chapter 2

As any competent anti-fan would, I heard the news immediately.

The immortal sects kept the details tightly concealed. All anyone knew was that Jiang Tingxue had been gravely wounded and stripped of his cultivation, leaving him weaker than an ordinary mortal.

Then, as always, everyone rushed to kick the man who had fallen.

Those who had envied him or been punished by him in the past began piling on. Every maliciously exaggerated accusation imaginable was laid at Jiang Tingxue’s feet.

To my horror, many of his supposed crimes were nonsense I had invented in my denunciations.

Who in their right mind believed that the Sword Venerable had stolen candied hawthorns from an innocent child?

…Everyone, apparently.

They said Jiang Tingxue had abused his power and that Heaven itself had brought this disaster down on him.

They said he had never respected anyone, so his present suffering was just retribution.

And just like that, a former genius whose sect had wrung every scrap of value from him – a man who had lived every moment for that sect – became a hated, homeless cur.

His sect took back his bonded sword. His treasures and artifacts were divided among others.

All they left him was a broken body in a tattered white robe drenched with blood, cast outside the mountain gates to die.

Then his enemies dragged him away and threw him into a mortal pleasure house to be degraded.

They did it openly, with great fanfare, as if their cruelty were an act of divine justice.

“He used to look down on nobodies like us, didn’t he? Now everyone in the world will know what a whore he is!”

Everyone who bore Jiang Tingxue a grudge applauded his downfall.

I thought I should have felt the sweet satisfaction of revenge.

I did not.

Something lodged painfully in my chest, like a mouthful of spoiled food. The nausea turned my heart sour.

To dispel this strange mood, I decided to sneak into the Mortal Realm again.

And since I was going anyway, I might as well stop by and laugh at my old enemy.

I hurried the whole way and arrived just in time for Jiang Tingxue’s “auction night.”

After his fall, he had become the laughingstock of humans, demons, and yao alike.

Everyone cursed and mocked him, yet not a single seat below the auction stage was empty.

One man tried to justify himself. “After everything he’s done, whatever I do to him is simply carrying out justice…”

Another did not even bother pretending. “Imagine having the former greatest sword cultivator serve me. Just thinking about it is exhilarating!”

The longer I listened, the more irritated I became.

I had come for entertainment. Now I wanted to knock every laughing bastard in the room through a wall.

Yes, I hated Jiang Tingxue.

Yes, he had once rejected the mighty Demon Sovereign and humiliated me.

Yes, he…

But since when did a pack of vermin get to torment the enemy I had chosen for myself?

I slammed my palm on the table and silenced the scattered bids by raising the price straight to an impossible height.

Ten thousand high-grade spirit stones.

The entire hall went quiet.

Only after the proprietor respectfully led me backstage to collect my “purchase” did someone recover enough to mutter, “She’s insane. Spending that much on a cripple with days left to live? If he dies tomorrow, every stone goes down the drain.”

I was beginning to regret it myself.

The bid had been pure impulse. Now that my head had cooled, I could not believe what I had done.

The demon palace could easily afford it, but who paid a fortune to buy her own enemy?

Grinding my teeth, I decided I would unleash the most vicious, cutting mockery in the world the moment I saw Jiang Tingxue.

If I could finally crack that icy expression, perhaps I would recover some value from my extravagant purchase.

I rehearsed insults all the way backstage.

Every barbed word died in my throat when I saw him.

Jiang Tingxue had always been one of the greatest beauties in the Three Realms. Even when his face was cold and lifeless as a perfect doll, no one could deny that.

Now the Sword Venerable, once immaculate even in the plainest white robes, hung by his bound wrists inside a gilded cage.

White gauze covered his blind eyes. He still wore his old clothes, but the spotless white had long since soaked through with blood.

He looked shattered and wretched, steeped in the aura of approaching death.

Like a handful of snow that would melt away if I held it too tightly.

I stood outside the cage for a long time. I tried to look triumphant and failed.

At last, I rubbed my stiff face and asked with feigned indifference, “Hey, Jiang Tingxue. Want to come with me?”

I had already paid. He belonged to me now. There was no reason to ask what he wanted.

Yet, for some reason, I put on this ridiculous performance and asked anyway.

“Come with me. Come back to the Demon Realm… I suppose I could treat you a little better.”

For a long while, Jiang Tingxue did not react.

Just as I began to think he had lost consciousness, his chained hands moved faintly.

I instinctively raised an arm to shield my face.

Realizing how humiliating that reaction was, I stamped my foot.

“You wouldn’t dare -”

The rest of the sentence vanished.

Jiang Tingxue was nodding.

“All right,” he said.