Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Bringing the dead back to life was, by nature, an act against the heavens.

Fortunately, Ye Yu was a demonic cultivator to begin with.

Defying the heavens came as easily to him as breathing.

And so, over the past few days, I watched him sweep through the Four Extremes like a hurricane, beating the four guardian beasts into the ground,

then smugly stealing away the secret treasures they had guarded.

The Righteous Path cultivators who had once denounced him with such righteous fury

had now all fallen silent.

None of them had expected that the thousand-year seal I left behind would fail completely in less than five hundred years.

But in this world, there could no longer be another Shen Xi to keep Ye Yu in check.

On the forty-ninth day, Ye Yu refined the Four Secret Treasures,

then raised his hand and drew down twelve bolts of heavenly lightning.

Beneath the flashing thunderlight, I opened my eyes inside the body Ye Yu had reshaped for me.

The first thing I saw when I lifted my gaze was Ye Yu’s excited face.

He grinned with wild delight as he stripped off his shirt, leaving his honey-toned muscles in a constant state of flushed, eager tension. That feverish light made his golden eyes shine even more brilliantly, like gemstones.

“I’ve finally waited for this day,” he said. “Shen Xi, come fight me!”

Perhaps he was afraid I would be blasted into powder again, because Ye Yu had actually used top-grade diamond, a specialty of the Demon Domain, to rebuild my body.

Five hundred years.

It had been so long since I last felt such abundant spiritual power coursing through me.

However, when I met Ye Yu’s expectant eyes and saw the iron fist he had already thrown straight at my face,

I drifted lightly to the side, avoiding his attack, then softly collapsed into his arms.

As his springy pecs made me bounce slightly, I couldn’t help reaching out and giving his chest a feel.

Ye Yu instantly exploded. He reached out to shove me away, but I did not budge an inch.

Behind him, hundreds upon thousands of sword cultivators from the Sword Inquiry Sect had arrived on their flying swords.

The man at their head was my master, whom I had not seen in five hundred years-Gu Yunzhen.

He was still dressed in billowing white, hovering above the thunderclouds as he looked down at me coldly. “So you truly did collude with a demonic cultivator. You even left a contingency behind. Shen Xi, to think that I once genuinely believed I had wronged you.”

Tribulation clouds blotted out the sun. I looked up at his eyes, flickering between light and shadow, and the answer I had failed to find despite five hundred years of torment and reflection

finally came to me in that moment.

Why had I failed? Why had I died at the hands of the very people I protected?

The answer was actually very simple.

The problem was not with me. It was with the world.

They were the ones who could not distinguish right from wrong. What fault was mine?

Seeing them raise their hands again, preparing to gather the very Thousand-Person Sword Formation that had killed me back then,

I suddenly went limp. My bonelessly soft arms wrapped around Ye Yu’s neck as he continued struggling nonstop.

Clutching my heart, I spoke softly in his arms. “Big brother, this newly remade body is too weak. Take care of those little trash fish, and the rest of my time will be all yours.”

“What are you babbling about? Come fight me!” Ye Yu kept shouting fiercely, but the skin pressed against mine heated so rapidly it seemed about to explode.

I looked up at him with a teasing smile, but the instant before our eyes could meet, he turned his face away.

All he left in my line of sight was the tip of an ear gone red-hot.

“How can you be this weak? It’s diamond. That shouldn’t be…” I heard Ye Yu mutter under his breath.

In this kind of atmosphere, someone just had to be blind.

My master, suspended above the layered clouds, suddenly lost his composure.

Before the sword formation had finished assembling, he launched the first attack.

Gu Yunzhen seemed to merely flick his sleeve in passing, but he had poured every ounce of his cultivation into it.

A golden sword glare shot in from behind, aiming straight for Ye Yu’s heart.

Seeing the sword energy close in before my eyes, I had no intention of helping at all. I simply looped my arms around Ye Yu’s neck and watched the show.

Ye Yu blocked that sword energy with ease and sent it back.

But behind him, a familiar face appeared.

His body trembled, and on a face no longer childish, timidity and anger coexisted.

He called out to me, “Mas… Shen Xi, you traitor colluding with the Demon Race!”

The next second, he was sent flying by a single palm strike.

The enraged Demon Lord turned back, his golden eyes filled with icy killing intent.

In that instant, the unruly Demon Lord vanished. The Ye Yu before me was nothing more than a cold beast, slaughtering on his most primal instincts.

If this had been the past, perhaps I would have felt regret. Perhaps my heart would have ached.

After all, that had been the youngest of my former disciples.

I had picked him up from a snowy mountain and raised him to adulthood.

Then, on a snowy day, he severed all ties with me.

“You’re too heartless,” he had said. “Martial Aunt Zhu Zhen is so gentle and kind, but just because you were jealous, you tried to put her to death.”

When he said those words, he turned away with absolute resolve, without the slightest hesitation.

So now, when he had become a petty man who believed every rumor he heard and even launched sneak attacks from behind, I merely watched coldly as he reaped what he had sown, feeling no sympathy at all.

