The sky was filled with vast swathes of fiery clouds, dazzling and magnificent.

Ling Luo cupped water from the riverside to wash her face. Her reflection wavered in the rippling surface. Her collar was slightly open, revealing a red flower-shaped mark below her left collarbone.

She touched it gently, cold droplets of water sliding down the mark.

“Qin Yuan,” Ling Luo turned back, pointing at the mark on herself, and asked, “Do you see anything here?”

“Let me see.” Qin Yuan examined it closely before shaking her head. “There’s nothing there. Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing. I must have seen wrong.” Ling Luo looked back at the water’s surface.

Could it be that only she could see this imprint of the Bitter Karma Flower?

Yue Liangze’s memory.

Why did he do this?

After so many days, Ling Luo rarely spent time pondering this question.

The two were traveling through the wilderness, setting up camp by the riverside to rest at sunset.

Qin Yuan lit a fire, taking food from her treasure pouch and stringing it up to roast over the flames, while also mixing various sauces.

Ling Luo returned with water and helped. The warm flames dispelled the night’s cold.

Pretending to be bored, she asked: “Qin Yuan, I have a friend who has been asking me some difficult questions lately.”

Hearing this, Qin Yuan’s eyelids twitched. She looked up from preparing the sauce with a strange expression: “What did this friend ask you?”

“She was being hunted down and took a man hostage during her escape. They fled into a mountain. Later, when the pursuers attacked the mountain, instead of escaping, the man blocked them and ended up dying.” Ling Luo asked, “What was this man thinking?”

Qin Yuan took a deep breath, astonished by the question: “What was he thinking? How could there be any question? Of course, he was trying to protect your friend from those hunters!”

Ling Luo remained calm and added: “That’s impossible. My friend is a demon, and he was a righteous cultivator—”

“Wait, a demon?!” Qin Yuan’s eyes widened. She looked around and lowered her voice, “Ling Luo, you should think carefully about being friends with a demon.”

Ling Luo: “…”

“Just an example, not a demon, but a similar relationship,” Ling Luo carefully rephrased. “Think about it, this man was taken as a hostage. How could he possibly protect his captor instead?”

Qin Yuan thought for a moment, then asked: “This friend of yours, is she beautiful?”

Ling Luo replied with a straight face: “Beautiful.”

“Then it’s entirely possible! When someone is beautiful, the vast majority of men in the world would soften their hearts and fall for them,” Qin Yuan said knowingly. “Even if you switch the genders but keep the same appearance, it’s still very possible.”

After a moment of silence, Ling Luo said disdainfully: “How shallow!”

Qin Yuan chuckled: “The world is mostly filled with common people.”

Ling Luo thought for a moment and continued: “But my friend says this man isn’t someone who would be deceived by appearances. No matter how good-looking she is, it wouldn’t work.”

“Hearing this, it’s truly moving,” Qin Yuan rolled her eyes, now interested in the topic and actively questioning. “Are there more details?”

Ling Luo blinked at her: “Like what?”

Qin Yuan held up one finger and asked: “Were these two the only ones living on the mountain?”

Ling Luo nodded.

Qin Yuan raised a second finger: “A lone man and woman?”

Ling Luo: “I suppose so.”

Qin Yuan raised an eyebrow and asked: “Did they sleep together?”

“…Ah.” Ling Luo was momentarily confused. “Sleep?”

Qin Yuan leaned in to whisper an explanation in her ear: “You know—”

Ling Luo pretended to be all-knowing: “Yes, they slept together.”

But that was for cultivating the Beauty Point technique!

Hearing this, Qin Yuan’s eyes widened slightly: “Oh! After all that, your friend still asks why. She’s dense!”

Ling Luo: “…”

“How am I dense!” she muttered with dissatisfaction.

Qin Yuan turned the roasting rack, brushing oil and sauce, and said impatiently: “First of all, regarding this intimate relationship, even if he was brought there as a hostage, his freedom wasn’t restricted, and it wasn’t forced upon him. Both parties were willing. Isn’t that obvious?”

Ling Luo emphasized: “Such things can be driven by lust. My friend just thought this man was good-looking.”

