It’s Not a Loan

As soon as the name left her lips, an eerie, icy wind swept through the dim cave dwelling. Even the few ever-burning lanterns flickered violently, nearly snuffing out.

Wu Lingfeng, who had been sitting silently in the corner like a clay or wood statue, felt her pupils contract to the size of pinpricks. Her heart slammed as if struck by a heavy hammer, and a deafening roar erupted in her mind.

Xiao Honglian?

In the current cultivation world, you might not know Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, but there was no way you had never heard of the name Xiao Honglian!

She was the Flame Emperor who had used her own body as a furnace, refined all the strange fires of the world into her Dao, butchered her way across the entire Southern Domain, and climbed to the top step by step on the bones of prodigies from countless ancient clans and top-tier sects.

She was the most monstrous, most maniacal, and most arrogantly unrivaled genius the cultivation world had seen in the past thousand years.

The Flame Alliance she founded was now the supreme overlord entrenched in the Southern Domain, commanding a host of powerful experts and countless alchemists under its banner. Its depth of heritage and terror of its strength were such that even the Great Xia Dynasty at its zenith would not dare provoke it lightly.

A slaughtering star like her. An unmatched sovereign like her...

Ye Xuan slowly set down his teacup.

He lifted his head, his gaze calm.

"I forgot her name a long time ago.

"But I have never forgotten Senior Sister's name, not once in all my reincarnations."

He paused, then shifted his gaze to the wrinkled old face before him. Warmth slowly crept into his eyes, a tenderness that was genuine.

"Lin Susu."

"You are the white moonlight in my memory."

Lin Susu was stunned.

Then, two streams of murky tears silently trickled down her wrinkled cheeks.

She had lived for centuries. She had waited for centuries. She thought she had long since ground those youthful feelings to dust, burying them deep in the sunless depths of this cave.

Yet now, the heart that had lain withered for hundreds of years... shattered in that instant, and was reborn in that same instant.

"Senior Sister is old..." she choked out, her voice full of sobs.

"Everyone grows old."

Ye Xuan reached out, gently and seriously, to wipe away her tears.

Wu Lingfeng sat two steps away, watching this scene. Something lodged in her throat, suffocating her. She could neither speak nor move.

That hand, wiping away tears—that gesture—she knew it all too well.

It was the kind of gentleness Ye Xuan showed only in the rarest of moments, to the rarest of people.

Light, casual, yet heartbreaking.

In the twenty years she had spent in Youzhou, she had cried more times than she could count.

Ye Xuan had never once wiped away her tears.

Three days later.

The tea had gone cold. The reminiscing was done.

Ye Xuan stood up. Without any preamble, without a hint of hesitation, and without the slightest embarrassment, he simply stretched out his right hand, palm up.

"Senior Sister, I came this time to ask for resources."

His tone was matter-of-fact, utterly unashamed, as if he were retrieving something he had long ago stored here.

"I'm stuck at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage in my cultivation reboot. I need a large quantity of heavenly materials and earthly treasures to break through to the Void Refining stage. Your place is the first stop on my route."

Lin Susu was taken aback. Then, an expression that was neither laugh nor cry surfaced on her aged face.

"You want them?" she asked softly.

"Yes, I want them. Not borrow them." Ye Xuan did not hesitate. "Borrowing means I'd have to pay it back, and that's a hassle. Wanting them—that's about ties of affection."

Lin Susu stared at him for a moment, and then, she suddenly laughed.

It was a sly, girlish laugh, as if the centuries of wear and tear were just a coat she could shrug off.

"If I give them to you, what's in it for me?"

Wu Lingfeng, sitting off to the side, discreetly perked up her ears.

She wanted to see just what Ye Xuan could possibly offer in exchange for the accumulated wealth of a Divine Union realm master.

Ye Xuan blinked those peach-blossom eyes of his, a mischievous smile curling at the corner of his lips. He replied with complete candor.

"There's nothing in it for you."

He paused, then added a line.

"Unless you want me to give you a kiss?"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Lin Susu threw her head back and laughed. She laughed until she shook, laughed until tears streamed down her face again, laughed until the dragon-head staff in her hand trembled along with her.

"Good! This is good! This is my Senior Brother! This is the Ye Xuan who, even if the sky were falling, would still first owe someone a favor!"

Without another word, she pulled an antique, unadorned storage ring off her finger. The ring was heavy, and when Wu Lingfeng's divine sense brushed against it, she could feel the sheer magnitude of wealth stored inside—enough to drive any major sect to madness.

