Yunxiao Sect had a ten-thousand-year-old ancient tree named Wangtian.

Its trunk stood straight, branches flourishing with dense leaves, piercing directly into the sea of clouds. Looking up, one could not see its end, as if draping the floating clouds above with green gauze.

Master Qin Jianglan lived atop the Wangtian Tree. He was now sixteen hundred years old, the number one cultivator in Yunxiao Sect and even the entire Canglang Realm. It was said he was only one step away from ascension.

“Master devotes himself to cultivation, pure of heart and few desires, no longer managing worldly affairs. Come, all of you, come over and kowtow to Master beneath the tree. All new disciples of our Yunxiao Sect must pay respects to Master here…”

Below the tree, an elite disciple wearing white robes with white jade embedded in his waist sash called the new disciples to form a circle under the tree and kneel to kowtow to Master Qin Jianglan. The newly initiated disciples all held extreme respect for the number one person of Canglang Realm, kowtowing solidly, each banging their heads with loud thumps until red marks appeared on their foreheads.

Su Zhuyi lay at the edge of the bamboo house, squinting as she looked down from the Wangtian Tree. Through the layers upon layers of green leaves, she could see several small children through the gaps. She curled her lips: “Old Dog Qin, your Yunxiao Sect’s little things are getting worse with each generation.”

Qin Jianglan sat upright in the center of the tree house, eyes closed in meditation, not even lifting an eyelid, completely ignoring Su Zhuyi.

Su Zhuyi pointed with her hand. Her sleeves were rolled up to her shoulders, revealing smooth, rounded shoulders and slender, white, tender arms that at first glance looked like the finest mutton-fat jade. She pointed at the small children barely visible below the tree: “Just these few children—if placed in our Demonic Path, they’d all be dead within three days.” She extended her small tongue to lightly lick her lips. “When I was their age, I killed ten fellow disciples of the same age before qualifying to enter the Demonic Path.”

Only then did Qin Jianglan slowly open his eyes. He had been serene, but the moment he opened his eyes, it was as if countless stars lit up within them. Those pupils contained pale ink-colored mountains, vast star rivers, and all things in the world, profound and boundless.

“Su Zhuyi, you have listened to me recite the Pure Heart Incantation for six hundred years, yet your heart remains so violent and bloodthirsty.” His voice was clear, cold, and distant. Though just ordinary words spoken in a calm tone, it was like plucking harp strings or knocking jade ornaments together.

Hearing Qin Jianglan’s words, Su Zhuyi directly rolled around in the bamboo house. She had been lying at the edge of the bamboo house, but now lay on her back, her long hair spilled like spilled ink, spreading thickly beneath her, making her jade-white skin and flower-like beauty even more striking.

Her chest rose and fell, lips slightly parted as she smiled: “I am a demoness of the demonic path—did you expect me to reform and turn righteous?” Su Zhuyi suddenly flipped up to sit. “My meridians are completely severed, my cultivation entirely lost. What meaning is there in living? Qin Jianglan, why don’t you just kill me?”

Su Zhuyi moved beside Qin Jianglan, her hand lightly covering his face, her breath like orchids: “Or can’t you bear to?”

Qin Jianglan said nothing. He had closed his eyes again, expressionless like a stone statue. Su Zhuyi pressed close to him, discovering his eyelashes were particularly long, those lashes trembling slightly as if they could brush against her face.

Calm on the surface, but waves had long since risen in his heart. Seeing this, Su Zhuyi smiled with pursed lips: “You’ve imprisoned me for six hundred years. Now my cultivation is completely lost, my meridians entirely severed. Even if I went out, I couldn’t stir up any storms. Why don’t you release me? I’ll find some mortal town and peacefully spend my remaining years.”

She reached out, picking up a strand of silver hair from Qin Jianglan’s temple: “Look, your cultivation has made no progress these years. Your time limit approaches because you have dust in your heart. I am that speck of dust clinging to you, stuck to your body. Quickly sweep me away, and you can ascend to immortality and enjoy the eternal life of the Great Dao.”

“In the third year of Yonghe, Changning Village was massacred by Xueluo Sect, who took away twelve boys and girls for training. A month later, only you formally joined the Xueluo Sect.” Qin Jianglan said flatly.

“Xueluo Sect’s initiation trial was kill or be killed—what’s there to debate?” Su Zhuyi shrugged with complete indifference.

“You were seven years old that year.” Qin Jianglan ignored her and continued.

Su Zhuyi snorted coldly. She had heard these words until her ears grew calluses—nothing more than recounting her crimes one by one, then saying her sins were too deep to let her leave.

“In the seventh year of Yonghe, Yongan Town was attacked by the demonic path. The cultivation family Su in town was annihilated, with no survivors. Many of them were your blood relatives. You were eleven that year.”

