Let's rot together in this hell.

"But..." Ying'er still couldn't quite get over the hurdle in her heart. "What if it's a misunderstanding? What if she was truly wronged?"

"Wronged?" Ye Xuan laughed.

His laugh was somewhat cold, yet it carried a profound clarity that saw right through human nature.

He released Ying'er's chin, stood with his hands behind his back, looked out at the gloomy sky in the distance, and said slowly,

"Ying'er, think about it carefully. Even if everything she said was true—that she was forced, that she did it to save me. Then, here is the problem."

Ye Xuan turned around, his gaze fixed on Ying'er like a torch.

"After all these years, if she really loved me that much and truly wanted to protect me, why did she keep me in the Hehuan Sect?"

Ying'er was taken aback and answered subconsciously, "Because... because this is her territory?"

"Wrong."

Ye Xuan extended a finger and wagged it gently. "What kind of place is the Hehuan Sect? It's a devil's den. A place that eats people without spitting out their bones. It is filled with lust, slaughter, and betrayal."

"If I were a woman who sacrificed herself to save her lover, what is the first thing I would do once I gained power and had enough capability?"

Ye Xuan's voice became extremely gentle, yet every word pierced the heart.

"I would decisively divorce him."

"I would give him a massive amount of resources, find him a quiet and safe blessed land, arrange the rest of his life for him, and then... quickly send him away from this filthy place."

"I would keep him away from my filth, keep him away from those rumors and gossip, so that even if he hated me, he could live peacefully and happily in a clean place."

Ye Xuan spread his hands, a sarcastic smile appearing on his face.

"That is what you call 'for his own good.' That is what you call 'sacrifice.'"

"But what did Ye Qingcheng do?"

Ye Xuan pointed at the ground beneath his feet, his eyes instantly turning sharp.

"She kept me locked up tightly in the Hehuan Sect, like a pet canary."

"She made me watch her pretend and flirt with other men every day, made me listen to the outside rumors of her being a slut, and made me live in this environment full of humiliation and pain."

"Is this called protection?"

Ying'er opened her mouth to retort, only to find herself completely speechless.

She hesitated for a moment and whispered, "Maybe... maybe it's because the Grand Elder wouldn't let you leave, and the Grand Elder intended to use you to threaten her?"

"A temporary threat, I can believe."

Ye Xuan shook his head, the mockery in his eyes deepening. "Back when she first joined the sect, her strength was low, and she was threatened by the Grand Elder and forced to comply. There is no flaw in that logic."

"But what about later? One hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years..."

"For these past few centuries, was she threatened every single day?"

"Although the Hehuan Sect is not some orthodox righteous sect, I have never heard of any sect cultivating its core disciples by threatening them with their family's lives for hundreds of years. This is simply too ridiculous."

Ye Xuan walked to the table and gently tapped his fingers on the surface, making a rhythmic knocking sound, his eyes full of sarcasm.

"No one should treat anyone else like a fool."

"She chose her own path, so she should just walk it. Since she enjoyed the resources brought by having four Dao Companions and enjoyed the strength increase brought by the Great Dao of Joyous Union, she shouldn't package herself as a pure and flawless white lotus."

"Insisting on crying 'I was forced' and 'I had my difficulties' every day, just to make herself feel better and to morally kidnap the victim..."

Ye Xuan sneered, his eyes freezing cold.

"This is called wanting to be a whore while expecting a monument to her chastity!"

Boom!

These words exploded in the air like a clap of thunder.

Ying'er was completely stunned. She looked at Ye Xuan, her eyes filled with worship and shock.

Her master's words were like a scalpel, accurately cutting open the festering sore hidden beneath Ye Qingcheng's gorgeous exterior.

Having said his piece, Ye Xuan couldn't be bothered to waste any more time on this topic.

He turned around, grabbed Ying'er's slender waist, and hung a careless smile back on his face.

"Alright, no matter how exciting other people's stories are, they aren't as important as our own business."

"With so many top-grade resources, it would be a waste not to use them."

He blew a breath of hot air into Ying'er's ear and whispered, "Come, let's go inside. Let me see if this so-called 'Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow' can help us reach a higher level in our dual cultivation."

Ying'er's pretty face instantly turned bright red, and she shyly buried her head in Ye Xuan's chest. "Yes... Master..."

The two embraced and walked into the room.

The door closed with a bang.

Soon after, ambiguous lights lit up inside the room, and the faint sound of rustling clothes could be heard.

Meanwhile, outside the Listening Rain Pavilion.

In the shadows behind a hidden rockery.

Ye Qingcheng hadn't left.

She stood there quietly like a ghost, her body almost merging with the darkness.

Tear stains still hung on her face, and the corners of her mouth even retained the sweet smile that had surfaced earlier because of Ye Xuan's phrase, "It must have been hard on you."

But now.

That smile froze on her face, gradually twisted, and finally shattered into pieces.

She heard it.

She heard everything.

Every word Ye Xuan said to Ying'er was like a red-hot blade, viciously stabbed into her heart and then twisted forcefully.

"No... it wasn't like that..."

Ye Qingcheng gripped the rough rocks of the rockery tightly. Her nails cracked, and blood flowed down her fingertips, dyeing the moss red, but she felt nothing.

"I was threatened back then... If I didn't accept, my husband would die... I did it to save him..."

She kept muttering this sentence over and over.

However, as she repeated it again and again, her voice grew softer and weaker.

