You are not worthy of love, let alone his love.

Two hours later.

In the darkness, only faint moonlight filtered through the window lattice, spilling over their embracing bodies.

Wu Lingxiao greedily breathed in the clean scent at the crook of the youth's neck, feeling the lively beating of his heart against his chest. The ecstasy of regaining what was lost, mixed with an unspeakable panic deep within her heart, fermented madly through her every limb and bone.

It was not enough.

Merely holding him like this was far from enough.

She was too afraid that this was just a dream, too afraid that when the sun rose tomorrow, that madman Ye Xuan would return.

The decisive Empress who ruled over the Great Xia Dynasty now had only one sickly, crazed thought left in her mind: to possess him.

Only through true physical intimacy, only by letting his aura completely merge with hers, only by devouring him and fusing him into her very flesh and blood, could she truly feel that her Consort Xuan had returned.

Consort Xuan...

Wu Lingxiao abruptly lifted her head. Her phoenix eyes, which should have been filled with imperial majesty, were now covered in scarlet bloodshot lines, revealing a paranoia and madness born of extreme thirst.

She forcefully pushed the youth down onto the soft bed, straddling him like a fierce beast guarding its food.

With trembling hands, she urgently tried to untie the youth's white palace robes, her lips landing haphazardly, almost biting, on his cheeks, neck, and collarbones.

Serve me in bed... Consort Xuan, give yourself to me... I want you...

She murmured incoherently, hot tears mixed with makeup rubbing against the youth's skin. As long as we completely become one, you will never be able to leave... Mine, you are only mine...

Her movements were rough and urgent, carrying a despair that sought to nail time forever in this very moment.

However.

Just as she finally tore open the youth's lapels and lowered her head to kiss those soft lips.

A cold, stiff hand clamped around her neck like iron tongs.

Wu Lingxiao stiffened all over, all her movements abruptly halting in mid-air.

She felt the originally warm body beneath her turn as cold as ten-thousand-year-old ice in an instant.

And the youth who would normally blush and shyly respond to her was now quietly watching her with a gaze that looked at her as if she were a dead object.

Those clear, bottomless eyes were gone.

Replacing them was an unfathomably deep coldness, churning with endless mockery and malice.

Your Majesty...

Ye Xuan's mouth slowly stretched wide, forming a hair-raising sneer. His hoarse voice exploded in Wu Lingxiao's ears:

This was not the price we agreed upon.

These words were like the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder from above, striking directly onto the crown of Wu Lingxiao's head, instantly shattering the heart that had just been mended by tenderness!

Ye Xuan's wrist suddenly exerted force. With a loud bang, he ruthlessly threw the half-step True Immortal Empress off the bed like a broken sack.

Normally, with his strength, it would be absolutely impossible to achieve this, but Wu Lingxiao was so deeply in despair that she even forgot to mobilize her spiritual power.

Wu Lingxiao rolled wretchedly onto the cold golden floor tiles. The sharp pain of her bones hitting the ground was not even a ten-thousandth of the agony of her soul being torn apart.

She lay on the ground in a daze, looking at the man on the bed who was unhurriedly adjusting his clothes, his eyes mocking like an evil spirit. Her mind went completely blank.

Gone.

Her Consort Xuan, the youth who would call her sister, was like morning dew—mercilessly evaporated clean the moment she tried to hold onto him tightly.

This massive plunge, from being lifted to the clouds only to be kicked straight into the eighteenth level of hell in an instant, completely destroyed Wu Lingxiao's last shred of sanity.

Ahhhhh!

Wu Lingxiao let out a shrill, inhuman scream, her voice laced with endless despair, pain, and madness.

She scrambled up from the ground like a lunatic, stumbling and crawling as she charged at Ye Xuan. Her fingernails dug deeply into her palms, blood dripping onto the floor.

Why don't you die?

Her eyes were bloodshot red, looking like a vengeful ghost. Staring fixedly at Ye Xuan's face, which was identical to Consort Xuan's, she roared in a breakdown, You devil! You monster! Why don't you die? Why won't you let him stay by my side forever?

She was truly going mad.

If Ye Xuan had been completely cold to her from the very beginning, she could have relied on her cultivation base and remaining pride to endure it.

Yet he chose to use the most cruel method—piecing her perfect white moonlight back together for her to see, only to grind it into powder inch by inch right in front of her face!

Facing the Empress's hysterical breakdown, Ye Xuan did not even get angry.

