…
The girl bound by the immortal sash remained eerily calm.
She did not struggle or panic; instead, she narrowed her beautiful eyes slightly. Zhao Lixuan’s thoughts stirred, loosening the sash just enough for her to speak.
Her gaze settled on his face, her smile laced with an odd, treacherous edge:
“Brother Li Xuan, it’s been a long time.”
Zhao Lixuan’s head buzzed.
Her face was unfamiliar, but that voice… that demeanor…
“Jiang Fu?”
Jiang Chen’s “sister,” Jiang Fu.
Twenty years ago, Zhao Lixuan had been such a fool. Jiang Fu was pretty and endearing, but bore no resemblance to Jiang Chen—he never once suspected.
Even after they parted, in his daily grief, he never delved deeper.
It was only much, much later—long after he had grown accustomed to wandering the Unstained Immortal Realm alone, watching flowers bloom and wither, grasses thrive and fade; long after he habituated to secluded cultivation in Fu Xi Palace, sleeping, idling days away, endlessly seeking his brother’s soul in endless repetition.
Long after he no longer thought of Jiang Chen at all.
Then, one ordinary morning, enlightenment struck—he had been utterly stupid!
He had seen with his own eyes how Jiang Chen put Jiang Fu first in all things, drew Heart’s Blood monthly to sustain her life, unleashed the Nine Luminaries Sword Array to save her, and finally fled to the Demon Bright without looking back, her in tow.
Of course Jiang Chen knew how to love.
Who said he didn’t?
For two full years, he had witnessed this man pour everything into loving another.
She wasn’t his sister at all—and it all made sense.
…
Thus, since their reunion, Zhao Lixuan had never once asked Jiang Chen about Jiang Fu.
If she were true kin, propriety demanded it. How was little sister Jiang Fu faring? Did she still need monthly care?
Back then, out of love for him, he had truly seen her as family, scouring for spiritual herbs, painstakingly tending her health.
And now…
No sister—but the Demon Sovereign’s only daughter.
Before he could gather his racing thoughts, a flash of cold light erupted in Xue Ying’s eyes. Demonic power exploded from her body! The ornate jewels in her hair instantly transformed into countless blades quenched with eerie blue glows, sweeping toward Zhao Lixuan like a cascading galaxy!
Zhao Lixuan retreated in a flash, but he was shocked to realize her cultivation was unfathomably deep. The blue glows were already closing in on his chest.
“Pfft—”
In the nick of time, a dark shadow lunged in front of him.
The blades pierced through flesh and blood. Jiang Chen blocked several with his arm, his skin flaying open to reveal stark white bone. Though Zhao Lixuan was shoved aside, one treacherous blue light still stabbed through his shoulder blade, blood instantly soaking his golden robe.
Jiang Chen’s eyes turned crimson in an instant.
When he looked up again, all traces of his former restraint were gone—no shred of the old familial affection remained. Only towering rage and savage fury burned within!
He spared not a glance at his blood-drenched arm before his figure shot forward like lightning, black flames wreathing him as he charged at Xue Ying. His strikes held no mercy, each one ruthless and world-shattering, bent on tearing the woman before him to shreds without hesitation.
“Brother Jiang Chen…”
“Shut up!”
Blood seeped between Jiang Chen’s clenched teeth, his voice twisting with utter fury: “You’re not Jiang Fu… There has never been a Jiang Fu in this world!”
No Jiang Fu. There never had been.
For all those years, he had lived in an elaborately woven lie.
Always, always… played in the palm of her hand.
His berserk demonic power surged like a flood unleashed. Black fire slammed Xue Ying brutally to the ground! The earth cracked beneath her, her slender form tumbling like a broken kite. The black flames coalesced into a blazing spear that streaked through the air, carrying an aura of utter annihilation as it impaled her right there!
Yet Xue Ying Princess seemed to feel no pain.
Her body began to turn transparent, curling at the edges like water-soaked paper. That smug, scheming smile lingered on her face until she fully disintegrated into countless swirling scraps of charred, acrid paper.
“Ah—!!”
Jiang Chen’s eyes blazed red as he unleashed demonic fire wildly at the drifting scraps. Black flames roiled like raging waves, incinerating every last fragment to ash.
A scam.
All of it, a scam.
He panted heavily, drenched through like a demon returned from hell. Only then did he jolt awake under the sudden downpour that lashed his face mercilessly.
“Li Xuan! Li Xuan…”
He dropped to his knees beside Zhao Lixuan, his voice hoarse and broken. As he watched blood bubble ceaselessly from the corner of his lips, every word carried heart-wrenching agony and overwhelming panic and despair.
Zhao Lixuan tried to speak, but a fresh surge of sweet blood welled in his throat, forcing him to cough up another mouthful.
I want to tell him not to worry.
In truth… the wound was far less fatal than it appeared. Jiang Chen had blocked most of the assault; the blade had merely pierced the flesh below his shoulder blade without touching his vital meridians or organs.
