The Night That Moved Only Myself, Toppling Cities

Ye Qingcheng’s wild joy instantly froze on her face, replaced by shock and confusion. “Why? Now that I have the Nine Yin Profound Charm Physique, I can absorb a person’s primordial yang from a distance and increase my cultivation. Combined with my illusions, those men won’t notice a thing. They’ll think they truly had relations with me.”

“If I tell my husband about this technique, couldn’t we work together as husband and wife, conceal the truth from heaven, and embark on the path to immortality?”

However, the Nine-Tailed Fox coldly shook its head, shattering her fantasy at once.

“Impossible. You cannot tell your husband the truth, because the Nine Yin Profound Charm Physique and the Heaven’s Desire Art are core inheritances of our Heaven’s Desire Sect in the spirit realm.”

“Once you sign the contract, a heavenly restriction will be planted in your soul. Regarding the fact that the Heaven’s Desire Art is an illusion technique, and that the truth behind absorbing primordial yang from a distance without touching the body is—you won’t be able to utter a single word! Even if you force yourself to write it down or try to transmit it through divine sense, the restriction will erase you instantly!”

Ye Qingcheng’s entire body shuddered, as though she had fallen into an icy abyss.

“If… if I can’t tell my husband the truth…”

Her voice began to tremble. In her mind appeared Ye Xuan’s gentle, clear eyes. “Then, in front of outsiders, when the illusion is activated… those men’s reactions…”

“That’s right.”

The Nine-Tailed Fox ruthlessly revealed the truth. “To outsiders, when the illusion is activated, the operation of the formation and cultivation technique will cause unbearable sounds to come from your room, along with strange phenomena caused by spiritual energy intermingling. Anyone who doesn’t know the truth will assume that you are having an affair with someone inside. And because of the restriction, you will never be able to defend yourself.”

“Your husband will misunderstand.” Ye Qingcheng bit her lip so hard that tears spilled from her eyes.

“He will inevitably misunderstand, because he is a man!”

The Nine-Tailed Fox’s voice mercilessly hammered at her soul. “There is no man in this world who could endure seeing his wife enter a room with other men again and again, hearing those kinds of sounds come from inside. His dignity will be trampled. He will go mad. He will collapse. He will become the greatest obstacle and burden on your path of cultivation!”

“So I advise you: for the sake of your great path, and to keep him from dying after suffering endless humiliation, divorce him immediately.”

After hearing the Nine-Tailed Fox’s verdict, Ye Qingcheng’s expression shifted repeatedly.

Shock, hesitation, pain, struggle…

She turned around and looked through the broken window lattice at Ye Xuan, who was sleeping inside.

That man was the only light in her dark life—the lifeline she had fought with everything she had to grasp.

“Leave him…”

Ye Qingcheng shook her head and staggered a few steps, but in an instant, her gaze became incomparably dark and obsessive, carrying a trace of eerie, almost pathological madness.

“No… My only obsession in cultivating immortality is to become a great cultivator and spend ten thousand years with my husband. If I can’t be with him, what use are eternal life and the great path?”

Ye Qingcheng looked at the Nine-Tailed Fox and spoke each word distinctly. “I will never give him up.”

The Nine-Tailed Fox gazed at her utterly obsessive expression and sighed helplessly. “Foolish beyond saving. He won’t be able to understand. He will certainly be driven insane by this endless betrayal. He will resent you and interfere with your cultivation. Since you refuse to divorce him, I’ll choose someone else.”

With that, the Nine-Tailed Fox turned to leave, the starlight around its body beginning to fade.

“Wait!”

Ye Qingcheng suddenly lunged forward and dropped to her knees with a thud.

At that moment, her reason was completely devoured by a sick possessiveness and distorted love. The corners of her mouth curled into a strange smile, and her eyes became terrifyingly fanatical and unhinged.

She had figured it out.

As long as she could preserve her physical purity, and as long as she could eventually lead Ye Xuan into eternal life, what did a little “suffering” and “misunderstanding” along the way matter?

Ye Xuan would suffer? Feel humiliated? Be in unbearable pain?

It didn’t matter.

He would get used to it eventually.

When the two of them stood at the peak of the great path one day, after living for ten thousand or even a hundred thousand years, Ye Xuan would look back on the past. He would surely understand her painstaking intentions. He would surely be grateful for the humiliation she had endured today.

She was the victim. She was bearing the injustice of being reviled for generations all by herself, all for the sake of their love!

As for Ye Xuan, he only needed to obediently let her protect him and lead him onto the path of immortality!

Even if he hated her to the bone right now, she would bind him tightly to her side and never let him go!

Ye Qingcheng raised her head. Her exquisite face wore a sickening, chilling smile as she spoke to the Nine-Tailed Fox with absolute resolve:

“I want the Nine Yin Profound Charm Physique, and I want my husband too!”

“Even if he misunderstands me, even if he hates me, as long as I can keep him alive and have him remain by my side forever, I will have no regrets!”

The next day, after obtaining the Nine Yin Profound Charm Physique and the Heaven’s Desire Art, Ye Qingcheng quietly slipped out of the shabby inn in the dead of night to look for isolated low-level rogue cultivators.

Deep in an alley, pink mist silently rose.

Within the illusion, those rogue cultivators revealed their ugliest sides, wildly writhing against empty air.

