Douluo: Martial Soul White Tiger, I am the White Emperor of Heaven

“What’s seeping out of the cracks,” Lin Mo didn’t elaborate, “is like fragments of existence, but without a complete self. They mimic life, but something’s always off. Okay, I’m taking her back. You’d better leave; it’s not good for ordinary people to be exposed to this kind of thing too much.”

But Qian Renxue didn't move. She looked at the girl, at the starlight twinkling in her eyes, at the threads connecting her to nothingness. In her perception of time, those threads were not merely spatial connections, but temporal connections—they extended from the girl, not as rifts pointing to the "present," but as threads that pierced through time, connecting countless "possibilities."

“Wait,” Qian Renxue said, “can I try?”

Lin Mo frowned: "Test what? This isn't a problem that soul skills can solve. We need specialized isolation and purification equipment, and we also need to contact experts from Heaven Dou City."

“I’m not going to use my soul skill,” Qian Renxue interrupted him, stopping a few meters away from the girl. “I just want to talk to her.”

"Speak? She can't hear me at all right now."

Lin Mo's words came to an abrupt halt. He saw that Qian Renxue's eyes had changed. It wasn't the light of her spirit rings, but a deeper transformation—her pupils seemed to hold the turning of clockwork gears, the reversal of hourglasses, the birth and annihilation of stars. When she gazed at the girl, her gaze no longer lingered on the surface, but pierced through time, seeing something deeper.

Qian Renxue wasn't really sure what she was doing. It was instinct, a spontaneous application of the ability to anchor time in a mortal. She stared at the threads connecting the girl to nothingness, not trying to cut them—that might hurt the girl—but "looking" along the threads.

She saw a chaos. Not darkness, not nothingness, but "uncertainty." That was the girl's future, a future eroded by nothingness, with countless possible endings: she disappeared into the rift, she became a vessel for nothingness, she went mad attacking others, she slowly eroded in the isolation room—all possibilities pointing to the annihilation of existence.

But amidst these chaotic possibilities, Qian Renxue saw a glimmer of light. Tiny, fragile, yet undeniably real. It was a different future: the girl recovers, grows up, becomes an ordinary person, marries, has children, ages, and dies—an ordinary, complete life trajectory.

This future still exists because of a certain connection. Qian Renxue traced the source of the light and saw a scene: a girl's seventh birthday, her mother giving her a teddy bear, and she hugging the bear, smiling happily. That moment, that connection, that memory, was the anchor. It was that ordinary yet warm moment that left a mark in time, preventing the future of "complete life" from being completely erased by nothingness.

Qian Renxue did the only thing she could do: she reinforced that anchor point.

Not with force, but with existence itself. She took a sliver of her "weight" as an anchor point in time and poured it into that moment. It was like adding a grain of sand to one side of a scale—insignificant, but enough to cause a tiny shift in the balance.

The starlight in the girl's eyes flickered for a moment, then began to fade. She blinked, the starlight disappeared, revealing her original brown pupils. She looked around blankly, seemingly not understanding why she was there.

"Where am I?" the girl asked weakly.

Lin Mo stared in disbelief. The instrument in his hand showed that the girl's Void Connection Index had plummeted from 87 to 12, falling below the danger threshold. "How...how did you do that?" He looked at Qian Renxue, his eyes filled with shock and wariness.

“I don’t know,” Qian Renxue said honestly, feeling a wave of exhaustion—her actions had drained her energy. “I just remembered someone important.”

This wasn't entirely the truth, but it wasn't a lie either. While reinforcing that anchor point, she did indeed think of her mother. Not as the mother in the Angel God's memories, but as Qian Renxue, the little girl who once had and then lost her mother. That connection, that love, that weight of memory—that was the most fundamental and powerful force against nothingness.

Lin Mo stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head: "Never mind, it's not important. Thank you for saving her. But don't tell anyone about this, understand? The observation station has regulations that non-professionals are not allowed to handle virtualized cases, or I will be punished."

“I understand,” Qian Renxue nodded. “Will she be alright?”

“I’ll take her back to the observatory for a full check-up. If her values ​​are stable, she can go home tomorrow. But the phagocytosis is irreversible; she might have another attack, and she’ll be more sensitive to fissures.” Lin Mo walked to the girl’s side and gently supported her. “Come on, Xiaoyu, I’ll take you home.”

The girl nodded obediently, then glanced at Qian Renxue, her eyes showing a hint of confusion and gratitude.

After the two left, Qian Renxue stood alone on the hillside. Moonlight shone on her, casting a long shadow. She raised her hand, looking at her palm. There, she could sense a subtle change—her actions just now seemed to have not only helped the girl, but also affected her herself.

In her perception of time, a new point appeared on her own "line" of existence. Not an anchor point of the past, but a possibility for the future? No, more accurately, it was the mark of a "choice." When she chose to help that girl, chose to use her ability to anchor time to amplify an ordinary moment, she created a fulcrum for her own possible future.

"Is this the beginning of anchoring the future?" she murmured to herself.

It wasn't a grand plan, nor a world-shaking feat, but a small choice, a decision to help a stranger. This choice, this action, will leave its mark on time, becoming a part of her future.

Qian Renxue returned to the inn but couldn't fall asleep. She sat by the window, looking at the gray cracks in the distance, pondering the old man's words: "You need a future, a future so solid, so certain, that it almost already exists."

Solid, certain. What does this mean?
She reflected on her life. As the Crown Prince of the Heaven Dou Empire, her future was predetermined: to inherit the throne, rule the empire, and continue the glory of the Spirit Hall. As the Angel God, her future was bestowed upon her: to protect the God Realm, maintain balance, and await the next successor. All these futures were given, determined, not chosen by her.

What future has she truly chosen for herself?
She once chose to be Tang San's enemy, out of hatred and pride. Later, she chose to become a guardian, out of responsibility and atonement. But were these choices truly "the future she wanted"? Or were they merely reactions to the past?
Outside the window, the first rays of dawn pierced the night sky, illuminating the distant crack. That grayish-white expanse appeared even more stark and ominous in the morning light. (End of Chapter)