At the same time, the moment the white light descended and severed the rope, Xuanqiong, who had been controlling the seabird to narrowly dodge the lightning, suddenly burst into hearty laughter.
From a distance, everyone could only see beside the white light, that woman throwing back her head in loud laughter, seemingly delighted.
Only she herself knew there was no delight.
No joy.
Only overwhelming loss, anguish, self-mockery, and countless indescribable emotions.
How ridiculous it all was.
His life and her own.
Decades of devoted following and scheming, love and trust, yet the desire to betray came in just an instant.
The fickleness of human hearts—today she finally understood.
She laughed and laughed, tears sliding down her cheeks, freezing instantly in the frigid high altitude.
In her daze, she remembered that autumn years ago when she knocked on her senior brother’s door, presenting the new clothes she had stayed up all night making for him, and he passed a red maple leaf through the window to her.
Vibrant as heart’s blood.
Wanfeng Mountain was most beautiful in autumn, the entire mountain covered in red maples like rosy clouds. After the frost fell, a delicate layer of frost would coat the leaf tips, where brilliant red and pure white merged perfectly within that thin surface.
Senior brother always loved gazing at those frost-touched maple leaves, saying that frost-kissed maple leaves were beautiful enough to possess killing intent.
So she always wore white robes, thinking that senior brother loved seeing that touch of white amidst the fiery red. Standing gracefully in her snow-white garments among the mountain full of maple leaves, surely he would spare her an extra glance?
Later, he brought that red-robed beauty, standing together amidst the blazing red mountainside, arranging her clothes, adorning her hair.
The way he looked at her in that moment—only then did she understand.
It turned out he simply loved that crimson of killing intent.
She laughed, ice crystals on her cheeks refusing to melt.
Senior brother, that maple leaf—no matter how carefully I preserved it later, it still crumbled, cracked, and vanished.
Just like you at this moment.
……
Tie Ci gazed at that white pillar of light, at the person laughing loudly in the high heavens, feeling a slight chill rise in her heart.
If love’s end looked like this, she would rather have never possessed it at all.
Suddenly her hand grew warm. She turned her head to see Feiyu beside her, eyes fixed ahead, saying softly, “We are so perfect—how could we compare ourselves to beasts?”
Tie Ci flicked her finger, batting away his claw, cupped her hands together, and revealed a faint smile at the corner of her lips.
Pingzong stood beside them, looking up at the sky with some bewilderment, asking Chi Fengli, “Mother… where did… where did Father go?”
Chi Fengli slowly opened her eyes.
At this moment, the depths of her eyes were blood red.
Pingzong cried out in alarm, “Mother, what’s wrong with you?” She turned back to look at the sea surface, “Mother, don’t be afraid. Father has a lightning body—he’s not afraid of lightning. He must have fallen onto the sea surface. I’ll go find him, I’ll go find him…”
Before she could jump into the sea, Chi Fengli caught her.
She said, “Your father is flesh and blood.”
Pingzong froze, not daring to think about what her words meant.
Tie Ci lowered her eyes, somewhat surprised and disappointed.
She had thought that possessing lightning abilities would make one truly immune to lightning.
But thinking carefully, even possessing lightning abilities only meant being able to control small-scale lightning, allowing small amounts of electricity to pass through the body, with the capacity to withstand gradually increasing through cultivation.
But humans were ultimately still flesh and blood. Under such high-intensity lightning strikes, they simply couldn’t endure it.
Thinking of how Gui Haisheng had been pierced with a lightning rod by Xuanqiong at the last moment, her heart grew cold.
Even while that woman was wholeheartedly loving and managing everything for Gui Haisheng, she still kept a killing move against him.
Love, after all, couldn’t tolerate too much impurity. Fate held its little ledger, calculating your schemes, and in the end, settled every account with you.
Pingzong was still pressing for answers, clearly panicking.
Chi Fengli gazed up at the sky, murmuring, “Those who toy with lightning die in lightning. Perhaps this is fate.”
“Mother, what are you saying…”
Chi Fengli pushed her away, lowered her head to roll up her sleeves, then placed both hands on her legs.
She said, “Though our bond is severed, we were husband and wife nonetheless. This revenge—I must still exact it for him.”
Her palms suddenly turned crimson red.
The scorching heat burned Pingzong, who quickly raised her hand only to find her fingertips already blistered.
