After she got ready, Qian Renxue left her room and stepped into the sunlit courtyard.
As she left her room she was thinking
' Grandfather went on a seclusion last week and I have increased my cultivation to Level 37.'
' Let's try to achieve Level 40 before he leaves seclusion.'
Outside Ci Xue and She Long were already waiting at the gate, standing straight like loyal statues, ready to escort her to the Angel Corps headquarters.
She gave them a light nod, her golden hair flowing down her back like a silken waterfall. "Let's go."
Since her advancement, she had begun her role as the corps' psychiatrist. It was an unusual position for someone of her age, or cultivation, but in a place like the Angel Corps, where soldiers often returned from missions against evil soul masters scarred in ways that couldn't be healed with medicine or healing-type soul skills, her skills had proven unexpectedly valuable.
Most soldiers were resistant at first. The idea that they had mental afflictions was foreign to them. In the Douluo Continent, strength was everything, and mental distress was often mistaken for weakness.
But one session with her had been enough to start a shift.
A mid-rank officer who had been plagued by nightmares and spiritual instability had experienced a sudden emotional release during a guided reflection with her. Within a few days, his soul power had broken through the bottleneck that had restricted him for years.
Then, word spread slowly.
Now, more and more Angel Corps members were volunteering for "spiritual purification" sessions under her guidance. Qian Renxue didn't even need to use overt use her powers. Her being a Spectator sequence Beyonder , easily allowed her to guide, soothe, and reshape many fractured thoughts.
They arrived at the headquarters, a building with golden banners of Angel Corps fluttering on each side. Waiting at the entrance was Hua Zhang, commander of the Angel Corps, dressed in a crisp white armour with the Angel Corps sigil pinned on his chest.
"Young Master, Qian Renxue." Hua Zhang bowed politely with a respectful smile.
Qian Renxue returned a small nod. "Commander Hua."
"I must thank you again," Hua Zhang said. "In just one week, morale among the troops has noticeably improved. Some of the lower-level soul masters now have calmer minds and sharper focus. They say it's your doing."
Qian Renxue looked at her, eyes serene. "Sometimes, the battle doesn't end when the body returns. If the mind is left in chaos, the soldier will collapse… ."
Hua Zhang gave a solemn nod. "You speak with more insight than most men, I've met." Then she chuckled lightly, "To be honest, when I first heard you'd be offering therapy… I thought someone was playing a joke on us. But now, the captains are discussing whether to formalize a whole department for spiritual recovery."
"You can, do that," Qian Renxue said.
Hua Zhang gestured toward the inner hall while giving Qian Renxue a paper sheet "Here is the list for soldiers that are scheduled for sessions today. One of them just returned from a seven-day hunt of an evil soul masters at soul lord level. He's… disturbed."
Qian Renxue's expression didn't change much after reading the names "Then let's begin."
Qian Renxue sat calmly in the modest, unadorned room. There were no holy murals, no ornaments of rank, just a clean, simple space with a table, two chairs, a faint herbal scent in the air, and a stack of papers detailing the week's therapy candidates.
The door creaked open.
A tall, muscular man with dull brown eyes stepped inside. His posture was stiff, as though weighed down by something invisible. His badge indicated he was a Senior Spirit Master, and his name was not on the file handed to Qian Renxue—but that didn't matter. Trauma didn't always follow schedules.
Qian Renxue gestured calmly. "Sit."
She looked up at his file and surprisingly this soldier named Zhao Wei had a cultivation of Soul King.
The soldier hesitated, then sat down, fists clenched on his thighs.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Zhao Wei… Squad Four," he answered hoarsely.
"…I was told to come," he muttered after a long pause, not looking up.
She waited patiently, offering only silence in return. Sometimes silence was the safest space for damaged minds.
After waiting for some time she asked " You can share anything you have weighing on your mind."
As if he had received some permission, Zhao Wei told his story.
"I was part of the cleanup team… after a skirmish in the western hills. A rogue soul master…" He clenched his jaw. "There was a village, burned and people sewn together. Children, as if I can hear their laughter. But there were no mouths left to laugh."
"The laughter of that evil soul master haunts me till now, because he could still laugh so easily when he stole the laughter of the innocent children and villagers."
His voice cracked slightly.
"I see. You blame yourself for not arriving sooner," Qian Renxue said gently, not asking but stating.
Zhao Wei looked up, startled. Then slowly nodded.
"You're not the first soldier to feel this way," she continued, voice calm and even. "But let me ask you—when you closed the eyes of those you couldn't save… did any of them whisper hatred to you?"
He blinked, confused. "What?"
"Did they curse you? Call you a coward? Tell you that you should have died with them?"
"No," he said after a long pause.
"But you curse yourself every night in their place," she said, her voice like steady rain.
He looked down.
"That guilt is not theirs. It's a monster in your mind—a voice left by that evil soul master's cruelty. And you feed it every day by thinking you could've changed the past."
He began trembling slightly. "Then what should I do? Forget them?"
"No," Qian Renxue said. "Remember them, but stop punishing yourself in their name. Use your pain to protect the next child, the next village. But let their memory guide you, not wound you."