This was Lin Susu's life's savings.

Slap.

She pressed the ring into Ye Xuan's palm.

"This is all I have. Take it! Take it all!"

Wu Lingfeng was utterly dumbfounded.

Three sentences.

With just three sentences, a Divine Union realm master had emptied her entire coffers.

She said nothing, just stared at the ring in Ye Xuan's palm, feeling her entire worldview collapse before her eyes.

But then, something even more incomprehensible happened.

Ye Xuan took the ring, swept his divine sense through it, and then—under Wu Lingfeng's flabbergasted gaze—he carefully picked out a few ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs and several bottles of top-grade pills. It barely amounted to a tenth of the total.

Then, he pushed the ring back.

"These are enough."

Lin Susu panicked. She grabbed his wrist, her voice carrying a rare hint of urgency. "Senior Brother! What do you mean by this? How can this little be enough for you?"

"It's enough," Ye Xuan said, his tone calm and brooking no argument. "If it's not, I can go ask elsewhere."

He placed the ring lightly back into her hand, closed her fingers over it, and looked up at her.

"Senior Sister, taking what I need—that's about ties of affection. But taking your retirement fund? That would be exploitation.

"I, Ye Xuan, am willing to live off a woman's softness, but I will never drain a widow's bowl."

In the cave dwelling, a long silence fell.

Lin Susu looked down at her hand, now closed around the ring that Ye Xuan had pressed back into her palm. Her eyes grew wet once more.

This time, she didn't cry aloud. She slowly put the ring away, and then spoke words that made something deep inside Wu Lingfeng suddenly tremble.

"Back then... if I had had the courage to confess to you..."

Ye Xuan raised one finger and gently pressed it against her withered lips.

"There is no back then."

He looked at her with a smile, his voice gentle, yet resolute beyond all doubt.

"Senior Sister is still so beautiful."

Lin Susu smiled.

She laughed, and laughed, and as she laughed, tears fell once more.

But these were different tears.

These were the tears of letting go.

Lin Susu personally escorted the three of them out of the cave, walking a hundred miles until their figures were swallowed by the sea of clouds. Only then did she stop.

In the distance, Wu Lingfeng's footsteps faltered. She felt the surge of energy from behind her.

It was a vast, churning wave of power. Not an explosive outburst, but a quiet, natural overflowing.

The shackles of the peak of the Divine Union realm shattered in that moment.

Lin Susu had broken through.

Wu Lingfeng turned her head mechanically.

Ye Xuan was humming a nameless tune, playing with the few spiritual herbs in his hand, his demeanor utterly careless. As if the pillar of qi shooting up into the sky behind him had nothing to do with him at all.

“She… broke through?” Wu Lingfeng heard her own hoarse voice asking, “Did you foresee this all along?”

“Pretty much.”

Ye Xuan shrugged, his tone light and casual:

“Her cultivation was stuck for three hundred years, but the root wasn’t in her cultivation base—it was in her heart demon.”

“And I am her heart demon.”

He tucked the medicinal herb into his storage pouch, lifted his head, and glanced at the distant figure. A faint, unreadable smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Once the heart demon is broken, everything naturally flows.”

“So…”

He tilted his head, those peach-blossom eyes falling unerringly on Wu Lingfeng’s face, as if asking idly, yet laced with meaning:

“Between people, some things—saying them and not saying them—are not the same.”

Wu Lingfeng froze, and instinctively looked away.

She didn’t know if he was implying something, nor how much he knew.

She just stared at the broken stones underfoot, feeling something burn quietly in her chest—scorching her throat until it grew hoarse, making her eyes sting with warmth—yet with no outlet to be found.

Ying’er ran over, tugging at Ye Xuan’s sleeve, and whispered softly, “Husband… that old grandmother, does she really like you?”

“Mm.”

“Then you…”

“I appreciate her feelings,” Ye Xuan said, ruffling Ying’er’s hair, his tone steady. “But appreciating doesn’t mean accepting. Those two things are separate.”

Ying’er let out a thoughtful “oh.”

Wu Lingfeng remained silent.

She just followed behind, staring at Ye Xuan’s retreating back, her heart caught between bitterness and sweetness.

He “appreciated” it.

He “wouldn’t accept” it.

Then, what about these eight hundred years—how did he see it?

She didn’t know the answer, and she dared not know.

She could only lower her head, stepping over withered grass and scattered stones, continuing to follow him forward, into that boundless, endless expanse.