"Your Highness, do not blame me. A wise bird chooses the tree that offers the best shelter."
The once-loyal subordinate had turned against him, pointing a blade at his former master. The former master looked up at the sky, his face pale; he felt like weeping, yet no tears would come. So, he simply smiled at the man.
"You really deserve to die."
***
Ming Li was still busy playing in the mud by the ditch when she heard those words.
Realizing it was time to get to work, she darted out from the ditch through the light drizzle. Light as a swallow, she deftly splattered the gaunt youth with mud while simultaneously splashing her own face with blood.
Inside her mind, someone shrieked, "Young Mistress! Don't just go around killing people!"
Ming Li abruptly shifted her momentum. Her move, which would have sliced the man diagonally in two from his shoulder, changed trajectory at the last second, shearing off only his arm.
"I didn't." I am a god, after all.
Gods do not kill without cause.
With a beaming smile, Ming Li plunged into the crowd, her blade flipped to its blunt edge.
A short while later, the assassins lay scattered in a heap. Amidst the falling rain, only she and the pale youth remained standing. She was in tattered, fine robes; he was in thin, mud-stained clothing.
The two faced one another. He looked utterly bewildered, like a withered leaf fallen from a branch, having nowhere left to go.
She smiled at him, closing the distance like a fierce wind sweeping away fallen leaves. "Your Highness, I have finally found you."
Now then.
Go to hell.
***
Naturally, such a development could not be allowed to happen.
To prevent Ming Li’s blade from striking that Highness regardless of friend or foe, the Born Divine Stone chose to forcibly take Ming Li offline.
Thus, Ming Li was shut back into her sea of consciousness. With tiny scales shimmering on her forehead, she listlessly stroked her Platinum Great Saber, which stood as tall as a person, looking thoroughly regretful. "How mean. I was just about to finish off that disaster..."
The Divine Stone floated to the side, feeling nothing but a splitting headache. "Young Mistress, do you even remember what you came here to do?"
"Mm, I remember. Collect his soul, retrieve the Divine Seal, and tear down the Three Thousand Realms by hand." The young girl continued to stroke her saber. Her silver-gray pupils seemed to drift with a gentle breeze; her gaze was scattered yet calm, as if nothing could truly enter her sight.
The Divine Stone silently ignored the last part and delivered a stern rebuke.
"Since you remember you are here to collect his soul, why would you try to kill him? If he dies an unnatural death, his soul fragments will be cast directly into the cycle of reincarnation! We don’t have the power to snatch souls from the grasp of the heavens!"
Ming Li fell silent.
After a long moment, she lifted her youthful, exquisite face and said with genuine sincerity, "How would I know you aren't lying if I don't try it for myself?"
In plain terms: I don't believe you, and I’ll dare to do it again next time.
The Divine Stone felt like it was going to explode.
It had sensed its young mistress’s lack of control back when they were booted out of Tianfang together, and she had simply smiled at the person closing the door in her face. But it never imagined she would be this outrageous!
They were clearly here to save someone, yet the moment she met the target, she started sharpening her blade!
This was just...
The Divine Stone wanted to howl, but felt it wouldn't be elegant enough.
Sensing the fiery frustration boiling within it, the girl, who was busy indulging in her own world, finally spared it a glance. With starlight shimmering in her eyes, she smiled to comfort it. "A Yu, don't be so serious. I was just joking."
"..." The Divine Stone thought: *Does that look like a joke to you?*
It didn't believe her for a second.
"Hoo—anyway, regardless of your plans, your Divine Seal has been stolen and your divinity is unstable. If you want to return to Tianfang, you must collect all of that Highness’s soul fragments, trade them with the Lord of the Underworld for the Divine Seal, and then re-comprehend the Great Dao."
"Don't you always want the Santu Water from the Sanitu River to wash your blade? You can’t get near the Sanitu River without the Divine Seal!"
It saw the girl stop her movements. She touched her heart and offered it a sincere smile.
Behind her, a tail—which looked as if it had been split down the middle by a sharp weapon—swished. Silver-white scales shimmered with iridescent light, covered in dense, flickering incantations that pulsed in and out of focus.
She said, "I know, A Yu."
"I won't kill him anymore."
"I will do my best to protect him."
Even if he was an enemy who made her want to kill him on sight.
***
Ming Li was the only god outside of the Twelve True Gods of Tianfang, but she had committed a grave error. Her Divine Seal was stripped, and she was exiled to the "Three Thousand Realms."
As for that Highness, he was the target she had to retrieve to atone for her sins.
Her relationship with Ming Li was roughly one where they had fought, he had been beaten until he cried, and she had shattered his soul to pieces.
Oh, correction.
It was the kind of "beaten until he cried" where he cried every single time they met. And the kind of "shattered to pieces" where his soul and spirit were torn asunder.
The Divine Stone had overheard this secret from others; it couldn't understand why the Twelve True Gods had assigned Ming Li to the task.
But one thing was clear: its young mistress was extremely dangerous.
While the Highness could never truly die while cycling through the mortal world, his soul fragments were unstable and prone to wear and tear with every reincarnation. That was why the Twelve True Gods had given up on waiting for the fragments to return on their own and chose to send someone to collect them manually.
Of course, it wasn't simple.
The Divine Stone felt the Highness was likely a master of misfortune. Not only was his soul shattered, but he was also tainted with "karmic sin." Once in the lower realm, even if he possessed great fortune and merit, he would encounter various accidents that led to an early death.
Ming Li’s job was to intervene whenever he was in danger, pulling him back until his bad luck finally dissipated. Once he passed away of natural causes, his soul fragments could be retrieved.
Therefore, "The core of the mission is to protect His Highness from harm and obtain the soul fragments in the shortest number of incarnations!"
The Divine Stone spoke eloquently.
Ming Li: continued sharpening her blade.
Her tail emerged from beneath her dress, longer than she was tall, swaying leisurely behind her like a nimble two-headed snake. The silver-white scales rippled with the pale gold of her sea of consciousness, beautiful and powerful, radiating a hollow sense of divinity.
Then, she suddenly recalled the girl who had been crying, and asked out of the blue, "Her body belongs to me now, right?"
"That is correct. But Young Mistress, she is human, and you are not. A god standing outside the world cannot interfere with the world line at will."
"If you exceed the scope of what is human, you might become tainted by karma and be detained by the World Consciousness."