It was the blade’s piercing chill that had also damaged his throat, sending his qi and blood into reverse flow. Any attempt to speak tugged at the injury, causing blood to spill uncontrollably and making him look on the verge of death.
Jiang Chen was losing his mind.
The overcast sky wove a curtain of rain, icy droplets scouring the ground and washing away the filthy paper scraps.
Only when cool fingertips gently brushed his cheek did Jiang Chen startle.
Rain mingled with warm liquid, trickling down his jaw.
“Li Xuan…”
He had lost his parents young, fallen to the streets. Thugs had sliced his throat, severed his meridians, forced him to beg as their tool—day after day of cold, hunger, a life worse than death.
His adoptive father had pulled him from that abyss, given him a home.
It was the only warmth in his bleak childhood.
Family, love… and by his adoptive father’s side, a little girl named “Jiang Fu.” He even had a cute little sister.
But good times never lasted. The thugs came hunting, and his adoptive father died protecting them. His dying wish: protect his sister Jiang Fu at all costs.
Jiang Chen etched that kindness into his heart and guarded her with everything he had.
How could he have imagined… it was all a thorough deception from start to finish?
There had never been a Jiang Fu in this world.
The so-called sister had been nothing but a paper puppet from childhood. Even… his adoptive father’s death was likely a scripted act.
Perhaps the adoptive father himself was just another paper figure. All the faint warmth of his youth—a play meticulously staged by the Demon Sovereign and his daughter!
Later…
It was only after repeatedly “extending Jiang Fu’s life” that he sensed something amiss.
Finally, in Moon Haze Hollow, he confronted her outright, and Jiang Fu dissolved into paper before him.
The puppet vanished, leaving riddles in its wake.
Then he went to the Demon Bright, rose swiftly under the Demon Sovereign’s exceptional favor. The princess showed interest repeatedly, but he glimpsed clues in her familiar mannerisms…
Yet even now, he didn’t understand.
What did a wretch like him, orphaned and destitute from youth, have that was worth such elaborate machinations from those high above?
What did he even have left? Nothing—and yet they hounded him relentlessly!
Overwhelming pain threatened to drown him. He clutched Zhao Lixuan tightly to his chest, forehead pressed to the man’s cool neck, channeling demonic power in a steady stream.
It was all my fault, he knew.
The hurts and sins he had inflicted on Li Xuan over the years couldn’t be shifted to anyone else.
But…
If not for his childhood forging distrust of all kindness in the world, if not for hope repeatedly dangled then snatched away, if not for Jiang Fu’s constant deceptions and divisions—always “flaring up” at crucial moments to restrain him—if not for her luring him into using the Nine Luminaries Sword Array…
He truly, utterly didn’t remember injuring Zhao Lixuan with the sword array.
But why?
How could he not remember something like that!
Deep in his memories, “Jiang Fu” lay abed ill most days, lucid only briefly—but always brewing him a cup of tea: “Brother has shown me such great kindness; little sister can only repay with a daily cup of tea.”
Did she tamper with it somehow?
Did she slip something into that tea, day after day, twisting his temperament, muddling his memories, driving him to act against his true nature?
But he had no proof.
Even if she had, it couldn’t erase the tangible harms he had wrought with his own hands. Nor offset the wretched temper he once had, the myriad grievances he inflicted on Li Xuan!
He had no defense.
The storm raged on, bone-chilling cold soaking through their clothes.
He held Zhao Lixuan even tighter, forehead gently against the man’s cool brow. Beneath the torrent, he tried to warm him with the heat from his battered, broken body.
How spoiled and oblivious had he been back then…
To take it all so much for granted.
Did he really not know? Every time he drew blood for Jiang Fu, or brought her little trinkets from the market—did he truly miss Li Xuan’s carefully hidden gaze, laced with envy, loneliness, and bitterness?
But she was his sister, so Li Xuan couldn’t be jealous.
Later, when Li Xuan learned Jiang Fu wasn’t his sister—what must he have thought?!
Jiang Chen gasped violently in the rain, vision blurred by the downpour.
These days, just seeing Li Xuan laugh and chat with his senior brothers—Yin Canshang, Shen Fengyu, even Yu Rum u—filled him with mad jealousy.
For two whole years back then, as Li Xuan watched him lavish care on his “sister”… what agony must have gnawed at him?
And yet Jiang Chen had clung to a shred of hope: study hard, guard silently, ask for nothing, and in his final days, draw a little closer, make some amends.
But the wounds he inflicted ran so deep, the sorrows and grievances so vast.
How to make amends?
And back then, Li Xuan had still smiled at him, piecing together his shattered heart to keep loving him. Even now, he hardly held a grudge.
While he… for twenty years, harbored resentment…
What right did he have to resent? He deserved to be hacked to pieces a thousand times over. It was Li Xuan who should resent him!
