Chu Zheng had not seen sunlight in two months.
For the first time, she opened the wooden door during the day. It creaked, and the moment she stepped outside, the long-unseen sunlight poured over her, casting her frail shadow across the ground.
Chu Zheng stared at that shadow for a long time, lost in thought, as though through it she could see what she had become—someone no longer recognizable.
The sunlight brought no warmth. Instead, it fell through her veil onto her face, making it throb with pain.
Only when something began fluttering down from above did Chu Zheng look away. Red brocade pouches were drifting through the air; she had no idea when they had appeared.
Her gaze rose farther. High overhead, an enormous, exquisitely crafted flying vessel was slowly passing by. The banner belonging to the Demon Venerable of the Demon Realm was particularly conspicuous.
The pouches were being scattered from the ship.
Such ships ordinarily flew too high for people down here to see. Now, it seemed to have deliberately descended so that everyone could look up and see it.
Chu Zheng stood dazed. By the time she came to her senses, she had already reached out.
That hand scarcely looked human. It was so emaciated that there seemed to be nothing left but skin and bone. As she extended it, a pouch settled into her palm of its own accord.
It was…
An announcement of Demon Venerable Lu Yunzhi’s wedding. Chu Zheng saw another name—Tang Xiyue.
By now, everyone knew her as the beloved Lu Yunzhi had lost and found again.
Besides the wedding announcement, each pouch contained an assortment of other things. Those fortunate enough might even find a good number of spirit stones. The streets were lively with the clamor of people scrambling to snatch them up; Chu Zheng could hear it all from the courtyard.
After all those twists and turns, they were getting married in the end.
Chu Zheng still remembered the young woman standing before her, declaring defiantly, “I’m the one he loves! I don’t know why he’s with you, but I can’t give up on him!”
“Unless he’s truly had a change of heart, I won’t accept it. I refuse to believe I’ll lose!”
At the time, Chu Zheng had dismissed her as an immature child and merely smiled.
Now it seemed that she herself had been the joke.
This ending, too, was one in which two lovers were finally united.
It was as though everyone’s life, after briefly straying down the wrong path, had returned to its proper course. Only she remained mired in the swamp, with nothing beyond it.
Chu Zheng raised a hand to stroke the uneven surface of her face. The crisscrossing scars were what the gu insects had left after gnawing through her flesh. They seemed to hurt even more now.
Someone suddenly opened the courtyard gate. Instinctively, Chu Zheng drew her veil tighter around her face.
A man stood outside. He apparently had not expected her to leave her room. After a moment’s stunned hesitation, he quickly shut the gate.
“You… Why did you come out?” He looked nervous. When he noticed the pouch in her hand, his expression changed slightly, and he seemed unable to speak.
He looked as though he wanted to comfort her but could not find the words.
Chu Zheng knew he was afraid she would be hurt.
But compared with everything she had endured over the past six months, what did this amount to? She had meant to smile and reassure him, but remembering her face, she abandoned the pointless gesture.
“Don’t worry. I’m all right.”
Her voice was painfully hoarse and harsh.
Liu Yibai was silent for a moment before approaching. He was carrying a fish.
“Shall we make fish soup today?” he asked as he came toward her. “I just caught this. It’s very fresh.”
He was trying to distract her.
“All right,” Chu Zheng said, going along with him.
After Lu Yunzhi stripped her of her cultivation, she had spent a long time wandering from place to place, constantly fleeing, until she met Liu Yibai.
Liu Yibai was only a low-level cultivator. He told her that many years ago, she had saved his elder sister.
Chu Zheng scarcely remembered it. Yet he had recognized her at once, even in her present state. After rescuing her, he had brought her home and given her a place to stay.
She was grateful. At least he had given her a chance to catch her breath. It was just that… she had nothing left now, and no way to repay him.
As always, Liu Yibai silently lit the fire and prepared the meal. At last, he set a fragrant bowl of fish soup before her.
“If it isn’t enough, tell me.”
He looked steadily at Chu Zheng. In the room, where every trace of daylight had been shut out, a faint sorrow lingered in his dark eyes.
Only after she nodded did he turn away.
Chu Zheng lifted her veil. Almost nothing of her original appearance remained in that face. She stirred the soup with a small spoon, then slowly brought a spoonful to her mouth.
It ought to taste delicious, shouldn’t it? But Chu Zheng could no longer taste anything.