It was truly hard to imagine the temperature of her palms at that moment.
Yet she pressed these scalding palms against her own legs.
Heat waves seemed to burst forth with a roar. Pingzong stared in shock, suddenly understanding, and lunged forward.
Then Tie Ci yanked her back.
“Too late! Disturbing your mother now will cause qi deviation!”
Pingzong wept, turning to strike Tie Ci, “She’ll still go into qi deviation this way! She’ll die!”
Before her elbow strike could reach Tie Ci, Feiyu’s iron fist arrived first, striking her neck with a bang.
Simultaneously, Tie Ci’s merciless counterattack came—a palm strike like a blade, also chopping at her neck.
Pingzong took these vicious blows from both fierce opponents, needlessly receiving an extra strike, and fainted quite thoroughly.
The two felt somewhat awkward—seemed a bit harsh, didn’t it?
Fortunately, Chi Fengli was in meditation and didn’t see.
The area around Chi Fengli was too hot. The two dragged Pingzong away to safety, seeing from a distance that Xiao Wenliu, Lan Xian’er, and the others had also run out. Tonight the big shots and islanders were busy dealing with the ocean merchant ship and had no time to play tricks on them, so the people on the ship were still safe.
But now with immortals fighting, mortals couldn’t approach. Tie Ci gestured for them to stay far away.
Watching Chi Fengli’s withered legs glow with red light, there was no sign of flesh regenerating, but Tie Ci had penetrating vision—she could see deep red power flowing through those blood vessels, blood bubbling and boiling.
Like flames burning through withered grass, there could still be final brilliance before complete consumption.
High in the sky, the injured bird tried several times to fly down but was driven back by Xuanqiong, who wanted it to fly farther away.
The woman and bird were still circling the ship, much closer to the sea surface than before.
Chi Fengli suddenly opened her eyes and stood up.
She reached out and pulled a bow from beneath the wheelchair—a bow of unusual design, exactly matching what Tie Ci had once seen on the divine statue.
The bow had no arrow, but curved barbs extended from its edges.
Her fiery red robes fluttered in the wind like burning flames as she instantly appeared on the distant merchant ship. The people on the great ship had just breathed a sigh of relief at Gui Haisheng’s disappearance, only to see a ball of fire appear on deck.
Looking closer, it wasn’t fire—red shadows floated around that person, even her eyes were red, with only her face remaining snow-white, making that white seem particularly piercing, as if drained of life.
Chi Fengli lifted her leg, robes flowing, and ascended the mast.
At the mast’s peak she drew the bow, but instead of shooting arrows, she seemed casual as she released the string with a twang. A ball of flame burst from the bowstring, forming a line of fire that shot toward Xuanqiong.
Xuanqiong urged her bird to dodge while raising her hand to summon clouds. She could condense ice and snow, and the sky held water vapor and clouds favorable to her. Her fingers swept continuously, and in an instant her surroundings filled with misty ice and snow that flew without falling. Looking carefully, one could see she had somehow cast an invisible net with the ice and snow clinging to it, flowing with her movements. Chi Fengli’s qi arrows of fire were extinguished upon hitting this net.
But Chi Fengli showed no discouragement. She drew the bow like plucking a zither, the twanging sound continuous, shooting qi fire with each release. In moments she had fired over a hundred arrows.
Deep red streaks crossed the sky, spanning sea and clouds like an inverted meteor shower.
Tie Ci watched in amazement.
Chi Fengli drew the bow as easily as combing cotton, appearing effortless, but condensing qi into fire was inherently a complex and precise process. Shooting such distances required extremely precise qi control.
Yet Chi Fengli barely looked, needing no time to gather power—between casual hand movements she created a sea of a hundred fire arrows. Her abundant qi and exquisite control far exceeded even Gui Haisheng’s abilities.
Her speed was too great. Even though Xuanqiong utilized favorable weather to form an ice and snow net, she couldn’t match the fire arrows’ speed. Watching deep red climb over ice white, water vapor constantly melted in the air, falling like rain.
Xuanqiong suddenly descended, flinging her hand so the giant net with its heavy ice, snow and flames crashed down toward Chi Fengli.
Chi Fengli waved her hand, and the fiery red bow suddenly snapped, becoming a red string and two spinning curved spikes that carried fire howling skyward to crash into the giant net.
