Category: After I Abandoned the Protagonist [Quick Transmigration]

Chapter 232: 

Afternoon.

Sunlight pierced through the clouds, falling on the high mountain beside the blood lake of Black Stone Dock. There, clusters of roses bloomed, and the unique Nine Continents’ flying flower butterflies danced among them. The mountain was covered in roses of various colors, making it almost impossible to recognize the sinister and dangerous appearance of the Demon Abyss from a hundred years ago.

By the rose bushes, a figure lounged lazily in a deck chair woven from green vines, flipping through a woven copy of “Nine Continents Chronicle: After I Abandoned the Demon Lord.” After finishing the last paragraph, she saw the roses crowding around, buds next to petals, curiously peering, not with the ethereal air of flower spirits, but like a pack of prairie dogs, eager to climb onto the reader.

“And then?”

The reader pondered for a moment, as if thinking about something. At this moment, a sunflower approached from the side, its large face following the sunlight in the sky.

But this sky-gazing posture held a different kind of reminiscence. “I know! Then the Demon Lord naturally succeeded in her proposal and lived happily ever after with the Demon Queen. Just like our Master’s grand wedding a hundred years ago, officiated by the Heavenly Dao—”

“With hundreds of beasts paying homage, hundreds of birds playing music, and cranes carrying gifts from all directions! That wedding was an unprecedented grand occasion in the Nine Continents. Hundreds of sects from the mortal world sent congratulatory gifts, and the Demon Abyss devoted all its resources, decorating Black Stone Dock like a scene of spring. Even the underworld cracked, revealing the ‘Three Lives Stone,’ an innate spiritual artifact, reflecting the images of the wedding couple, eternally engraved upon it. Finally, the Heavenly Dao sent down a knot of unity, inscribing their vows into the three thousand laws of this world, signifying that the power of this grand wedding would last as long as heaven and earth, until their destruction!”

The little roses let out “wows” of amazement, as if they also wanted to be born a hundred years ago to witness the grand wedding celebrated by all of the nine continents and four seas. They eagerly crowded in front of the vine chair and asked, “Master, Master, is this true?”

The woman in the vine chair had a more beautiful face than all the roses on the mountain. Now, with her lazy, downcast eyes and gentle smile, if any traveler happened to pass by, they would surely think they had encountered a deity.

She responded casually, her tone a little perfunctory, “Is it?”

However, a faint smile appeared in her eyes, as if thinking of someone.

Just then, a slight sound came from the bottom of the mountain. Her expression suddenly paused. In the blood lake below the cliff, a lotus, originally resting peacefully in the pool, suddenly stretched its leaves and stems, growing rapidly. It instantly rose from the blood lake, reaching hundreds of feet tall, landing by the cliff. Its pink and white petals opened and closed, and a soft voice hurriedly said, “Master, it’s not good! Mistress blew up the kitchen again!”

The person who was leisurely basking in the sun’s expression immediately changed, and she sat up from the deck chair, her black hair sliding down her shoulders. A fair hand gently pulled at her loose collar, “How could this be? Isn’t she drinking tea with Yama? I remember I prepared pastries for her, did she finish them so quickly?”

The pink and white lotus petals trembled, and the lotus said softly, “Originally, only Yama was visiting, but who knew that the new Sect Leader of the Hundred Flower Sect, Yan Miaomiao, also came to visit, saying that she wanted to discuss with the Demon Lord about the participation of demon disciples in the next Cultivation Conference. The Heavenly Dao saw that the leaders of the three realms were all gathered here and felt that it was a good opportunity to observe the revision of the rules, so it also appeared—”

“Everyone started arguing while chatting, and Mistress, wanting to fulfill her duty as a host, saw that there weren’t enough pastries on the table, so she said she would go make some more and let them calm down. Who knew that just half an hour after she went in, the kitchen exploded. Now it’s a mess down there, and tomorrow those gossip tabloids in the Nine Continents will definitely say that our demon race harmed the righteous sect’s leader!”

After she finished speaking through gritted teeth, she saw the woman in green get up from the deck chair. The lotus was about to carry her to Black Stone Dock, but she saw her tear through space and step in, her figure disappearing, leaving only slight ripples in the air.

The lotus was stunned for a moment, subconsciously looking towards the rebuilt small house in the center of the blood lake, the current Black Stone Dock. Just as she was about to return to her original form, she was pulled by a rose with its small leaves.

“How many kitchens has Mistress blown up this month?”

“The third!”

“Sister, don’t go join the fun. Every time that Hundred Flower Sect Leader comes, Master and Mistress won’t come to see us for a long time. I’m almost used to it! Sister, you might as well stay here and chat with us about the new popular stories in the Nine Continents!”

“Yes, yes.”

The roses chimed in, their voices noisy, and finally reached a consensus, working together to keep the lotus in the blood lake on the mountaintop as a guest, asking her to take over Master’s job and continue telling them stories.

The lotus transformed into a human form and stepped into the rose bushes. She originally wanted to ask what story, but after seeing the title of the book held by the roses, she was silent for a moment.

After a while, she helplessly flipped through the book. Seeing the writing style, she knew that the Heavenly Dao had been obsessed with finding inspiration for rules from stories some time ago. In the end, it felt that this way of spreading stories was not bad, so it personally wrote the story of Su Mingxiu and Sui Yihuan, preparing to use this method to inspire future generations to dare to fight against unfair fate.

Who knew that this story would somehow spread throughout the Nine Continents.

She flipped through the book and asked these newly sentient junior sisters patiently, “Where did Master leave off earlier?”

“At the wedding.”

“No, no, it was clearly when that hateful male protagonist and the cruel Heavenly Dao perished!”

…

The roses argued endlessly, but the lotus put the book back and replied helplessly, “Isn’t it already finished?”

The roses, bumping into each other and shaking off petals, looked up blankly, “Finished?” How could such a good story end so abruptly?

“How can it be finished?”

“Yes, the storyteller still has many things to tell.”

Facing the roses’ questions, the lotus put down the book, thought for a moment, and replied, “What other questions do you have?”

The yellow rose asked, “Does the Demon Lord in there have the memories of the other person’s multiple reincarnations?”

“Perhaps.” The lotus replied cautiously.

She thought about the love between her Master and Mistress, and then changed her words, “She must remember, just like the protagonist in the story, forced to forget everything again and again, but also remembering again and again—the Demon Lord wouldn’t disappoint her.”

The red rose asked, “That… that Joyful Union Sect disciple who liked Xiao Xingwei, what happened to her later? And that Second Senior Sister from the Hundred Flower Sect who was brought to the Demon Abyss to plant flowers.”

The red rose was sentimental. When she listened to the story earlier, she always sighed for those infatuated women who misplaced their love, even though these people didn’t have much description.

The lotus thought for a moment, “That Joyful Union Sect disciple was later scolded by the elders in her sect, realizing that her taste in men needed improvement. After being in seclusion for a long time, she comprehended a heartless cultivation technique and no longer looked at any man in the world. Maybe she’ll become the new Sect Leader of the Joyful Union Sect in the future.”

“As for that jealous Second Senior Sister, she originally intended to compete for the position of Hundred Flower Sect Leader, but found that she was not as popular as that little junior sister in the sect who didn’t know anything, muddled through the war, somehow had a good relationship with everyone, only loved to eat and drink, and in the end, got the full support of the elders and became the new Sect Leader. After recognizing her position as the eternal second-in-command, she became much more Buddhist and spent her later days planting spiritual herbs in the Hundred Flower Sect.”

The pink rose, thinking of the many love tokens that appeared in the story, slowly said, “I remember that wooden box given by the merman, the protagonist never opened it. Why is there such a segment in the Demon Lord’s obsession?”

“About that…”

“And also, did the Demon Lord ever return to Qiangshan Sect?”

“The Demon Lord is covered in that terrifying blood curse, can she really promise someone eternity?”

“Achoo.”

In front of the small house in Black Stone Dock.

Sui Yihuan, who was cleaning up the mess, suddenly sneezed. She didn’t know if it was because the spell was lagging, stirring up dust in the room, or if someone was talking about her.

Su Mingxiu, who casually cast a cleaning spell, looked at her with a smile, her gaze falling on the soot on her nose, as if looking at a stray kitten outside, seemingly licking the cat seriously, but actually not noticing the dirty spots on herself.

Meeting Su Mingxiu’s gaze, the Demon Lord in black blushed, her pure face like a lychee on a branch in May, just the tip reddening, making one want to peel off its skin and see the sweet white juice inside.

“I…I saw that there were too many guests, and those few pastries were too inappropriate. But I couldn’t just entertain people with plain steamed buns, so I thought, you’ve also taught me many times, maybe I could try…”

Her voice became lower and lower because of her guilt, obviously thinking of the consequence of her attempt, which was sacrificing another newly built kitchen.

The guests had already left, either because they were afraid of Su Mingxiu coming to find trouble with them or for some other reason. Only the two of them remained among the ruins.

Su Mingxiu walked towards her, reached out and touched her head, and replied with a smile, “It’s fine, you’re just too thin-skinned. Next time they argue here again, let them drink the wind.”

Amused by her tone, Sui Yihuan also relaxed. After a while, as if thinking of something, she teased, “Your little junior sister was also among them. You’re willing to let her drink the wind?”

“How can a junior sister be as important as my Dao companion?”

Su Mingxiu easily pushed the ball back, not falling for it.

Sui Yihuan couldn’t find fault with her, her eyebrows twitched, and she could only continue to clean up the mess with a spell, changing the subject, “I originally wanted you to make a hot pot tonight. Now, I don’t even know if I can clean up the kitchen tonight. Tomorrow, I have to start changing this blood lake into a hot spring…” She remembered that Su Mingxiu especially liked soaking in hot springs.

Without the major events of the war between the Nine Continents and the life and death of the demon race, today’s Demon Lord was also frowning over trivial household chores.

The cultivator in green watched her worry about the soot on the tip of her nose for a long time. After watching enough of her antics, she took her hand, “Then let’s not clean it up.”

“Hmm?”

The Demon Lord tilted her head, not understanding what she meant.

Who knew that the next moment, the other person would tear through space, taking her with her in one step, traveling thousands of miles, “These people are always causing trouble for you, don’t bother serving them anymore. Didn’t you say you wanted to go out and play? Let’s start now. We’ll go north from the Demon Abyss and return to Qiangshan Sect first. It just so happens that the mugwort leaves are growing well this season, and you can have green rice balls again…”

Sui Yihuan, who could suddenly put aside all her plans and go out, was stunned for a moment. Because she hadn’t prepared anything, she hesitated for a long time, “Wait, let me check my things.”

“I’ve brought everything. I checked your spatial bag last night. You even brought the broken mermaid pearl in that wooden box, and millions of spirit stones. If you think the Nine Continents aren’t enough fun, just say hello to the Heavenly Dao, and we’ll go to the three thousand small worlds and live a carefree life.” Su Mingxiu coaxed her patiently.

The Demon Lord, accustomed to shouldering responsibilities, was still thinking about the matters of the Demon Abyss and this place, “But, there are still them and this house…”

“The disciples have grown up, it’s time for them to share the burden for their masters. I left them a letter. When we return, it will be a brand new Black Stone Dock.”

Sui Yihuan: “?”

Thinking of the flowers on the cliff by the blood lake, she suddenly felt sincere sympathy for them.

But after taking a step, she found herself in the mortal world, facing a “Peony Courtyard.” Seeing the beautiful girls coming and going at the entrance, in a spiritual energy barrier invisible to mortals, another question mark appeared above the Demon Lord’s head.

“This place…” She turned to look at Su Mingxiu, thinking that this would persuade her to change to a more respectable place.

Who knew that the cultivator’s eyes would flicker, and she flipped through a “Nine Continents Food Guide” that had appeared in her hand at some point, “The drunken fish here has a unique flavor. After this meal, we can stay the night. We can reminisce about old times.”

“What old times…”

Sui Yihuan blushed, wanting to scold this rogue, but Su Mingxiu tapped her nose and leaned in affectionately, calling her, “Disciple is questioning her master?”

The Demon Lord, suddenly reminded of old memories: “You!”

“Don’t like being called Master? What do you prefer? Stepmom?”

“Su Mingxiu!”

“Sigh, you used to call me Su Su. Is this the difference between before and after marriage?”

“Rustle…”

In the Demon Abyss.

The roses, who had driven the lotus away, were still full of questions, huddled together for warmth in the night. A gust of wind from somewhere blew the storybook from the chair into the flower bushes.

The red rose bent down, used a leaf to hold the flower, and asked the drowsy yellow rose beside her, “Didn’t Master and Mistress say they were going to make hot pot tonight? Why can’t I smell it yet?”

“I don’t know.”

The yellow rose rubbed her bud, and after a while, seeing the book in her hand, she leaned closer mysteriously and asked, “Don’t you think this story, although sweet and touching, is missing something?”

“What?”

The awakened pink and white roses also gathered around, “Missing what?”

“I don’t know—”

“It should be missing some… indescribable things.”

“Indescribable? What kind of indescribable things?”

“I don’t know, let’s ask Master and Mistress tomorrow!”

—The End—

Chapter 231: So I’m the Protagonist After All (End)

Just as Xiao Xingwei swung his first sword at Su Mingxiu, Sui Yihuan summoned the God Sealing Mirror, blocking Tai’e’s attack. The jade-green artifact, struck by the sharp blade, rang out, a crack appearing on its surface.

Sui Yihuan frowned, retracting the God Sealing Mirror. A shadowy figure lunged at her back, only to be stopped by a net of lightning.

Su Mingxiu raised an eyebrow at the Heavenly Demon, who had lost her former elegance, “No greeting for your disciple, Master? How hurtful.”

The Heavenly Demon, her sneak attack thwarted by pure thunder spiritual power: “…”

She’d known this wretched disciple was powerful and sharp-tongued, but it still stung.

Although they’d blocked Xiao Xingwei’s first attack, Su Mingxiu and Sui Yihuan couldn’t create many more opportunities with the pearl.

His tribulation lightning armor prevented them from getting close, and with the Heavenly Demon lurking, waiting for revenge, they quickly tired.

Only then did Xiao Xingwei reveal his true strength.

The path of cultivation grew harder with each stage, the gap between realms widening. Su Mingxiu, though powerful, was no match for Xiao Xingwei, empowered by the Buddhist treasure to the peak of Tribulation Transcendence. Her attacks seemed feeble.

And she had to watch for the Heavenly Demon’s attacks on Sui Yihuan—

She was quickly injured, her left arm nearly severed.

“I’ll handle the Heavenly Demon. You…” Sui Yihuan knew Su Mingxiu was stronger than this, capable of more. The Heavenly Dao’s restrictions were holding her back. “Hold on, I’m coming.”

Drip.

Red blood fell from the sky above the Demon Abyss, disappearing into the vast blood lake without a ripple.

Su Mingxiu locked onto Xiao Xingwei, the smile never leaving her lips. Her voice, though lacking its usual warmth, held a unique tenderness, “I should be saying that to you.”

“We’ve come this far. Dying here for love isn’t my ideal ending.”

Sui Yihuan’s crimson eyes also held a smile. She knew Su Mingxiu’s fear. Though much remained unspoken between them, she knew what Su Mingxiu wanted.

To live, together.

Xiao Xingwei, irritated by their closeness, couldn’t understand their bond. He and Su Mingxiu were both born with Daoist constitutions.

But Sui Yihuan was a filthy demon. He couldn’t fathom Su Mingxiu choosing her over him.

She was foolish, blind to the obvious advantages.

Foolishness demanded a price. He swung Tai’e, an unavoidable blow—

Just one more strike…

Pure black sword energy, with world-destroying power, bore down on Su Mingxiu. The green figure, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, was quickly enveloped, about to be crushed.

Xiao Xingwei didn’t even look, turning instead to Sui Yihuan, now possessed by the Heavenly Demon and frozen in mid-air. Disdain filled his eyes as he prepared to end them both.

Suddenly!

A surge of spiritual power behind him made his spine tingle. He turned too late, barely raising Tai’e to block!

“Boom!”

A deafening explosion rocked the Demon Abyss. Su Mingxiu’s proximity to Xiao Xingwei meant the tribulation lightning engulfed them both, stray sword energy scattering like an exploding lightning ball.

“You…”

Xiao Xingwei blocked her attack, his eyes widening as he realized how she’d evaded his earlier strike. Not worried, but delighted, he laughed, “You dare ascend amidst tribulation lightning? You’re courting death!”

As he spoke, the tribulation lightning intensified, engulfing the Demon Abyss. The demons thought they were doomed. Only Su Mingxiu knew the lightning targeted her.

Undeterred, she blocked Tai’e and looked down, “I meant to mention, your sword is as weak as ever, all show and no substance.”

Her fingers on Tai’e tightened slightly. Xiao Xingwei’s eyes widened—

Two sword cultivators at the Tribulation Transcendence realm, the difference in raw power laid bare.

Xiao Xingwei doubled over, a Tribulation Transcendence Venerable’s blood splattering onto the cliff beside the blood lake, solidifying into golden crystals, blooming like strange flowers.

The unique power of gold spiritual energy.

