Chapter 2

[Holy shit, holy shit, what’s happening? Why is she trying to kill the male lead?]

[She isn’t supposed to find out here.]

[Our puppy’s going to break. Even if she found out, she shouldn’t kill him. She’s so heartless.]

[Am I the only one who thinks she’s badass? He plotted to poison her first. If she finds out and kills him, he deserves it. Why are you feeling sorry for him?]

[Why are you reading an erotic novel if you’re going to bring morality into it? She’s his entire reason for living. He poisoned her because he loved her too much. She, on the other hand, wants to kill him without even investigating. How is that not heartless?]

[I came for the erotic thrills, not suffering. Don’t hurt our devoted puppy! Nobody in this world will ever love you more than he does.]

Love me?

If he loved me, why had he used such vile means to destroy the cultivation I had spent five hundred years earning?

Why had he stripped away my dignity and imprisoned me as a plaything for his pleasure?

What he called love was nothing but a filthy creature from the gutter’s sick desire to possess the moon high in the heavens.

The only person he loved was himself.

“Senior Sister, you want to kill me?” He trembled uncontrollably, close to breaking down. He could not accept the murderous hatred in my eyes.

“You conspired with demonic cultivators to harm a fellow disciple. Death is more than you deserve.”

The Qingluan Sword struck again. This time, Master’s sword blocked it.

She had followed the trace of her spiritual consciousness in the protective treasure and arrived within moments, afraid she would be too late to save her beloved disciple.

Seeing that I was the one trying to kill him, she frowned in bewilderment. “Zhiwei, what are you two doing?”

Master stood on the rooftop, the morning light outlining her in gold. Her plain white skirts brushed the blue tiles. She looked as remote and pure as ever.

Joy surged through me like an eruption of molten rock.

Master was alive! Alive, and whole!

No chains. No blood. None of that bleakness in her eyes that had broken my heart.

All the guilt and longing I carried from both lives burst forth at once. My nose stung. I nearly cried.

But I held it back, using every scrap of strength to control myself.

“Master, the pills he brought me contain Soul-Eroding Powder. If I take one, my spiritual root will be damaged and my cultivation destroyed. Such an insidious poison comes from the demonic sects. I suspect he’s conspiring with them.”

She floated down beside me, took the pill from my palm, and examined it closely, but found nothing.

The poison had neither color nor scent. It had not changed the pill’s color, either. Nothing on the surface gave it away.

“Zhiwei, are you certain it contains Soul-Eroding Powder?”

I clenched my fists and kept my feelings in check. “Why not have him swallow it? Then we’ll know.”

“Nonsense. If it really is poisoned, how could you make him take it?”

She turned to the man kneeling on the ground. “Lianwu, what’s going on?”

He did not answer her. He looked only at me, his voice shaking. “Senior Sister, I didn’t know… I didn’t know there was poison in it.”

“I did refine these pills myself. If something’s wrong, someone must have secretly switched them. You’ve done so much for me. How could I ever want to hurt you?”

“Please, believe me.”

He looked utterly sincere, his eyes brimming with wounded innocence.

Master believed him.

“Zhiwei, I know you’ve never been able to put the demonic sects behind you. But you know how Lianwu treats you. He could hurt anyone else, but never you. There must be more to this.”

He had always concealed his true nature so well. Without having lived through it once already, I would never have believed he could poison me, either.

He stared at me as though I were a drowning man’s last hope. “Senior Sister, don’t you trust me?” he asked urgently.

[My heart’s breaking. Her distrust hurts him more than killing him would.]

[Don’t be like that, Senior Sister. Our puppy has no one but you.]

[What a bitch. If she’d just be a little gentler and crook her finger, those men would die for her. Instead she’s so cold she’s driven them all mad.]

[Even Master believes him, and she’s still trying to kill him. Puppy, stop loving her. She doesn’t deserve you. Look at Master instead.]

Seeing that I had not relented, Master spoke to me through a private transmission.

“The war between the immortal and demonic factions has only just ended. Everything needs rebuilding. Lianwu is the Nangong family’s young master. They lost nearly half their cultivators in the war and rendered great service. Yunzhou needs them. We mustn’t cause unrest now.”

“You’re badly wounded and haven’t recovered. You should rest quietly. Leave this matter to me.”

Her intervention slowly brought me back to my senses.

Death was too easy for him. It could never settle the suffering and humiliation Master and I had endured.

He had to live for me to torment him slowly.

“I’ll spare his life. But he conspired with the demonic sects to harm the Holy Maiden. He belongs in the Discipline Hall, under rigorous interrogation.”

At those words, he coughed up blood.

“Senior Sister, how can you be so cruel?”

Master could not bear it, but seeing my insistence, she had no choice but to agree.

I was a cultivation genius the sect had not seen in thousands of years. At five hundred, I had already reached Body Integration.

Calling such talent monstrous would not have been an exaggeration.

Master had cultivated for over a thousand years before entering Void Refinement. Had I not been so badly wounded, she would never have stopped that strike.

She could not save anyone I was determined to kill.

“What’s happened?”

A figure descended into the courtyard.

It was Xiao Wuya, sect leader of the Tianyan Sect, and Master’s dual-cultivation partner.

The comments erupted the moment he appeared.

[AAAAAH, the daddy boyfriend is here!]

[Help, he’s so hot I’m going to faint. Sorry, Puppy, I still prefer a mature older man.]

[The third male lead showed up before the second? The plot’s completely broken.]

[The hottest ship in the book! Later he drugs Master to sleep and forces himself on the heroine right in front of her. I’m losing my mind.]

[Our Immortal Lord Wuya is the restrained type. He’s had to face her as an elder all this time. Hundreds of years of holding back have nearly driven him mad.]