Chapter 733: Puk‑ji

Qingque lifted the left hand, fingertips upward, and drew a circle above the head.

The movement was as casual as scribbling a note on a Tai Bu Si file.

Cobalt‑blue light spilled from the fingertips, leaving a complete ring in the air; the ring's edge lit up with dense runes that spun upward.

She lightly flicked a finger at the halo, which burst and turned into countless fine strands of light shooting toward the Bubbles sea in both upward and downward directions.

The upper‑layer Bubbles received the command.

The Bubbles that had been passively defending suddenly stopped drifting with the current, all turned in unison, and began pushing upward at a visibly rapid speed.

Hundreds of millions of Bubbles rising together created a spectacle of indescribable grandeur, converging into a reverse waterfall that surged against gravity toward the zenith, colliding with the tree roots still pressing downward.

Where roots met Bubbles, dense cobalt‑blue flashes erupted, linking together to tint half the sky with a flowing curtain of light.

When the roots pressed down an inch, the Bubbles pushed up an inch; the two stalemated in the upper half of the world, neither gaining a fraction.

The lower‑layer Bubbles moved in sync.

Qingque tapped again with the right hand, fingertips downward, the same casual motion as drawing a checkmark on a file.

The bubble cluster below collectively turned and surged downward, striking the golden branches that were thrust upward with the earth.

Cobalt‑blue foam and golden trunks collided violently in the lower half of the world, and the blast wave at the impact overturned a large swath of surrounding monsters.

With both upper and lower forces advancing, the middle space, constantly compressed, was torn open by the Bubbles.

The sky was pushed back upward, the earth pressed back down, and the gradually tightening pressure was shattered completely at that moment.

The central area where Qingque stood became open and spacious again; the Bubbles formed an impenetrable defensive line in both upward and downward directions, forcefully repelling the Golden Giant Tree's combined siege from its roots and canopy.

And the middle was left completely empty!

After the two layers of Bubbles advanced, an extremely vast blank area appeared before Qingque, devoid of Bubbles, monster debris, or fragments of Abundance branches.

Only cobalt‑blue light seeped in from both directions, tinting the empty space with a soft hue between twilight and underwater.

At the far side of this blank area, the trunk of the Golden Giant Tree stood unimpeded.

Qingque lowered the crossed legs, interlaced the ten fingers, stretched the arms forward, and the joints clicked.

She turned the neck slightly left and right; the ash‑gray long hair slipped across the shoulders with the movement.

"Area cleared."

Her voice rang especially clear in the empty space, carrying the calm of a card table about to flip a card: "The middle area, let's settle it between us, so those messy things won't disturb the game."

Perspective shift.

Heimu leaned against the doorframe, listening to Xi Lian's "Long time no see" that lingered with a note of extreme guilt, and the corner of the mouth twitched.

"Hi—long time no see?"

Her gaze left Xi Lian's stiff face, swept the room—snack bags, empty soda bottles, crumpled unknown tissues, tipped cups, a blanket rolled on the bed—and then fell back onto Xi Lian.

The pink shoulder‑length hair was a mess like a chicken coop, headphones hung around the neck, the dress was wrinkled, and bare feet still tapped lightly on the mat, retaining the earlier sway.

Heimu had already sampled several versions of that sense of contrast today.

Feng Jin's probing philosophical metaphor.

A thousand Ti Bao chased her, calling her "mom," while the Hundred Realms Gate filled the city with buried explosives.

Each version had its own shock.

But this one was different; the model Heimu kept of Xi Lian in the heart was a "quiet, romantic girl who would blush and admit she liked flowers," a cognitive chasm separating that from the current snack‑pile‑cursing internet‑addicted girl.

Heimu decided to act as if nothing had happened.

She took a step forward.

Puk‑ji.

The spot where the boot sole landed happened to conceal a sandwich cake.

It was cream‑filled, perhaps left on the floor for a while, the cream having softened to a semi‑liquid state at room temperature.

The crisp crack of the pastry breaking and the sticky slosh of cream being squeezed out blended together, amplified at least threefold in the quiet room.

The squashed cream oozed from the boot's edge, the strawberry‑colored filling mixing with cake crumbs and clinging to the black boot, slowly dripping down.

Heimu lowered her head, stared at the boot smeared with cream and cake crumbs, and fell silent for a moment.

The cake was probably strawberry‑flavored.

The wrapper lay under the empty soda bottle nearby, printed with an overly cute cartoon strawberry.

She suddenly felt a slight sense of release in that instant.

It was hard to explain why.

Perhaps because the squashed cake was so mundane, its docility almost gratitude‑worthy compared to the outside chaos, or perhaps the soft, glutinous feel of the boot sinking into the cream oddly reminded her of the little face temperature of Ti Bao when it hugged her thigh.

In any case, the taut string in her heart loosened by half a beat.

The thousand words in her throat found an outlet, released together with that Puk‑ji sound.

Forget it.

It's already stepped on.

Xi Lian opposite didn't tense up.

Her whole face reddened from cheek to ear at a visible speed, the blue rhombus pupils filled with dual panic of "caught in the act" and "dirtying the other's boot."

"No—wrong, I mean—this room isn't usually—no, it's usually this… not—just these past few days it's a bit— not because of laziness— nor—"

She scrambled up from the mat, her hurried motion knocking the nearby drink cup over with her knee; the cup rolled half a circle on the mat. She tried to catch it, stepped on her own discarded earphone cord, tripped forward, and with a "P‑ji" sound fell face‑down onto the mat.

A ground fall.

A solid one.

The pink shoulder‑length hair spread on the floor in a small fan shape.

"... Ugh."

Heimu watched the Fen Mao lying on the floor, playing dead for three seconds without getting up, while Xi Lian's ear tips turned so red they could bleed during those three seconds.

She ultimately still sighed, lifted her hand and gave a light pat.

The crisp sound of a handclap rang through the room, spreading from the palm outward as a faint violet‑black ripple.

Where the ripple passed, the snack bags on the floor flew back into their boxes, the boxes stacked neatly in the corner, empty drink bottles lined up and rolled into the recycling bin, cups hopped onto the nightstand to their places, bowls piled into a stack, crumpled tissues vanished, scattered clothes folded and fell at the foot of the bed, the quilt spread itself flat, and the pillow returned to its spot.