"Why is this happening? A human's normal lifespan should be over a hundred years." Lucifer couldn't believe it.
The stronger a dragon was, the longer its lifespan. His Holy Demonic Ancestor Dragon lineage could live for over ten thousand years, but after resonating with humans, they were governed by human lifespans, generally the human lifespan with a zero added.
And Bai Cha, Lucifer could clearly feel that even after resonating with him, Bai Cha's lifespan would not exceed five hundred years.
"How could she only have thirty to forty years of lifespan?" For the first time, Lucifer was a bit agitated. He felt blood rushing to his head, causing his eyes to ache, while his heart felt hollow and cold.
Lucifer tried to calm himself down but couldn't retain all of his composure. He grabbed Meng Qinghuan's shoulders, his face almost contorted.
Lucifer didn't know what he was angry about, he just felt that it shouldn't be like this.
"Don't take it out on me, Lucifer. You should understand that a consequence and a disease are two completely different things. Everyone is just a normal person; this isn't a xianxia drama." Meng Qinghuan gently patted away Lucifer's hand and shrugged. "Why should she be this strong? She's only seventeen. Do you have any idea why?"
"It's good enough that she can live to forty. Didn't she tell you she was an experimental failure?" Meng Qinghuan waved his hand and removed the screen. With Bai Cha gone, he couldn't be bothered to act. He looked at Lucifer with disdain. "If I'd known you wanted to talk about this, I wouldn't have avoided Xiao Xiaoche."
"Besides, even if she had a normal lifespan, she wouldn't care who her soul was given to." Meng Qinghuan pouted. "Someone like her, who never even belonged to herself, how could she care about the whereabouts of her soul? It was never hers anyway."
From a young age, she was trained as a weapon, with no hobbies, no life, no hatred. Her constant movement, learning, training, and striving were all for her duty: to protect everyone in this country.
Her soul was never her own; it belonged to the world. The greatest purpose of her soul was merely to keep her alive.
"Master?" Yun He asked with some confusion. She could tell her master was in a bad mood, but she didn't know what had happened or how to comfort him. She could only offer one of the two saint fruits she was holding to Meng Qinghuan.
To her surprise, Meng Qinghuan didn't use his hands to take it. He directly bit into Yun He's finger.
"Hey! Master! What are you doing!" Yun He's fur stood on end, and she leaped back several steps, her fingertips tingling. "Are you a dog!"
"Aww, that's the reaction I wanted!" Meng Qinghuan mumbled around the saint fruit and swayed his head. "Remember this feeling. If you can react this quickly when the waterfall comes down, you won't get washed away."
Yun He: ...
You could have told me in a different way!
Yun He was so angry she couldn't speak for a long time. This wasn't the first time Meng Qinghuan had done something so shocking. While it was effective, it was truly terrifying.
Can't you teach in a more normal way!
In a blink of an eye, Yun He realized Lucifer had disappeared and felt even more confused. "Master, what did you guys just talk about? You both look unhappy."
"Hmm... I'll tell you after you finish today's task. It's not a secret anyway." Meng Qinghuan smiled. "However, I doubt he'd dare to ask Xiao Xiaobai directly. He's not exactly brave, so he wouldn't dare to say it out loud."
Yun He: Huh?
While things were unsettled here, there was also chaos elsewhere.
Extreme cold and extreme heat collided, with someone cheering them on from the side.
"Cang Liu ge, go! That woman definitely can't do anything to you!" Gu Mingze, like a little fanboy, watched as Cang Liu escaped Zhi Yue's fiery lock again. He grinned happier than if he had won himself, making Gu Zitan, who was watching from the side, look increasingly displeased.
Gu Mingze had never been this happy at home. How long had it been since they met that he was already calling him 'ge'? For over a decade, Gu Mingze hadn't called him 'ge'.
"Shut up! Who asked you to butt in!" Zhi Yue roared. Gu Mingze's constant cheering clearly irked her. She no longer cared if Gu Zitan was present and sent a ball of orange flame flying towards Gu Mingze.
Gu Zitan didn't move. He had made up his mind to let his overconfident, ungrateful brother suffer a bit.
Cang Liu frowned, immediately feeling displeased. It was Zhi Yue who was unhappy about the previous sword strike and sought him out, but now she was taking it out on someone else.
He retracted his icy aura and turned, about to move to protect Gu Mingze, when a familiar voice entered his mind.
Cang Liu froze. The icy aura around him erupted again. Seizing the opportunity when Zhi Yue was taking her anger out on Gu Mingze, he unleashed a condensed sword strike of ice and snow.
This sword strike was utterly ruthless. Cang Liu was somewhat enraged, and the azure dragon pattern on his left eye flickered faintly. The sword light was dazzlingly blue, and in an instant, it reached Zhi Yue. Zhi Yue was startled and quickly unleashed her Fire Phoenix to counter.
However, her strength was generally average, how could it compare to this highly compressed sword energy? The azure sword light directly pierced the Fire Phoenix and attacked her face. Zhi Yue had no choice but to unleash her strongest flames to stall for time while retreating at full speed.
Zhi Yue was, after all, a world-class expert. Although her ranking was just over the top one hundred, her strength was not to be underestimated.
The heat and purity of the flames were extremely high. Although the Fire Phoenix was pierced by the sword energy, as an energy being, it wouldn't get injured and still lunged at Cang Liu. Immediately after, the earth cracked, and magma, almost solidified, surged into the sky.
Using a move that was a trump card in world competitions against a first-year student was a huge loss of face.
