What Exactly Are You Hiding

Inside the dark and gloomy wine cellar of the side hall.

Drip... drip...

The sound of heart's blood dropping into the wine vat became the only measure of time in this sunless hell.

Xia Lengyue was suspended high in mid-air by chains, the excruciating pain emanating from her limbs and bones having already left her numb.

Her hair hung loose and disheveled. Her once breathtakingly beautiful face was now as pale as paper, covered in dried blood and cold sweat. Although the wound on her shoulder, pierced by the Sun-Slaying Divine Sword, had scabbed over, the residual warmth of the karmic fire lingering deep within her soul still caused her to break into spasmodic twitches from time to time.

Creak!

The heavy black iron doors once again let out a teeth-grating screech of friction.

A dim yellow beam of light sliced through the darkness of the cellar from the crack of the door.

In an instant, Xia Lengyue began to tremble violently as if she had been electrocuted. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks in the dark, and a rattling, unconscious tremor escaped her throat, like a dying beast.

It was a conditioned reflex carved deep into her very marrow.

Every time this door was pushed open, what greeted her was the agony of having her bones scraped and marrow extracted—a living nightmare a hundred times more cruel than hell itself.

Ye Xuan walked in.

Today, he wore an ink-black robe, its hem embroidered with intricate cloud patterns in dark gold thread.

Illuminated by the eerie blue candlelight, his handsome face appeared unusually pale, and his eyes revealed a spine-chilling calmness.

He did not walk directly to the core of the Marrow-Extracting Grand Array, nor did he rush to admire her miserable state as he usually did.

He simply walked quietly up to Xia Lengyue, tilting his head slightly as he sized her up.

Xia Lengyue bit down hard on her bloodless lower lip. Her body shook so much that even the chains let out a soft clinking sound. She kept her eyes tightly shut, completely terrified to meet Ye Xuan's gaze, only waiting in despair for the new round of excruciating pain to arrive.

However, the anticipated karmic fire and the backlash of the array did not appear.

"Senior Sister."

Ye Xuan suddenly spoke. His voice was very soft, even carrying a trace of a long-lost gentleness.

Tilting his head, a cryptic sneer slowly crept up the corners of his mouth as he said softly, "I came this time to give you a chance."

Xia Lengyue snapped her eyes open, a flash of extreme terror and vigilance crossing her ashen gaze.

"I can forgive you."

Ye Xuan reached out with his long, slender fingers and gently brushed aside a lock of bloody hair stuck to her cheek. His movements were as tender as if he were handling a peerless treasure. "Furthermore, I can take you as my wife, and we will be a devoted couple for the rest of our lives."

"Heh heh heh..."

A cold laugh like a broken bellows rasped from Xia Lengyue's throat. She struggled to turn her head away, trying to dodge his viper-like touch.

She understood this man too well. Every ounce of his current gentleness was only meant to push her into an even deeper abyss the very next second.

"What exactly do you want to say..." Xia Lengyue bit her cracked lips hard, her eyes full of wariness and despair. "Just say it directly. Don't think I don't know... You, what new method have you come up with to torture me this time?"

Seeing her defensive posture, Ye Xuan was not only unbothered, but he also shook his head helplessly. "This time is different."

"Heh..."

Xia Lengyue sneered, turned her head away, and closed her eyes, simply too exhausted to pay him any more mind. She was already prepared to endure being skinned alive and having her tendons pulled out.

Ye Xuan paid no mind to her attitude. He stood with his hands behind his back and slowly paced along the edge of the eerie blood pool.

"Senior Sister, these past few days, memories of many past lives have awakened in my mind once again."

Ye Xuan shook his head, his tone carrying an almost childlike distress and confusion. "It's so strange... Why is it that in these memories of mine, those wives whom I loved deeply and was willing to give everything for, always ended up betraying me in the end?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Xia Lengyue, suspended in mid-air, stiffened all over. She pressed her lips tightly together and said nothing.

Ye Xuan stopped pacing, turned around, and looked at her with a smile. "But in my memories, not all of my wives betrayed me. There are also many women who did not."

"This is just too strange."

Ye Xuan raised his hand and gently rubbed his temples, a look of helplessness on his face.

He walked slowly until he stood before Xia Lengyue. His previously gentle gaze turned incomparably sharp in a split second.

"Senior Sister."

Ye Xuan stared at her fixedly, enunciating every word clearly. "As long as you can answer one question for me, I will marry you. All our past grievances will be written off. I will be a loving husband to you, and we will be an affectionate couple."

Xia Lengyue's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

She forcefully suppressed a sickeningly desperate yearning within her heart, let out a cold scoff, and slightly raised her eyelids. "Ask."

The smile on Ye Xuan's face vanished instantly, replaced by an extreme, bone-chilling coldness.

