Yan Tianjiao was stunned, his chest felt as if it were being tightly clenched and then released. He held his breath for so long in his urgency that he forgot to exhale.
An unavoidable mountain collapse and roaring giant waves, a killing intent with a force that swept away all obstacles, were blocked and diffused by a sudden misty, vast, phantom-like figure. The rebounding sword light rippled layer after layer, a charming and graceful silhouette appearing and disappearing before his eyes, everything seeming so illusory, so unreal, that he couldn't snap out of it for a long time.
Who was he (she)?
Who could it be?
Why were they helping him, wanting to save him?
His (her) face and figure were like a wisp of smoky haze, unfathomable and unreadable, but he remembered only those eyes, glimpsed when the veil was inadvertently blown aside by the wind.
They were very strange, yet inexplicably familiar.
At this moment, a sphere the size of a fist was thrown above Yan Tianjiao's head. With a *swish*, it opened into a "fishing net" that swept in from the darkness. After catching Yan Tianjiao, it tugged upwards into the air, seizing the opportunity to carry him away.
Within Liu Jiang Fusheng's field of vision, the sword light was as cold and sharp as a dazzling snowdrift, swallowing Yan Tianjiao. Thus, he didn't see who had intercepted his attack, but he clearly saw someone intending to take Yan Tianjiao away.
The "fishing net" scooped up the person before his eyes, but he paid it no mind. Within Illusion Peak, he didn't believe that the other party could escape his pursuit after saving Yan Tianjiao. Just as he was calmly preparing to pursue further, he suddenly sensed something, his pupils freezing into a layer of frosty white, suffused with chill. He lowered his gaze to the treasure-hunting rat in his hand.
He let it go.
With the oppressive power on its neck gone, the treasure-hunting rat tilted its head in bewilderment. Its crystal-clear black eyes, like jewels, lifted tremblingly. In them was the innocence of worldly affairs, as well as adoration and a radiant light towards him.
But these were not the eyes of the person he was so infatuated with.
Gone...
She was no longer here.
His crimson lips curved into a smile. Recalling how his previous sword move hadn't harmed Yan Tianjiao at all, he understood everything. His Adam's apple tightened, and he rasped, "A Yi is naughty, leaving me to save another man..."
He smiled sweetly, with a beauty tinged with a sense of profound brokenness, yet an incomparably cold aura emanated from the depths of his eyes.
I love you so much, I'd rather be blind, deaf, and mute just to stay by your side, but what about you?
How did you treat me?
His voice, low and dismissive with a chilling coldness, uttered, "How dirty the dogs outside are."
***
After the consciousness from the treasure-hunting rat was withdrawn and disconnected, Gu Junshi's main consciousness received all sensory input. To prevent her main body from being disturbed, she had been staying quietly indoors since returning from the Nine Peaks.
In "Little Bi" Illusion Peak, time was indistinct, but in reality, several days had passed outside.
She rubbed her forehead, suddenly feeling a sense of exhaustion, as if her body were being drained. She sat quietly by the bedside and meditated for a moment to recover. As the sun began to set, a cloud letter squeezed through a gap in the window lattice and fluttered before her.
It stopped directly at Gu Junshi's eye level, waiting for her to open it. Gu Junshi had a guess as to who had sent her this cloud letter as soon as she opened her bright eyes. She opened the cloud letter.
It dispersed from a wisp of pale white cloud and transformed into characters in the air.
"Has your condition improved? If you still feel unwell, you can come to me for a diagnosis. I have a lead."
The sender was Cheng Hong.
Indeed, it was a letter from Cheng Hong.
He had not entered this "Grand Competition" of the Eight Peaks with Liu Jiang Fusheng and the others, directly receiving a bye into the finals. Therefore, he had ample time and energy to recover his depleted spiritual power. His sending a message now... the timing was rather opportune.
Is this taking advantage of the husband's absence to secretly meet the married woman away from prying eyes?
Gu Junshi's eyelashes were cold and indifferent, but a slight, scarlet smile flickered in her eyes.
She was indeed eager to know the specific condition of her body, but she vaguely felt that once this condition stabilized, it would not harm her. Those who cultivate immortality tend to believe in their sixth sense, but... this strange and unclear state somewhat delayed her serious business.
