Ying'er's Background

After leaving Qingniu Village, to accommodate Ying'er's constitution, the two did not opt for the extraordinary method of flying on a sword.

Ye Xuan generously purchased a spacious, luxuriously appointed carriage and hired a crimson-maned stallion with the blood of a demonic beast. They galloped south along the official road.

Ye Xuan was in an exceptionally good mood.

These thirteen years of mortal life had thoroughly washed away the luster of his soul's past.

Now, he lounged on a soft couch covered in snow-white marten fur, idly twirling a folding fan in his hand, a carefree smirk on his lips—the very picture of a dandy traveling with his lovely wife to enjoy the sights.

"Ying'er, I looked at the map. Ahead, across that mountain, we should be entering the southern borders of Qingzhou, right?"

Ye Xuan used the ribs of his fan to part the velvet carriage curtain, gazing at the landscape gradually shifting from barren to vibrant. He turned to Ying'er, who was peeling an orange, and spoke gently:

"If I remember correctly, back when you cried in my arms, you said your home was originally in Luoyun City, south of Qingzhou—a wealthy family that had run a cloth business for three generations, yes?"

Ying'er's eyes instantly filled with panic, her pupils dilating.

She lowered her head like a startled quail, desperately trying to hide the terror threatening to spill from her eyes:

"Yes... yes, Husband. But that was such a long, long time ago..."

She fumbled to hand Ye Xuan the orange, which she had peeled into a rough mess, forcing a smile uglier than tears:

"Husband, this orange is really sweet. Please, have a taste. Let's not go there, alright? That place... besides ruin and loss, it holds nothing but my worst memories..."

Ye Xuan bit into the orange from her hand.

A sharp, icy gleam flashed through his deep eyes, and the temperature inside the carriage dropped a few degrees:

"Bad memories? Then we'll go and trample them flat."

"That vicious uncle who seized your Huang family estate and drove you out with a club, and those thugs and ruffians who took advantage of your misfortune, bullying you..."

Ye Xuan chewed the sweet pulp slowly, his tone as calm as if discussing what to have for dinner:

"I, Ye Xuan, have always prided myself on my standing, and I disdain drawing my sword against mere mortal ants. But since they made you suffer so much and shed so many tears, they ought to fill that void with their lives. The grievances my woman endured in the past, I will reclaim for you tenfold, a hundredfold."

"Husband... no!"

Ying'er's voice trembled sharply. She grabbed Ye Xuan's sleeve tightly, her knuckles white, almost begging him with her eyes:

"Really, there's no need! It's been so many years; those people might have already died of illness. Besides, with this chaotic and war-torn world, that city might not even exist anymore! Let's detour to Jiangnan to see the endless lotus flowers, or go to the northern frontier to see the snow—anywhere!"

Ye Xuan looked at her timid, red-eyed, pitiable appearance, and his heart softened. He reached out a slender finger and affectionately tapped her straight nose bridge:

"Silly girl, with me by your side, what are you afraid of? In all the heavens and earth, no one can harm a single strand of your hair again."

"I insist on going. I want to walk the cobblestone paths you once walked, to see the place where you grew up."

With that, Ye Xuan lifted the carriage curtain and sat himself down on the driver’s seat. He snatched the whip from the coachman’s hand and cracked it sharply through the air, producing a crisp pop.

“Hyah!”

The red-maned horse neighed loudly, the wheels churning as the carriage sped off toward the city of Luoyun, buried deep in his memory, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.

Inside the carriage, Ying’er felt as if she had fallen into an ice pit, her face as pale as paper.

She collapsed limply onto the soft couch, her fingers twisting a silk handkerchief so tightly that her nails dug deep into her flesh, nearly drawing blood. Her lower lip was almost bitten through.

It was over.

Everything was over.

Half a month later.

The dust-laden carriage finally came to a halt on a steep, strategic hilltop.

Ye Xuan held a map, tracing his finger through the air to confirm their position: “This is it. According to the old geographical records, beyond this ridge lies a plain—the richest commercial heart of southern Qingzhou. That’s where your hometown, Luoyun City, should be.”

“We’ve finally arrived.”

Refreshed and cheerful, Ye Xuan leaped down from the carriage. Turning around, he extended a broad hand toward the curtain, his smile warm: “Come, Ying’er, your husband will take you home to see it.”

Behind the curtain, silence lingered for a full half an incense stick’s time.

Only then did Ying’er emerge, shuffling and weak-kneed, like a death row inmate heading for the executioner’s block.

She kept her head low, her chin almost touching her collarbone, not daring to meet Ye Xuan’s eyes even once.

Ye Xuan assumed she was simply tense from nearing home. With a pang of sympathy, he took her cold little hand firmly in his and strode to the top of the ridge. Bursting with pride, he gazed far into the distance.

But the very next second,

the smile on Ye Xuan’s face froze solid, like a glacier seized by frost.

At the foot of the hill, there was no city.

