The villa wasn’t just staffed with a nanny—there were also superpowered bodyguards, making it incredibly secure. All that was left was to bring Su Xiaoxiao over, and the family would be complete.
Su Mo spent the night sleeping with Momo. The little one was incredibly clingy; she absolutely had to be right next to him to fall asleep, otherwise she’d cry and fuss endlessly, and no amount of coaxing would help.
They’d only seen each other a handful of times since she was born, so of course Su Mo did everything he could to indulge her. Such a small request was hardly a big deal.
But…
In the middle of the night, Su Mo was jolted awake by a strange sensation—ticklish, warm, wet, and moving…
“Ahh~” Su Mo couldn’t help but let out a soft yelp, suppressing his instinct to lash out. He reached into his arms and felt a round little head, eagerly nursing away!
He was at his wit’s end: “Momo, please let go—there’s nothing there to eat. Sis hurts.”
(っ╥╯﹏╰╥c)
At just over a year old, Momo was at that stage where she was learning to talk. To avoid confusing her, Su Mo had always referred to himself as her “big sister.”
Momo seemed to understand what he meant. Her sucking paused for a moment, and then, the very next second, she fell soundly asleep.
She wasn’t hungry—she was just playing?
Su Mo gently rubbed the spot she’d been biting. It stung a little, but he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at the little culprit. He just sighed helplessly.
Early the next morning, Su Mo and Ye Qingyi left the house and took a taxi to Guatai Mountain.
Ye Qingyu had requested this.
When they reached the summit, Ye Qingyu was sitting on the Spirit Attracting Platform, cultivating. Sensing their approach, she opened her eyes.
“Did you get a VIP membership or something? How come you’re always here?” Su Mo joked.
“This place is about to be handed over to Beidou,” Ye Qingyu said calmly, though a hint of melancholy crept into her voice. “I might as well enjoy it while I can.”
“Sis, what’s wrong?” Ye Qingyi asked, concerned.
Ye Qingyu didn’t answer her directly. Instead, she turned to both of them: “Do you know of the Carefree Wanderer?”
Seeing their puzzled looks, she added, “Surely you know Master Yu?”
Both of them answered at once: “Yes.”
“He’s dead.”
Su Mo was startled: “How do you know, sis? Did you meet him?”
“We all did. Right here.”
“Here?!” Su Mo froze for a second, then suddenly recalled that rather eccentric Daoist priest. He muttered to himself, “It can’t be him, can it…”
“Yes, it’s him.” Ye Qingyu’s tone was somber: “Many people know that a mysterious powerful being saved Earth when disaster struck, but they don’t know that person’s name was Master Yu.”
Su Mo was deeply shaken and took a moment to recover.
Master Yu was that Daoist priest? And also the mysterious powerhouse who used temporal rewind to contain the disaster?
Ye Qingyi’s impression of Master Yu was mostly that of an eccentric Daoist, plus what Su Mo had told her about his experiences in Chuyuan.
Su Mo was different. He’d personally traveled to Chuyuan and knew just how much effort Master Yu had poured into the celestial being of Chuyuan—the Earth Mother Goddess.
Hearing of his death now, especially in such a manner, filled him with sorrow.
Ye Qingyi stood silently beside them. After a long pause, she finally spoke: “Actually… I had a feeling. I had a strange dream back then. An old man whose face I couldn’t quite see kept calling me ‘Miss.’ When he disappeared from the dream, I thought I heard him say, ‘Miss, this old servant takes his leave.’ I didn’t know why, but I suddenly felt so sad…”
As she spoke, grief welled up within her, and it took a long while for her to calm down.
Su Mo recounted the events of Chuyuan to Ye Qingyu. After listening, she reasoned: “So, Master Yu was likely someone close to the Mother Goddess, and Qingyi is the Mother Goddess’s Chosen One?”
“That’s right, though there’s a twist,” Su Mo said. “Technically, I should be Teng She’s Chosen One, but since we swapped souls, we now have more than one type of divine bloodline in our bodies.”
Ye Qingyu gave him an odd look: “That’s… absurd…”
“And what’s more, I initially suspected that I was chosen by Teng She back at the Jingshan Ruins, since that’s where I got the Netherfire. But this trip to the shrine completely upended that theory.
