Su Tiantian was dragged out of oblivion once again by a familiar pain.
How many times had it been already?
Her consciousness was torn back and forth between agony and shameful pleasure, crushed, then barely pieced together again.
Fainting… then being forced awake again.
She had long since lost count.
Her wrists were shackled tightly above her head. Cold chains bit deep into her flesh, scraping against bone again and again with the violent movements behind her.
Cold sweat soaked through the last scraps of torn fabric clinging to her body, sticking to her skin in a slick, suffocating way.
“Song Qingzhi… let go…”
Her broken cries were shattered completely by the force of the impact.
The man did not respond.
Only his heavy breathing brushed against the back of her neck, scalding hot.
Silver-white hair spilled down, entwining with her dark strands in the brocade bedding like some kind of desperate, doomed symbiosis.
With great effort, she turned her head. Through blurred, tear-filled eyes, she saw his scarlet pupils.
Even though his face was still the same ice-carved, snow-sculpted beauty praised throughout the Three Realms.
There was no reason left in those eyes.
No aloof serenity.
Only a blood-red madness that threatened to devour her whole.
“Why…”
His voice was hoarse and broken, each word torn raw from his chest, reeking faintly of blood.
“Have I not been good enough to you?”
The chains tightened violently. Su Tiantian cried out, arching in pain.
“Even if you were a demon, even if the entire Immortal Sect rejected you I protected you.” His lips brushed her ear, his breath so hot it made her tremble.
“You said you wanted ‘forever,’ so I gave you forever.” His fingers traced the red marks on her neck, pressing so hard it felt as if he meant to crush her throat.
“But you tried to kill me!” His voice suddenly rose into a near-roar.
“No… that’s not it…” Su Tiantian struggled amid pain and suffocation, tears blurring her sight. “I didn’t truly want to hurt you… I…”
“Another lie.”
Song Qingzhi laughed softly, the sound steeped in poisonous despair.
He flipped her over abruptly, forcing her to face the gruesome scar on his chest.
That wound left by her dagger had been laced with demonic poison. Even with an Immortal Venerable’s power, it could not heal quickly.
“Look at it.” He gripped her chin, forcing her eyes open. “Remember it.”
“Every time the poison flares, tearing through me like knives, I think”
His thumb crushed hard against her swollen lips, leaving an even deeper mark.
“Is my Yao’er at this very moment back by the side of the Demon Lord she longs for?”
“I didn’t… I…” Su Tiantian sobbed until she could barely breathe.
Song Qingzhi leaned down. His silver hair fell like pouring moonlight, making the blood-red in his eyes all the more terrifying.
“From now on, you will stay here.” His kiss landed on her trembling eyelids, tasting her salty tears. “By my side.”
“The Immortal Realm doesn’t want you. And the Demon Realm” His voice turned icy as his fingers buried themselves in her hair, pinning her in place.
“I will destroy it with my own hands.”
“Don’t!” Su Tiantian cried out in terror.
She knew he meant it.
The Qingxuan Immortal Venerable of the original story already possessed power capable of destroying heaven and earth only restrained by duty and righteousness.
And now, this man before her, his hair turned white overnight, his heart dead to the world—what could possibly stop him?
“Then be obedient.”
His fingers slid slowly down her spine, each inch igniting uncontrollable shivers.
“Please me.” His voice was low and coaxing, yet every word cut like a blade.
“Prove you’re still useful. Prove keeping you… wasn’t entirely a mistake.”
Su Tiantian went rigid.
The chains chimed softly with her trembling, piercingly loud in the deathly silent bedchamber.
Candlelight flickered, casting the man’s pale, beautiful profile onto the wall. The outline was still divine yet in the shadows lurked unmistakable signs of a fall into demonic madness.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Song Qingzhi’s patience seemed to run out.
His fingers tightened. With the other hand, he began to slowly undo his already disheveled robes, revealing his solid chest and that glaring wound.
His movements were unhurried, but carried an undeniable pressure.
“Or,” his scarlet eyes locked onto her as his lips curved into a smile devoid of warmth, “do you prefer being passive?”
Su Tiantian’s breath stopped.
In that instant, she saw it clearly.
Beneath the madness and possessiveness in his eyes lay something deeper.
Pain.
The kind of pain that comes from being betrayed by the one you love most stabbed through the heart so overwhelming that even immortal bones cannot bear it.