But my coldness seemed to enrage my master-

the Sword Venerable Gu Yunzhen, who stood high above the clouds and had become the greatest swordsman of the Sword Inquiry Sect after my death.

“In the past, weren’t you always claiming these disciples were the ones you cherished most? And now, seeing them wounded by Ye Yu, that demonic cultivator, you remain completely indifferent. As expected, your heart is cold. All of that before was nothing but an act.”

The moment he finished speaking, the row of young disciples below all showed looks of righteous indignation.

I knew Gu Yunzhen was trying to provoke me.

He wanted me to attack the very people I had once protected most.

Now that I had lost my Innate Sword Body, as long as their blood stained my hands, he would not even have to do anything else. Endless inner demons would devour me, and from then on, there would truly be no turning back.

But in the end, there were still some things he had failed to account for.

For instance, they said Ye Yu and I were colluding.

That statement, now, was not false.

In the howling wind, I collapsed softly into his arms. I did not even need to say a word before Ye Yu’s voice was already steeped in a chilling rage.

He said, “Shen Xi, back then, you didn’t wait for me and let yourself die at the hands of trash like this. How dare you?”

In the next instant, the Demon Lord shot toward the sky like an arrow loosed from the string.

That day, Qingyang Sword Venerable Gu Yunzhen gained no advantage in his battle against Ye Yu.

Very few people could ever get the better of Ye Yu, but Gu Yunzhen and the others did not understand that. All these years, the only opponent Ye Yu had acknowledged was me. He had not even deigned to exchange blows with anyone else from the Righteous Path.

As a result, in the five hundred years after my death, rumors had spread everywhere among the common folk.

They said the legendary Demon Lord’s strength was nothing special.

They said it was all merely a tactic Shen Xi had used to frighten the world.

After today, such claims would collapse on their own.

That day, the lofty Sword Venerable was knocked down from the clouds by Ye Yu.

When the Demon Lord’s palm wind slashed toward Gu Yunzhen’s heart as he lay fallen on the ground, I clearly saw the panic and humiliation in his eyes.

Unfortunately, Gu Yunzhen still managed to escape in the end, withdrawing in a dark, teeming mass with the people from Sword Inquiry Sect.

The one who had struck them and sent them scattering was clearly Ye Yu, yet when they left, every single one of them glared at me with hatred.

Even Ye Yu himself could no longer stand it.

He said, “Shen Xi, come back to the Demon Domain with me.”

“For all these years, you are the only opponent I have ever acknowledged. You deserve to share half my territory.”

His voice carried a few hints of eagerness and careful probing.

I refused.

Back then, I had been only one step away from ascension. Now, I wanted to continue down the path of cultivation. I did not want to be tainted by bloodshed and karma, nor did I want to fall into the demonic path.

But when Ye Yu heard this, he grew a little anxious. “If you ascend, who am I supposed to fight?”

At that, my head started to ache.

Ye Yu was truly a very pure person, but I still wanted to tell him that a person could not have nothing but fighting on the brain.

Yet when I looked up again and met those golden eyes, I froze.

Ye Yu… was crying.

His eyes were wet and red as he stared at me, stubborn and hostile.

He said, “Shen Xi, you’re using me again. I know it all now. How many more times are you going to use me?”

The night wind rose, making his lashes tremble faintly. Tears dampened those beautiful golden eyes.

He truly was furious, and he wanted to hit me too. But I would not fight back, and he was afraid he would shatter me, so he could only cry while seething. “How can you be like this, Shen Xi? I revived you so I could kill you with my own hands. What do you mean by not fighting back?”

“But I never agreed to let you revive me.” The stubborn words left my mouth faster than my mind could catch up.

By the time I realized it, Ye Yu was almost dead from anger.

All I could do was reach out and rub his fluffy head.

“There, there. Be good. Once I’ve handled everything, I’ll fight with you.” My cool fingertips brushed across his brows and eyes, and Ye Yu instinctively went still.

Then he stopped moving altogether, his body held taut and rigid.

Only those damp eyes looked at me.

“How beautiful.”

When I praised him, his face flushed, though his mouth still muttered in defiance, every word nothing but curses directed at me.

And I truly did love Ye Yu’s eyes. In the past, I had even once considered gouging them out to use as an accessory. But then I thought, eyes that had been gouged out would no longer sparkle when their gaze landed on me, so I dismissed the idea.

As my mind wandered, my fingertips drifted along. First, they pried apart his moist lips and touched his canine tooth. Then they moved lower, reaching toward his firm abs…

I saw Ye Yu’s Adam’s apple bob, his breathing growing rapid.

Then he suddenly shuddered, panicked, and brushed my hand away.

With red ears, he turned his back to me.

All he left me with was a fluffy back of the head and a muffled voice.

“Don’t think you can make me help you with anything ever again. In any case, I won’t forgive you.”

My hand was still suspended in midair. Seeing this, I could only let out a deep sigh.

Ye Yu was actually very intelligent. Most of the time, he was simply too lazy to use his brain.

But when it came to me, he understood everything.

The way I used him, the way I drove him to act for me, and that hidden possessiveness I held toward him-Ye Yu… understood it all.