“My great undertaking is the only method that can break the Soul-Coiling Bone-Setting Needle.”

Shi Wenyu spoke these words with a smile.

Huang Rang didn’t question him. She believed it.

The Soul-Coiling Bone-Setting Needle—over three thousand years, how many people it had tortured, she understood all too well.

The secret chamber in the mountain belly of Yuhu Xuanzong—she dreamed of it night after night. How could she forget?

All these years, among those who suffered this cruel torture, only she had ever obtained even this sliver of hope.

She glimpsed this thread of light and could only grasp it tightly like a lifeline.

Shi Wenyu observed her expression and said indifferently, “So, besides submission, what else can you do?”

Huang Rang said nothing. It seemed she truly had nothing to say.

Si Tianjian, the dark chamber.

Di Yiqiu tried to walk out of the dark chamber. His body remained congested and swollen. This made him look like a massive monster.

Although every step exhausted all his strength, he still moved step by step toward the chamber door.

Because he had merely been placed here to recover from injuries, no one was imprisoning him.

He soon reached the doorway, but his five fingers could barely open the door.

Every tiny movement was like tearing flesh. He took a deep breath, his five fingers grasping the door. Because he had almost no sense of touch, he used too much force, and his fingertips were cut with bloody marks.

Fortunately, the door finally opened.

Di Yiqiu slowly walked out. But just as he stepped through the doorway, his vision suddenly went black and he collapsed to the ground.

—He had passed out.

When Di Yiqiu woke again, he was still lying on the bed in the dark chamber.

He originally thought Li Lu and the others had discovered him unconscious and sent him back to bed. But when he looked down, he suddenly discovered it wasn’t so!

—Although his hands were swollen and purple, there were no wounds!

What was going on?

When he had opened the door earlier, he had clearly cut his hand!

Di Yiqiu rose again and laboriously moved toward the door.

This time, he deliberately knocked over the tea cup on the table.

However, when he again struggled to open the door and had just taken one step out, he suddenly passed out again.

When Di Yiqiu woke once more, he was still lying on the bed.

The tea cup sat properly on the table.

Di Yiqiu understood.

His body would never heal. Because as long as he stepped one foot outside the door, all of time would flow backward. Back to the first day he was sent to this dark chamber.

Time was repeating. He was imprisoned here.

Silence surrounded him on all sides. He changed to a different Nine-Curve Spirit Pupil.

So the image on the wall slowly unfolded again. He saw Huang Rang cultivating orchids. After marrying into Yuhu Xuanzong, she no longer went down to the fields. In her leisure time, she planted orchids throughout Yuhu Xuanzong.

The orchids bloomed in all four seasons, withering only when snow fell.

Initially, Di Yiqiu thought she was merely alleviating loneliness. It wasn’t until later, when he heard that Sect Master Xie Hongchen of Yuhu Xuanzong loved orchids most, that he suddenly understood.

In the image, Huang Rang planted newly cultivated orchids. Di Yiqiu stared at her, but his mind pondered how to break this situation.

Huang Rang’s beauty could topple cities, yet her boundless loveliness didn’t affect him.

He had been watching such scenes since the fifth year of Chengyuan, for a full hundred years. In those ceaselessly flowing days and nights, when he crafted artifacts, she was in the Nine-Curve Spirit Pupil. When he read books, she was in it. When he reviewed official documents, examined scrolls, and engaged in political intrigue with those important court ministers, whenever he looked up, he saw her as if before his eyes.

Habits were terrifying. He had long since ceased to be disturbed by Huang Rang.

In the eyes of the world, he was lonely for a hundred years. But in fact, Di Yiqiu never felt that way.

This woman seemed to always be beside him, living in his mind.

Here, she wasn’t the Sect Master’s wife of Yuhu Xuanzong. She was merely a woman, traveling alongside him.

Later, countless people wanted to arrange a wife for him.

They asked this young and accomplished Director what a companion was.

Di Yiqiu didn’t answer, but every time, this person filled his mind. He didn’t know if this counted as love. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely that.

He had no interest in feminine beauty, so he didn’t covet Huang Rang’s looks. And after Huang Rang married, she also lost her talent for seed cultivation. The Director clearly didn’t envy Xie Hongchen’s romantic fortune either.

He had no habit of falling in love through voice, so he wasn’t infatuated with her voice either.

Di Yiqiu couldn’t even say what he liked about Huang Rang.

He had never thought of taking her from Xie Hongchen’s side or anything like that. He had simply grown accustomed to this person. Like a touch of sweetness in his heart, through the long years, held within.

Di Yiqiu stared at Huang Rang on the wall, carefully tending flowers, while thoughts swept through his mind tens of thousands of times.

How could he destroy this space and escape from this predicament?

Di Yiqiu surveyed the dark chamber. All the furnishings were consistent with his memory.

One bed, a small table and stool. On the table was a teapot with six teacups.

Di Yiqiu struggled to climb up. He lowered his head, gazing again at his hands. Then he slowly moved his swollen body to the table and examined the teapot.

Suddenly, he picked up the stool and threw it with force. The stool wasn’t very sturdy and immediately fell apart.

Di Yiqiu slowly picked up a table leg, then smashed one cup.

The cup’s porcelain shattered and scattered. He casually picked up a piece and began carving the stool leg. His hands wouldn’t obey him, clumsy in a heartbreaking way. The broken porcelain wasn’t suitable as a tool, cutting through skin and flesh. Blood flowed down, also dark purple in color.

He carved for a long while, then suddenly looked up to see that in the Nine-Curve Spirit Pupil on the wall, Huang Rang was no longer visible. Only the orchids she had planted waved their thick leaves in the sunlight, as if beckoning.

