Changling stumbled as she ran through the underground tunnel, each footstep landing on the ground with a floating, trembling sensation.

She figured this was probably the effect of the narcotic drug. Steadying her mind, she took the stone steps three at a time. Just as she was about to climb out of the cave entrance, she collided solidly with Jiagu coming from the opposite direction.

“Finally waited for you two!” Jiagu had originally planned to jump down as well, but seeing Changling emerge, he breathed a sigh of relief. Without wasting words with her, he turned and ran. Changling froze for a moment, then immediately chased after him. “Shishu!”

By the time she called out, Jiagu had already dashed to the temple entrance. He turned back inexplicably, stamping his foot. “At a time like this, you still… Where’s Little Ye?”

Changling could vaguely hear the words “Little Ye”: “He’s trapped by the iron hook traps inside. He told me to come out and find something that can pry them open to go back down. I need to go down again to check, in case something else happens to him.”

As she spoke, she was about to turn back down. Jiagu shouted a few words behind her, and seeing she wasn’t responding, he hurriedly grabbed her and roared angrily, “Are you deaf?! Didn’t you hear me talking to you?!”

She heard this sentence. Changling said, “I’ve been affected by some narcotic drug. I can’t hear clearly right now. Please speak louder.”

At this moment, an extremely complex expression suddenly flashed across Jiagu’s face, but it was only fleeting. He grabbed Changling and dragged her outside, speaking as he walked, “Let’s talk outside! As for saving him… I’ll figure something out!”

Changling’s strength had not yet recovered, so how could she resist Jiagu at this moment? Jiagu’s form shot out like a hurricane. As soon as they exited the temple gates, he carried her and flew frantically up the small mountain beside the temple. No matter how Changling called to him, he didn’t respond. Outside, torrential rain was pouring down. Faintly, she heard a rumbling sound by her ears. Instinctively turning her head back, her pupils suddenly contracted—

She saw behind them on the horizon, a massive flood like heavenly soldiers and generals, sweeping across the fields toward them!

The entire village and farmhouses were razed to the ground under this raging wave’s devastation. The villagers fled urgently, but ultimately couldn’t outrun the water flow and were swept away together. The moment she saw this scene, Changling’s mind went blank. In the next instant, the massive flood was right before her eyes, like a collapsed sky pouring down and covering them from directly behind!

Jiagu turned and struck with his palm, pushing back the water flow that was about to submerge them overhead. Grabbing Changling, he leaped up, like a carp jumping through the dragon gate, soaring into the sky—

The underground tunnel shook even more violently. Ye Qi heard the flood’s roar getting closer and closer, and lowered the hand at his waist that had been futilely struggling against the iron hooks.

When he had held her just moments ago, he had already heard the commotion. For an instant, he was even grateful she had been drugged with narcotics, otherwise how could such a massive operation be concealed from her? The sound of water came from the river side. Someone must have opened the dam, causing it to breach and flood. Yanling Village’s terrain was low-lying; it would be difficult to escape this calamity.

Only now, he no longer cared who the perpetrator was.

From the moment Changling started running, Ye Qi had been calculating her pace in his mind. His eyes stared fixedly at the cave entrance, terrified she would notice something and return.

Only when the footsteps grew more and more distant did he breathe a sigh of relief—as long as she met his master, his master would definitely be able to bring her to safety.

With this thought, the flood burst through the cave entrance like an unrestrained wild horse.

Ye Qi pressed his head against the stone wall, arms folded across his chest, feeling the last trace of warmth she had left behind, murmuring, “I didn’t want to deceive you either.”

The water submerged over his head, and finally even the last breath of air was exhausted.

His consciousness began to scatter. He thought to himself, don’t be angry with me, all right?

Outside the cave, the torrent still roared and howled, while his world returned to silence.

This was the first time in Changling’s life she truly experienced what “torrential beasts” meant.

She stood atop the stone peak, watching wave after wave crash in. The entire village was submerged beneath a vast expanse of water. Trees, houses, and the grotesque corpses of people and livestock floated on the water’s surface. Her gaze fell on the direction of the temple, which could no longer be seen. Her foot stepped forward, about to jump into the water.

Jiagu had exerted tremendous effort to bring her out of mortal danger alive. Seeing her about to seek death, how could he not intervene? He gripped her shoulder tightly, pointing at the village still caught in the whirlpool, roaring furiously, “Never mind that you’re still affected by the narcotic drug and can’t move properly—even if I jumped down right now, it would be a death sentence! With merely a mortal body of flesh and blood, you still fantasize about contending with natural disasters?”

Changling replied without hesitation, “I need to save him. He’s still waiting for me to go back and save him…”

“Don’t you understand yet?” Jiagu grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. “When he told you to come out and find something to pry with, all of that was to fool you! He just didn’t want you to die together with him!”

