Meeting After Ten Thousand Years

Great Xia Imperial Palace, the night wind was like a knife.

High upon a secluded pavilion that pierced the clouds, the heavy darkness of the night seemed ready to swallow everything.

Up in the firmament, a pale crescent moon coldly watched the mortal realm.

On the white jade staircase leading to the pavilion, Zi Yao's figure stumbled as she sprinted upward.

She was completely unaware that she had lost her shoes halfway. Her fair, bare feet were cut by sharp gravel, leaving shocking spots of blood on the pristine white steps.

Her hair danced wildly in the wind. Those once captivating eyes were now bloodshot, revealing an almost demonic ecstasy and madness.

Her hands tightly clutched a letter. Her nails dug deeply into the flesh of her palms, and blood dripped down the edge of the envelope, yet she felt no pain at all.

Not long ago, Ye Xuan's personal maid, Ying'er, had presented this letter to her with trembling hands.

There was no unnecessary nonsense on the envelope, only six flamboyant words at the signature, carrying boundless sword intent and a familiar aura:

"Xuantian Sword Venerable, Ye Xuan."

That was his name in the cultivation world!

That was the name of her True Immortal husband, the one who stood high above, who had discarded her like trash, yet whom she had missed madly and hated to the bone throughout these long years!

"He's back... He's really back! His memory has awakened!!"

Zi Yao screamed hysterically in her heart. Her heart pounded madly in her chest, as if it were going to shatter her ribs and jump out.

The despair of ten thousand years, the moment she saw this letter, transformed entirely into monstrous greed and hope.

"He must be here for me! I am his only true wife! That so-called Great Xia Empress, that Ying'er, they are all just lowly wenches for him to vent his lust! I am his official wife!"

Overjoyed, Zi Yao did not even have time to tidy her appearance before rushing over like a madwoman.

She finally stepped onto the last step of the pavilion.

A cold wind brushed past. Upon the pavilion, all was silent.

Right at the boundary between the starry sky and the pale moonlight, Zi Yao saw that figure.

Clad in white robes that surpassed the snow of the Heavenly Mountains, he was completely spotless. He stood with his hands behind his back, his clothes fluttering loudly in the wind. He was surrounded by an ethereal yet suffocating True Immortal Dao rhythm that Zi Yao could never hope to attain in her lifetime.

Hearing the footsteps, the white-robed man slowly turned around.

His eyes were as deep as the eternal starry sky and as calm as an ancient, rippleless well. There was no cruelty, no gloominess, only the high and mighty indifference of one who had seen through the long river of time.

That was the gaze belonging to the Xuantian Sword Venerable.

It was the gaze of the True Immortal Ye Xuan, who had once obliterated three Mahayana Realm ancestors with a mere wave of his hand in the ruins!

The moment she met these eyes, Zi Yao went completely mad.

Her knees gave way, and she fell to the ground with a thud, tears surging out like a broken dam.

She saw the illusion that had caused her agonizing pain in countless midnight dreams over the past tens of thousands of years.

"Husband... is it you?"

Zi Yao's voice trembled terribly. She reached out her bloodstained hands like a traveler who had been thirsty for countless years in the desert.

She crawled toward Ye Xuan bit by bit, her eyes full of humble fawning and frantic obsession.

However, Ye Xuan looked down at her from above, his eyes not showing a single ripple.

His thin lips parted slightly, spitting out a sentence that made Zi Yao feel as if she had fallen into the icy abyss of the Nine Underworlds:

"Long time no see, my bracelet keeper."

Zi Yao's crawling movement abruptly froze.

She began to tremble violently. In an instant, all the color drained from her face, making her paler than a corpse.

Her lips quivered, and her eyes were filled with extreme terror and disbelief.

"Husband... what, what did you call me?" Zi Yao's voice became so sharp that it changed pitch, carrying a hint of a dying struggle.

"A bracelet keeper."

Ye Xuan looked at her, an extremely gentle smile slowly blooming on his peerlessly handsome face.

But to Zi Yao, this smile was the most vicious and cruel curse in the world.

Ye Xuan's gaze casually swept over Zi Yao's empty wrist. A flash of understanding and disdain crossed his eyes, as if he were looking at a tool that had lost its usefulness:

"Oh, your bracelet is no longer there."

"Since that is the case, your mission is complete. You may get lost."

He casually issued the order to leave, his tone as relaxed as if he were shooing away a fly that had landed on his hem.

Upon hearing this, Zi Yao was completely stunned.

"No!"

Zi Yao let out a shrill scream that did not sound human.

She suddenly sprang up from the ground, her beautiful face now twisted like an evil spirit. She rushed toward Ye Xuan recklessly, wanting to grab his collar, but was firmly blocked three feet away by an invisible layer of spiritual energy.