He merely sat on the edge of the bed, looking at Wu Lingxiao with an extremely bizarre, even somewhat surprised gaze, as if looking at an unreasonable fool.

Stay by your side forever?

As if hearing the biggest joke in the world, Ye Xuan suddenly began to chuckle softly.

Gradually, his laughter grew louder, echoing in the empty Weiyang Palace, sounding particularly piercing.

He put away his smile and leaned forward slightly. His eyes locked onto Wu Lingxiao like a venomous snake, his tone full of mocking inquiry:

Even if I permanently seal my memories right now and return that Consort Xuan whose eyes were full of only you... can you guarantee that you won't cheat on him again?

Wu Lingxiao froze.

Her mad roaring came to an abrupt halt, her face instantly turning as pale as paper.

The word cheat was the nightmare she could least face in this life, the filthiest brand carved into her soul.

But extreme fear and her morbid longing for Consort Xuan made her instantly ignore the weakness at the bottom of her heart.

Like a gambler desperate to prove her innocence, she fell to her knees with a heavy thud, pointing to the heavens and the earth, shouting hoarsely:

I will never cheat! In the past, my mind was clouded by foolishness, I was blind! I swear! I can swear to the Heavenly Dao! As long as Consort Xuan returns, I will love only him for all my lives. If I break this oath, let my cultivation be completely destroyed, let me die with my soul burned by the Netherworld Karmic Fire, never to be reincarnated!

Her oath was extremely vicious, every word weeping blood. Each sentence carried the reality-altering power of a half-step True Immortal, causing muffled rumbles of thunder to echo faintly in the sky above the Weiyang Palace.

She looked at Ye Xuan with utmost hope, trying to find a trace of softening in those pitch-black eyes.

However, the expression on Ye Xuan's face showed not the slightest ripple.

He quietly watched the Empress, who was kneeling on the ground kowtowing like a machine, his eyes holding a coldness more piercing than ten-thousand-year profound ice.

I do not believe you.

Those few light words stabbed Wu Lingxiao's oath, along with her final shred of self-esteem, full of holes.

Ye Xuan slowly stood up, looking down at her from above, the corners of his mouth curling into an extremely cruel sneer:

Wu Lingxiao, stop acting. You might move heaven and earth, you might even move yourself, but the only person you cannot fool is me.

I know you too well. In your bones, you are exactly like that: selfish, greedy, and always abandoning the old for the new.

With every word Ye Xuan spoke, he took a step forward. The terrifying sense of oppression made Wu Lingxiao almost unable to breathe.

"You never loved Consort Xuan at all! What you loved was simply the feeling of being loved without reservation, looked up to, and worshipped as a deity by a pure and flawless soul! Once another outstanding man appeared, once he showed a different kind of mystery and freshness, you became like a bitch smelling meat, impatiently throwing yourself at him!"

"You're wrong! I didn't! It wasn't like that!" Wu Lingxiao shook her head desperately, wanting to refute him, wanting to cut open her own heart to prove it to the man before her.

But she opened her mouth, only to find that she couldn't say a single word.

Because every single word Ye Xuan said was like a poisoned blade, accurately slicing open her ugliest disguise and completely exposing her rotting, foul heart to the air.

This stripping sensation of having everything seen through made her curl up on the ground in agony.

"Still refuse to admit it, huh?"

A trace of brutality flashed through Ye Xuan's eyes. He strode over without the slightest bit of tender affection for a woman, grabbed Wu Lingxiao's waterfall-like long hair, and yanked it upwards fiercely!

"Argh!"

The severe pain from her scalp forced Wu Lingxiao to tilt her head up. Her tear-stained, incredibly beautiful yet twisted face looked straight into Ye Xuan's abyss-like eyes.

"Wu Lingxiao, open your eyes wide and look closely, stop fucking deceiving yourself!"

Ye Xuan's nose almost touched hers. His warm breath sprayed onto her face, yet the words he spoke were as cold as a viper:

"That flawless Consort Xuan in your mind, who would forever only call you sister, only lasted for ten years! Eight hundred years ago, from the moment he learned that you were copulating in bed with that wild man, he was already dead! It was you who personally crushed his pride and trampled his true heart to pieces!"

Wu Lingxiao trembled violently all over, tears blurring her vision.

She pleaded and wanted to close her eyes, but Ye Xuan held tightly onto her hair, forcing her to face this bloody reality.