But no one had time to admire the spectacle. As Xiao Xingwei was injured by Su Mingxiu’s casual sword energy, the tribulation lightning converged on her, the will of the Nine Continents striking down!

The Heavenly Dao, merciless against defiance, sought to obliterate this failure!

In an instant, the blood lake parted, and a faintly glowing spiritual sword flew out, blocking the destructive lightning before Su Mingxiu.

But the Heavenly Dao’s power was overwhelming. Even with the sword spirit awakened and reconnected to Su Mingxiu, it seemed too small to resist.

Xiao Xingwei, injured but distanced, watched coldly, waiting to finish off the Demon Lord and city lords after Su Mingxiu was reduced to ashes. Such a feat would make him the undisputed ruler of the Nine Continents!

Too confident in Su Mingxiu’s demise, he forgot the possessed Demon Lord. Looking around, he didn’t see the black-clad figure outside the lightning—

【Beware!】

The Heavenly Dao’s voice echoed in his mind.

“Looking for me?”

A cold voice came from behind. He reacted, instinctively swinging his sword, but he was frozen.

A hand pierced his chest, dripping gold blood, laced with black and red curse threads, a terrifying sight. In that pierced hand, she held the faintly glowing green…God Sealing Mirror.

Sui Yihuan, using the Mirror’s power to shatter space, tore through Xiao Xingwei’s body, then infused him with blood curse power, preventing his wounds from healing, immobilizing him.

He could only feel the vile curse spreading through his veins.

“How could you…”

Xiao Xingwei couldn’t comprehend how she’d overcome the Heavenly Demon so quickly, let alone have the strength to attack him.

As the curse spread, tainting even his Daoist constitution, his eyes widened in horror. He made the agonizing decision—

His Nascent Soul burst from his forehead, abandoning his cultivated body. His voice was filled with hatred and desperation, “Heavenly Dao! Protect me!”

Su Mingxiu was doomed! No need to waste all the tribulation lightning on her, killing this Demon Lord who’d taken his body was paramount!

He was the chosen one; his protection was paramount!

His miniature form flew towards the lightning, abandoning all pretense of their deal, shouting—

The lightning surrounding Su Mingxiu hesitated, about to divert to protect him, when he saw a hand gripping a sword hilt within the blinding white light.

Terror, greater than any near-death experience, gripped him. His Nascent Soul tried to turn, too late—

He watched as the hand gripped the sword within the lightning vortex. The sword, already humming from absorbing the tribulation lightning, was turned, its wielder seemingly commanding the very heavens!

The accumulated lightning power, absorbed by the sword and its master, was unleashed in a blinding white flash, less terrifying than Tai’e’s black sword energy, yet silencing the world.

Blinding white filled Xiao Xingwei’s vision.

He heard nothing.

Then, the crackling of tribulation lightning returned, and he rejoiced, thinking the Heavenly Dao’s protection had arrived. Then, darkness.

His Nascent Soul extinguished, he died not understanding his defeat.

Behind his fading Nascent Soul, his body was shattered by the unstoppable blow. Sui Yihuan, knowing he was dead, released his remains to fall into the blood lake, her hand rising instinctively.

She touched the snowflake earring on her left ear; a petal was broken.

But she didn’t care, nor did she look to see where Su Mingxiu’s attack had flown after breaking through the Demon Abyss formation. She rushed to Su Mingxiu’s side, pushing the bloodstained God Sealing Mirror forward, shielding her from the intensifying tribulation lightning.

Su Mingxiu, having unleashed that attack, ready to be struck, saw the figure enter the lightning and said, bewildered, “Why—”

“A lover’s death isn’t my ideal ending.” Sui Yihuan embraced her, their bodies cracking under the lightning, their meridians overflowing with power. With her last strength, she said, “But living alone is far more terrifying.”

Her spiritual sword shattered after that blow. Su Mingxiu focused on absorbing the tribulation lightning, her meridians repeatedly breaking and reforming, the pain indescribable, only blood froth escaping her lips.

She lost the chance to argue; she wouldn’t inflict this on Sui Yihuan. If she feared being alone, why had she made that deal with the Heavenly Dao in her past life?

Embracing, their consciousnesses intertwined, they heard a terrifying sound, but had no time to discern it.

They were fading.

Even the sounds of the world quieted.

The tribulation lightning had long since faded.

But Su Mingxiu and Sui Yihuan still held each other close, a golden light piercing the Demon Abyss formation, bathing them in warmth, their souls soaking in a comforting spring.

“The former Heavenly Dao, lacking virtue and showing favoritism, caused chaos in the Nine Continents…” A familiar mechanical voice reached Su Mingxiu’s ears, and she, who thought she’d become one with the wind and rain, opened her dark eyes.

Before her, Sui Yihuan also opened her eyes, hearing the same voice, and asked with a strange expression, “Is this a new trick of the Heavenly Dao?”

It shouldn’t be.

It had just tried to kill them; why this conciliatory tone now?

Bathed in golden light, Su Mingxiu pondered, looking down at her body. The lightning scars were gone, the pain vanished, her sea of consciousness vast, sensing the breath of the stars and the Nine Continents.

Her body was clothed in a robe woven from golden light, soft and warm, surpassing any mortal finery.

Alive, Su Mingxiu’s mind raced. After a moment, she smiled at Sui Yihuan, “I don’t think it’s a trick.”

She explained, “My attack must have reached the heavens.”

Unlike Xiao Xingwei’s ascension, aided by the Heavenly Dao, Su Mingxiu’s power was earned. Her sword intent could split heaven and earth. She’d returned the Heavenly Dao’s most powerful weapon against it.

She’d intended to pierce the sky; she hadn’t expected this.

The former Heavenly Dao’s will had been extinguished.

A new will was born, now bathing Su Mingxiu and Sui Yihuan in golden light, reciting a confession of sorts. The former Heavenly Dao, lacking virtue and impartiality,

Was no longer worthy. They, the instruments of change, should…take its place.

Hmm?

Take its place?

Su Mingxiu instantly flashed out of the golden light. After enduring the tribulations of her past life and battling the Heavenly Dao across eight worlds, reunited with Sui Yihuan, she’d had enough of control and emotional suppression. She’d rather be free as the wind than rule all creation.

Besides.

Her heart already belonged to someone.

Sui Yihuan, watching her, quickly understood. She too,

Flashed out of the golden light, apologizing, “I…don’t want to lose my seven emotions and six desires. I’m sorry.”

The nascent Heavenly Dao: “?”

Confused, it reviewed the former Heavenly Dao’s rules. Wasn’t becoming an emotionless immortal the ultimate goal of cultivators?

But then, the old rules were flawed; this wasn’t surprising.

The golden light formed into a child, seven or eight years old, with long silver hair, chubby cheeks, and bright eyes. In a calm, ancient voice, it said:

“Congratulations on breaking free from your unjust fate and following your own path. This deity wishes to atone for past transgressions. You may each make a wish for the new order.”

“A wish?”

Su Mingxiu casually played with her hair, replying indifferently, “I’ve already fulfilled all my wishes myself.”

Sui Yihuan hesitated, glancing at Su Mingxiu, who nodded. She exhaled and said, “I only wish for equality for all beings in the Nine Continents, whether demon, cultivator, or mortal, to stand under the sun.”

“Granted.”

More golden light poured in, dispelling the black and red mist above the Demon Abyss, forming pillars of light, dreamlike and ethereal.

In the slums,

Low-level demons, hiding underground, heard the silence and, seeing no change in the Demon Abyss, knew the Demon Lord had won, emerging to celebrate.

A child pointed at the golden light and asked an elder, “Is that…the legendary sun?”

A demon, sensing the shift in the Heavenly Dao’s will, wiped a tear and smiled, “It’s hope.”

Hope?

Looking at the elder’s smile, the child scratched his goat horns, thinking it must be a good word.

“Don’t you have anything to ask me?”

In the tower bathed in golden sunlight, Sui Yihuan looked at the person dozing since their return and reached for the black neck ring, originally meant for protection, yet still there.

As she tried to remove it, Su Mingxiu caught her hand, the mole at the corner of her eye lazy in the sunlight. She kissed Sui Yihuan’s hand. Just as Sui Yihuan expected her to ask about the Heavenly Demon, Su Mingxiu’s eyes narrowed, her other hand reaching for the snowflake earring.

“It’s missing a petal.”

It was now a five-pointed snowflake.

“Uh…” Sui Yihuan hesitated, unsure how to explain that it had been shattered by a stray lightning bolt when she killed Xiao Xingwei, “Should I find someone to fix it?”

“I’ll do it.”

Su Mingxiu removed the earring. Seeing Sui Yihuan’s eagerness to confess, her face practically screaming “I want to tell you everything, just give me a chance,” she chuckled and pulled her close.

“Alright, tell me.”

Sui Yihuan hurriedly confessed about the Heavenly Demon. It had all happened so fast. The Heavenly Demon, despite her betrayal and hatred, still prioritized the demon race’s revival over revenge. So, in a way, they shared a common enemy.

As long as Sui Yihuan lived and led the demons back to the prosperous Nine Continents, the Heavenly Demon would pay any price, even her own life.

—Another outcome the Heavenly Dao and Xiao Xingwei hadn’t foreseen. Well, the former Heavenly Dao.

Su Mingxiu wondered what it would think, knowing everyone but its protagonist defied its will. It was a pity she’d never know.

The snowflake in her hand melted, and in the dim room, flowers bloomed, swaying gently, their vibrant colors drawing their gaze.

Unexpectedly seeing the sea of flowers again, Sui Yihuan relaxed, nestled in Su Mingxiu’s arms, her eyes reflecting the colors, “I think I remember some things from my past life.”

She felt a twinge of guilt,

Afraid Su Mingxiu would settle old scores.

But Su Mingxiu’s method was unique. With an “Oh?” she suddenly gripped Sui Yihuan’s waist, pulling her closer, “Then tell me, why did you choose a demon as your queen?”

Ah, this.

Caught off guard by such a pointed question, the Demon Lord rubbed her nose, her eyes reddening with nervousness, “I had just become the Demon Lord, my authority wasn’t secure. To invade the Nine Continents, I needed the other city lords’ support. It was just a promise, not a real marriage.”

It wasn’t a real marriage.

Because before that, Sui Yihuan had already traded her soul for Su Mingxiu, just like in the last world Su Mingxiu experienced.

Even though she had to maintain relationships with others, in the end, her heart belonged to her.

Seeing the dangerous glint in Su Mingxiu’s eyes, Sui Yihuan abruptly got up, walked barefoot towards the sea of flowers, looked around nervously, and changed the subject, “Oh no! The broken patch is missing roses!”

Su Mingxiu raised an eyebrow, got up from the deck chair, walked towards her, also into the sea of flowers, looked around, and suddenly opened her palm towards Sui Yihuan—

Under the Demon Lord’s puzzled gaze, she suddenly moved towards her. When she reacted, she realized that the black neck ring that had been locked around Su Mingxiu’s neck was now on hers!

When did Su Mingxiu unlock it…no, how did she even know how to do that?

Sui Yihuan held the thread of spiritual power in her palm, her expression bewildered.

As she stared blankly, Su Mingxiu laughed, her fingertips tracing the edge of the neck ring, her nose rubbing against Sui Yihuan’s cheek, “It’s not missing, the rose is right here.”

Having just finished her sweet words, she slowly hooked the neck ring, leaned closer, and whispered in Sui Yihuan’s ear, “If you don’t say something nice to coax me, this rose’s petals will be crushed, and she’ll only be able to pitifully leak juice.”

Sui Yihuan: “?”

Her face was full of terror. After a long moment of trepidation, she said ingratiatingly, “How about…I marry you? I’ll make you my Demon Queen.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she was lifted into Su Mingxiu’s arms and carried towards the bed. She kicked her feet, knocking a water lily askew in the essence flower sea.

The unsuccessful Demon Lord tried to negotiate again, “This time, I’ll be with you for not just a hundred years! A thousand years, ten thousand years! Is that okay?”

……

In the surging heat, Sui Yihuan thought she had failed in her negotiation.

Until her soul also drifted, she heard the other person’s slightly hoarse voice, the deep affection within it so hot that she shivered even in her sleep, as if branded with an inescapable mark.

“A thousand years? Ten thousand years?”

“Far from enough.”

Since this rose chose to land in her soil, it could only take root and grow here. From then on, all its charm was dedicated to her, all the morning dew it exuded could only nourish her. As the rose grew, the soil provided nutrients. If the rose withered, this land would die with it.

Chapter 230: So I’m the Protagonist After All (26)

Sui Yihuan hadn’t expected the person on top of her to become even more emotional after she said those words, as if she had done something unforgivable.

—But she hadn’t.

Not knowing how to comfort someone who was losing control, but sensing the scalding tears, Sui Yihuan knew she had to continue this task she wasn’t good at.

So, while being held tightly by Su Mingxiu, she also tried to say something to alleviate the other person’s heavy guilt, which was almost self-destructive:

“Can you… tell me about your past life? I want to hear it.”

Her intuition told her that if she didn’t do something, Su Mingxiu might sink into those emotions and be unable to extricate herself.

But the other person didn’t seem very interested in these things, just listlessly rubbing her warm lips against the ear wearing the snowflake earring, her hot breath making Sui Yihuan itch uncomfortably.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Su Mingxiu murmured, “It’s just a story of a fool falling in love with a heartless scumbag.”

Sui Yihuan had almost gotten used to being called a “fool” by her. She responded with a helpless look, her eyes shifting slightly, having long since returned to their usual black, now also containing a smile, no longer the cold and distant look she had feigned when they first met in the Demon Abyss.

“How could you be that kind of person?”

After a pause, she said, “You shouldn’t belittle yourself like that. I know my own nature. If I like you, it must be because you’re worthy.”

“But I’m not worthy.”

“Uh…” Sui Yihuan was both amused and exasperated by her stubborn self-deprecation. Noticing that the clinging kiss had moved from her neck to her face, making her eyelashes tremble uneasily, she didn’t dare to push away the emotionally unstable person at this time. She could only endure it, comforting her haltingly, “The Su Mingxiu I know is a cultivator who never yields to fate and always follows her own path… Whether in the cultivation world, the Demon Abyss, or the underworld, she walks through reincarnation and never bows her head… You are better than you think. I believe in you, even in the previous life, you must have fought.”

If you also loved me, you must have struggled for me—Sui Yihuan believed so.

Su Mingxiu cupped her face. After her voice fell, she swallowed the rest of her breath, their lips and teeth entangled for who knows how long. The person who finally let go chuckled, “Where did you get this trust? I don’t even dare to believe in myself like that.”

It was precisely because she had dissected her own heart that she knew all her flaws. Even though her cultivation had once been below demigod level, an existence that anyone in the Nine Continents would address as “Venerable,” as long as she wasn’t a god for a day, the dark side of human nature, the seven emotions and six desires, would always be bound in her heart, looking for opportunities to do evil.

Recalling the reincarnations in those illusions, Su Mingxiu didn’t even dare to tell Sui Yihuan how many excessive and terrible things she had done to her…

She had made her long for something she couldn’t have, and she had also made her suffer, lose hope, and break down… Thinking of these, Su Mingxiu felt that Sui Yihuan was really a fool, because a smart person wouldn’t like her.

“No one can escape the power of this ‘blood curse,’ only you… broke free from it and insisted on remembering me. It’s the same now, and it must have been the same before.”

Sui Yihuan wasn’t lying. She admired Su Mingxiu’s unyielding spirit the most, which allowed her to stick to her heart and remain unshaken no matter where she was or what kind of despair she faced.

Su Mingxiu was her anchor.

Because the other person had never lowered her head, she wouldn’t allow herself to give up either. Su Mingxiu in this life, after that night in the fishing village, was able to break free from her power.

Even though there was the temperament honed by reincarnation, who said that Su Mingxiu in the previous life was mediocre?

The fact that she could maintain her heart in those countless reincarnations already proved that this person was the same as before—if it were any other cultivator, they would have long since lost themselves in the repeated changes.

Therefore, Sui Yihuan was very sure that whether it was in the previous life or this life, this person was worthy of her love and her devotion.

Even though she didn’t have the memories from before and didn’t know why Su Mingxiu belittled herself like this, she firmly believed that the other person had also tried to fight against the Heavenly Dao in countless midnight hours, and had never stopped, never yielded.

“You really are…”

The usually eloquent cultivator was speechless in front of this pure Demon Lord.

The two snuggled close, drawing warmth from each other, the atmosphere incomparably warm. But just then, there was a sudden fluctuation of demonic power outside the room, making them both put away their expressions. Sui Yihuan took the initiative to ask, “What is it?”

“Above the Demon Abyss, the formation has changed. Please preside over the situation, Demon Lord.”

Half an hour later.

Su Mingxiu accompanied Sui Yihuan to the Demon Abyss’ discussion hall in Black Stone Dock. The hall was located at the very top of the tower, overlooking most of the Demon Abyss. Looking at the abyss shrouded in black and red mist, Su Mingxiu turned her gaze and swept over the agitated demons.

“This cultivator must be a spy sent by the Nine Continents. If it weren’t for them, the formation we altered wouldn’t have been broken so quickly—”

“Kill her!”

“We’ve been cooped up here for too long, it’s time to let the Nine Continents see the spirit of our demon race!”

