Chapter 359

359 5.103 – Her Jurisdiction – The Sleepless Elite’s Wife

+— Author’s note —-+

Edited by Psycho S.

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Flickering hues of blue suddenly lit up his eyes, ocean-strong, swimming with harsh sun-lit currents.

He would have to use their ‘past’ like a veil for his mind to live through the present – in the moment that was called the ‘gift of life’. Their past would be a protective screen that would hide the damage caused by the reality of the situation.

No matter what, a life without her was a reality worse than any nightmares.

He could either choose pain or more pain.

Deciding on rejecting the truth and the present time, his choice couldn’t be more obvious.

When the ground and air ambulance arrived, the morbid scene before them was how they found the distraught couple. The man and woman sat in a pool of cold blood, both of them unmoving. When the paramedics tried to save the still living Silika Lin, her supposed husband kept staring at his bloodied hands in a state of shock. It looked like he was uncaring, but really, his brain shut down, forcing his emotions into a small box deep inside. Silika Lin would have been declared dead in seconds if not for some otherworldly miracle.

.....

A body without a soul didn’t drain his energy, as much as he would want to. Sadly. Xuan Mu couldn’t recall a thing they said to him; it was as if they were speaking to him from the top of a well, their voices distorted. He didn’t even realize how he ended up behind prison bars and how he got out. He just kept staring at his hand like a deranged psychopath. Except for him, nobody could see the levitating snake above everyone that was protecting the dim sphere hovering over his palms...

The sphere was his wife’s shattered soul.

This was her real form, without a body, but he loved her all the same. Like a melting snowflake, she felt so fragile but she was so very grand all at once. He could have watched her all day and be captivated in that frozen moment that would have taken longer to break than generations to form.

[Host’s soul is in lots of pain.]

Xuan Mu immediately let Kuro keep the vanishing soul within its void. Kuro wasn’t upgraded to keep a rare soul but to preserve a dead one. To be more precise, a soul that was unable to reincarnate: a soul that was far beyond repair. Even if he fed her with the energy of a whole universe, she would barely stay up for a year. The HQ tried to help, by giving her a mission in an attempt to strengthen her soul.

Helping others to make her soul evolve didn’t seem to be the solution. Bing Shi changed her plans and went against Mo Luwei head on right off the bat, and decided to go against Xuan Mu and Quin Yu, at the same time. Her soul showed signs of strengthening, but everyone knew that evolving her soul that had just evolved not a long time ago was simply... impossible.

Just like how one had to damage one’s muscles to build new and stronger muscles, the evolvement of the soul had to go through a similar constant damaging and rebuilding process. The damage Bing Shi received from Guan Fei, who was a more powerful soul, was too much for Bing Shi to absorb. She got strong enough to evolve her soul while trying to recover from Guan Fei’s blow, but for how long could she keep this up? The closer she got to the top of the hill, the more unstable were her steps and the chances of her falling increased with each passing day...

Aoi Hong and Quin Yu were Gods from a higher realm, while his wife was only a human. She was quite a monstrous human, might he add. The risk he and Bing Shi took with his ex-soulmate cost them more than they could afford; her soul.

There were no regrets, there was just a casualty, which they didn’t know if they could recover from.

Shattering a soul with the intent to make it grow (Xuan Mu’s mission) or with an intent to destroy (Guan Fei’s goal), were two different things. Aoi Hong’s and Quin Yu’s powers would weaken by having it scattered around the universe, whereas his wife’s soul would cease to exist.

Xuan Mu thought he would be able to deal with their problem once he got a position in the HQ, but the matters behind a soul couldn’t be deciphered even by such high entities.

Incompetent. Everyone was so incompetent, with him taking taking the first spot as ‘king of incompetence’.

He clearly saw her failing to eat, failing to sleep, failing to survive but he kept on pressuring her with his lies and fake assurances, increasing the level of pain she had to go through. He broke her and watched her bleed until her last breath while thinking wishfully that her soul would miraculously overcome all obstacles and get strong enough to recover.

He had no idea why he continued to persevere in that lifestyle. Especially when he got to know that the main meaning of life was to evolve as a soul only to feed someone’s power.

On his way to pick up his son from Li Jie’s place, he switched on the radio in an attempt to drown out his thoughts. Her love song had, coincidentally, begun to play which only made him want to smash everything to pieces.

· · ———- · ???· ———- · ·

“Daddy,” Ying Xong got down from Li Jie’s hold, and ran towards the man at the entrance, still covered in blood.

Xuan Mu glanced at the mental support he left for himself. Oh yeah, it was Ying Xong’s feeding and bathing routine.

And you know what? He didn’t give a fuck anymore. Xuan Mu ruffled the little boy’s hair for the last time before pulling out Ying Xong’s shining soul that looked so very healthy compared to his wife’s.

Li Jie wished to kill the other man all the faster when the little body suddenly went into a coma similar to hers. His gentle eyes grew steadily duller, he felt his own heart being torn.

Xuan Mu left the little body in the hospital, and just as he cut off the energy source with his wife’s body, he did the same to his son’s and let the hospital staff do their job. He returned to their home and got into a resting state mechanically. He needed to get stronger to get his wife back.

Would he ever bring in a child without her consent? No, yet he did because of their circumstances. He knew she would accept Ying Xiong sooner or later. She wouldn’t cross out that possibility of having her soul grow by raising a child, even if it was against her will.

He believed that Ying Xiong came to life from their combined misfortune, and the only body which could withhold that boy’s soul was Mo Luwei’s and Su Min’s unborn child.

· · ———- · ???· ———- · ·

Time itself had become irrelevant to Xuan Mu; the seconds could have been hours, or hours mere seconds. Every quiet moment was spent watching her soul, playing the ‘what if’ game until he surrendered his mind to the night. His dreams were filled with two extreme ends. One end was perfect bliss and the other was extreme tragedy.

How could his Bing Shi be gone? He felt her existence. She was a paradox, a schr?dinger’s cat, because she was both alive and dead, so until he kept the box closed, she was alive. Nobody could convince him otherwise. For part of him would never let her go.

They might have lost a battle, but the war was still going on.

+— Author’s note —-+

Bing Shi’s death should not come as a surprise to anyone by now.

This ARC was not built on twists, but lots of foreshadowing and foreboding, starting from the ‘love’ song BS sang in front of the fountain, her health, and XM being very unstable at times, doing things like bringing Ying Xiong home against her will to help her soul’s growth, or BS wanting to have some alone time.

Instead of living the rest of the remaining days to the best of their lives and being all lovey dovey, they argued and separated?! Yep, both were busy trying to find a way out. But sometimes, trying to save one’s life too much could... in some cases, cause more harm than good.

This ARC was heavily inspired by the novels where the ML treats the FL badly under an excuse that it was for their ‘own good and safety’. I hope you enjoyed reading this trope from BS’s and XM’s viewpoints, both had their reasons to act as they acted. I couldn’t help myself, I love certain cliches. ??

This ARC is perfect for rereading because so many little details click together only after you read them twice.

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+– ANTI PIRACY NOTE–+

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Thank you.

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