I gasped sharply. The cold air rushed into my chest, instantly waking me. I suddenly opened my eyes.
Looking as far as I could see, there was a bright moon and scattered stars in the night sky. Not a cloud for thousands of miles, and two or three shooting stars crossed the sky.
This peaceful tranquility made my previous chaos and pain seem like a dream.
It must have been a dream, I reassured myself. How could Xie Zhuo, a demon, touch the Pangu Fu? And how could he say he wanted to kill me? One day, as husband and wife means a hundred days of affection, and we had been together for five hundred years. A mere divorce shouldn’t lead to threats of violence…
Before my thoughts could fully settle, I turned my head and saw the black-clad figure sitting beside me.
Xie Zhuo, my ex-husband, exuded coldness, his eyes concealing murderous intent. He was casually playing with a broken axe in his hand. He resembled those terrifying killers from the legends beyond Kunlun.
I gasped in fear, immediately springing up, my bottom scraping along the ground as I retreated three meters before warily watching him.
His expression unchanged, he examined me for a long while, then slightly lowered his head, half-murmuring: “I thought you had just died like that.”
What did he mean?
Was he worried that I had been unconscious too long, or disappointed that I hadn’t died thoroughly?
I dared not ask. After our divorce, Xie Zhuo’s temperament had become truly incomprehensible to me.
Before, though his disposition was cold, his words few, and his rules many, I could at least sense his emotions—whether he was happy, sad, dissatisfied, about to lose his temper, or just being moody. I could always detect it easily.
But now…
He seemed to have completely closed the already narrow door of communication between himself and the outside world, barred it, nailed it shut, and secured it with a thousand locks…
I couldn’t see through him or guess his thoughts.
Just like… when I first met him.
He didn’t speak further with me, just dusted off his clothes and stood up.
I also stood up, filled with doubt. But in that instant of movement, my head suddenly felt dizzy. My limbs were so weak that it was as if they had no bones. I lost my balance and sat back down. Xie Zhuo glanced at me but didn’t help.
In the past, whether I fell during practice or was just sitting on the ground playing, whenever Xie Zhuo saw me, he would walk to my side, silently extend his hand, and wait for me to obediently place my hand in his palm. After pulling me up, he would admonish me: “The ground is cold…”
Now, being divorced, there was nothing to feel sentimental about or complain about.
I pursed my lips, allowing myself to remain seated on the ground.
“Where have you brought me?” I looked around, feeling a sense of familiarity yet strangeness.
“Kunlun’s peak,” he answered.
I became more confused. Weren’t we already at Kunlun’s peak? What happened to the black hole? His barrier? And all those immortals who were intent on confronting him for taking the Pangu Fu?
I looked at him in bewilderment. He met my gaze, remained silent for a long time, and finally explained: “Five hundred years ago.”
What part of Kunlun was this five hundred years ago?
As I pondered, my mind suddenly made a connection. I realized, “Five hundred years ago!?”
I looked at him in shock, then my gaze stiffly moved downward inch by inch, finally resting on the nearly ruined axe in his hand.
I finally noticed the patterns on the axe. These were the very patterns that Kunlun Xu immortals were required to study, memorize, and draw from childhood in school—the patterns belonging to the mountain-stabilizing divine weapon, the Pangu Fu…
“You… you used the Pangu Fu to cleave open… could it be…”
The corner of his mouth finally curled into a slight arc—contemptuous, disdainful, and mocking: “Yes, time itself.”
I fell silent, and panic set in.
I thought that in these five hundred years, I might truly have married loneliness, which was why I knew nothing about my ex-husband’s power.
Xie Zhuo…
What kind of demon was he exactly!?
“How… how could you hold the Pangu Fu? And use a divine weapon with a demon’s body? And cleave through time and space… and even bring me back with you…”
My voice grew increasingly quieter as I spoke. Each of these feats, layered upon the next, was thousands or hundreds of times more difficult than the last…
Yet Xie Zhuo seemed to have accomplished them all as if they were mere play.
My mind was numbed with shock, while Xie Zhuo, with indifferent eyes, turned the Pangu Fu, which instantly transformed into a beam of light and disappeared into his sleeve.
Look how effortless it was!
He chose to answer only the most insignificant of my questions: “I didn’t intend to bring you here.”
“What exactly are you trying to do…”
Xie Zhuo turned his back and walked to the edge of Kunlun’s peak. Below his feet lay countless miles of cloud sea and a ten-thousand-foot cliff.
“Fu Jiuxia.” He calmly called my name, but the determination in his voice was stronger than I had ever heard before. “Your marriage bond, you cut it. As for my marriage bond…” He turned his head slightly. “I will break it myself.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he took a step forward, and his body fell directly from Kunlun’s peak.
“Xie Zhuo!” I pushed my weakened body, crawling and stumbling, to the edge of the cliff.
Was this guy so distraught that he came five hundred years into the past to jump off a cliff?
But just as I reached the cliff’s edge, a howling wind rushed past. Xie Zhuo’s demonic energy, wrapped in the night breeze, swept through the sea of clouds below Kunlun’s peak. His silhouette carved a clear boundary in the clouds, like the Milky Way in the sky—beautiful yet distant.
I must have been foolish just now. A demon who could use the Pangu Fu to cleave through time and space to return five hundred years—how could he die from jumping off a cliff…
At this moment, watching that gradually fading light, I recalled his last words and finally understood Xie Zhuo’s purpose—
He came to change history.
He wanted to prevent the past me from meeting and falling in love with the past him.
He wanted to sever our marriage bond at its source.
To prevent our future divorce, he simply went back to the past to ensure we never married…
“This demon…” I couldn’t help but sigh, “his approach to problems is truly refreshingly unconventional…”
Such skill and such courage, daring to imagine and act!
