【If Li Zhaoye Had Not Become the Divine Sovereign】
Luo Luo was dragged back to Mirror Twin Peaks by Qing Xu like a lifeless puppet.
In the illusory dream of Yu Fusheng, she had toyed with Chen Xuanyi, tearing his heart out—both literally and metaphorically—nearly shattering his Daoist core.
Afterward, he had been glaring at her with a sinister gaze, as if contemplating some unspeakable retribution.
But Luo Luo no longer cared.
Whatever they did to her, it didn’t matter anymore.
Stepping into the inner hall of the Heart-Questioning Pavilion, her eyes immediately fell upon two meditation cushions.
One for her, one for Li Zhaoye.
In the past, they would sit cross-legged on these cushions, reciting cultivation mantras while swaying their heads like silly children.
‘Li Zhaoye… I don’t think I can avenge you after all.’
Moving like a marionette, Luo Luo walked over and settled onto one of the cushions.
She began reciting the mantras.
“Heh…” Chen Xuanyi let out a mocking laugh, striding forward to grab her collar, intending to yank her off the cushion.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Qing Xu raised a hand to stop him.
Chen Xuanyi turned. “What’s your problem?”
“You want to keep your cultivation or not?” Qing Xu glared. “Your meridians are a mess—don’t tell me you haven’t noticed? Go into seclusion, now!”
Chen Xuanyi’s eyes darkened with suppressed fury. “Keep an eye on her. Don’t let her escape.”
“Relax,” Qing Xu waved him off dismissively. “She doesn’t even have the strength to stand.”
Luo Luo sat on the cushion like a melted clay figurine.
Chen Xuanyi frowned. “What if someone comes to take her away?”
Qing Xu smirked. “Worry about useless things less. Not even a mosquito can slip past my defenses.”
“Fine.”
Soon, the hall fell silent, leaving Luo Luo alone.
Plop.
A fat teardrop splattered onto the stone floor.
In the past, whenever she hid away to cry, Li Zhaoye would always drag her out and give her a sound thrashing.
Plop… plop… plop…
Tiny splashes bloomed across the dark green tiles.
Now, Li Zhaoye was gone. No one would ever scold her again.
Buzz…
A large black mosquito suddenly invaded her vision.
Luo Luo stared at it blankly.
Qing Xu had just boasted that not even a mosquito could enter, yet here one was, bold as brass.
It hovered before her fearlessly, buzzing obnoxiously before dive-bombing straight for her face.
Luo Luo: “Ow.”
Distracted for just a second, she felt its proboscis pierce her cheek.
The audacity of this mosquito! It planted all six legs on her face, stabbing into her skin and sucking greedily, its needle-like mouth bobbing with each gulp.
Luo Luo: “……”
If she swatted it now, she’d just be slapping herself.
She’d have to wait until it finished.
‘Glutton. Let’s see if you can even fly after this!’ Murderous intent simmered in her heart.
Finally, the mosquito wobbled away, drunk on her blood, tracing drunken “S” shapes in the air.
Luo Luo pressed her lips together and stealthily raised a hand—
SMACK!
But the instant she moved, the mosquito darted aside with unnatural agility.
Buzz—
Instead of fleeing, it hovered just a foot away, waving its proboscis at her in a gesture so taunting it was practically smug.
Luo Luo: “……”
That arrogant, insufferable demeanor… it was exactly like Li Zhaoye.
Her head spun.
Maybe she was hallucinating from grief—seeing Li Zhaoye in demons, and now even in mosquitoes.
Dizzily, she reached out.
“Li Zhaoye…”
The moment the name left her lips, she flushed with embarrassment—calling a mosquito by his name?
Yet… it paused mid-air, then slowly descended onto her finger.
As if it understood her.
Luo Luo: “?!”
Her heart hammered wildly.
Could it…?
The mosquito promptly stabbed her again.
Luo Luo: “……”
As it fed, it lifted one foreleg and gave her a half-hearted wave, as if to say: You offered.
