Pitiful people must have something hateful about them.

However.

Under torture so extreme that it would make even the toughest, iron-blooded man cry out for his mother and beg for death, Ye Qingcheng hanging in midair did not make a sound.

That was right—she did not utter the slightest scream, nor did she plead for mercy even once.

It was as though her nerves had been stripped of the ability to feel pain. She simply allowed her body to shift again and again between that of an unparalleled beauty and a terrifying skeleton.

Even when she became a skeleton and the agony made her body convulse like a shrimp struck by electricity, even when the itching during the reconstruction of her flesh made every muscle in her body tremble violently, she merely bit down hard on her lips until they were drenched in blood. She refused to make a sound.

Not only that, but her eyes—bloodshot from the pain—remained fixed on Ye Xuan, seated upon the throne.

There was no fear in her gaze. No resentment.

What it held was something that had become utterly pathological and twisted to the extreme…

Ecstasy and infatuation.

She stared, enraptured, at Ye Xuan’s cold and handsome face, feeling the essence and vitality within her body flow into his through invisible chains.

In her world, this was not torture at all.

This was fusion.

She was filling Ye Xuan, bit by bit, with her own flesh and blood, her soul, and her pain.

“My husband is absorbing my strength… My essence is flowing through my husband’s meridians…”

Ye Qingcheng murmured frantically and hysterically in the depths of her heart. On her face—which shifted between youth and old age—there appeared a horrifying, intoxicated smile, one that resembled the ecstasy of a climax.

As long as she could be needed by him, as long as she could feel the power he inflicted upon her, she would gladly accept even being drained dry as fertilizer.

She was even afraid that if she cried out, she might disturb Ye Xuan’s enjoyment of his cultivation and cause him to stop this gift.

At one side of the great hall.

Shen Qingshuang had just entered the main hall with a cup of premium spirit tea when she happened to witness this terrifying scene.

Clang!

Her delicate hand trembled, and the teacup nearly slipped from her grasp and shattered on the floor.

She stood there blankly, her cool eyes staring in disbelief at the woman in midair who was repeatedly cycling between life and death, yet still smiling at Ye Xuan with infatuation.

A bone-chilling cold surged from the soles of Shen Qingshuang’s feet straight to the crown of her head.

This was no longer mere torture. It was the twisting of a person’s soul into the most indescribable kind of monster.

In the end, Shen Qingshuang could not hold herself back. The final trace of compassion between women compelled her to step forward.

She gently placed the teacup on the jade table, cast a complicated glance at Ye Qingcheng—who was no longer even recognizable as human—then turned her head toward Ye Xuan, who was cultivating with his eyes closed. Parting her red lips, she sighed with reluctant pity.

“Husband… why must you do this?”

Shen Qingshuang’s voice was soft, carrying a tremor she herself did not notice. “To be trapped in this cycle, unable to live and unable to die… isn’t it a little too cruel?”

At Shen Qingshuang’s words, Ye Xuan slowly opened his eyes.

The black vortex above his head paused slightly, and the terrifying suction vanished in an instant.

Thud!

Without the force drawing her upward, Ye Qingcheng’s delicate body—which had only just regained its youth, yet had been drained of every ounce of strength—crashed heavily onto the hard jade tiles like a limp mass of flesh.

Ye Xuan paid no attention to Ye Qingcheng on the floor. Instead, he turned his head, his deep and indifferent gaze settling on Shen Qingshuang’s face.

“Cruel?”

Ye Xuan savored the word with a faint, mocking smile, his eyes filled with a cold understanding of human nature.

He slowly rose and walked down the steps from the throne, coming to stand before Ye Qingcheng, who lay sprawled on the floor like a dead dog.

“Qingshuang, you’re still too naive. Do you really think I’m the one torturing her?”

Ye Xuan let out a cold laugh.

The next moment—

Smack!

A crisp, resounding slap suddenly exploded through the great hall.

Without the slightest warning, Ye Xuan raised his hand and struck Ye Qingcheng hard across her freshly restored, tender cheek.

