When everything returned to peace, blood-drenched the land and slowly flowed down.
The corpses were covered in blood water and a putrid smell permeated the air.
Yu Suo walked safely back into the Heaven Palace. Her shoes and clothes were filled with blood. Even her face.
She saw the unprecedented disaster and called out to Yu Qie.
“Will she be okay?” Princess Jin Rou asked worriedly.
Chu Mu pointed at the direction where a mountain of corpses laid.
A team of white armored advanced guards came in, all flying on white dragons. They guarded a bloodied young girl as she slowly walked over.
In Yu Suo’s impression, her sister was always calm. When had she ever seen her like the massacring goddess she was now, or when had she ever seen her look this tired?
Yu Suo ran towards her. At this moment, the guards stopped her from nearing Yu Qie at all.
Yu Qie simply smiled and said nothing, following those guards into the Heaven Palace.
At that moment, Yu Suo felt something was off.
These people originally meant to protect her, fear her, why were they acting like they were detaining her now??
……
Time passed on for a while.
In this time period, Yu Suo remained in her room.
Outside her room, there were always two female guards. If she left her room, these two guards would follow her around. If she wanted to leave the Goddess Building, the two guards would stop her.
She hadn’t seen her sister Yu Qie in a while. This feeling of being under house arrest was causing her to feel more and more uneasy.
……
Suddenly, the door was opened, and Chu Mu saw a mature, beautiful, and dignified woman step in.
Chu Mu couldn’t see her appearance, but it was clearly the extremely special and mysterious Human Mother.
“Where’s sister? Where is she? Why can’t I find her anywhere in Goddess Building. Where did you take her?” Yu Suo grabbed Human Mother’s sleeve and asked hurriedly.
Human Mother didn’t reply. She simply walked around in Yu Suo’s room and grabbed a random book, “In the following time, come to my room every day to train. I’ll teach you some things.”
Yu Suo was stunned…..
Human Mother’s words were incredibly familiar. When she and her sister were still young, Human Mother also walked into their room and said the same words to Yu Qie.
In the following time, sister yu Qie got more and more distant from her. She was the Totem Divine Maiden while Yu Suo was nothing. She didn’t even need to train like the other maidens.
“Why….. why?” Yu Suo asked Human Mother questioningly.
“The Totem Divine Maiden position can’t be left empty.” Human Mother said calmly.
Hearing this, Yu Suo knew what had happened.
“Let me see sister.”
“No way.”
“If I don’t see her, I won’t learn any of this boring stuff!” Yu Suo said very seriously.
Totem Divine Maiden wasn’t something anyone could inherit. Training a Divine Totem Maiden required pure blood but also the indoctrination of the values of a divine maiden.
Since Yu Qie was a perfect fit, then as her sister, Yu Suo also had the same basic requirements. The only thing she was missing was long term indoctrination, learning, and guidance.
The person responsible for training Divine Maidens was Human Mother. The choice then of course was also Human Mother’s decision.
Yu Suo didn’t understand why Human Mother chose her. She was not suited for the role at all in terms of personality.
“Only once,” Human Mother finally agreed.
……
Yu Suo saw her sister in Guardian Palace.
In that calamity, she got very wounded. Even after this long, Yu Suo could still see Yu Qie’s tiredness.
“Why have they imprisoned you here. You’re the Totem Divine Maiden, what gives them the power to do so?” Yu Suo saw the fragile sister and couldn’t help but tear up.
“I’m no longer it, you are it now,” Yu Qie said calmly.
“I am not. I can’t take this spot.” Yu Suo knew herself too well and knew that the things she learned were far from her sister.
“It’s simple, the only thing the Totem Divine Maiden is in charge of is time. However, you have to be careful not to surpass this responsibility.”
Yu Suo shook her head. In her heart, no one was more suited for the position than her sister.
“I shouldn’t have listened to that devil’s words. I shouldn’t have left the Heaven Palace. If they don’t let you go, I won’t learn the things I need to…..” Yu Suo knew that this trap must have something to do with Yu Tian. He was using their sisterly relationship to set down a trap.
“Don’t be reckless. Because my soul was wounded, the time I control is already in chaos. The deaths in the mortal world will be far beyond those in this war. You have to fix everything…..”
“I don’t understand, what do those lives have to do with you?”
“You’ll understand soon enough.”
“How will they punish you?”
“It’s not punishment, I am willing to make up for my mistakes…..”
