Interlude: The Ancestral Goddess
Even in her sleep, she sensed that some tiny but critically important part of the Plan had broken. An error capable of derailing everything. Soon enough, however, the feeling faded, and the Ancestral Goddess sank back into deep sleep.
She learned just how serious that error was only on the day of her awakening, when she saved Yun Che. Xia Qingyue—the girl whose lot had been to suffer and take upon herself all the negative karma of fate's chosen one—was dead.
How could this have happened? What was the reason for such a critical divergence from the predestined path? The goddess had no doubt that her successor was gone. The karmic connection had broken, which could mean only one of two things: either the maiden had lost her virginity, or she had died.
She needed to understand what had gone wrong. But the goddess did not have enough strength to deal with everything herself.
Every intervention cost her energy accumulated over thousands of reincarnations, which meant she could not display all her might. Then there was the merging of personalities. She was merging with her current reincarnation, Xiao Lingxi, and that also required time and resources.
She realized how badly that tiny detail had damaged the Plan on the very same day Yun Che returned home covered in blood, when the outing should have been completely safe.
But Karma in this world was no empty word. On the Azure Cloud Continent, that same Yun Che had poisoned entire sects and even cities, sparing no one. Naturally, now that he did not yet possess even the minimum power needed to resist karmic retribution, even a simple walk through safe mountains could turn into a catastrophe.
Only two weeks later was the goddess able to contact one of her followers—or rather, only a fragment of that follower's soul. Everything indicated that the only thing to go off-plan during that time was that someone from the Phoenix's tribe had managed to bypass the curse and nearly receive the inheritance intended for Yun Che.
That was one more tiny detail that did not fit the world's overall design.
Everything with the Golden Crow was proceeding along the intended path, but the Azure Dragon had disappointed her. The inheritance had been lost. Someone had become its full inheritor, and the soul fragment itself had dispersed.
That was far more serious. A great many things had been tied specifically to that inheritance. It was thanks to the Dragon God's inheritance that Yun Che was supposed to conquer quite a few women who would help him along his path.
It was thanks to the dragon's inheritance that Yun Che's daughter would have been born, the daughter who would restore his power after reincarnation at the cost of her own talent.
It was thanks to the dragon's inheritance that Yun Che would have charmed the queen of the Snow Song Realm, who would become his invisible bodyguard. One had to remember that the Primordial Azure Dragon God had been the strongest and most respected among the beast gods. All bowed before him, including the Ice Phoenix, so naturally his inheritor would have charmed and subdued hers.
And most importantly, it was thanks to the dragon soul that Yun Che would have been able to conquer Shen Xi, thereby gaining access to Light energy.
There was no point even mentioning the many situations in which Yun Che could survive only because of the dragon constitution. This was a catastrophe.
Fortunately, Xiao Lingxi's father had been convinced that she was going after Yun Che, making it possible to conduct a full investigation on site.
Standing before the empty cave that had once been the trial grounds of the traitor who had failed to obey his orders, the goddess used a sliver of her true power and managed to find the soul imprint of the insolent mortal who had become the new inheritor.
There was another trace there as well, the trace of a soul that for some reason felt slightly familiar, but the goddess was so enraged that she paid little attention to it.
All of this consumed energy accumulated through reincarnations. But those costs were minor so long as she did not personally raise Lingxi's body's cultivation. That was a double-edged sword. Originally, the plan had been for her to pass through thousands of reincarnations and restore her own power.
Then the plan changed. The Evil God managed to convince her that his inheritor would handle the crisis. For many reasons, that was the better solution. But under the original plan, every one of her reincarnations had been given atrocious cultivation talent. That had been deliberate, so each reincarnation would live as short a mortal life as possible.
Now she suffered because of that, while forcibly raising the talent of this body would be far too expensive.
Compromise and make this body's talent merely "acceptable"? The very thought of half-measures offended her divine ego. The Creator of the Universe would not stoop to cheap scraps for the sake of penny-pinching—she accepted only absolute triumph, and right now she simply lacked the strength for it.
With the soul imprint in hand, finding the new inheritor was not difficult, though that too consumed a priceless resource. He was in a small town with two women, one of whom was pregnant. The fact that this was the same mortal the Phoenix had spoken of did not surprise the goddess in the slightest.
What did surprise and truly enrage her was that the pregnant woman was the very mortal who was supposed to give birth to Yun Che's daughter.
This vile mortal had stolen the fate of her chosen one, the man who, after merging with Xiao Lingxi, had now become her beloved as well. That was unforgivable.
"You!" The goddess could no longer restrain herself and crushed the filth beneath her power without regard for the cost. "How dare you steal from my Che? Vile creature!"
Perhaps the mortal might have found some excuse if at that moment he had been capable of speaking, let alone breathing. All three people in the room, even the two guards in the courtyard, were flattened against the floor and bleeding from every opening. The bastard tried to lift his head, which was already unthinkable, but his futile attempts were simply laughable.
The women could only await their fate in terror and did not even dare raise their eyes.
"For your insolence, for daring to interfere with my plans, you will be punished, impudent insect. It was because of your interference that my Che's predestined wife died as well, wasn't it?"
From the mortal's widening eyes, the goddess knew she had hit the mark.
"Then you will take her place. My Che's luck will return. Suffer. Torment yourself. Learn your worthlessness, worm."
And the goddess simply waved her hand.
End of interlude
Pain? I didn't even notice the physical pain. Didn't give a shit.
Plans? A pile of plans had been ruined, but I didn't even pay attention to that.
Power? With one wave, that bitch had not only sealed all my cultivation but literally ripped out my bone marrow, stripping away part of the dragon inheritance. But I didn't give a shit about power either. And the fact that I'd even lost the Phoenix inheritance? That was nothing too.
All of this was my punishment for my mistake. I was ready to accept it. I was even ready to come to terms with it.
The fact that they'd turned me into a karmic filter for Trash? That was fair enough too. I'd freed my beloved from that fate, and now I was paying for her. I could even have accepted that.
But when Chu Yueli exploded after one wave of that immoral creature's delicate hand, when a tiny speck of multicolored energy entered Yuechan's belly, when I was torn away from my family and thrown as far away as possible... That I could not accept. That almost broke me.
Poor Yueli. She had been in love with me. She thought she could hide it behind her icy mask, but I saw it. I saw it and couldn't return her feelings, though I tried to give her everything I could in exchange: tenderness, respect, understanding.
Just not love.
Did she know? Did she understand that her love was unrequited? Poor Yueli—my woman in every sense of the word—whom I failed to protect.
How was I supposed to look her sister and mother in the face? How was I supposed to look at the other fairies? How was I any better than Trash if an innocent girl had died because of my ambitious plans?
I probably would have given up if not for that creature's second move. I understood what she had done: she had given my child a fragment of the Evil God's inheritance, restoring the battery for her boy. Bitch. God, I hate her!
I won't allow it!
That was what gave me the strength to get up, even though all I wanted was to lie on the ground and die.