“Ah Rang…” These two words emerged like a soft sigh, yet stirred echoes in his heart.

Di Yiqiu lowered his head and continued carving the wooden object in his hands.

His movements were slow, his ten fingers a bloody mess. However, he was no longer unfamiliar with such a body. The wooden object gradually took shape—one could vaguely see it was a tower. Nine levels high, with eight-sided stairs. Flying eaves and ornate brackets, with bells hanging from the eave corners.

…The Yuanrong Tower!

With a piece of waste wood, he had replicated the Yuanrong Tower!

Di Yiqiu’s hands didn’t stop. Occasionally Huang Rang’s voice sounded in his ears. He would look up from time to time. In the dark chamber, there was no pain, no loneliness, no invasion of fear.

On the wooden tower, Di Yiqiu tried his best to recall the arrays on the Yuanrong Tower. He restored it inch by inch.

But the broken porcelain was too rough after all. Many fine carvings couldn’t be completed.

Di Yiqiu turned his gaze to the teapot on the table. It was just an ordinary large iron pot. He picked it up and used all his strength to stomp it flat and tear it open. Finally, he obtained the carving knife he wanted.

With this crudely made carving knife, he carved word by word the runes from his memory.

The Yuanrong Tower required immense resentment and pain. And this small tower naturally couldn’t compare to it.

—It didn’t need to compare with the Yuanrong Tower. In this narrow space, how much resentful energy could it consume?

With his last cut, Di Yiqiu sliced down from his leg, creating a wound so deep bone was visible.

Blood flowed like a spring. His hands covered in blood, he tremblingly reached toward that wooden small tower. In an instant, incantations flew through his mind. One person’s suffering was very limited, but to drive this small tower, it was already enough.

He forcibly pushed time forward!

In the entire dark chamber, the Yuanrong Tower seemed to quickly discover its order had been disrupted! It tried desperately to repair itself, but Di Yiqiu’s body was visibly improving!

Time was truly being moved by him!

Di Yiqiu struggled with all his might. The Yuanrong Tower desperately tried to repair the damage caused by this foreign object. But this space was simply too small. Di Yiqiu again cut open his other leg with one stroke.

The intense pain made him tremble continuously.

A moment later, a bang sounded in his ears, like the sound of crystal shattering!

The dark chamber before his eyes gradually melted like ink.

He had succeeded!

Di Yiqiu looked up toward the Nine-Curve Spirit Pupil on the wall. Inside, the orchids Huang Rang had planted slowly dissolved.

And before Di Yiqiu’s eyes appeared another world!

He stood beside a river. On the opposite bank, the world had turned to sand—all things collapsed, not a blade of grass grew. But here where he stood, flowing water sang like songs, birds chirped amid floral fragrance, and sunlight was as light as gauze.

Di Yiqiu walked along the riverbank. He saw the river water rushing. And where it flowed, the sandified world seemed to be washed, once again covered with green grass and flowers blazing like fire.

And these replicated buildings, he gradually found familiar.

—As Director, how could he not be familiar with the nation’s mountains and rivers?

This world was vast and empty, yet not a single person was visible.

Di Yiqiu quickened his pace. Old wounds on his body flared up. He looked down to examine himself and saw he was no longer the swollen appearance from the dark chamber.

His cultivation power had returned, and although he was still covered in wounds, for his completely demonized body, it wasn’t yet fatal.

Where was this?

And what time was it?

Had he been trapped in an even more expansive world?

His steps flew like the wind. Gradually, he saw some people.

These people stood on the opposite riverbank, gazing blankly at this side across the river.

“Don’t cross the river!” Di Yiqiu’s voice was hoarse, almost a roar. “He just wants you to drown in the river to obtain resentful energy—don’t fall for it!!”

But at this time and place, who would listen to him?

Countless people fled into the river and were soon submerged. Di Yiqiu reached out trying to grab them, but with his strength alone, how many could he save?

There were also the extremely fortunate ones who faced the wind and waves and managed to cross the river.

So more people saw hope and entered the water one after another.

Inside the Yuanrong Tower, Xie Hongchen’s fresh blood dripped drop by drop into the tower. Boundless resentful energy surged over like a tide, yet didn’t dare devour him. He was like radiance in this dark tidal water.

Before his eyes was still the Huang Rang of years past. Among the orchids, she danced. That day, she wore light golden dance clothes. The clothes were revealing, covering neither her slender waist nor her snow-white legs.

And the Xie Hongchen of that year sat among the orchids, drinking wine.

Huang Rang’s dance was graceful, like an orchid that had achieved enlightenment and become a spirit. And Xie Hongchen, watching the dance, drank in silence.

He said nothing. When the dance ended, he rose and left.

Huang Rang chased two steps, then slowly stopped.

Xie Hongchen shattered the illusion before him with his Heart Sword—so at that time, I said nothing.

And so many years later when remembering it, he had ultimately forgotten what he had thought then.

“Ah Rang…” He sighed softly, and in this Yuanrong Tower, countless voices shrieked in response.

Those strange voices competed to shout: “Ah Rang—Ah Rang—”

Xie Hongchen dripped more blood. The Yuanrong Tower shook and trembled again. Xie Hongchen shattered one mass after another of attacking black mist, protecting that weak illusion that was about to extinguish. Like protecting his treasure in this nine-level demonic tower that was like the Endless Hell.

—Ah Rang, I want to exchange for starting over from the beginning.

Exchange it with everything I have—is that acceptable?

Xie Hongchen reached his hand toward the illusion. The draped silk on Huang Rang’s clothes slowly fell like lost wings. Just as it was about to fall into his palm, it scattered like cloud and smoke.