The two masters clashed head-on, and people on the great ship were blown about by the air currents.
With a thunderous crash, Xuanqiong spat blood in mid-air, tumbling with her bird.
Countless ice fragments and small clusters of flame scattered in all directions. The giant net suddenly rolled back toward Xuanqiong. With a cry of anguish, seeing the seabird’s wingtip already entangled in the net, she leaped from its back.
But Chi Fengli’s two curved spikes could spin in mid-air and pursue in return. The flames on the spikes grew larger and larger, already licking at Xuanqiong’s back.
Chi Fengli raised her hand, and with a snap, the crimson bowstring folded in mid-air, strangling the seabird. Blood rained like red drops across the ship’s bow as flames surged up the bird’s body. The bird, following Xuanqiong’s falling form, tumbled down in defeat.
It crashed directly toward the falling Xuanqiong’s back.
The bird, fed medicinal substances and grown massive, struck Xuanqiong’s back like a falling meteor, like colliding cannonballs, driving the already severely injured Xuanqiong straight through the ship’s hull!
With another thunderous crash, Xuanqiong plunged head-first, her body smashing through the deck, then through successive ship compartments. The entire great ship shook violently as countless blood-stained ice flowers splattered across the deck.
People on the ship fell in droves. Even Chi Fengli on the mast swayed.
She looked down at the deck, expressionless, her crimson robes brilliant in the gradually brightening dawn.
Thunder still rumbled and lightning flashed intermittently, yet no rain fell.
A great hole appeared in the deck. After a while, people around the deck crawled up and peered into the hole.
They saw broken ship planks below, and beneath the planks happened to be an ice storage room for fish. Xuanqiong lay inverted in this ice room among countless ice fragments and dead fish, her skirt hem covered with fish scales, her pale feet pointing skyward.
A shadow flashed—Tie Ci had reached the ship. Seeing this scene, she too was stunned.
Those who manipulated ice and snow also died among ice and snow.
Like prophecy, or perhaps fate’s mockery.
Suddenly someone cried out in alarm. Tie Ci looked up to see Chi Fengli falling.
Like a withered maple leaf slipping from a branch.
Tie Ci stepped forward to catch her, prepared to take several steps forward to absorb the impact, but when the person fell into her arms, she was light as a leaf.
A word flashed through her heart.
Oil exhausted, lamp extinguished.
She carried Chi Fengli back to shore, where Feiyu had already slapped Pingzong awake.
Chi Fengli sat down on the beach. In that instant, countless wrinkles appeared on her snow-white face, her full head of black hair turned gray-white. The previously delayed passage of time accelerated, and her once indifferent expression suddenly became animated.
She coughed, laughing while coughing, spitting blood while laughing, saying, “Satisfying.”
“I’ve wanted to fight that bitch for ages.”
“Competed with me her whole life, and still couldn’t beat me.”
“Put all her effort into that old face of hers, and wasn’t even much prettier.”
“If I were in my prime, I could crush you with one finger.”
Pingzong rushed over, frantically trying to cover her mouth, “Mother, Mother, stop cursing! Let me heal your wounds!”
“Bah, what do you know about healing?” Chi Fengli pushed her away with one hand, glaring, “Don’t interfere with my cursing. I get angry just looking at you. Brain full of foolishness, three kind words from anyone and you’d abandon your own mother, and you follow along practicing those amateur skills. Calling you stupid would waste my breath.”
Pingzong didn’t know if she was stunned by the scolding or couldn’t adapt to her noble, cold mother’s sudden change of tone. She stood there dumbly for a long while before tears began dropping one by one.
Tie Ci stood beside her, saying, “Why are you crying? Your mother has been holding back for half a lifetime—can’t she vent now? Though Lady Chi, moderate scolding is enough. If Pingzong is this foolish, isn’t that from your spoiling Gui Haisheng? For such a man, you abandoned your daughter, letting others take advantage and turn her into a little fool. Who can you blame?”
Before Chi Fengli could respond, Pingzong was already crying aloud, angrily saying, “Shut up! Don’t you dare talk about my father and mother like that! What are you anyway!”
Chi Fengli said, “Shut up.”
Pingzong: “Right, you shut up…”
Chi Fengli: “I told YOU to shut up!”
Pingzong: “…”