Do you really not remember all the things from the past

The instant she saw those words—

“Pfft!”

Qing Xuanyin suddenly spat out a large mouthful of heart blood, and her entire being shattered.

“Husband!”

She pressed the die tightly against her chest, feeling the weight of the longing that cut straight to her bones. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed, unable to make a sound.

At last, she understood.

Ye Xuan had left her the die not to save her.

He had left it so that, throughout the long ten thousand years, she would remain fully conscious and experience the agony of missing him until it tore her heart apart.

Ye Xuan wanted her to be pulled back every time she was on the verge of collapse—only to continue enduring this existence worse than death, this torment of longing!

This was Ye Xuan’s cruelest and most extreme revenge against her.

For the ten thousand years that followed, a haggard-looking female emperor appeared in the rear mountains of the ancient Qing family.

She often sat alone outside the abandoned dungeon where Ye Xuan had self-destructed, staring blankly at the sky.

The autumn wind swept past, carrying with it countless withered yellow leaves.

Each leaf was a fragment of longing.

Qing Xuanyin extended her withered hand and caught one of them.

As she gazed at the leaf’s broken veins, it was as though she could see Ye Xuan’s body, covered in scars.

“In my next life… Husband, I’ll wait for you in my next life…”

“Even if you make me shatter into pieces… I’ll accept it willingly…”

At that moment, the Qing family’s Divine Maiden—once lofty and imperious, looking down upon all beneath the heavens—finally tasted to the fullest the bitter wine of regret she herself had brewed.

The Sword God Palace was wreathed in clouds, its sword qi soaring into the heavens.

Today, the Sword God Palace was festooned with lanterns and decorations. Auspicious red silk and spiritual flowers drifted through the sky, clearly in preparation for an extraordinarily grand dual-cultivation ceremony.

When the Azure Emperor descended onto the white-jade plaza of the Sword God Palace, the glaring red before her made her heart clench inexplicably.

She drew a deep breath and suppressed the panic in her heart. Her immense divine sense instantly spread across the entire Sword God Palace.

The next moment, her gaze locked onto the Lingxin Pavilion in the rear gardens.

There stood the tall figure she had missed for ten thousand years, the figure engraved into the depths of her soul.

Ye Xuan wore white robes, and his handsome, unparalleled profile was unchanged.

Yet compared with the Ye Xuan of ten thousand years ago—the one covered in wounds and barely clinging to life—he now possessed the calmness of a bottomless abyss. Between his brows lay an aloofness and nobility that seemed to place him high above the world.

“Husband…”

The Azure Emperor’s eyes instantly reddened, and tears spilled down her cheeks.

Like a fledgling swallow returning to its nest, she stumbled toward him.

But when she drew near, her footsteps abruptly froze.

Beside Ye Xuan stood a young woman in a pale yellow dress, her features delicate and charming.

Ye Xuan had lowered his head, an exceedingly gentle smile at the corners of his eyes, as he said something to the girl.

The girl covered her mouth and giggled. Then, emboldened, she reached out and tugged at Ye Xuan’s sleeve, their intimacy unmistakable.

The sight struck the Azure Emperor’s heart like a heavy hammer.

That gentleness had once belonged exclusively to her!

She felt the poisonous flames of jealousy burning through her internal organs. Though the pain was unbearable, she still trembled as she parted her lips and summoned every ounce of strength to call out the name she had whispered countless millions of times in her dreams:

“Husband!”

Her cry, infused with the cultivation of a peak Mahayana expert, echoed throughout the rear gardens of the Sword God Palace. It was filled with utter sorrow.

The two people in the pavilion paused.

Ye Xuan slowly turned around.

When his eyes met the Azure Emperor’s tear-filled gaze, his face did not reveal the anger, grief, or shock she had expected.

He merely paused for a moment.

Then the corners of his lips lifted into a smile as warm as spring sunshine, yet distant to the extreme.

He gave a polite bow and said courteously, with utter unfamiliarity, “So it is Madam Lu. Have you come to my Sword God Palace to attend Ye’s wedding?”

“W-What did you call me?”