And now, he was returning that pain to her, whole and doubled.
“I…”
Su Tiantian closed her eyes as scorching tears fell once more.
She knew that from the moment she fled to the Demon Realm and was dragged back, from the moment the chains clasped around her wrists, some things were lost forever.
That cold, distant Song Qingzhi.
The one whose ears would redden ever so slightly at her smile.
Was gone.
“I’ll be obedient… I want to make it up to you…” Her voice was barely audible, trembling.
The candle flame jumped sharply.
The man froze. His scarlet eyes stared at her, as if weighing how much of that sentence was truth and how much was lie.
After a long moment, he let out a low laugh, emotion unreadable.
“Too late.”
The words fell, and he gave her no more room to think or bargain.
The brocade bedding churned. Chains clattered chaotically. Broken whimpers were swallowed by scorching lips and teeth.
On the wall, the tightly entwined shadows looked like two vines locked together in a raging storm entangled, wounding each other, until death itself.
…
Time rewound to before everything began.
When Su Tiantian woke up, she felt like she’d just run a marathon everything hurt.
Her mind felt as though someone had forcibly stuffed an entire copy of An Actor’s Self-Cultivation and One Hundred Ways to Fake an Accident into it.
Demon. Spy. Demon Lord. Immortal Venerable Song Qingzhi.
A staged “beauty saves the hero,” severe injuries, clinging relentlessly…
The final image froze on the cold gleam of a sword tip thud a clean stab straight through the heart.
Even at death, the original owner Su Yao’s beautiful eyes were filled with confusion that screamed:
“He loved me so much why?!”
Then the scene shifted.
She saw the aloof Immortal Venerable, cold as snow.
Under the gentle, considerate (and deliberately seductive) care of his little disciple Bai Weiwei, the frost between his brows slowly melted.
In the end, they walked hand in hand, becoming a celebrated immortal couple achieving a perfect HE.
Su Tiantian shuddered.
She held a three-second moment of silence for the original owner’s love-brained foolishness and tool-character fate.
(Ding Consciousness integration complete. Welcome to the “Plot Maintenance System.”)
A cold electronic voice sounded right on cue.
“Wait! Don’t welcome me yet!”
Su Tiantian screamed internally.
“What about work injury compensation?! This body feels like it got run over by a truck your after-sales service is terrible!”
(Host Su Tiantian, you have transmigrated into the novel The Cold Immortal Venerable’s Little Darling Disciple, becoming the male lead’s cannon-fodder ex-wife and demon-clan spy, Su Yao.)
(Your ultimate mission: follow the original plot and die by Immortal Venerable Song Qingzhi’s sword after your identity is exposed.)
(Mission success will return you to your original world with a brand-new, healthy body.)
Die by Song Qingzhi’s sword?
Su Tiantian touched her chest, which seemed to still ache faintly.
Fine. At least it comes with after-sales support.
For the sake of going home, she’d use this “ex-wife experience card”!
She quickly rummaged through the original owner’s memories.
Good grief Su Yao was a certified menace.
To stage a “chance encounter” with Song Qingzhi, she colluded with the Demon Lord in a full-blown hero-saving drama.
She took the aftermath of a top-tier clash head-on, shattering her golden core and destroying her cultivation foundation.
In the cultivation world, that was basically a social death sentence.
Dragging her “ruined” body, she faced Song Qingzhi who had suffered only minor spiritual depletion.
And gave him a tragic yet stubborn smile.
“Immortal Venerable need not worry. Yao’er has long admired you. To block this calamity for you today even dying would leave no regrets!”
Oscar-worthy acting. Emotionally charged.
What Song Qingzhi thought back then, Su Tiantian didn’t know.
But the result was that, out of duty and that forcibly imposed “debt of gratitude”
He brought this “lifesaving benefactor” back to Yunmiao Peak.
And then the original owner began her wild operations.
Spreading rumors that she and Song Qingzhi were deeply in love and privately betrothed.
Stirring chaos throughout the sect, attempting to force marriage.
And today was the day the elders could no longer tolerate it and came to demand an explanation.
(New mission issued: Within three days, make Song Qingzhi marry you. Reward: 10 points. Failure penalty: electric shock punishment experience numbing pleasure.)
The system’s voice was utterly devoid of emotion.