Chapter 145: The Awakening

The vines slowly receded, revealing Shen Zhaoqing still slumbering within. Her complexion was rosier than before, her breathing steady. The flowing celestial mark on her brow had grown clearer, as if resonating with some cosmic principle between heaven and earth.

The old shopkeeper looked at her. For once, his murky eyes revealed a complex emotion—a mix of relief, heartache, and a profound weariness.

“Silly girl…”

He sighed softly and reached out to stroke her cheek.

But just as his fingers were about to touch Shen Zhaoqing—

“Don’t touch her!” A sharp, fanatical shriek of possessive rage exploded again.

Han Shuang’s eyes were bloodshot, her entire being radiating a maddening aura of mutual destruction. The Frostkill blade in her hand transformed into a streak of icy lightning, aimed directly at the old shopkeeper’s wrist.

“Desecrator of the divine, die!”

Her speed was extreme, her angle vicious. This thrust was the culmination of her lifelong cultivation, her first sacrifice to her new deity.

The old shopkeeper didn’t even turn his head. He simply extended two fingers and casually caught the blade.

“Ding!” A crisp clang of metal.

The Frostkill blade, poisoned to dissolve spiritual energy and capable of piercing a Nascent Soul cultivator’s protective aura, was effortlessly pinned between two fingers that looked drier than bark.

It didn’t budge.

Han Shuang’s pupils instantly shrank to pinpricks.

All she felt was an irresistible, terrifying force surging from the blade, numbing her entire arm in an instant.

“What nonsense is this?” The old shopkeeper flicked his finger in annoyance.

“Clang!”

The Frostkill blade let out a mournful wail and snapped in two.

Han Shuang, struck as if by lightning, coughed up a mouthful of blood. She flew backward, crashed heavily into a distant stone pillar, and immediately passed out.

From attack to defeat, less than half a breath had passed.

This completely silenced the entire venue.

Gu Chang’an, Ling Shuangjue, and Luan Ge all felt their pupils tremble violently.

Though they looked down on Han Shuang, they had to admit she was a tough nut. A maddened Nascent Soul cultivator going all out would even give them some trouble.

But this… was just disabled by two fingers?

What kind of monster was this old man?

The old shopkeeper clapped his hands and turned his gaze back to the sleeping Shen Zhaoqing. The weariness on his face deepened.

“Sigh… it’s come to this after all…” he murmured, so softly that only he could hear. “Girl, wake up.”

“If you sleep any longer, the sky might really be torn apart by these little ones.”

His voice was flat, but each word carried a strange, authoritative power, as if his words became reality, piercing through layers of space to resonate directly in the depths of Shen Zhaoqing’s sea of consciousness.

In the slumbering sea of consciousness, Shen Zhaoqing was having a very long dream.

In the dream, she was back in Qingzhou, at that rundown tavern. The old shopkeeper was still lounging in his rocking chair behind the counter, leisurely sipping his wine.

She was wiping tables nearby, listening to travelers from all over boast and brag.

No cultivation, no slaughter.

She thought she could go on like this forever. Until she heard that familiar voice.

“Girl, wake up.”

The entire dream shattered.

Endless memories flooded into her mind like a breached dam.

The cold sword light of Qingyun Sect, the sky-full of blood at the Myriad Flower Blood Palace, the golden wings on the Northern Wastes, the gentle cage of Penglai Immortal Palace…

And the greed and cruelty beneath the compassionate mask of Yaoguang Sacred Lord at the Sacrificial Altar.

And the uncontrollable, world-destroying power inside her body.

So…

None of it had been a dream.

The sealed emotions, the suppressed rage, and the forgotten humiliations—all came rushing back as the fragment of the Three-Life Stone fully merged with her soul.

The sickening feeling of being used as a chess piece, as mere medicinal ingredients, like a bone-boring maggot, instantly ignited the most primal fury deep in her soul.

“Huumm—” An indescribable pressure slowly rose from Shen Zhaoqing.

Her long lashes fluttered once. Then, under the gaze of everyone present, she slowly opened her eyes.

The golden light swirling in her pupils was no longer scattered fragments but had coalesced into a brilliant galaxy.

Cold and aloof, as if she could see through all illusions in the world.

She was awake. But it also seemed like she had become someone else.

“Senior Sister!”

“Zhaoqing, you’re awake!”

Gu Chang’an, Ling Shuangjue, and Luan Ge instinctively moved forward.

Shen Zhaoqing’s gaze slowly swept across the venue.

“Shopkeeper,” she called. The old shopkeeper nodded at her.

Finally, her gaze pierced through layers of space, passed over everyone, and precisely fixed on someone in the distant void.

Heavenly Calculation Pavilion, the Celestial Diviner, Yan Wusheng.

Shen Zhaoqing slowly raised her right hand. It was a very clean hand, with distinct knuckles and thin calluses from years of holding a wine gourd.

Yet this hand now seemed to bear immense weight. She raised it and pointed distantly at Yan Wusheng in the void.

Everyone’s eyes followed her finger, focusing on that woman who still appeared calm and composed. Then they heard a voice.

A voice clearer and colder than ever before, devoid of any emotion. Each word seemed chiseled from ten-thousand-year-old ice, crashing heavily onto everyone’s hearts.

“My life,” she paused, her gaze slowly shifting from Yan Wusheng’s face to Gu Chang’an, Ling Shuangjue, and Luan Ge, then to everyone present who coveted her, fought over her, or tried to control her, “is not your chessboard.”

The moment the words fell, a sacred aura of cyan and gold erupted from her center.

It was not spiritual energy, not demonic qi, not demonic power. It was a transcendent authority of the most fundamental Dao, above all forces.

At this moment, she was the game-breaker.

That cyan-gold aura was neither scorching nor cold.

It held no offensive attributes. But as it spread, everyone present felt their spiritual energy, demonic qi, and demonic power automatically retract into their dantians.

The entire Sacrificial Altar fell into an eerie silence.

Everyone stared blankly at the woman standing at the storm’s center, her expression indifferent to the point of being ruthless.

The very woman they had fought tooth and nail, defied the world to seize back—Shen Zhaoqing.

They had won. They had snatched her from Yaoguang Sacred Lord’s furnace.

But it seemed they had also…

The person before them was too unfamiliar. She looked at them as if they were three rocks on the roadside, a strange weed in the field.

Familiar, but meaningless.

“Senior Sister…” Gu Chang’an’s voice was hoarse. Her hand holding the Frost Bright Sword felt powerless.

Even Mu Qingli, who had been out of the loop, was dumbfounded. She stared at Shen Zhaoqing, her little head filled with huge question marks.

Why did this piece of land feel… not fragrant anymore?

The only one still relatively calm was the old shopkeeper.

He looked at the reborn Shen Zhaoqing and let out a long sigh, as if finally setting down a burden he had carried for millennia, then resigned himself to picking up an even heavier one.

“Trouble, huh…”

He muttered softly, took a step back, and casually picked up his wine gourd from the ground.

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