Chapter 126.2

Xu Qianyu was taken aback. By the time she retracted her sword, it was too late. The sword blade cleaved the serpent’s head in two.

As the serpent’s head fell, a dazzling light of consciousness flew out from its body. At the same time, Xu Qianyu felt something within her own body break free—it was the soul of Hua Liangyu.

The two forces converged in mid-air. The dragon maiden, with her long skirt fluttering, teared up as she materialized from head to toe in the human world.

She bowed deeply to Xu Qianyu and the others.

The sound of bells and birdsong filled the air, growing nearer.
A figure in black robes leapt down from a bird’s back, flying swiftly to them. Wuzhen held a green umbrella, shielding the dragon maiden from the sunlight to prevent her ghostly form from being scattered.

The bells on the umbrella jingled.
“Master?” Xu Qianyu asked, stunned.
Wuzhen tossed her a bottle of elixir, saying, “I heard your cry for help. Take it quickly—one pill each, and you might still be saved.”

Hua Qingyu, though inanimate, trembled uncontrollably in Wuzhen’s hands, gritting her teeth as she spoke: “All these years, you’ve been here in Fu Shao!”

Hua Liangyu lowered her head as she watched the young dragon stagger toward her: “Mother, where have you been? I’ve missed you so much.”

Hua Liangyu’s eyes filled with tears: “Don’t come near. Mother is now a ghost, and I can’t hold you right now.”

Hua Qingyu asked, “What exactly happened? You’ve already married him and even had—this child, why is he treating you like this?”

Hua Liangyu signaled Fu Lingsha to pull the young dragon away: “I made a soul oath with Fu Shao. I vowed that he would never become an enemy of all living things, and he adhered to the oath. But years ago, Fu Shao lost control in a nightmare. One day, while we were in the Sword Tomb, he suddenly no longer recognized us and believed we were mortal enemies. Fearing for the child’s safety, I sealed him in the sword. Later, when I fought Fu Shao and lost, he fused my consciousness with the serpent demon, turning me into a revenant. ”

This was likely the last revenant Fu Shao created.

Hua Liangyu lowered her gaze: “After becoming a revenant, I used my spiritual gaze to destroy Fu Shao’s body and seal his consciousness in mist. But his water elemental roots were too strong, and he couldn’t be trapped. He continued to exist in the form of a mirage. So, I drew a teleportation formation at sea, hoping to prevent you from falling into Fu Shao’s trap.”

She looked at Fu Lingsha and the young dragon: “After that, I lost my wits. All I remember is guarding the sword tomb, where my most precious possession was sealed. If anyone drew the sword, I would strike them and take it back.”

…
Everyone was exhausted. Tu Zhuang helped Su Mingyu stitch up his wounds with puppet threads. Lin Shuyue fainted with a thud, and Xu Qianyu fed her a pill, laid her down flat, and then quickly ran to the sand, digging out the buried youth. “Yun Chu, Yun Chu!”

Yun Chu opened his eyes as she shook him.

Only then did Xu Qianyu realize that his abdomen had been pierced by the giant serpent. Blood soaked through his robe, and the wound was so severe that his face had drained of color.

Xu Qianyu pried open his mouth and stuffed an elixir in.

“It’s useless.” Yun Chu stared blankly at her, then suddenly forced his left hand up in front of Xu Qianyu, his sleeve falling back to reveal his thin arm. “Look.”

Xu Qianyu saw several bright red lines on his arm, spreading along his blood vessels toward the root of his arm. She was horrified: “What is this?”

Yun Chu’s gaze briefly shifted to Xu Qianyu’s forehead, where the Cinnabar mark lay, and he smirked. “Don’t you know? You should be the one to know best. We have the same thing.”
Xu Qianyu touched her brow and suddenly realized. “The Lotus Seed Heart Curse, you have it too? Why?”

When her senior brother had brought her to the Immortal Sect, he told her that the Elder Taishang possessed a light red sword, one that carried an incredibly potent poison. The sword left a crimson mark that planted a magical insect at the wound, called the “Lotus Seed Heart Curse.”

If not nurtured with enough spiritual energy, the curse would spread from the wound along the blood vessels, ultimately poisoning the heart.

