Chapter 566 - 333: Transaction
That voice... It’s the Bow Lady!
The moment he heard the voice, Yang An spun around.
Behind him stood a peerlessly beautiful woman in a white dress, her long hair falling to her waist. Her eyes sparkled like starlight as she gazed at him.
The Bow Lady’s figure was somewhat ethereal, not quite solid, to the point that when Yang An first saw her, he wondered if he had fallen into another of her memories.
Until...
"What’s the matter? Don’t recognize me anymore?" the Bow Lady said with a laugh, her tone fiercely bold.
A look of delighted surprise instantly appeared on Yang An’s face. Now he was absolutely certain. This was the Bow Lady.
He had been looking and searching in this Consciousness Realm for so long, never expecting the Bow Lady to appear on her own.
"Bow Lady, where have you been?"
Yang An asked curiously.
The Bow Lady, with her nation-toppling beauty, shot him an irritated look.
"I’ve been behind you this whole time. You just couldn’t see me."
"..."
"Then why didn’t you show yourself sooner?"
"I wanted to! But that old bald donkey, Forbidden Calamity, isolated me."
"Forbidden Calamity?"
Yang An was taken aback. He couldn’t figure out what this had to do with Forbidden Calamity.
"Back then, when I was separated from my main body and became a remnant soul, it was Forbidden Calamity who helped awaken my Spiritual Wisdom. It was also him who placed a Secret Technique on me. It could protect my remnant soul from being extinguished at a critical moment and, in that state, allow me to recover all my previous memories—everything you just saw," the Bow Lady explained, holding nothing back from Yang An.
"So you’re saying that before I even came in here, you had already recovered? It was just that the Secret Technique Forbidden Calamity set up beforehand prevented you from appearing?" Yang An immediately realized what this meant.
"That’s right, but you got one thing wrong. I haven’t recovered. My remnant soul not being extinguished isn’t the same as recovering. I’m so weak I could die right now."
The Bow Lady had none of the temperament expected of a peerless beauty. After speaking, she plopped right down on the ground, completely uninhibited and informal.
Yang An’s gaze swept over her perfect curves but didn’t linger. He just smiled.
"Well, it wasn’t for nothing that I found an Insect Dao soul for you. It should be enough for you to recover."
"No wonder I was so terrified when we were at the Great Virtue Temple. So that’s what I went through there back then. That old bald donkey was truly ruthless," the Bow Lady said, gritting her teeth.
Everything Yang An had seen was real. The torture she endured in the Eternal Prison was also real. But it was precisely because of this that she gained the ability to devour souls to restore herself. Forbidden Calamity’s methods were just so heavy-handed, so... distinctive.
Hearing the Bow Lady’s words, Yang An froze for a moment.
’Looked at this way, Forbidden Calamity couldn’t have helped the Bow Lady for no reason. He must have been plotting something.’
’From the Bow Lady falling into a weakened state to him entering her Consciousness Realm, Forbidden Calamity’s shadow was everywhere. The measures he left behind even prevented the Bow Lady from appearing prematurely, not until he had left that memory sequence.’
’Could it be... that it was no accident he was able to enter that memory about the Great Virtue Temple?’
At this thought, Yang An immediately looked at the Bow Lady and said,
"Can you tell me everything that happened at the Great Virtue Temple, from beginning to end? Including how you left!"cv
The Bow Lady thought for a moment, then began to recount the past.
Back then, she was just a remnant soul passively separated from her main body. She had unknowingly drifted to the Western Domain. According to Forbidden Calamity, he was the one who discovered her existence, brought her to the Great Virtue Temple, and later had her sent to the Eternal Prison.
In the Eternal Prison, to awaken her independent Spiritual Wisdom, Forbidden Calamity had countless Demon Fiends "kill" her over and over, using the agony to drive the awakening of her wisdom and the formation of her personality.
It was precisely this that forged the Bow Lady’s current assertive personality and her ability to devour souls to restore and strengthen herself. Of course, the experience also planted a seed of terror deep in her subconscious.
After her Spiritual Wisdom was fully awakened, the Bow Lady had wondered what Forbidden Calamity’s purpose was in doing all this.
But Forbidden Calamity never gave her an answer.
Until one day, Zhu Han, the Workshop Master of the Jade Refining Workshop, came to visit the Great Virtue Temple and struck a deal.
The Workshop Master needed to forge an exceptionally difficult Magical Artifact for Forbidden Calamity. The condition of the trade was that the soul of the Bow Lady, who came from the Central Continent, would be given to the Workshop Master.
After a very long time, the Workshop Master completed the Magical Artifact and delivered it to the Great Virtue Temple.
Forbidden Calamity then completely sealed the Bow Lady’s memories and traded her to the Workshop Master.
That was the long and short of it. If the Bow Lady hadn’t previously released the massive amount of soul energy she had devoured for Yang An’s sake, causing herself to fall into a weakened state and triggering the Secret Technique left by Forbidden Calamity, she would never have awakened these memories.
After hearing the Bow Lady’s story, Yang An was lost in thought.
’If the Bow Lady hasn’t left anything out, then no matter how I look at it, Forbidden Calamity’s goal wasn’t the Bow Lady herself.’
"I get it now!" the Bow Lady suddenly said, her words startling. "Everything Forbidden Calamity did... it wasn’t for me. It was to wait for your arrival!"
Hearing the Bow Lady’s words, a flash of insight also struck Yang An, and he immediately understood.
’In the Bow Lady’s Consciousness Realm, he was the only one who had entered.’
’If Forbidden Calamity’s goal wasn’t the Bow Lady... then it had to be him.’