The Azure Emperor’s eyes widened. Her entire body began to tremble violently, and her face turned deathly pale in an instant, utterly drained of color.

She even wondered whether something was wrong with her ears.

Ye Xuan continued to wear that flawless smile, but his gaze was as cold as if he were looking at a complete stranger.

“I called you Madam Lu.”

“Ten thousand years ago, the dual-cultivation ceremony between Madam Lu and Lu Yanchen shook the entire world. Although Ye was not fortunate enough to witness it personally, I have heard a few things about it. Is there something improper about my form of address?”

“No… No, that’s not it!”

The Azure Emperor trembled violently as tears poured from her eyes. Throwing caution to the wind, she rushed forward and tried to seize Ye Xuan’s hand.

“That wedding was fake! Later, I killed him. I extracted his soul and refined his spirit for ten thousand years!”

“Husband, do you truly not remember everything that happened between us?”

Ye Xuan took half a step back and avoided her hand without making a fuss.

His expression gradually turned cold, and an innate indifference entered his voice.

“Everyone knows that Lu Yanchen married you ten thousand years ago. You are Madam Lu. As for what happened in the past…”

Ye Xuan paused. A mocking glimmer flashed through his deep eyes.

“Of course I remember. But in the end, those are the affairs of my previous life.”

When she heard Ye Xuan say that he still remembered, an overwhelming surge of joy rose in the Azure Emperor’s heart, like a drowning person clutching at the last piece of driftwood.

“If you remember what happened between us, then we can still start over!”

The Azure Emperor was overcome with delight. She pleaded desperately, “Husband, can you give me one more chance? I’ve repented every day for the past ten thousand years…”

“Start over?”

Ye Xuan seemed to have heard the greatest joke in the world, and suddenly let out a low, mocking laugh.

His laughter was filled with vicious satisfaction and bone-chilling coldness.

“Yes, I remember. I remember how you personally dug out my kidney for that worthless Lu Yanchen.”

“I remember how you locked me in a dark, damp dungeon and tortured me without end. I remember how you put on that glaring red wedding dress and became his bride before the eyes of the entire world, while I could only sit in that dungeon and wait to die.”

Ye Xuan advanced step by step, his gaze scraping across the Azure Emperor’s face like the edge of a blade.

“Madam Lu, do you want me to use these memories to start over with you?”

The Azure Emperor’s face turned as pale as snow. Her legs went weak, and she nearly collapsed to the ground.

“I… I loved you!”

She shook her head frantically, weeping as though her heart were being torn apart.

“He clouded my judgment! Because of my sister, I felt that I owed him my life…”

“I truly didn’t know he had been torturing you behind my back! If I had known, how could I have borne to—”

“Does that matter?”

Ye Xuan cut her off without mercy, his voice utterly devoid of emotion.

The Azure Emperor froze.

Looking at Ye Xuan’s incomparably cold face, she felt a suffocating despair descend upon her.

She had imagined that Ye Xuan might hate her with madness, stab her with his sword, or hurl insults at her.

But the one thing she had never imagined was that Ye Xuan would be this calm.

That calmness represented complete detachment. It meant that he had truly reduced her to nothing more than a stone by the roadside—something incapable of stirring even the slightest ripple in his heart.

She had been tortured by longing for ten thousand years!

Just as the Azure Emperor’s heart twisted with unbearable anguish and she teetered on the verge of collapse, a clear, gentle voice suddenly interrupted.

“Husband, is this the Azure Emperor you told me about… Big Sister Azure Emperor?”

The girl in yellow, Ying’er, had been standing behind Ye Xuan all along. She blinked her innocent, doe-like eyes and offered a sweet, slightly timid smile.

That single word—“Husband”—instantly ignited the fury the Azure Emperor had been suppressing.

“Shut up!”

The Azure Emperor flew into a rage, and the overwhelming might of a ten-thousand-year Empress erupted like a storm.

With eyes wide and bloodshot, she glared viciously at Ying’er and shouted, “I am Ye Xuan’s only wife! Who do you think you are? Who gave you permission to call him your husband?”