In the shadows of the park, concealed by the thick foliage and the night, Bibi Dong's knees hit the earth. The sound was soft, a dull thud lost under the rustling leaves, but to her, it felt like the cracking of a mountain.
The pain was physical. It was a lance of ice driven straight through her chest. It was worse than the dark, corrosive whispers of the Rakshasa God that usually plagued her mind. It was worse than the physical violation she had suffered in the secret chamber all those years ago at the hands of her teacher. That had been a violation of her body. This... this was the butchering of her soul.
For twenty years, she had built a fortress around her heart. The bricks of that fortress were made of a single, unshakeable belief. She believed their love was a tragedy. A beautiful, fragile thing broken by the cruelty of the world and the evil of the Spirit Hall. She believed that Yu Xiaogang was a victim, just like her. She believed that somewhere, beneath his stoic mask, he still held a candle for her, just as she burned a bonfire for him.
Now, the fortress didn't just crumble. It evaporated.
She listened, her breath hitched in her throat, as the man she had worshiped tore down the altar she had built for him.
"And look at her now," Yu Xiaogang continued, unaware of the audience in the shadows. He leaned back on the bench, his posture relaxed, arrogant. "Supreme Pontiff. High and mighty. Sitting on that throne like she owns the world. She's probably still pining after me. It's pathetic, really."
"Pathetic..." Bibi Dong mouthed the word. The taste of it was bitter, like gall.
"She never understood my theories," Yu Xiaogang complained, waving a hand dismissively. "I would talk for hours about the mutation of spirit rings, about the soul power limits, and she would just sit there. Nodding along like a loyal puppy. She has power, yes. Her Twin Spirits are impressive. But she has no mind. No true understanding of the martial spirit. What a pathetic woman."
Liu Erlong, playing her part to perfection, looked shocked but supportive. She placed a hand on his arm. "Oh, Xiaogang... I had no idea. I always thought... she was a genius."
"A genius?" Yu Xiaogang scoffed. "She is a brainless fool who is somewhat talented as a Spirit Master. Nothing more."
He paused, his expression darkening. "Besides... she's damaged goods anyway."
The air in the park seemed to freeze.
"Damaged goods?" Liu Erlong asked, her voice a whisper.
"Too much baggage," he sneered. "She was always so moody. So intense. Who could truly love a woman like that? I needed someone pure. Someone fiery and alive. Like you."
In the bushes, Bibi Dong's trembling stopped. The tears that had threatened to fall dried up instantly. The shock began to fade, receding like a tide going out before a tsunami.
It left behind a cold, hollow void. A vacuum in the center of her chest where her heart used to be.
And then, the void filled.
It didn't fill with sadness. It didn't fill with grief. It filled with rage.
It was a rage so pure, so absolute, so terrifyingly cold that it made the Rakshasa's influence look like a child's tantrum. This was not the anger of a god. This was the fury of a woman scorned, betrayed, and mocked by the only person she had ever allowed herself to trust.
Her eyes, usually a soft, glittering pink, darkened. They turned a deep, bloody crimson, the color of a fresh wound.
The temperature in the park dropped ten degrees in a second. Frost began to creep across the grass beneath her knees. The flowers near her withered, turning black and crumbling to dust, their life force extinguished by the sheer proximity to her malice.
"Damaged goods," she whispered. The words were a curse.
She stood up.
She didn't attack. She didn't scream. She didn't unleash her spirit abilities to turn Yu Xiaogang into a pile of ash, though the urge to do so was a physical itch under her skin.
She simply looked at him.
Through the gaps in the leaves, she cast one last look at the man she had worshiped. She didn't see the tragic hero anymore. She didn't see the brilliant theorist.
She saw a small man. A petty man. A weakling who needed to tear down a woman to make himself feel tall. She saw an arrogant failure who blamed the world for his own inadequacy.
The image of Yu Xiaogang, the idol she had polished and protected in her heart for two decades, shattered. It lay in pieces at her feet, ugly and cheap.
She turned away.
She moved silently, a ghost in the night. As she walked back towards the Supreme Pontiff's Palace, something inside her died forever. The girl who loved Yu Xiaogang, the girl who believed in romance and tragedy, took her last breath.
Only the Supreme Pontiff remained. And she was cold.
Miles away, in the opulent study of his estate, Zhang Tian sat with his eyes closed. He felt the shift in the network.
"It is done, my Emperor," Ah Yin's mental voice came to him, tinged with a mixture of satisfaction and pity. "He said everything. Every vile, petty thought in his head. And she heard it all. I felt her presence... it turned to ice."