Ye Qingcheng stood several yards away, her gaze cold and disgusted. As she circulated the technique, she saw wisps of pure primordial yang being drawn out of the men’s bodies, transforming into the most violent energy as it poured into her dantian.

“Too slow… The primordial yang of these trash is far too impure.”

Looking at the slight increase in her cultivation, Ye Qingcheng frowned deeply.

At this rate, it would take her at least fifty years to reach Foundation Establishment. Wanting to accompany Ye Xuan through ten thousand lifetimes of immortality was nothing more than a foolish dream.

She turned her head toward the inn—the place where Ye Xuan was staying.

“Husband, for the sake of our future, I have to find a place with more abundant primordial yang and more gifted cultivators.”

A resolute glint flashed through her eyes.

Half a month later.

In a fragment of an ancient book at the marketplace, Ye Qingcheng found records concerning the “Hehuan Sect.”

It was a sacred ground of the demonic path, filled with experts. Its disciples cultivated the harmony of yin and yang, and the primordial yang contained within each of them was several times purer than that of ordinary rogue cultivators.

Thus, during an outing to gather medicinal herbs, she deliberately provoked a relatively weak demonic beast and lured the unsuspecting Ye Xuan toward an ancient, unstable teleportation formation she had surveyed in advance.

“Husband! Run! Get into that formation!”

Under Ye Xuan’s anxious, trusting gaze, the two of them were swallowed by the white light.

When they opened their eyes again, they were already within the territory controlled by the Hehuan Sect.

After entering the Hehuan Sect, Ye Qingcheng’s plan proceeded with extraordinary smoothness.

She passed the entrance test and deliberately released a trace of the aura of her Nine Yin Profound Charm Physique, instantly shaking the entire upper echelon of the sect.

She enjoyed the greedy looks in the elders’ eyes, because in hers, those lofty and powerful experts were nothing more than furnaces for increasing her cultivation.

“Next, I just need to attract the strongest livestock.”

Ye Qingcheng sneered inwardly. She understood perfectly how to toy with the balance between preserving her reputation and obtaining resources.

She deliberately “happened” to run into Zhao Tianba by the spirit lake.

That day, with her face veiled in gauze and her demeanor coy yet inviting, Ye Qingcheng used illusion magic to make Zhao Tianba see more than just an unparalleled beauty. To him, she was also a supreme cultivation cauldron capable of helping him break through to the next realm.

The news spread quickly.

Yet that stormy night had actually been Ye Qingcheng’s carefully orchestrated debut.

She knew Ye Xuan would suffer. She knew he would keep watch outside the door.

But within that pink soundproof barrier, the scene was entirely different.

Zhao Tianba and his lackeys knelt on the floor like two drugged, idiotic pigs, frantically performing ugly acts toward empty air while emitting nauseating gasps. Their minds had long since sunk into the ultimate illusion woven by the Heavenly Desire Art.

Ye Qingcheng, meanwhile, sat coldly in a grand chair, fully dressed.

With her eyes closed, she felt a tremendous amount of pure yang essence from the Foundation Establishment cultivator surge madly into her body.

Her cultivation rose steadily, while the burning heat of the love poison was instantly suppressed. The thrill of controlling everything and growing stronger at such speed was so intoxicating that she even felt the wails of Ye Xuan outside the door made for pleasant background music.

“Husband, look at how strong I’ve become.”

She murmured softly to herself. “Although your heart will break, although you’ll lose your dignity, as long as I become strong enough, I’ll be able to save your life. When I overcome my tribulation, you’ll thank me.”

The days that followed became Ye Qingcheng’s grand hunting festival.

One Zhao Tianba was no longer enough for her.

When the Great Elder announced in the main hall that she would be granted four Dao companions, she lowered her head and trembled, putting on the appearance of a frail woman being violated by overwhelming authority.

But only in the depths of his memories had Ye Xuan seen the truth:

She had secretly sent a message to the Great Elder, guiding the sect toward that decision.

She needed a legitimate excuse to drain the essence of those four men. At the same time, she needed the forces behind them to protect her and provide her with an endless supply of top-grade resources.

And so there were the flirtations by the spirit lake, and the cries of surprise in the rear mountain.

Every “betrayal” Ye Xuan witnessed was actually nothing more than a clumsy illusionary performance.

Li Changfeng thought he was embracing a fairy by the waist, when in reality he was holding a withered tree branch, while his primordial spirit was being violently extracted.

Wang Ba thought he was carrying the woman he loved on his back, when in fact he was carrying a heavy Soul-Suppressing Stone. The essence of his life was ebbing away amid Ye Qingcheng’s cold laughter.

What Ye Qingcheng enjoyed most was the exhilaration of deceiving everyone under heaven.

She watched those arrogant prodigies become crippled beneath her feet. She watched them offer countless spirit stones and magical treasures simply to curry favor with her.

Then she would take those spirit stones, stained with blood and vital essence, and give them as charity to Ye Xuan, who was humble as dust.

“Husband, these are high-grade spirit stones. Take them and use them to cultivate.”

At that moment, she genuinely believed herself to be noble. She thought she was using the malice of the entire cultivation world to nourish the “love” between herself and Ye Xuan.

She even thought: Look at me. I’m so beautiful, and so many men want to touch me, yet I’ve kept my body pure. I’ve worked so hard performing this act outside for your sake, and you still have the nerve to despise me?

This pathological self-righteousness sent her farther and farther astray on the road to becoming stronger.