Meeting Four Hundred Years Later

Time flowed on, and in the blink of an eye, another four hundred years had passed.

For mortals, this meant the rise and fall of several dynasties; but for cultivators, it was merely a slightly longer period of secluded meditation. Yet, it was these four hundred years that completely widened the gap between heaven and earth.

The cultivation world had changed completely.

The Ye Xuan who was once seen as a stray dog, bearing a blood feud, was now an existence that the entire cultivation world looked up to.

Peak of the Mahayana stage.

Just half a step away from ascending to immortality.

His name became a taboo, and also a legend.

Legend had it that with a single sword, he fought alone in the Immortal Burial Valley, slaying three Mahayana stage ancestors who besieged him. In that battle, his sword qi crisscrossed for thirty thousand miles, directly slicing away half of the Immortal Burial Valley.

He was no longer the young man who needed to hide in fear.

He was the "Xuantian Sword Venerable," the dream Dao companion for countless female cultivators.

The Saintess of Yaochi once knelt on the peak of a snowy mountain for three days and three nights just to seek an audience with him;

The peerlessly beautiful Nine-Tailed Fox Venerable of the demon race claimed she was willing to scatter her thousand years of cultivation just to be a concubine by his side.

But he rejected them all.

He was like a piece of eternal ice, solitary and without any attachments.

When this news reached the Heavenly Demon Sect, Ziyao was at her dressing table.

"Snap!"

The precious jade comb in her hand was crushed into powder by her bare hands.

Looking at the face in the mirror that was still stunningly beautiful but tainted by the frost of time and a vicious aura, Ziyao's eyes were filled with the poisonous fire of jealousy.

"Saintess of Yaochi? Nine-Tailed Fox Venerable?"

"A bunch of sluts!"

She hysterically swept everything on the dressing table to the floor, her chest heaving violently:

"What right do they have? Do they know what it means to share thick and thin? Do they know who accompanied Ye Xuan when he was at his lowest?"

"Only me! Only I, Ziyao, am worthy to stand by his side!"

But...

Ziyao looked down at the somewhat impure spiritual energy in her palm, a trace of deep panic flashing in the depths of her eyes.

Four hundred years.

She had absorbed Li Tianxing's primal yang day and night through dual cultivation, consuming countless premium resources of the Heavenly Demon Sect.

However, her cultivation was stubbornly stuck at the peak of the Body Integration stage.

That threshold known as the Tribulation Crossing stage was like a natural chasm; no matter how hard she tried, no matter how she used her body to exchange for shortcuts, she couldn't cross it.

Ye Xuan was already at the peak of the Mahayana stage.

And she was still struggling at the Body Integration stage.

This massive disparity made her feel an unprecedented sense of shame and panic.

Her proud endurance of humiliation, in the face of Ye Xuan's dazzling achievements, was nothing but a complete and utter joke.

"No... I haven't lost..."

Ziyao nervously bit her nails, muttering to herself:

"I still have a chance... As long as I break through to the Tribulation Crossing stage, I can go find him... I can prove that I was right..."

However, fate did not give her this chance.

The door was roughly pushed open.

The once high-spirited young sect master Li Tianxing now had a sallow complexion, deeply sunken eye sockets, and even a somewhat hunched back.

His original Body Integration stage cultivation had bizarrely plummeted to the Void Refinement stage.

He looked at Ziyao, his eyes no longer filled with infatuation, but with a complex mix of fear and resentment.

"Father has come out of seclusion."

Li Tianxing's voice was hoarse:

"Father is heavily injured and needs a body of extreme yin to heal and replenish himself."

"He... specifically asked for you."

Ziyao abruptly stood up, her face deathly pale:

"What did you say?"

"I am your wife! The young madam of your Heavenly Demon Sect! You're actually going to give me to your father as a cultivation cauldron?"

Li Tianxing let out a miserable laugh and sat heavily on the ground with a helpless expression:

"If I don't hand you over, father will kill me!"

"So... you go. Or rather, go serve that old thing, aren't you quite good at this anyway?"

"You bastard!"

Ziyao flew into a rage, but her eyes were filled with fear.

Despair.

True despair.

She had been played with by Li Tianxing for hundreds of years, and now she was going to be given to an old monster?

She had endured humiliation for so many years, only to not become stronger, but instead be reduced to a complete plaything?

"No... I can't be ruined like this..."

"Ye Xuan... Ye Xuan!"

Ziyao tremblingly raised her wrist.

The love token bracelet that had been silent for four hundred years was frantically activated by her at this moment.