“They harmed my grandfather and drove my mother to death, leaving me to struggle alone. How wonderful that I destroyed their entire family—then no one else would ever feel the loneliness and helplessness I felt.” She wrapped both arms around Qin Jianglan’s neck. “When a whole family dies together, they have companions on the road to the Yellow Springs—not lonely at all, how nice? If any lived, they’d still exhaust themselves seeking revenge. How tiring. Don’t you think so?”

“In the fifteenth year of Yonghe, a female disciple of the small southern border sect, Yuling Sect, had her face carved with ten thousand cuts, then committed suicide. Yuling Sect sought revenge for her, but overnight, their entire sect was destroyed.” Qin Jianglan had been calm, but saying this, he suddenly looked up, coldly glancing at Su Zhuyi.

That glance chilled Su Zhuyi’s heart, yet she still snorted lightly, stubbornly saying: “Who told her to call me seductive, saying I was tempting her senior brother, and even whipping my face?” She pointed at her cheek. “Look, look—how terrible it would be if whip marks were left on this face.”

Those cheeks flushed like sunset clouds. Seeing them up close made Qin Jianglan’s heart skip, and the coldness in his eyes softened considerably.

He didn’t want to look at her anymore.

Out of sight, out of mind.

“You were nineteen that year.”

“Wang Zihan of Xundao Sect, Zhang Shu of Yulin Sect, Gu Feiyue of Gujian Sect…” Qin Jianglan recited another string of names, but Su Zhuyi had little impression of them. She only said: “Men? These men all said they truly loved me and were willing to die for me, so I took their hearts. What’s wrong with that?”

Qin Jianglan’s forehead twitched slightly. Six hundred years, and her thinking hadn’t changed one bit—still so unreasonably argumentative.

“Later, to repair the Liuguang Mirror, how many living beings did you slaughter?”

“You speak as if you don’t kill.” Su Zhuyi suddenly grabbed Qin Jianglan’s lapels. “Your robes are woven from shark scales—didn’t you kill the deep-sea shark clan? To weave such a magical treasure, you’d need to scrape scales from over a thousand shark people!” She reached in through the collar, touching that burning skin, fingers lightly scratching a few times, lingering at the collarbone before Su Zhuyi narrowed her phoenix eyes, smiling as she pulled out the pendant from his chest. “Your spatial magical treasure, Yuansheng Pearl, is also refined from spirit beast cosmic eye pearls.”

Qin Jianglan sat cross-legged on a cushion. She directly straddled his legs, one hand touching the crown binding his hair: “This is carved from phoenix bone, and your Longlin Dagger…”

“When you slaughtered the island, did you care about the cultivators on it?”

“Should I have shouted ‘I’m going to destroy the island, you all leave quickly’ when slaughtering the island? Then I would have been the one to die. You know, many people in the Canglang Realm want to kill me. I live in fear every day.”

She reached out to lightly pat Qin Jianglan’s cheek: “Old Dog Qin, you’ve lived over a thousand years—how can you still be so naive?” She brought her red lips to his ear, whispering: “If I don’t kill people, I have to die—die at age seven or even earlier, die in a wild dog’s mouth. You see, I’m different from you. I only wanted to live.”

To live freely and unrestrained, carefree and unbound, with no one in the world able to bully or humiliate me, never again speaking a word against me.

Unfortunately, she failed.

Betrayed and severely injured by the only friend she had ever trusted, she was finally hunted by the righteous path until her meridians were severed and her cultivation was lost. The world thought she had been reduced to ashes. Who would imagine that Qin Jianglan, the person with the highest cultivation under heaven, would save her and imprison her at a ten-thousand-foot height, not letting her leave for six hundred years?

“Six hundred and one years ago, you carved three thousand six hundred cuts on Su Qingxun of Yunxiao Sect and threw her into the Ten Thousand Snake Den.” Speaking of this, Qin Jianglan’s voice suddenly turned cold, and the leaves of the Wangtian Tree instantly formed a layer of ice.

“Who told her to betray me, set an ambush to harm me, and lure me into a trap?” Of the twelve boys and girls from Changning Village that year, she only killed ten—there was one more she helped escape. That person was Su Qingxun. Even after she became the universally despised demoness, she and Su Qingxun, who had found an opportunity to join the Yunxiao Sect, were not enemies. She considered Su Qingxun a friend.

Her only one.

However, Su Qingxun led her into the inescapable net laid by righteous path cultivators.

“Qin Jianglan.” Su Zhuyi paid no attention to the cold aura Qin Jianglan suddenly released. She had lost all cultivation now and couldn’t withstand the cold. Her white, tender skin turned red from the cold, and her bare arms developed a thin layer of frost. But she completely ignored it, just shivering as she moved closer to Qin Jianglan, extending both arms inside his clothes to warm herself.

