Gong Shangyu watched her junior sister’s comical expression, as if she wanted to bite off her own tongue, and couldn’t help but feel a little amused.
She then wiped the smile off her face, sighed, and proceeded to detoxify her junior sister with a sincere tone as she spoke to Gu Qingying.
“Sigh… alright~ alright~ Seeing how obedient you’ve been just now, Senior Sister won’t make things difficult for you.”
Gong Shangyu waved her hand and then casually boasted to Gu Qingying,
“To be honest, my system ability is Time Pause~”
“Hmph~ If my ability didn’t have no effect on you, you’d have been frozen by me long ago! You wouldn’t be running wild in front of me like that!”
Seeing her Senior Sister so candidly reveal her ability, coupled with her own earlier deliberate concealment and the harsh attitude she’d shown, and recalling the tragic scene of her Heart Demon’s rampage slaughtering Duanqing Peak in her past life, a complex wave of guilt surged in Gu Qingying’s heart.
Lowering her eyelids, her voice barely audible and unprecedentedly sincere, she said,
“I’m sorry, Second Senior Sister…”
Gong Shangyu paused for a moment, not overthinking it, assuming her junior sister was apologizing for her earlier rash behavior, so she smiled indifferently and even reached out to ruffle Gu Qingying’s hair.
“Ah, it’s nothing! It’s all in the past.”
“Besides, we’ll have to team up in the future to deal with Senior Sister, that crazy woman~ Such a small matter is nothing for us sisters.”
“Hm? Senior Sister?”
Gu Qingying suddenly looked up, her violet eyes filled with pure confusion and disbelief.
“Why would we have to deal with Senior Sister? Didn’t I already send her to the Heavenly Sword Sect?”
“And she’s far away from Master now, so she shouldn’t… be a threat to us, right?”
Hearing this, it was Gong Shangyu’s turn to freeze.
Her smile instantly stiffened, her pink eyes brimming with disbelief.
“Hm? Who told you that Senior Sister isn’t a threat just because she was sent to the Heavenly Sword Sect?”
Gong Shangyu’s voice suddenly rose, carrying an indescribable absurdity.
“Gu Qingying! Don’t you remember? Senior Sister and Master are fated adversaries! For Senior Sister to ascend to immortality, she has to kill Master and sever their bond!”
“Besides, in the past life, it was Feng Lingshuang! That madwoman killed Master!”
“If I remember correctly… when I came out of seclusion to break through the Huashen Stage, it was you and Third Senior Sister crying who told me about it!”
“How… how could you forget?”
“Huh? What?!”
Gu Qingying felt as if struck by lightning, her violet pupils suddenly contracting.
Her voice turned sharp from extreme shock.
“Feng Lingshuang… Senior Sister killed Master?”
“Don’t joke around! Second Senior Sister! That’s not funny!”
“I remember clearly… it was me!”
“It was my Heart Demon! It was Gu Hongchen that bastard who killed Master!”
“She killed all of you! And right in front of me, she directly…”
“It’s my fault! I’m the one who wronged all of you! It’s me…”
Gu Qingying’s words abruptly stopped as she saw the same bewildered and shocked expression of confusion on Second Senior Sister Gong Shangyu’s face.
Then, Gu Qingying and Gong Shangyu suddenly looked up at each other in unison, the secret chamber falling into a heavy silence.
They stared at each other, both seeing disbelief and horror mirrored in the other’s eyes.
Then, a terrifying realization slowly emerged deep within both of their hearts…
“Shh… wait, wait…”
Gong Shangyu’s voice was dry as she struggled to ask Gu Qingying,
“Qingying, tell me carefully—how did Master die in your past life memories? And how did we all die?”
Gu Qingying’s face turned pale as paper.
Trembling and nearly incoherent, she began to describe.
“It was… my Heart Demon Gu Hongchen. When I forcibly broke through the Yuanying Stage, she broke free of my control, devoured the demons in Zhenmo Tower, and advanced to the Huashen Stage…”
“Then, she killed Third Senior Sister, Fourth Senior Sister… even you and Senior Sister.”
“Finally… finally, right in front of me, she forcefully fed on Master. Master… he…”
“Hm? No!”
Gong Shangyu suddenly interrupted, her pink eyes full of confusion.
“No! In my memories, it’s completely different!”
“When I came out of seclusion, Master was already dead! It was Senior Sister Feng Lingshuang who struck first to ascend to immortality…”
“I confronted her and was expelled from the sect by her.”
“Later on… with your help, I broke through to the Dasheng Stage before Feng Lingshuang ascended, and we both perished in the Great Tribulation of Dasheng…”
Upon hearing this, the two women fell silent again, a strange and eerie atmosphere permeating the room.
Gong Shangyu and Gu Qingying stared hard into each other’s eyes, trying to find any trace of lies in each other’s expressions and words, but ultimately saw only the same genuine shock and fear.
After a long silence, Gong Shangyu, still shocked, slowly took a breath.
Her voice trembled faintly.
“So, we…”
Gu Qingying picked up her words, her voice equally faint and full of confusion and helplessness.
“We… seem to have been reborn from different ‘future’ timelines?”
Gu Qingying’s conclusion struck like thunder, exploding in their minds at once.
It also completely paralyzed their ability to think.
After some time in silence, Gong Shangyu and Gu Qingying began comparing notes, trying to pinpoint exactly where their memories diverged.
After careful comparison, they found that their memories matched almost perfectly up to a certain point.
The key divergence in their memories was the event of the Magic Realm and Kongxuan Realm colliding, the massive Magic Realm invasion, and the righteous sects rising together to purge demons.
More precisely, their fates diverged during the surprise attack by the Chixue Ancestor and the Demonic Path’s Chixue Sect on the Xuling Sect when it was vulnerable.
Before this incident, Gu Qingying’s and Gong Shangyu’s past life memories and experiences were almost identical.
But after it, their paths split sharply.
Faced with the Chixue Ancestor’s assault, both timelines’ Gu Qingyings sought aid.
However, in Gu Qingying’s timeline, Xuling Sect never received reinforcements from the frontlines, so she had to break through forcibly and fight the Chixue Ancestor herself.
This ultimately led to her Heart Demon Gu Hongchen spiraling out of control.
Meanwhile, in Gong Shangyu’s timeline, she led the defense team after receiving Gu Qingying’s call for help.
She was the one who defeated the Chixue Ancestor but sustained damage to her foundation.
That’s why she chose to enter seclusion and forcibly break through to the Huashen Stage afterward.
Yet she couldn’t save Master from Feng Lingshuang’s hands, nor witness Master’s final moments.
After comparing notes briefly with her junior sister, Gong Shangyu gasped.
“Gah… So no matter which timeline—yours or mine—Master’s death was some kind of inevitable outcome…”
“And the divergence that led our fates down different paths was that surprise attack from the Chixue Sect during the Magic Realm invasion?”
Gu Qingying nodded solemnly.
“Yes, it seems so now…”
Gong Shangyu frowned deeply and bit her nails.
“Tch… Looks like if we want Master to survive, we’ll have to find a chance to eliminate the threat from the Chixue Sect and the Chixue Ancestor early on…”
Gu Qingying nodded repeatedly,
“Yes, that’s exactly what we should do.”
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