She bit the tip of her tongue and spat a mouthful of life essence blood onto the bracelet.

This was her last lifeline.

"Ring, ring, ring, ring!"

The urgent, mournful ringing pierced through layers of restrictions, pierced through space, carrying all her fear and greed, resounding through the heavens.

Save me...

Husband, save me!!

On this day, outside the mountain gate of the Heavenly Demon Sect, dark clouds pressed down on the city.

A slender figure tore through the void, not hiding his aura in the slightest.

A vast, ocean-like pressure instantly enveloped the entire Heavenly Demon Sect, making the sect's protective grand array let out a mournful wail of overburden.

Ye Xuan had arrived.

Dressed in a green robe, completely unstained by dust, his eyes were as deep as the starry sky, and a faint immortal aura lingered around him.

"Ye Xuan?"

A purple figure, carrying a bit of disbelief, a bit of wild joy, and a bit of carefully disguised sorrow, rushed out from the depths of the Heavenly Demon Sect like a madwoman.

Ziyao's hair was disheveled, and her clothes were even somewhat messy, as if she had just experienced a struggle.

She looked at Ye Xuan high in the sky, her tears instantly bursting forth, her acting skills already engraved into her very bones:

"Husband! You're finally here!"

"Wuwuwu... I've had enough! I've really had enough!"

She desperately threw herself at Ye Xuan, wanting to rush into that embrace she had dreamed of.

However, at a distance of three feet from Ye Xuan, an invisible barrier gently but firmly blocked her outside.

Ziyao's figure stiffened, but she quickly covered it up, kneeling in the void, crying pitifully.

She pointed at the Heavenly Demon Sect main hall below, her voice as mournful as a cuckoo weeping blood:

"Husband, take me away..."

"These past few hundred years, because Li Tianxing's cultivation stagnated, his personality became more and more twisted! He tortured me, humiliated me... venting all his anger on me!"

"Just now... just now..." Ziyao trembled all over, as if recalling something extremely terrifying: "His father, that old Great Demon Venerable, came out of seclusion. That beast Li Tianxing actually wanted to offer me to his father to curry favor with him... to let father and son share..."

"Husband! I am a human! I am not goods!!"

"I beg you... kill them! Kill all these beasts! Take me away!"

Her eyes burned with a raging fire of hatred, a madness that wanted to destroy everything and cover up everything.

Ye Xuan looked down at her quietly from above.

Looking at her stunningly beautiful face, looking at the imperceptible calculation deep in her eyes.

Ye Xuan did not show the furious rage Ziyao expected, nor any heartache.

He simply nodded faintly and softly spat out one word:

"Alright."

The next moment.

Clang!

The sound of a sword ringing arose, and heaven and earth lost their color.

Ye Xuan did not draw a sword; his entire person was a divine sword that reached from heaven to earth. Countless green sword qis fell like a torrential rain, accurately avoiding Ziyao, and bombarded the Heavenly Demon Sect below.

Screams of agony instantly resounded through the heavens.

Those disciples and elders who had once mocked Ye Xuan and humiliated Zi Yao fell in droves at this moment, like harvested wheat. Fresh blood dyed the mountain gate red, converging into a river.

In merely the time it takes an incense stick to burn.

Apart from the main hall, the outer and inner sects of the Heavenly Demon Sect were completely wiped out.

"Who dares to invade my Heavenly Demon Sect!!"

With a furious roar, two figures rushed out from the main hall.

It was none other than the Great Demon Venerable, whose body was surging with demonic aura and who was already at the mid-stage of the Mahayana realm, along with the pale-faced Young Sect Master with a weak aura, Li Tianxing.

"Ye Xuan?"

Seeing the newcomer, Li Tianxing's pupils violently shrank, and a trace of fear originating from the depths of his soul flashed in his eyes.

Ye Xuan did not waste words.

He raised his hand and pressed down lightly against the void.

"Suppress."

Boom!

An indescribably terrifying and immense force descended from the sky.

"Pfft!"

"Pfft!"

The arrogant Great Demon Venerable did not even have time to summon his Dharma Idol before he was forcefully smashed into the ground by this immense force. All the bones in his body were shattered, he spat out fresh blood, and was instantly severely injured.

Li Tianxing was even more miserable. He was directly crushed to his knees on the ground, his kneecaps pulverized, looking like a dead dog.

This was the strength of the peak of the Mahayana realm.

Crushing everything.

Seeing this scene, the tears in Zi Yao's eyes instantly stopped.

