Since he didn’t love Ye Jiuhuang, why was he marrying her? It had to be a political marriage!
It had to be because the Sword God Palace and Ye Jiuhuang had coerced him with threats and temptations!
At that moment, Xiao Honglian’s imagination ran wild.
The eyes that had been washed by tears suddenly lit up again.
She lunged forward, clutching Ye Xuan’s robe with both hands. She raised her stunning, tear-streaked face, her voice filled with a sickening mixture of ecstasy and desperation.
“Since you don’t love her… then… then what about us…?”
She wanted to say, Then let’s start over.
Since you don’t love her, there must still be a place for me in your heart.
I love you more than she does. I can spend the rest of my life making it up to you.
However.
Before she could finish, Ye Xuan interrupted her mercilessly, his voice cold to the extreme.
“But…”
Ye Xuan slowly lowered his head and looked into those eyes that had just rekindled with hope. The corner of his mouth curled into a cruel smile.
He was like the cruelest executioner in existence. He had personally given his prey a sliver of hope, only to use the dullest blade to sever and crush that hope bit by bit.
“I don’t love you either.”
“Besides, you’re not even worthy of being compared with Ye Jiuhuang.”
Ye Xuan deliberately drew out his words. The disdain and contempt in his eyes sent a bone-chilling shiver through Xiao Honglian.
“Ye Jiuhuang is pure and unsullied, untouched by the mortal world. From the moment she was born, she had remained completely clean. Her body and her heart have been touched by no one but me.”
“So, although I don’t love her enough yet, I will gradually come to love her. Because I like her purity. I like her coldness, as pristine as snow.”
As he spoke, Ye Xuan suddenly bent down and seized Xiao Honglian by the chin, forcing her to look directly into his mocking eyes.
“And what about you, Junior Sister?”
“For a few pills and a few sweet words, you willingly stripped off your clothes, married another man, and writhed beneath Xiao Huo, becoming that man’s plaything for hundreds of years.”
Every word Ye Xuan uttered was like a resounding slap, lashing across Xiao Honglian’s face and smashing the sliver of hope that had just risen within her to pieces.
“If you were me, and you had to choose between a pure and chaste goddess who was utterly devoted to you, and a secondhand woman who had once abandoned you—a woman already used by another man…”
Ye Xuan suddenly released her and shoved Xiao Honglian away as if she were garbage, his voice cold as ice.
“Which one would you choose?”
If his words before had merely tormented her spirit, then this blatant humiliation—ripping open the wound she least wanted to face—drove Xiao Honglian nearly insane.
Pure and chaste!
Married to another man!
A used-up woman!
Those words were like several towering, impassable mountains crashing down upon Xiao Honglian’s spine.
This time, she was completely stunned.
Her mouth hung open as she stared blankly at Ye Xuan. A rasping “guh-guh” sound came from her throat, yet she could not utter a single word in rebuttal.
She tried to speak, but stopped herself. Her lips trembled violently.
She wanted to say, Yes, my body once belonged to Xiao Huo, but for all these thousands of years, I have remained faithful to you!
Do you know how much I sacrificed to kill him? My heart has belonged to you alone for a long time!
But now, those explanations seemed so pale and powerless, so laughable.
Yes. If any normal man were faced with a pure and chaste goddess on one side, and on the other, a secondhand woman who had once abandoned him for another man, who would choose the latter?
What did she have with which to compete against Ye Jiuhuang? She wasn’t even qualified to compete!
Ye Xuan watched her look as though her parents had died, her entire mental world collapsing around her. His eyes remained utterly unmoved.
He clasped his hands behind his back and turned around, presenting his back to Xiao Honglian. In a calm voice that sounded like a final verdict, he said:
“So put away those ridiculous fantasies of yours. In my eyes, you have no past and no future. You are nothing more than my junior sister.”
“Other than this faint bond as fellow disciples, there is nothing left between us.”
Silence.
A deathly silence.
Within the void, the only sounds were the roaring churn of the sea of clouds and Xiao Honglian’s heavy, despairing breaths.
After several dozen breaths had passed in utter stillness—
“Ah!”
A scream of unimaginable anguish suddenly burst from Xiao Honglian’s throat, as though she were trying to vomit out her very soul.
Her entire body trembled violently. Like a beggar who had gone completely mad, she crawled toward Ye Xuan without caring about anything else and wrapped both arms around his legs from behind.
She pressed her face tightly against his leg. Tears and mucus mingled with blood, staining Ye Xuan’s spotless white robes.
She had broken down!
She could no longer maintain even the slightest shred of the Flame Emperor’s dignity. The love, regret, and unbearable agony that had been buried within her for thousands of years poured out like a breached flood.
“I was wrong… Senior Brother… I truly know that I was wrong…”
Xiao Honglian wailed at the top of her voice. Her voice had gone completely hoarse, every word carrying tears of blood.
“I was blind back then! I thought Xiao Huo could lead me to the supreme path. I thought he was the man destined for me… But it wasn’t until the moment you died that I realized the person I loved most had always been you!”
“For these thousands of years, there hasn’t been a single day when I didn’t regret it! Every night when I close my eyes, I see the scene of Xiao Huo smashing your heavenly crown!”
“I cultivated like a madwoman. I slaughtered Xiao Huo’s entire clan!”
She clung desperately to Ye Xuan, as if he would vanish from her world forever the moment she let go.
“I established the Flame Emperor’s legacy and traveled throughout the Three Thousand Dao Provinces, all so I could find even a trace of your remnant soul! In all these thousands of years, I never let another man touch even a finger of me—not a single one!”
“Senior Brother, I truly love you! I love you more than Ye Jiuhuang ever could! Ye Jiuhuang doesn’t understand what it means to lose someone. She doesn’t understand this kind of love that pierces straight through the bones! Please, for the sake of all the suffering I’ve endured for you over these years, look at me again, won’t you? Please don’t abandon me…”
She wept until her heart and lungs seemed to tear apart, spewing out one passionate and desperate confession after another like a rapid-fire barrage.
She tried to use the suffering she had endured over thousands of years to prove the depth of her devotion. She tried to awaken even the slightest trace of their old feelings in Ye Xuan’s heart.
However.
As Ye Xuan stood with his back to her, the so-called declarations of devotion stirred nothing in the depths of his eyes but endless coldness and contempt.
Affection that comes too late is cheaper than grass.
Ye Xuan sneered coldly to himself.
So now you know you were wrong? Now you know that you love me?
When I followed behind you like a dog, placing the best cultivation resources before you and even risking my life for you, where were your tears? When did you ever show the slightest gratitude or emotion?
You’re moved now. You regret it now. But that’s only because you realized I was a man of immense potential, and that you had missed out on the greatest opportunity of your life.
You’re merely paying the price for your own stupidity. Why should I be the one to bear your ridiculous “compensation”?
Though his heart was filled with contempt, Ye Xuan knew that now was not yet the time to crush her completely.
This proud phoenix had already been stripped of her feathers and had her pride broken. Now, it was time to place shackles on her and squeeze out every last bit of her remaining value.
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