His thin lips parted slightly as he spat out his question:

"Who sent you here?"

Xia Lengyue was stunned.

She frowned slightly, her eyes full of astonishment and bewilderment. "What do you mean by that?"

Ye Xuan ignored her question in return. He merely muttered to himself with an indifferent expression, "In my memories, many of my Dao companions betrayed me. But a lot of their betrayals were completely inexplicable. It was as if some invisible force forcibly dragged them off their original paths."

He shifted his gaze, pinning his eyes dead onto Xia Lengyue's face, refusing to let even the slightest micro-expression slip by:

"Take you, for example."

"When you were in the mortal realm, you were deeply in love with me; I was the only one in your eyes. Several times when we encountered danger, you didn't even hesitate to lay down your life for me."

"And the result? As soon as you entered the immortal sect, it was like you became a completely different person. You started to betray me, started looking for other men."

Hearing these words, a flash of extreme embarrassment crossed Xia Lengyue's face, which was already twisted in pain.

She lowered her head in shame, deep guilt and agony surging in her eyes.

She bit her lip fiercely, her voice trembling. "The cultivation world and the mortal realm... are two completely different worlds. I... I was blinded by the Great Dao of Immortality. My mind was clouded by all those cultivation resources..."

"Tch."

Ye Xuan let out an extremely contemptuous sneer. He shook his head, his eyes filled with the kind of mockery one would reserve for a dancing clown.

"Senior Sister, please don't treat me like an idiot, alright?"

Ye Xuan suddenly leaned in close to her, his piercing gaze locked onto hers. "What aptitude did you test for back then? It was the Heavenly Spirit Root! You were a heaven-chosen genius rarely seen in a thousand years!"

Ye Xuan stared fixedly into her eyes, capturing every tiny fluctuation in their depths. "But what about you? You chose to cheat on me with Zhao Wuji? That fat-headed, mediocre piece of trash who had nothing going for him except for an Inner Sect Elder grandfather!"

"Not only did you cheat on me with him, but you even acted as his human cauldron! You passed on the pure Yin energy you cultivated so painstakingly to him, all in exchange for a few lousy Foundation Establishment Pills in his hands?"

Ye Xuan spread his hands, his face full of an absurd sneer. "Senior Sister, you possess a Heavenly Spirit Root! To protect you, the sect even prepared a supreme-grade Foundation Establishment Pill for you in advance! You had absolutely no need to get involved with Zhao Wuji over Foundation Establishment Pills. Wasn't this behavior of yours purely degrading your own cultivation and ruining your own future?"

Xia Lengyue was stunned.

She was suspended in mid-air, staring blankly at the pool of blood on the ground.

Her eyes began to dart unnaturally from side to side, and her brows were tightly furrowed, as if she were trying desperately to recall the details of that year.

Right... why?

I have a Heavenly Spirit Root. I clearly didn't need a Foundation Establishment Pill. Why did I go and beg Zhao Wuji? Why did I think that the only way to reach Foundation Establishment was to give myself to him?

A deep sense of bewilderment surfaced on her face, but soon, the bewilderment was replaced by numbness.

Gritting her teeth, she continued to say stubbornly, "At that time... I didn't know what was going on either. Maybe I was too eager for quick success, and I was afraid the sect would go back on their word. Anyway... anyway, it was all my own fault. I can't blame anyone else. I am just cheap to the bone!"

Seeing her take all the blame and drag her own name through the mud like this, Ye Xuan narrowed his eyes slightly, the coldness in his gaze growing heavier.

He sighed, his tone suddenly becoming unprecedentedly bewitching and gentle:

"Senior Sister, there is no evil without reason in this world, nor is there stupidity that defies logic."

He approached again, his cold fingers gently tracing the bloody marks left by the iron chains on her wrists. "Could it be that... there was some unseen force secretly tempting you? Or some kind of mind control? Or perhaps someone threatened you with something extremely terrifying, forcing you to do it?"

A near-insane anticipation flickered in Ye Xuan's eyes as he gripped Xia Lengyue's shoulders tightly. "If that's the case, if none of this was your true intention... Senior Sister, I will forgive you. I will take you away immediately, and we can go to a place where there is no one else and start over."

These words, to Xia Lengyue who had suffered in hell for countless days and nights, were simply the most lethal poison in the world.

As long as she went along with his words, as long as she pushed the blame onto some illusory existence, she would be free! She could return to his side!

Xia Lengyue's eyes instantly lit up.

She couldn't wait to open her mouth, wanting to say "yes."

However, in that split second, something bizarre happened.

Deep within Xia Lengyue's pupils, an extremely rigid, stagnant, ashen hue suddenly flashed.

The ecstasy on her face instantly froze, and her facial muscles began to twitch violently and uncontrollably.

