Shen Yun Yuan felt something being placed in her hand. Looking down, she found a wooden doll.
Xie Zhao said, “I made it to pass the time. It’s just a little trinket. I’m giving it to Senior Sister.”
Although the young man’s tone was calm and unconcerned, anyone who listened carefully could hear the nervousness hidden beneath it.
This was the first time he had ever done woodwork, so he might not have made it very well.
Shen Yun Yuan lowered her eyes to the wooden doll the young man had placed in her hand. It was a little boy, with facial features carved into its face. Though not particularly refined, it was very cute.
Looking at the wooden doll in her hand, Shen Yun Yuan inexplicably felt that it looked a little like Xie Zhao.
Had he made one of himself to give her?
Shen Yun Yuan’s gaze fell upon the countless faint, intersecting scratches on the young man’s fingers not far away. She realized that he had carved the wooden doll himself, stroke by stroke.
Xie Zhao, who was standing there, noticed the girl’s gaze fall upon his hands. He hurriedly tucked them into his sleeves, which only made it seem more like he was trying to cover something up.
In the end, Shen Yun Yuan sighed inwardly. Even though she knew the tragic ending awaiting her in the original story, she could not bring herself to be cruel when faced with the young Xie Zhao as he was now.
He had done nothing wrong at present. The one who had done wrong was her.
Shen Yun Yuan got out of bed and took a small porcelain bottle from the dressing table beside her.
Xie Zhao watched as the girl walked over to him and said to him gently, “Hold out your hand.”
The young man obediently did as he was told and extended the hand he had hidden beneath his sleeve.
The young man’s hands were beautiful. His skin was naturally fair, and his fingers were long, with evenly proportioned joints.
But now, countless tiny cuts covered his fingertips. Though none of them were deep, so many crisscrossing together inevitably made them look somewhat shocking.
Xie Zhao stood there obediently with his hand extended, allowing the girl to open the salve. Her fair, slender fingers dipped into it and applied some to the fingertips he had cut.
Although Xie Zhao was three years younger than Shen Yun Yuan, he was currently half a head taller than her.
From his angle, he could see the girl’s long eyelashes, petite nose, and crimson lips as her eyes lowered.
Her lips parted slightly, like a cherry blossom still waiting to bloom. They looked so soft that he wanted to—
Xie Zhao realized what he was thinking. His mind buzzed, and he hurriedly cast away those improper thoughts, moving his gaze from the girl’s lips.
But when he moved his gaze, it landed on the girl’s fair collarbones, and his mind buzzed again, growing even hotter.
The girl had only just gotten out of bed. She was wearing nothing more than a thin, plain garment, and it was not revealing.
They had grown up together. In Shen Yun Yuan’s eyes, the two of them were like brother and sister, so she did not guard against him the way she would guard against an unrelated man.
But Shen Yun Yuan had forgotten that although Xie Zhao was her younger brother, he was also a man.
To Xie Zhao, the scene before him was a silent temptation. He almost awkwardly tore his gaze away from the girl’s chest, then turned his head and looked out the window beside them.
Yet in the next moment, he did not know how, but the view outside the window gradually transformed in his eyes into the girl’s face.
He could even clearly see a tiny red mole beneath her fair collarbone.
Xie Zhao could not help swallowing. The roots of his ears grew hot, and an inexplicable warmth rose through him.
Especially when the girl’s slender hand held his and applied the medicine, every one of her gentle movements felt to him like something gnawing at his heart, making his entire body tingle and itch.
Shen Yun Yuan said, “There. It’s done.”
Fortunately, the “torture” had ended in time.
Perhaps afraid that Senior Sister would notice something strange about him, Xie Zhao took a step back after the girl finished applying the medicine and released his hand. He said, “I… should go to the Sword Practice Hall. Senior Sister, get plenty of rest!”
Before the girl could answer, Xie Zhao had already turned and left. His footsteps were hurried; he truly seemed to be in quite a rush.
Seeing him like this, Shen Yun Yuan knew that he must have come to see her in secret without Elder Kongwu’s approval.
Shen Yun Yuan looked at the wooden doll she had placed on the dressing table not far away.
