Chapter 214: So I’m the Protagonist After All (10)
The master of Yan Miaomiao, Elder Xuehan, followed them out. Although she was not in charge of the Law Enforcement Hall that disciplined disciples, when she saw Su Mingxiu’s expression, she could more or less guess that she might know this little disciple from the Qiangshan Sect. So she could only sigh and advise her, “The demon race has not appeared on the nine continents for a long time. If not for the fact that our Hundred Flower Sect still has a few records of them, perhaps the disciple who died in the courtyard would have died in vain…
That was definitely the attack method of the demon race. Mingxiu, I know you have always been kind. But this matter will be investigated by the sect elders. Before the conclusion is reached, don’t get involved.”
Her expression was very gentle, but her eyes contained an indescribable helplessness, as if she had a lot to say, but in the end, she could only give a well-intentioned reminder, “Don’t disappoint your master.”
—Disappointment?
Su Mingxiu met her clear eyes and suddenly remembered the look of despair on this elder’s face in the previous life when she learned the truth about the destruction of the sect. She couldn’t believe until her death that her senior sister, who had grown up with her in the sect and experienced so many ups and downs, would become… a demon.
At that moment, self-blame, shock, guilt… many incompatible emotions crowded into her world. Even at the moment of her death, these emotions still lingered in her eyes.
But these were destined to be things that Su Mingxiu couldn’t say. Facing this elder who had always taken care of her in the sect, she just pursed her lips and gave a smile as light as the wind, “Thank you for your advice, Elder.”
Then she found out where the Law Enforcement Hall’s forbidden prison was within fifteen minutes.
Sui Yihuan felt that her mind was muddled.
She kept dreaming of a sea of fire. Looking around, many broken images were pieced together, but her vision was obscured by the black smoke of the raging fire, and she couldn’t see anything clearly. In the end, the scene froze on the dead servant from this morning.
She seemed to see how the other person lost his vitality and how he struggled in his dying moments. The movements were so close to her that… Sui Yihuan always felt that the desire for survival in the other person’s eyes at the end was directed at her.
But how could that be!
A cool temperature touched her forehead, waking her from this nightmare of the boundless sea of fire. Her hands were chained to the wall, and her entire body weight was supported by the thin chains on her wrists. The red-clothed female cultivator woke up in a daze, only to find that it was not the dying servant’s fingertips touching her, but… the cold and beautiful woman testing her temperature.
The chains clanged, making a crisp sound of struggle.
Sui Yihuan moved her lips, wanting to ask Su Mingxiu why she was here. But she quickly realized that the other person must have violated the sect’s rules. So she just opened her mouth and silently said, “Go…” Go away.
Because she didn’t dare to rashly send spiritual power into her body, Su Mingxiu could only feed her the pills for treating internal and external injuries, while whispering in her ear, “Hush, don’t be afraid, I will save you.”
Save her?
Since being taken away and interrogated by the people of the Hundred Flower Sect in the morning, Sui Yihuan had felt that she was innocent.
But since entering this forbidden prison, no one had tortured her, but she was always shrouded in that nightmare, over and over again. In the end, she could even feel the pleasure of taking the servant’s life.
She had lost all memory after falling asleep last night, sinking into a deep sleep. When she woke up, her head ached terribly. Until she was taken away by the disciples of the Hundred Flower Sect and interrogated by their elders—
She would never forget that when facing the treasure that could detect lies, she repeatedly said, “I didn’t kill him,” and “I couldn’t have killed someone from my family,” the treasure emitted a red light, indicating that everything she said was a lie.
Sui Yihuan’s expression changed too much, and she even looked like she had suffered a great blow. Su Mingxiu couldn’t ignore her condition, so she could only whisper to her, “Tell me everything that happened from the time we parted last night until now.”
Actually, after taking the pills she gave her, Sui Yihuan didn’t feel any better. But thinking that Su Mingxiu still trusted her unconditionally, she was moved and forced herself to tell her everything.
Because she was intermittent and lacked strength, Su Mingxiu even took out the food she had taken from the dining hall. Although it tasted terrible, at this time, it was indeed a good medicine comparable to a panacea.