All this time, Liu Yibai had kept finding new ways to cook appetizing meals for her, hoping to nourish her back to health.
Even though he knew perfectly well that she carried the heart-devouring gu. No matter how much she ate, the flesh and blood her body produced could never be enough for the insect to consume.
That night, the pain of the heart-devouring gu returned at its usual hour.
Chu Zheng clenched her teeth and fought against it. She had never been good at enduring pain, but the past six months had forced her to learn.
Even so, she repeatedly passed out from the agony, only to be dragged awake by it again.
When she woke for the last time, the pain was finally beginning to ease. Liu Yibai sat beside her bed, carefully wiping the sweat from her forehead.
Remembering her face, Chu Zheng stiffened for an instant. After a while, she slowly relaxed again.
His movements were gentle. He wiped her face, her hands, her arms—everywhere he could. The sticky discomfort of being drenched in sweat eased a little.
She glanced at the red pouch on the table nearby.
“Liu Yibai.”
He stiffened. “Yes?”
“I’m leaving.”
Liu Yibai was a man of few words, but he always answered her. This time alone, he remained silent for a long while before speaking.
“I’ve heard of someone who can remove the heart-devouring gu. Miss Chu, shall we go and try?”
He was the one searching for a solution, the one trying to cure her, yet a humble plea threaded through his voice.
All Chu Zheng could offer him was an apology.
“There’s one last thing I haven’t finished.”
One last thing…
And once it was done?
Liu Yibai did not ask.
On the day Chu Zheng left, Liu Yibai accompanied her a long way.
She was silent throughout the journey. In the end, she never managed to say thank you. All she said was, “I’m leaving now. You… take care.”
She had taken two steps when Liu Yibai suddenly caught her and pulled her back.
Chu Zheng froze. With her cultivation destroyed, she was powerless against him, however low his cultivation might be.
She could only watch as he reached out and removed her veil, exposing the face covered in crisscrossing wounds.
Every time anyone had seen her face before, their expression had betrayed their revulsion.
“Wouldn’t seeing a face like that give you nightmares?”
She had heard countless remarks of that kind.
But now, in Liu Yibai’s eyes, she saw only… pain for her.
Then he bent down. As Chu Zheng’s eyes widened, he gently pressed his lips to her wounds for a moment.
She stared blankly at his trembling lashes so close to her, at the faint redness around his eyes.
“If you can, will you come back alive?” he asked. “I just want you to know that there’s still someone in this world who wants you to live.”
“Miss Chu, please keep living. Will you?”
In truth, Chu Zheng had no choice.
The heart-devouring gu had entered her heart. There was no chance of survival left.
But perhaps his expression had been too sorrowful. She had answered yes.
Now, Chu Zheng followed the crowd into Yuqing Sect.
The wedding of the Demon Realm’s sovereign and a disciple of Yuqing Sect was a grand affair. Cultivators and ordinary mortals alike were welcome to attend.
There were too many people. Chu Zheng stood some distance away and could not make out much on the raised platform. She could only vaguely see two figures.
They were well matched.
Without warning, she remembered her own wedding to Lu Yunzhi.
He had been absent that day. The reason was the appearance of a ninth-rank demonic beast.
Ninth-rank demonic beasts were exceedingly rare. To prevent needless casualties, Lu Yunzhi had volunteered to deal with it.
Chu Zheng had not been upset. The demon who had once struck terror into the entire cultivation world had become everyone’s protector.
All for her.
She admitted that she had felt proud—even vain.
The following day, the injured man had knelt before her with the demon’s core cupped in his hands, as though offering her his heart as well.
Perhaps only now could Chu Zheng see it clearly. This had been nothing more than Lu Yunzhi’s resistance: the final defiance of a man whose boundless pride could not bear the loss of control imposed by the love gu.
That excuse had deceived Chu Zheng, and his own heart.
The infatuation gu controlled feelings, but feelings could not entirely control actions. Lu Yunzhi had never stopped resisting within the limits it allowed. That was why he had been so unwilling to accept what had happened, why he had hated her so deeply that, the moment the love gu was removed, he became determined to torment her to death.
Now, his wish would be fulfilled.
She really was going to die.
On the raised platform, the man’s red wedding robes did nothing to soften his deadly air. A faint distraction had settled over his handsome face.
His gaze was not on the woman beside him, who was about to become his cultivation partner. Instead, he was discreetly scanning the crowd below, as though searching for someone.
Then someone poked his arm.
