"What happened here?"
Jing Yuan looked at the woman who was still unconscious.
He knew who she was, of course, but he didn't know what she had done.
Thanks to Noldrei, Dan Shu had acted with such decisive and sharp self-destructive tendencies that the Xianzhou had no time to find out who had brought in the Stellaron before the crisis erupted.
Dan Shu's actions had directly crippled the Xianzhou.
Although Jing Yuan had vaguely seen Jingliu at the time, he didn't know why she had returned to the Xianzhou.
And now...
"What's the deal with this wall?"
Jing Yuan's heart had grown stronger. He was wearing a pendant-like bottle. Inside the pendant grew the sapling of the Ambrosial Arbor.
The Arbor had originally been sealed by the power of the High Elder's immortality, but as everyone knew, since the departure of High Elder Dan Feng, no one had been responsible for maintaining the seal.
Thus, the power of immortality had gradually become less effective. By the time Dan Heng arrived, he could see at a glance that the seal was as good as gone.
Jing Yuan could now proudly say that he was carrying a tree-shaped nuclear bomb on his person.
No enemy could frighten him now.
After witnessing Dan Shu's crazed actions, Jing Yuan had also seen the light.
If Dan Shu could do it, why couldn't he?
Jing Yuan believed he could borrow the power of The Hunt. If someone came to fight him and he couldn't win...
Then he would just take the Ambrosial Arbor and self-destruct with it, destroying the dynamic balance of Destruction and Abundance within.
At that time, the Arbor created by Dan Shu would revive and perform a live self-detonation for everyone.
Since Jing Yuan was wearing such a thing, he naturally didn't care what Jingliu was thinking.
"Alright, there are no outsiders here now. I think you can show whether you're conscious or not."
After Jing Yuan spoke, Jingliu, who was stuck in the hole in the wall, finally moved.
After a violent shudder, Jingliu flipped over and landed on the ground from the broken wall.
The faint stench of her incontinence still lingered on her.
"Jing Yuan..."
Jingliu's heart was a mix of emotions. She hadn't wanted to meet her old friend in this state.
But when she woke up, she found herself in this embarrassing situation, sealed here and waiting for Jing Yuan.
If she wanted to leave, she had to have a face-to-face conversation with him.
But that also meant that Jing Yuan would see her in this state.
Since things had come to this, there was nothing she could do.
Jingliu could only quietly wait for Jing Yuan's arrival. Who would have thought that he would have become so flippant, without a trace of his old composure?
"No wonder the Stellaron reached the Xianzhou so easily. I imagine you were the one who brought it in, right?"
Jing Yuan had already had this suspicion when he saw Jingliu.
A thing like a Stellaron could only be brought past the Xianzhou's detection systems by someone who knew them inside and out.
And when it came to understanding the Xianzhou, who could compare to the former Sword Champion of the Luofu standing before him?
"The Xianzhou has reached a decisive moment in its Path. The Reignbow Arbiter, the Plaguespreader, the Ruin Author. A game of chess between gods. If you don't stand on the winning side, you are the loser."
Jingliu told him the truth about the Xianzhou's current situation and explained why she wanted to detonate the Ambrosial Arbor—the root cause was also to deal with the followers of Yaoshi within the Xianzhou.
What no one had expected was that there was always a higher mountain.
The Stellaron Jingliu had brought for the Antimatter Legion had been turned against her and fallen into Dan Shu's hands. It had even been used to completely eliminate the Ambrosial Arbor.
Well, not completely gone. She still didn't know that the Arbor was right in front of her, on Jing Yuan's person.
Jing Yuan should have shown a grave and somber expression, indicating that he took what Jingliu said very seriously, even acting as if he were about to fight her.
But... the current Jing Yuan actually felt that this wasn't such a big deal.
He wore his usual smile and said, "No need to be so cryptic. Isn't it just that the Aeons are about to go to war, and their followers have to be the first on the battlefield, so we have to find the strongest Aeon to side with to ensure the Xianzhou survives?"
"So we can continue to provide faith to a certain Aeon and be their running dogs. What's the big deal...?"
"Did you really need to go to such lengths, sneaking around, using a Stellaron, secretly targeting the Xianzhou's Ambrosial Arbor?"
"You could have just come to me and told me everything, couldn't you?"
"Sword Champion Jingliu, was this really such a difficult thing to talk about?"
Jing Yuan's overly frank attitude stunned Jingliu. She stared at him blankly, her small mouth slightly agape, not knowing what to say.
What was going on? Was this Jing Yuan the same Jing Yuan she knew?
Jing Yuan's stress resistance had leveled up again, and it was Jingliu herself who was feeling the pressure.
'Does he still have some trick up his sleeve?'
Jingliu's heart was filled with vigilance and unease. The thought of the titles Jing Yuan had earned over the years, like Divine Foresight General and master strategist, made her doubt whether her actions had been kept secret.
'Could it be that my actions have been under Jing Yuan's observation all along, and that outworlder was also a trap he set?!'
Several thoughts flashed through Jingliu's mind, and then she said with a sudden realization, "I see! It was you! You arranged for a fake Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, then lured Dan Shu into colluding with foreign enemies, using the power of the Stellaron to bait the enemies targeting the Xianzhou?!"
'What are you on about?!'
Jing Yuan was slightly taken aback. He hadn't expected the Sword Champion's imagination to be so wild.
"No wonder, no wonder! I heard an outworlder suddenly attacked the Divination Commission, the Matrix of Prescience. I was wondering who could have such an ability. If you were the one pulling the strings, Jing Yuan, then it all makes sense!"
Jingliu was like someone who had found the key to a puzzle.
As if she had discovered Jing Yuan's secret, her expression became surprisingly complex.
"I never thought that you, the Jing Yuan from the High-Cloud Quintet, would have grown to be so deep and calculating. Even an old friend like me can hardly recognize you."
She sighed with emotion, as if witnessing the vast changes of the world.
A thousand question marks popped up over Jing Yuan's head. He was stuck in an indescribably bizarre stalemate.
'What's going on? When did I do such a thing?'
'I just looked at the surveillance, found that blond man and his big coffin, that's all.'
He couldn't understand how Jingliu had connected all these events to him.
After a moment's thought, Jing Yuan realized the benefits of accepting this.
He sneered and said, "You've gotten quite clever. Since that's the case, why did you still fight the person I called over?"
His words only further confirmed her own suspicions, and in an instant, she was lost in a fog of war born from her own ignorance.