Her red lips pressed against his lips, squeezing out a few words through gritted teeth: “You hypocritical, false gentleman, Su Qingxun was your only last disciple. You didn’t kill me to avenge her, but instead…”

Her slender hands stripped off that azure-green robe woven from shark scales. She extended her leg, her delicate foot kicking over the lamp burning shark tears in the corner of the tree house. The egg-sized pearl lost its glow once it left the lamp stand, rolling to the wall corner. The light in the room suddenly dimmed. Su Zhuyi lightly nibbled his earlobe: “Instead, you’re entangled with me, this demoness.”

Qin Jianglan was three hundred years older than Su Zhuyi.

When Xueluo Sect captured boys and girls for trials, he had just descended the mountain for training, wandering near the barren northwestern lands around Changning Village. At that time, the Xueluo Sect had a master elder nearby. Qin Jianglan’s strength was limited—he could only temporarily save one. With Su Zhuyi’s cooperation, he saved Su Qingxun.

When he led the sect elders who came after hearing the news to rescue people, the Xueluo Sect had already left for their stronghold, and Su Zhuyi had long since disappeared.

Later, she became the feared female demon head.

The Heart-Eating Demoness of the demonic path—Su Zhuyi.

She was the bloodthirsty female demon head in the world’s eyes, and also the demon in Qin Jianglan’s heart.

From the moment he left with Su Qingxun, that small figure had been carved into his heart. Pure heart and few desires, ascending to great achievement? Qin Jianglan smiled bitterly. How could he sever these tangled emotional threads? How could he leave this fragrant, sweet poison?

She was right—he was indeed a hypocritical, false gentleman.

Suddenly, he flipped over to sit up, pressing Su Zhuyi beneath him. His clear, pond-like eyes showed red threads, like dark brown water plants appearing in the pond water, tangling together and adding waves. His strong, solid arms pressed down on Su Zhuyi, one hand gripping her arm that tried to rise. His touch was full of smooth softness, his hands and heart filled with tempting sweet fragrance.

“What, want to strangle me?” Su Zhuyi blinked. Her body was flexible, and being pressed down now, she directly lifted her head, stretching her neck to quickly lick Qin Jianglan’s chin: “Hurry up and do it—anyway, I’m so tired of living.”

The moment her tongue touched his skin, Su Zhuyi noticed Qin Jianglan’s body tremble slightly. His body shook slightly, hot sweat sliding down his chin and falling into his hollow neck, looking quite tempting. And his state seemed as if he was enduring something with difficulty.

“Hypocrite, what are you enduring?” She was pressed down, but her legs could still move. She lightly curved her legs around Qin Jianglan’s body, a faint smile appearing at the corner of her mouth. At this moment, Qin Jianglan suddenly lifted her horizontally and placed her on the couch where he usually rested. His breathing was rapid, his gasps growing heavier. What was he enduring?

He could no longer endure it long ago. He untied his pants and pressed down on her again.

Eh?

Qin Jianglan had always been like a block of stone before. Even when she aroused him to reaction, he would sit rigidly motionless. Such an initiative had never happened before, making Su Zhuyi somewhat surprised, staring at him stupidly for a moment without reacting.

When those kisses bloomed like plum blossoms on her body, when the robe on her body completely slipped off, she finally came to her senses, giggling twice, her legs tightly wrapping around his waist.

“You see, six hundred years—I haven’t changed.”

“You have changed.”

…

This demon head, Su Zhuyi, had lived very difficult days as a child.

To become stronger, she dared try anything, looked at and learned everything—righteous cultivation methods and heretical evil paths, she dabbled in all, using every trick in the book. Because she knew a little of everything, even though her meridians were severed six hundred years ago, over these years she had secretly used some secret methods to slowly nourish some back.

After being trapped on the Wangtian Tree, she spent a hundred years recovering, barely clinging to life. The following five hundred years were spent seducing Qin Jianglan. Only in recent years had she succeeded. Now she rarely had real opportunities to taste the fruit, and this was the first time Qin Jianglan took the initiative.

Such dual cultivation was beneficial to her. She could absorb tiny amounts of spiritual energy through yin-yang harmony. Of course, not for herself, but for the Liuguang Mirror.

If it were for herself, it would be discovered by Qin Jianglan before making one circuit through her meridians. But nourishing the Liuguang Mirror was different. The Liuguang Mirror was a legendary dao artifact that could resist heavenly dao rules. No matter how powerful Qin Jianglan was, he couldn’t sense changes in a dao artifact. He thought the Liuguang Mirror was already destroyed. How could he know that mirror was embedded in her heart and would soon be completely repaired?

Heaven can be mended, seas can be filled, and Southern Mountain can be moved. But time, once past, cannot be pursued.