But the cultivator, who had already been sentenced to death hundreds of times in these demons’ proposals, was very calm. She just looked behind the City Lord of one of the cities, at the demoness standing there with her head lowered.

This person looked familiar. She remembered that in her previous life, when the Demon Abyss and the Nine Continents were at war, this person was standing beside Sui Yihuan, and her identity was…

The future Demon Queen?

So that’s how it was.

So that’s what the final holographic game world meant.

Listening to the agitated crowd, there was one person who hadn’t expressed any opinion from beginning to end, and that was the Demon Lord beside Su Mingxiu, Sui Yihuan.

But even without speaking, just those crimson eyes calmly sweeping over everyone present made the rising clamor quiet down.

Just then, Sui Yihuan heard a soft chuckle beside her ear. She couldn’t help but turn her head, a subtle puzzlement in her eyes, wondering where her good mood came from.

Su Mingxiu didn’t have time to share her interesting discovery, about the final story of her previous life. Her expression just changed slightly, and she looked towards the top of Black Stone Dock, the emotions in her black eyes gradually cooling, like an icy plain swept by a cold wave, everything frosted over.

“They’re here.”

Hearing her words, Sui Yihuan also focused and sensed for a moment, her expression turning serious, “Those Nine Continents cultivators are so fast…”

But she clearly remembered that she had already grasped the whereabouts of those intruding cultivators. Where did they get their information from? Was it that elusive Buddhist Sect again?

“It’s not the Nine Continents.”

Su Mingxiu shook her head, sensing the change in the heart demon oath in her spiritual platform, “There are very few people coming—but one of them couldn’t wait to cheat.”

Almost as soon as she finished speaking, a rumbling sound suddenly came from above the Demon Abyss, alarming all the demons.

The meeting of the city lords and demon elders in Black Stone Dock also became meaningless. When the first lightning bolt pierced through the formation barrier and struck the top of the Black Stone Dock tower, the demons inside all stepped out.

Sui Yihuan and Su Mingxiu stood in mid-air, saw the countless rolling thunderclouds vaguely carrying a figure inside, and raised their eyebrows.

But Su Mingxiu still revealed the other person’s identity:

“Xiao Xingwei.”

Peak of Tribulation Transcendence.

One thought away from becoming an immortal, even able to break through the void and no longer be bound by the rules of the Heavenly Dao here.

Sensing his pressure descending upon the Demon Abyss, Sui Yihuan’s expression was quite ugly. She obviously thought of what Su Mingxiu had said before, knowing that this person must have achieved great success in the Buddhist Sect’s secret treasure—

According to their plan, they should have arrived at the Buddhist Sect first and killed these cultivators who were favored by the Heavenly Dao before the Nine Continents’ plan succeeded.

But they didn’t expect the Buddhist Sect’s secret treasure to be so terrifying… Peak of Tribulation Transcendence, how many years had it been since the Nine Continents had seen such a powerful existence?

When Xiao Xingwei drew the Tai’e Sword from the rolling thunder and lightning, it shook the entire Demon Abyss. The mountains and the ground trembled, almost like the world was splitting apart in ancient times.

When he held the Tai’e Sword, the thunder that entered the Nine Continents with him continued to strike the Black Stone Dock tower. The terrifying rumbling poured down towards the Demon Abyss. A City Lord of the Demon Abyss was originally very close to the lightning strike and was trying to retreat, but was caught by the jumping ball lightning and instantly turned to ashes.

“It’s tribulation lightning…”

“Ascension tribulation lightning!”

It had been too long since a cultivator ascended in the Nine Continents, but the demons of the Demon Abyss still remembered how those cultivators from the Nine Continents had taken advantage of the Heavenly Dao and exterminated them tens of thousands of years ago.

But after so many years without another ascender, the Demon Abyss thought that the Nine Continents’ luck had run out, who knew…

Now there was another Child of Heaven! There had been Tribulation Transcendence cultivators who could pluck stars, seize the power of the sun and moon, and move mountains and fill seas, but which Tribulation Transcendence cultivator could control ascension tribulation lightning?

None! This was the first!

The remaining City Lords of the Demon Abyss hurriedly retreated eight hundred miles away, afraid of being touched by even a wisp of the lightning that Xiao Xingwei had torn through the formation and brought into the Demon Abyss. This destructive power was too terrifying. Anyone below Tribulation Transcendence would die if touched…

But their expressions were sorrowful, and some even showed grief, knowing that this time, it was the Nine Continents, it was the Heavenly Dao, that wanted to completely destroy them.

After lying dormant for tens of thousands of years, the Demon Abyss’s grand plan to return was like an absurd joke under the will of the Heavenly Dao.

The male cultivator holding the Tai’e Sword glanced at Sui Yihuan and the high-ranking demon cultivators scattered around, but didn’t acknowledge anyone, his gaze finally settling on Su Mingxiu.

After a pause, Xiao Xingwei raised his other hand and reached out to Su Mingxiu:

Sui Yihuan subconsciously looked at her, as if wanting to say something. But in the end, she didn’t say a word, just quietly watching her.

The green-clothed female cultivator stood still for a moment, saw the lightning surrounding Xiao Xingwei that symbolized the will of the Heavenly Dao, and understood the arrogant words it had spoken to her when it was disguised as a system.

【You lost. I told you long ago that you should abide by your predetermined destiny. If you were still my protagonist, you wouldn’t have to face such a tragic end. You could have looked down upon the Nine Continents.】

She curled her lips and suddenly said to Xiao Xingwei, “Okay.”

Then she ignored the lightning surrounding him and walked towards him step by step in the sky above the Demon Abyss.

The surrounding protective lightning hesitated at this moment, and then magnanimously made way for her to pass, as if generously forgiving the child who had once betrayed it.

Xiao Xingwei stood with his sword, watching her approach. Just as Su Mingxiu was only a foot away from him, Xiao Xingwei’s wrist suddenly moved—

It was this movement that allowed him to block a ball of thunder spiritual power and lightning that had condensed in Su Mingxiu’s hand at some point. He subconsciously raised his sword and slashed across.

The green-clothed woman was cut in half, but not a single drop of blood fell from the sky.

Xiao Xingwei looked closely and saw Su Mingxiu and Sui Yihuan appearing in mid-air in another place.

And in the Demon Lord’s hand, a large pearl had appeared at some point, emitting a faint light… The figure of Su Mingxiu pretending to surrender earlier was just an illusion created by the pearl’s misty aura.

He frowned and coldly spat out four words, “Child’s play.”

“Tch.”

Su Mingxiu smiled faintly, wondering what he had to be proud of besides the Heavenly Dao’s favor. He was clearly a loser in every aspect compared to her.

“Just returning the favor.”

She said calmly, not answering the momentary confusion in Xiao Xingwei’s eyes. She was referring to the final memory of her previous life that she had just recalled. As the protagonist of the Heavenly Dao, with peak Tribulation Transcendence cultivation, she shouldn’t have died in the battle between the Nine Continents and the Demon Abyss.

But there was someone who was very jealous of her, and because she couldn’t have her, she developed hatred. So she actually… ambushed her on the battlefield.

The Heavenly Dao kept saying that she was too rebellious, but it wouldn’t admit its poor judgment. Because the one who made its plan collapse was clearly the male protagonist it had chosen, Xiao Xingwei.

If he hadn’t ambushed Su Mingxiu in their own camp, none of what happened later would have happened. But the Heavenly Dao didn’t want to admit its blindness and attributed everything to Su Mingxiu being too rebellious, insisting that it was because she refused to accept Xiao Xingwei that all the subsequent accidents occurred.

It even felt that Sui Yihuan was hindering Su Mingxiu’s future. So it readily accepted her soul’s destruction in exchange for Su Mingxiu’s rebirth, and then in those many reincarnations, it tried its best to reshape the protagonist into the way it wanted, but failed again.

Now it seemed—

“I suddenly understand why it chose you as the male protagonist. After all, you’re birds of a feather.”

Su Mingxiu thought, if the Heavenly Dao could take human form, it would definitely be a man like Xiao Xingwei. If someone surpassed them, then that person would eventually have to submit to them, otherwise they shouldn’t exist in the world.

If they chose someone, and that person didn’t want to accept their arrangements, then that person was too ungrateful, too rebellious, and had taken the wrong path.

To describe it in modern terms, both the Heavenly Dao and Xiao Xingwei were full of that condescending “fatherly” attitude.

Thinking of this, she once again sincerely felt that being able to be enemies with these two things at the same time was truly the most satisfying thing.

Seeing the two of them standing on the same side, Xiao Xingwei snorted coldly, ignoring Su Mingxiu’s inexplicable words, and slashed towards the front. He instantly cut the Black Stone Dock tower into ruins, but that was not his goal.

As the tower fell…

The prisoners imprisoned by the Demon Lord, at this moment, all saw the light brought by the thunder and looked towards the sky.

Sui Yihuan’s expression changed drastically. Sure enough, beneath the endless ruins, she saw a black shadow breaking free from the blood pool, carrying the black and red, ancient power of curses, laughing maniacally as it swept up from below, “Sui Yihuan!”

“I said, when I see the light of day again, it will be your death date!”

It was the Heavenly Demon.

Thinking that this guy only needed a little more time to be completely dispersed in that pool, eternally sealed beneath the Black Stone Dock tower, but now she was adding fuel to the fire, Sui Yihuan’s eyes darkened to the extreme.

And Su Mingxiu, facing this long-lost master, didn’t have the leisure to greet her. She just glanced at Xiao Xingwei, “You really colluded.”

With Xiao Xingwei’s abilities alone, how could he know the relationship between the Heavenly Demon and Sui Yihuan?

Looking at the lightning strikes that were falling everywhere but not on him, the one who deserved it the most, it was a clear fact that this person had colluded with the Heavenly Dao.

Xiao Xingwei didn’t care about her comments. For him, the most important thing was to become the strongest in the Nine Continents. No matter who the obstacle in front of him was, they couldn’t stop him.

He had considered giving Su Mingxiu a chance. After all, her character and beauty were truly worthy of him. It was a pity. Since she didn’t want to submit to him and was also someone the Heavenly Dao wanted to eliminate, let this beauty perish in the Demon Abyss.

“To be a stepping stone under my reputation—”

“You should feel honored.”

He raised the Tai’e Sword, its tip pointing towards the two people in front of him, his imposing manner making the entire Demon Abyss tremble.

Chapter 229: So I’m the Protagonist After All (25)

“I…”

Facing Su Mingxiu’s loving eyes, Sui Yihuan seemed to finally be moved. Like a clam tightly shut since entering the Demon Abyss, she finally dared to relax a little, slightly opening her shell, carefully expanding and contracting, releasing small bubbles.

Su Mingxiu saw the hesitation in her eyes, unsure how much she intended to reveal, how much to conceal. But Su Mingxiu was greedy; she wanted everything.

So, hearing this single word, she continued unhurriedly, “It’s okay, I’ll give you time to think about it.”

“What we need to do now is catch those three little mice that ran away.”

The Demon Lord breathed a sigh of relief.

Just now, when she was bewitched into speaking, the secrets swirling in her heart reminded her of how much she was hiding, like a precious vase with a narrow mouth and a wide belly, able to pour out so little. She didn’t even know which less important secret to choose to test Su Mingxiu’s attitude.

Now, Sui Yihuan felt like a prisoner temporarily granted reprieve, grateful for the delay in judgment. So she hurriedly responded to Su Mingxiu’s words, “You said you knew their whereabouts? Where are they?”

Su Mingxiu suddenly mentioned something else, “Legend has it that the Buddhist Sect has a treasured artifact called the Thirty-Three Heavens Pagoda. Inside, it houses various great Buddhas and deities, all transformed from the remains of powerful figures of the Buddhist Sect since its founding.”

Although she didn’t know why Su Mingxiu brought up this treasure, Sui Yihuan still cooperated and followed her words, “Yes, it is said that after every elder of the Buddhist Sect passes away, their relics are enshrined in this pagoda. So this pagoda is also worshipped by disciples and is the most important treasure of the Buddhist Sect.”

“Not only that—”

Su Mingxiu looked at the black gauze hanging in the room with a faint smile, a hint of mockery on her lips as if thinking of something, “This pagoda, along with the ‘Samsara of Eternity’ in the underworld, are both innate spiritual artifacts, and they have a little-known wonder. Any cultivator, regardless of their cultivation level, if they can enter it and pass the trials of the thirty-three heavens, their cultivation will increase when they come out, up to the level of Earth Immortal, the strongest being below ascension in the Nine Continents, capable of making the sun, moon, and stars of the Nine Continents fall with a single thought.”

“Uh…” Sui Yihuan’s pupils dilated. She had originally thought that the forbidden curses and secret techniques hidden in the Demon Abyss, which had been isolated from the Nine Continents for tens of thousands of years, were already rare. She didn’t expect the Nine Continents to still have such a trump card.

It made sense. If the cultivators of the Nine Continents hadn’t been stronger back then, the Demon Abyss wouldn’t have been driven out.

Fortunately, her surprise didn’t affect her normal thinking, “So… you think the Buddhist Sect sent them into the Thirty-Three Heavens Pagoda? Why them?”

Was there anything special about these cultivators? In Sui Yihuan’s opinion, compared to herself, who was already entangled with a curse, those three only had ordinary cultivation, not even reaching the Nascent Soul stage. Why were they given such high hopes by the Nine Continents?

Good question.

Su Mingxiu thought, if she hadn’t experienced her previous life and didn’t know that the Heavenly Dao already had its own unique will, she would also be puzzled now.

But since she knew that Xiao Xingwei was chosen as the protagonist this time, and the Heavenly Dao hadn’t been chattering in her ear for so long…

Based on her many battles of wits and courage with it in those worlds, Su Mingxiu roughly knew that when this guy was quiet, it was brewing something big.

So they should be prepared for it.

“I can’t say yet, because the rules restricting me, although weakened, still exist…” Su Mingxiu thought for a moment and smiled at her, “Let’s go, come with me to meet a profiteer. Perhaps after seeing Him, I can tell you more—by the way, what do you think about the gu in my body?”

“I can only temporarily suppress its power and make it dormant, but if I want to completely remove it…” Sui Yihuan was very unwilling and didn’t take her hand back from her wrist, as if she could come up with a perfect solution if she just held it for a while longer.

Su Mingxiu leaned in and kissed her forehead, “Don’t frown, let’s go. I wonder what kind of price He will offer for this little thing.”

The Demon Lord didn’t quite know who she was referring to, just looked at her in confusion, not quite believing that there was someone under the Nine Continents who could easily solve the problem that neither of them could solve for the time being.

But out of trust in Su Mingxiu, she still nodded, “Okay, where is this person you’re talking about?”

Su Mingxiu pointed towards the underground of Black Stone Dock, and after startling Sui Yihuan, she said the answer with a smile, “Deeper… beneath the Yellow Springs.”

Entering the underworld was no easy task.

In her previous life, after escaping from Black Stone City, Su Mingxiu was wanted by the Demon Abyss for assassinating the Demon Lord. Unfortunately, she encountered a joint pursuit by several city lords.

On the verge of death, she fell to the lowest point of the Demon Abyss. Under extreme circumstances, her soul left her body and unconsciously went to the Yellow Springs Road.

Xiao Xingwei and the others’ opportunity was in the Buddhist Sect, while hers was in the underworld. The reason she knew that the “Samsara of Eternity” was a treasure was because her cultivation was forged through millions of reincarnations within it. Therefore, her state of mind was unbreakable. Even with the passage of time, even with the loss of memory, the temperament honed by millions of reincarnations… still allowed her to ignore the barriers of cultivation and change her cultivation level at will.

But this difficulty was nothing to the Demon Lord—

Although the demon race was declining, as a former overlord of the Nine Continents, on par with cultivators and demons, the Lord of a realm naturally had a unique way to open the gate of the Yellow Springs, which was the Heavenly Demon’s “God Sealing Mirror,” which had the power to tear through space and also the ability to set rules.

When she saw it again, Su Mingxiu knew that her former master, the true Heavenly Demon, had probably fallen into Sui Yihuan’s hands.

But before the other party brought it up, she didn’t ask further. She just exchanged a glance with Sui Yihuan in front of the pitch-black passage opened by the God Sealing Mirror, and then they stepped into it.

Even though cultivators had spiritual power to protect their bodies, they still felt a chill from the piercing Yin wind of the Yellow Springs Road. Su Mingxiu looked at the person beside her and suddenly reached out to her, making Sui Yihuan pause, “What?”

“I’m cold, give me your hand, let me warm up.”

Sui Yihuan, who had always been strong, wouldn’t be fooled by her reason. She still remembered the warmth of this person’s embrace… Besides, with her current body temperature, how could she possibly warm Su Mingxiu? It was more likely the other way around.

Realizing this, she turned her head and silently raised a hand, placing it in the other person’s palm.

Sure enough, it was quickly covered by warmth. But the other person still said, “Not enough, what about the other one?”

“Uh…” Walking at the junction of the Demon Abyss and the Yellow Springs, they didn’t see any ghosts or other beings. It was as if they were the only two people between heaven and earth.

