"So Hong Chun probably died already." The person who 'died' said without an ounce of concern.

It was the most predictable move the Emperor would make.

If the things she wrote still held a shred of truth, then according to Long Yi Ran's character, he wouldn't let it be known that she was still alive. Even if he confirmed it or not, he would make it so that the bothersome person would be announced as dead.

Hong Chun's death was inconsequential to Great Han. She was just a daughter of a fifth-ranked official. But if Hong Chun 'survived' the fire, her true identity would more likely be revealed and the Crimson Trail wouldn't stop hunting her to fulfill their zero failed kill.

Then, if it was discovered that the 'girl from Huo Ai' died in Great Han, the clan behind her could use this as an excuse to spark a war. Entering a war with the most isolated nation was very disadvantageous to Great Han. The Emperor didn't know how strong their military prowess was, how mighty their men were, or the strategies they used.

All of these thorough considerations were what Long Yi Ran probably thought. So even though he more or less guessed that Hong Chun escaped, he went ahead and let someone declare she was dead.

The part of her that was QQ the author still knew her characters so well. The piece of her that was Hong Chun was now dead and before that, she detonated herself when she was the Quiet Plum.

"Huang Qiaoli..." was the name given to her by the Niang and Ba Ba in her memories.

"Qiaoqiao..." Qin Yu voiced out a nickname.

When the maiden turned to him in confusion, he explained. "Your parents called you that."

She realized that everything was really connected.

QQ1. Quiet Plum. Huang Qiaoli.

Back in modern Earth, she didn't remember anything but the universe had a way of still reminding her...

Remembering the stories she wrote, she turned to Qin Yu. "Now, there are some things I'm quite curious about."

Qin Yu saw a devilish curve tugging the maiden's lips but she probably had no idea how creepy it would look to a normal person.

The clone of moonlight that he tried hard to maintain suddenly glitched a little. Huang Qiaoli saw it but decided to ignore it. She knew this wasn't his real body no matter how it felt and looked four-dimensional.

However, whatever technique he used, he was nearing the end of his control. Did it really require a lot of his spiritual power to free her memories? Or was it something else?

"I'm curious why you need to do a stupid move of having your minions raise me."

The honorable Scholars' Guild of Great Han was reduced to a bunch of minions in her eyes. She was positive that it was Qin Yu who brought her to them.

Why go the trouble? Why not just raise her in the middle of the woods somewhere instead of producing this much drama?

"They're not my minions," Qin Yu denied.

He was speaking the truth. The core members of that guild were the few people who still worshipped Cai Xie in Zhong Xin, the name people of Huo Ai used for the other four nations.

"Trivial." Huang Qiaoli waved a hand.

Seeing that she was still anticipating his answer, the atmosphere around Qin Yu became gloomy. "I'm unable to take care of you."

Ah? The woman almost tilted her head at the sudden depressive shift. "What do you mean?"

Qin Yu's soft pale eyes met with her golden orbs which made her flinch for some reason.

"Uh, never mind that question. How about how I wrote a story similar to the things that happened in this world?"

She distracted him with other questions because she couldn't stand his stare. There was really something fishy about this person.

"There are some things I literally can't say. The goddess' law will still bind me to some extent. But many thanks to you, I will soon be freed."

"Me? What?"

She couldn't understand but the things showing on her heads-up display were very alarming. Since she woke up, what she assumed was his spiritual power was already decreasing. But as more time passed, it began declining rapidly.

Of course, this wasn't his real body but it was really abnormal. This might be the first time her sensors encountered something like this but the free-falling status displayed on her vision was enough to cause death.

What was more confusing was he still looked tranquil, as though he had all the time in the world. For the first time, she doubted if her system was malfunctioning.

Huang Qiaoli wasn't aware that Qin Yu could sense it when she was sweeping system scans on him. He was the one who chased her across the worlds so he understood the qualities of her soul more than anyone.

It might seem so simple when he told her that he was the one who took her back from the world she was transported to. But the process was more arduous.

Although Qin Yu still lived in the mortal realm, he was close to being a true immortal. So he could communicate with Cai Xie in special circumstances. He remembered the goddess' strong objection when he told her what happened and asked to grant him a temporary ability to travel across the planes.

'You will lose your qualifications to be a god!'

When he heard that, his desire just heightened even more. He never wanted to be one. He was beyond exasperated babysitting little mortals with their never-ending stomach of desires.

Aside from that, the child could have died a natural death but he intervened. As a result, her soul didn't pass through the proper trials of the dead. And she was sucked in the vortex of chaos and was spitted out in an unknown world.

It was his decision to bring her back. He should carry it out until the end.

Little did he know that traveling across the planes meant living as a mortal in each and every world, trying to seek one soul among the infinite.

There were times when he asked himself the reason for his rash heroism. Was it necessary to bring back a single soul to her original plane when there were countless?

But world after world, he got lost in the fleeting beauty of living as a human again that he was so grateful to the soul that brought him this fate. He wanted to find her and say his thanks for letting him feel 'death' even if it was only temporary.

And soon, he found her. But she was more scarred than he imagined. Her pitiful soul could shatter at any moment. And he knew that if he didn't do anything, she wouldn't be able to return to her mother plane, the world she was originally born in.

Qin Yu lived enough as the goddess' herald and all he dreamed of was death. If he strived to become a true immortal, what awaited him was just an eternity of emptiness. He was just so tired of following the orders of his immortal master and guarding greedy and fickle-hearted humans.

But Huang Qiaoli came in like his most wanted respite-- albeit at the cost of her soul. He admitted to himself that he might have used her accident to escape. That was why he was hell-bent on rescuing her as compensation.

It might be because he was guilty of leeching off her misfortune. Or it was his wholehearted gratitude to her for paving the way to his true death. Because as soon as she self-destructed, he used his own life force to heal hers.

Her accidental plane-hopping damaged her soul already. To top it off, she committed suicide which was the highest form of desecration to the law of the universe. A near immortal's life force was just enough to heal a scarred soul. That was how the universe loved mortals.

Lifeforce was the source of power for the soul. Cultivators utilize a small fraction of it to unleash a mortal's potential. But the suicidal him decided to give it all he got in mending her soul.

Meaning, that he would be reduced to nothing afterward.

Honestly, even if he desired death, he didn't know what awaited him in the Perpetual Void where souls worn beyond repair went. He was afraid while making that split-second decision to save her when she detonated the whole lab but he still did so.

The goddess always said that he was too kind.

But he never expected that in her trance state – a soul's usual condition when detached to a mortal body – she seemed to recognize him. The person she last saw in that bloody winter scene in Huo Ai before being plunged into the hell she experienced as Quiet Plum.

Huang Qiaoli's fate of prematurely experiencing two lifetimes gave her an abundant life force, making her soul more condensed than others.

And she made a miracle on her own, probably something she wasn't aware of until now. Her soul wrapped around his like a cocoon before the Perpetual Void claimed him.

It was something even Cai Xie herself couldn't comprehend.

And at that point of not knowing what would happen to him next, his conscious soul also grabbed onto hers.

Qin Yu's soul acted greedily and absorbed some of her life force. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that a part of her was now living inside of him so it felt wrong to still end his life after this.

Yes, he really wanted to retire and have his eternal rest but staying for another average lifespan wouldn't hurt if it was to look after this one soul.

However because he couldn't tell her these reasons directly, it was inevitable for her to feel like she was facing a great puzzle when talking to Qin Yu.