Tushan Honghong Strikes

Ye Xuan's flying boat raced across the boundless pitch-black sea of clouds.

A sliver of setting sun at the horizon looked like a clump of congealed, slowly flowing black blood, staining the entire sky with a grim and oppressive hue.

Suddenly, a sickeningly sweet fragrance—cloying, yet laced with endless sorrow and morbid longing—crept like a parasite silently enveloping the entire flying boat.

"What’s happening?"

Wu Lingfeng gripped her spear tightly, her scarlet tassel exploding in the fierce wind. Her phoenix eyes narrowed instantly, murderous intent blazing, as she warily scanned every inch of space around them.

Ying'er, pale with fright, let out an almost soundless shriek and instinctively shrank behind Ye Xuan, her slender fingers clutching his robes until her knuckles turned white.

The blood-red sunset was suddenly veiled by a sickly pink hue.

Above, the sky let out a mournful groan of unbearable strain, as an invisible, heaven-reaching claw ripped through space itself.

Nine snow-white fox tails—each a thousand spans long, blotting out the sky and sun—cascaded madly down like nine inverted waterfalls of blood from the abyss.

They twisted and wove in the air, forming an impenetrable cage that pinned the flying boat firmly between heaven and earth.

Countless pink petals fell like a gory rain of blood, carrying a nauseatingly sweet, metallic stench, scattering in a frenzy.

At the center of this despairing downpour of flowers, a figure—exquisitely alluring yet exuding a bone-chillingly morbid aura—descended slowly.

She was a woman so breathtakingly beautiful that heaven and earth dimmed before her, so radiant even the sun and moon paled.

She wore a blood-red dress that trailed for several spans, fluttering amidst the flower rain like a blooming poppy—dazzling, eerie, impossible to look away from.

Her snow-white, flawless feet were bare as she stepped lightly through the void.

Her eyebrows were like mist-wrapped distant mountains, her lips like a cold plum about to bloom. At the corners of her eyes, a natural seduction gleamed, enough to shatter the souls of nine out of ten men and make them kneel at her hem.

But now—

Those peach-blossom eyes, meant to bewitch souls and ensnare all life—

Were riddled with bloodshot eyes,

The wild panic of three hundred sleepless years,

The gnawing remorse that had clung to her like a parasite for three centuries,

And a sick, insane love that had burned away all reason and spirit, cooked to madness in the purgatory of obsession and delirium.

Before she even touched the ground, her tears had already broken free.

Aimlessly, yet with unbearable precision, her gaze pierced through the flower rain and wind, locking onto Ye Xuan’s figure—standing tall and clear like a jade mountain.

The moment she saw him, her blood-streaked eyes erupted with a nauseating, twisted, manic joy and infatuation.

"Thump!"

She didn’t land with the grace expected of a cultivator at the Spirit Transformation stage.

The great Qingqiu Fox Demoness, Tushan Honghong—without even steadying herself, without so much as a glance at Wu Lingfeng or Ying’er—collapsed to her knees on the deck before Ye Xuan, utterly abandoning all dignity.

She gripped the hem of his snow-white robe with both hands, her delicate fingers—meant to toy with the world—trembling as she held on for dear life, as if letting go would hurl her back into an abyss of endless doom.

She buried her face deep into the fabric, tearing sobs from the depths of her chest. She was not a great demon; she was a pitiful soul abandoned by the world, fallen into utter despair:

"Husband... Husband!"

"I finally found you!"

"I have searched for you for three hundred years!"

Her cries were shrill, hoarse, heart-wrenching—the kind of agony that only centuries of torment could produce.

Petals fell silently among her disheveled red hair.

Yet—

Hearing each cry of "Husband" pierce the air,

Looking at this tear-streaked, impossibly beautiful face now groveling in the mud,

Ye Xuan’s previously calm, dead eyes held not a flicker of warmth.

He tilted his head slightly, as if examining a repulsive corpse, twisting his lips into a bone-chillingly cold smile.

In that single glance, deep within Ye Xuan’s mind, a seal on the memories of the Six Paths Reincarnation Heavenly Scripture was broken.

A long-buried, utterly humiliating memory—drenched in a thick, bloody smell—flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern.

That life, he was a destitute scholar, weak and helpless, with clear, innocent eyes.

On his way to the capital for the imperial exams, he was forcibly taken by that fox demoness, Tushan Honghong, as a mere plaything.

He was chained by the neck with binding restraints, locked away in her palace, becoming the most insignificant, most laughable of the three thousand male concubines in her harem.

"Honghong, I don’t want riches or honor. I don’t seek immortality or longevity,"

The memory flashed—a thin, frail scholar kneeling on the cold jade steps, gripping her skirt, his voice trembling with despair and longing for pure love:

"Just send away your other men, let us live as husband and wife—only the two of us, forever, okay? Just look only at me..."

But Tushan Honghong, in that moment, lounged arrogantly on her splendid throne, two handsome young demons snuggling in her arms, kissing her fingertips.

She looked down at the beggarly scholar at her feet, her delicate lips curling with the teasing cruelty of one petting a dog:

"Forever, just us two? Hehehe..." Her laughter was bright yet merciless: "You, a mortal weakling who hasn’t even reached the Qi Refining stage—what right do you have to demand anything from me?"

"The King will indulge you if it pleases her. That is your good fortune. If you don’t know your place..."

She kicked his hand away coldly: "You’re not even fit to lick their shoes. Get back, wash yourself, and wait until I’m in a good mood to call for you again."

The scholar’s heart shattered to dust in that moment, under that careless kick.

He looked at the smirking male concubines, at the lofty Demon Emperor. All his hope, all his love, turned into a bottomless black hole.

In the end, he picked up a piece of broken porcelain from the floor. Without a moment’s hesitation, he drove it deep into his own throat.

"Riiip!"

Scalding blood, like a fountain of despair, splattered all over the white jade steps—and across Tushan Honghong’s face, which, moments ago, held only mockery, now frozen in shock.

The scholar collapsed in the pool of blood, staring at her, gasping out his final curse through a leaking throat:

"If love cannot be pure, I would rather go to the Yellow Springs... Tushan Honghong, in all my lives, I renounce you forever!"

The shards of memory scattered like crushed glass in the depths of his divine sea.

On the flying boat,

Ye Xuan’s deep eyes slowly focused again, emerging from that memory.

He looked down.

Gazed at the woman weeping bitterly at his feet, her face buried in his robe, her tears and snot running wild.

And then—

The corners of his mouth slowly curled into a smile.

It was not gentleness, nor was it letting go—nor was it the bittersweet reunion of two souls.

It was a smile that was cold to the extreme, mocking to the extreme, a smile that sent a chill down one's spine.

"So it's you."

Ye Xun spoke at last, his voice slow and leaden, devoid of any tremor or warmth:

"Tushan Honghong."