Shi Qiu looked at Zhang Yushu. Finally, she said very softly,
"If only... someone had protected me like this back then."
The words were so calm, yet they filled the listeners with sorrow. It was as if the young Shi Qiu from years ago had timidly and reluctantly uttered her last words before vanishing into the world.
Before anyone could react, Shi Qiu had already withdrawn her gaze and looked at An Peng again. She resumed her terrifying appearance as a ghost!
Her head turned eerily as she slowly approached An Peng!
Watching Shi Qiu getting closer and closer, An Peng was so frightened by the terrifying scene that she trembled like a sieve and burst into tears!
Zhang Yushu was clearly unreliable at this moment. An Peng had no choice but to turn to Shen Cuiyu and scream hysterically and incoherently,
"Please save me! Save me! She's coming to harm me! I can give you money, a great deal of money..."
Shen Cuiyu stared at An Peng expressionlessly, like an emotionless statue, showing no intention of taking action.
The other disciples clearly regarded Shen Cuiyu as their leader, so they remained silent.
As the wheel of karma turns, An Peng had borne too much karmic burden. No one but herself could bear it.
Seeing that Shen Cuiyu ignored her, An Peng became even more frightened. When Shi Qiu came right in front of her, An Peng somehow found the strength to stagger to her feet and lunged towards Shen Cuiyu!
Shen Cuiyu watched An Peng indifferently without making a move. But Pei Yu beside her frowned and instinctively pulled Shen Cuiyu aside to avoid An Peng.
Without any obstruction, An Peng stumbled forward and plopped down on the ground!
At the same time, Shi Qiu's ghostly form flashed and directly appeared in front of An Peng.
Thud!
An Peng's fall brought her face - to - face with Shi Qiu!
A strong, putrid stench filled her nostrils, and An Peng felt sick to her stomach!
She was so close to Shi Qiu that she could clearly see the constantly bleeding wound on her forehead and her empty, soulless eyes!
An Peng was petrified. Her body went stiff, her eyes widened, and her lips trembled non - stop!
Shi Qiu, on the other hand, stared down at her expressionlessly.
This position made everyone recall that in the snow years ago, when Shi Qiu was surrounded and bullied, she had sat on the ground in such an embarrassing state, looking up at An Peng.
Now, their positions were simply reversed.
Shi Qiu tilted her head and stared at An Peng with her all - white eyes. The corner of her mouth curled into a cruel arc:
"An Peng, are you afraid too?"
"I didn't mean it back then! Please spare me! Spare me!" An Peng cried with her eyes closed.
But Shi Qiu stretched out her translucent hand and gently stroked An Peng's shoulder like a venomous snake. Her gesture was intimate, but her voice was icy cold:
"Just because you were in love with Zhang Yushu, did you have to take it out on me?" She suddenly turned her head and looked at the pale - faced Zhang Yushu, filled with grief and indignation. "And you! I told you many times not to talk to me! Put away your pitiful sympathy! All I wanted was to study and leave this place... It was you! Your so - called kindness destroyed me!"
Shi Qiu's sorrowful cries echoed, and the entire mill began to shake violently. Dust fell like tears, as if accompanying her in her grief.
The next moment, she suddenly reached out and grabbed An Peng's throat with her cold, illusory fingers!
An Peng immediately had difficulty breathing. Her face turned from red to purple.
Shen Cuiyu, who had remained calm, spoke up at the right moment. Her voice was calm but carried a warning.
"Shi Qiu, if you kill her, you will become a malevolent spirit who only knows how to kill and will never be able to reincarnate."
"Kill her?" Shi Qiu turned her head. A strange smile appeared on her terrifying face. "I won't kill her. Death... is too good for her." Her voice was like thousands of ice needles piercing everyone's ears. "I said I would make her... just like me."
Under everyone's surprised gazes, she leaned closer to An Peng, whose consciousness was already blurred due to lack of breath, and spoke word by word, like a curse:
"An Peng, from today on, every time you fall asleep, you will clearly feel the excruciating pain of your skull shattering, experience the suffocation and coldness of being stuffed under this dark millstone, and relive the fear of being abandoned by everyone and dying in despair... over and over again, without end. This is the never - ending hell I'm giving you."
After saying that, the black qi around Shi Qiu surged like a living thing and suddenly rushed into An Peng's seven orifices!
An Peng's body twitched violently. Her eyes instantly lost focus, and she let out meaningless grunts!
When she opened her eyes again, she had gone completely crazy!
She laughed maniacally one moment and hugged her head and screamed the next, as if she was experiencing terrifying scenes beyond imagination!
Zhang Yushu watched the crazy An Peng with mixed feelings. His body trembled uncontrollably due to fear, and finally he rolled his eyes and fainted!
Shi Qiu watched An Peng rolling and going crazy on the ground. She slowly straightened her body. The resentment around her seemed to have subsided a bit, but her deep - seated sadness grew even stronger.
She looked up at Shen Cuiyu and the others. There was no sense of relief in her tone, only a bit of exhaustion.
"It turns out that getting revenge isn't as satisfying as I thought..."
She was already dead. No matter how great a price An Peng paid, it could never make up for what she had lost.
Seeing Shi Qiu's increasing sadness and the increasingly strange tone of her speech, Zhong Shengwan's skin crawled. She tightly grasped the talisman paper in her hand, fearing that Shi Qiu might suddenly attack.
Dongfang Xiao also had a headache. In this situation, how could they send Shi Qiu to be reincarnated?
Shi Qiu silently turned her head to look at everyone.
Shen Cuiyu keenly noticed that when Shi Qiu looked at the disciples of the Wuxiang Academy, there was no trace of fear in her eyes. Instead, there was often a hint of envy that she couldn't hide.
That look seemed to pierce through time and see another possibility - the young Shi Qiu who had just entered the academy had also once harbored the same expectations, thinking that she could meet like - minded classmates and progress together. But instead, what awaited her was an endless nightmare.
These days, she had seen how the academy disciples supported and united with each other.
Only now did she realize that equal interaction, pure competition, and mutual growth were what classmates should be like...
"If only I had met you back then..."
Shi Qiu's voice suddenly stopped. She didn't continue. She silently looked at these vibrant young celestial masters, then at her own broken and resentful soul, and the scattered bones that had remained unburied for seven years...
The girl who had once been full of hope for the future had long been crushed and turned into this half - human, half - ghost monster.
There was nothing left to say.
It was all... too late.