This was why she had left home to cultivate.

Xu Qianyu squeezed his wrist, but the red lines still spread deeper. “But my curse stopped after my cultivation; why is yours so severe?”

Yun Chu said, “My divine ability is… the Heavenly Eye. Only those whose fates are connected to the heavens can turn the wind and thunder in the Bagua array. So, Elder Yi took me as his disciple to help him… read the array. I’m dying now, so it doesn’t matter… Knowing too many secrets isn’t safe. That’s why the Elder Taishang plants the Lotus Seed Heart Curse in each disciple, and every few decades, he… replaces them… My junior brother, Yun Lan, can also read the array.

If I die, he’ll take over.”
“You won’t die.” Xu Qianyu shoved a black wick into his mouth.

Yun Chu’s lifeless gaze gradually regained some light. He raised his arm in disbelief, only to see the red lines from the Light Red Sword stop spreading. He looked at Xu Qianyu with a complicated expression, his lips moving, “You… why…”

“You have fifteen minutes to tell me what’s going on with the Elder Taishang and Elder Yi.” After speaking, Xu Qianyu’s blood surged, and she collapsed to the ground.

She was already exhausted and urgently needed rest. She fed herself a spiritual pill, sat down to regulate her breath, and calmed her blood energy.

She thought of the spiritual butterfly she had no time to examine and hurriedly took it out from the mustard seed golden bead.

They had already waited for the elder’s rescue, and it was now safe. She wondered how her senior brother was doing.

What surprised her was that this spiritual butterfly was also written with spiritual energy. The moment she held it, she felt the words on it. The writing was hurried, somewhat lacking in strength.

“Min… Tang…”
The second line read, “Bao… Bao…” She took it out again to inspect carefully and confirmed the four characters were correct.

Min Tang.Bao Bao.

Xu Qianyu’s heart roared. Min Tang was the role she played in the flower realm, and it was a secret between her and Shen Suwei. The sender of the message was her senior brother!
This unfamiliar nickname, never spoken by him before, made her heart tremble.

Suddenly, many things overlapped in her mind.

Her senior brother had said that what would fall was never the moon; he also said that she and Xu Qianyu were not yet matched Dao partners. The spiritual butterfly she had caught; the large red marriage certificate of Fu Shao and Hua Liangyu in her hand; the two soul fragments entwined into a Tai Chi shape, seemingly inseparable…

She also wanted to be the only thread of this soul, the one closest to him in the world.
At that moment, Xu Qianyu suddenly understood something without a teacher. She quickly wrote on the spiritual butterfly, “I want to be with you forever.”
But there was still no reply from the other side.

*
Chu Linfeng shouted loudly as his sword split into nine, falling from the sky and rotating to encircle Fu Shao.

In the mirage, only half of Fu Shao remained, twisted by hatred.

Shen Suwei, while maintaining the expansion of the ice-snow realm, instantly moved, his gaze like lightning, his sword pointed directly at Fu Shao’s chest.

Fu Shao let out a strange, eerie laugh. “You want to kill me? Not so easy.”
As he spoke, two glowing fragments appeared in his palm.
You Yin’s pupils constricted slightly. “This is… this is…”
Fu Shao said, “Before I left, I took Fu Lingsha’s eyes. Hahaha…”

Chu Linfeng cursed, “Damn him. Sky Ladder fragments, Ice Spoon! Quickly dodge.”
Fu Shao laughed wildly, swallowing the two Ice Spoon fragments into his belly! His body expanded several times, losing all human form and turning into a demon made of ice and snow, drifting toward them.

The immense shockwave threw You Yin and Chu Linfeng far away. Chu Linfeng shouted, “Shen Suwei, run!”

But Shen Suwei did not move. He stood firm, his hair and white sleeves rising in the wind.

If he withdrew now, the realm would break, and he would suffer a backlash. It had been difficult enough to move the infinite realm earlier, and his realm could not break any further, or he might die.

Shen Suwei’s sword, the Shicui Sword, gleamed coldly, still aimed at the approaching Fu Shao. Just as Fu Shao laughed and drew near, the sword made a clear ringing sound.