According to the plot of the book that had entered her mind through that dream, she knew that Xie Zhao would destroy Qingxuan Sect and kill her and her elder brother four years later.
In the original story, Shen Yun Yuan and Xie Zhao would come to understand each other’s feelings and get together three years later. Soon after they confessed their feelings to each other, they happened to encounter Xianling Sect—the foremost immortal sect in the cultivation world—recruiting disciples.
Thus, for the sake of their future, Xie Zhao went alone to Xianling Sect to study the dao.
It was precisely after going to Xianling Sect to study the dao that Xie Zhao met the true female lead, Jiang Fuwei, who was genuinely suited to him.
The two of them studied the dao together and went out to exterminate demons together. After enduring countless difficulties and dangers, they developed feelings for each other that were different from ordinary friendship.
Because Xie Zhao already had a fiancée in Qingxuan Sect, he had never revealed his feelings to Jiang Fuwei.
It was only later, when clues about the true culprit who had murdered his parents surfaced and Xie Zhao learned that the murderer was Shen Xuanqing, the Master he had called that for more than a decade, that he finally understood: What benefactor? What affection? Everything was a false lie!
His feelings for Shen Yun Yuan existed only because her body contained his spiritual blood.
Thus, he slaughtered everyone in Qingxuan Sect. On that very day, amid the sea of blood that covered Qingxuan Sect, a golden stairway reaching the heavens descended from the celestial canopy, and Xie Zhao ascended!
But in the end, he severed the golden stairway representing ascension with a single sword, cutting off his own immortal destiny and willingly remaining in the mortal world for the sake of the female lead, Jiang Fuwei.
At the end of the story, Xie Zhao, a disciple under Venerable Yuhua of Xianling Sect, killed the Demon God with a single sword during the Immortal-Demon War.
With that battle, he became a god of war and the foremost war god in the cultivation world, and lived happily and lovingly together with the female lead, Jiang Fuwei…
…
Thinking of everything in the original book—the tragic endings awaiting herself, her elder brother, and all the disciples of Qingxuan Sect—Shen Yun Yuan could not help tightening her grip on the wooden doll. Her heart was bitter, yet there was nothing she could do.
She did not blame anyone. She only hated that fate had played such an earth-shaking joke on her.
She had thought she had gained an entirely new life. She had never expected that fate would merely wave its hand casually before deciding her ending.
In her eyes, her father, Shen Xuanqing, had been an upright and amiable man, a righteous immortal lord praised by every citizen of the border city.
After her mother’s death, he had guarded the spirit mountain she left behind all by himself, until he followed her in death three years ago.
Qingxuan Sect was located in a border city. In the past, demons and evil spirits had run rampant there, causing the spirit mountain’s spiritual energy to wither day by day. The people living there were plagued by demons and evil spirits every day and suffered unbearably.
Precisely because of this, no one had been willing to establish a cultivation sect there.
It was her father who had followed her mother’s wishes and established a cultivation sect there, recruited disciples far and wide, and exterminated demons and evil spirits. After a full thirty years, he had finally eliminated most of the demons and evil spirits causing trouble and restored the spirit mountain’s spiritual energy.
In Shen Yun Yuan’s eyes, her father was a righteous immortal lord who loved his wife, his daughter, and all the people of the world.
Perhaps her father might lose his way because of his love for her, but she firmly believed that he was absolutely not someone who would deliberately take another person’s life.
She had known him before she ever read that book. She knew what kind of person her father was.
Fortunately, she still had time to uncover the truth.
In the original story, apart from her father’s actions, another reason Xie Zhao hated her was the spiritual blood within her body, which had caused him to mistake his feelings for love.
Thus, after meeting the woman who was truly fated for him, he had stabbed her—the counterfeit lover—to death with a single sword without the slightest hesitation.
Now, she and the young Xie Zhao were merely ordinary Senior Sister and Junior Brother within the sect, so everything could still be changed.
Even if she ultimately could not change the fate of being stabbed to death by his sword, she still hoped that, when the time came, he would remember that he had grown up in Qingxuan Sect and spare her elder brother and the disciples of Qingxuan Sect, giving them a chance to live.