Chapter 19: Celestial Memories: The Painful Choice
A few hours later, Hexi had changed into simple, comfortable loungewear and returned to her bedroom, which felt quiet to the point of being oppressive.
Under the soft lighting, two picture frames sat on her desk.
One was a photograph of He Zhangliang—her biological father and He Feng’s adoptive father—a middle-aged angelic scholar with gentle, wise eyes and the curiosity of an explorer.
The other was a photo taken when she was a young child, held in the arms of He Feng, who was then just over two thousand years old. In the picture, He Feng wore a slightly clumsy but immensely sincere smile, while she, a little girl with rare silver hair, clutched the corner of her brother’s garment, her eyes filled with absolute trust.
Hexi’s gaze lingered for a long time on her father’s photograph. Father… the man who gave her life but vanished into the storms of the Withered Nebula when she was only three years old.
Her impression of him was vague and distant, pieced together mostly from her brother’s stories and those yellowed journals of exploration. He was a scholar obsessed with the unknown sea of stars, possessing advanced wisdom yet harboring a streak of idealism.
She reached out, her fingertips brushing lightly over the frame of her father’s photo. The worry for her brother and the confusion about the future weighing on her heart left her feeling an indescribable exhaustion and loneliness.
Just as she prepared to set the photo back, her restless movements caused her elbow to inadvertently knock against an inconspicuous, dust-covered metal box in the corner of the desk.
*Clatter!*
The box fell to the floor, its lid popping open.
Hexi instinctively bent down to retrieve it. A few old items spilled out: a metal badge engraved with the He family crest, now oxidized and blackened; several yellowed sheets of parchment covered in scribbled formulas and draft star charts; and… a cylindrical object wrapped in an ancient, unknown animal hide.
She initially intended to simply toss these keepsakes back into the box, but as her fingertips touched the hide wrapping, an inexplicable tremor seized her heart! It felt as if a faint electric current had instantly surged through her entire body.
Hexi froze.
She slowly picked up the hide-wrapped object and unwound the layers one by one.
When the contents were fully revealed before her, Hexi felt as if her heart had been gripped by an invisible giant hand, causing it to stop beating altogether!
It was a map.
A star map carried on some kind of resilient, unknown material that radiated a strange energy fluctuation!
The material was so similar to the chaotic star map scroll that her brother had treated as his most precious treasure, never letting it leave his side!
And beside the star map scroll lay a primitive-looking, faintly glowing… compass!
Hexi’s breath hitched! Her mind went blank! She stared fixedly at the star map and the compass in her hands, her pupils contracting sharply in extreme shock!
Father… could Father have actually… had one too?! The same star map and compass as her brother?!
Why? Why had she never seen them? Why had her father never mentioned them? Why had her brother never spoken of them either?!
Countless questions crashed against her consciousness like a tsunami!
She sprang to her feet, not even bothering to gather the other keepsakes scattered on the floor. Clutching the long-sealed star map and compass tightly, she dashed back to her core research lab like an arrow released from a bow—straight to the massive holographic star map table!
She carefully connected her father’s star map scroll to the Heavenly Base system.
The scroll hovered and unfurled automatically, emitting the same mysterious and profound light as her brother’s. The compass, too, seemed to awaken, hovering above the star map and vibrating slightly.
Hexi took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Her silver-gray eyes, usually as precise as scientific instruments, erupted with an unprecedented intensity!
She began to operate the console with frantic speed!
First, she compared the newly acquired star map data against all known angelic star charts and cosmic models in her database.
The result was shocking—the vast majority of regions and paths marked on this map existed entirely beyond the boundaries of existing charts! The twisted, living-like energy lines tracing the channels pointed toward the "cracks" and "cliffs" of the universe—the blind spots of current technological detection!
Immediately after, she input the data regarding the completely destroyed space nodes on the outskirts of the Heavenly City—the coordinates of the bombed star gates, the disrupted and blocked wormhole tunnel entrances, and the severed spatial anchors of the Great Worm Bridge—and ran a spatial topological correlation calculation and trajectory simulation against the highly secretive "cosmic wall crack" coordinates found on her father’s map!
The system groaned under the overload, and data streams cascaded down the light screens like a waterfall! Beads of sweat formed on Hexi’s temples, but she remained oblivious.
Time ticked by. Suddenly!
On the main screen, a point of light representing one of the most hidden entrance coordinates on her father’s map flared to life!
An extremely faint, twisted energy trail—nearly invisible to conventional spatial detection—was traced out like an invisible pen, extending from the ruins of a space node on the outskirts of the Heavenly City that had been completely annihilated by antimatter bombs!
This trajectory did not follow any known cosmic constants or spatial structures. It bypassed the conventional shipping lanes that Liang Bing’s army had sealed off like an iron barrel, moving with an eerie, "wall-piercing" motion. Like a ghost, it slipped straight into the cosmic wasteland known as the "Death Vortex"!
The simulation continued!
Guided by her father’s star map, the trajectory navigated with incredible precision through the violent gravitational tides and energy turbulence of the Death Vortex—forces capable of tearing stars apart—finding an absolutely safe "crack" and passing through smoothly!
Then… it pointed to the next node—【The End Point】! Followed by 【The Yellow Springs Barrier】, 【The Sea of Blood Mist】… and finally… it stopped in the desolate star region on the outermost periphery of the angelic civilization, known as 【The Road to Hell】!
*Boom!*
Hexi felt as if thunder had exploded in her mind! All the clues connected in an instant!
No wonder he couldn't be found!
No wonder there were no traces!
It wasn't that he hadn't left!
He had taken a "wall crack" that no one would have imagined, and that current technology could not detect!
Holding the star map and compass left by their father, he had used them like keys to a back door, bypassing all the front and rear gates to slip out through the wall!
He had utilized the very "loopholes" and "cliffs" of the universe itself!
"Death Vortex… End Point… Yellow Springs Barrier… Sea of Blood Mist… Road to Hell…" Hexi muttered these cold, terrifying names marked on the map, her gaze fixed dully on the ghostly trajectory line that had come to a halt in the "Road to Hell" sector.
An indescribable chill swept through her, as if she had fallen into an ice cellar!
Brother… he was leading those three million sparks of fire, walking on a path of the abyss pointed out by their father, leading toward absolute mystery and death! Every step he took was on the razor's edge of the universe!
Hexi’s body began to tremble violently. She knew! She finally knew where He Feng had gone!
This discovery, far from bringing the relief of an answer, pressed down on her heart like a thousand-ton boulder, leaving her barely able to breathe!
On one side were her sisters, with whom she had lived and died, overthrown the tyranny of the Heavenly Palace, and established the prototype of a new order!
Keisha’s cold decree of execution still rang in her ears! Liang Bing’s millions of troops were sharpening their blades!
He Feng’s existence was a sharp sword hanging over the new order, a hidden danger that had to be eradicated!
As the Heavenly King, she had a duty to report this vital intelligence immediately, allowing Liang Bing’s army to block the exit of the Road to Hell in advance and crush the threat once and for all!
On the other side… was the brother who had given her a second life, raised her like a father, taught her knowledge, and provided shelter when she was most helpless!
He was the brother who had kept watch all night when she was sick as a child, offered encouragement when her research hit a wall, and smiled with pride when she successfully activated the prototype of her Flame Sword for the first time!
Could she really push him to his death with her own hands? Could she truly bear the eternal inner torment brought on by this betrayal?
"Why… why must it be me again…" Hexi’s voice was filled with a broken sob, laden with helplessness and despair.