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Bonus chapter! Thank you to Somebody for the donation! ^^
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Not far from the girl, the boy’s figure grew fainter and fainter, until he was nearly transparent.
Finally, he stopped walking and slowly turned his head, his gaze tender and lingering as he looked in a certain direction.
It was as if he was seeing someone—through time itself.
The next second, his body dissolved into specks of white light, scattering into the air. Only a few lingering motes drifted down, settling on the ghost orchids nearby.
Some fell upon the girl, and in an instant, her charred, ruined flesh was restored—as if the burns had never existed.
Even the earth beneath her cooled, its searing heat gone.
The scene froze at the exact moment the boy vanished. When he turned back, everyone saw his face clearly.
It was Ruan Qing’s face.
Ruan Qing remembered everything—not just his life as Ruan Qing, but also his existence as a "god."
He had died.
A long, long, long time ago.
He would not be forgotten, because he had never truly lived in anyone’s memories. Nor would anyone truly remember him.
He was nothing more than an existence that had almost never existed at all.
Because on the very first day he was truly born—
He had already died.
He died unknown to all, died without even a final glance at the world he cherished.
How could he not want to see flowers bloom?
How could he not want to watch butterflies dance?
How could he not want... to live?
He did.
He truly did.
But he perished in a world without blossoms, in a world devoid of fluttering wings, in that crumbling, dying world on the brink of annihilation.
In the end, all he saw was blood-red.
That day was his first. His last. The only day he ever existed.
When he came into being, his eyes opened to a world already ending—everywhere shrouded in despair, so suffocating that not a shred of life remained. The faces of the few surviving humans were hollow with numbness.
And their "survival" merely meant dying minutes later than the rest.
The world was unraveling, its very fabric dissolving in self-repair. He didn’t even have time to seek his teacher’s aid.
Not that he could.
His teacher once warned him: My power is too vast, too overwhelming. Your world cannot withstand my presence.
When all hope is lost, the desperate pray to distant gods. But what of those gods burdened with such prayers?
What is a god to do?
Countless voices flooded his mind—pleading, begging for a miracle they no longer believed could come. Prayer was all they had left.
He was born too late. The ceaseless ravages of life had scarred the world beyond saving. Now, only one path remained: rebirth.
World-rebirth was nature’s last defense. After the collapse, the land would lie fallow, healing in silence until life stirred anew a hundred thousand years later.
He was just a fledgling god, weak, untested. To think he could salvage a doomed world was the height of arrogance.
Besides, this wasn’t within his duty as a guardian deity. Even if this world were truly destroyed, it wouldn’t affect him in the slightest.
Yet, as he listened to the endless prayers, looked upon those despairing faces and numb gazes, he still poured out the power of his divine essence to stabilize this collapsing world.
The cost? His divinity scattered into nothingness.
"You’re already dead."
Xiao Mingyu appeared beside Ruan Qing at some point, looking down at him where he sat slumped on the ground.
"With your divinity gone, you won’t even enter the cycle of reincarnation."
"What’s left of you now is just a wisp of a soul, one that could vanish at any moment."
His handsome face twisted with fury again as he spoke through gritted teeth, "And yet—some lunatic, for your sake, created this horrific game, forcibly seized the power of the Laws just to keep you here."
"And once your soul could withstand it, he even dared to try resurrecting you."
With a sweep of his hand, the scene shifted once more.
The world remained the same—corpses strewn across the ruins—but it was now a world that had settled into an eerie stillness. The survivors clung to life, their faces alight with the joy and relief of having narrowly escaped death.
This was clearly the aftermath of what had just happened, though it was impossible to tell how much time had passed. Maybe years. Maybe only an instant.
Beneath his sleeves, Ruan Qing’s slender fingers clenched until his knuckles turned white. His chest tightened inexplicably, an ache he couldn’t name.
Then—a crimson figure appeared in the sky.
The presence was overwhelming, devastatingly familiar. Even though Ruan Qing had braced himself, he still froze, his expression more fragile than it had ever been.
That was… his teacher.
The only one who had remembered his existence. The one who had waited to celebrate his birth.
The one he had longed to meet again, even after losing his memories.
As Ruan Qing stared at that familiar figure, a sudden sting burned in his nose. His eyes grew hot, his chest tight with an indescribable pain.
It was grief.
For the first time, he felt something like heartache—so overwhelming he could barely breathe, so raw it threatened to spill over as tears.
But Ruan Qing stubbornly pressed his lips together, refusing to let the tears fall.
He was the one who broke their promise first—he had no right to feel wronged.
A being so powerful that even his mere arrival could damage the world—how could he not sense that its guardian deity was gone?
No trace of that familiar presence. No sign of the one he'd been waiting for.
The man snapped instantly. With a sweep of his hand, he replayed everything that had happened.
The vision froze on the exact moment the young man dissipated.
The man's eyes reddened instantly, his entire being plunging into madness. Dark energy surged from within him, and in the blink of an eye, the world teetered on the brink of annihilation.
This was a force beyond cataclysm—so overwhelming that resistance was unthinkable, despair impossible. Like a mayfly facing the vast heavens.
Just as the world was about to be erased, a figure appeared beside the man—a face unmistakably Xiao Mingyu's.
Xiao Mingyu blocked his path. "Calm down! This is the world he gave his life for—are you really going to destroy it?"
But the man was beyond reason now. Anyone standing in his way would be treated as an enemy.
Xiao Mingyu didn’t dare interfere further. He could only watch helplessly as the man gathered his power.
Yet, at the final moment—the man suddenly stilled, as if sensing something. In an instant, he vanished.
And reappeared before a single orchid.
It bloomed defiantly in the heart of molten lava, untouched by the searing heat, its petals swaying gently in the scorching wind.
And on it—a trace of his presence.
The man knelt, trembling, his outstretched hand hovering like a man afraid his last treasure might vanish at a touch.
In the end, he pulled back.
He didn’t dare.
One brush of his fingers, and even this fragile remnant might disappear.
uhh so the real ml is literally his teacher or what if it's real the author seems to like this kind of trope🧍🏻♀️
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