“Remove that wretched Zhuxin Curse.” Su Zhuyi’s voice was filled with murderous intent, and even the space between her brows carried a malevolent aura.

Su Qingxun was startled. She only felt that the immortal who had been as serene as a clear wind and bright moon suddenly exuded an evil air. Was it because she was a demonic cultivator? Su Qingxun thought she had concealed herself extremely well. The disciples of their Xueluo Sect were skilled at masking and hiding their aura. Now, covered in wounds and being pursued, she looked like a weakling at first glance. She gritted her teeth, steeled her heart, staggered to her feet, and ran along the riverbank. After circling the man and discovering he hadn’t moved, her heart sank. She then set up a barrier not far behind him by the rocky outcrop, concealing her form.

In her current state, she couldn’t escape even if she ran. It would be better to hide behind him and stake everything on this gamble!

…

Inside the Liuguang Mirror, Qin Jianglan sensed Su Zhuyi’s anger.

“Using the Liuguang Mirror to return to a thousand years ago already violates the Heavenly Dao. You’ve just returned, young and weak. If you directly harm Su Qingxun to death, I’m worried you’ll be punished by the rules of the Heavenly Dao.” Qin Jianglan spoke in a calm tone.

During the few days she returned to Changning Village, the weather was stormy every day with constant thunder and lightning, even splitting trees. Thinking about this, Su Zhuyi felt that at the beginning of her rebirth, Heaven was probably quite irritable too, which was why it thundered and rained for so many consecutive days. Qin Jianglan truly understood her.

She would never think that just because she killed you in the previous life meant her revenge was complete, and they could start with a clean slate from now on. When she was reborn and saw Su Qingxun, she wanted to kill her directly. Even now, seeing Su Qingxun still made her grit her teeth. She was just that petty and vengeful.

If you slap me once, I can kill your entire family. Moreover, to her, Su Qingxun had betrayed her.

Or rather, she felt that Su Qingxun had failed her.

Aside from Su Qingxun, Su Zhuyi felt it was natural for everyone else in the world to kill her. She also killed others, so naturally, others could kill her.

But she just couldn’t accept Su Qingxun using her trust to lure her into a trap.

“Then remove it now!” Su Zhuyi snorted coldly with dissatisfaction. Her divine consciousness was still focused on Su Qingxun, and she discovered that she had already hidden behind the rock behind her, making her sneer inwardly. She remembered now—in earlier years, when Su Zhuyi was nineteen or twenty, she had encountered a female disciple in the Southern Border. She had forgotten her name, but she was a female disciple from a small sect in the Southern Border called the Yuling Sect. That female cultivator accused her of seducing her senior brother and directly attacked her face with a whip. Su Zhuyi cared most about that face of hers. She scratched up the face of the female disciple who had provoked her, and she hadn’t even used poison like Hongyan Ku. As a result, that female disciple committed suicide, and the cultivators of the Yuling Sect pursued her to avenge their junior sister. In the end, she slaughtered the entire sect.

Originally, this was something from long ago that Su Zhuyi had completely forgotten. She had killed so many people—how could she remember such a trivial matter from her youth? But somehow Qin Jianglan knew about it, and when he lectured her at the Wangtian Tree, he would recite it every time until her ears developed calluses, so naturally she remembered it.

This time, she happened to come to the Southern Border and coincidentally encountered Su Qingxun being pursued. Could it be that she was being chased by disciples of the Yuling Sect? The timing matched up. Su Zhuyi looked up at the sky. Though she should have felt schadenfreude, she instead felt a trace of melancholy. It was as if countless silk threads in heaven and earth were connected into a web, and they were flying insects stuck to the spider’s silk. How difficult it was to break free.

“I can’t remove it.” Qin Jianglan’s tone was no longer so calm. His voice was slightly low and hoarse as he said quietly, “I’m not by your side.” That voice was mellow, as if honey had been smeared over her heart, making her feel both sweet and somewhat breathless. The fire that had originally ignited in her heart was also extinguished.

The corner of her mouth curved up. “Your disciple is being pursued. Should I save her or not?”

“She was looking at me with glowing eyes just now. She seems to have fallen in love with me at first sight.” Su Zhuyi clicked her tongue twice. “Could it be that in the previous life, she had feelings for Master, too?”

“She is the disciple, I am the master. How could we disturb the proper order between teacher and student?” Qin Jianglan raised his eyes to look at the sky. “She respects her teacher and values the Dao…” He paused here, then said, “Don’t let your thoughts run wild.”

“What am I thinking wildly about?” Su Zhuyi thought to herself, not even looking at what kind of face you have. Moreover, back then, you were the one who brought her out of that wolf’s den.

For a young girl, she would certainly be very devoted to a handsome savior.

Suddenly remembering that year when she waited in terror, her mind was also constantly thinking of Qin Jianglan’s face. She had always hoped he would bring people back to save her.

It was only after experiencing that hopeless waiting that Su Zhuyi would never entrust her life to others.

What wild thoughts?

Qin Jianglan said lightly, “Instead of thinking about all sorts of nonsense…” His long lashes blinked once, covering like brushes, like fleeting light and passing shadows, cutting through even the night wind, and also seemed to cut off her divine consciousness, making her slightly stunned.

“Think of me instead.”

Instead of thinking about all sorts of nonsense, think of me instead.

Su Zhuyi was speechless for a moment.

