"Mom, if Ayase doesn't come back, then I'll charge into the Otherside and slaughter them all. I'll carve a path of blood and bring Ayase back. Is that okay?" Her gaze was faintly shadowed. Clearly, she knew her thoughts were excessive, that she hadn't considered Li Mingxue's feelings at all.
"If that's the case, then Mom will go with you. We'll turn the Otherside upside down together and make them hand over your beloved Ayase." Li Mingxue seemed to have long been prepared for her decision. She showed no surprise. Instead, she leaned close to her daughter's face and gently pinched her cheek.
"You're my daughter. Your friends, the one you love, the one who protects you, who likes you, who has helped me guard you all this time—that kind of person is exactly the one Mom likes most. Since she's in danger, there's no way I'll stand by and do nothing. Even if it's troublesome, I won't give up so easily. This is your belief, and it's mine too. It's what we've always insisted on—loving what we love, with unwavering devotion."
"Loving what I love... Mom, thank you for understanding. I know this is willful. But I really can't watch her fall into danger while I do nothing to help. I can't do that. I can't persuade myself to accept it."
"Because it's what my heart wants to do. She gave everything for me. If I give my life for her... isn't that only natural?" Chu Lian fell silent. The words were selfish, yet weren't they exactly what she truly thought?
"Then have you thought about Mom? About your dad? About your elder sister and older brother? About Chu Chu, Inori, Xiu'er, Ya, Yanran, Anna, and the others? If your life belonged only to you, then you could throw it away and no one would care."
"But your life doesn't belong only to you. It belongs to me. It belongs to Ayase. It belongs to everyone. Would you really give up so easily? Cast aside their attachment to you, abandon your bonds, and turn a blind eye to their sorrow?"
"Leaving us aside—even Ayase would never want to see that happen. Didn't she sacrifice so much precisely so you could live well?" Li Mingxue knew her precious daughter had once again burrowed into a dead end. Drawing on experience, she patiently guided her.
"If she saw that all her efforts ended up wasted, she'd definitely feel disheartened. She's not someone who would die easily, nor someone fated for an early end."
"This incident might become a great calamity in her destiny—but it might also be a great opportunity. What she gains and what she loses will determine everything." At this point, Li Mingxue sighed softly. "But no matter what she gains, no matter how precious, it can't compare to even the slightest part of you. If she loses you, that's absolutely not what she wants. Do you understand? Do you understand? Do you understand?"
She repeated "Do you understand" three times, pinching her cheek each time. The girl's snow-white skin instantly flushed with a rosy hue, stunningly alluring.
Her large eyes shimmered with mist. Perhaps Li Mingxue had touched upon her innermost thoughts, or perhaps she simply felt wronged. In any case, she said nothing more and just gazed quietly at Li Mingxue, her eyes filled with grievance.
"Ah, ah, my Little Lian'er, that look of yours is far too lethal. One glance from you and even a man of steel would melt." Li Mingxue couldn't endure that gaze. She withdrew the hand pinching her cheek. After seeing her daughter lower her head and stop looking at her like that, she coughed lightly and continued.
"What I mean is, there's no need to talk about life and death the moment you open your mouth. Saving someone doesn't necessarily require sacrificing your own life. The people of the Otherside may be powerful—their energy barrier imposes far fewer constraints, allowing Transcendence Realm experts to appear and remain for long periods—but the competition and mutual restraints among them are countless."
"If you barge in like that, you'll only throw them into greater chaos, not unite them against you. They're that irritating—but you have to admit, for them, survival of the fittest isn't just a slogan. It's their way of life."
"Sometimes, things don't have to be resolved with force. Many times, interests and intelligence can achieve your goals just as well." Seeing her daughter somewhat calmer, Li Mingxue added, "And are you really so lacking in confidence in Ayase? Her strength surpasses your mother's by quite a bit. If even she can't resolve something, then Mom probably won't be able to either."
"So what you should be thinking about is when, within these three months, she'll come back—and what you'll be doing when she does—not what happens if she doesn't return after three months."
"You've really burrowed deep into this dead end. I've never taught you to think like that. I wonder who you inherited this temperament from." Li Mingxue no longer beat around the bush and directly pointed out Chu Lian's problem.
"That's true... why am I assuming Ayase won't come back? With her skills and strength, if she can't return from this, then even if I truly led an army of thousands into the Otherside, with its thousands of years of accumulated foundation, I'd probably be like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. What I should be thinking about isn't whether she can come back, but how I'll punish her after she does."
In the end, an outsider sees more clearly. Chu Lian had cared too deeply about Ayase's descent into madness, thinking of everything in the worst possible way. Li Mingxue, however, could immediately point out where her thinking had gone wrong and snap her awake.
Of course, this could also be called a mother knowing her daughter best. Li Mingxue had experienced far too much in life. Although Chu Lian's recent days had been tumultuous and dazzling, her experience was still far inferior to her mother's.
