My wariness of the world beyond Kunlun for hundreds of years afterward stemmed largely from failing to form a good impression during my first venture outside.

The evil spirit took me to its lair—a place our scouts had been sent to find but never located, a small valley two hundred miles from Kunlun.

Not a blade of grass grew in that valley, as the evil spirits dwelling there were so numerous that the air was nearly polluted enough to suffocate me.

When I was dizzy and bound, thrown to the ground, I wondered if my Kunlun commander token could transmit my location back to Kunlun. Then a hard claw pressed against my chin.

I looked up to see a face with eight eyes and a vertically elongated mouth, fangs protruding with a cold gleam—just the appearance alone made me gasp.

I had seen strange-looking creatures before, but never one this bizarre…

It appeared to be a spider demon turned evil spirit. Its fangs constantly ground against each other with a “crunch, crunch” sound that was extremely unpleasant to my ears. Liquid dripping from its vertical mouth formed thread-like silk when it hit the ground.

Its eight eyes kept rotating, each one staring at my face.

“So you’re the one Xie Zhuo married?”

A hoarse voice emerged from its mouth, with a strange intonation, as if the words didn’t come from its mouth.

“After so much effort, I’ve finally managed to bring you out to meet me.”

Puzzled, I asked directly: “Who are you? What connection do you have with Xie Zhuo? Why have you captured me?”

I asked, “What are you plotting outside of Kunlun?”

The spider demon didn’t answer me but let out a strange laugh, then turned its head to look around: “Come see, this is Xie Zhuo’s wife…”

A commanding sound came from the spider demon’s throat, “Remember her…”

The eerie aura of evil spirits surged around me. I turned to look around, and in the darkness, countless bloodshot eyes flickered, all fixed on me with a bloodthirsty glow.

My knowledge of my husband Xie Zhuo was pitifully lacking at that time. I truly had no idea where he had offended such a group of evil spirits, who appeared to harbor a deep blood feud against him. He had been in Kunlun for a hundred years, yet so many evil spirits still came seeking vengeance.

Even now, I still don’t know what connection he had with these evil spirits…

“Master, he’s here.”

A deep voice reported from the entrance of the hall.

I didn’t know who had arrived, but the next moment the spider demon raised its hand, and sticky silk adhered to my shoulders. The silk expanded, enveloping my entire body in an instant.

The silk covered my eyes and ears, wrapping me like a cicada. I felt as if I had plunged into the sea—my eyes were covered, my ears filled with buzzing, isolating me from the sound of the spider demon’s madly grinding fangs and all other sounds.

I was hung upside down from the ceiling of the hall.

Only then did I vaguely see that this was a sizeable stone hall with a half-open stone door at the entrance, revealing a small gap.

All the evil spirits’ attention was fixed on that gap. They seemed both vigilant and fearful, as the aura in the hall surged and rolled.

No one paid attention to me anymore, so I began to think of ways to escape from the silk cocoon.

My hands were bound behind me. Just as I tried to channel my internal energy to break free from the restraints, the silk that had initially stuck to my shoulders penetrated my skin like needles.

I felt a cold energy enter my body. My whole being shuddered, and I broke into a cold sweat as my heartbeat suddenly accelerated. When I opened my mouth, black blood gushed out.

Then I realized that when a poisonous spider hunts, it injects venom into its prey, wraps it in silk, and waits for the poison to dissolve all the prey’s internal organs before sucking out the juices…

I seemed to have become the spider demon’s prey…

My mind grew foggy as I tried to mobilize my internal energy to resist the poison.

At that moment, in the hall below, the stone door was blown away by a powerful force. The impact shook the silk wrapping me, causing my body to tremble.

Someone stepped through the door. My vision was blurry, and I couldn’t see his face. The commotion below was silent to my ears, and even the passage of time became uncertain in my mind.

It seemed that in the blink of an eye, all the evil spirits below had gone silent. When I opened my eyes, the intruder was gripping the spider demon’s head.

That terrifying eight-eyed head in his hand was crushed, skull and all, as if without effort.

The moment the spider demon lost its head, the silk binding me instantly loosened. As I slowly slid from the cocoon, I finally saw the intruder’s face…

Who else could it be but Xie Zhuo?

But the cold killing intent on his face was something I had never seen before. He was like a demon from hell, his murderous aura filling the entire hall, with fresh blood at his feet.

Counting back, this was the first time I had seen Xie Zhuo kill without restraint.

His methods were cruel, efficient, unhesitating, clearly tempered through countless battles.

I opened my mouth, wanting to call his name, but as if sensing my thoughts, he looked up at me.

In that instant, all his killing intent vanished, as did his cruelty and efficiency, replaced by alarm and concern.

The last bit of silk holding me snapped, and I fell from the ceiling. Xie Zhuo caught me, immediately noticing something was wrong as black blood continued to flow from my mouth.

“Jiu Xia.” He called my name, even seeming somewhat helpless.

“Poison…”

I uttered one word, and he immediately understood, quickly finding the puncture wound on my shoulder.

He placed his hand on my wound: “Bear with me…”

Xie Zhuo’s energy entered my body through the wound. Unlike the coldness I felt when poisoned, as his energy flowed through me, I felt my numbed limbs gradually regain sensation.

He helped me expel the poison from my body bit by bit. I didn’t feel much pain, but seeing his expression as he examined me—eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together—he seemed to be in unbearable agony.

I wanted to comfort him, but at that moment, the headless spider demon behind Xie Zhuo suddenly stood up.

I widened my eyes in terror.

“Xie Zhuo!”

He didn’t move at all, allowing the spider demon’s blade to pierce through his back into his chest, protruding from the front.