"Could it be that in your eyes, from beginning to end, I was just a bracelet keeper guarding something for someone else?"

Zi Yao pressed her face tightly against the shield, her features squeezed and deformed. With bloodshot eyes, she roared, "Am I not your wife? I accompanied you for so many years! I am your officially wedded wife!"

Facing her hysteria, Ye Xuan did not even bat an eyelid. He merely looked quietly at Zi Yao, who was roaring like a mad dog, and calmly asked in return:

"Do you deserve to be my wife?"

These words were spoken lightly, yet they carried the crushing weight of Mount Tai.

Zi Yao instantly felt as if all her strength had been drained. She went limp and slid down the invisible shield, slumping onto the ground.

Her mind once again flashed back to those years in the Heavenly Demon Sect, how she had lain beneath Li Tianxing, moaning in pleasure, and how she had discarded Ye Xuan's affection like worn-out shoes.

Extreme shame and regret began to churn in her heart.

She kowtowed violently, her forehead smashing against the white jade floor tiles with a dull thud. "I was wrong... Husband, I truly know I was wrong!"

Zi Yao raised her head, her face covered in a mixture of blood and tears. Her eyes pleaded morbidly, "Give me a chance, please? I have washed myself clean! I have not touched any man in tens of thousands of years! Let us start over! I beg you, let us start over!"

Ye Xuan looked at the blood on her forehead, his eyes remaining cold and indifferent.

He tilted his head slightly, his tone carrying a rhetorical question that struck straight to the soul:

"Back then in the Heavenly Demon Sect, when you betrayed me for those so-called resources and shortcuts..."

"You never gave me a chance, so how can I give you one?"

Zi Yao looked up eagerly, shouting as if grasping at the last straw, "Then I will give you a chance! I will give you a chance now! As long as you are willing, I can do anything for you. I can give my life to you!"

Ye Xuan sighed softly, a kind of pity for the hopelessly incurable people of the world.

He raised his head slightly, looking at the firmament, his tone terrifyingly calm:

"Zi Yao, wake up. We ceased to be husband and wife a long time ago."

At this moment, Zi Yao went completely insane.

"On what grounds?! Why can you so easily erase everything we had!"

Sitting on the ground, Zi Yao wildly clawed at her own hair, tearing out large handfuls of black locks.

She roared incoherently, pouring out every grievance she had suffered over the years. Like beans spilling from a bamboo tube, she frantically vented about how she had obsessively scrubbed her body clean, how she had preserved her chastity just for him, and how she had struggled to survive in this cold and ruthless cultivation world.

She laughed and cried, one moment viciously cursing Ye Xuan for his heartlessness, and the next humbly begging him not to leave.

However, no matter how hoarse her voice grew, no matter how she demeaned herself, Ye Xuan simply stood quietly inside his protective shield. Like an emotionless statue of white jade, he remained completely unmoved.

Finally, Zi Yao grew tired of screaming.

She panted heavily, her chest heaving violently.

Lowering her head, she stared fixedly at the ground, her messy hair concealing her expression.

When she raised her head again, the subservience and pleading in her eyes had completely vanished. In their place was a spine-chilling, absolute malice and paranoia.

"It doesn't matter if you refuse to acknowledge me..."

Zi Yao's voice suddenly became eerily calm, even carrying a hint of a bizarre smile. "The betrothal bracelet is mine... It has been worn on my wrist for so many years that it is already saturated with my aura!"

She stood up abruptly, a tyrannical killing intent flashing in her eyes. "I will go kill Ying'er right now! I will chop off her hand! I will take the betrothal bracelet back!! As long as I get it back, I will still be your bracelet's guardian, and you will never be able to drive me away!"

Looking at her thoroughly twisted and sickening demeanor over an illusory title, Ye Xuan uncharacteristically let out another sigh.

"Do you still not understand, Zi Yao?"

Ye Xuan looked at her, his tone laced with a profound sense of helplessness. "You should know that even if you kill Ying'er and take back the bracelet, Ying'er... is not the fated heroine I have been waiting for."

Zi Yao abruptly halted her steps.

She turned around and glared fiercely at Ye Xuan, the flames of jealousy in her eyes threatening to burn away the very last shreds of her sanity.

"Then who is it?"

Zi Yao shrieked, her teeth grinding together. "Who exactly is that bitch? Tell me! I'm going to kill her! I will peel off her skin, rip out her soul, and throw it into the karmic hellfire to be tortured for ten thousand years!"

In the face of Zi Yao's incredibly venomous curses, Ye Xuan did not get angry. Instead, in a tone that was remarkably calm yet devastating enough to shatter every single one of Zi Yao's delusions, he slowly uttered a single name:

"Yun Meng."