Seeing Le Gui so resolutely prepared for death, Di Jiang let out a low chuckle. Under the moonlight, his smile had an eerie, ghostly beauty that sent chills down one’s spine.

Yaoyao looked at her, bewildered, then withdrew the sword and tossed it aside. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m perfectly sane. Just do it already!” Le Gui’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“Quiet. I’m negotiating,” Yaoyao snapped before turning back to Di Jiang. “You don’t want the Zhiluo Grass? Then how about the antidote for the Heartbinding Gu?”

“What does he need that for?” Le Gui, still terrified, couldn’t help but be curious.

Yaoyao hesitated briefly, then continued speaking to Di Jiang. “Haven’t you ever noticed the strange fragrance coming from her body?”

“A strange fragrance?” A sense of foreboding crept over Le Gui. “Wait… ‘her’—are you talking about me?”

“The Heartbinding Gu is called a Gu, but it’s actually a poison. It is refined using one hundred and thirty types of toxic herbs and venomous insects. A person afflicted with it will begin to emit a faint fragrance—this is a sign that the poison is taking effect. If left untreated, in less than a month, threads will begin to grow from her heart, slowly wrapping around her internal organs until she dies.” Yaoyao avoided looking at Le Gui’s shocked expression and instead pressed her advantage. “If you don’t want her to die, you’d best let me go.”

“Quick, quick, let her go!” Le Gui urged frantically.

After being repeatedly betrayed by Yaoyao, she had grown numb. Right now, all she cared about was staying alive.

Di Jiang’s expression remained impassive. “Let her go? Weren’t you just begging to die? I might as well grant your wish.”

“Your Lordship!” Le Gui dramatically flung herself to the ground, wrapping her arms around his ankle. “If I die, who will keep you entertained? The long, endless nights on Diyun Peak—how will you bear them all alone?”

Yaoyao’s eyelids twitched. Of all the reasons to beg for mercy, this has to be the worst. Di Jiang is not the kind of person who would spare someone just because he’s afraid of being lonely.

“You have a point.” To her shock, Di Jiang actually agreed.

Yaoyao was momentarily stunned, then quickly pressed her advantage. “If you let me go now, I can give her the antidote immediately.”

Le Gui lifted her head and looked at Di Jiang expectantly.

Their eyes met, and he smirked. “But you should know by now—I don’t like being threatened.”

Though he was speaking to Le Gui, it was Yaoyao who immediately dropped to her knees with a loud thud. “I beg Your Lordship to spare my life! Please allow me the chance to uncover the truth behind my father’s death!”

Le Gui: “…”

[Wow, that was fast. I didn’t even have time to react.]

“No wonder you two became friends,” Di Jiang remarked, his tone unreadable.

[Hah… The way he says it, I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or not.]

Le Gui put on her most obedient smile, silently enduring the jab.

Di Jiang let out an amused snort and looked down at Yaoyao once more. “If you find out that I truly did kill your father, what will you do?”

Yaoyao hesitated briefly, then gritted her teeth. “Even if I have to cross mountains of blades and seas of fire, I will return to take revenge on you!”

She had never feared death, but dying here, without ever learning the truth, was something she could not accept.

Di Jiang gazed at her for a long moment before the corners of his lips curled into a satisfied smile. “Very well. I’ll let you go.”

“Really?” Yaoyao looked up in shock.

[Don’t get too happy just yet. This bastard is never that kind-hearted.]

Di Jiang glanced at Le Gui, who immediately plastered on a smile.

“Not just you. I’ll let all the survivors go as well,” Di Jiang said leisurely.

Yaoyao stiffened and instinctively turned to look at the remaining wounded figures.

Most of them were her fellow disciples, and at least a third were direct disciples of Zhao Wuyou. She hadn’t concealed her conversation with Di Jiang, and if they left now… her expression gradually turned pale.

“They are your comrades, your fellow disciples,” Di Jiang mused, his smile deepening with unmistakable malice. “But the moment they leave the Demon Realm, they could report everything to Zhao Wuyou.”

Le Gui swallowed nervously, realizing exactly what he was implying.

A long silence stretched between them.

Then, without a word, Yaoyao picked up her sword and, step by step, walked toward the nearest wounded disciple. The young man was barely clinging to life, his breath weak, his eyes filled with silent pleading.

“S-senior sister…”

“I’m sorry. Before I uncover the truth, Zhao Wuyou must not find out about this.” As Yaoyao spoke, she thrust her sword downward without hesitation.

Blood splattered everywhere, covering her from head to toe. Le Gui gasped sharply and clamped her hands over her eyes in horror.

Though her vision was blocked, the sounds still reached her ears—pleading voices, sobs, and furious accusations that she had been bewitched by demons and would eventually face eternal damnation. Le Gui tried to empty her mind, but her limbs remained ice-cold.

After silencing the last witness, Yaoyao, drenched in blood, returned to Di Jiang. He chuckled and clapped twice, the sound slow and deliberate. “A disciple of the immortal sect, yet so decisive in killing.”

“…Can I leave now?” Yaoyao asked numbly.

Di Jiang curved his lips into a smile. With a flick of his sleeve, he sent her out of the Demon Realm.

Silence returned to the lake, broken only by the faint sounds of a beast clumsily peeling an orange. Le Gui cautiously lowered her hands, her eyes still filled with lingering fear.

The sky was shrouded in dark clouds, an impending storm brewing.

“Are you afraid of me?” Di Jiang’s expression was unreadable.

