Outside the mirror.
All the cultivators were deeply moved at this moment.
Gu Youwei’s body trembled even more.
She kept shaking her head: “No, no…”
Even though deep down she knew her Immortal Root must have come this way, at this moment she was filled with terror.
She was afraid the facts were exactly as she feared.
She didn’t know how to face her brother now.
…
Gu Changqing dropped the axe in his hand and pressed both hands against his chest.
With all his strength, he suddenly tore it open.
Within his bloodied and muddled body, a radiant bone burst forth, emitting dazzling divine light.
Endless mysterious and profound divine patterns swirled around those bones.
The intense pain only made Gu Changqing furrow his brow slightly, and his cheeks instantly drained of color.
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to endure the pain.
Then he reached in with his palm and pulled that bone out of his own body.
The horrific pain nearly made him pass out.
“Ah…”
He opened his mouth to shout, but regardless of whether it was from weakness or trying to endure the pain, his scream was hoarse.
This Immortal Root was born naturally with him.
As Gu Youwei’s master had said, it was a gift from the Heavenly Dao, fused not only with his flesh but with his soul.
To rip it away alive—this pain was one he could literally feel in his heart and bones!
…
“Ah!!”
Gu Youwei went almost mad, feeling a piercing pain deep in her heart!
By now she had become a tearful wreck.
Her mind buzzed wildly.
Her aura was in disarray. In that instant her spirit nearly collapsed.
She staggered one step forward.
“Miss Youwei, be careful.” Ye Chen hurried forward to support her.
But in that instant, an indescribable pain surged into both of them.
“Ah!!”
Ye Chen suddenly let out a piercing scream and stumbled back.
Gu Youwei also jolted violently and instinctively recoiled.
“What’s happening?!”
Everyone was startled by their commotion.
These two were among the top existences in this world—how could they lose their composure like children?
“It’s the person in the mirror’s current sensations.”
“Everyone be careful, don’t stand too close to that mirror. When the person in the mirror transmits fragments of past memories, they also send half of their original pain outward.”
At that moment, a clear voice rang out.
It was the owner of the Bronze Ancient Mirror, Luo Qinghe.
“Even just half the pain caused Emperor Ye to react like that…”
Once everyone understood, they fell silent.
Then how did the young Heavenly Emperor endure the bone-extracting pain?
Ye Chen’s cheeks flushed.
Luckily the others had no ill will toward him, so he wasn’t too embarrassed.
Gu Youwei slowly reached out her delicate hand toward the mirror’s surface.
In that instant her face turned deathly pale and she stifled a groan, but she held on.
“If just half was like this, how did you endure it back then?”
Listening to Gu Youwei’s murmurs.
Many female cultivators outside the mirror could not hold back their tears.
Half the pain had already made a proud Empress pale—now imagine all that pain falling on an eight-year-old child.
…
Gu Changqing took out his Immortal Root.
Then he gently made a small cut in little Gu Youwei’s chest with his finger.
Then he slowly pushed the Immortal Root back in, bit by bit.
The method was crude, but the effect was striking.
The Immortal Root found its host again and quickly fused with the flesh. The child’s face rapidly regained color.
…
“So that’s how it was…”
Gu Youwei, distraught, pressed her hand to her chest.
No one knew that she had a small scar there.
She had once thought she was born with it.
But to her absolute horror.
That wound came from this.
The cultivators’ expressions of emotion grew even stronger.
Only at this moment did everyone finally confirm the suspicions they’d had.
It turned out that there was indeed someone in this world who was willing to give away an Immortal Root even when it could have made him a Supreme cultivator without doing much.
It turned out the brutal and unrighteous great demon they remembered would, for a sister unrelated to himself, destroy his own brilliant path of cultivation with his own hands!
…
“Old man.”
“I don’t like to owe others, and I don’t like others to owe me.”
“I have given you a disciple of peerless talent, so you must take good care of her.”
“Otherwise, I won’t let you off—I definitely won’t…”
Gu Changqing tried to make his voice more intimidating, but by the end it sounded like a mosquito.
The white-robed elder’s expression was moved. The man who had looked lightly on life and death now had slightly red eyes.
“Is it worth it? If it were her, do you think she would do the same?” the elder asked gently.
The Young Heavenly Emperor shook his head pale-faced and did not answer, instead asking back, “Does it matter?”
“If the roles were truly reversed, I wouldn’t want her to dig out her Immortal Root for me.”
“It’s not about whether it’s worth it or not…”
“She’s my sister. As her brother, I should protect her…”