payment were simply the natural order of things.
Xiu Yan was an ancient senior deity who'd served diligently in the Ghost Realm for countless years, maintaining the delicate balance between life and death. Compared to his perpetually irritable brother Ao Ge, Tian Qi still had patience to tolerate him—barely.
"Right." The word squeezed through Xiu Yan's teeth like extracted bone marrow.
Tian Qi's notorious arrogance and self-importance were legendary even in the Divine Realm, where pride ran as thick as clouds. But this level of shamelessness was impressive even by those standards.
"As for her sister, she might live millennia—perhaps we'll meet again." Tian Qi scoffed, dismissing one mortal with a wave. Then his voice deepened, taking on a different quality as an image flashed unbidden through his mind—those eyes that seemed to burn with impossible fire, a mortal girl promising eternity. "But that one... without a trace of destined fate or Spiritual Qi, she'll be fortunate to live out this lifetime well."
Xiu Yan lowered his head, pondering which of the Bai sisters interested Tian Qi more—the one with celestial destiny, or the one with mortal determination? Before he could finish analyzing the implications, the figure on the throne clearly wished to dismiss mere mortal affairs and cut to the main point.
"These past millennia—any news of Yue Mi in the Ghost Realm?"
At Yue Mi's name, silence fell over the Ghost King's hall like a physical weight. The temperature seemed to drop. Even the eternal flames in the braziers flickered lower.
"Divine Lord, neither the Path of Reincarnation nor the Bridge of Transmigration bears Yue Mi's Divine Soul resonance." Xiu Yan shook his head with genuine regret, meeting Tian Qi's eyes. "We've searched. Continuously. For over sixty thousand years, we've searched."
Seeing Tian Qi's expression darken further, storm clouds gathering in those violet eyes, Xiu Yan stiffened. "Back then..." He paused, choosing words carefully, then amended vaguely: "After that... Shang Gu the True God already searched the Ghost Realm. If anything existed, we wouldn't have waited over sixty thousand years."
Back then? After that?
The cataclysmic blood array that nearly destroyed the Three Realms over sixty millennia ago remained the Divine Realm's greatest taboo. None dared mention it directly before Tian Qi—not unless they wanted to experience firsthand what divine wrath truly meant.
Tian Qi narrowed his eyes, meeting the Ghost King's steady, unyielding gaze with one of his own. Two ancient beings, locked in silent battle of wills.
"Divine Lord, Yue Mi's divine essence has completely dispersed." Xiu Yan's voice softened with something approaching sympathy—dangerous territory when addressing a True God.
Ao Ge and Xiu Yan had fought alongside Yue Mi in countless god-demon battles, sharing profound camaraderie forged in blood and divine fire. When Tian Qi first came searching for Yue Mi's soul over a thousand years ago, Ao Ge had nearly drawn his divine Saber against the True God, consequences be damned.
"Three hundred years ago in the Vault of Heaven, a wisp of her Divine Sense remained." Tian Qi's violet eyes darkened to nearly black, swirling with emotion he refused to name. "If no trace of her soul exists between heaven and earth, how could that Divine Sense persist for sixty thousand years?"
The logic was irrefutable. Within the stone statue marking Yue Mi's fall in the Vault of Heaven, her final Divine Sense left in this world had concealed three hundred years of Shang Gu's lost memories—a fragment of consciousness that shouldn't have survived.
If there were no soul left in this world, how could a mere wisp of Divine Sense endure for sixty thousand years without an anchor? All these years, through centuries that blurred together like brushstrokes in rain, Tian Qi had never given up searching for Yue Mi's Divine Soul. This was the reason.
The Ghost King fell silent, weighing his next words with the care of one defusing an explosive. Then, with deliberate provocation, he suddenly asked, "Have you found her? If I were her, I might not wish to be sought after so relentlessly by the Divine Lord."
Even though Tian Qi was a True God—even though defying him could mean obliteration—the Ghost King couldn't stand the sight of his righteous determination to find Yue Mi.
When she was alive, you never spared her a glance. Now that she's dead by your hand, what are you searching for? Redemption? Absolution?