She broke off pieces of the pastry and fed them to Sui Yihuan, and also took out the dew from the spiritual flowers to quench her thirst. Hearing the other person say the last sentence with confusion and some bewilderment, “Now I just feel that I am really suspicious, as if I was possessed by that demon, always doing those terrifying things of taking people’s lives without knowing it… Daoist friend Su, go, go quickly. No matter what, don’t come looking for me again…”
She was even afraid that she would really lose her mind and kill this friend she had just met.
But hearing her words, Su Mingxiu just gently and tenderly stroked her cheek, even helping her tidy up some messy strands of hair, “A true demon would never regret this bloodthirst and killing. You are not a demon, but a human.”
How could there be such a stupid demon?
Her voice was like a light that pierced through the fog, or a rainbow that parted the clouds. It had no sound of metal or stone, but it strangely calmed Sui Yihuan’s panic and anxiety.
“I will save you,” Su Mingxiu said, “Don’t stay here anymore. Leave the Hundred Flower Sect and immediately return to the Qiangshan Sect to see how your father’s injuries are doing during his seclusion. If fate allows, I will come find you and travel the nine continents with you, to make up for the sights you missed at the conference.”
She knew Ye Qingbai’s methods. She never spared the lives of insignificant people. Sui Yihuan only had two outcomes, one was death, and the other was worse than death—if Ye Qingbai didn’t kill her, it only meant that she wanted to use this person to do something more terrible.
Su Mingxiu would never allow this possibility to happen.
By this time, Sui Yihuan’s burnt-out brain seemed to belatedly realize that the patrolling disciples and the formations that should have been activated were nowhere to be seen. And facing this person who believed in her without hesitation.
Even wanting to save her at the risk of her own life, she couldn’t help but widen her eyes, “You… what did you do?”
Su Mingxiu had just touched the iron lock on her wrist when she was stunned by this question. However, just as she paused, a cold voice echoed outside the forbidden prison, “Yes, what did you do?”
Fifteen minutes earlier, Hundred Flower Sect.
Xiao Xingwei was annoyed by Xuan Chan’s pestering, so he planned to find a quiet place to practice his sword. Who knew that the Hundred Flower Sect’s token suddenly lost its guiding function. They got entangled all the way to the back mountain, alarming the patrolling disciples and then the elders, who discovered the anomaly of the empty grave in the back mountain.
Then, the elders suspected that the two of them were also involved with the demon race and wanted to arrest them. But after all, one was the new generation leader of the Sword Sect, and the other was an inner disciple of the Joyful Union Sect. Xuan Chan was arrogant and naturally wouldn’t submit to the Hundred Flower Sect’s control.
She immediately took out her magical artifact without any regard, and as a result, she accidentally released the Nascent Soul strike that her master had given her—
The attack was deflected by Elder Yuejian and shot towards the sky. It should have hit the protective formation, but who knew that it went straight into the sky, and after a long time, it fell back down, hitting the mountain behind Spring Hall.
When Elder Xuehan saw this, her face immediately changed. She hadn’t expected that chasing two unruly disciples from other sects would lead to so much trouble. Why was the Hundred Flower Sect’s protective formation like a sieve, unable to block any attacks?
The protective formation was a major matter concerning the sect. There were also Xuan Chan and Xiao Xingwei, two disciples from other sects who had inexplicably entered the back mountain, insisted that the empty grave had nothing to do with them, and had complicated backgrounds. The elders were overwhelmed.
Especially after they crushed their communication talismans, wanting the sect leader to preside over the situation. Naturally, they couldn’t put these two hot potatoes in the forbidden prison like Sui Yihuan.
The two groups were at an impasse.
At this moment.
Hearing the movement outside the forbidden prison, and seeing the person’s figure stepping into this narrow space, Su Mingxiu showed no surprise on her face, “Disciple greets Master.”
She didn’t even bother with the pretense of respect.
The person who came was Ye Qingbai.
Compared to her open, gentle, and willing-to-listen demeanor in front of the elders, and her previous impatient, even indifferent attitude towards Su Mingxiu’s education, Ye Qingbai’s eyes now showed interest, like an eagle soaring in the sky discovering its prey, locking onto her disciple.
“You seem to know everything already.”
Ye Qingbai said her observations unhurriedly, and then affirmed, “So the little mouse that wanted to sneak into the back mountain some time ago, alarmed the formation, and then snuck in again last night, was my dear disciple.”
She asked with interest, “When did you find out?”