Her eyes were filled with undisguised, extreme terror and confusion. She was desperately trying to control her vocal cords, wanting to agree with Ye Xuan's words.

But her mouth seemed to have been forcibly taken over by some indescribable, terrifying power.

"No..."

Xia Lengyue shed tears, her eyes filled with absolute horror, yet her mouth spat out cold, stiff, and even somewhat mechanical words:

"I don't remember ever being tempted. No force forced me. Everything... was voluntary. It is my nature to be promiscuous; I was greedy for vanity."

Ye Xuan stared fixedly at Xia Lengyue.

He keenly caught all her micro-expressions in that fleeting moment: the ecstasy, the struggle, the fear, and finally, the stiff statement like a marionette.

It was too bizarre.

This persistence, which violated a living creature's survival instinct and Xia Lengyue's selfish nature, was simply bloodcurdling.

Ye Xuan's gaze turned completely cold. He took a deep breath of the blood-scented air and sighed, "Senior Sister, are you still refusing to tell the truth?"

"Who exactly sent you here? Your betrayal was entirely deliberate. Many of your actions completely defied logic; it was simply cheating for the sake of cheating!"

Xia Lengyue broke out in a cold sweat, shaking her head desperately as tears surged out.

She was terrified by her own words. She couldn't understand why she refused to take the path to survival and insisted on admitting that she was an incurable slut.

"No! No! There was no one else, it was all my own fault! I am the one who wronged you!" She cried out in a breakdown, yet that set of rhetoric seemed to be welded shut in her mind, terrifyingly stubborn.

"Senior Sister," Ye Xuan's voice took on a bewitching magic, "as long as you admit that you were sent by someone to deliberately cuckold me, as long as you just nod... I will forgive you."

Xia Lengyue was overjoyed, hope igniting in her eyes once more.

"I... I..."

She opened her mouth, desperately trying to nod. But just at the moment her neck prepared to exert force, her eyes became hollow again.

An invisible force tightly gripped her throat.

"No."

Xia Lengyue's face was deathly pale. She gasped heavily for air, her eyes filled with despair at losing control of her own body, yet her mouth spoke with extreme calmness: "No one sent me. I cheated entirely of my own free will."

Ye Xuan looked at her, his pupils trembling violently.

"Truly terrifying..."

Ye Xuan muttered to himself. He slowly took two steps back. The look in his eyes as he watched Xia Lengyue was no longer just hatred, but rather a wariness as if looking at a monster.

"In the unseen world, it seems there really is a force manipulating all of this. Even your will can be easily tampered with by it."

He suddenly raised his head, his gaze instantly turning cold and brutal. "Since you refuse to speak... since your mouth has been sealed shut."

"Then I will go in and see for myself!"

Before his voice faded, Ye Xuan suddenly thrust out his right hand, his five fingers forming a claw. Carrying an extremely violent black spiritual energy, he mercilessly clamped down on the crown of Xia Lengyue's head!

"Soul Search!"

A heart-wrenching, miserable wail from Xia Lengyue instantly erupted within the wine cellar. The pain of a Soul Search was no different from placing one's soul on a millstone and crushing it inch by inch.

Her eyes instantly rolled back, and her entire body spasmed madly as if she were being electrocuted.

Ye Xuan tightly closed his eyes, his massive divine sense brutally crashing into Xia Lengyue's sea of consciousness like a violent storm.

He flipped through all her memories from childhood to adulthood.

Their encounter in Lin'an City, passing the Immortal Sect's grand selection, being accepted as a disciple by the Supreme Elder, and then... without any warning, on a certain late night, she took the initiative to knock on Zhao Wuji's cave dwelling and voluntarily shed her clothes.

There was no bewitchment by a mysterious person, no drugging, no coercion.

In her memories, all of this depravity was a thought that arose spontaneously from within her.

"Bang!"

Ye Xuan abruptly withdrew his hand, and Xia Lengyue instantly slumped against the chains like a puddle of mud, her face pale.

Ye Xuan stood rooted to the spot, his expression so gloomy it looked as if water could drip from it.

He looked at his slightly trembling fingertips, his face covered in bewilderment and deep wariness.

"Your memories... are actually fine."

Ye Xuan murmured in a low voice, his voice echoing in the gloomy wine cellar. "Although the moment of your depravity was a bit disgusting. But in your memory, there really aren't any traces of being manipulated by an external force."

He suddenly raised his head, staring fixedly at the dying Xia Lengyue:

"But that is exactly what is most wrong!"

"You had absolutely no reason to cheat! With your Heavenly Spirit Root, the sect would have definitely guaranteed your Foundation Establishment. You completely and absolutely had no need to get together with Zhao Wuji over two lousy Foundation Establishment Pills!"