At this moment, the floodgates of her memory opened uncontrollably.

It was a rainy night.

She had just broken through to the Soul Formation Realm and crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, bathed in gore.

She had personally chopped off the head of the sect's Holy Maiden.

Relying on this ruthlessness and decisiveness, she stepped on the bones of countless people and finally ascended to the high position of the "Holy Maiden" of the Hehuan Sect.

Although she wasn't yet the supreme Sect Master, at that moment, she was already under one person and above ten thousand.

All the threats vanished into thin air that night.

Carrying the still-dripping longsword, she didn't even have time to change out of her blood-soaked red dress before she rushed like a madwoman to see Ye Xuan.

She wanted to tell Ye Xuan: Husband, it's alright now, we are safe, and no one will ever dare to bully us again.

However, the moment she pushed open the door, what she saw was a scene that made her eyes widen until they nearly split.

There were no celebratory candles in the room, only the cold moonlight.

Ye Xuan had his back to her and was packing his bags.

On the table lay a letter of divorce, along with his pitifully few old clothes.

Hearing the door open, Ye Xuan turned around. He looked at Ye Qingcheng, who was covered in blood and looked like an Asura.

There was no fear in his eyes, nor joy, only a kind of world-weary exhaustion and relief.

"Qingcheng, congratulations."

His voice was very light, as calm as a pool of stagnant water. "I heard you won. You are now the Holy Maiden of the sect, holding a revered status."

The smile froze on Ye Qingcheng's face, and the sword in her hand dropped to the ground with a loud clatter. She stared at the bundle, her voice trembling. "Husband... what are you doing?"

"It is time for me to leave."

Ye Xuan picked up the bundle, his expression calm. "In the past, I did not leave because you said the Great Elder was using my life to threaten you. If I left, you would die, and I would not survive either."

He looked up, his gaze clear as it met hers.

"But things are different now. You are an almighty expert of the Soul Formation realm, the Saintess of the Joyous Sect. You hold both power and resources in your hands."

"You are more than capable of arranging a new identity for me, giving me a sum of spirit stones, and using your channels to send me out of the Joyous Sect. You could send me to a mortal kingdom, or even to the territories of the orthodox factions."

Ye Xuan smiled, a trace of bitter relief in his expression.

"Qingcheng, although we can no longer be husband and wife, for the sake of our past affection, you will grant me this final dignity, won't you?"

His words were logical, reasonable, and absolutely flawless.

But how did Ye Qingcheng react?

The images in her memory were instantly dyed in a layer of maddening blood-red.

"Leave? Dignity?"

Ye Qingcheng lowered her head, her shoulders trembling violently.

At this moment, what snapped in her mind was not just her reason, but the very conviction that had kept her alive for the past century.

For whose sake did I become like this?

For whose sake did I submit myself beneath all those men?

For whose sake did I drench my hands in blood?

Now I am filthy, I am ruined, I have become a demon...

And yet you want to take the safe haven I carved out for you, just to go live a peaceful life?

On what grounds?

"You are not going anywhere!"

A shrill, agonizing scream tore through the night sky.

Ye Qingcheng lunged forward violently.

Ignoring the blood covering her hands, she grabbed Ye Xuan's spotless collar in a death grip and slammed him brutally against the wall.

Thud!

The bundle in Ye Xuan's hands fell to the floor, scattering his old clothes everywhere.

"Ye Qingcheng! Are you crazy?" Ye Xuan frowned, trying to push her away.

But the current Ye Qingcheng was already a Soul Formation cultivator. Ye Xuan was completely powerless to resist.

"I am crazy! I have been crazy for a long time!"

Ye Qingcheng's eyes were bloodshot. Her breathtakingly beautiful face, smeared with blood, twisted into the visage of a vicious ghoul.

She leaned in close to Ye Xuan, forcing him to look at the madness reflected in her pupils, forcing him to smell the nauseating stench of blood on her body.

"Ye Xuan, you want to leave? You want to abandon me in this hell all by myself?"

"Let me tell you, keep dreaming!"

Her fingers dug mercilessly into Ye Xuan's flesh. Her nails pierced his skin, drawing blood that flowed out and mixed with the blood already on her hands, until they were indistinguishable from one another.

"So what if I am the Saintess? I did not seize power just to set you free!"

She pressed against Ye Xuan's ear, every word sounding like a curse squeezed through her gritted teeth.

"I did it to lock you up! To make sure that for the rest of your life, you can only look at me! You can only rely on me!"

"I paid such a massive price, there is no way I will ever let go... Absolutely impossible!"

That night, she employed a restriction art she had just learned.

Pitch-black chains materialized out of thin air, piercing straight through Ye Xuan's collarbones.

Cold sweat poured down Ye Xuan's face from the agony. He looked at her in sheer disbelief. "Qingcheng... why? What good does this do for you?"

Ye Qingcheng stood in the shadows. She slowly wiped the blood from her face, revealing a chillingly beautiful, yet horrifying smile.

"Because I cannot accept it, husband."

"Why should I be left to struggle in hell, while you get to go to the mortal realm and bask in the sun?"

"Since I can no longer reach the surface..."

She reached out a hand, gently caressing Ye Xuan's pained face, and softly whispered.

"Then you will stay here, and rot in the mud together with me."

"Ye Xuan, you must remember."

"In life, you are my person. In death, you are my ghost."

"Even if all we do is torture each other, you have to rot in this hell with me! For all of eternity!"