Human Mother didn’t let Yu Suo and Yu Qie speak for too long.
Yu Suo begged Human Mother to forgive her sister Yu Qie.
“I was the one who did something wrong, why are you punishing her?”
“You aren’t wrong,” Human Mother said.
“If I didn’t run out, sister wouldn’t have come out to save me. I was also the one that angered the demons.”
“You aren’t wrong, she is wrong,” Human Mother replied with the same tone.
Bai Jinrou stood aside and glanced at Chu Mu without understanding.
“Why aren’t they punishing Yu Suo but are instead punishing the Divine Totem Maiden, Yu Qie?” Bai Jinrou asked.
Chu Mu was also questioning why, but quickly Chu Mu understood.
Suddenly, he felt that the rules in Heaven Palace were indeed cruel.
“Divine Totem Maiden is in charge of time. This “time” should mean the time within the mortal realm, the rise and fall of the sun, the tides, and such. If she suffered heavy wounds, the mortal realm will go into chaos. Nights and days may reverse, all organisms will lose their schedules. Human Mother says that the sister Yu Qie was wrong because as the Divine Totem Maiden, she should never have left the Heaven Palace…..”
Even if it meant her sister’s life was lost, she shouldn’t have left.
It was cruel, excessively cruel.
Yu Suo had no position within Heaven Palace. If she left the palace, there were no real consequences even if she were killed by monsters.
However, Yu Qie couldn’t do the same thing. She was the Divine Totem Maiden. She had to guard her position. Even more so, she shouldn’t have left her position and start a battle that endangered the entire Heaven Palace. Her wounds have also caused the mortal realm to fall into a dark age.
Totem Divine Maiden only had to do one thing that seemed incredibly simple. However, if it went wrong, the consequences were unimaginable.
……
In the long time following, Yu Suo never saw her sister Yu Qie ever again.
Every day, she repeated the same things.
She still wasn’t the Totem Divine Maiden but was learning for the position.
Time seemed to extend endlessly for her to gain knowledge. When she used to be called dispensable, Yu Suo had thought of switching spots with her sister to become the Divine Totem Maiden.
However, before she even took the role, she already felt shackles of responsibility weighing her down so much that she could barely breathe. They were so heavy, she nearly lost herself amongst it. It didn’t allow for any recklessness or mistakes…..
She slowly understood why sister Yu Qie said she was the real dispensable one…..
The town’s people were still dying. She no longer dared to go kill monsters and save their lives because she knew she would have to pay a larger price. She no longer dared to go help the only flower on the cliff of the Heaven Palace because she knew there possibly were demons waiting for her there.
Days felt like years. Divine Totem Maiden governed the time of mortals but couldn’t govern her own time. Time felt sluggish. She was only fifteen, yet Yu Suo felt like it was even longer than a dozen years.
“I want to see her.”
“No, she’s still receiving her punishment.”
……
“I want to see her.”
“No.”
……
Finally, the rebelliousness within her bones made it unbearable to wait any longer to see her sister.
Just a few days before she took on the Divine Totem Maiden position, she left the Goddess Building through a secret tunnel.
She knew where her sister was receiving her punishment. She put on a veil and passed through the Guardian palace to reach the Wheel Palace.
At the top of the Wheel Palace, there was an upside down Star River Wheel.
The Galaxy Wheel was a miniature representation of the entire Heaven Palace. On it, she could see the punished sister Yu Qie.
……
When she stepped into the Star River Wheel and saw the axle, she was stunned.
A hot wind blew past and fell on her face.
Chu Mu and Princess Jin Rou also stood aside Yu Suo. They also saw the Star River Wheel’s axle needle……..
On that needle, a shriveled corpse hung there!
Her hair was already burnt, her clothes in tatters. Her skin was so dry it stuck to her bones….. Only her eyes remained calm like water.
And it was only those eyes that convinced Chu Mu and Bai Jinrou to believe that it was Yu Qie.
The three of them were all stunned.
The Yu Suo in the past, Chu Mu and Bai Jinrou watching in her memories, they always thought that as the Divine Totem Maiden, even if she were punished, she would at most be removed from duty and imprisoned…..
Yet, what they didn’t ever expect was that they really hung Yu Qie on the needle and left her to the strongest of elements…..
And she had stayed in the sun for a very long time now.
She was dead.
She had a pair of unforgettably clear and calm eyes. No matter how hard the sun burned them, it couldn’t take away from the spirit within these eyes.