Zhang Tian opened his eyes. A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face.
"Excellent," he murmured.
The final chain binding Bibi Dong to her past had been severed. The anchor that held her back was gone. Now, she was adrift. And he would be the one to steer her.
He stood up. "It's time for the follow-up."
Bibi Dong walked through the streets of Spirit City. She didn't see the people bowing as she passed. She didn't see the lights of the city. She saw nothing but the darkness in her own mind.
She was walking aimlessly. Her feet moved of their own accord, carrying her back towards the cage of her palace. Her mind was a storm of conflicting emotions, a whirlwind of hate and self-loathing.
"Your Holiness?"
The voice was calm, familiar. It cut through the noise in her head.
She stopped. She looked up.
Zhang Tian was standing there, in the middle of a quiet plaza. He was dressed casually, his hands in his pockets, looking at her with an expression of mild concern.
"You..." she rasped. Her voice was a wreck, dry and brittle.
He stepped closer, his brow furrowing. "I am surprised," he said softly. "I performed a session this morning. Your mind should be clear. But... your mental state is fragile. It's shattering."
He walked up to her, invading her personal space in a way no one else dared. He looked into her eyes, his gaze clinical yet searching.
"The corruption," he murmured. "Whatever it is that plagues you... it's surging. It's reacting to your emotional state. It's rapid. Unstoppable. If we don't treat this now, you will lose control before you reach the palace steps."
Bibi Dong looked at him. She felt the buzzing in her head, the return of the dark whispers, louder than ever, feeding on her heartbreak. She felt like she was drowning.
"Help me," she whispered. It was a plea she never thought she would make.
"Come," he said.
He didn't take her to the palace. He led her to a nearby building, a secret safe house maintained by the Spirit Hall for covert operations. He seemed to know the way as if he owned the city.
They entered a secluded, soundproofed chamber. Zhang Tian wasted no time.
"Sit," he commanded gently.
Bibi Dong sat on a simple meditation mat. She felt numb.
Zhang Tian summoned his spirit. The Blood Silver Emperor emerged, the crimson vines filling the room with a warm, metallic scent. He placed his hands on her shoulders.
"Relax your mind," he said. "Let me in."
She didn't resist. She dropped her mental barriers, welcoming the intrusion. She needed the silence. She needed the pain to stop.
He activated his Devour ability. He began to siphon the chaotic, dark energy that was roiling within her spirit. But this time, he did something else.
As he pulled the corruption out, he pushed something in.
It was subtle. A thread of his own mental force, wrapped in the soothing sensation of the healing process. It was a seed. A mark.
He had never dared to do this before. Her defenses were usually impenetrable, her paranoia a wall of steel. But tonight... tonight she was broken. Her mind was entirely relaxed, wide open in her desperation for relief. She trusted him. He was the only one who could stop the noise.
He planted the trace of his mental energy deep within her subconscious. It settled there, undetected, a dormant link that would allow him to influence her moods, to sense her thoughts, to be a constant, unseen presence in her mind.
Bibi Dong didn't feel a thing. She only felt the relief, the cool wash of clarity as the Rakshasa's influence was dialed back.
Zhang Tian pulled his hands away, but he didn't step back. He kept his gaze locked on hers. He knew that just healing her wasn't enough. He had to reshape the narrative. He had to fill the void left by Yu Xiaogang.
"Why?" he asked, his voice soft, intimate. "Why are you so depressed? You look like a woman who has given up on living. What happened?"
Bibi Dong looked down at her hands. They were trembling.
"I..." she started, her voice catching. "I once treated a set of memories fondly. Very fondly. They were... my anchor. The one pure thing in my life."
She took a shuddering breath. "But tonight... I realized the truth. What I considered fond memories were just... manipulations."
She looked up at him, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. "The one I considered the best... the one I thought would never betray me... the one I thought would never harm me... he was the worst of them all."
She didn't say his name. She couldn't.
Zhang Tian listened, his face a mask of sympathy. "I see," he said. "Whoever this person is... he sounds like a rascal. An idiot. To throw away the favor of a woman like you... he must be blind."
Bibi Dong let out a bitter, humorless laugh. "Yes. Blind."
Zhang Tian's expression shifted. The sympathy vanished, replaced by a hard, challenging look. He leaned in, his face inches from hers.
"However," he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "You are an even greater fool than that man."
Bibi Dong flinched. She stared at him, shock cutting through her grief. "What?"
"You heard me," he said. "You are a fool."