But… something seemed off. I pondered for a moment, pinching my chin…
“Wait!” I came to my senses. “No! You need to return the Pangu Fu!”
Xie Zhuo had brought the Pangu Fu from five hundred years in the future to the present. This meant that in the timeline five hundred years later, Kunlun’s peak had lost the Pangu Fu.
Without the Pangu Fu’s protection, Kunlun Xu’s barrier would be difficult to maintain. From then on, the demonic miasma outside Kunlun Xu would seep in through every crack, corrupting this rare and peaceful utopia.
Countless minor immortals like Meng Meng, who tended flowers and plants in Kunlun, would find it extremely difficult to survive.
Xie Zhuo could break our marriage bond if he wished—that was our business, and he could handle it however he wanted. But no matter how we resolved our issues, we couldn’t let it affect others’ lives.
That was my bottom line.
“Xie Zhuo!” I shouted into the vast sea of clouds, naturally unable to call him back.
Watching his figure about to disappear into the boundless heavens, anxiety filled my heart. Ignoring my still weakened limbs, I immediately formed a wind-riding immortal seal to pursue him.
But just as I stepped off the cliff like he had, my body plummeted through the cloud layers like a stone dropped in water, falling straight toward the cliff below with a series of thuds.
Damn it! Though we both had bodies torn through time and space, why could Xie Zhuo adapt so well while I became as helpless as if crippled!?
Looking down, I saw the last layer of clouds break open, revealing Kunlun’s perennially snow-covered mountainside below. The mountain was strewn with jagged rocks, some washed by wind and snow until they resembled stone blades.
Landing directly on that would surely break several bones, even for my immortal body.
I steadied my mind, bit my finger, hoping to use the power of blood to attempt a successful spell, but I was falling too fast, with no distance left to form the hand seals.
The snow-covered ground’s white expanse was just within reach. Just as I was about to collide hard with it, suddenly, a slanting wind, like silk ribbons, instantly wrapped around me. After spinning me twice in the air, it gently placed me on the snowy ground.
I took a couple of breaths and looked up at the sky.
Xie Zhuo, in his black clothes, was floating in the air. The sea of clouds above his head blocked the moonlight, making his expression seem somewhat gloomy, as if saving me was something he was extremely reluctant to do.
But he saved me nonetheless.
When judging people, you shouldn’t listen to what they say, but watch what they do.
He had said he wanted to kill me earlier, ha, men and their contradictory words and actions.
We had been husband and wife for five hundred years! Is this something where you can kill or abandon me whenever you please? Even if feelings are gone, obligations remain.
Xie Zhuo’s rescue gave me some confidence.
He hadn’t completely lost his mind…
“Xie Zhuo, let’s talk.” My body wasn’t in good condition, and I couldn’t walk, so I simply sat cross-legged on the snowy ground. “Come down first.”
He descended and stood before me, but his expression was colder than before.
“If you want to die…” he spoke coldly, “don’t let yourself bleed.”
This statement came out of nowhere, making no sense. If I were about to die, how could I control whether I bled or not?
I guessed this demon was trying to save face. After all, just a moment ago, he had so resolutely declared he would sever our marriage bond and departed so coolly, only to turn back and save me. Anyone would feel a bit embarrassed.
I selectively ignored his words and decided to start my topic.
“I know that the divorce was… a bit sudden for you, and… not very pleasant. Our marriage didn’t end well, and I regret that too…
But you can’t just take the Pangu Fu privately because of this, disregarding the safety of all Kunlun’s immortals. Let’s bring the Pangu Fu back five hundred years later. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit damaged; Xi Wang Mu can repair divine weapons…”
“Right now,” he interrupted me, “what right do you have to ask me for anything?”
I believe in this world, only a husband can so skillfully step on his wife’s sensitive spots with just one sentence.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. I can’t beat him, can’t beat him, just talk it through properly!
But despite warning myself, my first words were still: “I’m not asking you for anything!”
I rubbed my forehead, pushing down the bulging veins, trying to make my tone appear calm and composed. “I’m reasoning with you. Our relationship is falling apart and our divorce is are matter between us…”
Xie Zhuo couldn’t be bothered to engage with me and simply turned to leave.
“Xie Zhuo!”
Who can wake someone pretending to sleep? Who can call back someone pretending to be deaf? Seeing that he was determined to ignore me, anger welled up inside me, but circumstances forced my hand. I could only shout to stop him: “Will you only return after destroying our marriage bond?”
If I remembered correctly, before coming here, Xie Zhuo had said that when he returned, he would kill me.
We could discuss the killing later, but he had said “when he returned.” This meant he originally planned to go back five hundred years, once he had finished his business here.
“I’ll help you!”
As soon as those three words left my mouth, Xie Zhuo indeed paused.
He turned his head to look at me.
Supporting myself on my still weakened legs, I stood up, holding onto a nearby rock for support. At that moment, the night clouds parted, and moonlight spilled between us, creating a vast expanse of whiteness. The white light reflected in his pitch-black eyes, adding to his cold aura.
To keep him from leaving, and to achieve my own goal, I called out loudly once more: “Since it didn’t end well anyway, I’ll help you break our marriage bond!”
The wind of Kunlun blew from behind him, brushing past him to reach my ears, carrying snow particles that stung my cheeks like needle pricks.
Enduring the pain, I continued: “Once it’s done, we’ll return quickly and restore the Pangu Fu.”
He looked at me, just staring straight at me, without any other movement.
Just when I was wondering if he had been frozen stiff by the cold, I heard him slightly part his lips, speaking in a rough, hoarse voice.
“Fine…”
“Fu Jiuxia, you are truly something.”