Surrounded by this darkness, Sui Yihuan vaguely remembered the time half a year ago when she was driven to the outer realm by the Heavenly Demon. At that time, she had relied entirely on her thoughts of Su Mingxiu to force herself to walk out.

And now, the person she had been missing was right beside her. Her unyielding heart suddenly softened, and it was difficult for her to resist.

It was also possible that her hand, being held, felt the long-lost warmth, so she didn’t want to return to the cold darkness. In short… she silently gave her other hand as well.

Until a faint ghost fire lit up ahead.

A voice reached their ears before anything else, “Two rare guests have arrived… One… the new master of the Demon Abyss, not busy leading the demon race back to the Nine Continents, how do you have time to visit this desolate place?
The other… hmm, interesting, a cultivator whose luck has run out. All cultivators who have lost their luck have had their souls scattered, yet you are still alive.”

Sui Yihuan’s crimson eyes scanned the surroundings, quickly locking onto the other person’s location.

At the same time, Su Mingxiu also smiled and met the gaze of the figure hidden by the ghost fire in the distance.

The faint blue and fluorescent green ghost fires moved aside, revealing a figure leisurely sitting on a deck chair by the river. The deck chair swayed slightly, but the tea in the gray-clad person’s hand didn’t spill a single drop.

Although the other person was plainly dressed, their strength was unfathomable, especially those golden eyes, so dazzling in color.

But by the cold, eerie River of Forgetfulness, it only made one feel cold, like being stared at by a snake in a cave.

Any ordinary person would have a hard time guessing that this person, who always made tea with the water of the River of Forgetfulness, was the King of Hell, who controlled the life and death of mortals.

His gaze swept over Su Mingxiu and Sui Yihuan, and after a moment, the gray-clad Yama’s expression changed strangely.

It was strange. He should be seeing these two for the first time, but for some reason, he had the illusion that they had met before. He quickly calculated, but found no trace of them in the past or future.

“I believe this is our first meeting, yet there’s a strange sense of familiarity… What brings you two here?”

Su Mingxiu smiled and replied frankly, “To make a deal with the King of Hell.”

“Oh?”

Yama hadn’t heard such an interesting reason before. His golden eyes narrowed, “A Great Ascension cultivator… my deals aren’t cheap.”

“If we cooperate well, I might have another deal… that would interest the King of Hell even more,” Su Mingxiu said pointedly.

The sound of the River of Forgetfulness flowing wasn’t pleasant. Although it looked clear, faint, mournful cries could always be heard from the misty water surface, mixing with the eerie wind, sending chills down one’s spine.

The longer one stayed here, the more numb they felt, as if they were also going to be sealed in this underground world, never to see sunlight again.

Since Yama appeared, Sui Yihuan had withdrawn her hand and no longer showed any intimacy with her. Su Mingxiu was afraid that she would feel cold, so she wanted to deal with the gu on her body quickly, but she didn’t expect this profiteer to have such an appetite.

“This is the Golden Toad Sacred Gu. It can transform cultivators below the Tribulation Transcendence stage into obedient chess pieces. It takes thousands of years to cultivate one…
Moreover, the demon race will eventually return to the Nine Continents. By then, war will surely break out again. You may not be able to utilize even a fraction of the God Sealing Mirror’s power, so why let a spiritual artifact gather dust? I think this deal is quite suitable.”

The man in gray put down his white porcelain teacup and conjured a tattered, loosely bound old book, using it as a fan, casually fanning himself, as if he felt that even the Yellow Springs was too hot.

Su Mingxiu, sitting opposite him, softly retorted, “Leaving aside the previous Demon Lords and those Heavenly Demons and human demons, I’m quite sure that the current one doesn’t want to start a war in the Nine Continents.”

“Oh?”

Yama put on an expression of “Although I don’t believe you, I can listen to you ramble a bit more.”

Su Mingxiu looked at the faded ink on the Book of Life and Death in his hand, wondering what the mortals whose life stories were recorded on it would think if they saw this. She simply said, “I have a piece of news that no one in the Nine Continents knows. I wonder if the King of Hell is interested?”

“Trying to trade a boring story with me? Do you think I’m a fool?”

“You haven’t heard it yet, how do you know it’s boring? Maybe it’s something that can bring some change to this unchanging underworld.”

“Uh…” After a moment, he stopped fanning himself and said to Su Mingxiu with certainty, “We must have met before.” Or they had interacted before, otherwise, this cultivator couldn’t possibly know his habits so well.

And… he couldn’t deny that he was a little interested in the suspense she was creating.

Three thousand feet above the mortal world, everything spoken was heard by the Heavenly Dao. But in this Yellow Springs, three thousand feet below, Yama was the lord. Su Mingxiu could feel that the heart demon oath she had made was almost non-existent, so she spoke first, “I did meet Your Lordship once, but… it was in my previous life.”

“Cultivators don’t enter reincarnation. When they die, their souls scatter, their Dao disappears, and they return to heaven and earth. How could you have a previous life?”

“Cultivators don’t enter reincarnation. This rule was set by the Heavenly Dao. Then who is it that allows cultivators to have past and present lives?”

……

This was the first time Sui Yihuan had heard Su Mingxiu mention the past.

Even though it was just the tip of the iceberg, she could keenly sense that all of this was real. Otherwise, there was no way to explain Su Mingxiu’s strange cultivation and her vast knowledge.

No matter how talented a disciple was, they would only cultivate in the Hundred Flower Sect for a few decades. No matter how talented a genius in the Nine Continents was, they wouldn’t reach the Great Ascension stage like this.

Su Mingxiu quickly finished talking about what happened in the underworld in her previous life. This story indeed made Yama savor many flavors. So he also understood what this cultivator really wanted to trade.

But how was this a deal?

This was clearly a gamble, a gamble that required him to bet the entire underworld.

He finally understood why Su Mingxiu’s luck was so bad. Because she had been abandoned by the Heavenly Dao. If their actions failed, the price would be too high—and he didn’t want the underworld to be buried with the Demon Abyss, which was also nearing its end.

If he removed the Golden Toad Sacred Gu from Su Mingxiu’s body today, he would definitely be suppressed by the Heavenly Dao as an enemy in the future… He didn’t like such a risky deal.

But Yama narrowed his eyes, looking at a distant past, his golden eyes slightly unfocused. Even the aroma of the tea brewed with the water of the River of Forgetfulness couldn’t bring back his spirit.

But Su Mingxiu didn’t disturb him. She also knew that this was a gamble, and the underworld didn’t have to get on this dangerous ride. But she knew that the bargaining chip she offered was very tempting.

If the current Heavenly Dao could be destroyed, then who would set the rules of the Nine Continents in the future?

As the underworld, it could only control the reincarnation of mortals. Besides Yama, the underworld had no other usable talents. Time seemed to stand still here.

But this was precisely the most terrifying part. It made the underworld seem like the next Demon Abyss, the next place without a future.

But a profiteer was a profiteer. Although he had been moved by Su Mingxiu’s new story, for him, this was the content of the next deal—

As for now.

Yama looked Su Mingxiu up and down with some disdain. After seeing the spiritual sword in her spiritual platform, he showed obvious disgust.

Sure enough, only sword cultivators would be so poor, without any other peerless treasures to show off.

“If it weren’t for the sword spirit being somewhat interesting, I wouldn’t even look at your spiritual sword.” He waved his hand casually and said to Su Mingxiu, “This is the lowest price.”

The implication was that if she wasn’t even willing to trade this spiritual sword, she could just go back where she came from.

Sui Yihuan looked like she really wanted to stop her, but Su Mingxiu raised her hand and stopped her. Then, she summoned her spiritual sword from her spiritual platform, letting the miniature sword spin in her palm. She had clearly seen through Yama’s seemingly losing deal, which would clearly gain him the Sacred Gu, but there was no helping it. When dealing with collaborators, one should indeed show some sincerity first.

She reluctantly erased her mark from the spiritual sword.

When the Golden Toad Sacred Gu was taken out, sure enough, the spider form it had disguised itself as when entering her flesh and blood was long gone.

The gray-clad Yama looked slightly satisfied as he put it to sleep, and by the way, put it away along with Su Mingxiu’s spiritual sword.

He didn’t offer tea to the two people in front of him, always pouring and drinking it himself. After completing this deal, he didn’t mention a word about the Heavenly Dao or subsequent matters.

Su Mingxiu didn’t mention it either, as if they had reached a tacit understanding. Before leaving, Su Mingxiu glanced at the scattered mist by the River of Forgetfulness, and saw a distant place emitting a crystalline light, which looked like an ordinary waterwheel—

That was the “Samsara of Eternity.”

“Don’t look,” Yama thought that she was still after that heaven-defying cultivation from her previous life, and impatiently made a shooing motion, “You can’t afford the price for that.” So the stingy him would never let Su Mingxiu cultivate in it again.

Just then, Su Mingxiu thought of the price she had paid to enter it in her previous life, which almost emptied several of her spiritual veins in the Sword Sect. So she tentatively said, “Isn’t it just spirit stones?”

Yama: “…?”

He looked like he really wanted to kick this Su Mingxiu, who was humiliating him with a few measly spirit stones, into the River of Forgetfulness.

“What do you take a Heaven-born spiritual artifact for?” Yama rolled his eyes, shifted his gaze from her, and looked at Sui Yihuan, who had been quietly accompanying her, “To activate this Samsara, one needs to have the awareness to bear the fate of all mortal spirits in the Nine Continents. It’s not something that can be done by ordinary people. Even among mortal emperors, it’s rare to find a truly benevolent one. As for a cultivator like you, who only cultivates their own Dao, you can go back where you came from.”

Su Mingxiu also realized that his gaze was on Sui Yihuan.

Those golden eyes were brighter than before, as if peering at something in the void. After a moment, Yama curled his lips, “I see. The new Lord of the Demon Abyss is indeed interesting.”

He suddenly changed his mind and said to Su Mingxiu, “If she trades her seven emotions and six desires, and gives me a rib bone imbued with the demon race’s blood curse and countless forbidden techniques, I will activate the Samsara for you again, how about that?”

“Su Mingxiu?”

“Su Mingxiu!”

In the dim room of Black Stone Dock.

Sui Yihuan looked at the person who had been acting strangely since returning and called her name, raising her voice in frustration.

Now, the high and mighty Demon Lord was pinned on the bed by the cultivator, even her neat clothes were torn open, revealing a flash of snow-white skin.

After exhausting all her strength and still unable to stop her, she had no choice but to grab the black neck ring on Su Mingxiu’s neck, “Get a hold of yourself!”

The black gauze curtains used as decoration had long been messed up by their pulling and tugging when they returned. Some were half torn from the top, and some had simply become wrinkled carpets.

What time was it?

This person… why was she still thinking about this kind of thing?

She didn’t dare to control the other person with her demonic power, but she also didn’t know how to make her stop. Now, seeing those black eyes looking at her, she subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief and softened her tone, “You…”

But before she could finish.

Her lips were sealed.

The other person’s actions were particularly urgent, so there was none of the usual gentleness. Sui Yihuan even felt that she was about to be devoured in the next second. Her originally pale cheeks turned crimson, but not from shyness, but from being choked.

She vaguely sensed that Su Mingxiu was very uneasy, as if she could only find a sense of security from this kind of intimacy.

So her breath rose and fell. After a long time, she rarely gave up struggling, and took the initiative to open her arms, wrapping them around the other person’s waist, comforting her with difficulty, “It’s okay now.”

She had actually guessed it.

Guessed how Su Mingxiu, in her so-called previous life, had entered the Samsara of Eternity to cultivate.

Su Mingxiu didn’t have what Yama wanted, so… it was she who had offered enough for the trade.

“It’s all in the past…”

She said so. After all, this time, Su Mingxiu didn’t agree to Yama’s exchange conditions.

But—

“In the past?”

The person pressing down on her heard these words, her unfathomable black eyes flickering, as if even bigger waves were about to roll out.

Sui Yihuan thought that the pain this matter brought her was only from her past ignorance. But for Su Mingxiu, she felt her heart being sliced piece by piece.

Was it really in the past?

In her previous life, she had forgotten this person again and again, and then stood on the price the other person paid, thinking that she had reached the peak alone.

Later, she unknowingly thought that she had defeated the Heavenly Dao with her own power in those worlds that the other person had saved at the cost of her soul.

Even after time reversed, she hadn’t been able to change Sui Yihuan’s fate, still letting her bear so much pain…

Yama’s words still echoed in her ears.

“Covered in the demon race’s blood curse, bones soaked in countless forbidden techniques”… Every day, the person who helplessly faced her endured such pain.

If Su Mingxiu had noticed the other person’s plan earlier six months ago, Sui Yihuan wouldn’t have become like this.

The proud phoenix that flew from the sky and landed in her eyes at their first meeting, because of her lack of care, now had faded feathers and bones entangled with curses. And she didn’t know anything, still asking for the other person’s trust.

Did she really deserve such love?

The story of the ghost and the dragon still lingered in her mind. Su Mingxiu couldn’t help but wonder, how did the injured person in Black Stone Dock manage to find the Yellow Springs?

And how did she give up all her seven emotions and six desires there, and dig out a rib bone, like a broken, empty doll, walking back to the Demon Abyss from the underworld?

There was once a person who searched high and low for her, who carved out the remaining emotions from her body, so that she would no longer feel pain or happiness.

This little girl, who still had the righteousness of a cultivator even after falling into the Demon Abyss, had the chance to return to the sunlight of the Nine Continents after enduring so much suffering. But with her seven emotions and six desires gone, she could no longer return to the human world.

What was she thinking when she saw Yama’s golden eyes, when she saw those wandering ghosts in the underworld?

How could such an obsession be formed?

Was it because she knew that she would forget all her emotions for her, so she hoped that there could be another form of eternity between them?

Su Mingxiu didn’t dare to guess anymore, because every guess made her ache all over. She suddenly stopped, just holding the person, her head buried in Sui Yihuan’s neck, her voice hoarse, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Was she not trustworthy? She didn’t know about so many painful moments.

“How much pain did you endure, how much pain are you in now, can you tell me? How can I empathize with the torment you suffer every second… Tell me… What should I do…” she repeated in a murmur.

Sui Yihuan felt a more burning sensation dripping onto the skin of her neck, like scalding fire, falling into the clothes on her shoulders.

In that burning temperature, it was the love she didn’t dare to touch too recklessly.

She turned her head, her pale lips parted slightly, and in the end, she only answered Su Mingxiu in a soft, comforting voice, thinking that this would make her feel better.

Su Mingxiu heard her little girl whisper:

“I am your rose, and roses don’t feel pain.”

This fool, her knowledge of plants was still as bad as ever, thinking that saying this would make Su Mingxiu feel less pain.

Chapter 228: So I’m the Protagonist After All (24)

Sui Yihuan, the Nine Continents native who wouldn’t even say she liked someone and used to get nervous holding hands, even as the Demon Lord now, hadn’t heard many sweet nothings. Su Mingxiu’s simple and sincere “I love you” left her flustered, unable to utter a single word of refusal. She silently led Su Mingxiu back to Black Stone Dock, which stood above the blood lake.

Su Mingxiu didn’t want to miss this opportunity to press her advantage. As soon as they returned to the room, she eagerly embraced her again, “If you don’t say anything, I’ll take it as you agreeing?”

Sui Yihuan’s eyes flickered, her pale lips parted, trying to find a rebuttal. But before she could speak, her gaze suddenly sharpened, and she looked towards the door coldly, “Who is it?”

“Reporting to Your Lordship—the two cultivators you ordered us to watch in the demon stone mine have caused some trouble.”

Of all times.

Hearing the location and the reporter’s identity, Su Mingxiu also remembered those two lingering presences. She could only let go, looking at Sui Yihuan with displeasure as she summoned someone in.

“Speak.”

The Demon Lord commanded curtly.

The demon sent to monitor Xiao Xingwei and Xuan Chan reported that the two cultivators had suddenly stopped working in the mine today, claiming to be unwell. When the people in the mine went to check their tent, they found that they had disappeared.

Just after this demon finished reporting, another demoness came outside the room and reported that the female cultivator with wood spiritual power near the blood lake cliff had also disappeared.

“By order of this Lord, from today onwards, the four major cities of the Demon Abyss will search for these three cultivators with all their might. Whoever captures these three alive will be handsomely rewarded by this Lord.”

“Yes.”

By the time the demons outside the room retreated, the previous ambiguous atmosphere had long since dissipated.

Su Mingxiu saw Sui Yihuan reach out and grab at the void, but only grabbed a few broken black neck rings. Her expression changed slightly, as if she couldn’t understand who could have such ability, daring to act right under her nose.

“It’s the Buddhist Sect’s doing,” Su Mingxiu said, conjuring a plate of green grapes, still fresh as if just picked from the vine.

The cultivator plucked one and held it to the Demon Lord’s lips, who was unconsciously frowning, “Although they are nominally beneath the Sword Sect, on par with the Hundred Flower Sect, Joyful Union Sect, and Beast Taming Sect, they appeared earlier than the Sword Sect and have hidden a lot of their true strength. If it weren’t for the fact that the Nine Continents’ tribulation is too difficult, they usually wouldn’t appear, so their reputation in the mortal world is lower.”

