You Once Said You Would Betray the World for Me

Wu Lingxiao straddled him, both hands clamped tightly around his neck as she cursed him viciously. “Ye Xuan! It’s all because of your [One Conquest, Eternal Conquest] that I’ve endured suffering beyond imagination! Eight hundred years… Eight hundred years! I went from being the lofty Female Emperor to this inhuman, ghostly state!”

“You caused all of this. Do you really intend to take no responsibility?”

The more she cursed, the harder she squeezed. Her nails dug into the side of his neck, and blood seeped between her fingers.

Golden flames raged across her body, scorching her mercilessly. The veins at her temples throbbed from the pain, yet she stubbornly refused to let go.

Pinned beneath her, Ye Xuan showed no weakness. He sneered coldly, his voice hoarse yet filled with utter disdain and mockery. “You’re not a virgin. Why the hell should I take responsibility for you?”

Those words completely ignited Wu Lingxiao’s fury.

She let out a shriek and lunged at him like a madwoman. The two of them wrestled on the bed like a pair of brawling spouses from the mortal world.

Ye Xuan seized a large handful of her hair, pulling so hard that her scalp went numb and tears nearly welled in her eyes. In turn, she raked bloody scratches across his face, yet his gray-white eyes remained filled with cold, furious anger.

“Ye Xuan! You devil! You have no right to despise me!”

Wu Lingxiao panted heavily, her hair disheveled over her shoulders. The normally imposing face of the emperor was now a complete mess, yet it carried an almost obsessive, lovesick determination.

She swung at him again, but Ye Xuan dodged to the side. The two of them rolled toward the other side of the bed, the chains tangling even more tightly around them.

Before long, they had exhausted their strength and temporarily stopped fighting.

Wu Lingxiao sat astride his waist, her chest heaving violently. Tears glimmered in her eyes, mingling with her fury.

She glared down at Ye Xuan, her voice edged with hysteria. “You devil! You have no right to despise me! You’ve reincarnated countless times—how many women have you had? Do you think I don’t know about all your sordid affairs?”

Ye Xuan lay on the bed, his cheeks swollen and reddened, yet the corner of his mouth curled into a contemptuous sneer.

He panted for breath, his gray-white eyes staring straight into hers. His voice was calm, but every word cut like a blade. “You’ve lived until now and reincarnated countless times as well. You simply don’t remember. We’re only counting this lifetime between the two of us. I have never wronged you. You’re the one who betrayed me. Eight hundred years ago, when you were rolling around with your lover in Elysian Heaven, did you ever think of me?”

A flicker of guilt crossed Wu Lingxiao’s eyes. Complicated emotions surged through her like a tide, making her chest tighten.

The golden flames seized the opportunity to burn even more fiercely. She gave a muffled groan of pain, but immediately shouted, “Ye Xuan, don’t pretend you’re innocent! In any case, I’m the only one who can undo your [One Conquest, Eternal Conquest] now! You and I are destined to be entangled for the rest of our lives! My Temporal Dao Body can suppress it—and it can also make you unable to leave me!”

Ye Xuan’s expression remained disdainful, his gray-white eyes filled with mockery.

He let out a cold laugh, his low voice carrying undisguised disgust. “Say whatever you want. I still don’t want a used woman.”

“A used woman?” Wu Lingxiao flew into a total rage. She shrieked and lunged at him, and the two of them began fighting once more.

The sleeping chamber rang with the dull thuds of their struggle, the clanging of chains, and the furious panting and curses of the two combatants.

Her imperial robes had long since been scattered across the floor. Her snow-white skin was covered in scratches and red marks, while Ye Xuan’s black-and-gold robe had been torn to shreds, his body layered with old and new wounds. Yet he still refused to bow his head.

Wu Lingxiao straddled him, both hands pressing hard against his chest, her fingernails digging into his flesh. Her voice was thick with tears, yet utterly frenzied.

“Ye Xuan! You damned fiend! I hate you… I wish I could kill you… but I can’t bear to let you go… Why did you have to force me this far?!”

Pinned beneath her, Ye Xuan struggled for breath, but still let out a cold laugh. Blood-colored patterns flickered faintly deep within his gray-white eyes.

“Because you’re not worthy. Get off me!”

The two of them continued wrestling on the bed, fury and desire, hatred and love weaving together into an impenetrable web that shrouded the entire bedchamber in a stifling, chaotic atmosphere.

Wu Lingxiao panted heavily, her hair disheveled and plastered to her sweat-damp cheeks.

She gazed at Ye Xuan’s handsome face, now stained with blood. Deep in her heart, the half that had been dyed red by [One Conquest, Eternal Conquest] began to ache again.