Xia Lengyue hung her head weakly, blood dripping down her hair. The aftereffects of the Soul Searching made her brain feel as if it were being pierced by ten thousand needles.

She was in immense agony, tears streaming down her face, and her voice was as faint as a mosquito's, yet she still repeated the same words: "Stop talking... it's all my own doing..."

"Shut up!"

Ye Xuan roared, completely enraged by those words.

"Senior Sister, think about it carefully! Does this make sense?"

"I, Ye Xuan, have reincarnated a hundred times. I have been a Sword Venerable, a Demon Emperor, and even an ordinary mortal. But most of my wives... whether they were aloof fairies or ruthless demonesses, all ended up cheating on me in the end!"

Ye Xuan's shoulders shook violently as he let out a series of spine-chilling chuckles:

"This is highly abnormal... My reincarnations have been tampered with, this is something I've known for a long time."

"But I've always wondered, what methods did that supreme manipulator use to make my wives cheat on me with such unerring precision in every lifetime? Was it through coercion every time? Impossible. Forced betrayal cannot produce the ultimate agony. Moreover, it's impossible for him to calculate my marriages so accurately in advance every single lifetime."

Ye Xuan paced back and forth in the wine cellar; suddenly, he stopped.

He slowly turned his head and looked at Xia Lengyue.

At this moment, Ye Xuan's mouth curled into an extremely eerie, even somewhat neurotic smile:

"Thinking about it carefully, the method is actually quite simple..."

"He didn't need to control my original destiny of marriage at all. All he needed to do was... send a woman."

Ye Xuan's voice echoed in the gloomy wine cellar, every word chilling to the bone: "Send a woman of absolute obedience to find my reincarnation in advance. Then, use every possible means to make my reincarnation fall in love with her. Treat me well, take a blade for me, die for me, and make me fall hopelessly in love with her."

"Then, after marriage, when the affection is at its most intense, she chooses to willingly cheat."

"Wouldn't that solve the problem perfectly?"

"My so-called marriages were nothing but the master's missions from beginning to end!"

Ye Xuan stared dead at Xia Lengyue, the eerie look in his eyes almost overflowing: "So, you are exactly such a wife, custom-made to disgust me and torture me."

"Am I right? Xia Lengyue."

Xia Lengyue was stunned.

Listening to Ye Xuan's blood-curdling deduction, she even forgot to breathe.

A massive sense of absurdity and fear enveloped her. She quickly began to shake her head desperately, causing her chains to rattle: "Impossible! Absolutely impossible! I wasn't sent by anyone! My cheating was my own doing, it's because my nature is vile, it has nothing to do with anyone else! I really wasn't instructed by anyone!"

"That's right."

Ye Xuan was not angry; instead, he let out a long sigh.

Stepping over the blood-stained floor, he slowly, very slowly, approached Xia Lengyue.

The distance between them was so close that Ye Xuan's nose almost touched Xia Lengyue's.

Ye Xuan stared intently into her pupils, which were slightly dilated from extreme fear.

"Senior Sister."

Ye Xuan's voice was extremely gentle, yet it carried a chill that made one's soul tremble: "Can't you just admit it? As long as you admit that you were sent here, I will marry you, and I will let you go. This is your only chance to survive and escape from hell."

However, Xia Lengyue's reaction caused the smile on Ye Xuan's face to completely freeze, gradually transforming into a bottomless horror.

Xia Lengyue looked entirely bewildered.

Meeting Ye Xuan's highly oppressive gaze, she didn't hesitate in the slightest, shaking her head desperately as tears flew wildly: "There's no such thing! Stop guessing blindly! It's my own fault! There really is no one else!"

Ye Xuan maintained his leaning posture, his eyes gradually looking as if he were staring at an unknown monster.

"Strange..."

"Too strange..."

Ye Xuan murmured softly:

"Senior Sister, do you not know what kind of person you are?"

Ye Xuan straightened up, his eyes cold and mocking, yet carrying a deep wariness: "You are a bitch who would stoop to any means to survive, to climb up!"

"You are selfish, despicable, and full of lies. Back then, to eke out a living, you could plunge a boning knife into my chest without hesitation."

"Now, I have personally handed you an excuse to live, a perfect reason that can wash away all your sins, right to your lips!"

Ye Xuan suddenly raised his voice, a hint of tremor in it that even he didn't notice:

"As long as you play along with my words and say yes, you can live! You can escape the daily torture of having your bones extracted and marrow stripped!"

"But you, who have always been shamelessly despicable, who would tell any lie to survive, are now desperately denying it?"

"You would rather admit that you are vile than accept this reason that could save your life?"

Ye Xuan gasped, the eeriness in his eyes climbing to its peak.

"You deny it so desperately, even going against your survival instinct..."

"What exactly are you hiding?"