Besides, if she hadn’t used the seduction poison to cultivate the Beauty Point, would Yue Liangze have ever gotten into her bed?

But thinking carefully, only the first day was because of the poison. Afterward, Yue Liangze always initiated it himself!

Qin Yuan countered: “What about this man?”

Ling Luo was puzzled: “I… how would my friend know what he was thinking?”

Qin Yuan sighed, seeming somewhat exasperated: “Didn’t we just say? This man isn’t the type to be seduced by beauty, no matter how attractive. Yet he did such things. It wasn’t lust but true feelings.”

“True feelings?” Ling Luo’s expression turned strange.

“Yes, true feelings. He truly loved this woman, loved her enough to die for her,” Qin Yuan exclaimed. “It’s an obvious fact.”

Ling Luo was bewildered.

Wait, who loved whom?

“What do you mean, loved her enough to die for her?” Ling Luo asked in shock. “How is that love?”

How could it be?

Love is despicable, selfish, and dirty, binding the other person and tormenting them in every way, only needing to satisfy and amuse oneself.

“If this isn’t love, what is?” Qin Yuan was even more surprised. “From every angle, it’s clear this man was madly in love with your friend. A person has only one life. He was captured, an innocent victim. He could have easily left without caring about the attackers, yet he stayed to block them, buying time for the woman he loved. If this isn’t love, why would he do such things?”

It sounded reasonable at first, but it was completely different from Ling Luo’s understanding of love, making it hard to believe.

Yue Liangze loved her?

What a joke!

Ling Luo gripped the bamboo skewers tightly, her brows slightly furrowed. She recalled the memory of the Bitter Karma Flower, where the man slowly vanished into black flames with his back to Mount Tianzhao.

After his death, Wusheng still guarded Mount Tianzhao, battling the four forbidden beasts. No one could take a step forward.

But he shouldn’t have died.

And he shouldn’t have died like that.

Just thinking about it made Ling Luo restless, with murderous intent stirring in her heart.

She blinked to suppress it. Qin Yuan, not noticing anything wrong, continued turning the roasting rack and said: “Everyone expresses love differently.”

Is that so?

Ling Luo looked over skeptically.

Qin Yuan said: “Like my father, he loves my mother. Every day before leaving for work, he asks what fruit she wants to eat, then brings it back for her in the evening.”

“There’s a senior brother in Tianzhou Sect who sends flowers to Alan daily—different kinds, always fresh, never missing a day. Although Alan eventually ended up with someone else, that was still a way of expressing affection.”

Ling Luo pouted: “Just sending flowers, what’s so special about that?”

Yue Liangze had never sent her flowers.

Fruit, though… he had asked about that.

“These are the simple examples,” Qin Yuan hummed. “There are also those who show their true feelings in times of danger. Using Alan as an example again, she wasn’t moved by the Tianzhou Sect senior brother but instead met a scholar during an expedition.”

“The scholar was shy, somewhat dull, and not good at interacting with people. But when Alan was injured, the scholar carried her very far to seek medicine and cared for her without abandoning her. When the demon came to take revenge on Alan, it was the scholar who stood in front to let her escape first.”

“As I said before, a person has only one life. If someone is willing to risk or even sacrifice their life for another at that moment, that person must be extremely important to them.”

Such things are always easy to say.

When the moment truly comes, many people’s previously sworn oaths turn into lies.

The more Ling Luo listened, the more depressed she felt. Unknowingly applying too much force, she snapped all the long bamboo skewers in her hand.

Qin Yuan became increasingly passionate about the topic, sighing and reflecting endlessly: “Love can be beautiful, and it can be cruel. You can’t just recognize one form of it. Doing so—”

She turned to get the bamboo skewers, only to find they had all been broken into two pieces in Ling Luo’s hands, leaving her stunned.

“Ling, Ling Luo, this, this, this…” Qin Yuan stammered.

Ling Luo threw away the broken skewers and said expressionlessly: “I’ll cut new ones. Continue.”

Qin Yuan inexplicably felt a chill down her spine, intuitively sensing that something she had said displeased Ling Luo. She carefully asked: “Continue what?”

Ling Luo: “About why that man did what he did.”

After pondering for a moment, Qin Yuan tentatively said: “I’ve already explained.”