"Don't make it seem like I'm some villain who forcefully occupied your lover's body."

Ye Xuan gritted his teeth, intense hostility and a sick sense of pleasure churning in the depths of his eyes. "As his reincarnation, I inherited all of his memories. I understand him better than anyone else in this world!"

Ye Xuan suddenly increased the strength of his grip and roared, almost bellowing:

"He had love for you, that is true! And it was the purest, most unreserved love in this world! But guess what? Behind this love is a monstrous hatred from being betrayed, a murderous intent that wishes for nothing more than to drag you down to hell with him!"

"When you were longing for the Consort Xuan who loved you, did you ever think that the Consort Xuan who hated you to the bone is screaming in my mind every day to slice you into a thousand pieces and scatter your ashes?"

Ye Xuan's words were like the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Wu Lingxiao completely broke down.

She had always thought that as long as she retrieved Consort Xuan's memories, as long as she returned to the past, everything could start over.

But Ye Xuan cruelly tore open the truth: the Consort Xuan who loved her and the Consort Xuan who wanted nothing more than to kill her were already one and the same.

It was her betrayal that splashed an ink stain on a pure white sheet of paper that could never be washed away.

"It's all my fault... It's all my fault..."

Wu Lingxiao slumped to the ground like a ragdoll drained of its soul. Her eyes were bloodshot, tears mixing with the blood at the corner of her mouth as they dripped down. She neurotically repeated, "I dirtied him... I lost that boy... I will never be able to get him back..."

Looking at the Empress weeping bitterly on the ground, her Dao heart on the verge of collapse along with her, the brutality in Ye Xuan's eyes gradually receded, turning into an extreme coldness and weariness.

He cast away Wu Lingxiao's hair in disgust, like throwing away a bag of trash.

He pulled a pure white silk handkerchief from his sleeve and carefully wiped his hands, as if he had touched something extremely filthy. Then, he casually tossed the handkerchief onto Wu Lingxiao's face.

He didn't say a single word. With an indifferent expression, he turned around and walked towards the main doors of the Weiyang Palace.

The sound of his footsteps echoed in the silent, empty hall, every step feeling as if it were stepping on the tip of Wu Lingxiao's heart.

She reached out her hand in panic, wanting to grab the hem of Ye Xuan's clothes, but only grasped a handful of air.

However, just as Ye Xuan walked to the center of the hall, next to the puddle of smashed cake residue.

He stopped in his tracks.

Without turning his head, his voice in this deathly silent night was so deep and low that it induced despair:

"Wu Lingxiao, you actually don't understand at all."

"I am not only the reincarnation of Consort Xuan, but also the reincarnation of countless others. I even have the memories of hundreds of years from this present life in my mind. My soul has long been riddled with holes and unbearably murky."

"But even so..."

Ye Xuan's back hunched slightly, as if bearing an unspeakable pain, but that pain vanished in a flash, turning into the most bone-chilling cruelty. "I once tried to deduce it. If I eliminated all distractions, even if I only retained the memories of that lifetime as Consort Xuan..."

His voice paused.

The surrounding air froze into ice at this moment.

Ye Xuan suddenly turned his head. In those pitch-black eyes, there was no more teasing, no more madness, only a patch of deathly stillness remained.

He raised his hand, pointing at Wu Lingxiao who was sprawled on the ground like a puddle of mud, and a deafening roar erupted from his throat:

"The result of the deduction was still incomparably tragic! Because that soul with only Consort Xuan's memories remaining, at the moment of facing you again, its only thought would be to self-destruct, dragging you along to be reduced to ashes!"

"Wu Lingxiao, a person like you simply does not deserve to be loved!"

"Even less do you deserve to be loved by him!"

Every word was like a knife, every sentence pierced the heart!

At this moment, Wu Lingxiao's eyes widened fiercely, her pupils violently contracting to the extreme.

She felt as if her heart had been forcefully dug out by an iron hand covered in barbs, thrown onto the ground, and frantically trampled upon. This agony of being unable to breathe or think surpassed the limits of what a mortal body could endure.

"Don't deserve... I don't deserve..."

This once insufferably arrogant Empress of Great Xia suddenly erupted into a shrill and eerie bout of laughter.

She laughed while vomiting large mouthfuls of fresh blood. The scarlet blood dyed her plain gauze dress red, and also stained the golden bricks on the ground.

"Hahahaha... I don't deserve to be loved by him..."