No city walls, no crisscrossing streets, no rising threads of cooking smoke, and no clamor of bustling traffic.

What met his eyes was a vast, shimmering lake that stretched endlessly before him!

The lake water was a deep, jade blue, its far shore lost to sight. Amid the drifting mist, a few spirit birds and waterfowl circled overhead, their crisp, ethereal cries echoing through the air.

There wasn’t a single trace of man-made brick or tile within a hundred miles—nothing but pristine, untouched waters.

“This… how can this be?”

Ye Xuan was stunned. He quickly spread out the map again, checked the celestial signs and the flow of earthly veins, and compared them over a dozen times.

“The directions are absolutely correct. Three hundred li south of Qingzhou. Luoyun City was supposed to lie right at the center of this plain.”

His brows knit into a tight knot, his eyes filled with shock and suspicion as he stared at the great lake: “Could it be that during my thirteen years in seclusion, a great catastrophe struck the world—a tsunami or flood that submerged the entire city beneath the lake?”

But that didn’t add up.

Ye Xuan extended his spiritual sense and immediately sensed something unusual. The lake water was so clear that the bottom was visible, and the water’s spiritual energy was richly abundant and stable. The ancient willows and towering trees along the shore had long grown to their full majestic form.

This was clearly an ancient lake that had existed for countless ages, not some landslide-formed barrier lake from recent decades.

Doubt grew like wild grass in his heart, and a faint, deeply unsettling intuition seized his chest.

He swept his gaze across the scene and spotted an old fisherman in a straw raincoat, casting a line by the lakeside at the foot of the hill.

“Let’s go down and ask for an explanation.”

Ye Xuan couldn't be bothered to walk anymore. He directly scooped up Ying'er, whose body was stiff as wood, and with a flicker of movement, he traversed the ground in a single step, landing instantly by the lake.

"Old man, pardon the intrusion."

Ye Xuan forcefully suppressed the turbulent storm within his heart and greeted the elder with a respectful bow, using a tone he tried to keep courteous:

"May I ask, where exactly is the city of Luoyun? I vaguely recall that there should have been an extremely prosperous trading city here."

The old man wore a tattered bamboo hat and held a tobacco pipe that was worn smooth from years of handling.

Hearing Ye Xuan's words, he was startled at first, then let out a scoff as if he had heard the most absurd tale.

The old man looked Ye Xuan up and down as he slowly blew out a pungent cloud of smoke: "Young man, broad daylight—are you talking in your sleep or what?"

"I, old as I am, have been fishing by this Thousand Acre Lake for generations. This lake has been here for at least ten thousand years, and within eight hundred li in every direction, there isn't even a decent-sized town. What Luoyun City are you talking about?"

Ye Xuan's heart sank heavily, his face paling. "Ten thousand years? Old man, please don't jest with your junior. My wife here is a native of Luoyun City. She says it's a famous, bustling city in Qingzhou, with a cloth shop named the Huang Family at the eastern end!"

"Luoyun City? Huang Family Cloth Shop?"

The old man tapped out his pipe against the sole of his shoe, staring at him like he was a madman:

"Never heard of it. There is a town called Luoxia Town in Qingzhou, but that's a full eight hundred li away. As for the place you're talking about, it's all vast waters—barely a ghost in sight. Did that city get built by the Dragon King at the bottom of the lake?"

Ye Xuan felt as if struck by lightning.

But his inherent stubbornness wouldn't let him give up so easily.

For the rest of the day, he completely shed his pretense as a mortal and took Ying'er with him, flying through the sky on his sword.

Like a man possessed, he descended upon dozens of villages and relay stations across a five-hundred-li radius around that region.

Yet every piece of evidence showed that no Luoyun City existed at all.

Desperate for proof, his eyes bloodshot, Ye Xuan instantly teleported with Ying'er to the highest-level official library in Qingzhou.

Ignoring the guardians' attempts to stop him, his terrifying divine consciousness swept rudely across tens of thousands of bookshelves, forcing its way through nearly five thousand years of official local records.

Jade slips gleamed, pages flew like a blizzard.

As time slipped by, Ye Xuan's strikingly handsome face gradually clouded over with a suffocating gloom.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Whether in official histories, unofficial records, or the most obscure county annals, that place called "Luoyun City"—with the Huang Family compound, the wicked uncles, the local thugs and riffraff...

That hometown that Ying'er spoke of, filled with joys and sorrows, a place that had made his heart ache for decades—was like a flower in a mirror or the moon's reflection on water.

It simply did not exist in this world!

"Slap!"

Ye Xuan slammed shut the heavy copy of the Gazetteer of Qingzhou.

Under the terrifying force he could no longer control, the ancient text, made from hundred-year-old beast hide, crumbled into powder at his fingertips, drifting down in a fine mist.

A sensation of coldness, achingly familiar—so familiar it made his soul convulse in nausea—surged over him once again.

It was the feeling of being deceived.

