From the Ultimate Love to the Ultimate Hate

Crack.

An incredibly faint shattering sound echoed amidst the violent, freezing wind.

It wasn't the sound of breaking bones, but the assassin's proud protective blood aura being instantly burned through like thin paper the moment it touched the Great Sun True Fire.

The two rough fingers gripping the assassin's wrist did not pause for even a moment, snapping downwards with absolute ruthlessness.

Ah—!

Before the shrill scream could fully escape his lips, the dark-gold flames had already surged up his broken wrist like a raging fire dragon, diving straight into his meridians.

The heaven-incinerating extreme temperature evaporated all the blood in his body within a single breath.

Beside him, the two Hidden Abyss Pavilion assassins widened their eyes until they nearly tore, instinctively trying to launch a violent counterattack.

But they were too slow.

Gu Yang's figure was like an impenetrable shadow from the abyss. He had pushed his fourth-tier Dao Platform technique, Nether Shadow Escape, to its absolute limit.

He passed through the spirit-severing killing array they had hastily set up without the slightest hindrance.

Two large, lightly calloused hands reached out from the void like the iron pincers of the Grim Reaper, accurately clamping onto the backs of their necks.

Crack! Crack!

Two teeth-grinding sounds of bone fracturing overlapped.

The dark-gold true fire violently poured through their cervical vertebrae. The overbearing power, carrying true damage to the soul, instantly shredded their divine souls into nothingness.

In mid-air, the out-of-control Half-step Core Formation sword spirit was letting out a shrill, silent roar under the burning of the Great Sun True Fire, its massive snowy-ice body melting bit by bit into a sky full of mist.

And amidst this sky full of steaming white mist.

Gu Yang casually waved his hand, as if throwing away three bags of foul-smelling garbage.

Thump, thump, thump.

Three charred corpses, not yet fully carbonized, smashed heavily into the muddy water, landing just inches in front of Ye Shutong's pale, despairing face.

Dead silence.

Aside from the howling of the cold wind scraping against the stone pillars and the sound of the melting sword spirit turning to water, the entire bank of the Sunken Water Cold Pool fell into a deathly silence.

Gu Yang stood there, looking down from above.

His grey rogue-cultivator hemp garments flapped wildly in the wind. In his deep black eyes, there was not a shred of pity for the weak, only an absolute rationality that saw through everything.

He did not reach out to help Ye Shutong up from the ground.

Instead, he slowly took out a faintly glowing Record Stone from his sleeve and lightly flicked his finger.

Smack.

The piece of jade landed with extreme precision right next to Ye Shutong's snow-white collarbone, which was covered in mud and red marks.

Spiritual energy activated.

A faint blue projection of light cast out into the dim, icy landscape.

The scene clearly replayed everything that had happened half an incense stick of time ago.

Ye Chen using the Monster-Attracting Incense to set a trap.

...

Ye Chen's handsome face twisting into an ugly demon under the threat of death.

His hand, knuckles white from excessive force, violently gripping Ye Shutong's waist and throwing her ruthlessly toward the massive ice sword.

Get lost!

That cold-blooded, beast-like growl was infinitely magnified by the Record Stone's formation, echoing over and over in Ye Shutong's ears.

Finally, the image froze on the crimson silhouette of Ye Chen crushing a Blood Escape Talisman and fleeing without looking back.

This was the ultimate soul-crushing trap that Gu Yang had coldly observed from start to finish and recorded himself.

Ye Shutong lay prone in the biting mud, staring dead-on at the faint blue projection in mid-air.

There was no screaming, no breakdown into loud crying.

When a person experiences agonizing pain beyond their limit of endurance, the body instinctively cuts off all sensation.

Her eyes, which had once been as clear as a pool of spring water, were now so hollow it was chilling.

In this deathly silent gaze.

That righteous aura in the depths of her eyes, carefully nurtured by the Dao One Sect for over ten years, that pure belief in the truth, goodness, and beauty of the world.

Like a piece of glazed glass smashed fiercely by an iron hammer, it let out an incredibly crisp, silent shatter.

It shattered completely and utterly, unable to ever be pieced back together.

The extreme betrayal and despair turned into a poisoned boning knife, carving away the very last trace of wishful thinking in her heart alive.

Not bad. You actually didn't cry.

Gu Yang's cold, hard voice sounded from above, devoid of any warmth.

Ye Shutong's long eyelashes trembled incredibly slowly, like a dying butterfly.

With great difficulty, she raised her small, cold, pale face, covered in muddy water and bloodstains.

Her gaze crossed over the charred corpses on the ground and landed extremely calmly on this man in grey hemp clothing, who was as ruthless as a demon god.

Tears are for the living.

Her voice was as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing together, revealing an extreme sickliness born from a dead heart.

My heart just died.

She finally understood.

Her charmingly beautiful body, this one-in-a-million Seven-Aperture Exquisite Heart, were never some heaven-sent grace.

They were a piece of fat meat stared at by countless starving wolves, ready to be torn apart and devoured at any moment.

Ye Chen wanted to treat her as a soulless cauldron and medicine primer.

The assassins of the Hidden Abyss Pavilion wanted to treat her as top-tier material for refining magical treasures.

And this terrifying man before her, who had annihilated three Late Foundation Establishment cultivators with a raise of his hand... since he had saved her, it was naturally also for this piece of meat.

The cultivation world was fundamentally a cannibalistic slaughterhouse.

Ye Shutong suddenly pulled at the corners of her mouth, blooming into an incredibly poignant and exceedingly demonic, miserable smile amidst the ice and snow.

Senior possesses heaven-defying means. Since you have broken Ye Chen's trap, presumably you are also here for my Exquisite Heart.

She no longer hid anything, staring with utmost candor directly into Gu Yang's abyss-like black eyes.

Gu Yang neither admitted nor denied it.

His profound gaze was like a physical entity, sweeping quite crudely over her half-faded garments, sweeping over those soul-stirring curves shivering in the cold wind.

The smile on Ye Shutong's face grew thicker, but in the depths of her eyes ignited two clusters of vengeful fire, darker than the profound ice of the Nine Netherworlds.

I will give it to you.

With extreme difficulty, she used her mud-covered hands to push against the ground, unsteadily rising from the muck into a kneeling position.

The biting cold wind instantly poured into her torn and tattered dharma robe.

She did not try to cover up anything; instead, with absolute resolution, she used her trembling fingertips to untie the last sash at her chest.

Rip.

The water-blue dharma robe completely slipped off, piling up on the freezing permafrost like a dirty rag.

Large swathes of skin, cold and white as jade, were exposed to the air without reservation.

Due to the extreme cold and the agonizing pain she had just experienced, a layer of fine shivers and a breathtaking flush of pink spread across that delicate snowy skin.

She tilted her head back, the fragile lines of her neck pulling taut like a fully drawn bow under the moonlight.

If my heart is forcibly extracted, it will only turn into a pool of tainted blood filled with resentful malice.

Her voice was hurried and scorching hot, carrying a hint of burn-your-bridges madness.

Only through the sacrifice of dual cultivation can you obtain the most perfect, most pure origin essence.

Extremely humbly, like a sacrificial lamb, Ye Shutong shuffled forward two steps on her knees.

The blood-stained mud soiled her taut insteps and rounded knees.

She gazed up at Gu Yang's handsome, ruthless face.