The time-space force clinging to Su Ruo was forcibly shaken off by the system inside Mo Qingyou’s body.
Mo Qingyou twisted her stiff neck and carefully examined the surrounding environment.
“Time Stop… Gong Shangyu is here too?”
“Tch, such a hassle.”
Mo Qingyou muttered under her breath, a faint trace of impatience lingering in her tone.
She glanced at the unconscious Gu Qingying beside her, a flicker of regret flashing in her eyes.
“What a pity… I can’t take you with me.”
Sensing the rapidly approaching waves of magical power from Gong Shangyu not far away, Mo Qingyou, knowing she could no longer take Gu Hongchen away, cast a complicated look at Gu Qingying.
Without further hesitation, she raised her right hand.
The Mo Green Bone Shuttle instantly hovered in her palm.
She then slashed the Bone Shuttle forward!
“Shhhla!”
The tip of the Bone Shuttle cut through the still space-time like a hot knife through butter, carving out a narrow, continuously twisting spatial rift.
Beyond the rift was a deep, lightless spatial fracture.
Mo Qingyou stepped into the rift.
Before her figure completely disappeared, she looked back one last time at the unconscious Gu Qingying by her side, her expression difficult to decipher.
Then, the spatial rift instantly sealed itself, as if it had never appeared in that dim dungeon.
Almost simultaneously, Gong Shangyu’s figure appeared at the far end of the dungeon corridor.
“Hey! Qingying! Qingying! Gu Qingying! Junior Sister!”
Just as Gong Shangyu was checking the list of missing children, realizing her junior sister might be in danger, she had intended to immediately activate Time Stop and rush to the Lord of the City’s mansion to rescue her.
Unexpectedly, before she could depart, Zhao Zongchang’s formation in the city malfunctioned and caused an earthquake.
Reluctantly, Gong Shangyu had to spend some time dispatching the Dan Ding Pavilion’s cultivators to calm the missing children and organizing guest cultivators to help with disaster relief in the city.
She then temporarily transferred command of all pavilion affairs to Steward Wu before finally heading to the Lord of the City’s mansion to rescue Gu Qingying.
This was to prevent being ambushed by Zhao Zongchang or the suspected Fourth Junior Sister during the rescue, which would leave Dan Ding Pavilion leaderless.
After all, although Gong Shangyu’s Time Stop was nearly invincible, it wasn’t without flaws.
If she were killed by another System Holder while activating Time Stop, the Time Stop would be lifted and she would suddenly vanish, leaving Dan Ding Pavilion leaderless and unable to organize effective rescue efforts in the city or aid Master in repelling the Magic Cult Rebellion.
That would be disastrous.
“Hey! Junior Sister! Qingying! Are you alright?”
Gong Shangyu’s anxious calls grew louder as she stormed into the messy, dim prison chamber, immediately spotting her little junior sister slumped unconscious on the floor.
Seeing Gu Qingying unconscious, Gong Shangyu panicked.
“Ah… Junior Sister! How are you…?”
Though Gong Shangyu often quarreled fiercely with Gu Qingying, in truth she cared deeply for her.
After all, in her previous life, she had watched this child grow bit by bit.
Saying she didn’t care at all about Gu Qingying was impossible.
She hurried over and carefully checked her condition.
“Phew… Good, all the parts are intact…”
Gong Shangyu patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief before squatting down to begin first aid.
She first tried infusing spiritual power, but the unconscious Gu Qingying showed no reaction.
Then she shook Gu Qingying’s shoulder, but still no response.
“Hey! Wake up! Don’t scare me!”
Gong Shangyu grew anxious, looking at Gu Qingying’s slightly pale face.
She bit her lip and gave her a sharp slap.
“Gu Qingying! Wake up!”
“Lah!”
No response.
“Smack!”
Gong Shangyu added more force.
Still no movement.
Frowning, she bit her lip, thinking maybe she wasn’t slapping hard enough.
“Junior Sister! Sorry!”
Gong Shangyu slapped her repeatedly, swinging both hands with increasing force.
The slaps were laced with some of her private grudges with Gu Qingying, all the while yelling, “Wake up! Wake up! Hurry and wake up!”