At the shrine, Qingyi ran into danger. It was a remnant divine sense left behind by the dead Yamata-no-Orochi. At the critical moment, my soul returned to my original body—and that was the work of Teng She’s divine sense fragment, which was hiding inside my body.
If I hadn’t borrowed his power to sever one of Orochi’s heads back then, the consequences would have been unthinkable.”
Ye Qingyi added, “I know about that Teng She divine sense you mentioned. But he seems really weak right now.”
Su Mo grinned slyly: “Looks like he can only use his power once. Last time, he tried to take over my body by using me as a way out, but luckily I had a backup plan and resealed him.”
Ye Qingyu felt like she was listening to a fairy tale—the more she heard, the more fantastical it became. She asked skeptically: “Is this how it is for all Chosen Ones?”
“No idea, but I plan to look into it when I get back to the Prodigy Camp,” Su Mo resolved silently. After all, he had promised Shuang’er that he’d help the Tianyao Clan return to their ancestral home.
Speaking of the Prodigy Camp, Ye Qingyi suddenly said: “Oh, by the way, there’s just over a month until the Prodigy Camp’s year-end assessment. I hear they’re going to assign numbers to all the prodigy teams this time.”
“A month… should be enough time.” Su Mo pondered to himself: “I’ve basically mastered the Soul Transfer technique, but I need herbal supplements to make sure there are no aftereffects. Shuang’er gave me some before, but the quantity is limited—I have to make sure it’s foolproof.”
Back when he’d explained it to the main envoy, he hadn’t mentioned any of this—nor the fact that skin contact was required for the transfer, or even that the cultivation method itself had some subtle issues.
“What else do you need? I’ll help you find it.”
“We need a bath.”
Ye Qingyi’s face flushed: “What do you need a bath for?”
Su Mo said matter-of-factly: “A medicinal bath, of course. The whole soul transfer process requires herbal assistance, and also—”
Ye Qingyu coughed lightly: “There’s a hot spring up on this mountain. I’ll have it enclosed for you.”
At that moment, she looked like a worried parent, fussing over her younger siblings.
———
Kamiyo Toyohiro (the main envoy) struggled to his feet, his face twisted with malice: “A mere junior, trying to kill me? Too green, hahahaha…”
Before him lay his original body, charred by the Netherfire, with a wisp of a spirit drifting above it.
“Kamiyo Toyohiro, you useless waste! When have I ever been so humiliated?! Go find me a new vessel—now!”
That spirit was furious—it was the broken divine sense left behind by Yamata-no-Orochi, and somehow, it was still alive.
Kamiyo Toyohiro didn’t move an inch.
“Kamiyo Toyohiro, are you deaf?!” Orochi roared. “Don’t forget who’s kept you alive all these years! Believe me, I can—what are you doing?!”
Kamiyo Toyohiro’s face darkened, his voice icy: “Still think you’re a god, do you? If it weren’t for me back then, you’d have been scattered to the winds long ago. Now you’re nothing but a slightly higher-grade remnant soul. What gives you the right to order me around?!”
“How dare you!”
Orochi bellowed, ready to teach the now B-ranked Kamiyo Toyohiro a lesson—but to his surprise, Toyohiro didn’t flinch. Instead, he smirked, and a sword materialized in his hand.
“Ame-no-Murakumo!”
“That’s right. Your Ame-no-Murakumo. Now it’s back where it belongs.”
“Hmph, at least you—wait, what are you doing?!” He watched helplessly as he was sucked into the blade, powerless to resist.
“You’re just a wisp of a remnant soul now. As weak as when I first met you, sure, but perfect for a sword spirit. With someone else helping me gather power, I’ll be back to S-rank in no time, and Ame-no-Murakumo will become the greatest divine weapon in the world.”
“So you planned this all along…” Orochi couldn’t even finish his sentence before he was completely sealed into the sword as its spirit.
The servant had become the master. For a god, this was the ultimate humiliation.
Kamiyo Toyohiro laughed maniacally: “Hahahaha—I will become a new god!”