Luo Luo: “……”
That shamelessness made it even more like Li Zhaoye.
Once sated, the mosquito began tormenting her—buzzing around her ears, nipping at the tips, driving her to madness.
Even Luo Luo’s patience had limits.
Forgetting her sorrows, she scrambled off the cushion and chased after it.
The wretched insect taunted her with every possible flight pattern—forward, backward, sideways, even faking a crash now and then.
Luo Luo burst into laughter despite herself. “What kind of mosquito are you?!”
Qing Xu gave a perfunctory effort at guarding Chen Xuanyi’s seclusion.
No point wasting energy on a man destined to die soon.
“Given your state,” Qing Xu said with faux concern, “maybe skip the Ascension Summit this time?”
“Skip it? No.” Chen Xuanyi grinned. “I’m making up for past failures.”
“Tsk, tsk.” Qing Xu feigned pity. “Don’t tell me you never even won the championship?”
Chen Xuanyi scowled. “I had… unlucky draws.”
“Right.” Qing Xu waved a hand. “Well, Luo Luo will be competing. Try not to lose to her.”
Chen Xuanyi’s face darkened. “You’re letting her go?”
Qing Xu shrugged. “If she doesn’t show, Lingxue will get suspicious. You know how stubborn that ice-cold nun is.”
“…True.”
“Relax. I’ll watch her.”
After hastily placating Chen Xuanyi, Qing Xu wandered back to the Heart-Questioning Pavilion.
Peering through the window, he expected to find Luo Luo weeping silently on her cushion.
Instead, she was… leaping around, swatting at a mosquito.
Qing Xu: “Ahem.”
He coughed loudly and entered.
Startled, Luo Luo instinctively tried to hide the Li Zhaoye-like mosquito—
Too late.
It zoomed straight at Qing Xu, stabbing him with its proboscis.
“Ow—!”
SMACK.
Qing Xu opened his palm to reveal the mosquito, now a flattened stain.
Luo Luo’s lips parted soundlessly.
Qing Xu smirked. “Took you long enough to kill one mosquito.”
She stared at the tiny corpse on the floor.
Dead.
A small puddle of her soul-blood seeped out.
Her brief happiness was over.
Qing Xu loomed over her, his shadow swallowing her whole. “For old times’ sake, I won’t let Chen Xuanyi touch you.”
Luo Luo: “Oh. Should I thank you?”
He curled his lips in a smile. “You’re welcome.”
Luo Luo: “……”
With a wave, he turned. “Practice hard. Win the Ascension Summit for me—your master believes in you!”
Luo Luo blinked. “You’re letting me compete?”
Qing Xu glanced back. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll kill Chen Xuanyi.”
“Go ahead.”
“And then I’ll kill you.”
Qing Xu chuckled. “Focus on Chen Xuanyi first.”
He strode away.
A wooden puppet servant shuffled in to clean up the mosquito’s remains.
Luo Luo threw herself into cultivation with frenzied determination.
She had always been the type to fixate on one thing at a time.
Once, when her body was poisoned and in excruciating pain, she kept swinging her sword relentlessly.
Now, with her heart hollow and aching, she buried herself in cultivation until she collapsed from exhaustion.
Lately, she hadn’t encountered any strange mosquitoes.
But… something felt off. There was always a faint sense of being watched.
Was something observing her?
Looking around the hall, aside from her and the wooden puppets, not even a cockroach could be seen.
‘Probably that man set up some surveillance trick to spy on me.’
Thinking this, Luo Luo ignored it and moved on.
Then one morning, she woke up with a sore mouth.
Touching it, she found her lower lip swollen and split.
“Tsk!”
She grew wary.
That night, after training until she was eighty percent exhausted, she yawned, staggered to her bed, and pretended to fall fast asleep.
The surroundings were silent, save for the occasional rustling of the wooden puppets tidying up.
Luo Luo waited and waited, but nothing unusual happened.
Her consciousness began to blur.
Just as she teetered between wakefulness and sleep, a chilling sensation shot up her spine!
