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.