The figure on the throne abruptly raised his head, and Divine Might instantly descended upon the hall like a physical blow. The very foundations of the Ghost King's Palace trembled. Pillars cracked. The air itself seemed to scream.
The terrifying Divine Aura radiated outward, felt throughout the underworld's vast expanse. On Eternal Peace Street outside the palace, countless trembling souls—spirits waiting for judgment, ghosts lingering between worlds—collapsed and knelt in instinctive terror.
Inside the hall, Xiu Yan's face drained of color to match the dead he shepherded. His knees half-bent under the crushing pressure, body trembling, but he stubbornly resisted kneeling with every ounce of divine power he possessed.
On the matter of Yue Mi, he could never reconcile with Tian Qi—even if the latter was a True God, even if defiance meant destruction. He could kneel to Tian Qi for anything else, bow his head to power and politics and the natural order. But not for this. Never for this.
Ao Ge raged within their shared body, demanding release, demanding blood and battle. Let me out! Let me fight him! I'll carve his arrogance from his bones!
But Xiu Yan suppressed him fiercely, clamping down with internal force. If Ao Ge confronted Tian Qi today in their current state, in the heart of the Ghost Realm, the entire underworld might be destroyed. Countless souls would be scattered to oblivion. The balance between life and death would shatter.
He could see it clearly now—after a thousand years of searching, Tian Qi had grown both wearier and more obsessive. The hunt for Yue Mi consumed him like slow-burning fire, eating away at something fundamental.
Tian Qi's cold violet eyes fixed on the Ghost King, who was barely holding on, trembling but unbroken. For a long moment, he simply stared.
Then the oppressive Divine Might suddenly dissipated as quickly as it had come.
He stood from the throne, movements carrying exhaustion that shouldn't exist in an immortal being. Silently, without another word, he walked toward the exit.
"You're right." His voice drifted back, quiet now, stripped of thunder. "If I were her, I too would not wish to see myself again in this world."
His desolate voice echoed through the hall, and his figure looked unbearably lonely—a god who'd lived too long, seen too much, and lost what mattered most.
Xiu Yan watched him go, emotions too complex to voice churning in his chest. Pity. Anger. Frustration. Sorrow. All of them at once, a tangle he couldn't unknot.
"Wait!" Just as Tian Qi was about to step through the threshold, about to vanish back to whatever lonely mountain he called home, the Ghost King's voice rang out.
Tian Qi halted mid-step and turned sharply toward Xiu Yan, movements predatory fast. Hope and hunger blazed in his eyes.
"You know Yue Mi's whereabouts?" His tone was almost certain, as if he could taste the truth on the air.
"No." Xiu Yan shook his head, and watched Tian Qi's expression darken instantly. Fury flashed in those violet depths at being toyed with, at having hope dangled and snatched away.
But Xiu Yan ignored the gathering storm and asked instead, "Divine Lord, do you still remember Yue Mi's Divine Sense in the Vault of Heaven back then?"
"Don't tell him! Xiu Yan, you damned ghost! How could you betray your promise to me? Don't you dare tell him!" Ao Ge roared within their shared body, struggling to break free, to physically stop Xiu Yan from speaking the words hovering on his lips.
"Silence!" Tian Qi's voice cracked like a whip, sharp and cold. "Or I'll raze your Ghost King's Palace and shatter your Divine Soul, sending you through a hundred lifetimes of Inner Demon Tribulations!"
The threat was directed toward Xiu Yan's chest, toward the presence raging within.
Ao Ge inside shuddered, falling abruptly silent. A hundred lifetimes of Inner Demon Tribulations? The torture of experiencing mortal love and loss, attachment and heartbreak, over and over until madness claimed you? He hated those nauseating affairs of the heart with every fiber of his being. He wouldn't go—he couldn't go. He had to stay with Xiu Yan, had to remain himself.
With the noisy Ao Ge finally subdued, Tian Qi turned his gaze back to Xiu Yan's eyes. His expression shifted like quicksilver—now patient, now amiable, as if the crushing display of power seconds ago had never occurred.