They were replaced by a nearly maddening sense of vindication and ferocity.

She whipped her head around and stared fiercely at the kneeling father and son.

"Hahahaha..."

Zi Yao laughed so hard her body trembled, laughing until tears came out.

She walked toward Li Tianxing step by step, gathering a ball of dark green poisonous miasma spiritual energy in her palm, a lethal poison capable of corroding the soul.

"Li Tianxing, to think you would see this day!"

"For hundreds of years... you kept me like a dog for hundreds of years! If you told me to kneel, I didn't dare to stand; if you told me to bark, I didn't dare to stop!"

"Now, you are kneeling like a dog in front of my husband!"

Zi Yao walked up to Li Tianxing, crouched down, and looked at him with vicious eyes:

"Go to hell."

"Only if you die... will my nightmare end."

"Only if you die... will no one in this world ever know what I went through."

"Die!"

Zi Yao shrieked, viciously slamming the poisonous miasma in her hand toward the crown of Li Tianxing's head.

If this palm strike landed, Li Tianxing's soul would undoubtedly be scattered, leaving him without even the chance to reincarnate.

However.

"Clang!"

A crisp sound of collision rang out.

A cyan qi sword appeared without warning above Li Tianxing's head, blocking Zi Yao's sure-kill strike.

Zi Yao froze.

Li Tianxing also froze.

Zi Yao stiffly turned her head to look at Ye Xuan in the air, her eyes full of astonishment and bewilderment:

"Husband...?"

"Why?"

"He tortured me for hundreds of years! He is my nightmare! Why are you saving him?"

Ye Xuan slowly drifted down.

He stood between the two of them, his white clothes purer than snow, completely out of place amidst the blood-soaked ground.

He slightly closed his eyes, his expression so indifferent it was as if he were watching two ants fight, and his voice was cold and clear:

"He cannot die just yet."

"Cannot die?"

Zi Yao's voice instantly rose eight octaves, becoming shrill and ear-piercing. "Why? Are you going to keep him alive to humiliate me? Ye Xuan! Do you even care about me anymore?"

Ye Xuan opened his eyes, and within those eyes, there was not a single trace of emotion.

"Because some words are much more interesting when spoken by the living rather than the dead."

Having narrowly escaped death, Li Tianxing lay sprawled on the ground at this moment, panting heavily.

He looked at Zi Yao's murderous expression, then looked at the completely apathetic Ye Xuan.

Suddenly.

It was as if he understood something.

A hysterical madness surged into his heart. Since he was going to die anyway, he might as well drag someone down with him!

"Hahahaha!"

Li Tianxing burst into maniacal laughter. His laughter carried thick mockery and malice as he pointed at Zi Yao and shouted at Ye Xuan:

"Ye Xuan, oh Ye Xuan! You are indeed strong! Outrageously strong!"

"But! Even if you kill me, so what?"

"Your woman... your good wife here, over these past few centuries, every inch of her skin, every single corner, has been thoroughly played with by me!"

"Do you know how slutty she is in bed? Do you know what kind of poses she used to beg me for a Heavenly Demon Pill? Hahahaha!"

Li Tianxing did his utmost to humiliate her, using the most obscene language to describe the details of the past few centuries, trying to enrage Ye Xuan and hoping to see a pained expression on the face of this powerful man.

However.

He was disappointed.

Ye Xuan listened to these foul words without even furrowing his brow.

It was as if what Li Tianxing was saying was the story of an entirely unrelated passerby.

"Are you done talking?" Ye Xuan asked indifferently.

Li Tianxing's laughter came to an abrupt halt, like a duck being choked by the neck. "You... you aren't angry?"

"Swish!"

Ye Xuan casually waved his hand.

A streak of sword qi slashed past.

It was not to kill.

But rather, it severed the long hem of his own robe behind him.

The sound of tearing fabric was exceptionally piercing in this silent slaughterhouse.

Ye Xuan turned around, facing away from Zi Yao, his voice as cold as ten-thousand-year profound ice:

"Perfect, I will take this opportunity."

"Today, I, Ye Xuan, sever my ties with Zi Yao by cutting my robe."

"From now on, we have nothing to do with each other's marriages, and we will walk our separate paths on the great dao."

"Never to see each other again."

These words, to Zi Yao, were ten thousand times more terrifying than the Mahayana realm pressure from earlier.

She looked as if she had been struck by lightning. Her face instantly turned as pale as paper, and even her lips were trembling violently.

"No... no..."