The slap was delivered with tremendous force. He had not used any spiritual power, yet it carried absolute humiliation and brutality.

Ye Qingcheng was sent spinning across the floor like a top. The corner of her mouth split open at once, and several bloodstained teeth flew out amid a spray of blood.

Half of her face swelled high, stamped with a vivid purple handprint.

Shen Qingshuang sucked in a sharp breath and instinctively took half a step back.

Yet what happened next was even more horrifying.

Ye Qingcheng, who had been sent flying by the slap, showed not the slightest trace of anger or grievance. Instead, her eyes erupted with an utterly terrifying radiance, like a stray dog that had just been given a bone.

She did not even bother to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth. Using both her hands and feet, she began crawling frantically across the floor. Dragging her body—which had just endured hundreds of cycles between life and death and was weak to the extreme—she returned to Ye Xuan’s feet at an astonishing speed.

Ye Xuan looked down at her from above, his eyes filled with ridicule and contempt. He pointed at the docile woman by his feet and sneered at Shen Qingshuang.

“Look closely. Doesn’t she enjoy this?”

Those vicious and humiliating words only excited Ye Qingcheng further.

“Yes, Master!”

Ye Qingcheng hurriedly nodded like a chicken pecking at grain, tears of emotion even shimmering in her eyes.

She raised her swollen, bloodstained face and wrapped both arms tightly around Ye Xuan’s leg. In a fawning, near-manic voice, she spoke rapidly.

“As long as it is something Master grants me, Qingcheng loves it all! Master, don’t stop—keep draining me! As long as Master is happy, even if you grind me into minced meat, Qingcheng will consider it the highest honor!”

Seeing Ye Qingcheng’s utterly depraved appearance—having lost every shred of dignity and humanity, and regarding such torture as the greatest glory—Shen Qingshuang felt as though her entire worldview had been shattered.

Ye Qingcheng clung tightly to Ye Xuan’s leg, afraid that because of Shen Qingshuang’s plea, he might take away her right to be abused.

She lifted her head, her eyes filled with pathological pride and obsessive determination, and hurriedly said,

“I deserve ten thousand deaths! I did things to Master in the past that I should never have done, and I am willing to accept any punishment!”

At this point, she seemed to have seized hold of the last straw keeping her alive. Her voice suddenly rose, and within those crazed eyes burned the final trace of a bizarre pride.

“But, Master, you have to believe me—I’m pure! I have always been pure, from beginning to end!”

Seeing her disgusting appearance—clinging to that “chastity tablet” even with death at hand—disgust nearly overflowed from Ye Xuan’s eyes.

But he did not lash out. With a lunatic like this, the best torment was not killing her. It was to grant her a false hope, then leave her hanging forever above the abyss.

Ye Xuan impatiently furrowed his brows and waved his hand as though shooing away a fly. In an extremely perfunctory tone, yet one that carried a hint of condescending charity, he said coldly:

“I understand. When the time is right, I will favor you.”

As soon as those words were spoken, Ye Qingcheng froze as if struck by a binding spell.

Then, an indescribable ecstasy erupted from the depths of her eyes like a volcano exploding!

Favor her?

Her master had said… he would favor her?

To Ye Qingcheng, those words were even more exhilarating than ascending to immortality!

She had endured so much torment and passed through so many cycles of life and death, been trampled into the mud and treated like an animal beneath even pigs and dogs—all for Ye Xuan’s recognition, all so that she could truly give her untouched self to him.

“Yes! Yes! Qingcheng will wait! Qingcheng will obediently wait for you, Master!”

Ye Qingcheng trembled violently with excitement, tears and mucus streaming down her face.

She hurriedly nodded, then obediently curled up and knelt at Ye Xuan’s feet.

She pressed her cheek tightly against the cold jade tiles, slowing even her breathing as much as possible, terrified that the slightest displeasure on Ye Xuan’s part might make him take back his promise.

At this moment, where was there even the slightest trace of the demonic overlord she had once been? She was nothing more than a pitiable wretch lost in self-delusion and an illusory lie.