This had to be traced back to the previous life, but now, after experiencing thousands of years of ups and downs, and the entanglement with Sui Yihuan in these many worlds of life and death, Su Mingxiu found that her emotions could not be stirred up at this most critical moment of questioning and excitement. Her heart and eyes were filled with plans on how to kill this ‘kind’ master, and then send Sui Yihuan back to the Qiangshan Sect safe and sound.
So she replied perfunctorily, “Who knows? Maybe before you were even born.”
Ye Qingbai stopped smiling.
She seemed to be getting to know this wildly-grown disciple of hers for the first time. Noticing the great difference in her expression from what she had seen before, she mused, “You seem to have had some wondrous encounter. But it doesn’t matter. Once I take over your body, I will naturally know everything.”
Her words were like a key, unlocking another piece of sealed memory.
Su Mingxiu suddenly remembered what truths her ‘kind’ master had revealed when the demon race was ravaging the sect in the previous life—
For example, after learning that she was born with a Daoist constitution, this sect leader chose her as a vessel. The vessel only needed to look good on the outside. As for what was inside, did it matter?
So after bringing Su Mingxiu back to the sect, she privately refused to even pretend, and allowed the other elders and disciples to bully her.
Or rather, this was exactly what she wanted. The more fragile the will, the easier it was to shatter when she needed it.
But unexpectedly, this disciple seemed to be more resilient than she thought. But it didn’t matter. It was just an ant that had grown into a turtle. To a powerful hunter, crushing her was no different. This was what Ye Qingbai thought.
“What Master says is exactly what this disciple wants to say—”
Su Mingxiu’s eyebrows also curved, as if in agreement, but her dark eyes were frozen, “Once I capture your soul in my palm, I will know everything I want to know about when Master was replaced by the Heavenly Demon and when you betrayed the Hundred Flower Sect.”
Ye Qingbai sensed that her cultivation level was hidden, so she didn’t underestimate her. Besides, the elders were just flustered by the matter of the protective formation.
If she dragged this out for too long, it wouldn’t be appropriate. After all, her long-laid plans had already been disrupted quite a bit.
“You wretched disciple.” The Sect Leader of the Hundred Flower Sect said, her snow-white robe moving without wind. She didn’t even summon a magical artifact, just condensing her own cultivation into a palm, like a five-fingered mountain, pressing down on Su Mingxiu, “If there is an afterlife, remember to respect your master.”
If this palm really hit, even if Su Mingxiu’s cultivation had reached the Golden Core stage, she probably wouldn’t be able to withstand it. Her soul would be immediately knocked out of her body and then directly annihilated by this soul-destroying palm technique.
But unfortunately!
Electric light suddenly erupted in the forbidden prison, like a forbidden thunder from the heavens falling here. Every corner was filled with powerful blue electric light. Only by looking carefully could one discern that this was the manifestation of spiritual power released to its extreme.
And now, the electric light was like a shield, blocking that palm several meters away. When Ye Qingbai saw the person in the middle clearly, she found that Sui Yihuan, who was originally hanging on the wall, had already been protected in Su Mingxiu’s arms.
The green-clothed female cultivator took a step forward, her robes fluttering wildly as if disturbed by the thunder spiritual power, like they were in a strong wind.
But she calmly protected the person in her arms, looking through the layers of blue light at the person whose blood-red mark on her forehead was becoming more intense, “Sect Leader of the Hundred Flower Sect, the rarely seen Heavenly Demon, is this all you’ve got?”
“You! You wretched disciple! How could you possibly have such…”
The rest of her words were drowned out by the oppressive force of the Heaven-born spiritual artifact, the God Sealing Mirror, when it was summoned.
Because of this, the oppressive force of the spiritual artifact’s appearance instantly shook the entire Hundred Flower Sect. For a moment, all the elders and disciples, no matter where they were, felt this shock.
Su Mingxiu looked at the woman in front of her, whose forehead was flashing with an eerie red light, like a seed with blood marks spreading from the center of her eyebrows to all directions. Her face and neck were all covered with these marks, looking like she was being parasitized by this blood-colored seed. Knowing that this was her true appearance, even though one of her sleeves was stained with blood, she still asked calmly, “Master, are you already at your wit’s end?”
“This disciple thought that you would only use this thing after realizing that you couldn’t take over my body, out of desperation. After all, once you use it, this body of yours will soon be unable to withstand the power of the demon race, and you will have to abandon it, leaving this disciple with the crime of murdering her master. How regrettable.”
