Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The first time I shared a life with Dong Linyuan was five years ago in the Black Abyss Secret Realm.

I was twenty then, fresh off winning first place in the sect competition. Dong Linyuan was an outside disciple brought back by Medicine Peak. His talent was high enough to be obnoxious, and his temper was even worse.

We fought the moment we met.

I thought he was arrogant; he thought I was a poser.

Everyone said that if anyone from this generation of the Qingxiao Sect were to die at the hands of another, it would most likely be one of us killing the other.

But during that time in the Black Abyss Secret Realm, he was the one who saved me.

That day, I accidentally wandered into a Spirit-Devouring Formation. My spiritual veins suffered a backlash from the array, and half my Dao Bone was on the verge of shattering. Dong Linyuan could have clearly left on his own, but he turned back, split the heart of the formation with a single sword strike, and dragged me out of the pool of blood.

I asked him what he was after.

He said, “I’m after making sure you don’t have any excuses the next time you lose.”

I really wanted to strangle him right then.

But the worst was yet to come.

After the formation’s heart was broken, an ancient altar was revealed beneath the ground. An inscription was carved upon it: “Only those with a shared fate may leave this array.”

Both Dong Linyuan and I were severely injured. If we didn’t share a Heart Lamp, neither of us would make it out.

He acted before I could, slicing his palm open and pressing his blood into the space between my brows.

“Yun Xingye, you owe me a life. Remember that.”

That night, we lit a single lamp and shared half a life. From that moment on, whenever one of us was seriously injured, the other would feel the same pain.

It was only later that I learned it wasn’t a simple Shared Fate Art.

It was the Life-Devouring Seal left behind by that ancient remnant array.

Normally, it allowed us to sense each other, but in times of crisis, it would drag both our lives down together. To completely suppress it, the only way was to use the most stable form of Dao-Companion Marriage to transform “devouring” into “life.”

But after the massacre at Falling Star City, I never had the chance to ask him.

Because when I arrived at Falling Star City, all I saw were corpses littering the ground. I saw my brother’s broken sword, and I saw Dong Linyuan walking out of the ruins drenched in blood.

He explained nothing.

He only said one thing: “If you want to kill me, come find me anytime.”

And so, for these five years, I chased him to investigate, chased him to hate, and chased the truth that was never spoken that night.

At the hour of the rat, I took a lantern and went to the Soul-Locking Well.

The bottom of the well was bone-chillingly cold. Dong Linyuan leaned against the stone wall, blood still smeared on his lips.

Seeing me descend, his first words were: “Your master wants to kill me tonight.”

“Is Yin Zhixiao someone you’re allowed to slander?”

Dong Linyuan gave a low chuckle and pulled open his collar.

Next to the wound I had inflicted on his chest, a black mark identical to the one on my own heart had surfaced. It looked like an open beast’s claw, slowly crawling toward his vitals.

“This is the gift he gave us.” Dong Linyuan looked at me. “Yun Xingye, if we don’t change the Life-Devouring Seal now, neither of us will live past seven days.”