As for Gu Mingze, he was startled by the approaching flames and stiffened, closing his eyes tightly. Unexpectedly, the flames hit him like a gust of wind, making his hair and clothes flutter loudly, but without causing any harm. He only felt a bit stuffy.
Gu Mingze blinked and turned back sharply. Sure enough, Bai Cha was standing behind him, a smile on her lips.
"I thought you would have just collapsed on the ground and curled up." Bai Cha teased, looking at the upright Gu Mingze. "You used to be someone who would lie on the ground like a bug even if you were just kicked."
"Ahem, uh, I've seen a bit of the world, and my courage has grown." Gu Mingze scratched his head sheepishly. His hands were still bandaged, all ten fingers tightly wrapped. The injuries from that rescue hadn't healed yet.
"Miss Bai, my brother has caused you trouble." Gu Zitan walked over. Although he was a bit unhappy, he still had to exchange pleasantries.
Besides, his useless brother couldn't do anything but cause trouble.
"He hasn't caused any trouble; he's very good." Bai Cha glanced at Gu Zitan and nodded politely. Her calm tone made it impossible for Gu Zitan to discern whether Bai Cha was being polite or speaking the truth. Just as he was about to reply politely, he heard Bai Cha continue, "Your brother was the protagonist in his first mission."
Be the protagonist? Was Bai Cha joking, or was he dreaming?
Gu Zitan would believe it if Gu Mingze were a supporting character who wouldn't survive three episodes. A protagonist? Gu Zitan didn't believe it one bit.
Let alone Gu Zitan, Gu Mingze was also embarrassed by Bai Cha's words and could only laugh dryly while scratching his head. "I didn't do much. I just did some logistics and a little bit of helping out. Teacher Meng and Miss Bai are the real protagonists."
It made sense, of course. Meng Qinghuan transformed into a Thousand-Armed Guanyin, covering every inch of Sky Island with his spiritual power, and sealed the space directly. Bai Cha, clad in armor, was even more majestic than a war goddess. He hadn't felt this passionate even when watching anime. He felt it was impossible for him to be the protagonist.
"Different scripts, different perspectives, different protagonists. Don't always focus your gaze on me." Bai Cha curved her lips. "For you, I might have stolen the spotlight, but for those children buried under the rubble, they yearned for the salvation of a god until their last breath. When the rubble was cleared, the first divine being they saw was not me."
So, does that mean the god those children yearned for was me?
Oh my, how shameful! How happy!
Gu Mingze's face flushed. The little bit of joy in his heart suddenly amplified infinitely. To avoid looking too happy, Gu Mingze rubbed his face vigorously, but he couldn't help but smile, revealing a mouth full of white teeth.
A cold wind blew, and Cang Liu, holding his sword, stood in front of Gu Mingze, looking somewhat puzzled. "What are you laughing at?"
"Hehe, ge, Miss Bai said I did a great job." Gu Mingze said with a grin. He was too embarrassed to say that Bai Cha had called him someone else's god.
It was fine when Bai Cha said it, but it felt too chuunibyou to say it himself. It was like he was holding up a transformation device in front of everyone and declaring himself a Pretty Soldier, too embarrassing.
He still had some dignity.
To his surprise, Cang Liu didn't refute him after hearing this. Instead, he nodded seriously. "Indeed."
This made Gu Mingze smile even more happily, wishing he could run around the school three times immediately.
Gu Zitan, standing on the side, was a bit bewildered. He couldn't understand why his useless brother was receiving such high praise from someone as excellent and almost top-tier as Bai Cha. He was momentarily at a loss for how to react.
"Your arm isn't fully healed yet, why are you here for a spar?" Bai Cha looked Cang Liu up and down. Cang Liu's right arm bandages hadn't been removed yet, and he clearly struggled to exert full force when swinging his sword just now. It was likely that his tendons and bones were injured.
"She wasn't convinced after I cut her last time," Cang Liu said concisely. Zhi Yue's flames were indeed formidable, extremely hot, and even though he was fast, he had been burned in several places.
For ordinary people, burns were nothing, but for a merman like Cang Liu, they were fatal. Cang Liu, who was afraid of being exposed to the sun even when going out, let alone these high-temperature flames.
"You guys step back. Give me the sword." Bai Cha patted Cang Liu's shoulder, her tone not hiding her satisfaction. "You've learned well."
"Mr. Meng gave me his family's sword manual and gave me a lot of guidance." Cang Liu said seriously. He had completely recognized Meng Qinghuan as his master. "Thank you for your guidance, Miss Bai."
If he didn't activate the sea race dragon pattern and relied solely on himself, he would only be a soldier capable of defeating Mo Ziye. Defeating a fourth-year graduate would be his limit. There was still a gap between him and the top hundred experts in the world.
Originally, Zhi Yue had already felt secretly displeased seeing Bai Cha and Cang Liu chatting happily. But then, seeing Bai Cha holding Cang Liu's sword and walking towards her, a nameless anger surged within her.
She was already a hot-tempered person, and seeing Bai Cha's casual demeanor only made her angrier.
She was originally intrigued by Cang Liu's sword strike. It was the first time in many years that a first-year student could force her into such a position with a single strike. Later, she looked up Cang Liu's information and became more curious, so she came to spar with him. Why did Bai Cha suddenly intervene?
"Hey, what are you doing? Are you shadow rats from the gutter never going to stop?" Zhi Yue said irritably. "Cang Liu is the Crown Prince of the Sea Kingdom. I'm telling you, he can't stand around with you people. If he associates with you, he'll eventually be tainted. This is between him and me, why are you getting involved?"
"After the junior was beaten, the senior naturally has to step forward to seek justice. Who told me I'm older?" Bai Cha sneered. "Do you dare?"