Chapter 147 Reminiscence (3) “Your Majesty, I really didn’t expect that…

"Xin Bi!" Xuan Chi jumped up to chase her, but the next second, the picture in front of him was torn into blocks of color, which turned into powder and then blended into an endless void.

Hyun Chi was enveloped in this void, his senses numb. He saw no colors, heard no sounds, and instinctively rubbed his fingers, feeling nothing. All sorrow and joy vanished. He looked around blankly, only one clear thought remaining: he wanted to find her.

A moment later, the void suddenly burst into colorful dust and transformed into countless blocks of color. The blocks of color began to gather and solidify at the speed of the whistling wind, and some lines and outlines appeared. Finally, they froze into a precise picture in the buzzing sound.

Xuan Chi whimpered in his throat and fell to his knees exhausted. Amidst the heavy gasping, he gradually saw that the floor of the room in the Ghost Academy was in front of him.

A hand gently stroked his back, and his heartbeat quickly calmed down, but the scene just now was still lingering in his mind. He stared at the ground with empty eyes, muttering to himself, "Xin Bi..."

"I'm here." The voice beside me was calm but powerful.

Xuan Chi turned his head to look over, staring at her without moving his eyes away.

His thoughts gradually returned, and the anxiety that was lingering in his heart gradually dissipated. He still stared at her and said, "Si Ling."

"That's me too." Si Ling pursed his lips, smiled faintly, and nodded, pretending to be nonchalant. "See, I told you long ago that you couldn't be a traitor."

——Even at the beginning, she knew nothing, but she would rather suspect that the Emperor of Heaven was a tyrant than think that he would be a traitor.

She trusted him far more than he trusted himself, both as Si Ling and Xin Bi.

She sat casually on the ground beside him, waiting for him to slowly digest this huge shock.

After 30,000 years, they sat together again.

Xuan Chi paused for a moment, his breathing steady and his thoughts returning to normal. He breathed a sigh of relief, propped himself up and sat up, when he heard Si Ling whisper, "I'm sorry."

He looked sideways at her in confusion. She lowered her eyes, her expression gloomy. "When I imprisoned your soul... I didn't know it would take thirty thousand years. I also didn't know you still had feelings and would turn into a ghost out of resentment."

Xuan Chi laughed: "It was to save me."

"I had selfish motives," she said calmly. "At that time, I couldn't bear death any longer. My so-called rescue of you was more like self-deception." She paused. "At that time, I didn't know what the future would hold. If the gods hadn't accepted my prayer, you would have been imprisoned there forever."

"So, even though I'm glad now that it turned out well..." she looked up at him, "but at that moment, I was selfish."

In a calm tone, she spoke of another entirely possible outcome, one that was cruel and inescapable for him.

But this made him feel at ease, because this was how she used to be - she could always see through everything and would not avoid anything, even if the truth was not good for her.

This is certainly the peace and wisdom accumulated over tens of thousands of years, but not all gods that have existed for tens of thousands of years can possess this kind of peace and wisdom.

Xuan Chi smiled in relief: "A good result that comes from an unexpected combination of circumstances is still a good result."

"Yes." Si Ling nodded. "What I want to say is that what follows will be a life-and-death struggle, and the person you are loyal to may not be as selfless as you think."

Xuan Chi's expression froze, and he looked at her in confusion, not quite understanding what she meant.

She observed his eyes, her tone as calm as ever: "This means that if something similar happens again, I may not be more rational than I was thirty thousand years ago, nor may I have the same good luck. So—" She pursed her lips and took a breath, "If you want to choose another path, I don't blame you."

"What?" Xuan Chi was speechless.

He had never imagined she would ask him such a question.

He shook his head almost subconsciously: "No, I..."

"Think it over before you answer me." Si Ling spoke each word with emphasis. "During that turmoil, Di Jun betrayed my tolerance, and Yuan Qianzi betrayed my trust. Now I hate the word 'betrayal' far more than I did back then. If you don't want to leave now but regret it later, things will definitely get ugly between us."

Before she finished speaking, Xuan Chi smiled and shook his head again: "No."

Si Ling frowned: "I'm serious."

"I mean, I won't regret it." Xuan Chi said, then breathed a sigh of relief and stood up. Si Ling was still sitting on the ground, looking up at him. He didn't want to continue this topic, so he asked her, "Should we go back to the Puerto Rico Trench and study how to mobilize those heavenly soldiers?"

Si Ling nodded silently and stood up.

Seeing that she didn't continue that topic, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief and turned to walk out first. Just as he reached the door, she suddenly called him again: "Xuan Chi."

He turned around and saw her laughing to herself, then folded her arms and looked at him: "I have another question for you."

Hyun Chi: “What?”

"When did you fall in love with me?" she asked bluntly.

Xuan Chi froze as if under a spell.

