Ashes Of Deep Sea - Chapter 9 - Going and Returning, Again and Again

My reunion with her took place in the worst possible way.

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

Ren Zhu: Quiet! Quiet! Look at the blackboard! I’m going to start teaching!

Bear child 1 [1]: Hahaha! Who is this weak chicken!

Bear child 2: May as well dance than listen to class. Why start the class!

Fake good child: Sit upright.

Ren Zhu: ……

Bear child 1: You received the class teacher’s quiet gaze x 1. Physical strength -500. Entered the weak state!

Bear child 2: You received the class teacher’s deep gaze x 1. Intelligence -50. Entered the mentally retar*ed state!

Fake good child: You received the class teacher’s gratified gaze x 1. Intelligence and physical strength +50. Entered the excited state.

Ren Zhu: My goal is to teach and educate people, and bring love to every bear child. Thank you.

- Description from Novelupdates

The Sword Emperor’s challenges result in three of the Ten Venerables to be criticially injured. Three of the Seven Absolutes also die.“It wasn’t enough for you to come knocking at my door all alone; now you dare challenge me to a battle to the death? I did not think you to be so dull as to miscalculate others’ strength.””Neither the Ten Venerables nor the Yellow Lotus Temple’s Seven Absolutes of the orthodox sects had the ability to give me an answer. You are the only one left to ask.”Some may call the Sword Emperor old-fashioned, but he only seeks to be stronger as a martial artist.His endeavor eventually leads him to challenge the Heavenly Demon, the generation’s strongest man in murim. The challenge turns out to be the grand finale of his life.However, the Sword Emperor later wakes up as a member of the Cardenas family, the continent’s best swordsman family!