Le Gui blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

After a moment of eye contact, she finally caught on and gave a sheepish smile. “You gave her a choice. The decision was hers to make. If anything, she should be the one to fear.”

[Life is full of choices. Not a single one has to be made by stepping over the corpses of others.]

“How rare to find someone so consistent inside and out,” Di Jiang murmured, an odd sense of amusement flashing in his eyes.

“What?” Le Gui didn’t quite catch that. After a pause, she asked, “By the way, where did you send Yaoyao?”

“If nothing unexpected happened, she should already be outside the Demon Realm,” Di Jiang replied lazily, crouching down to look at her with a half-smile.

Le Gui met his gaze in silence for a long time. Then, suddenly, she threw herself into his arms with a wail. “Your Lordship, she deceived me so terribly…”

“I treated her as my best friend. I even shared the oranges I stole with her. But from the very beginning, she only wanted to use me. She not only tried to get me to kill you but also poisoned me—wu wu wu… Wait, did she leave the antidote?”

“No.”

Le Gui choked. She sat up and confirmed again, “None at all?”

“None.”

A long silence followed before Le Gui collapsed dramatically, wailing even louder. “I knew it! There are no real friends in the workplace! From today onward, I will lock my heart away and never befriend a colleague again—wu wu wu…”

Di Jiang remarked, “The effects of the Heartbinding Gu are indeed painful, but you need not worry.”

[…What? Did the bastard actually just say something comforting?]

Le Gui sniffled and hesitated. “Your Lordship, are you… comforting me? Or do you have a way to cure me?”

“Neither,” Di Jiang smiled. “What I meant is that the Heartbinding Gu takes at least a month to fully take effect. But you will not live that long, so you need not worry about it.”

Le Gui: “…”

A moment of silence. Then, cautiously, she asked, “What… do you mean by that?”

Di Jiang tilted his head. “Do you really not understand?”

Le Gui opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, a deafening thunderclap boomed overhead. The sky darkened, the earth trembled, and she shuddered uncontrollably.

“Think carefully before you speak,” Di Jiang said, his smile still in place.

Le Gui gulped. “If I think it through… does that mean I can avoid death?”

“You can avoid dying too soon,” Di Jiang’s smile deepened, but his eyes remained dark and full of lethal intent.

[So either way, I’m doomed?]

Le Gui glanced at the field of corpses and forced out a trembling smile. “I-I didn’t poison you. And in the battle between the immortal and demon realms, I have always stood firmly on your side. I… I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong.”

[Yeah, just pretend nothing happened. He’s such a big shot—dominating the Three Realms, above all others. He has to maintain some dignity, right? There’s no way he’d just straight-up confront a mere mortal like me about… that incident. Otherwise, with his personality, he wouldn’t have waited until now to settle the score. Oh, wait—he was waiting to catch the bigger fish. Now that the fish is dead, does that mean this little blade of grass…]

Le Gui swallowed hard and smiled ingratiatingly at him.

Di Jiang smirked, as if in a good mood… though the increasing frequency of thunder and lightning striking the forest suggested otherwise.

Le Gui dared not speak, but her mind raced.

[Why isn’t he asking? Is he waiting for me to confess? But if I confess, will he be lenient?]

[No way! He’s not a good person. If I admit it, I’ll just die faster!]

[But not confessing doesn’t seem to be working either. It’s only been five minutes, and there have already been eight hundred thunderclaps. If I keep quiet any longer, he might just strike me down first. But telling the truth is out of the question… Maybe I should make something up? Like, I’ll say squeezing someone’s chest is an emergency first-aid method from my hometown, and I was just panicking when I saw him collapse, so I kept rubbing and squeezing…]

Di Jiang’s eyebrows twitched, and the smile on his lips completely disappeared.

[Alright. That settles it.]

Le Gui made up her mind and dropped to her knees seamlessly. “Your Lordship, I know I was wrong—wu wu wu. I should not have disrespected you when I thought you were unconscious. I have committed an unforgivable crime and deserve to die a thousand times over. Please, have mercy!”

“Not even going to make up a lie to explain it? Just admitting it like that?” Di Jiang looked at her with a hint of curiosity, as if puzzled by her sudden change of mind.

Le Gui’s eyes welled up with tears. “I don’t want to lie to Your Lordship.”

[Yeah, right. It’s just that lying requires a certain level of mental fortitude. Given my lack of it, even if I prepare a script, I’ll probably mess it up. So I might as well just confess… Maybe he’ll have a moment of conscience.]

Di Jiang let out a soft laugh.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but Le Gui felt like the thunder had lessened a little. So she hesitantly suggested, “How about… I let you touch me back?”

Di Jiang considered for a moment and then nodded. “That is acceptable.”

Le Gui’s eyes lit up and, without hesitation, she began to unfasten her clothes.

Di Jiang watched her busying about and then added casually, “Make sure to cut it neatly.”

Le Gui froze. “Cut it… neatly?”

They locked eyes in silence for a moment before Di Jiang smirked maliciously. “I’ll take it back to Cangqiong Palace to feel it.”

Le Gui: “…”

“They’re just two lumps of flesh, nothing worth touching. Why not turn them into a dish instead?”

Le Gui: “…”

“Do you prefer braised or sweet and sour?” Di Jiang’s amusement grew.

If anyone else had said this, Le Gui would have thought they were joking. But coming from Di Jiang—this was Di Jiang they were talking about. The pile of corpses on the ground was still warm!

Le Gui’s mind went blank, and she blurted out, “I like… you.”

Di Jiang paused and lifted his gaze toward her.