Tears wet the cold floor as Jingliu slowly curled up her body.
"You big liar..."
"If you had told me sooner... I would rather die than have you turn into that..."
Even in death, she would never want to see that upright and indomitable man become so lowly and miserable for her sake.
A long, long time passed.
Not until her voice was hoarse and her tears had almost run dry did Jingliu, with trembling hands, light up the jade message once more.
She didn't dare to look, yet she had to.
This was everything her master had done for her, and everything she had to bear.
In the images, the transplant surgery was successfully completed.
Lying on the bed, Jingliu's breathing became steady and long, her chest rising and falling gently with each breath, her sleeping face serene.
The incisions on her body had completely healed, without leaving a single scar.
Perfect.
Truly perfect.
This was the result Qi Zhimu wanted.
Qi Zhimu leaned against the bedside, gasping for air. He raised a hand as withered as tree bark and gently stroked Jingliu's restored face.
A hint of a smile slowly appeared in his cloudy, aged eyes.
It was gentler and purer than before.
There was no pain, no resentment, and no regret.
There was only pity, and the deep affection Jingliu had sought for many years but never received.
There was also the soft light of someone who loved another to their very core, willing to be ground into powder for them and finding it sweet.
Jingliu felt a lump in her throat as she watched.
It turned out that everything she had craved for a thousand years, she had already received... "Sleep now..."
Qi Zhimu spoke in a barely audible voice, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"When you wake up... everything will be fine. You can be like a normal person and chase after everything you want."
"Lord Zhimu..." Clear Cold looked at him with concern.
"It's fine. As long as she is well, it doesn't matter what becomes of this monster." The smile remained on Qi Zhimu's lips.
Jingliu stared blankly at that curve.
At that moment, she heard the sound of her mental defenses completely collapsing.
It turned out that in her master's heart, she was never a burden or a bargaining chip to be weighed.
It turned out that after the Destruction of Azure City, the person who belonged in the softest corner of her master's heart had never changed from beginning to end.
It was only her.
「When will Jingliu wake up?」 Sleeping Snow asked.
「Three days at the shortest, ten days at the longest.」
Qi Zhimu felt his condition recover slightly and then said:
「The aftereffects of losing the elixir organ are more severe than expected. I need to leave for a while.」
「Little sister, go with Lord Zhimu so you can look after each other. I'll stay here to take care of Jingliu.」
Sleeping Snow knew what he was leaving to do.
「What do you think, Lord Zhimu?」 Clear Cold looked at him.
「Very well.」
The two quickly put on loose robes and departed without attracting any attention.
Jingliu wiped the corner of her eye and discovered that the reason her master left was to find Abominations of Abundance to... nourish his body.
With every blessing he plundered, his appearance would grow a bit younger.
He slaughtered for seven days and seven nights across several planets teeming with Abominations of Abundance before he roughly returned to his familiar appearance, though his face remained deathly pale, devoid of any color.
What followed should have been his return to the medical room to wait for her to wake up.
Recalling the scene when she woke up then, some of the doubts in Jingliu's heart were resolved.
No wonder she could smell a scent of blood on her master that seemed to have soaked into his very bones and blood, impossible to wash away.
In a short period, he had slaughtered at least tens of billions of Abominations of Abundance.
That's right; not long after that, the IPC had broadcasted related news.
It claimed that several planets of the Abominations of Abundance were purged in a short time... yet there was no intervention from the Xianzhou Alliance military. The methods were unknown, and it was suspected to be the work of a Lord Ravager.
Years ago, the Lord Ravager Celenova had threatened the Zhuming Xianzhou, demanding their assistance in besieging the world of the Wing-Makers.
Zhuming naturally refused and instead repelled Celenova.
This showed that the Lords Ravager were not above acting against the Abominations of Abundance. At the time, most people in the Alliance felt this matter was related to Destruction.
Who would have known... that it was actually done by Qi Zhimu alone... But even the power plundered from tens of billions of Abominations of Abundance could not fill the void left by his lost elixir organ.
Having lived for a thousand years, Jingliu still couldn't imagine exactly how much he had lost.
Her master's love was never something he let her see; it was always silent and nourishing, always... burying all tenderness beneath a surface of severity and ruthlessness.
Her master had meddled with Xianzhou taboos, acted like the Abominations of Abundance, and considered himself a monster... By now, Jingliu's previous assumption—that Qi Zhimu was unwilling to face his feelings and had rejected her—was likely true, without any overly complex secrets.
But she could never have imagined that while the real reason wasn't complex, it was lethal enough.
Just as Qi Zhimu returned to the medical room, his body suddenly froze.
His pupils were covered in crimson, emitting a chilling bloodlust. He stared fixedly at the still-unconscious Jingliu, his breathing quietly becoming heavy.
Before the two sisters could react, he had already appeared in front of Jingliu, opening his mouth to bite toward her neck.
Just an instant before his fangs could pierce her skin, he struck his own head fiercely with a fist, and it shattered with a bang.
Although his head restored itself in the next second, it was enough for him to retreat violently, moving to a corner where his whole body trembled.
「Quick! Pin me down with the Heart-Eroding Spikes!!」
Qi Zhimu roared at Sleeping Snow and Clear Cold, his voice filled with urgency.
Before he had even finished speaking, several bone blades burst from his body, piercing his shoulders, skull, and abdomen.
Although the two didn't understand the reason for the sudden change, their trust in Qi Zhimu drove them to act without hesitation.
Two long, thin spikes shot from their palms, piercing through his heart.
Qi Zhimu's body was still trembling, but not as violently as before.
Jingliu stared blankly at everything that had happened in the blink of an eye, not understanding why her master had suddenly become so manic.
He was pinned to the wall, his eyes full of bloodthirsty longing. Fangs unique to the Borisin had actually grown in his mouth, gleaming with a cold light, and saliva even began to spill from the corners of his mouth.
「...What's happening?! Lord Zhimu!」
「It's that moon-eroding calamity...」 Qi Zhimu's voice carried a sense of endurance.
It was clear he was doing his best to resist some impulse as he quickly explained.
「It was originally the heart of a Borisin war leader. After merging it with the Self-Actualization Aspect Method, I hadn't noticed anything unusual all these years.」
「The elixir organ cannot regenerate. After losing it, the moon-eroding calamity taken from Ussa took over its functions.」
「As a result, the side effects that had never shown themselves in previous years have finally erupted.」
「Now that she and I share the same blood and the elixir organ is inside her, my subconscious keeps urging me to tear her apart, to devour her... to take back everything that belongs to me...」
The two sisters understood.
Nourished by the blessing of abundance from tens of billions of lives, the moon-eroding calamity had become even more powerful, and its side effects more pronounced.
It wasn't much before seeing Jingliu, but once in close contact—
That desire to feed was like throwing a lit match into a sea of gasoline, instantly igniting an unquenchable, towering inferno... The owed bonus chapters have been completed.