Of being played for a fool, toyed with between someone's palms.

Ye Xuan slowly turned around.

At this moment, there was no trace of the gentle, warm aura around him anymore.

The Peerless Sword Emperor, who once single-handedly slew his way through the Nine Heavens with his sword and instilled fear in all the gods and buddhas, had returned with a body full of malice and despair.

In an instant, the surrounding air was completely sucked dry, and the temperature plummeted to an absolute freezing point. The defensive formations on the walls of the library let out sharp, cracking sounds of strain, as if they could no longer bear the pressure.

Ying'er was like a tattered rag doll whose soul had been drained, standing alone in the dark corner of the library, trembling like a leaf in a winter gale.

"Good... truly good."

"My beloved wife, my dear Ying'er."

Ye Xuan's voice was dreadfully low and hoarse, like a chilling wind blowing out from the deepest abyss of hell, accompanied by a bone-chilling, bitter laugh.

He walked step by step toward Ying'er in the corner. Each heavy footfall seemed to stomp on her heart, crushing it piece by piece.

"So you, too, have been deceiving me."

"Thud."

Ying'er's legs gave way, her last shred of strength draining away, and she fell to her knees in despair on the cold, blue-bricked floor.

At this moment, facing Ye Xuan's bloodshot eyes that looked as if they wanted to devour her alive, and the overwhelming, abyss-like pressure of his terrifying presence, she knew she could no longer fabricate anything.

"Husband... wuwuwu... I'm sorry..."

The fear that had been suppressed for decades burst forth like a dam breaking. Ying'er wept like rain, shaking violently as she sobbed, unable to speak in complete sentences:

"I was wrong... I've let you down... I shouldn't have lied to you... Husband, please don't look at me like that, I'm scared..."

"Boom!"

An immensely terrifying, destructive, and violent sword aura uncontrollably erupted from within Ye Xuan!

Inside the vast library, dozens of bookshelves forged from mystic iron instantly exploded into a cloud of sawdust, and countless precious ancient texts were reduced to ashes!

Ye Xuan's eyes were burning red as he stared at the woman before him—the woman who had accompanied him through two lifetimes and cared for him for thirteen years.

They had shared a bed, eaten at the same table, and whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears.

In his dreams, he had countless times felt grateful that the heavens had been kind to him. After enduring so much betrayal and bloodshed, he thought he had finally found an ordinary mortal woman who gave him her whole heart, without any scheming or ulterior motives.

He had believed that his battered, lonely boat had finally found a harbor to dock.

And what was the result?

Even her so-called tragic background, even the home village that had moved him, even the very reason she stood before him—all of it was a meticulously crafted lie!

"You are all deceiving me!"

Like a wounded beast cornered by despair, Ye Xuan suddenly bent down and grabbed Ying'er's delicate chin, forcing her to lift her tear-streaked face.

His fingers were pale from excessive force, and his eyes burned with shattered trust, hopeless sorrow, and overwhelming fury:

"Why?"

"Are you, like those other women, a pawn sent by some powerful force from the Upper Realm to spy on me?"

"Speak! Who sent you?"

Ying'er was terrified by his ferocious demeanor.

For thirteen years, even if she had accidentally burned the rice or torn his clothes while washing them, he would only coax her gently and warmly. She had never seen Ye Xuan so enraged. The murderous intent that could tear her apart at any moment—it was real!

"No... no!"

She sobbed uncontrollably, hiccuping through her tears, completely losing her composure as she shook her head frantically, rambling and screaming in her own defense:

“There’s no one else! I’m not a pawn! I never meant to hurt you!”

“I… I did deceive you… but I lied to you, I made things up, all for a good reason! Waaah…”

Ye Xuan laughed in sheer fury, a single tear of bitter mockery welling up in the corner of his eye, his voice dripping with savage irony:

“Deceived me for a good reason?”

“You played me for a fool for thirteen years, watched me break my heart over a past you fabricated, pitying me like an idiot—and that was for my own good, too?”

“Do you take me for a three-year-old child?”

He raised his other hand, and within his palm, a golden sword-light, powerful enough to annihilate an entire city, began to condense and crackle with violent energy.

One strike, and this woman who had deceived him would be obliterated, body and soul.

“It’s… it’s true!”

Feeling that overwhelming, world-ending threat of death, Ying’er somehow summoned a reckless, fearless brute strength from somewhere.

She jerked her chin free from Ye Xuan’s grip on her jaw, and instead of retreating, she threw herself forward, clinging to his leg like a stubborn piece of sticky candy.

Without caring for appearances, she smeared her snot and tears all over his spotless blue robe, tilted her head back, and shouted with her eyes squeezed shut:

“I… I made up that story back then—about my whole family dying, me ending up on the streets, selling my body to thugs for two bowls of stale noodles… That was all a lie!”

“The truth is… no one ever touched me!”

“My body is pure! I’m an innocent girl! My heart belongs only to you!”