He grabbed her shoulders, his grip firm. "From what I have noticed... this individual's significance was greater in your heart than your own daughter. Than Qian Renxue."
Bibi Dong tried to pull away, but he held her fast.
"You pushed her away," he accused. "You treated her like a monster. You projected your hatred onto her. And for what? For a memory? For a ghost?"
"You don't understand—" she tried to protest.
"I understand perfectly," he cut her off. "If this individual was just a scheming, ungrateful wretch... and you loved him more than your own flesh and blood... then you deserve this pain."
He let the words hang in the air, a brutal slap to her face.
"You were loving a parasite," he said. "While you ignored the one person in this world who loves you unconditionally. The one person who craves your affection so badly she is starving for it."
Bibi Dong stared at him. "She... she hates me."
"She loves you," Zhang Tian corrected her, his voice filled with a passionate, convincing emotion. "She loves you so greatly that you cannot even imagine it."
He softened his grip, his thumbs rubbing circles on her shoulders. "Renxue... she has spoken to me. In confidence. She told me that she would do anything to have a good relationship with you."
He looked deep into her eyes, weaving his lie with the skill of a master artist.
"She told me," he whispered, "that she has thought about crippling her own martial spirit."
Bibi Dong gasped. "What?"
"The Seraphim Spirit," Zhang Tian said. "She knows. She knows it reminds you of him. Of her father. She told me she hates it. She hates her own wings because they cause you pain. She has considered destroying her own cultivation, shattering her spirit, just so you might look at her without seeing him."
"No..." Bibi Dong whispered, horror dawning on her face. "She wouldn't..."
"She would," Zhang Tian insisted. "She asked me if she should dye her hair. She asked if she should change her name. She asked if there was any poison she could take to change her face. Anything. Anything to earn a single kind word from her mother."
He was filling the void. He was pouring the image of Qian Renxue into the empty space where Yu Xiaogang used to be. He was ensuring that her trauma, the scar left by Qian Xunji, would no longer intersect with her daughter. He was rewriting her emotional landscape.
Bibi Dong trembled. The guilt crashed over her. A tidal wave of regret.
She thought of Renxue's cold, formal greetings. She thought of the pain in her daughter's eyes that she had always ignored. She had been so focused on her own tragedy, on her own "lost love," that she had abused the only person who actually cared for her.
And the man she had sacrificed her relationship with her daughter for... he had called her "damaged goods."
She broke.
A sob tore from her throat. She slumped forward, her forehead resting against Zhang Tian's chest. She was the Supreme Pontiff. She was a peak Douluo. But right now, she was just a broken woman.
She needed an anchor. She needed something solid to hold onto in the storm.
She looked up at him, her eyes wet, her defenses gone.
"Please," she muttered, her voice a tiny, broken thing. "Hold me. Just... hold me."
Zhang Tian didn't stand on ceremony. He didn't hesitate.
He wrapped his arms around her. He pulled her mature, voluptuous body into a tight, crushing hug. He pressed her against him, letting her feel his warmth, his strength.
She buried her face in his neck, her hands clutching the back of his shirt. She smelled of orchids and tears. Her body was soft, yielding, trembling against his.
Zhang Tian held her, his hand stroking her long, pink hair. He knew. He knew this opportunity would never come again. The iron was hot. The walls were down.
He leaned his head down, his lips brushing against her ear.
"Your Holiness," he whispered, his voice low, a vibration against her skin. "If you hug me like this... I might misunderstand something."
He pulled her slightly closer, letting his hips press against hers.
"After all," he murmured, "you are a very, very beautiful woman. And I am a man. I am afraid... I am afraid of committing a mistake. Of crossing a line that cannot be uncrossed."
Bibi Dong went still. She heard him. She understood him.
She knew what he was asking. She knew what he was offering. Not just comfort. But something else. A distraction. A validation. A way to burn away the memory of Yu Xiaogang with a new, hotter fire.
She didn't pull away. She didn't reprimand him.
She tightened her grip. She pressed herself harder against him, her breasts flattening against his chest, her hips grinding slightly against his.
She remained silent.
She didn't care if he made a mistake. In fact, she wanted him to. She wanted to make a mistake. She wanted to destroy the past.
Zhang Tian felt her surrender in the tension of her body. He took her silence for what it was.
A yes.
~~
A/N: Check out my BTTH Fanfic [Doupo: Plundering the Plot with God-Tier Comprehension].
Also, check out 20 Chapters Ahead for this fanfic on my P.atreon.
Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/c/evildragon04