It's grown a beak!!! Because I like you.

Kuwano:......

These advanced sentinels' perception abilities are really annoying.

The little phoenix had clear eyes, showing no sign of rage.

He stretched out a paw, and Sangye helped him climb up.

Surrounded by Kuwano, the island is very simple. The buildings use materials from the Tide Sea and simulate the style of the capital planet, with only one villa built in the central area.

Several warships were moored on the island, seemingly Lin Changli's private collection.

"Where is he?" Kuwano asked.

The little phoenix blinked, but before it could pretend to be stupid, Sangye grabbed its beak and pulled its head close.

"Tell me quickly, where is he?"

"Asleep," the little phoenix replied in a muffled voice. "Inside my body."

"Can you wake him up?"

“I can’t wake him up, he doesn’t want to wake up.” The little phoenix shook its head, raised its wings, and once again stirred up waves of fire as it rushed towards the sea, constantly consuming its spiritual energy.

"Stop, don't do this," Sangye stopped him. "If you keep wasting your mental energy, you'll drain both of you."

The lower one's mental strength, the lower one's sanity will be, and in the end, one will only become a destructive beast.

"You'll die too, you know that, right?" Kuwano tried to persuade him.

Little Phoenix said calmly, "He and I are one, and I accept all his decisions."

"Did I say something really offensive? Why have you all become like this?" Kuwano didn't understand.

After the little phoenix grew larger, it no longer had beady eyes; its long eyelashes drooped as it looked down at Sangye: "We are very sad. We are being treated as a burden and trouble again."

Sangye was puzzled.

“When we were little, my mother was very busy and she had many enemies. My father raised me and him. My mother gave him status, but not real power. My father didn’t like us. He was destructive, difficult to manage, and required a lot of mental counseling.”

Those who are inherently self-serving will only slide into a moral abyss.

He thought marrying the princess would grant him a painless and easy path to military rank, position, and power, but Lin Shuangqiao didn't promote him at all. Instead, Lin Shuangqiao had no energy to look after Lin Changli and demand that he take things seriously.

The oppressive feeling of high-level mental power and advanced mental domain also made this man feel particularly troubled.

Lin Changli became a nuisance and a burden.

As a result, he suffered countless verbal and psychological abuses from this man during his childhood. He wasn't physically assaulted because the man couldn't beat him, so his spirit would rush to his defense.

Lin Shuangqiao didn't discover it in time. At that time, Xiao Lin Changli wasn't very good at expressing himself, and men are very good at hiding their feelings.

Kobayashi Nagatoshi established his own defense mechanism; he rejected all in-depth analysis from guides and fundamentally rejected psychological violence.

He fell seriously ill when he broke through to a higher level, and Lin Shuangqiao rushed back to help him. She beat up the little phoenix and successfully penetrated into the inner layer of his mind.

Lin Shuangqiao divorced him and imprisoned the man in a remote planetary prison, forcing him to manage dozens of sentinels a day. He died seemingly within a few years.

But such harm is destined to accompany one for life.

Lin Changli stubbornly refused all mental counseling unless Lin Shuangqiao beat him up. He also changed from being lively and adorable in his childhood to being sharp-tongued and sarcastic.

He helped Lin Shuangqiao win the war for the throne, conquered galaxies, and his fame spread far and wide. No one would call him a burden or a nuisance anymore.

Even today.

“What other people say usually doesn’t have this effect; what the enemy says on the battlefield is much harsher,” Little Phoenix stammered.

"...What makes me any different?" Kuwano stared directly at him.

The little phoenix avoided Sangye's gaze and ran away like a free-range chicken, unwilling to answer.

Sangye grabbed its tail, but he was no match for the phoenix's strength and was pulled back.

"Don't run away! Make him come out and talk to me!" Sangye was also angry and chased after him.

"Do you think I can automatically understand what you mean without you saying anything?"

"I was indeed sent by your mother to rescue you, and of course I'm grateful to her for saving my life. So, do you think I don't need to socialize at all in the base? Do you think I can do whatever I want like you?"

"Do you think I had an easy life, coming here out of nowhere, being sentenced, accumulating a mountain of debt, and then being exiled?"

“I called you over, but as soon as we met, you got into a fight with someone again.”

"That's great. He hurt me and I have to face his mother, you hurt me and I have to face your mother. Why can't either of you give me a break?"

"Are you just going to take it for granted that you can put me in such a difficult situation?"

As Sangye spoke, he grew angrier and angrier, his grip tightening. His spiritual energy overflowed, and the phoenix tree around him grew wildly, its branches intertwining and binding Sangye to trap the phoenix.

The towering spiritual entity found it difficult to break free for a time.

Sangye climbed onto its back, turned its head, and forced it to look at him:

"What do I have to do with you? What gives you the right to be angry with me!"

Phoenix's pupils contracted.

