The heartland of Beilie.

After a sudden downpour, the air was filled with the rich scent of fresh grass.

After the bonfires had burned out, the grassland, which had been bustling with activity for so long, returned to its usual tranquility.

In the night sky, the clouds parted to reveal the moon, and a wisp of moonlight, like white mist, shone through the tent window, softly falling on the sleeping beauty's clothes and the slightly furrowed brows inside the tent.

Midnight had passed, but she remained fast asleep. Her face looked exactly the same as it had before she fell into a coma, without any difference whatsoever.

At this moment, Tuoba Hong was sitting by her bedside, seemingly still, but his mind was in turmoil.

"How could this be? Didn't that Taoist priest say that the Rejuvenating Pill could change the appearance of the person who took it for a full hundred days, and that once the hundred days were up, they would immediately return to their previous appearance? Why is there still no change at all?"

Staring at Yi Shangyun's face, he suddenly frowned and carefully counted the days, confirming that the deadline for the hundred-day period was indeed midnight today.

He turned his head and pondered for a while, but still couldn't figure it out. Suddenly, a questioning thought flashed through his mind, so he quickly looked back at her face and said, "Could it be that the Taoist priest I met got the time wrong? Could it be... that there's still some time left?"

Just then, a guard's urgent voice came from outside the tent: "Your Highness, it's time to set off!"

Tuoba Hong was then awakened, and with a slight tilt of his gaze toward the door, he replied, "I know, I'm coming."

Turning his gaze back, he carefully checked her pulse one last time to make sure everything was normal, then murmured affectionately, "Wule, wait for me to come back!" before getting up and striding out of the tent, suppressing his deep reluctance.

In the deep darkness of the night, under the pale moonlight, he and his guards mounted their horses and galloped straight toward the Northern Fierce Camp.

Inside the tent.

In the dream of the clouds on the clothes, who were fast asleep day and night, feeling dizzy and disoriented.

A purple sky, so low it seemed almost within reach, lifted the soft pink clouds on the horizon with effortless ease.

Before me flows a crystal-clear river, winding its way to the endless distance, its waters gurgling and its blue waters meeting the sky.

On the lush green grass beside the riverbank, a tall sycamore tree stands serenely, its verdant canopy covered with purple-pink blossoms.

Yi Shangyun, as light as a feather, slept soundly beneath the paulownia tree, her body covered in a thick layer of paulownia blossoms. The air was filled with the fragrance of a hundred different flowers in full bloom.

The world around us was shrouded in mist, swaying gently in the wind like layers of light gauze.

In the distance, the eaves of a magnificent, golden palace could be faintly seen.

Atop the sycamore tree, a magnificent, shimmering, seven-colored phoenix perched. Around the phoenix, the air was filled with the sounds of birdsong and the fragrance of flowers.

The birds circling in the air were singing their hearts out, as if they were all paying homage to this incomparably noble seven-colored phoenix.

Everything was bathed in a rainbow of light, appearing both dreamlike and illusory.

Suddenly, a blinding purple light flashed from the body of the seven-colored phoenix.

In an instant, the seven-colored phoenix transformed into a beautiful woman with a graceful and ethereal air, dressed in a seven-colored gauze robe and bearing a phoenix flower ornament on her forehead.

The woman stood smiling under the paulownia tree, gazing at the cloud on her clothes as she slept soundly for a while before gracefully and slowly approaching her. She then spoke in a voice so gentle that no one had ever heard her before, to wake her up.

"Child, wake up, child..."

As Yi Shangyun drifted off to sleep with a slight smile on her face, her eyes rolled around a few times before she finally opened her phoenix eyes slowly.

Upon seeing the stunningly beautiful woman before him, he was immediately stunned.

After regaining his senses, he stood up and looked around in astonishment at the fairy-tale-like environment, repeatedly asking the woman questions.

Where is this place?

"Who are you?"

How did I get here?

The woman extended her slender finger and smiled as she pointed to the magnificent golden palace with its upturned eaves in the distance, saying gently, "That is the Qiwu Palace."

"Qiwu Palace?" Yi Shangyun looked puzzled, but instead of pressing for details, she asked anxiously, "Then who are you?"

The woman smiled faintly, waved her hand, and casually picked up a shiny, exquisite mirror from the air. With a slow, graceful turn of her jade hand, she reflected the image on Yi Shangyun's face.

Suddenly, a bright light shone down. Yi Shangyun instinctively reached out and crossed her hands to shield her face from the blinding light, but then curiously and slowly released them, tentatively looking into the mirror in her hand.