Golden flames mercilessly scorched her soul, making every movement bring pain like a tearing wound.

Yet she stubbornly refused to stop, like a drowning person desperately clinging to the last piece of driftwood before her.

“Ye Xuan… Don’t even think about escaping…”

She murmured in a low voice, its sickly tenderness instantly twisting into rage. She struck him across the face once more.

Ye Xuan caught her by the wrist. The two of them rolled together again, while the bedchamber echoed with their panting and curses.

This battle raged from midnight until dawn.

The silk sheets on the imperial bed had long since been shredded into strips, and the runes carved into the surrounding walls had grown dim from the shock waves.

At last, Wu Lingxiao exhausted her strength and collapsed limply against his chest. Tears slid down her cheeks, mingling with blood as they dripped onto his body.

She murmured softly, “Why… Why are you so determined not to want me?”

Ye Xuan lay on the bed, his gray-white eyes terrifyingly calm.

Staring at the ceiling, he replied coldly, “Because you’re filthy.”

Wu Lingxiao’s body jolted violently at his words.

The golden flame seemed to have received some kind of signal. It burned even deeper, causing such agony that she nearly fainted.

But she bit down hard on her lip and refused to show weakness. Instead, she buried her face in the crook of his neck, her voice choked with tears yet still carrying an emperor’s domineering authority.

“I don’t care… I’m not letting go… In this life or the next, you can only belong to me…”

Smack!

Another crisp slap rang out, leaving a fresh, bloody mark across Wu Lingxiao’s right cheek.

“Get off me, you filthy slut!” Ye Xuan shouted furiously.

“Ye Xuan! Do you truly think I wouldn’t dare kill you?”

Wu Lingxiao straddled Ye Xuan’s waist, both hands clamped tightly around his neck, her eyes red as though weeping blood.

Her hair, normally groomed to perfection and symbolic of supreme imperial authority, now hung in disarray over her shoulders. A few strands had even been stuck to the corner of her mouth by sweat and blood, making her look both wretched and eerily alluring.

Choked by her grip, Ye Xuan’s face flushed, the veins along his neck bulging. Yet there was not the slightest trace of submission or fear in his gray-white eyes.

“Then kill me…”

Ye Xuan forced a hoarse voice through clenched teeth, a cruel smile even curling at the corners of his mouth. “Go on! Do it, Wu Lingxiao... If you’ve got the nerve, strangle me today. Once I’m dead, you’ll spend the rest of your life clinging to that pathetic need for control of yours, rotting away on your throne in loneliness and madness!”

“You!”

Wu Lingxiao’s delicate body trembled violently with rage. Her hands tightened instinctively around his neck, but whenever Ye Xuan’s breathing began to weaken, a bone-deep terror surged from the depths of her heart like a tidal wave, forcing her to loosen her grip in despair.

She couldn’t bear to do it.

Even though this man humiliated her with the most vicious and filthy words, even though he repeatedly trampled the dignity of an emperor beneath his feet, she still couldn’t bear to lose him!

“Say that again!”

Wu Lingxiao’s voice emerged through clenched teeth, trembling as though fractured.

Her phoenix eyes—once capable of seeing through the life and death of all creation, cold and sharp as ice—were now filled with a madness born of grievance and resentment.

Ye Xuan lay sprawled across the disordered imperial bed. Though he was imprisoned and blood stained the corner of his mouth, his gray, lifeless eyes held only a heart-rending indifference.

He looked at her as though she were nothing more than a clown putting on a pathetic act. He could not even be bothered to feel anger toward her—only pure, instinctive disgust.

“I said...”

Ye Xuan’s voice was hoarse, but every word was a blade, stabbing precisely into Wu Lingxiao’s most sensitive pride.

“You, Wu Lingxiao, are nothing but a filthy, worn-out whore whom countless men have used. Even if you put on a dragon robe and sit upon the imperial throne, you still can’t hide that debased, courtesan’s air rotten to the bone.”

“Slap!”

A heavy slap struck Ye Xuan across the face.

Wu Lingxiao’s hand trembled violently. She stared at Ye Xuan’s face as he frowned slightly from the pain yet still refused to beg for mercy. The emotions twisted by [One Conquest, Eternal Conquest] erupted within her heart like a volcano.

“I give you resources! I give you everything in this world that cultivators dream of!”

She roared, tears spilling from her eyes at last and sliding down her flushed cheeks. “When you were trying to please Me, you never spoke like this! When you knelt at My feet, you said I was the only one you would ever love, that you were willing to turn your back on the entire world for Me! Have you fed all those words to the dogs?”