Changling froze, her entire being as if frozen in place, standing there dumbly.

How could someone as intelligent as her not know his intent? The moment she saw the flood attack, she should have realized the deep meaning of that final embrace—

It was a farewell.

Yet she hadn’t even been able to hear those final parting words.

Changling’s eyes dimmed. All the roaring water sounds and mountain echoes around her became irrelevant to her.

Seeing that she had at least calmed down, Jiagu slowly released his grip, gently patting her shoulder twice. “Don’t overthink things for now. Once this water势 subsides, I’ll find a way to swim in and take a look, try to… try to… fish him out.”

“Fish out what?” Changling looked at Jiagu woodenly. “A corpse?”

The water had already submerged past the temple for half the time it takes to brew tea. How could a person survive underwater for that long?

He was already dead. Perhaps in the previous moment, or this very moment. But Changling understood very clearly—there would be no next moment.

Jiagu couldn’t help but choke up. Rainwater washed over his face, making tears indistinguishable. The shishu who usually only wore a playful smile cruelly nodded. “Yes, a corpse. It’s better to fish it out early than to let it soak until the features are unrecognizable.”

Hearing this, Changling’s entire body suddenly began to tremble. Her lips moved as if she still wanted to say something, but somehow, no sound came out.

Jiagu couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. Seeing that the flood waves had calmed down somewhat, not far away on a piece of driftwood there seemed to be a little girl crying loudly. Jiagu touched his toe to the ground, skimmed across the water’s surface, scooped up the girl in one motion, brought her back to the stone peak, and pushed her next to Changling. “I need to go save the other people. Can you watch over her?”

Jiagu was terrified that she might be overwhelmed by grief and do something foolish. He knew this martial niece’s innate sense of responsibility could sustain her through this most difficult moment, so he found a little girl and thrust her at her. Sure enough, when Changling looked down and saw Aguo Mei, a trace of rationality returned to her desolate eyes. She reluctantly nodded, her voice hoarse. “Go ahead. I… I’m fine.”

Only then did Jiagu feel reassured. He deployed his qinggong, using the various floating objects on the water’s surface to search for other surviving villagers.

Aguo Mei continued crying loudly. Changling crouched down and touched her head. “Stop crying. We don’t know how long we’ll be trapped here. If you keep crying, you’ll have no strength left. Without strength, you won’t be able to see your mother.”

“Will I still be able to see my mother?” Hearing this, Aguo Mei quieted down somewhat.

Changling’s voice was tight. “…You will.”

Just not necessarily alive.

She didn’t say that second sentence aloud.

“Good, then I won’t cry.” The little girl naturally couldn’t hear the implication in those words. She just gripped the immortal sister’s finger tightly. Staring at Changling with wide eyes, she suddenly said, “But sister, why are you still crying?”

Changling paused. “I’m not crying. This is just rainwater.”

Aguo Mei reached out and gently touched the corner of her eye. Drop after drop of tears rolled down from her eye socket onto the tiny fingertip. “You’re lying. How could rainwater be hot? You are crying. Your eyes are all red.”

Changling belatedly touched the corner of her own eye. It was as if something had torn her heart apart. Those emotions owed for so many years, buried for so long, all surged out uncontrollably. They couldn’t be stopped, couldn’t be exhausted.

Aguo Mei seemed frightened by her. “Sister? Why are you crying?”

Yes, why was she crying?

Didn’t they say those who practiced the Shimo True Scripture could remain unshaken in heart and untroubled by emotion?

She had always thought herself indestructible. Even when that great fire in Taixing City burned everything she had to ashes, she could still drill her way out from the ten-thousand-zhang ice crevasse, could still rise from the ashes.

But this flood seemed to have extinguished the last glimmer of light in her heart.

Changling suddenly realized clearly that in the days to come, she might still be able to stand up again, to kill, to seek revenge, hands stained with fresh blood, or to lay down her butcher’s blade… but she would never again feel joy from the bottom of her heart.

So it turned out that more painful than being betrayed by someone you liked was having the person in your heart no longer able to live in this world.

Changling wiped away her tears and answered Aguo Mei, “Because heaven will not tolerate me, yet I insist on defying heaven’s will.”

These words made no sense, and Aguo Mei naturally couldn’t understand. Her heart was entirely focused on her relatives. Seeing the rain weakening and her field of vision widening, she looked around hurriedly and suddenly saw something, staring with wide eyes in a daze. “Sister… is that… is that a ship?”

A ship? How could there possibly be a ship in this place?

Changling squinted and looked up. Through the misty drizzle, she saw a seabird-shaped vessel appear in view. The ship’s body was at least several zhang wide, with a low bow and high stern—it was a sea falcon warship used for naval battles.

She stood up in astonishment, seeing that behind the warship there were several medium-sized sailboats, all manned by soldiers holding crossbows.