The beautiful woman beside him was looking at him with mild displeasure.
“Your Venerable Lordship, what are you daydreaming about?”
The woman he had failed to protect while under the love gu’s influence was finally standing beside him, safe and whole.
His face remained somber. No one knew what he was thinking. After a long while, he slowly raised his hand. A light flick of his fingertip drew a drop of blood, which fell into the jade bowl.
Tang Xiyue raised her hand as well, still complaining to Lu Yunzhi.
“We’re both from the Demon Realm. Why are we holding our bond ceremony at an immortal sect? They say I’m a disciple here. Since when did I become an immortal sect’s disciple? How strange.”
She had slept for a very long time. After waking, she had forgotten everything that happened after joining the immortal sect. All she remembered was that the man before her was the one she had longed for.
Though she could not understand it all, she was finally going to be with the man she loved.
She ought to be… happy, shouldn’t she?
For some reason, the moment her drop of blood fell into the jade bowl, a piercing pain struck her heart. Tang Xiyue clutched her chest and doubled over, her face contorted in agony.
“Xiyue?”
A commotion swept through the crowd.
Under cover of the confusion, Chu Zheng made her way to Xuelai Peak.
No one knew this place better than she did. Yet she encountered someone she had not expected.
The man was tall and slender, dressed in white.
“Qing… Du Qingyue.”
Yuqing Sect’s head disciple.
He stood in Chu Zheng’s path. His eyes were unreadable, but his intention was plain: he meant to stop her from going in.
“Qingyue,” Chu Zheng said hoarsely, “let me through. I won’t hurt her.”
She was now reviled by all as a vile wretch who had betrayed her master and her sect’s forebears. She did not know whether Du Qingyue would believe her. If he chose to stop her, she had no chance of getting past him.
After a long while, she heard a quiet sigh.
“I know you won’t hurt her. Martial Aunt Chu, you would never hurt anyone.” Du Qingyue’s words came with difficulty. “But could you include yourself among those people?”
Chu Zheng was taken aback.
“You’ve never defended yourself because you want Lu Yunzhi to vent his anger on you alone, without implicating the other immortal sects. Is that it?”
Chu Zheng said nothing.
At last, he asked, “Are you sure you want to go in?”
She thought for a moment, then nodded.
A hand extended toward her. As she looked up, he took her hand in his.
Perhaps Chu Zheng had truly become so thin that it was frightening. Du Qingyue’s movements faltered for an instant before he said, “Let’s go.”
He cast a spell, and in the blink of an eye, he brought Chu Zheng into Tang Xiyue’s room.
Lu Yunzhi was not there. Perhaps he had gone to find a cure for her.
Chu Zheng gazed at the woman on the bed, momentarily lost in thought. Perhaps sensing her presence, the woman’s tightly closed eyes opened a little.
The instant she saw Chu Zheng, she murmured, “Master.”
Chu Zheng let out a long breath.
She seemed to see again that moment when their lives had hung in the balance and Lu Yunzhi had chosen to save her. Her disciple had smiled in relief, her grateful eyes seeming to say, Master, thank goodness he chose you. Thank goodness you’re safe.
On the day Xiyue became her disciple, Chu Zheng had told her what her own master had once told her. “Once you call me Master, I will be your master for life.”
Chu Zheng suddenly drew a dagger and cut into her chest to draw blood from her heart.
Every wound on her body had been inflicted by Lu Yunzhi. Only the heart-devouring gu was something she had planted herself.
After her cultivation was destroyed, she had never intended to go on living. If she was going to die, she might as well make her death worth something.
“This is the last thing your master can do for you.”
The blood from her heart dripped onto Tang Xiyue’s lips. Color rapidly returned to the woman’s pallid face.
Suddenly, a surge of demonic qi, all too familiar to Chu Zheng, swept toward her and sent her flying.
The violent pain of striking the ground made her vomit blood.
A moment later, her gaze met Lu Yunzhi’s. She saw shock in his eyes, panic, and… something else.
Chu Zheng could not tell what it was, nor did she have the strength to try.
“Chu Zheng!”
She heard Lu Yunzhi’s voice, filled with an urgency she could not understand.
Chu Zheng could no longer think. She felt the heart-devouring gu inside her lash back in a frenzy.
Before the last trace of awareness was swallowed, a man’s face suddenly flashed before her eyes.
“If you can, please keep living. Will you?”
I’m sorry.
In the end, she had not been able to live.