Zi Yao rushed forward like a madwoman, wanting to grab Ye Xuan's sleeve, but tripped and fell on the severed piece of robe. She scrambled and crawled toward Ye Xuan, screaming hysterically:

"Why?"

"Ye Xuan! Are you even a man?"

"I already told you I was forced! I am the victim!"

"My spiritual energy was sealed, and my body was paralyzed. I couldn't even commit suicide!"

"Are you abandoning me just because my body was defiled? You ungrateful wretch! You hypocrite!!"

She cried with heart-wrenching grief, her fingernails digging deeply into the dirt. Her face, covered in a mixture of blood, tears, and dust, looked both pitiful and terrifying.

"I had no control over myself... I wanted to shake that bracelet... but I couldn't move..."

"How can you be so heartless... how can you..."

Her accusations were wept in blood, word by word, as if she had suffered the greatest injustice in the world.

Watching from the side, even Li Tianxing couldn't help but feel a bit moved.

Ye Xuan lowered his head.

He looked at the woman crying her heart out at his feet.

The corners of his mouth finally curled into an arc.

It was an extremely mocking, extremely icy smile.

"Forced?"

"Spiritual energy sealed? Body paralyzed?"

Ye Xuan's voice suddenly rose:

"Zi Yao, even at a time like this, you are actually still lying!"

Zi Yao shuddered all over and subconsciously retorted, "I'm not! I really..."

"Shut up!"

Ye Xuan let out an explosive shout, interrupting her.

He reached out and pointed at the love token bracelet on Zi Yao's wrist, which was covered in bloodstains and had long since lost its luster:

"Did you really think that this bracelet I gave you was merely a slightly more durable piece of jewelry?"

"It was formed from the origin essence of a Great Luo Golden Immortal!"

"It provides more than just defense!"

"Its core restriction is called—[Immortal Heart]!"

Ye Xuan stared dead into Zi Yao's terrified eyes and enunciated every single word:

"This bracelet protects its master. It protects the divine soul, and it guards the true spirit!"

"It possesses an absolute trait: it ignores all soul-targeting seals, charms, mind control, and... physical restraints from anyone below the Great Luo Golden Immortal realm."

"Unless Li Tianxing was a Great Luo Golden Immortal! Otherwise, even if he sealed your meridians, as long as there was a single shred of reluctance in your soul, a single thought of crying out for help!"

"This bracelet would have automatically protected its master, erupting with divine light to shatter all seals and echoing throughout heaven and earth!"

These words struck like a bolt of heavenly thunder, ruthlessly slamming into the crown of Zi Yao's head, smashing all her disguises, all her excuses, and all her lies to pieces!

Zi Yao was stunned.

Her mouth was wide open, but she couldn't make a single sound.

Her pupils shrank violently, and her mind went completely blank.

So...

So he had known all along.

So this bracelet... actually had such a function...

Ye Xuan looked at her sluggish appearance, the disgust in his eyes completely undisguised:

"Back then, I asked you why you didn't ring the bell."

"You said you were sealed and couldn't move."

"But I had placed ten hidden soul-probing seals on you at the time. And the result? They showed absolutely nothing."

"Do you know what that means?"

Ye Xuan crouched down, leaned in close to Zi Yao's ear, and spoke in a voice so soft yet venomous that only the two of them could hear:

"It means your divine soul was completely free."

"It means that when Li Tianxing pinned you down... in your subconscious, you didn't actually want to resist."

"You didn't shake the betrothal bracelet, and it wasn't because you couldn't move."

"It was because... you didn't want to!"

"You wanted to use his primal yang to break through your bottleneck!"

"No!"

Zi Yao suddenly covered her ears, letting out a shriek of absolute agony.

"Stop talking! Stop talking!"

The truth had been stripped bare, bloody and cruel.

Off to the side, Li Tianxing was absolutely dumbfounded by what he was hearing.

Ignoring the excruciating pain in his legs, he stared wide-eyed at Zi Yao, as if looking at the woman who shared his bed for the very first time.

"Holy shit..."

Li Tianxing muttered to himself:

"I thought I was forcing myself on you... but after all this time... you were fucking willing?"

"Hahahaha!"

Li Tianxing suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face as he pointed at Zi Yao:

"Zi Yao, oh Zi Yao! You really are a phenomenal actress!!"

"Every time we were in bed, you put on this act of enduring humiliation, acting like you'd rather be dead, which actually gave me a great sense of conquest!"

"So it turns out you were just playing hard to get? You were welcoming it all along?"