Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On the day I was escorted onto the Immortal Execution Platform, I was still wearing my wedding dress.

The winds of the Ninth Heaven were cold, blowing the gold threads on my skirt until they flickered like a dying fire. Below the platform stood the people of the Immortal Sects, every one of them cursing me. They said I had conspired with the Tide of Resentment, stolen Young Lord Xuanxiao’s Abyss-Suppressing Bone, and caused the death of Cang Chenzhou.

Cang Chenzhou was Shang Wujiu’s elder brother.

He was also the person who, just last night, had personally delivered me to the edge of the Sea of No Return.

“Li Jinxue.” Shang Wujiu stepped forward, sword in hand, his gaze colder than the snow in the sky. “Give back the Abyss-Suppressing Bone.”

I looked at him and suddenly let out a soft laugh.

Three days ago, we were still choosing the jade cups for our Nuptial Wine. He had asked me what kind of wedding robes I liked, and I told him I liked red-the redder the better, like Phoenix Heartfire. At that time, he held my hand and said that after our marriage, he would take me to the mortal realm to see the spring mountains and apricot rain.

But now, he stood before me with nothing but hatred in his eyes.

“You want it?” I swallowed the blood at the corner of my mouth, deliberately making my voice harsh and slow. “Then come and take it yourself. Shang Wujiu, why do you think I agreed to our betrothal? If not for the Abyss-Suppressing Bone in your body, I wouldn’t have spared you a second glance.”

The curses from below the platform grew louder.

The veins on the back of his hand tightened around his sword, as if he were being driven mad by my final words. Yet, in the end, he did not kill me with his blade. He simply stared into my eyes and asked one last time, “Did you kill Cang Chenzhou?”

I didn’t answer.

I simply took the red string that was supposed to be tied around his wrist tonight from my sleeve and threw it at his feet.

In that moment, I saw the last spark of light in his eyes vanish.

“Fine,” he said, his voice raspy. “Since you want my bone, I shall personally take your lamp.”

I didn’t make a sound when the Immortal Execution Nails pierced through my shoulder blades.

But when his hand reached into my chest, slowly gouging out the Phoenix Heart Lamp I had cultivated for centuries, the pain finally made me double over. Blood spilled across the floor, staining my wedding dress like a vast field of blooming red plum blossoms.

Shang Wujiu didn’t even blink.

He gripped my Heart Lamp in his palm, letting it sear his own flesh, and pronounced my sentence word by word: “Criminal Immortal Li Jinxue, for the theft of the bone, the opening of the sea, and the murder of a fellow disciple, you are hereby imprisoned in the Sea of No Return, never to be reborn for all eternity.”

The pain made my vision go dark, yet I still forced myself to look up and see his face clearly.

Then, I smiled and said to him, “I wish the Imperial Lord a long life, free from all worries.”

As the words fell, the seal beneath my feet swung wide.

When I fell into the Sea of No Return, I heard the whistling wind above, the cheers of thousands of immortals, and the sound of the longsword that had once slain countless evils for my sake finally returning to its scabbard.

From beginning to end, he never looked back.