And as the lead warship drew closer, she saw on the deck stood over a dozen jianghu people holding long swords.

The former Canghai Sect leader Huo Zhen, the Zhenwu Sect leader Ping Shang, the Danxia Sect’s Luo Fei, and even the Seven Kill Hall’s master… Many familiar faces flickered past her eyes one by one. That year outside Taixing City, those old acquaintances who had surrounded Shen Yao pointing their long swords at him had actually all gathered together.

Still the same familiar ferocity and shamelessness, only the person being surrounded had changed.

Changling looked at Jing Wuwei standing at the bow of the ship, and You Sanshi standing behind him. Her mind exploded with a “boom,” and her thoughts, which had been muddled into a mess, became clear—

It was him.

It was him who had opened the sluice gates to first flood the forest and village, then entered by boat. This wasn’t a natural disaster—it was a man-made calamity.

Jing Wuwei had originally thought that when the ship entered the village, there should be no survivors left.

All the way in, he saw some villagers struggling desperately and had soldiers kill them casually. Who would have thought that when they reached the end, they would actually see two people standing on a small mountain hollow?

One was a little girl who hadn’t even fully grown, and the other was his “daughter.”

The ship stopped less than several zhang from the stone peak. Jing Wuwei looked at Changling with feigned shock. “Xu’er, how did you end up here? Quick, quick, come aboard! It’s dangerous over there!”

Changling’s complexion was deathly pale, the wetness and redness around her eye sockets still present. She protected Aguo Mei behind her, looking coldly at Jing Wuwei. “So it was you.”

Seeing her bedraggled state clearly, and noticing Ye Qi was not by her side, Jing Wuwei had already guessed what happened. Uncontrollable wild joy was about to overflow. He had still been putting on an act the moment before, but now he didn’t even bother with the pretense. His ugly mouth corners lifted. “If not your father, who did you think it was? If I hadn’t deliberately left behind clues about Yanling Mountain, pretending to agree to your marriage… how could I have lured you both here? If it weren’t for the Young Marquis personally taking action, how could the Twenty-Eight Constellations Formation have been broken?”

Changling clenched her already bloodied hands even tighter, murmuring, “The Yue clan’s relics mentioned Yanling Village and the He family’s Twenty-Eight Constellations Formation, so that’s why you wanted to use He Yu to enter this village?”

“Oh? The Young Marquis even told you about the Yue clan’s relics?” Jing Wuwei glanced at her with considerable surprise. “Or perhaps, you approached me from the beginning also for the Yue clan’s relics?”

Changling didn’t answer this question, only saying, “You always knew I wasn’t Nanxu…”

“Your various words and actions at Qingcheng Courtyard were truly too bizarre. At the martial arts tournament, you didn’t even use poison once…” Jing Wuwei shook his head with deep regret. “I originally thought you were Prime Minister Fu’s person. I never expected you would ultimately choose to side with the Young Marquis… even willing to enter Yanling Mountain with him for his sake. This point truly exceeded my expectations…”

A feeling of utter despair and fury arose in Changling’s heart.

Not because of fear, but because everything she had cherished in this life had been destroyed by such contemptible people.

“All right, in consideration of how you saved me that day when Mingyue Fei poisoned me… I’ve said this much to you already, which is the utmost benevolence and righteousness… Since you have such deep and profound feelings for the Young Marquis,” Jing Wuwei laughed maniacally, “why not let ‘Father’ personally send you on your way, to accompany him to the Yellow Springs together?”

At these words, everyone on the ship burst into laughter. The Seven Kill Hall master laughed even more. “To kill such an exquisite beauty just like that—wouldn’t that be a pity? If the General consents, lend her to this Hall Master to play with…”

Before he finished speaking, everyone’s faces displayed lewd smiles. Jing Wuwei continued, “That might be difficult. This ‘daughter’ of mine is quite skilled in martial arts. I’m afraid we’ll have to sever her hand and foot tendons first. Otherwise, I fear the Hall Master won’t be able to handle her, ha ha ha ha…”

Aguo Mei hiding behind Changling was already trembling with fear. Changling’s bloodless lips suddenly moved. “Jing Wuwei, you got two things wrong.”

“First, the antidote to the Intoxicated Carefree that Mingyue Fei gave you was switched by me, so I never saved you,” Changling said word by word. “Within less than a year, you will certainly die.”

The smile on Jing Wuwei’s face froze. Before he could react, Changling spoke her second sentence.

“When you leave Yanling Village, you’ll definitely want to find Mingyue Fei for the antidote, right?” Changling slowly walked forward two steps, the corners of her mouth curving up. “Unfortunately, you won’t have that chance. Rarely do you have so many people accompanying you in. The road to the Yellow Springs surely won’t be lonely. Since that’s the case, then let me send you all on your way.”