The clash between their spiritual powers distorted the surrounding space. Sangye's spiritual body, along with the cave, trembled and was sucked into another space.

Kuwano had never seen such a horrifying sight.

As far as the eye could see, there was scorched earth; the sky was a burnt yellow, and the clouds were thick with burning debris, unable to move. The air was filled with an unbearable smell of sulfur.

In the dim light, a solitary figure stood.

He watched quietly as the mulberry and sycamore seedlings descended.

The spirit is manifested outwardly, while the masters enter the inner space.

Lin Changli woke up at some point, and he silently stared at Sangye.

“You,” Sangye stepped on the scorched earth, feeling dirty and uncomfortable, “when did you wake up?”

"...From the moment you asked me to go out and see you."

I heard almost everything.

"Aren't you going out?" After the initial shock subsided, Sangye asked awkwardly.

Lin Changli didn't answer. He looked up at the sky and looked outside through the little phoenix's eyes.

His Alpha Fortress stood silently amidst the dark, heavy clouds outside.

“My mother has already prepared a burial place for me. Over the years, I’ve been a burden to her.” Lin Changli replied, “It’s too tiring. I’m no longer needed by anyone.”

"What happened today has nothing to do with you. I'm just too emotionally fragile. Go home. If it gets any later, I might not be able to control myself."

“If she didn’t want you alive, she wouldn’t have come here today. I don’t know much about space fortresses, but this isn’t something you can just throw away as a sacrifice, is it?” Kuwano wasn’t going to leave like this. “Besides, if she really wanted to give up, why did she come back to this island?”

Lin Changli remained silent.

"Since you've told me about your past, I'll share mine with you too." Sangye wanted to sit down, but after looking around for a while, he found no place to sit, so he gave up.

“You should know that I don’t come from this world,” Sangye said without hiding anything. “In the world I was born into, I was an orphan. I was abandoned under a mulberry tree in the wilderness in the dead of winter. A wolf didn’t eat me; instead, it kept me warm under its belly for a day. My master happened to be passing by and took me in. That’s why I’m called Sangye. The mulberry tree and the wolf saved my life. My master hoped that I would grow up to be wild and tenacious, and that my future would be as full of unknown possibilities as the wilderness.”

“After being adopted by my master, I didn’t encounter any major difficulties until I came into this world.” Sangye’s tone shifted. “But guess why I was abandoned?”

Lin Changli shook his head.

“Because I’m a girl,” Sangye replied. “You find it incredible, right? But where we’re from, girls are useless, they’re a money pit. Girls are born with all sorts of causes of death. If they’re lucky enough to survive, they’ll be slaves at home for over ten years, and then sold off at fourteen or fifteen to give their families some money. Forget about going to school, joining the army, or inheriting the family fortune, we’re not even allowed to live.”

“When I grew up, I went back to see my original parents. I was quite young then and still had hope for them. But when they saw that I was still alive, they first asked me if the family that adopted me had given me some travel money. The next day, they started looking for my ‘buyer’.”

Kuwano gave a sarcastic laugh.

“That’s why I really like this era.” Sangye didn’t dwell on the past. “Your mother can protect you and also take revenge on your father without any scruples, making him pay the price. In my time, don’t even think about it. Even if you were a princess, you were just expendable material for your husband to climb the social ladder.”

"Now that I'm here, no matter how difficult it is, I'll try my best to live on." Once inside the mental landscape, Sangye continued to radiate his mental energy, comforting Lin Changli. "That's why I want to rescue you today. You can probably guess what your mother promised me, and I won't deliberately hide anything from you."

Sangye squatted down, pushed the sycamore seedling into the scorched soil, and stomped it down hard. The sycamore seedling began its hard work of taking root.

"So let's have an open and honest talk, and let's not bring up the past. You're not much more pitiful than me." Sang Ye raised an eyebrow, forcefully pulling Lin Changli out of his emotional state.

"Of course you can ignore me, or you can kick me out. After all, it's your territory, you're in charge." Sangye wouldn't mince words. "But if we don't say it out loud, there won't be a next time."

The phoenix tree also loves the spirit and aura of the phoenix, and in a short time it has grown to the height of the mulberry tree's shoulder.

Sangye moved aside to make room for Wutong.

Fortunately, her spiritual form is a phoenix tree, which can grow wherever there is soil; if it were an animal spiritual form, they would be fighting now.

Lin Changli looked at her silently for a while: "What are we talking about? Why did I lose control and want to hit him?"

"If you want to start with this."

Lin Changli's mind became clearer and clearer, his eyes bright and gradually regaining their former radiance.

The woman opposite him stood tall and proud, her will unwavering.

"Because I hate that he provoked me, because I'm jealous that he can get so close to you. Even though I know I'm not worthy. I'm nothing to you." In his inner world, Lin Changli was much more frank than he was outwardly. "Because I like you."