"Punish~" Li Mingxue clearly heard the word correctly. Her Little Lian'er had just uttered a rather dangerous term—"punish."
No, given how intimate Chu Lian and Ayase were, this kind of "punishment" probably wouldn't be as simple as punishment. There were probably things like "H" and "training" involved as well.
But those were Chu Lian's private matters. Li Mingxue wouldn't pry too deeply. Although she had experienced similar emotions in her youth, she had never truly been together with that person, so she didn't fully understand such things.
"Mom, how long will this barrier last?" After resolving the knot in her heart, Chu Lian turned her attention to the barrier and asked curiously.
Barriers were not unfamiliar to her. Leaving aside distant examples—just in Overlord, the Yukari Yakumo she had encountered.
She was a Transcendence Realm super-expert. With a casual wave of her hand, she could create an independent otherworld separate from this one, leaving those outside the thin veil able only to watch, utterly unable to interfere.
Moreover, before returning to the present world, she had encountered what could be called the most wondrous and powerful barrier in the dimensional universe—the Land of Exile. Because of that, she not only had her own understanding of barriers, but was also deeply curious about them.
Now that she saw her mother capable of creating one as well, she could hardly wait to know how it was done, so that if she encountered such a situation again in the future, she would have a way to deal with it.
"As for mine, I simply used the deathly energy and resentment inherent in the Wang residence as a foundation to construct an alternate spacetime independent from our world."
"It connects five independent higher worlds—hell, the underworld, the nether realm, the shadow plane, and the purgatory realm. It has long been their battlefield. Since the vast majority of those who fight within it are beings like gods, demons, monsters, and ghosts, it is also called the Hundred Demons Night Parade. It's a wondrous barrier whose formation conditions are extremely harsh, yet whose activation requirements are not particularly high."
"Don't be fooled by its one-kilometer radius. The space inside is estimated to be a circular world with a diameter of one hundred kilometers. It's still not very large, but it's more than sufficient for them to use as a battlefield."
"As for how long it will last—because the Wang residence is saturated with yin energy, and due to the special nature of the Hundred Demons Night Parade, it can practically exist forever."
"Of course, the price is that this space can no longer be seen by ordinary people. Otherwise, problems would arise easily. Mm, it's not that we absolutely can't step inside. As long as one possesses special items, entering it is still possible."
However, when it came to truly entering, Li Mingxue shook her head in rejection. "Even if Mom were to go in, the odds would be against me. Ordinary humans who enter either get killed and assimilated into their ranks, or are directly devoured by passing monsters. Very few meet a good end."
"I won't hide it from you, Little Lian'er. Even if all the strongest experts from the Otherside, the present world, and the cultivation world gathered into a team and entered together, the outcome wouldn't be much better."
"Inside, Heaven-rank beings are like ants, and only at the Transcendence Realm does one barely establish a foothold. Even those who have stepped onto the supreme realm are not few. Wanting to contend against them is thinking far too simply."
If such words had come from anyone else, Chu Lian would not have believed them. But coming from her mother's mouth, she had no choice but to accept them. Instantly overwhelmed by the weight of this information, her face turned slightly pale.
"However, there's no need to worry. The Hundred Demons Night Parade may be lacking in other aspects, but when it comes to restraining those within the barrier, it is among the strongest of all barriers."
Li Mingxue said this to reassure the already startled Chu Lian.
In truth, the Hundred Demons Night Parade could not truly restrain those Transcendence Realm experts who had stepped onto the supreme realm.
It was simply that once they emerged, they would be suppressed by the world's consciousness and the highest-order Laws—either driven out entirely, or forced to lower their strength to conform to the world's rules.
Neither option was something they could tolerate. Thus, they would rather remain within the Hundred Demons Night Parade, entangled endlessly with their ancient rivals of millennia past, than have any interest in coming out.
As for the others—those who had not reached the supreme realm—they simply could not come out at all. There was no need to worry about them.
"That's good." Whether it was entirely true or not, it was enough for now to choose to believe, lest she frighten herself further.
"Alright, let's go back. Anna and the others are waiting. You're not planning to skip school tomorrow, are you? I can't find an excuse for you anymore. Tomorrow, you must go~"
Li Mingxue pinched Chu Lian's small nose, still restless at heart. After watching her shake her head and break free from her hand, she smiled, took her daughter's hand, tapped lightly against the ground with her slender foot, and vanished into the air.
"Mingxue... you knew I had arrived, so you chose to leave? Rather than meet again, you would rather not reunite. Over these years, you've changed... so much..."
Not long after they departed, a woman's voice drifted through the air.
The one who spoke was none other than the so-called "old man" who had allowed Chu Lian and the others to enter earlier. Yet judging from her tone and those wistful words, laced with unspoken emotion, one could not help but wonder what kind of story was hidden beneath it all.