If it could be resolved in advance, it would be best to eliminate future troubles.
After all, the matter concerning the male supporting character Xiao Chenmu was also reaching its conclusion.
She no longer hid the fact that she was not an ordinary person, because if she was going to have Cheng Hong investigate the hidden dangers in her body, he would eventually know some of her true circumstances. His sending a cloud letter this time was also somewhat of a probe into her attitude.
After replying to Cheng Hong with a cloud letter and arranging a time for him to visit and diagnose her, she shifted her main consciousness back into the demon girl's body.
Xiao Chenmu had come again not long ago.
Because the demon girl's condition had been worrying during this period, this was partly the result of Gu Junshi deliberately allowing it to develop, and partly because the crudely constructed puppet body could not hold on much longer and was in a state of collapse.
She opened her clear eyes, suffused with purple light, reflecting the dim light of the dark room, dreamlike and beautiful.
Xiao Chenmu was very close to her now. There was a strong, masculine, and aggressive aura about him, which was not unpleasant to smell.
He supported her slender wrist with one hand, while the other hand injected spiritual power into her body to check her condition.
As if sensing something, he looked up and met her gaze. He noticed that something about her seemed to have changed. The previously silent and apathetic her seemed to have suddenly "come alive."
"What's wrong with me?" she asked softly, her eyes brimming with light.
But as he probed, his expression turned grim. With a face that could scare children, his dark, furrowed brows made him even more imposing when he put on a stern face.
Her body had not improved, and had even deteriorated. No matter how many high-quality elixirs he used, she could not recover. There was no mirror here, so she couldn't see herself and therefore didn't know that like a flower bud starved of sunlight and rain, she was gradually losing her vitality and radiance, a withered and dim decay gathering on her face.
But Xiao Chenmu saw all this and was worried.
"...You're just a bit weak." He couldn't tell her the truth.
Xiao Chenmu was usually as rigid as an old fossil and wouldn't dare to touch her wantonly just because of his affection for her. But now, a bitter taste welled up in his heart, and he felt agitated.
The moment their gazes met, those calm yet knowing purple eyes, even though she showed no self-pity or sadness, nor shed any tears, he just wanted... to coax her, comfort her, and embrace her.
"Brother Xiao, am I dying?" she asked again.
Hearing her ask this, he experienced the suffocating feeling of powerlessness for the first time.
Xiao Chenmu clenched his fists, not understanding why it had come to this.
Was it because she was a demon, and her body was different from human cultivators, so all human cultivation healing methods were inapplicable to her?
"You won't die."
He could only offer her this dry comfort.
"Stop lying to me." The demon girl smiled at him, stopping him from continuing to drain his spiritual power into her decaying body.
She was weak and powerless. She weakly took his hand.
Her small hand was so delicate and soft compared to his broad, bronze-colored one.
Xiao Chenmu felt that he might hurt her if he held on even slightly tighter.
She lifted his palm, brought it to her tender cheek, closed her eyes, and gently rubbed against it. A peaceful smile curved her lips, and she seemed very content with this moment of closeness.
Xiao Chenmu's gaze gradually deepened. He watched her every move and did not stop her.
"Brother Xiao..." she called out softly, then opened her eyes. At this moment, her eyes changed. They were no longer so calm but filled with longing and sorrow. Her lips, which had lost their moisture, moved slightly. "Forget me, forget what has happened in this short period of time."
Xiao Chenmu's pupils constricted, both at the casualness of her words and her easy surrender. He gritted his teeth, and a flash of anger flickered in his eyes, like sparks shooting out.
"What are you talking about?"
She seemed not to see the man enraged like a wild lion. She held one of his fingers and stroked it. "I am just a demon. Don't let me ruin you. The last thing I want to see is you being harmed because of me. If you are in pain, I will be more pained than you... You humans have a saying, don't you? 'Love knows no beginning, yet deepens; love knows no end, yet perishes.'"
Gu Junshi was someone who could speak false words of love with extreme devotion and unwavering resolve in her eyes, while her heart remained as still as a pool of dead water.
Xiao Chenmu, despite living for over two hundred years, had a life of cultivation that was always lonely and uneventful. His life experiences could not compare to someone like Gu Junshi, whose depth of character and cunning had reached a refined level.