After two lifetimes, Su Mingxiu still hadn’t had the chance to figure out how many cards they held.

Sui Yihuan pursed her lips, refusing to eat the grape. Su Mingxiu could only lean closer and bite it herself, then, while she wasn’t paying attention, pressed the back of her neck, pried open her lips, and fed her the grape in another way.

“You say you don’t like this, but you force others to use this on you. The phrase ‘duplicitous’ must have been created for you.”

Because there was something in her mouth, the Demon Lord’s reprimanding tone became sticky, losing its usual coldness, “Su Mingxiu!”

“Mm-hmm, I know you love me too. No need to call my name over and over again, I’m here.” The playful voice seized the opportunity to stuff another grape into her mouth.

Sui Yihuan was angered by her. In the end, she pressed the person against the table to stop her unreasonable feeding behavior. Their breaths mingled, and although they weren’t doing anything, the atmosphere between them became heated.

Seeing the other person’s star-like eyes looking at her with a smile, Sui Yihuan looked at her for a while, and the anger in her chest inexplicably disappeared. Finally, she helplessly spoke, changing the subject, “They’re all gone, what about you?”

How did these cultivators communicate with each other? Why didn’t Su Mingxiu leave? Was it because she didn’t want to, or because they abandoned her?

Sui Yihuan had too many questions hidden in this helpless sentence.

But Su Mingxiu understood. She originally wanted to tease her beloved, but seeing those deep red eyes and sensing the tension in Sui Yihuan’s actions, she changed her mind and comforted her, “From the moment I stepped into this Demon Abyss, no matter where my heart lies, they were destined not to let me leave this place.”

So they didn’t tell her how to communicate with each other.

Nor did they inform her of any plans.

From the moment she took that gu, Su Mingxiu knew that she had become an abandoned child of the righteous path of the Nine Continents. But she didn’t feel abandoned, but rather that she had chosen another path. This time, she wanted to stand by Sui Yihuan’s side and see how the world would change.

But her comfort didn’t work. Instead, it made Sui Yihuan frown even more. She pursed her lips and after a long time, said, “It was my negligence, I shouldn’t have…”

She shouldn’t have brought Su Mingxiu to her side because she was too worried about her. If she could have restrained herself, Su Mingxiu wouldn’t have—

Just then, she felt a sudden pain on her face.

Su Mingxiu was pinching her face with both hands, like kneading dough, but with much less force, “You’re doing it again. You don’t even have children, how did you develop this patriarchal attitude? I knew what path I was going to take, and I knew the price of taking it. Sui Yihuan, I know my own Dao, so why do you put those irrelevant responsibilities on your shoulders? Isn’t it better to let me share them with you? You’re also human, aren’t you afraid of being tired?”

“I…”

Hearing the word “tired,” Sui Yihuan’s gaze drifted. Since leaving the Hundred Flower Sect, she had stopped treating herself as an ordinary person, getting used to always maintaining her strength.

Otherwise, she would be pushed into the abyss by those lurking in the dark at any moment. It was impossible for her to feel tired. If she ever felt this way, she would be close to death.

But she couldn’t deny that perhaps the grapes she ate earlier were too sweet, corrupting her hard heart and bewitching her tongue. Now she couldn’t say a single harsh word.

And now, Su Mingxiu chose to be honest with her. She released her grip on her cheeks and offered her own palm, “There’s a gu inside me that they planted. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’ve tried and can’t remove it with my own cultivation. I guess it’s not something easy to deal with.”

“Can you help me?”

She was using herself as an example, trying to teach this person who had been alone in the darkness for too long, telling her, you’re not alone. Look, even someone as powerful as me can ask for help without shame when I need it.

“I…”

In her unresisting compliance, Sui Yihuan changed the color of her eyes, carefully probing her meridians with the spiritual power she had as a cultivator, speaking very cautiously, “I will try my best.”

Su Mingxiu leaned in to kiss her, but was stopped by her. So she could only use her other hand to smooth the wrinkles between her eyebrows, “Don’t frown, even if you can’t solve it, I still have other ways. Don’t be nervous.”

“And those three people, I can probably guess where they went—”

“Don’t frown, it’s not the end of the road yet.”

Hearing her gentle voice, Sui Yihuan’s mood strangely calmed down. She even had the illusion that “if Su Mingxiu was really with her, there was probably nothing she couldn’t do in these nine continents.”

Seeing the loosening of the hard stone in her heart, the smile on Su Mingxiu’s lips widened. In this dim room, it was like a delicate red apricot blossom reaching in, bringing spring light to the entire room.

“What about you?”

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” She asked.

About the Heavenly Demon, about her plans for the Demon Abyss, or about how to fight against the Nine Continents, was Sui Yihuan willing to trust her unconditionally and give her this chance to stand by her side?

Facing the Heavenly Dao, the cunning Xiao Xingwei, and the difficulties she experienced in those small worlds before, Su Mingxiu didn’t think it was a big deal. She was like the sharpest sword in the world, and there could be no obstacle that could stop her.

Even love, she would occasionally weigh it carefully, deciding how much and to what extent she should give.

—But only when facing Sui Yihuan did she feel helpless and at her wit’s end.

Those arrogant thoughts from their first meeting, of wanting to keep the phoenix in a golden cage, to keep her as a treasured beauty, had long since vanished. After being loved so completely, Su Mingxiu could no longer bear to hurt her in the slightest.

No matter how annoyed she was by the other person’s willfulness, now she could only, like the first to fall in love in those romance stories, unable to hurt the other person, only hurt herself, dig open her chest, and present that worthless heart to the other person, whispering carefully and humbly:

Look, it loves you so much. Without you, it will die.

Chapter 227: So I’m the Protagonist After All (23)

Sui Yihuan recalled the plate of green rice balls from the fishing village six months ago. Her gaze drifted for a moment, and her voice wavered slightly as she replied, “Delicious.”

That’s what she said.

But Su Mingxiu had already seen the real answer in her expression. Back then, with Su Mingxiu by her side every day, she rarely had time alone. It was already difficult enough to convince the demons to trust her and cooperate with such a plan. During such a tense time, how could she have the time to sit down and leisurely enjoy food?

So she wasn’t annoyed, but simply touched her spatial bag and, as if by magic, took out another plate of green rice balls.

Because they were stored in a time-frozen space, the green rice balls still looked like they had just been taken out of the steamer, emitting heat and a unique aroma of seafood and mugwort leaves.

Sui Yihuan blinked. This time, before she could speak, she understood what Su Mingxiu meant. Resignedly, she took one, brought it to her pale lips, and took a bite—

A rich aroma burst on her tongue, the flowing juice even slightly hot, making the corners of her eyes redden for a moment.

But it wasn’t because the food was too hot, but because the taste… was exactly the same as she remembered.

She chewed much slower, as if savoring something. When she came back to her senses, she had already finished the green rice ball in her hand, but she had regained her composure.

The black-clad Venerable already knew the answer. Her voice was soft, like a breeze in the mountains, easily missed if one wasn’t paying attention, “You went to Qiangshan Sect.”

Qiangshan Sect, more than the sect that raised her, was like the home that nurtured her. It held all her relatives, even though there were few friends who accompanied her growth, but it was all the warmth of her first half of life.

“There were some things I originally planned to do when we went back together. But those tragic scenes exposed under the sunlight… I couldn’t bear to see your relatives waiting for you under the scorching sun, so I took the liberty of collecting their belongings… Fortunately, your Sui family ancestral hall was not affected, so I also made spirit tablets for them.”

“If you don’t like what I did, you can go there yourself—”

“No need.” Sui Yihuan responded quickly. A deep pain flashed through her crimson eyes when the matter was first mentioned, but she quickly suppressed those emotions.

Her voice was too cold and hard. After a moment, she realized that her attitude might be misunderstood by Su Mingxiu, so she reluctantly adjusted her tone and said again, “No need, you did very well.”

There was nothing she could change.

After all, that was the original sin she still couldn’t face.

“I investigated the traces in the sect during that half year, trying to restore some of the truth… Perhaps you shouldn’t think of yourself as so unbearable. Before some tragedies happen, you’ve already fought against them thousands of times, it’s just that the enemy was too evil… But that’s not your fault.” Su Mingxiu rarely used such a gentle tone to comfort someone, so it inevitably sounded a little awkward.

But the listener already understood what she wanted to express. However, as always, she came to a different conclusion, “I know.”

Sui Yihuan had already learned the whole truth about Qiangshan Sect from the Heavenly Demon. Even this blood curse that could control others was an ability she had personally taken from the Heavenly Demon. How could she not understand?

Back then, the Heavenly Demon, at the cost of her body, had luckily passed through the formation separating the Demon Abyss and the nine continents. She happened to find an unlucky disciple of Qiangshan Sect to possess, and then returned to the sect. Seeing her as a child, she felt that she had good talent and was very suitable to be transformed into a human demon. So she spent a lot of time carving a formation underground at Qiangshan Sect—

Starting from the age of four, Sui Yihuan was affected by this formation every night. The blood energy contained in the formations was all the negative energy collected by the Heavenly Demon, amplified by the demon bloodline. No mortal could resist it.

Even later, when Sui Yihuan was controlled and carried out the mission to destroy Qiangshan Sect, she resisted again and again, leaving traces of resistance on every wall and every brick in the courtyard…

But what was the use?

She thought, could this forgive her sins? Could this make her pretend that she hadn’t done those unforgivable things of killing her father and mother?

No.

She would never be able to forgive herself, and she would never forgive herself.

She had gazed into the Demon Abyss for too long, and she would eventually become a part of this dark world. She had long since realized this.

So she wouldn’t suffer for too long for the sins she couldn’t atone for, because soon, everything would be over.

Su Mingxiu looked at her for a long time, then raised her hand and pulled her into her arms, “Why do you always want to bear everything alone? What do I have to do to change this bad habit of yours… How can I make you understand that no matter what path you choose, whether it’s atonement or going to hell, I can accompany you.”

This time, Sui Yihuan didn’t push her away, but just said calmly, “We are not the same kind of people. You don’t have to do this for me.”

She always felt this way.

Su Mingxiu was clean and pure, like the moon. The bright moon could illuminate the mortal world, could briefly rest in the flower fields at night, and could overlook the mountains and rivers of the nine continents… But it shouldn’t come to this Demon Abyss, because this was a place abandoned even by sunlight.

Sui Yihuan’s sins, intertwined with the Demon Abyss, were too many. She could never return to the sunlight, so she shouldn’t yearn to embrace these pure and clean existences.

“Originally, we really weren’t—”

Su Mingxiu thought of her previous life, the previous life where she knew nothing. Because she had never looked at this person for too long, she couldn’t see that fiery heart at all, only focusing on fighting against her predetermined fate.

But now she knew that when she walked through the swamp, there was a reflection accompanying her in the mud. Even in the end, that shadow, who had never spoken her heart to her, had given everything for her life, not even leaving behind the chance to turn into bubbles under the sunlight.

“But there was a fool who, time and time again, tied me with her red string. Now I’m tightly bound by her, and I can no longer see any other path except the one she wants to take.”

The last time she came to this Black Stone Dock, Su Mingxiu really felt that she wasn’t familiar with this Demon Lord. And she was very puzzled, not knowing why the other person would keep her here, but in a strange protective manner. Later, when she asked, the other person’s casual words were similar to this time, “You look a lot like an old friend of mine.”

At that time, Su Mingxiu was thinking, what was this?

A mortal emperor and a caged canary?

Later, her plan was destined to leave Black Stone Dock, so Su Mingxiu chose a day when the other person was very weak, broke free from Sui Yihuan’s control, injured her, and told her not to have such cowardly dreams before leaving.

What did Sui Yihuan from the previous life say? This pale person clutched her chest, clearly vomiting blood, but the smile on her lips was strange and enchanting, with a regret that Su Mingxiu at that time couldn’t understand, “If only I could really have such a dream.”

If she were really a mortal emperor, holding the power of life and death, able to keep the person she liked by her side openly, how wonderful would that be?

Unfortunately, she could only disappear without a trace in the depths of this Demon Abyss, unable to see a single ray of golden sunlight before her death.

And Su Mingxiu, after all, had to return to that bright and beautiful world.

“What are you talking about?” Sui Yihuan guiltily withdrew the blood threads she had used to control her, “Who tied you with a red string?”

Su Mingxiu didn’t answer.

She just sighed softly, pulled Sui Yihuan into her arms again, not allowing her to struggle anymore, “Just lie down with me for a while, and I’ll tell you what was planted inside me.”

These words finally made the person, who had felt deceived for a long time and was about to leave the bed regardless of everything, willingly stay.

Su Mingxiu touched her fingertips and felt that her body temperature was too low and too cold, so she put her hand inside her clothes and took the initiative to warm her hands.

“You!”

Sui Yihuan’s cheeks suddenly reddened. She wanted to pull her hand out, but didn’t dare to. In the end, she could only glare at the person who had closed her eyes and let out a low growl.

“Shh.” Su Mingxiu reached out her other hand and pressed it against her lips, not letting her speak, “I’m sleepy, I want to sleep.”

Don’t lie to me.

Sui Yihuan thought that with her ability to change her cultivation at will, it would be strange if she really needed sleep like a low-level cultivator.

But thinking that there was still something unknown in Su Mingxiu’s body, she could only half-heartedly accompany her to rest.

There was no distinction between day and night in the Demon Abyss. All time was judged by the sound of the demon stone clock striking at the top of the tower.

When the tower made its sixth sound, Su Mingxiu opened her eyes, looked at the person who hadn’t slept all night and whose attention was all on her, and couldn’t help but smile, “Your eyes, why do they look so much like a rabbit’s? Could it be that you haven’t slept for too many nights and they’re bloodshot from staying up?”

Sui Yihuan ignored her teasing and said stubbornly, “You said you would tell me the answer.”

“Why are you so persistent?” Su Mingxiu’s smile widened. She leaned closer and kissed her by the eye, then continued to talk to herself, “But it’s good to be persistent, loyal, a little foolish. Once you like someone, you won’t change.”

“Uh…” Just as the Demon Lord couldn’t stand it anymore and was about to retort, Su Mingxiu unhurriedly pulled away a little, “No rush. I’ve been in the Demon Abyss for so long, and I haven’t seen any scenery, I don’t even know what the specialties are. Aren’t you going to do your duty as a host and take me out for a stroll?”

Sui Yihuan had taken her out in her previous life, because she was afraid that she would be bored and depressed staying in the room for too long. But at that time, Su Mingxiu’s mind wasn’t on it, so naturally she wasn’t interested in appreciating the unique demonic culture of the Demon Abyss.

It was different now—

She took the initiative to request a shopping trip.

But Sui Yihuan, who had been teased by her repeatedly, was angry. The coldness in her tone was palpable, “Su Mingxiu! Do you really think I can’t do anything to you?”

“Don’t be angry.” Seeing her impatience, Su Mingxiu missed the proud little phoenix from the Hundred Flower Sect who would stand up for her and blush easily with a little teasing.

Of course, the current Demon Lord was also very good. Anyway, it was the person she liked, so anything was fine—the green-clothed cultivator leaned closer, touched the cold-faced Demon Lord’s cheek with the tip of her nose, and said with a smile, “You’re hiding so many things from me, and I only have this one. Of course, I have to use this important bargaining chip repeatedly. I swear, I’ll tell you the answer after we come back from shopping, okay?”

Sui Yihuan warned her pointedly, “Last time.”

Since the Demon Lord planned to take someone out, she naturally made all the arrangements subconsciously. Even though her face was darker than the freshly dug demon stone mine when she was making the plans, but after taking Su Mingxiu out, she took her to the most prosperous and lively places in Black Stone City.

And there were groups of demonesses and demon servants around them, as if afraid that the occasion was not grand enough and Su Mingxiu would be bullied in some corner.

Seeing the low-level demons walking by bowing their heads and avoiding them, and the City Lord of Black Stone City coming over with a smiling face to welcome them, the demonic beast meat served was of the highest quality, various spices smuggled from the nine continents were sprinkled lavishly, and the selected spiritual plants were fresh and free of any toxins.

Su Mingxiu accepted everything, stuffed them into her spatial bag, didn’t respond to the City Lord’s inquisitive gaze, and wasn’t ashamed of her packing behavior at all. She turned to Sui Yihuan and said, “I’ve finished shopping here, I want to go somewhere else.”

“Where do you want to go?”

The Demon Lord didn’t care about the gossiping and inquisitive gazes of her subordinates, but just seriously asked the cultivator beside her, whose clothing style and aura were different from the demons.

Since she didn’t plan to follow the path of her previous life, Su Mingxiu could only rely on her fragmented memories, leading the group around in circles, towards the outskirts of Black Stone City.

After wandering around for most of the afternoon, Sui Yihuan, after finally confirming her destination, asked with a strange expression, “You want to go to the slums where the low-level demons live?”

“Yes.”

Su Mingxiu glanced at the endless guards behind her and asked her to dismiss them.

Sui Yihuan’s expression changed again and again, but she still dismissed them. Then she followed Su Mingxiu on the somewhat bumpy road in front of them, her gaze fixed on her clean boots, “The road here hasn’t been repaired yet, what are you doing here?”