Ye Qingbai heard her even write the script for her and couldn’t help but sneer.
But she didn’t know that these were not just made up by Su Mingxiu, but things that had truly happened in the previous life.
At that time, Su Mingxiu naturally couldn’t possess the power to resist her. So she was beaten to a pulp, vomiting blood, with who knows how many broken bones. However… at the last moment, Ye Qingbai was furious to find that she couldn’t take over her body.
Because she had eaten that Serene Realm Fruit.
Besides making her immune to illusions, the greatest effect of the Serene Realm Fruit was to strengthen the soul. Even the most vicious curses could not possess a body that had eaten this fruit.
This was the most imperfect part of Ye Qingbai’s plan in the previous life. So when she left, she was particularly angry, so angry that she wanted to kill Su Mingxiu directly.
Unfortunately, in the end, her body was the first to collapse, so she could only regretfully leave Su Mingxiu with that lifelong infamy.
The worst and most terrible plan for Ye Qingbai made Su Mingxiu suffer more than death. She could no longer be accepted by the righteous path, nor did she want to fall into the demonic path. She wandered alone in this world, and for a long time, she felt that there was truly no place for her in this vast world.
The God Sealing Mirror was a cyan and white jade seal. When it appeared, it instantly shattered the forbidden prison, and daylight poured in. It grew larger and larger in the air, as if carrying the power of the laws, and was about to fall towards Su Mingxiu—
“Su, Su…”
The person she had been protecting in her arms all this time widened her eyes in surprise, wanting to remind her. But because her voice was stuck in her throat, perhaps also because she was being suppressed by the spiritual artifact, she could only manage to utter these two words in the end.
But the person who heard her call was very happy. She even used her uninjured hand to cover her eyes, saying very gently, “I’m here, don’t be afraid.”
Su Mingxiu narrowed her eyes, looking directly at the terrifying oppressive force of the spiritual artifact falling from the sky, like a thunderbolt.
And her spiritual power was released even more intensely. At the same time, she thought. Sure enough, without her natal spiritual sword, it was really not as convenient.
Her realm, at this moment, forcefully broke through along with her state of mind—Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, Body Integration, Great Ascension!
At the peak of the Great Ascension stage, all the spiritual veins within the Hundred Flower Sect were frantically extracted by her. The surging spiritual power vortex even formed a tornado above the forbidden prison. Su Mingxiu faced this spiritual artifact that surpassed all levels in the nine continents, forcefully condensing a shield of thunder spiritual power to block the blow from the God Sealing Mirror!
“Boom”!
It was like a huge sound, and also like a blow to everyone’s heart. Those who saw this scene from near and far felt a tightness in their chests, and then they coughed up blood from this commotion.
They thought that their ears would be deafened by such a blow, but many disciples with lower cultivation levels touched their ears with their last bit of strength, but didn’t find any blood.
This seemed to strike their souls.
Nearby.
Su Mingxiu stood in the bright daylight, not looking at the completely destroyed forbidden prison around her because of the blow just now, nor at the damaged walls and ruins of half the mountain. She lowered her head to check on the person in her arms, and after finding that Sui Yihuan was not injured, she raised her head and asked, “Master, is this all you’ve got?”
Indeed.
Ye Qingbai had just seen her realm rise all the way, and was already shocked to the extreme. Now her eyes were full of fear and greed as she looked at Su Mingxiu. She seemed to think that this was the hidden potential of the natural Dao body. She understood her meaning, but Su Mingxiu didn’t want to explain it to her, let her imagine.
At this moment, the burning marks of the red blood vessels on Ye Qingbai’s body had spread from her forehead to the back of her hands, looking like they were about to burst out of her body.
Ye Qingbai saw that her attack had failed, and that her tampering with the protective formation had been discovered. She knew that she was about to fail, and she was very unwilling.
Her gaze fell on the person in Su Mingxiu’s arms. Previously, when Su Mingxiu came to the forbidden prison to save people, Ye Qingbai only thought that it was her disciple’s usual act of kindness. Only now did she realize that their posture was a little too intimate.
Su Mingxiu… was protecting Sui Yihuan too much, as if she was holding a treasured possession.
The posture was too obvious, or rather, she never intended to hide it. Thinking of this, Ye Qingbai’s eyes suddenly showed a strange mockery, “You seem to like this little disciple from the Qiangshan Sect very much.”