Ling Luo paused, with a strange expression: “You can tell it’s love just from this one incident?”

Qin Yuan thought to herself, how could one not know when they’ve given their life?

But outwardly she said: “Perhaps there are more details we don’t know.”

Ling Luo fell silent. After a while, she asked while whittling bamboo skewers: “How do you know all this?”

Qin Yuan answered honestly: “I read it in novels.”

Ling Luo: “…”

That slight wavering instantly disappeared.

Qin Yuan took the newly cut skewers from her and sighed: “At first, I thought this friend you mentioned was yourself, but thinking carefully, none of these things match you, which is reassuring.”

Ling Luo: “How could it be me? Of course not! Not!”

Qin Yuan: “…”

This inexplicably emotional response made her doubt again.

The roasted skewers were ready. Qin Yuan handed several to Ling Luo and said softly: “Your friend clearly doesn’t understand what love is. Now that the man is dead, I think it’s better not to tell her, to spare her the heartache.”

Ling Luo mumbled an agreement while chewing on a skewer.

Qin Yuan thought again and said: “No, you should tell her. What if it was just one-sided love from the man? If your friend didn’t have deep feelings for him, she might not be heartbroken, but she could still learn something from it.”

Ling Luo blinked while biting the meat: “Heartbroken?”

“If two people are in love, and the person you like has died, of course, you’d be heartbroken,” Qin Yuan sighed. “If it were me, I’d cry for three to five years.”

Ling Luo wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Instead, she asked herself, would she be heartbroken if Yue Liangze died?

Heartbroken?

Before she could come to any conclusion, her jade communicator sounded.

It was a message from Yun Shouxi, asking where she had gone.

Ling Luo glanced at it and put it down, not interested in replying at the moment. Far from authority, what could he do if she didn’t respond?

But after just taking a few more bites of meat, the jade communicator sounded again.

Ling Luo looked down and slightly raised an eyebrow.

A dense cluster of messages from Yue Liangze, containing information about Left White and her disciple, the White Bone Demon.

Yue Liangze: “This is information about Left White that my master told me.”

“I heard you didn’t return to Tianji?”

Ling Luo wiped her hands, picked up the jade communicator, leisurely read through the information about Left White, and then put it down without replying.

You only think to ask me after adding me on the Jade communicator seven or eight days ago?

After eating and drinking their fill, Qin Yuan stretched lazily and activated a fire-controlling spell: “You rest first. I’ll take the first half of the night watch.”

Ling Luo went to sit under a large tree, finally picking up the jade communicator to reply to Yue Liangze: “Didn’t return to Tianji.”

Yue Liangze asked: “Then where did you go?”

Ling Luo: “To find a sword.”

“With your senior brother?”

“Senior brother returned to Tianji.”

“You went alone?”

“No.”

Yue Liangze looked at his Feiyun Ting communication device and fell into contemplation.

Then who was she with?

A man or a woman?

Looking at the message he had typed, Yue Liangze suddenly realized that his reply was inappropriate and too presumptuous.

Just as he was about to delete it, his second senior brother Chang Ying suddenly appeared, patting his shoulder: “Finally out of the Well Chamber and just standing here dazed? Come on, let your senior brother take you out to have some fun.”

________________________________________

It had been sent.

Yue Liangze’s eyelid twitched.

“Who are you chatting with? Bai Zang?” Chang Ying peered at the Feiyun Ting. Yue Liangze quickly put it away and stood up, saying, “Senior Brother, you go have fun. I’d like to sit here a while longer.”

Chang Ying put his arm around his shoulder and led him away: “What sitting? You’re hiding something. Earlier, Bai Zang said you met that girl who never replies to your letters. Now you’re not writing letters but using Feiyun Ting to communicate?”

Yue Liangze: “…”

He gave a slight nod.

Chang Ying teased him: “She doesn’t even reply to you—”

Just as he spoke, Yue Liangze’s Feiyun Ting sounded.

He took it out to look.

Ling Luo replied: “It’s Qin Yuan.”

Yue Liangze shamefully breathed a sigh of relief.

For this, he inwardly berated himself.

Even though Ling Luo had done far more outrageous things, why was he being so cautious about sending a message?