"Speak. What about Yue Mi's Divine Sense?"
Even Xiu Yan, accustomed to the underworld's myriad spectacles and countless millennia of bizarre events, couldn't help but marvel at Tian Qi's masterful shift in demeanor.
Truly befitting a True God—living long enough to bend and stretch as needed, to become whatever the moment required.
"Divine Lord, for over sixty thousand years, the Ghost King's Palace has never ceased searching for Goddess Yue Mi's soul, yet found nothing." Xiu Yan paused, letting the weight of those decades sink in. Then he opened his palm with deliberate ceremony.
A faint Divine Sense flickered in his hand, pulsing with silver-white Qi that seemed to breathe, seemed almost alive.
Tian Qi's gaze locked onto it with the intensity of a starving man seeing food. That was Yue Mi's Divine Sense—he recognized it instantly, would know it across eons and lifetimes. The Divine Sense that had scattered in the Vault of Heaven after her fall. He had thought it long vanished, dissipated into nothingness like morning dew.
Never imagining it had lingered in the underworld all this time.
"You should know, Divine Lord, that the Soul Suppressing Tower has the power to nurture souls." Xiu Yan's voice took on the tone of one explaining ancient secrets. "If you use your Divine Power to rebuild a divine body for Goddess Yue Mi and then nurture this Divine Sense within the tower, perhaps there may come a day when Goddess Yue Mi awakens and returns."
He paused, and his next words fell like stones into deep water. "Or perhaps... this Divine Sense may never gain consciousness, nor condense into a soul. It may remain nothing more than a fragment, an echo, a ghost of what once was."
Xiu Yan extended the faint silver-white Divine Sense toward Tian Qi in his palm, offering it like one might offer both salvation and damnation. "Are you willing to spend millennia upon millennia, gambling on this single chance? Knowing it may come to nothing?"
The Divine Sense was taken without hesitation, plucked from his palm before the words fully left his mouth. Tian Qi's figure began to vanish from the Ghost King's Hall, dissolving into violet light.
"Not just millennia, but even hundreds of thousands of years—she is worth it." His voice carried absolute conviction, the certainty of one who'd made peace with madness.
"I owe you a favor. Should you ever have a request in the future, I will spare no effort to fulfill it."
As the violet divine light dissipated completely, that defiant voice faintly echoed from above the Ghost Realm, lingering like incense smoke.
"Hmph, who cares! I'm living the good life here in the Ghost Realm, eating and drinking well—why would I need anything from him?"
Once Tian Qi left, Xiu Yan no longer suppressed his volatile brother. The restraints lifted, and Ao Ge finally seized control of their body like a dam breaking. He mustered his courage and shouted angrily at the sky, at the empty air where Tian Qi had been.
After his outburst—feeling somewhat vindicated despite the futility—he turned and strode back into the hall. He changed into casual attire with quick, irritated movements, and hurried straight toward the Ghost Realm's boundary gate.
"Where are you going?" Xiu Yan's voice rose in his mind, suspicious.
"To the Yao Realm."
"Where in the Yao Realm?"
"Purple Moon Mountain."
"Why???" The question came with mounting alarm.
"He possesses the power of a True God. I'll ask him to forge a divine body for you."
"…………"
Xiu Yan fell into stunned silence, overwhelmed by emotions too complicated to process. His brother—stubborn, violent, impossible Ao Ge—was going to humble himself before Tian Qi. For him.
Two days later, in the General's Manor, Bai Shuo suddenly jolted awake from her slumber as if surfacing from deep water.
She looked at Bai Xi, who had been keeping vigil by her bedside, and for a long moment simply stared. Bai Xi stared back, eyes red-rimmed from tears and lack of sleep but blessedly, miraculously alive.
Everything felt like awakening from a dream—or perhaps awakening into one. Which reality was real? The blood and terror, or this peaceful morning light?
But Bai Xi's warm hand in hers, squeezing tight, anchored her to truth.
They had survived. Both of them.
And somewhere, on a mountain she'd never seen, beneath a purple moon that existed beyond mortal sight, a debt waited to be paid.
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