Just as Su Mingxiu was about to dismiss her words as nonsense, Ye Qingbai suddenly asked, “Since you know that I am the Heavenly Demon, do you know that when the Heavenly Demon appears and brings chaos to the world, there is always a human demon who is born alongside it—”
“Wretched disciple, can you guess who the human demon born alongside this seat is?”
Hearing her obviously pointed words, although Su Mingxiu stood under the golden sunlight, her expression was even more indifferent than the lake on the back of the Heavenly Mountain, as if it were covered with the coldest ice, “This disciple has been taught, and will naturally seek them out in the future…”
She had only said half of her sentence.
Because her attention was diverted by the sudden pain surging into her shoulder. She lowered her eyes and saw that Sui Yihuan had somehow summoned that silver fan at some point. Although her expression was stunned, her eyes had turned blood red.
At the same time, she watched helplessly as the fan, which was also extremely sharp when closed, was thrust into the other person’s body like an iron pestle.
The red blood flowed from Su Mingxiu’s wound onto Sui Yihuan’s hand. She even felt that her hand holding the fan was trembling. It was trembling so much that she felt like she couldn’t even see the other person’s face clearly. Even the small mole at the corner of her eye became blurry. But she just couldn’t let go of the weapon she was holding tightly.
In an instant.
She understood. So the servant from last night was really killed by her.
…How long ago had it started? Why hadn’t she realized that she could actually?
Knowing that this was the truth that Ye Qingbai from the previous life hadn’t told her, and that the other party was now revealing her last trump card, Su Mingxiu wasn’t afraid of her. She just looked at the person she was holding.
A smile actually appeared on her lips.
She still used her uninjured hand to wipe the corner of Sui Yihuan’s eye, “Why are you crying?”
She said, “It didn’t hit the heart.”
Even if it hit the heart, it wouldn’t matter. Her Nascent Soul was still there, her spiritual platform was not destroyed, and even her soul was intact. For a cultivator, such a fatal injury to an ordinary person really didn’t mean much.
But Sui Yihuan was completely broken down. She seemed to finally understand why she had such a headache since last night, and also finally realized that she could no longer leave here and return to the Qiangshan Sect. Since she left the South Sea, her life had been completely changed.
“Have you remembered?”
Before Ye Qingbai got rid of this burdensome body, she smiled and left her a sentence, “Since you are my symbiotic partner, you don’t have to be burdened by these useless oil bottles. What awaits you are the powerful compatriots of the demon race. Only where I am is your home. I will come to pick you up.”
The demon soul left the body, leaving only the corpse of the Hundred Flower Sect’s Sect Leader on the ground. The demonic energy directly broke through the Hundred Flower Sect’s useless formation and escaped.
But the two victors she left behind were not in a good state either.
Su Mingxiu watched helplessly as the color of the eyes of the person in her arms switched between scarlet and normal black. But later, she didn’t know what she remembered. She just stared blankly at the sky, staying on the deep red, as if a match had been thrown in from the inside, burning her soul—
So in those eyes that she liked so much, which were as agile as a deer and as charming as a fox, two lines of blood-colored tears flowed down, as if she was grieving to the extreme, and would self-destruct in the next moment.
She heard Sui Yihuan struggling with her broken will, constantly apologizing to her, “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Su Mingxiu decisively knocked her unconscious, not even caring that the silver fan fell to the ground because it lost its support.
She gently took out a rose-colored handkerchief and wiped the traces from Sui Yihuan’s face clean.
If one looked closely, they would find a word “Huan” embroidered on the edge of the handkerchief, with two small fish next to it. It was probably embroidered by the other person’s family.
Earlier in the small garden, Su Mingxiu had used her handkerchief to wrap her hand that had been cut by the formation. She later washed it clean but never returned it.
To the person who had already fallen asleep, she sighed softly. While sitting down to rest among the ruins, she rested her chin on Sui Yihuan’s forehead, rubbing it affectionately, “I should be the one apologizing to you.”
I once thought that as long as I wasn’t as cold and inhumane to you as I was in the previous life when we first met, our ending would be different. I could rewrite your fate and pull you back from the edge of the cliff.
But it turns out…
My encounter with you was already late from the beginning. How ridiculous that I thought I could change everything.
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