Crush's Cold Senior Sister is Actually Childhood Sweetheart - Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Neither of Them Needed Much Convoluted Explanation. All The Worries, Thoughts, And Love Hidden Beneath Those Syllables Were Already Laid Bare Before The Other.

A sweep of black hair brushed across her front, and Ling Qi’s body trembled slightly, the places where the strands touched her becoming hot. Yuan Shunhua held her very tightly, as if afraid she would turn and run away in the next second. Despite still holding the Qing Yuan Sword in her hand, the strength of her embrace did not lessen.

It was as if she wanted to knead Ling Qi into her own flesh and bl00d.

The hilt of the sword pressed against her back, feeling slightly uncomfortable, but Ling Qi didn’t have the presence of mind to care. The warm fingertips brushed over every inch of the skin on the back of her neck, making her body feel a little numb.

Ling Qi looked at the face that was so close to hers. She smelled the fragrance in Yuan Shunhua’s hair and felt her head spinning, completely unable to think about anything. She could only close her eyes, letting the person in front of her part her lips and kiss her deeper and deeper.

Time seemed to have stopped at that moment.

In a daze, Ling Qi, with her eyes closed, still thought, This kind of behavior is so Yuan Shunhua.

No matter how severe the blow she received, she would never allow herself to break down for too long. No matter how many times she was knocked down, she would get back up again and again. Even with thousands of eyes watching, she would still go her own way.

She was never stingy with expressing love and always made people wonder what she would do next.

This kind of behavior is so Yuan Shunhua.

After some unknown amount of time, the hands wrapped around her neck finally loosened slowly. Then one hand gripped Ling Qi’s shoulder, and the other caressed her cheek. Their noses were still touching, and their eyelashes fluttered, brushing against the corners of her eyes.

Just when Ling Qi thought she was finally going to say something, Yuan Shunhua kissed her again.

Okay, Ling Qi smiled wryly in her heart. No matter how much she thought she knew her, Yuan Shunhua would always catch her off guard.

The moment their lips and teeth intertwined again, she suddenly felt a hint of bitterness at the root of her tongue. While Ling Qi was completely unprepared, a pill suddenly slid into her mouth.

Her pupils constricted, and she subconsciously turned her head to try and dodge. But the other person suddenly became very forceful, pressing the pill with her tongue and pushing it into her throat with an irresistible force.

Before Ling Qi could react, she swallowed the pill without a thought. Only after confirming that she had really swallowed it did Yuan Shunhua end the kiss with reluctance. After rubbing her face a few times, she slightly moved back.

“You…”

The pill slowly dissolved in her throat. It felt as if all the strength had been drained from her body, and even the sword at her waist felt a little heavy. When Ling Qi raised her hand again, there was no golden light flowing in her palm.

“I’m sorry, don’t be angry.”

Yuan Shunhua leaned in again and gently kissed the corner of her mouth, a little like an appeasement, and a little like she was trying to curry favor.

She kissed her all the way from her lips to her earlobe. Concealed by her sleeve, she even licked the lobe. Feeling Ling Qi’s shoulder tremble, she secretly smiled.

There was absolutely no sincerity in her apology.

“…Are you a dog?”

Ling Qi’s body leaned back again, trying to get away from her. She now seriously suspected that Yuan Shunhua was trying to distract her in this way, to make her completely forget about the pill.

She forced herself to be serious and not be seduced by her beauty.

“Why would you do this?” Ling Qi asked. “I should be fighting alongside you.”

Yuan Shunhua blinked, looking at her but not answering.

She just hugged her again, burying her head on Ling Qi’s shoulder, and said in a very, very soft voice in her ear:

“It’ll be over soon. Don’t be afraid.”

And so Ling Qi understood the different meanings of those two kisses.

If the first kiss was telling her “don’t worry, I’ll always love you,” then the second kiss read as “I really want to protect you.”

Perhaps this was the result of growing up together. Neither of them needed much convoluted explanation. All the worries, thoughts, and love hidden beneath those syllables were already laid bare before the other.

Even though she was very displeased with this act of taking matters into her own hands, her heart uncontrollably skipped a beat. Ling Qi closed her eyes slightly and sighed in concession.