Suddenly, her beautiful phoenix eyes widened in shock, and she stammered, "You are...I...I...are...you...we..."

It turned out that the face reflected in the mirror was no longer the one after taking the Rejuvenating Pill, but had returned to its original form.

No, that's not right. The face reflected in the mirror no longer has that creepy red birthmark, and its contours are more refined, smooth, and elegant than before.

Not only that, the face in the mirror was exactly the same as the woman in front of him. Even her clothes, figure, temperament, and even the phoenix flower decoration on her forehead were exactly the same as the two of them, as if they were twins.

"What...what exactly happened?" Yi Shangyun asked, her lips trembling as she looked at herself.

Just as she was astonished and puzzled by this, the woman waved her hand again, and the mirror immediately disappeared.

The woman then spoke, "Child, do not be afraid. I am your mother, and my name is Ruoxi."

Yi Shangyun immediately looked up at the woman again, exclaiming in surprise, "What? Ruoxi? You are my mother? How could my mother..."

Clearly, something had suddenly blasted her mind, shattering it into a jumbled mess, rendering her unable to continue her thoughts. She silently swallowed and quieted down.

The woman smiled and nodded at him, saying, "I was already dead, but because you always treated every weak life on this continent with an equal and kind heart, and did your best to save them, both physically and mentally, I was moved by the heavens and earth, which allowed my soul to return to this place after my death. My child, thank you."

Yi Shangyun was still completely confused, not understanding what was being said. However, the woman seemed to hesitate for a moment, slowly removed the smile from her face, sighed softly, and spoke again.

"Seventeen years ago, because... because of your mother's mistake, when you were just born, I used a face-changing pill to transfer the guardian mark you were born with—the phoenix mark—to your face, turning it into a red birthmark. This caused you many years of suffering. And because of my own selfishness, I almost committed an unforgivable crime. Today, I finally understand that a guardian is a guardian; this is the sacred mission bestowed upon us by Heaven, and the true meaning of our existence in this world. It turns out that none of us can escape the shackles of fate to be our true selves."

Her eyes glistened with crystal-clear tears as she looked at Yi Shangyun's face with heartache, as if it were a pity for her fate that she could not control, or a final farewell to her own desolate past life.

Finally, she took a deep breath, suppressing all her thoughts, and said solemnly, "Mother will now restore your status as a guardian. The mission that I was unable to complete in my previous life, I now entrust to you! You must protect the Emperor of Western Qin."

"Restore my status as a guardian? I must protect the Emperor of Western Qin?" Upon hearing this, Yi Shangyun suddenly snapped back to reality, saying indignantly, "But that Emperor Jing of Western Qin, he's delirious, tyrannical, and cruel... I..."

"Remember, the guardians are to protect the true emperor of the Western Qin Kingdom. If you want to know the whole truth, you must go to the Western Qin Imperial Palace to investigate."

Without giving her any further explanation, the woman uttered these final words, then flicked her sleeve. Yun felt a jolt and fainted again.

The woman gently raised her hand again and waved it slowly, and the clouds on her clothes slowly fell to the tall, towering sycamore tree where she had initially been lying.

The woman slowly walked over, bent down, and gently lifted her shoulders. With a blink of her eyes, a single, exceptionally clear tear fell from the corner of her eye onto Yi Shangyun's face.

At this moment, she gazed tenderly and with a smile at the closed eyes of the face in her arms that was exactly like her own, as if she were looking at the baby girl who had just been born and was still sleeping with her eyes closed in her arms. Her eyes were full of tenderness and joy.

Unable to hold back any longer, tears streamed down her cheeks once more.

After a long while, he leaned down and placed a deep kiss on her smooth forehead, then laid her down and slowly stood up.

Unbeknownst to anyone, she quietly transformed back into a noble seven-colored phoenix, soaring high in the sky, and after a few cries, she flew towards the distant Qiwu Palace, surrounded by a multitude of birds.

Just then, inside the tent.

From the seven-colored gold and jade bracelet on her wrist, wisps of purple light gradually emerged. These light, wispy purple rays continuously emerged and slowly gathered into a dazzling giant light.

Suddenly, some mysterious force seemed to be tearing and stretching within the enormous purple light, eventually forming a phoenix phantom. Its light instantly illuminated Yi Shangyun's entire body, and the dazzling light was so intense that no one dared to look directly at it.

A moment later, it seemed that the power of the purple light that formed the phoenix phantom had reached its limit, and the phoenix phantom suddenly swooped down and rushed into Yi Shangyun's body.