Although it was a slum, there were traces of recent repairs on the low-rise houses, and there was no garbage on the road. Only by going to the poorest part of a city could one see its bottom line.

In her previous life, Su Mingxiu was blinded. Only by walking this road again in this life could she feel that Sui Yihuan from the past… had wanted her acknowledgment.

It’s just that she missed it.

Su Mingxiu thought for a moment, cast a simple illusion spell to hide their appearances and clothes, and walked on this bumpy road for a long time.

Until the low-level demons in the slums sensed that the important figures had left, and the children looked around curiously.

She simply sat down in the middle of the road, took out an ordinary cloth from her spatial bag and spread it on the ground, and then took out all the food she had packed from the City Lord. The tempting aroma instantly filled the long street. The demons, who were always hungry, had never experienced such torture, and every household poked their heads out.

Finally, a small, dark child with goat horns on his head couldn’t bear the hunger anymore and stumbled towards her, “You… are you buying demons? I’m very cheap, I can just eat a small piece of meat… you can also use me for alchemy.”

In their understanding, it seemed that only by sacrificing their lives and souls could they deserve to eat such a mouthful of meat before they died. Spiritual plants were even more precious, and they didn’t even dare to look at the glistening light.

Su Mingxiu looked at the child for a long time, cut a small piece of meat and gave him a small bowl of soup. “You must be very hungry. You can’t eat too much, so just have a little something to fill your stomach. Come back later, and I’ll give you more.”

The little demon was overjoyed. Even though this small amount wasn’t enough to fill his stomach, he ate it all, licking the bowl clean.

The other demon children around him saw that he hadn’t died after a long time and seemed to realize that this wasn’t some important figure testing poison, but a real transaction. So they also swarmed out of their houses.

Each of them tried their best to sell themselves.

Su Mingxiu patiently had them line up and then gave each of them a bowl of soup and meat, distributing a lot of food according to the growth of the different demons, roughly comparing them to human children.

When they were all looking at her expectantly, waiting for her instructions, she smiled and waved her hand, “Alright, the food is all gone. You can all go home now. If I have time next time, I’ll come again.”

The little demons who were ready to be taken away: “?!”

What did she mean? Was this some new delayed-action poison experiment?

Sui Yihuan saw that their expressions were not quite right, so she explained for Su Mingxiu and casually demonstrated her power, proving that if she really wanted to do anything to them, she would have done it long ago.

The children in the slums finally understood that there really was free food in the Demon Abyss.

When Su Mingxiu stepped out of this dark place, she seemed to be able to feel the eager gazes of the little demons behind her, and her mood suddenly improved.

“Why did you want to come here?”

Sui Yihuan, who had been patiently and quietly accompanying her for a long time, finally asked this question.

“Because someone once wanted me to see it.” Su Mingxiu remembered that in her previous life, she was so impatient that she bumped into a little demon on the road, and that child was also among them today.

At that time, it was the aroma of the mortal food on her that attracted him. Sui Yihuan was afraid that she would hurt the little demon, so she raised her hand and wanted to pull him away.

But later, Su Mingxiu left the food behind. Facing the Demon Lord’s gaze, she casually explained, “I quite like little ones, you don’t have to be so wary of me.”

Sui Yihuan’s gaze was very strange at that time.

But after experiencing a certain “goddaughter” scenario, Su Mingxiu was very sure of the impact her words had on the other person.

However, the person who wanted to compensate her with a child probably wouldn’t have thought that the mother-daughter relationship she compensated her with would eventually change, right?

Thinking of this, she smiled a little exaggeratedly, successfully making the lord beside her unable to look away, “What are you smiling about?”

“Smiling at you—”

“You’re truly the biggest fool in the nine continents.” How could there be such a person in the nine continents? She hadn’t received much in the first half of her life, but she repaid the kindness she received to this world to the greatest extent. No, it wasn’t just to the nine continents, to the Demon Abyss, but also to her. Even being smashed to pieces wasn’t enough to describe this person’s devotion.

The world kissed her with pain, but she repaid it with a song.

“Are you scolding me?” Sui Yihuan had heard her call her a “fool” many times. This time, she decided not to tolerate it anymore. She opened her palm, about to reveal those red threads and make Su Mingxiu rephrase her words.

But at the end of the long street, in the part of the slums that couldn’t be illuminated by the weak light of the black stone lamps, the green-clothed cultivator leaned over in the darkness, embraced the other person, and transmitted warmth to her.

“I’m not scolding you, I’m scolding the Heavenly Dao.”

“It’s truly blind, it doesn’t know how to choose a savior at all.” Su Mingxiu was thinking, how selfish she was, she could never dedicate her life to any force, and was destined to live alone.

But Sui Yihuan was different. This was a person who, no matter what her situation, even if she fell into the abyss, would use her last bit of strength to push the person who fell in with her out before turning into bones.

Su Mingxiu couldn’t find anyone better than her. She even felt that the luckiest thing in her two lifetimes was receiving this person’s love.

“Are you trying to distract me again and not tell me the answer?”

Sui Yihuan didn’t understand what she meant. She let her hold her and asked stubbornly.

“Sui Yihuan, I love you. I want to live in a world with you.”

The Demon Lord, being held: “!”

She thought, this woman was too hateful, she was so good at changing the subject.

She couldn’t say those pressing questions, couldn’t make those forcing actions, she could only be held by the other person like a piece of wood.

Hearing that gentle voice, more effective than any gu in the nine continents, tempting her by her ear, “Let me walk the rest of the road with you, okay?”

Chapter 226: So I’m the Protagonist After All (22)

From afar, the lord in luxurious robes was pinned beneath, covered by the cultivator’s light-colored clothes, at a clear disadvantage.

In reality, Sui Yihuan only needed to lower her gaze to see the pure black neck ring tightly against the cultivator’s skin, a curse that could severely injure a cultivator’s meridians with a single blow—

It was also her handiwork.

The Demon Lord closed her eyes. When she opened them again, red threads naturally extended from her fingertips, connecting to the black neck ring, creating a strange image in the room.

Then, Su Mingxiu was pulled away by the uncontrollable force, forced to separate from the other person by a small distance.

Taking advantage of this time, Sui Yihuan slowly regained her composure, locking the beast in her heart back in its cage. She didn’t look at the cultivator whose movements were restrained and who should be unprecedentedly angry. She coldly answered her question in a low voice, “I don’t like it.”

“Whether it’s you, or what you do, I don’t like it.”

The room fell silent.

She didn’t even dare to look at Su Mingxiu’s expression.

But the person who was pulled away didn’t show any anger at all. She just sat on the black patterned carpet on the floor by the table, slowly tidying her sleeves. She also raised her hand and touched the red thread connected to the black ring around her neck. As soon as her hand touched it, she froze…

It was actually warm?

Sui Yihuan, who hadn’t expected her blood curse to be touched by the other person, trembled slightly. The people she had cursed before usually died instantly.

So she never knew that when another person touched these blood threads… it would feel so terrifying, especially when touched so gently—she almost reflexively withdrew this power.

The place under Su Mingxiu’s fingertip suddenly disappeared, leaving her touching air. She looked up at Sui Yihuan. After a moment, realizing that her Great Ascension stage cultivation was definitely not enough to pry the answer she wanted from this Demon Lord, she listlessly put away the food on the table and turned to walk towards the corner.

Her sleeve was suddenly grabbed.

The cultivator stopped, turned to look at the other person indifferently, and heard Sui Yihuan’s dry command, “You haven’t said what exactly is inside your body.”

“I don’t want to tell you anymore,” Su Mingxiu said.

The hand gripping her sleeve tightened, showing the other person’s hesitation. After a moment, the high and mighty lord of the Demon Abyss still chose to speak again, “Is it life-threatening?”

“Guess.”

The Demon Lord, without the memories of her reincarnations, was tormented by the infuriating lines from a lover’s quarrel for the first time. She felt both helpless and a little angry… But after all, she was the one who hurt the other person first, so in the end, they could only part on bad terms.

Su Mingxiu took out a set of cloud brocade bedding from her interspatial bag and laid it out on the floor in the corner of the room. The satin was of excellent quality and extremely comfortable, making Sui Yihuan unable to say, “Go sleep on the bed.”

The two of them lived separately in the small room, not speaking to each other. Sui Yihuan would go out every day for a long time, and every time she came back, she looked exhausted.

But she rested for very short periods, sometimes not resting at all, simply handling Demon Abyss matters at the table. Through the thin curtains, sometimes the demons reporting outside would glance up and see the shadow of the other person walking behind the gauze.

Strange rumors spread. There wasn’t much entertainment in the Demon Abyss, so the gossip of the higher-ups became the talk of the demons after tea and meals. It was said that the new Demon Lord only looked cold-blooded, cruel, and violent on the surface, but in reality, she had taken a fancy to a princess from some race and hid her in the Black Stone Dock.

The rumors were vivid, but the two protagonists at the center of the gossip were still in a protracted cold war, completely unaware of it.

That day, after Sui Yihuan returned from the blood prison beneath Black Stone Dock, she saw Su Mingxiu lying on her back, seemingly asleep. Looking at that graceful figure, after a long time, she still couldn’t resist her worry and wanted to take advantage of Su Mingxiu’s unguarded state to find out what exactly had been planted inside her body.

But as soon as she held her breath and approached, her shadow falling on the other person, her hand had just reached out when it was caught—

The person who opened her eyes and looked at her showed no signs of drowsiness. There was even a smile in her eyes, like she had caught a cat sneaking into the bed.

Sui Yihuan inexplicably felt a little embarrassed and squeezed out a sentence that lacked credibility, “Your blanket fell off, this Lord is picking it up for you.”

“Since the Demon Lord is so kind, why not return my grumpy little girl to me as well?” Su Mingxiu raised an eyebrow and smoothly continued her words.

Sui Yihuan: “…”

She broke free from the other person and wanted to leave. Who knew that the person on the bed would immediately raise her hand and wipe her face, removing the disguise that had been washed away long ago and only concealed by a spell, revealing that beautiful face that was so stunning that one couldn’t look away.

Taking advantage of the other person’s momentary daze, Su Mingxiu abruptly pulled her into her arms, “If I had known you liked my face so much, I should have cried in front of you with this face when you said those hurtful words earlier, and see if you could still be so heartless.”

…What was she talking about?

Sui Yihuan was held tightly in her arms, smelling the much fainter fragrance on her body. She didn’t know how this Great Ascension cultivator, who could be called an ancestor in the nine continents, could say such shameless words.

Only those mortal women, and those women who were good at using bedroom tactics, would use tears as weapons. How could Su Mingxiu also?

But these thoughts only flashed through her mind.

Knowing that she had no resistance to her, Sui Yihuan tried to get up from her arms with a tense expression. But the other person held her very tightly, and it was difficult to break free with just strength.

“Let go.”

“You were clearly the one who threw yourself into my arms, why do you want me to let go?”

“You!”

Sui Yihuan knew that she couldn’t win against her verbally and didn’t want to continue this entanglement. Red threads appeared on her fingertips again, trying to control the other person to let go.

But Su Mingxiu hugged her very tightly, at the same time using her will to resist her blood curse. The final result was that the black neck ring was almost deformed, and the beautiful woman’s face was flushed, she didn’t know if it was from being choked or from pain.

But even so, she didn’t let go, just instinctively increased her strength, pressing the thin body under the luxurious robe tightly into her arms, as if wanting to rub her into her bones.

Sui Yihuan had no choice. She didn’t dare to really hurt her, so in the end, she loosened her control with a dark face, “Have you hugged enough?”

“Not enough, never enough.” If someone had told Su Mingxiu in those previous worlds that she would eventually become a loyal dog type of top, she wouldn’t have believed it, and would even have beaten that person up.

But after knowing that her rebirth, the passage of time, and these repeated encounters and love were all exchanged with the life of the person she loved, she could no longer harden her heart towards this person.

After personally measuring the other person’s waist with her palm, Su Mingxiu found that she was really thin. Her heart was filled with pity, and she couldn’t help but be moved. After hugging her for a while, she couldn’t help but want to get closer.

Her kiss traveled along the other person’s cheek, finally stopping on Sui Yihuan’s palm, “Pushing your luck.”

The other person looked away, pressed her palm against her lips, and said in a stiff voice.

Su Mingxiu pulled her palm away, smiling even more enchantingly than the Lycoris radiata transplanted from the underworld beneath Black Stone Dock, “Then say again that you don’t like me, and I won’t kiss you or hug you anymore.”

“I—”

Sui Yihuan started to speak perfunctorily, completely forgetting why she was being so obedient. But just as she uttered one word, her head was turned, and she looked directly into Su Mingxiu’s smiling eyes, “Look into my eyes and say it.”

“Uh…” The Demon Lord was annoyed by her many requests. After looking into those eyes that were more beautiful than the stars for a moment, she looked away impatiently. When she spoke again, the person beneath her raised her head, like a swan stretching its neck towards the sky, and sealed her lips, not uttering a single word.

This time, it seemed that she had the upper hand, but she was being restrained and couldn’t escape at all, not even able to speak properly.

The second time she tried to speak, Sui Yihuan only managed to utter the word “I” before being stopped again.

Finally seeing through this cultivator’s cunning tricks, the Demon Lord stopped speaking. Su Mingxiu cupped her cheeks, rubbing her nose against hers affectionately, “Why did you stop talking? Don’t you dislike me? Do you want me to say it for you?”

The restrained lord didn’t say a word, she didn’t know if she was looking for an opportunity to break free from her entanglement, or if she was tired of the previous meaningless tug-of-war and was waiting for her to get tired of it.

But Su Mingxiu didn’t care about this. She just kept a certain distance from her, every word falling on the other person’s lips, her breath sometimes hot, sometimes cold. It seemed like she was about to kiss her again, but she never got closer.

She slowly helped the other person say the words:

“You don’t like me, so you wouldn’t feel guilty for knocking down my roses, and you wouldn’t want to personally compensate me; you don’t like me, so when you see me being used by my master, you wouldn’t feel heartache, you wouldn’t feel that your appearance has caused such a heavy blow to my life…”

“You don’t like me, so in the Zhenhai Tower secret realm, if I were the one poisoned, you wouldn’t want to help me detoxify. Even if we had some accidental entanglement, you wouldn’t care if I abandoned you; because you don’t like me, so even if you see that I got the mermaid pearl, a blessing for love from the merfolk, you wouldn’t be envious at all, nor would you be interested in it, and wouldn’t have any thoughts of taking it…”

“You really dislike me so much. After all, I just look like your old friend now. Even if I come to the Demon Abyss, I can only be a insignificant stand-in for that unknown old friend of yours, right?”

Clearly, every word Su Mingxiu said was based on the premise that Sui Yihuan didn’t like her. But after being listed with so many obsessions, so many absurd thoughts, Sui Yihuan thought in her heart:

So she already liked her this much?

Seeing that the Demon Lord had nothing to say, Su Mingxiu’s touch on her cheek became even more gentle. She had long known the reason for her experiences in those previous worlds. The person in front of her didn’t have the memories of her previous life, so she didn’t know about those past events, and didn’t know the original trajectory—

But for Su Mingxiu, she had watched helplessly as the other person’s trajectory gradually overlapped with the past.

She had also long known why she had received that rose, that teacher-student relationship, that lovely omega… and the unreasonable merman, the willful little emperor…

Every experience she had was a regret and compensation from the past Sui Yihuan to her.

The rose that originated from the small garden, even though their encounters in the two lifetimes were different. But as long as the other person had once set foot in that spiritual garden of the Hundred Flower Sect, she would feel regret for its destruction later… And it became even more uncontrollable later.

When she was arranged by the Heavenly Dao to those worlds, Su Mingxiu had been impatient. Because she didn’t know what kind of traps the disguised system would set for her, and initially she didn’t know that these protagonists were all Sui Yihuan’s obsessions.

So she had hesitated when facing them, and even had thoughts of giving up because the other person was too immature…

But only after being reborn did she understand what kind of treasures were hidden in those worlds she had experienced. It was the unspoken love from another person. Even if the ending was the scattering of her soul, she had given those feelings to her as a gift without reservation.

—Even if Su Mingxiu would never know the truth, even if Su Mingxiu might not be able to be reborn. But if she failed and died in these illusions, there would also be another person’s love buried with her. Even if she died, she would die in a beautiful dream filled with love.

Now.

Sui Yihuan, whose intentions were partially exposed by her, didn’t want to face it. She just quickly adjusted her expression while Su Mingxiu was reminiscing about the past, forcefully restraining the restless little deer in her heart that was clamoring to see her beloved.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The person beneath her came back to her senses, chuckled softly, and when her eyes curved into crescents, the small mole under her left eye also became gentle.

“Yes, you don’t know, and there are indeed things you don’t know—”

“For example, aren’t you curious why I waited half a year to come find you?”

Sui Yihuan pursed her lips. This was her most common action to suppress her emotions, but it was seen through by Su Mingxiu.

But the cunning cultivator only piqued her interest and didn’t say anything further. As if in exchange, she playfully flicked the snowflake earring on her ear with her fingertip and asked, “Then you answer my question first. You should answer me this time.”

“The green rice balls I made for you before, were they delicious?”