The blade stopped before my eyes, covered in fresh blood.

Yet the energy expelling poison from my body didn’t stop until the last bit of venom was forced out.

How could he not have sensed such a big movement from the spider demon? He simply chose to ignore it.

Only then did Xie Zhuo breathe a sigh of relief, his face pale as he coughed once.

The spider demon withdrew its blade from Xie Zhuo’s body.

“Xie Zhuo, you’re truly interesting.” Though headless, the spider demon’s voice came from its chest, taunting him. “You’ve found yourself a weakness.”

Watching Xie Zhuo’s blood drip, my heart tightened in pain and anger. I turned to face the spider demon, raised my hand, and despite the lingering pain in my body, recited an incantation.

Thunder rumbled in the sky above, following the direction of my finger with a lightning strike.

The spider demon’s corpse received the lightning punishment, instantly turning to dust. Yet beneath the flying ashes, its voice still lingered like a ghost.

“This is just the beginning.”

I waved my hand to disperse the ashes and embraced Xie Zhuo.

His face was pale, yet he showed no sign of pain.

I knew the spider demon’s strike carried the power of evil spirits. This force would infiltrate his internal energy and continuously tear at it for days. Many immortals and demons had taken their own lives, unable to endure the pain of their internal energy being torn apart after being wounded by evil spirits.

“Go back,” Xie Zhuo said. “This place is not good for you.”

Again, “not good for you.”

By then, I had been married to Xie Zhuo for a hundred years and had heard this phrase many times. I had developed the habit of dismissing his words, but this time I didn’t.

I lifted him: “Let’s go back together. I’ll take you back to Kunlun for treatment.”

“Don’t worry about me, Jiu Xia.”

I turned to look at him, and he was looking at me too, speaking gently: “There’s no danger now, smile a little.”

I certainly couldn’t smile: “When your wounds heal, I’ll smile at you every day.”

He nodded: “Good…”

Later, of course, I broke my promise. I didn’t smile at him every day. In the four hundred years of our marriage that followed, forget smiling daily—I shouted at him, cursed him, even struck him. By the end, I even caused Mount Buzhou to shift a few degrees…

During this time, I was resisting his many unreasonable demands.

But the reason we still had those four hundred years was because, although Xie Zhuo deceived me and kept things from me, he had also risked his life to save me.

However, in the end, even sharing life and death could not withstand the erosion of mundane time. Day after day, all passion was eventually consumed.

Outside the cave, through the Yin-Yang fish, after telling Xiaxia about this “past” she had not yet experienced, she was silent for a long time before asking me.

“So, Xie Zhuo was already overwhelmingly powerful then, destroying all the evil spirits in the valley, yet you didn’t realize his strength and still frequently fought with him in the following centuries?” She was blunt: “Did I have a death wish?”

I pursed my lips: “When we left the stone hall, Xi Wang Mu had also arrived.”

That day, as I carried Xie Zhuo out of the hall, sunlight spilled through the broken stone door, but what reflected in my eyes was a sea of blood among stone mountains…

All the evil spirits in the valley had turned into pools of blood, sticky and flowing everywhere.

Each step I took splashed the blood.

I was briefly shocked by Xie Zhuo’s power, but after a few steps, I saw a faintly glowing figure descending from the sky. It was Xi Wang Mu, the chief deity of Kunlun.

I immediately carried Xie Zhuo toward her.

Afterward, Xi Wang Mu took us back to Kunlun, healed Xie Zhuo’s wounds, and granted me a half-year leave—not because I was injured, but because… the evil spirit troubles plaguing Kunlun were gone.

“I naturally assumed that the destruction of the evil spirits in the valley was done jointly by Xie Zhuo and Xi Wang Mu. With Xi Wang Mu present, such a display of power seemed normal.”

Xiaxia pondered for a moment: “So, the wound on Xie Zhuo’s chest was from the spider demon when he was saving you. Being stabbed from back to front—that’s no small force.

But I saw other old wounds on his body that were even more terrible. Those injuries would surely take months to heal. Living with him day and night, did you not know anything?”

I thought through my memories for a moment, then let out a long sigh.

“What makes you think we lived together day and night?”

“Weren’t you married…” Xiaxia paused, “Never mind. Five hundred years without even sleeping together—what’s there not to understand?”

I was speechless…

Xie Zhuo’s disappearances during our marriage had become almost routine—gone for months, even half a year at a time.

Back then, I was annoyed with him, but now, having seen the wounds on his body, I probably know what he was doing…

Thinking about it now, there’s even more evidence to support this. For instance, after the spider demon incident, Xie Zhuo was bedridden for three months. Those three months were perhaps the best period in our married life.

He recovered under my care, then immediately disappeared.

He didn’t return for nearly half a year, and by then my affection had turned into rage.

I lost my temper—who could tolerate someone just leaving when things were going well?

And as usual, he didn’t tell me where he had gone.

After that…

After that, our relationship rapidly deteriorated…

But from that time on, there were no more evil spirit disturbances outside Kunlun. In the following four hundred years, Kunlun became like an otherworldly paradise for the cultivation world, even opening the East Market, allowing minor demons and various immortals to enter and make a living.

“So…” Xiaxia asked me, “Did Xie Zhuo resolve all the evil spirits outside Kunlun?”

“I don’t know,” I said frankly. “He never told me anything.”

“But if he was eliminating evil spirits, why not tell you? Isn’t that a good thing?”

I turned to look inside the cave where Xie Zhuo was still sleeping. I had protected his vital energy channels; he should be fine.

I lowered my eyes.

“If we had spoken openly, would we have ended up like this?”

After all, I had truly loved Xie Zhuo.