A smile crossed her lips, and as she studied his expression, she leisurely walked over to him. "As Si Ling, this part is easy to understand. I saved you, and I'm one of the few evil spirits who's been around for a similar number of years as you. Add to that the lingering memories of Xin Bi in your subconscious, and this kind of affection is almost inevitable."

"But what about Xin Bi?" She stopped only half a step away from him, arms still folded, and looked at him with a half-smile. "When did that happen?"

The inexplicable uneasiness made Xuan Chi grit his teeth and look away with a tense expression.

She laughed, not minding his avoiding her gaze, and said patiently, "There's no shame in facing your own heart, General."

"I didn't!" Xuan Chi denied flatly.

As he uttered these three words, his guilty gaze quickly swept over her and he saw her brows twitch slightly.

After a long silence, she laughed again: "How about this, let's exchange - I can tell you first when I noticed your thoughts."

……What?

Hyun Chi was a little panicked.

He clearly felt that she was teasing him.

There was no malice in the teasing, but he panicked all the same.

He could only pretend to be calm and said, "Your Majesty, I don't understand what you mean."

She seemed not to have heard what he said, and the next sentence she said was: "Before your first expedition, that is..." She recalled for a moment and said firmly, "About three months after you became general."

Xuan Chi was shocked: "So early?!"

The words that came out of his mouth completely shattered all the denials just now.

Si Ling burst out laughing without hiding it, and Xuan Chi finally realized what he had said. He wanted to deny it again, but his throat seemed to be stuck and he couldn't make a sound.

Si Lingping smiled and lowered her eyes: "I don't have the energy to go to the deep sea now. If you are in the mood, let's go to Lingbo City for a meal first?"

"Okay..." He didn't know what kind of mood he was in when he uttered this word.

.

Half an hour later, they sat down by the window in a store in Lingbo City.

During the past half-hour journey, Xuan Chi was quite silent and only said two words in total. The first word was when Si Ling pointed at the store and said, "Do you want to eat this?" He said, "Okay"; the second word was when Si Ling pointed at the window seat and said, "Do you want to sit here?" He said, "Okay".

Si Ling tried hard not to laugh in front of him, but she knew very well that he didn't even notice what kind of restaurant it was, let alone order food, so after sitting down, she directly took the menu from the waiter and arranged meals for two.

Technically speaking, this shop is actually a coffee shop, and the food they offer is relatively simple. Shortly after Si Ling placed his order, two cups of coffee were served. Si Ling took a sip of the vanilla latte in front of him. Hyun Chi, who had been silent for a long time, finally coughed softly and said, "Your Majesty, I..."

"Sorry to interrupt you." Si Ling slowly put down his coffee cup, rested his elbows on the table, crossed his fingers, supported his chin with the back of his hands, and looked at Xuan Chi with a smile, "I haven't asked you about your life before entering the Heavenly Palace, but you must have never been in love."

“……?” Xuan Chi was panicked and didn’t know what to say.

Si Ling: "It's weird to mention your job title on a date."

"Okay, Si Ling, wait a minute..." He paused for a moment and looked at her in surprise, "A date?!"

The two words were shouted so loudly that many guests around looked over, but since they couldn't understand Chinese, everyone quickly went back to their own business.

“No, I didn’t… I…” Hyun Chi seemed to have something to say, but his tongue seemed to have a mind of its own.

Si Ling watched his stuttering with interest. He didn't say anything for a full half minute.

She took another sip of coffee leisurely, the coffee cup perfectly obscuring her expression as she reminisced about the past.

——Yes, she had known that he was attracted to her a long time ago, but he didn’t know that she had also been attracted to her a long time ago.

She did not conceal and restrain herself as carefully as he did. She just ignored this feeling as a matter of course, because as the Emperor of Heaven, she had a lot of things to deal with, and feelings were a waste of time and meaningless to her.

So she quickly found what she thought was the most appropriate way to deal with the situation at the time: she enjoyed being with him, but that was all.

She thought of Luo Ling again. Luo Ling was the one of the Seven Saints she was closest to, or in today's terms, a close friend. Therefore, Luo Ling was the only one who knew about this "gossip."

Luo Ling was very happy to watch and eat melons 90% of the time, and the remaining 10% was to complain appropriately after she did some nasty things against him.

...For example, she once placed an opportunity on the path he had to take during his triumphant return, and when he passed by, the mechanism suddenly burst into bright starlight.

Although this has a sense of ceremonial celebration of triumph, it is indeed a bit scary.

Luo Ling then complained to her, "Your Majesty, I never thought that your way of expressing your affection would be..." Luo Ling struggled with her words for a long time, her expression complex, and finally uttered two words with the same bad taste, "Tease the bird."

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The author has something to say: Luo Ling: Just tease the bird. Fortunately it was Su Huang. If the seagulls had snatched your fries long ago, you would have only had sauce when eating fries for the rest of your life.