In this world, only time is mercilessly irreversible, and the Liuguang Mirror’s power was to reverse time’s flow. Such a heaven-defying magical treasure was not tolerated by heavenly dao, so after successful refinement, it provoked heaven’s wrath and brought down divine punishment. But how could the Liuguang Mirror be easily destroyed? Su Zhuyi learned of the Liuguang Mirror’s existence by chance from several ancient incomplete scrolls, then spent a full three hundred years searching for it. After finding it, she spent another hundred years repairing the mirror, slaughtering living beings to sacrifice to the mirror. Just when success was in sight, she was hunted by the righteous path and nearly lost her life.

Repair the Liuguang Mirror, return to the past—then everything could begin anew. She could seize resources in advance, avoid dangers, cultivate diligently, and stand at the pinnacle of the cultivation world, looking down upon all living beings. At that time, she would fear nothing.

Su Zhuyi’s mind was full of thoughts about repairing the Liuguang Mirror, but this time Qin Jianglan thrust into her like a dog in heat, making her somewhat unable to bear it. She lay on her back, gasping heavily, as if all her strength disappeared with his advances, as if she had lost armor and abandoned weapons before him.

She had never seen Qin Jianglan like this.

His formerly meticulously arranged topknot had come loose, with several strands of hair hanging by his cheeks and lips, adding a touch of wickedness. His formerly perfectly smooth robes, without a single wrinkle, were wrinkled, thrown aside by him, while her thin robe had long been torn to pieces by him. His formerly cold eyes seemed to burn with two flames, the fierce fire burning his heart, making even her heart feel slightly warm.

Su Zhuyi felt her consciousness becoming somewhat blurred, her body rising and falling with him, reaching a wonderful realm she had never experienced before—like floating to the clouds or sinking to the lake bottom. Her heart grew hotter and hotter, so hot her heart seemed to catch fire.

Just when she could barely endure it anymore, a large hand pressed on her already reddened heart.

“Liuguang Mirror, Liuguang Mirror…” Even with her consciousness already somewhat blurred, Su Zhuyi knew that place couldn’t be touched—she had embedded the Liuguang Mirror in her heart! She struggled desperately to move away, but that palm pressed tightly against her. No matter which direction she moved, she couldn’t escape his five-finger mountain.

His hand cupped snow lotus, pinched red plums in snow, carefully kneading and playing. Threads of cool air flowed from that burning palm into her body and surged into the Liuguang Mirror. Su Zhuyi hummed softly in comfort. She opened her eyes to see that the firelight in Qin Jianglan’s eyes had disappeared, replaced by bottomless cold pools, clear and freezing.

He was awake? He had detected the Liuguang Mirror’s existence?

Su Zhuyi reached out to grab something to cover herself, but unexpectedly Qin Jianglan suddenly reached out to lock her firmly in place, then with a “wa” sound, spat out a mouthful of fresh blood that splashed right onto her heart. Su Zhuyi was startled, then felt the Liuguang Mirror move slightly. The next moment, the Wangtian Tree suddenly shook.

With a thunderous boom, a lightning bolt struck down, hitting the Wangtian Tree.

Was the Liuguang Mirror successfully repaired? It drew out heavenly dao divine punishment? This fellow Qin Jianglan built his house on the Wangtian Tree—the divine punishment’s power would be doubled! Su Zhuyi looked at the flashing lightning outside the house, feeling panic and fear for the first time. Such divine punishment power was something she, with almost no cultivation now, could not resist.

But at this moment, Qin Jianglan dove down, pressing her directly beneath him.

His lips moved but made no sound.

In her ears was only the rumbling thunder. The entire Wangtian Tree was struck and broken by heavenly thunder. Her body rolled toward a corner of the bamboo house, then fell directly from the ten-thousand-foot height.

From beginning to end, Qin Jianglan held her tightly.

She suddenly thought, if by chance they didn’t die, what would those Yunxiao Sect disciples think seeing their master naked with the female demon head falling from the tree together? But the next moment, she understood—they couldn’t escape alive.

That lightning wove densely like a net, targeting her who carried the Liuguang Mirror.

“Demoness.”

She seemed to hear Qin Jianglan ask her: “If you could return to the past, would you… Would you still enter the demonic path?”

“I want to become the world’s number one person. I want to seek the Great Dao and eternal life. Whoever dares obstruct me, I will kill. Whether righteous path or demonic path, this is my dao.” Before dying, she also wanted to shout a domineering slogan, but Su Zhuyi’s words seemed insignificant before the rumbling thunder, without any sense of looking down upon the world.

She wanted to say more, but her head hurt more and more, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until finally she could no longer support herself and fainted.

Death and dao extinction—no matter how she had struggled to survive before, in the end, she still…

Could not escape death.