Chapter 1139 — The One and Only Me

Boom! One celestial palace after another collapsed, and the Lingxiao Palace behind Jing Baichuan likewise crumbled and came crashing down. Jing Baichuan stretched out a hand as though he meant to halt the destruction of the celestial palace he had painstakingly cultivated, yet his body fell together with the palace as it disintegrated. In the end, every celestial palace vanished, dissolving into the spiritual qi and divine power of heaven and earth, leaving only Jing Baichuan's corpse sprawled amid the ruins of the Yunluo Palace. Shen Mu walked over and helped Yu Chudu, who lay fallen in the dust, to his feet. In a grave voice, he said, "Yan'er, leave no survivors. Do not leave even their souls behind. I do not want Heavenly Venerate Haotian tracing this back to me." At his command, Yan'er grew excited. Her body blurred and transformed into a Dragon Sparrow, which swooped toward the four experts of the Yujing realm, while the Dragon Qilin leaped onto the tower ship and began slaughtering the gods and demons aboard it. Yu Chudu was panting heavily and could not stand, so he remained seated on the ground and bowed to Shen Mu. "Thank you, Senior Heavenly Venerate Mu..." Shen Mu smiled. "You may call me Martial Uncle." "Martial Uncle..." Yu Chudu looked both startled and uncertain. Shen Mu gave a faint smile and was just about to speak when a woman's voice suddenly came from behind him. It was exceptionally beautiful, yet carried a quiet, haunting note. "Heavenly Venerate Mu, you have killed Heavenly Venerate Haotian's disciple. Are you not afraid of dying?" "Then why did the Celestial Master not stop me?" Shen Mu turned around and looked toward Bai Yuqiong, who stood not far away, smiling as he said, "Que Feiyin, it has been a long time. That jade pendant is still hanging from your primordial spirit, is it not?" Bai Yuqiong was dressed all in white, unlike the crimson robes she had favored in her previous life. Her figure was graceful and exquisite, her body like white mutton-fat jade, her skin soft and radiant as fine jade. Her expression was complicated. Meeting Shen Mu's gaze, she raised a hand, then lowered it again, torn by uncertainty. "Heavenly Venerate Mu, I am the Celestial Court's Third Celestial Master. By rights, I should arrest you and bring you to justice, but you are also the one who saved my life. Without that jade pendant of yours, I might still be an ignorant little girl, being killed by the Yin Son again and again." Bai Yuqiong sighed, her breath fragrant as orchids, and said, "I distinguish clearly between gratitude and grievance. This time, I will let it go and pretend it never happened. I can even cover for you before Heavenly Venerate Haotian. Heavenly Venerate Mu, our paths part here..." She turned to leave, but Shen Mu smiled. "Que Feiyin, do you still remember your master?" Bai Yuqiong's body trembled faintly, and she stopped. Shen Mu continued, "Do you not want to know the mystery of your origins? Do you not want to know why the Yin Son killed you time and again, only to allow you to be reborn? Has that Vermilion Bird feather not made you remember anything?" Bai Yuqiong took out the Vermilion Bird feather and stared blankly at the sacred fire burning within it. An upright eye opened between Shen Mu's brows. Deep within its pupil, the ancient Dao runes upon the Celestial Emperor Taichu Egg lit up one after another, converging into a gaze. The Shen Script Continent trembled, and ripples surged through the Great Dao of the Nether Capital, flowing toward the Taichu Primordial Stone at the heart of the continent. The primordial stone gathered the Dao of Taichu and the Great Dao of the Nether Capital, and the might of the Third Holy Eye gradually increased. Shen Mu used the eye between his brows to look at Bai Yuqiong, and at once he saw the legendary course of the female emperor's life: her birth, her rise to become a practitioner of divine abilities, then a god; her evasion of death time and again, her escapes from the Yin Son's schemes; her fame spreading throughout the world in the Founding Emperor Era, and her own plot against the Yin Son. Shen Mu's gaze grew deeper still as he saw her previous life, and the life before that, tracing backward again and again through the history of her deaths. Bai Yuqiong stood there, then suddenly tossed aside the Vermilion Bird feather. Turning around, she smiled. "Heavenly Venerate Mu, I do not want to know. I am myself, the one and only me! In this world, there is only one Bai Yuqiong!" Her long hair streamed through the air, severing Shen Mu's line of sight. Then she turned and departed, free and graceful. Bai Yuqiong reached the Spirit Energy Transposition Bridge and glanced back with a smile. "Heavenly Venerate Mu, I am not the South Emperor! If you want to make me the South Emperor, then you will become my enemy!" She pressed her palm against the altar of the Spirit Energy Transposition Bridge and stepped into the radiance. "Heavenly Venerate Mu, Heavenly Venerate Haotian has lost a disciple, and the White Emperor has lost a beloved general. They will certainly come to investigate. I will buy you some time, so you should leave while you can." Her figure vanished, and the Spirit Energy Transposition Bridge collapsed with a thunderous crash. "What an intelligent woman. What an intelligent woman..." Shen Mu gazed at the fallen altar and murmured, "Should I awaken her, let her become the South Emperor Vermilion Bird, or should I leave her unawakened and let her remain Bai Yuqiong?" He picked up the Vermilion Bird feather and examined it for a long while. Behind him, Yan'er slew the four experts of the Yujing realm, then immediately helped the Dragon Qilin exterminate the gods and demons under the White Emperor aboard the tower ship. Shen Mu stared at the Vermilion Bird feather and thought, "To awaken the South Emperor's soul is equivalent to killing Bai Yuqiong. Yet is Bai Yuqiong not the South Emperor? Even if I awaken the South Emperor Vermilion Bird, Bai Yuqiong's memories will not vanish. They will become part of the South Emperor's memories accumulated over her long years..." Yan'er flew over, chattering excitedly. "Young Master, it is all done! Where is my mother?" Shen Mu handed her the Vermilion Bird feather. "Yan'er, your mother does not want to become the South Emperor. She is too clever. From my words, she guessed that she is the South Emperor's reincarnation, but she feels it is better to remain Bai Yuqiong, or rather, Que Feiyin. She believes that awakening the South Emperor's memories would mean the end of Bai Yuqiong, or Que Feiyin." Yan'er looked somewhat bewildered and murmured, "But are Bai Yuqiong, Que Feiyin, and the South Emperor Vermilion Bird not all her?" Shen Mu put away the Heavenly Dragon Treasure Carriage and treated Yu Chudu's broken bones. "Bai Yuqiong has severed the Spirit Energy Transposition Bridge. She wants to delay Heavenly Venerate Haotian or the White Emperor from reaching this place, but she also does not want us to return to the Celestial Court. More than that, she fears that I will make her die once more in order to revive the South Emperor's soul." Yan'er remained lost and confused. "But they are all her..." Shen Mu could not help thinking of himself and Shen Fengqing. His experience was very similar to Bai Yuqiong's. For a long time, Shen Mu had believed that he was simply himself, unique and one of a kind. Yet in the end, he had been nothing more than a second consciousness born within Shen Fengqing's body. He was merely a consciousness that had come into existence by accident. Neither the body nor the soul belonged to him. All he possessed was his consciousness. It was only later, after he gouged out his own eyes and was reborn, that he gained a soul of his own. How similar was Bai Yuqiong's experience to his? In some ways, hers was even more tragic. She had passed through nearly two hundred reincarnations, exhausting every ounce of ingenuity t