Chapter 19 Mother Looked Down
Above the dust-filled ruins of the great hall.
A tall young woman stood there, still pinning an excited little flood dragon in her arms.
The woman's golden eyes looked down on everything. She was beautiful, and dangerous.
A powerful pressure spread over the whole mountain.
The demonic qi behind her spread in a black mass that shut out the light overhead.
Disciples who had looked ready to flee had only just risen when the pressure forced them down. They knelt, shaking all over.
The air went cold again. A terrifying presence spread in.
Even the fine hairs on me nearly stood up.
She was still a demon...
Then had she woken?
Blood was forced to the corner of Qin Ruoyi's mouth by the pressure, and she still tried to shield me with spiritual qi.
She lifted her eyes, and I saw no fear in them, toward the woman standing at the highest place.
"Who are you?"
The others did not seem to know. But I knew who she was.
Jiang Ji, master of Yunjing Mountain. Lord of the mountains in this land.
The one in the legends. The Mountain God.
My mother, the one who had fallen into demonhood...
Mother looked down from on high. Her eyes were flat, without a ripple. After she saw Qin Ruoyi, she let out a light laugh, but I saw no smile at the bottom of her eyes.
"There is actually a Heavenly Mandate here."
She could speak?! She was awake!
"Mother!" I called to her, wronged.
Everyone looked at me in shock. Their faces went stiff, eyes fixed on the Little Junior Sister who never applied herself as the descendant of a great power.
Mother narrowed her eyes, looked at me for a long time, and shook her head. The look seemed like disappointment.
"Jiang Ling, you wronged Zhou."
I lowered my head. Guilt sat in my chest.
I was the child of the Mountain God, Jiang Ji, and an innate flood dragon.
Gods rarely had heirs. After Mother was injured and fell into demonhood, she found out about me.
That left the divine soul inside her incomplete.
I should not have been able to be born. Father used his life and part of his soul to save me.
He let me possess a dead infant and pass through seven lifetimes before my soul could be whole.
Those seven lifetimes used up Father's cultivation. His soul was left incomplete too. He could only be reborn from an egg, and that was why he had this young flood-dragon form.
In the last lifetime, so long as I died at the end of my years, my soul would be complete. Mother would give birth to me again. I would have a powerful body and supreme talent once more, and Father would not have to patch my soul for me anymore.
I really had wronged Father and Mother.
But I also could not bear for Qin Ruoyi to die...
If I died, Qin Ruoyi could live, and Father could take his soul back early.
Would that not be better?
"Senior, can you let Jiang Ling live?" Qin Ruoyi's words cut into my thoughts.
She did not seem to care about anything else. She only seemed to want me alive.
"I want her to live too." Mother glanced at me, cold, her eyes full of stern disappointment. "But the Heavenly Mandate is pressing down. She cannot live."
I lowered my head. I had known my fate long ago.
"She can live." Qin Ruoyi lifted her eyes toward me. "I only need Senior to help me."
I realized something was wrong. I endured the pain and reached out to pull her.
"What are you trying to do?"
"Save you." Qin Ruoyi tapped my sleep acupoint and kissed me, serious about it.
"Do you know something... No! You are not allowed to save me!"
Terror hit me. I fought the sleep and clutched at her. "You know perfectly well I don't love you as much as you imagine..."
I sank into darkness.
Dazed, I only caught some of it.
"Destroy the Heavenly Mandate... I am willing... to unmake my own flesh."
【剧情偏离！女主不可自戕……】
"Noisy." Jiang Ji raised a hand and crushed that voice with ease.