She would never be able to handle this person in front of her, whether it was eight hundred years ago or eight hundred years later.

“You’re being a cheater,” she said.

“Don’t worry.”

Yuan Shunhua keenly captured the hint of indulgence that flashed across Ling Qi’s face and smiled very sweetly: “It’s nothing. I’ll be back soon.”

She slowly let go of Ling Qi’s hand. When she turned around again, her eyes instantly turned cold. She leapt forward, the Qing Yuan Sword in hand, and rose into the sky, charging directly toward the horizon.

The wind whistled past her ears. She passed through the clouds, the sword in her hand pointing directly at Shen Tianmo.

Watching Yuan Shunhua’s back, the Upper Immortals around her stood in silent stillness. It was unclear who started it, but these Upper Immortals began to bow deeply, one after another, in her direction.

No one spoke, no one stood straight. Outside the Chongguang Palace, there were only dense, bowed heads and the sound of the wind whistling through the clouds.

Three thousand Upper Immortals bowed to the heavens, and they did not get up for a long time.

Perhaps they were bowing to her, or perhaps they were bowing to Emperor Qing Yuan.

Ling Qi didn’t know the reason, nor did she want to.

Eight hundred years ago, when Emperor Qing Yuan fell, almost no one, except for a few people from their academy, seriously investigated the truth. Everyone took the rumors they heard as truth, and they spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, all pointing fingers at an innocent person.

When they got emotional, they would often shed a few tears, and eventually, with enough people saying it, the lie became the truth.

Eight hundred years later, these people were again watching with cold eyes as Emperor Fei Ling was trapped in a formation, struggling. The only one who tried to stop Shen Tianmo was Yuan Shunhua, who had incomplete memories and didn’t even remember who Emperor Fei Ling was.

Did those Upper Immortals truly miss Emperor Qing Yuan as they claimed? Perhaps not.

Perhaps they were more nostalgic for the peaceful years and for themselves, who had lived in comfort and tranquility.

Yuan Shunhua didn’t see this scene.

Her eyes were red. At this moment, she didn’t care about anything else. All she wanted was to personally deal with the person in front of her. New and old hatred flooded her mind. She struck at Shen Tianmo’s vital points, completely disregarding her own safety, even at the cost of exposing all her weaknesses.

Every flash of golden light carried a fierce determination to perish with the other person. Divine power flowed around her body, surrounded by golden light, and her sword strikes were merciless.

Suddenly, there was a huge crash in the sky, like a clap of thunder, deafening.

In the distance, several low rumbles of thunder followed, rolling in the depths of the clouds, sometimes far and sometimes near, as if brewing something.

It seemed that the floating clouds were about to be flattened. With a casual wave of Yuan Shunhua’s hand, the golden light instantly tore the clouds apart. The heavens and earth became dim, and the sky and the clouds under her feet seemed to merge into one.

Shen Tianmo retreated repeatedly, dodging. At first, she was still holding back, using her sword only for defense and constantly sidestepping. But after a few moves, she had to take the offensive. The moment she reached out to grab the tip of the sword, on the other side, a sharp golden light cut an opening in her shoulder, and bl00d began to seep out.

If she hadn’t reacted quickly enough to grab the sword, she would probably be on the ground by now.

Scarlet bl00d flowed from the wound on her shoulder, dripping down her arm, almost staining her entire sleeve red. Shen Tianmo’s face grew colder and colder, and she shouted in a deep voice: “Yuan Shunhua!”

The heavenly light dimmed inch by inch, and the sound of thunder drew closer to them. Yuan Shunhua suddenly looked up, her attack stopped, and all the golden light around her retracted. Only the long sword in her right hand remained still, its light pointing steadily forward.

The moment she stopped her attack, the thunder that had been brewing in the sky for a long time crashed down, splitting the watchtower at the entrance of the Chongguang Palace to pieces, leaving not a speck of ash.

It was like the heavens and earth were collapsing.

When the lightning struck, the white light illuminated the pale faces of the Upper Immortals on the ground. At this moment, everyone’s faces were ashen. They stood there, dumbfounded, and many took a sharp intake of breath at the sight in the sky.