But Gu Qingying was like a delicate porcelain doll, completely still, not even a strand of hair moved.
Her cheeks gradually swelled noticeably.
“Eh? That’s strange…”
Gong Shangyu stopped and curiously poked Gu Qingying’s still-elastic cheek.
“Hmm? Why does it feel like she’s frozen by Time Stop?”
Only then did the anxious Gong Shangyu suddenly realize and slap her forehead.
“Oh no! I forgot! My lousy Time Stop!”
“No wonder Qingying didn’t react. She was frozen outside the system’s immunity range…”
In her panic, Gong Shangyu had activated her ability from afar, intending to freeze time in the entire dungeon to protect her junior sister.
But she didn’t expect to freeze the unconscious junior sister as well!
No wonder her slaps had no effect!
“System! Release Time Stop!”
At Gong Shangyu’s command, the heavy, stagnant feeling over the country instantly vanished.
She looked guiltily at Gu Qingying’s obviously swollen cheek and silently began infusing spiritual power.
Gu Qingying’s eyelashes fluttered as she gradually regained consciousness.
As she opened her eyes, a sudden burning pain spread across her cheek.
She instinctively reached up to touch it—swollen and tender.
“Ouch, it hurts…”
Gu Qingying looked drowsily at the guilty-looking Gong Shangyu.
“Hmm? What happened to me?”
Then she saw Gong Shangyu holding her with a face full of guilt and nervousness.
“Hm? Senior Sister… why are you here?”
Gong Shangyu smiled, “Junior Sister, you’re awake~ It’s already forty years later, and Master and I are married now~”
Upon hearing this, still confused, Gu Qingying suddenly exploded in anger.
“Ahhh… Gong Shangyu! I’ll kill you!”
Seeing this, Gong Shangyu chuckled, “Alright~ Seeing you still so lively and easily fooled like always, Senior Sister can finally relax~”
Staring at Gong Shangyu’s relieved smile, Gu Qingying immediately grew bewildered.
“So… Gong Second! You’d better explain this clearly!”
Gong Shangyu laughed, “Nothing much… I just realized something was wrong when you didn’t come back after going to rescue someone for so long, so I came to save you…”
“Oh… Then, what about Master?”
Gu Qingying’s first question upon waking was about Lu Li.
Gong Shangyu pointed skyward.
“Still up there, battling that old turtle Zhao Zongchang!”
Gu Qingying nodded and then touched her swollen cheek.
“Senior Sister… why did my face suddenly get so swollen?”
Hearing this, Gong Shangyu’s heart skipped a beat, but she forced a calm expression for her junior sister.
There was even a faint trace of appropriate “concern” and “professionalism.”
She cleared her throat and casually said,
“I don’t know… When I arrived, your face was already like this…”
“Maybe you inhaled too much corpse qi just now, causing poisoning symptoms…”
Gong Shangyu said this while quickly pulling out a bottle of cooling bruise ointment from her storage bag and shoved it into Gu Qingying’s hand.
“Here, apply this quickly! I personally refined this Corpse Poison Ointment. It works wonders!”
Gu Qingying took the ointment half-believingly, sensing something was off but unable to focus on it with more urgent matters at hand.
After briefly applying the ointment, Gu Qingying struggled to sit up and anxiously scanned her surroundings.
“Let’s not talk about that now! What about that zombie in the dungeon just now? Senior Sister, did you see a zombie monster when you arrived?”
Gong Shangyu looked puzzled.
“Zombie? I didn’t see one. When I came in, you were the only one lying here. But the coffin in the Zhao Clan Ancestral Hall was broken from the inside, with fragments scattered everywhere.”
“I thought… it was you who did that, Ruo.”
“Hmm? The coffin was broken?!”
Gu Qingying’s expression suddenly changed.
She grabbed Gong Shangyu’s arm tightly, voice tense.
“This is bad! Something’s terribly wrong! That foundation-building zombie formed by Miss Zhao must have escaped while I was unconscious!”
“Damn Gu Hongchen! We had a deal, but in the end… that damn zombie still got away!”
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