Chapter 225: So I’m the Protagonist After All (21)

Sui Yihuan’s gaze shifted from her plain, unremarkable features. Any discerning person could tell the difference between Su Mingxiu’s disguised face and her real appearance. But for some reason, Sui Yihuan couldn’t even bring herself to tell this simple truth.

She had clearly made up her mind to draw a clear line with the other person, to prevent Su Mingxiu from being tainted by the slightest trace of the dark world. But now it seemed that she had overestimated her acting skills.

Seeing that she didn’t say anything, Su Mingxiu, with her rich experience in tragic love stories, continued on her own, “Oh, Your Lordship doesn’t answer, could it be that you’re greedy and want both, so you don’t want to offend either of them? How sentimental.”

As she spoke, the person sitting by the bed reached out with the fingertip that wasn’t stained with blood, trying to hook the other person’s chin. But the Demon Lord didn’t hesitate at all, raised her hand and grabbed it, using so much force that Su Mingxiu’s fingertip couldn’t move forward an inch, unable to even touch a strand of her hair.

Then, Sui Yihuan, her expression as cold as her black robe, moved a few pale fingers along Su Mingxiu’s wrist and took her pulse.

The cultivator, reacting quickly, immediately wanted to withdraw her hand, but the other person didn’t allow her to retreat. Back and forth, the two silently competed. Su Mingxiu couldn’t retract her hand, and Sui Yihuan, because of the other person’s tense movements, couldn’t get any information she wanted.

The two looked at each other silently. After a while, the figure standing by the bed moved first. The pitch-black robe was like a rolling wave, instantly crashing onto the shore, firmly pinning down the prey.

Su Mingxiu couldn’t resist her sudden attack. In the many worlds before, she had rarely been in such a weak position.

But at this moment, she was only tense for a moment before relaxing again, as if finding it novel, her eyes revealing amusement.

“Your Lordship should be gentler—”

She looked at Sui Yihuan intently, her lips opening and closing, the words she uttered not at all like what a righteous cultivator would say, “I don’t like it rough.”

“Uh…” Sui Yihuan’s words, with their double meaning, evoked the images buried deep in her memory.

The damp fishing village cabin, the room swaying with the waves, and the sweat-inducing, blush-inducing temperature.

Her breathing changed, but she forced herself to shift her attention, taking Su Mingxiu’s pulse. After a moment, her expression changed strangely. She looked back at her, her gaze sharp, “What’s inside your body?”

Su Mingxiu blinked slowly and replied languidly, “I’m hungry.”

“Hmm?”

“I haven’t eaten anything all day. I’m so hungry, I don’t want to talk.” The Great Ascension cultivator, who could dominate the nine continents, now showed a weak appearance because of the other person’s insignificant punishment.

Sui Yihuan endured it. After all, she felt guilty. In the end, she still had a cold expression as she took out the interspatial bag she had confiscated earlier and threw it to her.

But the person sitting on the bed, after getting her things back, just slowly got up, walked to the distant table, and took out several plates of delicious food one by one—

Eight-treasure spiritual duck, braised spirit beast elbow, a hundred-year-old mountain delicacy stew, Buddha Jumps Over the Wall…

Including several plates of exquisite pastries, and finally a wine jug made of ice crystals, still emitting mist, with the aroma of seasonal spirit fruits.

Sui Yihuan still stood by the bed, as if she had lost her sense of smell, not glancing at it at all. Su Mingxiu said in her direction, “Aren’t you coming, Your Lordship?”

“I don’t like food from the cultivation world,” she replied coldly.

Liar.

Su Mingxiu thought that she had clearly enjoyed it before. During the six months they were apart, Su Mingxiu herself didn’t have much of an appetite. She made all these because she was thinking about the person in the Demon Abyss. Who knew that after finally meeting, the other person wouldn’t even give her this much face.

So she didn’t insist, just lowered her eyes and said slowly, “I don’t like to eat alone. If Your Lordship doesn’t eat, then I’ll just continue to be hungry.”

The silent figure by the bed finally moved.

A moment later, Sui Yihuan sat opposite her. When her eyelids drooped slightly, the light from the demon stones in the room fell on the side of her face, around her eyes, like a layer of dark eyeshadow, making her features appear deeper, and as if there was a touch of sadness between her eyebrows.

Sui Yihuan ate some food expressionlessly, then looked up at Su Mingxiu with some fatigue, silently asking her: Are you satisfied now?

But the cultivator just raised her hand, picked up a piece of duck meat, and brought it to her lips. After she ate it, she picked up other dishes that Sui Yihuan hadn’t tried one by one. After Sui Yihuan had finished eating everything, she still wasn’t satisfied. She changed chopsticks, picked up a sweet cake, and brought it to her again.

Sui Yihuan, who had been inexplicably fed for a while, now pursed her lips. Because she had experienced too much in the Demon Abyss, she was no longer as patient as before, and now she was a little angry. She didn’t play this game with Su Mingxiu anymore, just pursed her lips and refused to eat, even leaning back slightly and asking in a low voice, “Have you played enough?”

Su Mingxiu put the cake that had been kissed by her into her own mouth, chewed slowly, the corners of her lips curved slightly, just looking at her, not speaking.

Then, the cultivator tried the same trick again, changing to another dessert and trying to feed it to her—then she was grabbed by the neck by the Demon Lord, who couldn’t bear it anymore, and pulled into her arms. Her low voice became hoarse, with three parts command, three parts anxiety, and four parts helplessness from being pushed to the limit, “What do you want before you’ll talk?”

This close, Su Mingxiu could smell the scent on her.

It was cold, the smell of blood.

But the person pulled into her arms didn’t change her expression at all, just blinked, “Is Your Lordship worried about me? I thought you wouldn’t know what it’s like to worry about others in your entire life.”

The information in Su Mingxiu’s words was too rich, but only the two of them understood. This referred to the scheme Sui Yihuan had set up half a year ago, controlling thousands of demons, including Su Mingxiu.

Sui Yihuan had put on a good show for the righteous sects, controlling Su Mingxiu to turn against her in front of everyone, killing those demons, and even injuring her. Everyone saw Sui Yihuan flee in panic, and only the victor remained, clearing herself of the charge of colluding with the demon race with this battle.

In fact, it wasn’t cleared. If Su Mingxiu’s cultivation level wasn’t high enough, those righteous sects would have used the soul-searching technique on her thousands of times.

Moreover, if they really believed her, they wouldn’t have specifically arranged for her to come here this time, and even put a gu on her. Compared to hoping that Su Mingxiu would bring back reliable information about the demon race, it would be better to hope that her cultivation level was low now, and something would happen to her so she could be eliminated…

In any case, if Su Mingxiu was really pure-hearted, with her unclear relationship with Sui Yihuan, if she could injure this Demon Lord, it would be a great thing for the nine continents.

She knew that she had been completely schemed against by the nine continents, and she also knew all the risks of this trip. But Su Mingxiu was still worried, unable to control herself from coming…

The Demon Abyss was too dark, and she was afraid that the little girl who refused to accept her demon identity and felt extremely guilty for accidentally hurting her would be eaten alive here, not even leaving any bones behind.

Some people, just because they looked unharmed and were still standing, didn’t mean that everything was going well and they were safe and sound.

—But all of this, they could have shouldered together. But in the end, Su Mingxiu could only guess what the other person was experiencing in the Demon Abyss alone in those peaceful days, using all her imagination, not daring to stop for a moment.

Sui Yihuan’s expression changed again and again, but in the end, she just closed her eyes.

Then, the bloody smell that had been coldly floating around Su Mingxiu, refusing to approach, suddenly enveloped her. A cold kiss, so cold that it made one shiver, landed on her lips.

The next moment, a sharp pain came.

They seemed to be back in that stormy fishing village cabin, exchanging blood-tinged kisses in the silent, dark room.

Sui Yihuan suddenly opened her eyes, her pupils turning an ominous blood red. She spoke decisively in a commanding tone, “Tell me, what’s inside your body.”

Blue veins suddenly appeared on the forehead of the person in her arms, as if her throat was being choked. Her body trembled slightly, because Su Mingxiu was resisting the power of her demon bloodline!

Her red lips opened and closed, her will constantly struggling. After a moment, her stiff body went limp. This short period seemed to have exhausted all her strength.

Su Mingxiu’s eyes were vacant, and she weakly uttered a few words. But there was no sound at all. Sui Yihuan had to lean down, her ear against her lips, “Say it again.”

The small snowflake remaining on her left ear now swayed slightly with her movements, hanging near the other person’s lower lip. Just as the other person was being commanded for the second time—

That small hexagonal snowflake was suddenly caught between her teeth!

The person whose cultivation suddenly erupted raised her hand and pressed the unsuspecting Demon Lord into her arms, her ten fingers interlocked, pressing on the back of the other person’s neck. While holding her down, the teeth that had teased the earring now intimately, with more force, climbed onto her earlobe.

This time, the roles of the trembling ones were reversed.

Sui Yihuan’s ears were filled with the other person’s moist breath. Her red eyes lost focus for a moment, and she even forgot to breathe. When she remembered to struggle, a half-circle of teeth marks was fiercely bitten onto her ear.

What she brought back wasn’t a pet at all. It was clearly a wild wolf, not letting go of any opportunity to control its prey. The hunting relationship was reversed, and her fatal spot was now in the other person’s mouth.

“Did I forget to tell you?” The person who left a mark on her also had a fierce tone, as if to give her a deep enough impression, “I hate having my memories tampered with the most, and I also hate being controlled the most.”

Compared to the power of the Heavenly Dao at its peak, which could control all things in the three thousand worlds, the control of Sui Yihuan’s awakened demon bloodline was nothing in front of Su Mingxiu.

Her memory was like a sieve, already riddled with holes and broken by the Heavenly Dao, so much so that repairing it took a lot of effort. First, it changed her memories of her previous life, and then it repeatedly tampered with and erased them in different worlds, making those past images like failed paintings, splashed with layers of dark ink by the painter in a fit of anger.

But Su Mingxiu had tried very hard to wipe away this filth. She had tried her best to erase the extra layers, restoring this beautiful scene to its original appearance.

As a result, Sui Yihuan also wanted to pick up the brush and carefully erase this beautiful scene, even though she herself was also in the scene.

—Su Mingxiu would never tolerate this.

Back in the fishing village of the Thirteen Schools, it was because she wasn’t careful enough, all her emotions were focused on worrying about the other person, that she was tricked. But that trick could only make her forget for one night.

After one night, she remembered everything.

As for now, no matter how powerful Sui Yihuan’s abilities were to other demons, in any case, using the same trick on her wouldn’t work.

Relying on the burst of power from her temporary realm elevation, Su Mingxiu pressed the Demon Lord against the table, ignoring the small table that was about to collapse because of their movements, and the cooling dishes that hadn’t been touched much, each of which she had carefully prepared and studied for a long time.

Looking at those red eyes that were no longer panicked by their exposure, Su Mingxiu rarely ended the act first. Without the leisure of playing the stand-in game with the Demon Lord, her tone was still smiling as she approached, but her actions in suppressing the other person were fierce, “I’ve been thinking… Was I too gentle that night, leaving you with too much strength, so that you had enough energy to plan how to leave me?”

“I should have been rougher with you, not allowing you to rest no matter how tired or sleepy I was, so that you wouldn’t even have the strength to move a finger, not even the strength to cry, and could only look at me with pleading red eyes—”

“Is this what you like?”

“If so, I’ll make it up to you now, it should still be in time.”

Chapter 224: So I’m the Protagonist After All (20)

When Su Mingxiu was swept into the embroidery by Sui Yihuan’s black wind and reappeared, she was already inside the tall tower of Black Stone Dock. Seeing the dark decorations around her, even the thin curtains separating the space were dark red and black, she felt that this room was really stuffy, making it hard to breathe.

The Demon Lord herself, who had just been taken advantage of, showed no change in her expression, as if nothing had happened. At that time, there was no one else in the room. She coldly announced to Su Mingxiu, “From today onwards, you will clean this room for this Lord, acting as a cleaning maid. Food will be delivered, and you are not allowed to step out of this room.”

Her words were also cold, just like the small snowflake still worn on her left ear.

If Su Mingxiu didn’t know that half of that snowflake had been turned into a beautiful spring scene and hidden in Sui Yihuan’s forbidden area, she would really think that she had locked her heart away from love.

Hearing these words now, the cultivator wasn’t annoyed. She just looked towards the long table, leaned against it, glanced at the demon stones recording images and the Demon Abyss’ communication letters, and looked away disinterestedly, turning her gaze to the standing figure, silent like a pine tree in a snowy night.

“I see no one else in this room. Your Lordship brought me here specifically, could it be that you’ve also fallen for me and want to keep me as your hidden beauty?”

Sui Yihuan: “…”

She had already suspected that Su Mingxiu might have remembered something. Now, seeing her acting so playfully, the suspicion in her heart became even stronger.

But, if she really remembered what happened before, why wasn’t there any questioning, anger, or confrontation?

She had to admit that from the first time they met until now, she had never understood this person.

Ignoring Su Mingxiu’s words, Sui Yihuan asked, “This Lord didn’t introduce myself just now, how did you know my identity?”

“Your Lordship’s bearing, since I entered the Demon Abyss, I haven’t found anyone else who can compare to you. It makes people submit at first glance…”

Sui Yihuan didn’t listen to the rest of the words.

Her gaze swept over the other person’s proper face. Because of this fake face, all of Su Mingxiu’s original advantages were erased, even the mole at the corner of her eye was hidden.

So no matter what the other person did, Sui Yihuan wouldn’t lose her composure. At this moment, she let her talk nonsense and turned into a wisp of black smoke, disappearing.

After she left, the smile in Su Mingxiu’s eyes also disappeared.

Sui Yihuan had lost a lot of weight.

And her complexion was also pale.

She didn’t know if it was because of the cultivation technique she practiced or because she had lived in the dark Demon Abyss for many years, but she didn’t look healthy at all.

Sui Yihuan didn’t say when she would return, so Su Mingxiu wandered around the room alone, thinking about a question: In her previous life, she hadn’t seen the Heavenly Demon after coming to the Demon Abyss. According to her master’s arrogant and conceited manner, it didn’t make sense that after washing the Hundred Flower Sect with blood and slaughtering the Thirteen Schools, she would be so low-key after returning to the Demon Abyss.

But she just didn’t see her “kind master” again. Since infiltrating the Demon Abyss, the ruler of the Demon Abyss she saw and heard was Sui Yihuan… this human demon created by misfortune.

Where did Ye Qingbai go?

Moreover, judging from the aura she felt during their brief contact earlier, Su Mingxiu couldn’t figure out Sui Yihuan’s current strength.

She still remembered that when they parted half a year ago, Sui Yihuan had paid a great price to put on such a grand show for the righteous sects. But now, although Su Mingxiu had lowered her cultivation, her divine sense perception was still at the peak of the Great Ascension stage—

So, what was Sui Yihuan’s strength?

What kind of evil technique had she practiced in just half a year?

Thinking of this, Su Mingxiu unconsciously stopped by the bookshelf in the corner. After sorting out these clueless threads and finding no answers, she was like a cat trying to untangle a ball of yarn, only to make it even messier. She simply started rummaging through the room.

Not only was she searching for the Demon Lord’s reading preferences, she even found a small wooden box hidden by a formation.

The box only had an ordinary lock. Even though the style was complicated, Su Mingxiu still opened it with the thin hairpin in her hair. But she was stunned by what she found inside—another wooden box.

Because she had seen the wooden box inside before.

It was the one she had bought from the merman in the fishing village by the sea.

…Su Mingxu thought she had lost it again.

A special thought suddenly occurred to her. Could it be that this wooden box had already been in Sui Yihuan’s hands in her previous life? After all, she rarely lost things, and this was the only one she had ever lost.

Touching the patterns on the wooden box, for a moment, Su Mingxiu wanted to forcefully break the formation set by the merfolk and see what the unique mermaid pearl inside looked like.

But before she could make a move, she felt the curtain beside the bookshelf suddenly being blown open, revealing a wooden face standing outside, “Is this how you clean the room for this Lord?”

Although it was a wooden face, it was still the most beautiful wooden face in the world.

Su Mingxiu propped her chin on one hand, shook the box in her hand, and smiled at Sui Yihuan, her eyes curving, “Look what secret of Your Lordship I’ve discovered? Using such a complicated formation just to hide such an ordinary little thing, let me guess, this couldn’t have been given to you by your beloved, right?”

Asking knowingly.

If it were any other person in the Demon Abyss who appeared here at this moment, holding the wooden box and shaking it so audaciously, Sui Yihuan would have twisted their head off and shaken it like this. But it just so happened to be Su Mingxiu.

She suddenly regretted bringing the other person here, because it was simply asking for trouble. With Su Mingxiu’s current cultivation, as long as she didn’t blatantly expose herself in the Demon Abyss and didn’t act too high-profile, few people in the Demon Abyss could do anything to her. She had been blinded.

“No.” Sui Yihuan calmly denied it, and just stretched out her palm, her five fingers closing together, and snatched the box back into her hand out of thin air.

—It wasn’t given to her by her beloved, she stole it.