Time seemed to have regressed several thousand years to that day when Emperor Qing Yuan first publicly brought her daughter before the immortals.

In the Ninth Heaven, a dazzling golden light poured down, and all the birds bowed in submission, a magnificent and glorious sight.

On that day, the Heavenly Dao personally wrote a prophecy for the girl:

Nangong Vermillion Bird, the divine bird does not die. Her blessings are as vast as the heavens, born to be a Divine Sovereign.

Although Yuan Shunhua had just regained her memories and her divine power was not yet stable, it was not impossible for her to perish with the other person if she truly wanted to.

Shen Tianmo didn’t want to get entangled with her at a time like this. She took two steps back and said in a deep voice: “Yuan Shunhua, if you knew what I was doing, you would come and thank me.”

“I don’t need to know, and I don’t care.”

Yuan Shunhua cut her off directly, looking at the woman in front of her with a blank expression: “All I know is that you were the one who drove my mother to her death eight hundred years ago, and you are also the one who is now trying to harm Divine Sovereign Fei Ling.”

“I don’t care what you are trying to do now. All I want is for you to pay for everything you’ve done.”

The chains that pierced through bone, the shattered puppet formation, the Wu Ji Sword that she could no longer hold, and eight hundred years of unconsciousness. The torment and hatred, the suffering and cries of everyone, there were too many. It had long been impossible to count.

And there was no need to count anymore.

Because Mother wouldn’t come back, Xihe wouldn’t come back, Se-Se’s pain of falling into the demonic path wouldn’t disappear, and the eight hundred years Ling Qi had waited in bitter anguish couldn’t be relived.

I don’t want to hear what your reasons are or what your plans are. It’s all meaningless now.

You just need to pay with your life.

Yuan Shunhua didn’t give Shen Tianmo another chance to speak. With a twist of her wrist, the long sword in her hand grazed her neck, slicing off a strand of her long hair at a speed invisible to the naked eye.

Her attacks became more and more aggressive. Shen Tianmo was fending her off while also having to protect the unfinished formation behind her. In the gap where she dodged another sword strike, the sword’s light grazed the edge of the formation, creating a very small crack. Although it was inconspicuous, it was enough.

“On the green, see the subtle. Return to the source, and unite into one!”

Yuan Shunhua had no time to think. Before she even realized what she had said, the spell had already come out of her mouth. Her divine power instantly surged. All the golden light surrounding her condensed together and rushed toward that crack!

Shen Tianmo’s pupils constricted. She raised her right hand, and the moment before the golden light touched the unfinished formation, it broke into pieces, crumbling to dust. It was unclear what kind of formation this was, but the force of the backlash directly made Shen Tianmo stagger back several steps, her face pale.

However, this strike had exhausted all of Yuan Shunhua’s divine power. Her vision went black, and she felt her body falling uncontrollably downward, like a kite with its string cut.

She no longer had the strength to struggle, but the hand tightly gripping the sword still didn’t let go.

The wind whistled past her ears, but a smile involuntarily spread across her lips.

Yuan Shunhua had always been very afraid of heights.

For a period of time when she was a child, she stood on a floating cloud and didn’t even dare to look down. This forced the people around her to find a way to deal with it, and they all replaced the clouds with bricks according to the standards of Carefree Island.

To save her face, no one said anything, but the unaware Upper Immortals mistook it for a new trend and competed to imitate it.

For those few hundred years, the clouds of the Four Seas and Eight Deserts were covered with bricks and dirt. When the naturally born immortals who were newly brought to the Upper Realm saw it, they thought they had returned to the mortal world.

She was a person who was so afraid of heights, yet at this moment, as her body plummeted, her heart was very calm.

It was as if she knew someone would catch her.

Just as she was about to fall into the clouds, she landed in a familiar embrace as she had wished. She was surrounded by a familiar scent and aura. A few strands of black hair were carried by the wind, brushing against her cheek, tickling her a little.

It was very warm and reassuring.

All the strength was drained from her body, and her consciousness gradually became blurry.

In the second before her vision was completely swallowed by darkness, Yuan Shunhua used her last bit of strength to grab Ling Qi’s sleeve and said softly:

“Jie-jie… take me home.”