The ice-covered sword, from the hilt to the tip, suddenly ignited with blue flames.
The blue flames, like ghostly fire, burned silently in the ice and snow.

Fu Shao, after all, only had water spiritual roots.
But he had fire.

Shen Suwei’s face was expressionless, but his eyes were dark and calm, reflecting the moment when the monster collided with the sword and shattered with a roar.

Chu Linfeng shouted, pulling You Yin as they were thrown back along with countless shattered fragments.

Shen Suwei stood at the center of the storm, closing his eyes, the blue flames on his sword tip resisting the two Sky Ladder fragments containing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

The Ice Spoon clinked against the sword, scraping across it.
Sky Ladder fragments recorded the mountains, rivers, and past events.
Familiar and unfamiliar memories rushed into his mind with the white light.

…
Through the narrow crack in the window, he saw an old Taoist speaking to his father, “Sibling incestuous offspring, this is already against heaven’s will. Dual spiritual roots are not uncommon, but water and fire contradictory spiritual roots are the appearance of an apocalyptic evil spirit, and it will leave His Majesty with no place to be buried.”

“The solution now is to keep Princess Mingxia, but that child must die.”

The emperor, wearing a crown, slowly revealed a vicious killing intent on his face.

He was terrified and stepped back, only to be covered by his mother’s subordinates, who held his mouth shut and carried him away.

Then came endless flight, pursuit, imprisonment, screams, blood, and death.
His mother said, “Only by becoming immortal can you escape such a fate.”
After his mother died, he was forced to disguise himself as his twin sister, Princess Shuoyue, to survive in the palace. He watched his demon-like father and a group of sycophants spend their days drinking, killing palace maids, and creating a wine pool and meat forest. On their faces, demonic runes flickered, like a hellish purgatory.

Later, his identity was exposed, and he killed violently.

He thought he would forever live in nightmares and would never have a chance to become immortal.

He was pierced through the pipa bone by Xu Binglai, frozen at the bottom of a lake, and Xu Binglai left him a little hope: “As long as you endure it, ascend the Great Dao and become immortal, you can break free from your original fate.”

While trapped in the ice, he dreamed many dreams about ascending to immortality.
Later, Xu Binglai took him out, and the disciples of the sect walking back and forth, along with the demons he encountered in autumn, appeared to him like ghostly shadows.

Everything was in gray, and only the blood splashed when the sword struck was red.
He had nightmares every night, desperately needing release.

All this was the same as what he remembered.
Until he saw a very familiar person under the moonlight.
But she was much younger than the familiar face he remembered.

Xu Qianyu, carrying a bundle, wore a pearl flower on her head, and her cheeks still held the residual redness from sleep. Her eyes were large and sharp, glaring at him in anger.

Xu Binglai said, “Within a month, I want you to bring her to the seventh layer of the foundation building.”

Xu Binglai then asked, “What does silence mean? Do you have a problem with me?”
Xu Jiansu smirked, “You’ve got yourself into such a mess. You poor thing.”

He had no choice.
What his master asked him to do, he always completed flawlessly. Not only to repay Xu Binglai’s kindness, but also to earn the opportunity to ascend the Great Dao, achieve higher status, and gain more resources.

In the morning, he placed a paper crane on the window sill, repeatedly passing through the window, but Xu Qianyu refused to get up. After a while, he climbed into the cabinet and tied a golden bell to the bed curtain. The sword energy made the bell ring.

At that moment, he heard a faint sob. His hand froze, and his expression became still. Inside the curtain, Xu Qianyu was clearly awake, clutching an old cloth doll from home and quietly shedding tears into the blanket.

After a moment, Xu Qianyu abruptly pulled open the curtain, her tears wiped away, though her eyes were slightly red. She spoke with defiance, “I just can’t get up. What can I do if I can’t?”

By the time he went to the training field, Xu Qianyu was energetically using the sword scabbard to knock away the flying butterflies.

When forging the sword, she could endure a thousand swings; with ten thousand swings, as long as she was told that other junior disciples could do it, she would manage.

Shen Suwei felt that Xu Binglai’s words weren’t entirely accurate. His junior sister was not difficult to handle, nor was she willful.
She was only eleven years old, yet she could endure without complaint.