This Qin Jianglan spoke sweet words without any shame. She had completely forgotten how she used to half-hide and half-reveal herself by his side, whispering those seductive words in his ear. She had never been ashamed.

After only a few words with Qin Jianglan, Su Zhuyi discovered several people chasing after them. She had no impression of the Yuling Sect disciples, but seeing they had come riding spirit beasts, they should be from the Yuling Sect.

In the previous life, all these people should have died at her hands.

Su Zhuyi glanced at those few people, then swept the corner of her eye toward the rock behind her, seeing Su Qingxun hiding behind the rock. She smiled and turned to leave.

“Fellow Daoist, have you seen a red-clothed female cultivator in the Ningshen Stage pass by here?”

Su Zhuyi: “…”

She wanted to pry open the heads of these so-called righteous disciples to see what was inside.

Although your cultivation isn’t high either, you’re on par with Su Qingxun or even inferior to her, but she’s injured, and there are so many traces in the river water that haven’t been concealed. Won’t you check and look? Moreover, she had just unnaturally glanced at the rock behind her—didn’t any of you notice?

But the next moment, someone said, “She should have come here and seems to have gone this way.”

The person speaking held a palm-sized spirit beast in his hand. At this moment, the spirit beast jumped to the ground, its little nose twitching a few times before heading toward where Su Qingxun was hiding.

Su Zhuyi was very curious about how Su Qingxun would escape.

However, she had no interest in saving anyone. Due to the restrictions of the Zhuxin Curse, she couldn’t kill Su Qingxun herself, but others should be able to, right? And if Su Qingxun died, she also wanted to know how the Heavenly Dao would compensate.

Thinking of this, Su Zhuyi ignored them and planned to leave directly.

Sigh, she had planned to go down the mountain to act with chivalrous justice, but who would have thought she’d have such bad luck at the start? The first person she encountered, she didn’t want to save. She was still more suited to killing people.

But just as she had walked not far, Su Zhuyi felt the ground beneath her feet shake. The soil by the riverbank cracked open, and the clear water river seemed to come alive. Though it was just an ordinary small river, it rolled up waves several zhang high, and those waves carried a thick fishy smell that made even Su Zhuyi frown.

The next moment, a huge head emerged from the river. Seeing that thing, Su Zhuyi’s pupils contracted. A demon flood dragon was hiding in this river!

The flood dragon writhed, seemingly in great pain. Its dragon tail swept horizontally, directly smashing the green trees on the shore. With its struggles, it stirred up large amounts of water. How could this small, clear water river contain such a large demon flood dragon?

The Yuling Sect disciples on the shore were so frightened by the demon flood dragon that they scattered in all directions. One who ran too slowly was directly bitten in half by the flood dragon!

Could this be Heaven’s arranged method for Su Qingxun to escape?

Su Zhuyi suddenly remembered the previous life’s stories about demon flood dragons in the Southern Border. There had indeed been a demon flood dragon here that escaped from the Miao Gu Village in Miao Mountain. It had caused trouble in this area and taken many lives. Later, it even attracted cultivators from the Yunxiao Sect and other major sects to come and eliminate the demon. However, they caught nothing. When they set up nets to capture the demon flood dragon, it was taken back by cultivators from the Miao Gu Village…

Su Zhuyi had come to this area back then because of a mission from the Xueluo Sect. She had forgotten the specific details. After she destroyed the Yuling Sect, she was afraid that the so-called righteous path would come to investigate, so she ran away directly. Therefore, she wasn’t very clear about what happened afterward. It wasn’t until a hundred years later, when her cultivation had greatly advanced and she came to Miao Mountain again, that she heard a little about the events of that year.

So she had encountered that thousand-year-old demon flood dragon? Its appearance was timely!

But it might also be that Su Qingxun’s blood had lured it out, since Su Qingxun had been soaking in the water at the time, and her blood had flowed into the river. This demon flood dragon’s strength was considerable. Having cultivated for over a thousand years, its power was comparable to human cultivators in the Nascent Soul stage. Its physical body was very strong, so in terms of combat power, it was even stronger than early Nascent Soul stage cultivators.

Back then, when those righteous cultivators came in large numbers and set up nets to kill it, it was sufficient proof that this flood dragon’s power was considerable.

For Su Zhuyi to kill it would take some effort, and she didn’t want to kill it immediately either. She would wait for it to cause some chaos in the surrounding area and harm quite a few people, then she would appear in Qin Jianglan’s guise to eliminate the demon. At that time, those common people would surely be extremely grateful to him and voluntarily pray and burn incense for him!

Thinking of this, as Su Zhuyi looked at the demon flood dragon, she found it more and more pleasing to the eye, and no longer minded that its appearance was untimely.

The demon flood dragon writhed and struggled in the air. After roaring twice, it flew into the sky and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Below, the Yuling Sect disciples were in a miserable state, with some dead and some wounded.

No one had any intention to capture Su Qingxun anymore. They buried the corpses of their fellow disciples on the spot. Su Zhuyi had originally wanted to go out and help, but these people would soon be dead in their previous life anyway, and their character wasn’t particularly good either. Even if she went out to help them, they wouldn’t necessarily burn incense for Qin Jianglan or spread his reputation…

She hesitated for just that brief moment, and those Yuling Sect cultivators hurriedly ran away. Su Zhuyi stood in place, feeling somewhat helpless.

All beginnings are difficult…

Why the hell was doing good deeds so damn hard?