Everything Is Part of the Plan

"The... True Phoenix Heart?"

Xia Lengyue was completely stunned. Her pupils constricted sharply, and she felt as if all the blood had been drained from her body, leaving her rigid and rooted to the spot.

The True Phoenix Heart was the peerless supreme treasure hidden within her, the very thing that had led to her being besieged by the righteous and demonic paths of the cultivation world on Broken Soul Cliff a hundred years ago, and to the betrayal of countless of her former close confidants.

She had seized the True Phoenix Heart several hundred years prior, but over all those centuries, the heart had done nothing more than grant her a negligible regenerative ability. She had never found the true method to unlock its power, and it had lain dormant inside her like a lifeless object.

"You... what do you mean..." Xia Lengyue's lips trembled violently, and an unprecedented, extreme dread coiled around her heart like a venomous snake.

Ye Xuan suddenly threw his head back and laughed, his laughter echoing through the cramped, empty cell.

"Hahaha! Xia Lengyue, oh Xia Lengyue, I really should thank you from the bottom of my heart!"

Ye Xuan snapped his head down, his gaze locking tightly on her chest. "If not for you, who would have spent these long hundreds of years tending to and nurturing this True Phoenix Heart for me with such meticulous care?"

"Now, it is time for what belongs to me to return to its rightful owner."

A cruel, icy glint flashed in Ye Xuan's eyes. He abruptly stretched out his right hand, fingers curled into a claw, and made a vicious grabbing motion aimed directly at Xia Lengyue's chest from a distance.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

The next second, a sharp, inhuman scream of utter agony tore out of Xia Lengyue.

Her entire body was seized by an invisible giant hand, wrenched off the ground and suspended mid-air. Her limbs convulsed in torment, and the thick black mystic iron chains binding her were pulled taut, emitting a teeth-grating creaking sound.

From her chest, a blinding mass of crimson-gold light burst forth. The light burned like raging fire, carrying a terrifying heat capable of incinerating the Eight Desolate Realms.

Accompanied by Xia Lengyue's heart-rending shrieks, a fist-sized heart wreathed in crimson flames, looking like a living, beating entity, was slowly, bit by bit, ripped out from the flesh and blood of her body.

"Squelch! Squelch!"

Under the force of this terrifying deprivation, Xia Lengyue's meridians and blood vessels snapped inch by inch. Blood gushed out like fountains from all seven of her facial orifices.

"No... don't... that's mine... that's my True Phoenix Heart!"

Xia Lengyue's features were twisted beyond recognition by pain. She stretched out her hands desperately, trying to push the heart that was pulling away from her back into her chest, but her hands passed straight through the crimson-gold phantom, completely useless.

"Thank you for your service these past few hundred years." Ye Xuan sneered, and yanked his right hand backward hard.

Whoosh!

The True Phoenix Heart, burning with crimson-gold flames, turned into a streak of light and landed steadily in the palm of Ye Xuan's hand.

Its searing heat did not harm Ye Xuan in the slightest. Instead, it was like a docile pet, bouncing merrily in his grasp.

Thud!

Without the True Phoenix Heart to sustain her, Xia Lengyue crumpled to the cold stone ground like a tattered doll drained of all life.

"Pfft!"

She spat out a mouthful of black blood mixed with chunks of internal organs, and her face turned deathly pale, her aura fading to utter ruin.

What filled her with even greater terror was her cultivation base.

As the True Phoenix Heart was torn away, the pride and joy of her cultivation, the vast sea of mystic power that had filled her, began to plummet like a breached flood.

Mid-Demise Stage... Early Demise Stage... Peak Transcendence Tribulation Stage!

In the blink of an eye, the immense mystic power inside her had dried up by more than half. Her realm had fallen straight from the lofty heights of the Demise Stage all the way down to the Transcendence Tribulation Stage, and the downward spiral did not show any signs of stopping.

"No... my cultivation... my mystic power..."

Xia Lengyue felt the draining of her strength in utter despair. She lifted her head sharply, staring fixedly at the beating True Phoenix Heart in Ye Xuan's palm. Her eyes were wide with uncomprehending shock and madness. "Impossible! This can't be! The True Phoenix Heart fused with my flesh, blood and soul centuries ago! It became my very own life-bound treasure! How could you rip it out so easily? What did you do to it?"

"Your life-bound treasure? That is the most ridiculous joke I have ever heard." Ye Xuan looked at the dazzling True Phoenix Heart in his palm, a look of rapture crossing his face.

He slowly curled his fingers around it, and smirked coldly at Xia Lengyue. "Do you ever wonder why that Lotus-Root Incarnation chose to die right in your arms back then, on Broken Soul Cliff? Why it let all its blood spill directly over the center of your chest?"

Xia Lengyue's entire body jolted, her face draining of all color.

Ye Xuan's smile turned eerie and sinister. "Because that Lotus-Root Incarnation carried within it one drop of my life-origin blood. The moment that drop of blood seeped into your body as the incarnation perished, the True Phoenix Heart had already been branded with an indelible mark that belonged to me."

Ye Xuan stepped slowly in front of Xia Lengyue, looking down at her from above, his eyes filled with unmasked mockery.

"Xia Lengyue, listen to me carefully. The True Phoenix Heart has always had only one true master, and that is me. You? You were nothing more than a tool I picked at random, to nurture this heaven and earth supreme treasure for me all these years."

"A tool?" Xia Lengyue felt as if she had been struck by a thunderbolt, her entire body trembling violently.

Ye Xuan smiled faintly, and explained with deliberate patience. "Do you have any idea how harsh, how troublesome the conditions are to ripen a heaven and earth treasure of the True Phoenix Heart's caliber, from its seedling state to full maturity?"

He held up two fingers, waggling them right in front of Xia Lengyue's eyes. "It not only requires its host to supply a massive amount of mystic power and life essence as nourishment, far more than you could ever imagine. More importantly, it needs to be watered with one extremely special type of emotion. That is the emotion of utmost regret and despair."

"Only a soul drowning in remorse, agony, and tormented day and night can make the True Phoenix Heart truly mature!"

Ye Xuan's smile grew wild and frenzied. "And you, Xia Lengyue? The woman who betrayed her husband, then watched him die trying to save you? You are the most perfect, most fitting tool in the entire world! Hahaha!"

Ye Xuan's wild laughter echoed through the dungeon, thudding against Xia Lengyue's eardrums.

She lay prone on the ground, her eyes hollow and empty.

So... this was the truth.

The hundreds of years of endless weeping she had endured, the path she had taken that led her astray into the demonic path driven by her regret, the countless living beings she had slaughtered searching for a way to resurrect Ye Xuan...

All those emotions, all that suffering, in Ye Xuan's eyes, was nothing more than fertilizer to water this True Phoenix Heart.

Her grief, her regret, even her laughable, foolish love, had all been nothing but a pre-planned part of his scheme.