After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 52
by Little PandaPhoenix Shadow
Who is this human?! What right does she have to hide our little phoenix!
Yu Hengwei did not receive the interrogation or probing she had braced for. She stole a glance at Wen Qiwu, only to find that slender figure with her head bowed, swaying as though about to collapse.
“Qiwu!” Her chest seized. She rushed forward and shielded the other woman at her side.
Wen Qiwu’s breathing came quick and shallow, her body trembling faintly. Yu Hengwei thought she must have been injured when she was not looking. All color draining from her face, Yu Hengwei frantically checked Wen Qiwu’s condition.
At that moment, everything—her identity, her exposure—was cast completely aside.
Wen Qiwu lifted her head. Her tear-filled eyes looked so heart-wrenching that Yu Hengwei felt her own chest twist with pain. She raised a hand and wiped the tear tracks from Wen Qiwu’s face, pressing gently: “Why are you crying? Are you… hurt?”
Wen Qiwu shook her head. “I am not hurt.”
She was weeping because of the death cries of countless birds—the pain and sorrow of every bird had transmitted directly to her, yet she could not even reach the place where it was happening.
The True Demon remnant had been genuinely hurt by that last sword strike and still had not recovered. Yu Hengwei laid down defensive arrays around them, and the less ferocious attacks were all intercepted.
“Can you tell me why? Perhaps I can help.” Only half-relieved after Wen Qiwu said she was not injured, Yu Hengwei coaxed her gently, guiding her to voice the real reason behind her tears.
How could she bear to see Wen Qiwu crying in silence?
“The Feather Tribe… has been attacked.” Wen Qiwu, eyes reddened, gave a brief account of the situation on the Feather Tribe’s side. If the person before her were truly just a stranger she had crossed paths with once, Wen Qiwu naturally would not have said much. But this “Yu Hengwei” was different—she was the only person Wen Qiwu could fully trust right now.
“Every bird’s dying wail reaches me. The moment those demons strike, the dead Feather Tribe members will not even have a chance at reincarnation. I have to get there quickly and collect the birds’ souls.” Wen Qiwu gripped the bow in her hand, her reddened eyes burning with fury.
Those souls corrupted or even controlled by Demonic Qi would only have a chance at reincarnation if they entered her flame to recuperate as quickly as possible. Otherwise, as time passed, they would fade from this world bit by bit. Wen Qiwu did not have much time left.
The True Demon remnant regrouped and launched another furious assault. This creature apparently never learned its lesson—despite having been beaten howling mere moments ago, the moment it recovered even slightly, it went right back to targeting Wen Qiwu.
Yu Hengwei drove several needles through the True Demon’s counterattack, then gathered Wen Qiwu into her arms and said softly, “I will take you to see.”
When Yu Hengwei was intent on leaving, no amount of effort from the True Demon could hold them.
The person in her arms kept trembling faintly. Yu Hengwei looked down and saw Wen Qiwu with her lashes lowered, her mind probably already flown to the trial grounds. Under these circumstances, she had no idea whether Wen Qiwu had noticed her Sword Intent just now—whether she had exposed herself.
She furrowed her brow and sighed inwardly.
They soon arrived near the trial grounds. The place had become a hellscape. The True Demon’s power had corroded the once-beautiful scenery into a picture of deathly stillness. Rainwater from surrounding areas also converged toward this point as if by unspoken agreement, and the increasingly dense Demonic Qi accumulated here.
No—they were not simply pooling together. They were condensing, incubating something new! From the rainwater-collected “swamp,” Wen Qiwu faintly sensed a fluctuation like the rise and fall of a heartbeat. She could not let this Demonic Qi continue to gather!
“Fellow Daoist Yu, we need to destroy this swamp.” Wen Qiwu looked up at Yu Hengwei. “It seems to be incubating something.”
“Alright.” Yu Hengwei nodded. Extreme-cold Immortal Power surfaced around her—one stream freezing the swamp below, another freezing the storm clouds above.
The Feather Tribe Kings were each fighting rather haggardly against their enemies. Yu Hengwei’s arrival relieved no small amount of pressure from them.
But freezing sky and earth was still only treating the symptoms, not the root cause. The true source of the problem was the True Demon remnant itself. Without destroying it, the entire Cangwang Realm would be dragged into catastrophe.
The fading souls of the birds lingered above the swamp. Upon sensing Wen Qiwu’s presence, they were all drawn to her as if by shared instinct. The birds had died in agony, and their souls continued to suffer even in death. Only beside Wen Qiwu could they feel a final measure of peace.
Yu Hengwei suddenly found herself wrapped in a cocoon of warm fire. Those pure white flames bore only a trace of cyan at the tips of their tendrils. This fire was not scorching at all—it brought only a warmth that made one feel as though life itself were being filled back in.
The one who had kindled this flame was the person in her arms. In this land of deathly stillness, her flame was the only light capable of illuminating the darkness.
Then Yu Hengwei suddenly felt her arms go empty. The person in her embrace had vanished, replaced by the phantom form of a white phoenix hovering above the swamp.
The phoenix flew over the places swallowed by Demonic Qi. Wherever she passed, specks of light drifted upward. Some were so faint that a single breath of wind could extinguish them, but that flame granted them strength, allowing even the weakest points of light to struggle toward the fire.
These points of light were the souls of the slain Feather Tribe. Wen Qiwu gathered these tormented souls and cradled them within her flame to nurture them. However, due to their overwhelming numbers, these birds could not recover as quickly as that little Qingluan had.
The moment Wen Qiwu summoned her flame, the Feather Tribe Kings sensed it and turned to look in her direction.
“Are my eyes playing tricks on me?” The Qingluan King had just finished clearing the puppets formed from the demonic rain and caught a moment’s breather. And now what was she seeing?
Amidst that apocalyptic, heart-wrenching devastation, a white phoenix wreathed in flame beat her wings through the night sky. The souls of the children who had just died—including those of the Qingluan Clan—were being received by her flame. Those children would not perish in agonizing torment. Just watching, she felt a long-lost sense of peace.
The Qingluan King thought she might be nearing her end, which was why she was seeing the departed Lord before she died. No—that phoenix was clearly still young. Was she… the Lord? No. She was not.
The Qingluan King had been sent by her family from childhood to serve the Phoenix Lord. She knew that sovereign more intimately than anyone. Though this phoenix greatly resembled the Lord, she was not Her.
She must truly have gone mad, to hallucinate a phoenix that looked so much like the Lord.
But then the Qingluan King suddenly heard the Bifang King cry out in shock not far away: “A phoenix?!”
So it was not her hallucination?!
The True Demon remnant soul let out a shriek. What Wen Qiwu was doing was tantamount to snatching food from its maw. This mindless monster immediately launched an attack against her.
Wen Qiwu had already expended too much gathering so many souls into her flame. She had little strength left to strike back.
The Kings saw the True Demon lunging madly at the phoenix and charged forward without a second thought. Yet even the fastest bird among them was not as fast as another white silhouette.
The Kings watched helplessly as that human shattered the True Demon’s attack, then snatched their phoenix right into her arms before their very eyes.
The Kings stared, eyes wide. Who was this human?! What right did she have to hide their little phoenix!
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