If she wanted to please him, she constantly filled his inner void with things. When she wanted to hurt him, she could smile and cruelly take them back, regardless of whether they had already grown into his flesh and blood, and regardless of his pain after being emptied.
Xiao Chenmu, deeply touched by her "heartfelt" confession, could no longer bear to blame her.
He fell silent, and the atmosphere between them became quiet.
After a long while, his gaze firmed, and he finally made a decision.
"I... I will beg my master to remove the soul nails for you."
This decision almost drained all his strength.
"Don't go," she grabbed him, shaking her head in disagreement. "Even if the soul nails are removed, I might not get better."
Xiao Chenmu, who had impulsively blurted out, looked at her and understood her intentions. She didn't want to drag him down with her affairs. But this time, he had no further hesitation. He lowered his eyes and said, "Without the soul nails in your body, your demonic power will recover, at least you won't continue to be so weak."
The demon girl seemed a little anxious. "Do you really want to do this? You're begging your master for a demon spy. What will he think of you? What will your sect think of you?"
You will be disgraced and abandoned by everyone.
This time, your situation might be even worse than in the original plot.
Xiao Chenmu knew what she meant.
He understood even better what he would face. But he found that he couldn't just stand by and watch her die innocently.
"I will never regret what I do, as long as..."
Don't lie to me.
Xiao Chenmu gave her a deep look, then left to seek what he believed was the only "way out" for her. Little did he know that Gu Junshi had already arranged the demon girl's future perfectly.
There was no way out, only a dead end.
She would kill herself.
After confirming that this "hidden danger" she left behind would further widen the crack in the already fragile master-disciple relationship between Xiao Chenmu and his master Taixuan, Gu Junshi prepared for her own suicide.
However, before she could self-destruct as the demon girl, she heard unusual commotion outside the dark room. The guards standing by the door had fallen one after another, and soon, someone swaggered in.
Hmm? Did the assassination, though delayed, finally arrive?
Gu Junshi had thought that due to her actions, this assassination plot had already been skipped. She had planned to use Xiao Chenmu's affection for the demon girl to provoke a rift between him and his master, then set up a suicide to frame the evil lurking in the darkness. But unexpectedly, the deviated plot reconnected at this moment.
She hadn't seen the male supporting character's ending in the original plot, so she didn't know who assassinated Mu Nanxue. But now, she could witness the killer with her own eyes.
However, why was it necessary to kill the demon person?
A figure approached from the shadows, and the light in the dark room gradually illuminated his sinister face.
A middle-aged man with a high crown and green robe.
So it was him.
Seeing him, Gu Junshi felt she shouldn't be surprised.
Because this was Sheng Chou, the disciple of Tang Xi, one of the Seven Commanders of the Void Gate, who had been plotting outside the cave with the fake Yuan Dao.
He stared at the demon girl, her ankles shackled, his eyes as cold and venomous as a viper's. In his hand, he held a sword.
"You must have a treasure that conceals your demonic power to be able to infiltrate the Void Gate, bypassing the eyes and ears of many human cultivators. You'd best hand it over obediently, or I will kill you."
He threatened her, holding the sword tip at her brow. The cold point of the sword was filled with killing intent.
Gu Junshi was not afraid of him making a move.
However, she wanted to know why Sheng Chou was doing this.
Speaking of which, did Sheng Chou know that fake Yuan Dao was a puppet, or was he also like fake Yuan Dao?
When he learned that Yuan Dao had privately tortured the demon girl, his tone of admonishment didn't sound like he was completely unaware, but the extent of his connection with fake Yuan Dao was hard to say.
However, the moment he arrived, his immediate objective was to obtain the treasure that concealed her demonic aura, and he kept referring to "human cultivators." His identity was indeed highly suspicious.
"I'm not going to live much longer anyway. Waiting slowly to die is no different from him killing me," Gu Junshi said calmly.
Sheng Chou's expression immediately turned ugly as he glared at her.
She indeed looked like she was on her last legs.
If it weren't for Yuan Dao's death, this matter wouldn't have fallen to him personally. Yuan Dao's self-detonation was an event that had been investigated for a long time without any leads, but a trace of ghostly energy was left at the scene, leading some to speculate it was a ghost cultivator.