“You are too disobedient,” the Demon Lord, dressed in luxurious black clothes, said, her gaze sweeping over Su Mingxiu. Suddenly, she grabbed something out of thin air, taking out a well-hidden interspatial bag. After a pause, she said, “You are not allowed to eat today, reflect on your actions.”

She used the method Su Mingxiu had taught her after they left the Zhenhai Tower secret realm to easily erase the divine sense mark on the interspatial bag. So she knew that it was filled with delicious food.

But the person who was considered a glutton, upon hearing such a punishment, still replied with a smile, “Your Lordship is too kind. Why not punish me by making me watch you eat? Wouldn’t that be more cruel?”

But Sui Yihuan didn’t answer. She came and went like the wind, like a casual owner, bringing her pet home. As long as it didn’t cause too much trouble, she wouldn’t interfere.

After leaving again, Sui Yihuan set up a formation outside the house. After instructing people to keep an eye on the two cultivators in the Black Stone Mine and report to her regularly, she headed towards the bottom of the tall tower.

That was hidden under the blood pool. The closer it was to the surface of the pool, the more ordinary the black stone prison, which held the former Demon Lord’s enemies. The further down, the more unfathomable the strength.

And on the bottom floor—

The person imprisoned there was almost completely immersed in the black blood pool. Compared to the vast pool outside the Black Stone Dock, the color here was far too deep, and no blood color could be seen at all. It was more appropriate to call it ink-black.

If anyone could see the black water in this pool, they would have an absurd thought, that the dark, surging blood pool outside was just the diluted evil, completely incomparable to the intense killing intent here.

Blood-locking chains that could seal demon meridians crisscrossed, revealing the tip of the iceberg above the blood pool, intertwined with countless demon patterns, showing that the formation was running non-stop.

“You are already at the end of your rope. Those cultivators from the nine continents will find a way to break the seal sooner or later. When the immortal-demon war restarts, even if you manage to perish together with me… those demons outside will be leaderless, do you want to let them be slaughtered by the righteous path?”

“The demon race is deeply sinful, and their cultivation methods are even more heinous. They are inherently incompatible with the nine continents,” Sui Yihuan replied expressionlessly, standing outside the blood pool.

The black shadow imprisoned in the blood pool laughed heartily, “If that’s the case, why don’t you just open the gates of the formation and let the nine continents’ cultivators enter the Demon Abyss? The fact that you don’t do that means you have a soft heart, doesn’t it?”

“You can see that for tens of thousands of years, my demon race has been suppressed in this sunless place. The lives of those low-level demons who can’t even awaken their bloodlines are worse than the most miserable mortals in the nine continents… You want to save them…”

“Ridiculous, you, who grew up accepting the concepts of cultivators, can’t go back anywhere. You can no longer be a human or a cultivator. You want to be a demon, but you’re not evil enough. You might as well open the Demon Abyss barrier now, and I’ll have a little more respect for you.”

“Do I need your respect?” The person standing at the edge of the blood pool, her robes clean, not stained by the filth of this prison.

Even though her face was pale, the contours of her features were even sharper, and her tone was the same, with five parts disdain and five parts contempt, “A defeated general, a prisoner.”

She had no more interest in communicating with the other party.

Countless red threads flew out from her fingertips hidden under her long sleeves, sinking into the black pool.

Instantly, the entire place was filled with red light, and the person imprisoned inside cursed loudly, “If I had known that I would raise a monster like you, I should have killed you at birth—”

“Why so excited? You’ve always had poor judgment. Besides, this isn’t the first time you’ve misjudged someone.”

Sui Yihuan deliberately used a cold voice to provoke the other party.

Sure enough, the demon, tormented by the forbidden formation, let out an even angrier voice, “That’s right! And that wretched disciple born with a Daoist constitution! If I can get out, I will definitely not let you two…”

“You’re too confident.”

Sui Yihuan sighed softly, “Half a year ago, when I returned to the Demon Abyss, you were so confident in locking me up in the demon outcast land, thinking that I would never be able to get out alive.”

“So, whether you’re a human or a demon, don’t speak too soon, it’s easy to get slapped in the face.”

The Heavenly Demon, who was being tormented by the formation and also being mentally attacked by her: “…”

When she returned to Black Stone Dock, Sui Yihuan felt the fishy sweetness welling up in her chest. She stood outside the room where Su Mingxiu was being held, paused for a moment, touched the arm under her sleeve, and after sensing that the suddenly bulging blood vessels had subsided, she hesitantly stepped forward and pushed open the door.

This person, when she was following her before, always liked to make delicious food. Although she had already reached the Great Ascension stage, she probably still had some appetite. After being hungry for a day, she wondered if she would be angry.

Thinking so, after entering, she didn’t see anyone at first glance. Sui Yihuan’s heart instinctively tightened, thinking that the person had escaped. But after turning around, her gaze passed through the gauze curtains in the room, and seeing the figure meditating on the bed, she put her heart back in her stomach.

But the next moment—

The person who was meditating suddenly opened her eyes and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Su Mingxiu had been too focused on investigating the gu in her body and didn’t notice anyone coming back. When a shadow fell over her, she wiped the trace from the corner of her lips and only then did she react and look up. The other person’s hand reached directly for her wrist.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Before being touched, Su Mingxiu quickly moved her hand away.

If one didn’t look at the marks on the floor beside the bed, no one would notice anything unusual about her, with her rosy complexion and seemingly excellent condition.

Not letting the other person touch her, the person who was now sitting on the Demon Lord’s bed had a smiling expression, but her words were somewhat barbed:

“It’s nothing, I’m just an ordinary prisoner and maid. Your Lordship doesn’t have to look like that. People who don’t know might think you care about me a lot.”

Sui Yihuan was stunned.

After a moment, she replied coldly, “You look like an old friend of this Lord. This Lord cherishes old friendships and doesn’t want to see you get hurt. You don’t have to think too much about it.”

Oh, if one didn’t know better, they would think that the Demon Abyss’ specialty was braised duck. Otherwise, how could they explain Sui Yihuan’s stubbornness?

Playing the stand-in card, was she?

The corner of Su Mingxiu’s lips curved upwards, very aware of her own seductive nature, “Oh, is Your Lordship’s old friend more beautiful, or am I more beautiful?”

Chapter 223: So I’m the Protagonist After All (19)

Entering this tall, silent Black Stone City built of dark demonic bricks once again, Su Mingxiu seemed to be able to smell the familiar scent of blood from the cracks between the bricks.

Even though not every member of the demon race was insane, the way they obtained their power at birth determined that they were destined to be incompatible with the rest of the nine continents.

In her previous life, when Su Mingxiu hadn’t yet awakened her self-awareness, she hadn’t realized how strange the existence of the demon race was. They seemed to be born to be enemies of the world, yet they were able to reproduce so many clansmen. But now, knowing that all the scripts were arranged by the Heavenly Dao, she only had one feeling:

The Heavenly Dao’s scripts were really bad.

Not to mention how absurd those small worlds she had transmigrated to before were, even its control over this world now…

If only it could learn how the storytellers in the mortal world polished their scripts, it wouldn’t have come up with such absurd settings and still refuse to change.

The person holding the Demon Lord’s token had a cold expression, driving them to the cliff where the Black Stone Dock was located, not allowing them to approach the spire standing in the blood lake.

Because it was sealed outside the Sea’s Edge, the Demon Abyss was a place where even sunlight couldn’t reach.

And that blood lake, although it was called that, was actually just because of the special formation beneath it. Over time, it had become this color, not because it was filled with blood.

Su Mingxiu looked down at the dark, bottomless lake surface, remembering that there seemed to be a dungeon below. She wanted to recall more, but was suddenly pushed hard from behind, “Don’t peek at the Black Stone Dock! If you implicate us and we are punished by the Demon Lord, I’ll use you as a snack!”

She slipped and accidentally kicked two black stones into the calm lake water, which seemed ready to churn at any moment, but there was no sound.

Su Mingxiu didn’t say anything and followed the demoness who had bought them to their assigned place. Because the place where this Demon Lord resided was too desolate, without any entertainment, and life was too monotonous, they rarely bought low-level cultivators back. The people below didn’t know how to arrange them, so after thinking about it, they let them dig for demon stones.

This was what the low-level demons, who couldn’t cultivate any demon techniques, used to keep warm. After all, there was no sunlight here, nothing grew, and it had been sealed by the sects of the nine continents. So the demons could only rely on studying the natural resources here to find a way to survive.

Demonic beasts were the only gift in this desolate land. The demons would raise these beasts, trade them, sell them, and then work hard to save money to exchange with those demons who had awakened their bloodlines and had precious abilities for some herbs to supplement their nutrition. However, the things that could be grown in the soil here were more or less poisonous.

Therefore, even though these demons were fragile at birth, once they reached adulthood, they would more or less possess some strange abilities.

Getting off track.

Su Mingxiu’s attention returned to the present. Thinking that she had never fallen to the point of mining in her several lifetimes, she decided to speak up and improve her treatment, “We are cultivators from the nine continents, from major sects. How can you humiliate us like this! Former Junior Sister, quickly show them your power!”

Huaxuan: “?”

Was her relationship with Su Mingxiu really that good?

Not knowing what the other person was up to, she didn’t want to pay attention. Who knew that her elbow would be nudged hard, and the seed she always kept in her sleeve fell to the ground, naturally growing into a small tyrant flower.

But because the soil had no spiritual power and was not nurtured by Huaxuan, it only revealed a small head, listlessly, and didn’t grow any further. It didn’t show the imposing manner that usually scared cultivators and demonic beasts.

“You…”

Huaxuan’s face changed drastically after her trump card was exposed. But the demoness who had bought them and had been fierce all this time reacted even more strongly. Seeing the green plant, she said in shock, “You have wood spiritual power?”

“Are there any others among you who have wood spiritual power? Speak up, and you won’t have to suffer in the mines.”

Xuan Chan was a little tempted, but thinking of the human corpses hanging at the entrances of the demon restaurants along the way, and the scene in the market where they discussed how to eat people and which parts to sell to demon cultivators for medicine right in front of the victims, her face turned pale, and she didn’t speak in the end.

But there was someone more shameless than her: “Me!”

Su Mingxiu actively took a big step forward, afraid that others wouldn’t see her.

Xiao Xingwei, Xuan Chan, Huaxuan: “…”

They just watched her performance with wooden faces.

The demoness looked at her suspiciously. In the end, based on the principle of “rather catch a mistake than let one go,” she took Su Mingxiu and Huaxuan away.

Then she ruthlessly threw Xiao Xingwei and Xuan Chan into the demon stone mine. To prevent these cunning cultivators from having any other ideas, each of them had a black ring around their necks, which could instantly decapitate them if they rebelled.

Standing on a piece of scorched earth that was said to be used for cultivating spiritual plants, Su Mingxiu repeatedly touched the black ring around her neck. She didn’t expect that her fate with this thing actually originated from the Demon Abyss.

Now she was almost perfectly replicating the trajectory of her previous life. So the related memories came flooding back. While she was touching the neck ring, the demoness saw that she hadn’t moved for a long time and asked suspiciously, “Don’t you have wood spiritual power? Why aren’t you doing anything?”

For the sake of the righteous path’s plan, Huaxuan endured it again and again and didn’t expose her. At this moment, she was paddling by the side, slowly using her spiritual power to grow a mutated demon seedling, which had just grown a purplish-red leaf.

Su Mingxiu blinked, “My lord, you don’t know. My spiritual power is weak. Although I became a senior sister in the sect because I started cultivating early, my talent is far inferior to my junior sister’s. If I want to be like her, I’m afraid it will take two or three days—”

“Useless thing!” The demoness found that she couldn’t immediately prove her ability and raised her hand to summon a long whip. Before she could whip it, she heard her quickly say, “But I’m very good at tending flowers and plants. If there’s a garden nearby, the flowers and plants I take care of can thrive.”

The whip stopped before it was swung.

The demoness remembered that there really was a flower garden nearby. However, it was planted by the Demon Lord herself, and without permission, they didn’t dare to let anyone go there casually.

But those flowers were brought from the underworld and had been wilting recently. The Demon Lord had casually said to let her take care of them… What if these cultivators really had a way?

Fifteen minutes later.

Su Mingxiu was still led to the sea of flowers. Seeing the Lycoris radiata covering the mountain, just like the back mountain of the Hundred Flower Sect, her eyes also turned a bright red.

But these flowers, unlike the harmless ones on the back mountain, emitted a gloomy aura. Now, because they were rooted in the soil of the Demon Abyss, they were mixed with an indescribable demonic energy, and ordinary people didn’t dare to approach them.

At the edge, there were a few wilting flowers drooping by the roadside.

Even the demoness who brought her here took half a step back, “You stay here and take care of this sea of flowers. Remember, don’t enter the corner gate at the edge without permission.”

After saying that, she threw half a black pill to Su Mingxiu, “This is enough for you to survive for two days. Two days later, I will come and check on your results.”

Without the demon supervisor, Su Mingxiu naturally put away her slightly flattering false face, looked down at the Lycoris radiata in front of her, and after a while, stepped over them.

There was a small path in the sea of flowers that was not easily discovered. But for her, a Great Ascension cultivator, it was not difficult to find.

She ignored these demonic plants that refused to grow without being fed flesh and blood, and walked straight to the small gate she had been warned not to enter.

She gently raised her hand and pushed open the gate…

A gust of wind from somewhere blew the scenery behind the gate, almost making her smell the fragrance of flowers.

The amazement in Su Mingxiu’s eyes flashed. A moment later, after seeing the spring scenery hidden in this desolate corner of the city, she finally knew that the so-called flower fragrance was her illusion.

The spring flowers growing here were just an illusion.

But even these illusory roses were still as bright as fire, the sunflowers were still facing the sky, the peonies occupied a corner, blooming proudly, and even the water lilies in the distant pond were exactly the same as those in her memory, in her small garden.

—It was Sui Yihuan, who had planted the spring scenery she gave her here.

Standing in front of this familiar scenery, Su Mingxiu recalled the scene from her previous life when she had mistakenly entered this place.

At that time, she didn’t know how much Sui Yihuan had done for her, nor did she remember the passionate entanglement between them in the secret realm.

So when she saw this corner of spring, she only felt that it looked familiar, and then guessed that perhaps the mysterious person who planted these flowers was a rare existence in the Demon Abyss who could communicate peacefully.

But later, because of their subsequent interactions, she changed her mind.

“Who allowed you to trespass here!”

A slightly angry voice suddenly came from behind.

Faster than this voice was the red thread extending from the black neck ring on Su Mingxiu’s neck, all held in the other person’s hand. With a casual hook of her finger, Su Mingxiu involuntarily flew towards her, even her neck landing in that cool palm.

The tightening fingers paused for a moment upon seeing her face, and the killing intent that was enough to make the flower essence in the illusion tremble suddenly froze.

Sui Yihuan finally understood why the face she had seen through the demon stone earlier looked flawed. Because there was something clumsy covering this face.

Her thumb moved slightly, unconsciously caressing Su Mingxiu’s throat.

…Why was it her? Did she remember something?

And the person whose neck was being held by her, like a small bird held in her palm, didn’t even raise her eyelids at this moment. Her whole body trembled, as if extremely frightened, and her voice also trembled slightly, “I, I was assigned here to take care of the flowers. Seeing this gate, I thought that the area behind the gate was also within my care.”

Sui Yihuan pursed her lips, her wide black sleeves drooping. If the force in her fingertips hadn’t lessened, anyone who saw this scene would have thought that she wanted this person to suffocate to death little by little.

She finally let go, letting the disguised woman in front of her stand properly, “Didn’t that person tell you that you’re not allowed to enter the area behind the gate?”

The person being questioned trembled again.

As if frightened by her.

Sui Yihuan looked away and didn’t ask any further questions, just coldly said, “Get lost.”

But the person in front of her, who had been keeping her eyes down, said softly, “You’ve said that before…”

Before the new Demon Lord could get angry, Su Mingxiu’s gaze moved from the corner of her robe, embroidered with red patterns and complicated lace, to her eyes. Her eyelashes trembled slightly, like a butterfly wanting to land on her bright clothes. When those dark, bottomless eyes met Sui Yihuan’s—

The master of the Black Stone Dock watched as the audacious cultivator who had infiltrated the Demon Abyss, the corner of her lips curved upwards, forced a refreshing smile onto that ordinary face, even with the brightness of sunlight pouring down.

“But I said, I’m best at tending flowers and plants. I’m instinctively attracted to beautiful flowers and plants, so I couldn’t help myself and opened the door.”

She finally met Sui Yihuan’s gaze, the smile on her lips growing instead of diminishing. Even though she wasn’t using her original face, it was impossible to look away from her.

The next moment.

Sui Yihuan watched as she, like a dodder flower in the mortal world, raised her hand softly and bonelessly, audaciously placing it on her shoulder. Her voice was like a secluded orchid as she approached, and the fragrance of flowers on her body drifted into the Demon Lord’s nose as she spoke, “Now I see the most beautiful, the most heart-stirring, the most desirable flower—”

“Would Your Lordship be willing to grant me permission to take care of her?”

She was so close, the deadly red thread of the neck ring still wrapped around the person’s fingertips, her life could be taken away by the angered person at any moment. But Sui Yihuan’s breath hitched, and it was as if she was the one about to suffocate.