Her instincts screamed warnings, her heart pounding wildly.
There was something… right beside her bed.
Her scalp prickled. In one fluid motion, she formed a hand seal, snapped her eyes open, flipped up, and drew her sword.
“Clang!”
At the tip of her gleaming blade was a wooden puppet.
“Huh…”
Before she could relax, an even more intense dread washed over her.
Judging by its posture, it had been standing over her bed, staring down at her.
Now, caught red-handed, it dropped all pretense. Slowly, it turned its stiff wooden face toward her and curled its lips into an eerily unnatural smile.
Luo Luo: “…”
Had the puppet gained sentience?!
She was about to slash it into eighteen pieces when it suddenly twisted one wooden arm behind its back and—with a flourish—pulled out a massive celestial-grade spirit stone.
Luo Luo: “…”
It tilted its chin up slightly and tossed the stone at her feet.
Her eye twitched.
This was exactly how Li Zhaoye used to fling treasures at her whenever he got his hands on something good.
The puppet tapped the spirit stone impatiently, urging her to hurry up.
Luo Luo: “…”
Somehow, she instantly understood its meaning. At this point, she couldn’t tell whether it was the puppet or herself who was acting stranger.
After a brief, narrowed-eyed deliberation, she decided:
Things couldn’t possibly get worse for her anyway. Right now, cultivation was her top priority.
Resolved, she sat cross-legged and devoured the spirit stone’s energy like a whirlwind.
In the following days, the wooden puppet dutifully delivered celestial-grade spirit stones on schedule.
To her astonishment, it had even spawned new clones.
When she stood by the window, puppets in the corridor, the hall, the courtyard—all froze mid-motion and turned to stare at her in eerie unison.
Of course, the horror turned to delight when she realized the celestial-grade stones had multiplied accordingly.
It even fetched her Dreamweaver Jade, granting her extra cultivation time.
Luo Luo: “…”
None of the sect’s restricted zones barred wooden puppets. Who knew whose vaults it was plundering—most likely Qing Xu’s.
The thought alone made her laugh in her sleep.
With the spirit stones’ boost, her cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds.
Sect Leader Lingxue forbade disciples from relying on pills and stones, fearing it would create hollow, unstable foundations.
But Luo Luo was different.
Her foundation was rock-solid—almost excessively so. With the stones’ aid, her progress soared.
Luo Luo successfully formed a fire-element Nascent Soul.
“Hey,” she called out to the puppet trailing behind her, “Li Zhaoye said virgin cores yield the best breakthroughs. And mine’s a supreme-grade one!”
The puppet was busy gathering the bedding and curtains she’d kicked off the bed earlier.
It looked utterly ordinary now.
Clutching a piece of Dreamweaver Jade, her palm grew damp, her heartbeat frantic.
‘What if it’s not Li Zhaoye? …So what if it’s not!’
Steeling herself, she crushed the jade and pressed it onto the puppet.
White light erupted. The world spun.
Dizzily, Luo Luo found herself in a surreal, fragmented realm.
It resembled her Glowing Pavilion, but everything was shattered and distorted—beams fused with floor tiles, a pearwood chair stuffed inside a teacup.
Her heart ached faintly.
A broken soulscape meant only one thing: the “person” who’d entered this world with her had a shattered spirit.
She glanced around.
Then—a familiar presence.
Holding her breath, she crept closer.
Beside a sword-training journal hovered a translucent, fractured shadow.
Just a silhouette, featureless, save for a pulsing glow at its chest—soul-blood, linked to the scattered traces on her left wrist.
Her heart trembled.
“Li Zhaoye!” she blurted.
“Thud!”
The shadow startled violently, dispersing instantly. The journal and a brush clattered to the ground.
Luo Luo: “…”
Instinctively, she picked up the journal. Fresh ink stained the pages—he’d been writing here moments ago.
Her eyes dropped to the text:
First line: Heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys. (Crossed out, with a note: Won’t eat.)
Second line: Drink her blood. (Crossed out, with a note: Will get beaten.)
