I was anxious.

Although Xiaxia had temporarily blocked the people outside with a barrier reinforced with blood essence, Xie Xuanqing inside the cave still hadn’t awakened. Things had already deviated from my memories, and I wasn’t certain when Xie Xuanqing would wake up. If it took ten or fifteen days for him to regain consciousness, the daily application of heart-meridian blood to the barrier would drain Xiaxia completely.

Moreover, even if Xie Xuanqing did wake up, would he still fall in love with Xiaxia in such a situation, trapped inside a barrier? Would he instead consider her a thief and “swoosh” kill her with one strike?

While I was pondering what might happen next, I saw Xie Zhuo across from me slightly tilt his head and speak into the square on his ear:

“Qin Shuyan, let that fox demon leave. You stay.” He instructed Lao Qin, “When her heart-meridian power weakens and she can no longer maintain the barrier, enter immediately and take her away.”

That damn dog.

I gritted my teeth in hatred.

But immediately, I heard Qin Shuyan’s response in my ear—Xiaxia hadn’t closed the yin-yang fish, and her barrier didn’t block sound.

So, although she was now guarding Xie Xuanqing’s side, she could still hear Lao Qin’s voice from outside the ice cave.

Lao Qin sounded somewhat unwilling: “How am I to know when her heart-meridian power will weaken? If it takes ten or fifteen days… am I to abandon my Cui Lake Pavilion business?”

This was a money-loving old fox who had previously taken my finest spirit stones.

I immediately curled my lips into a smile, thinking that no matter what wolf or fox demons they were, they couldn’t overcome the power of money. This alliance wasn’t as solid as the one between Xiaxia and me.

I knew that Xie Zhuo might have abilities, power, and secrets, but he didn’t have money.

We were both immortals and demons of several hundred years, long past the stage of needing food and necessities. Usually, I saved spirit stones for my hobbies—buying some snacks, playing with trinkets—and the symbolic salary of spirit stones from the Kunlun Military Office was more than sufficient for me.

As for Xie Zhuo, he didn’t spend money.

He neither ate nor had hobbies; keeping him at home was simpler than growing moss—you didn’t even need to water him.

Except he was too controlling…

I was certain that a Xie Zhuo who didn’t even know how to spend money couldn’t retain a greedy fox. My toes had just started happily wiggling when Xie Zhuo spoke from across me:

“Three hundred li north of Kunlun, there is a spirit stone mine. Help me, and I’ll tell you its exact location afterward.”

Hearing this, I was stunned for a moment, while Lao Qin promptly answered: “Wow, that’s generous! For that, I’ll wait until she can’t hold on anymore, even if it kills me.”

I jumped up from the ground in anger.

“Xie Zhuo! You’ve been hiding money from me?!”

A spirit stone mine!

A mine?!

He knew about it and never told me?!

Although there were many things he never told me…

But that was a spirit stone mine!

For practitioners, besides self-cultivation, one could extract celestial energy from spirit stones, integrate it into oneself, nourish the soul, and transform it into soul power within one’s body.

Normally, a few spirit stones might not have much effect on cultivation, but a spirit stone mine was different. Once mined, the stones could be used not only as currency but also for cultivation, doubling one’s efficiency.

If one found premium spirit stones, they could be crafted into magical tools and talismans—things every practitioner in the world dreamed of!

Having a spirit stone mine was essentially like owning a gold mine, a magical tool mine, plus an inexhaustible source of spiritual power.

Xie Zhuo had been my husband for five hundred years, always keeping this from me, but today, to deal with me, he told Qin Shuyan about it?!

I didn’t even want to kick stones at him anymore; I just wanted to jump on his face and stomp him to death.

And I did jump over, though I couldn’t reach his face, so I landed between his legs. Xie Zhuo frowned, looking up at me from below.

“What are you—”

I bent my knees and pressed my whole body onto his abdomen. He grunted but didn’t speak.

I felt his abdomen was like an iron plate, hurting my knees.

With my hands tied behind me, I couldn’t free them. I pressed against him, glaring at him, and he coldly looked back at me… but didn’t push me away.

He raised his hand, only to tap three times on the square on his ear, cutting off the view from Qin Shuyan’s side.

I stared at Xie Zhuo, my anger difficult to suppress: “I think we shouldn’t wait until we return five hundred years later. Let’s die together today!”

I shouted, directly smashing my head into Xie Zhuo.

Xie Zhuo frowned and instinctively tilted his head to avoid me.

But I couldn’t stop my momentum. As he dodged, my head went straight for the stone wall behind him…

But the expected pain didn’t come. My forehead hit a palm instead. This palm wasn’t soft; it had calluses, but it was better than hitting the stone directly.

I pulled my head back. Xie Zhuo’s palm was still cushioning the stone wall, and he slowly lowered his hand.

The back of his hand had been scraped by the stone due to the force of my impact, but his expression remained cold, as if he felt nothing.

“I’ve told you, Fu Jiuxia, if you seek death…” Xie Zhuo’s dark pupils fixed on me, his voice colder than winter snow and wind, “Don’t let me see it.”

I laughed coldly: “Seek death? I merely suggested a divorce to someone who doesn’t love me, and that person went mad, trying every way to kill me. I’m just desperately trying to survive! How am I seeking death?”

Sitting on Xie Zhuo’s stomach, I looked straight into his eyes and cursed him, “What about you? When I came here, you first had me go directly to see Xiaxia. If I hadn’t reacted quickly and withdrawn in time, the grass on my grave would be two meters high by now. Then you used me, wanting to break our predestined relationship and dissolve the blood oath. If I hadn’t pulled back at the last moment, you probably would have taken me back five hundred years and cut me into pieces!

Now! To make Lao Qin take Xiaxia away, ah, you’re willing to reveal the location of a spirit stone mine! Five hundred years, for five hundred years you never mentioned it to me, selfishly enjoying it all that time…”

Xie Zhuo frowned and finally interrupted me: “I didn’t tell you, nor did I use it myself.”

“Is that the point?” I asked him, “Isn’t the person who is racking their brains, exhausting every effort, using all resources to kill me, you? Xie Zhuo.”

He pursed his lips, his expression still like unyielding ice: “Fu Jiuxia, you were the one who proposed the divorce.”

“Yes, I proposed it!”

Just like that, so easily, my anger that had slightly subsided was reignited by his single sentence.

“So what?! Is that your reason for wanting to kill me?”

His lips moved, wanting to speak.

I immediately stopped him: “Shut up! Don’t say anything! You’re just going to say that when the red string was cut, you felt pain, right? Let me tell you, Xie Zhuo! No matter how much pain you felt, you have no right to kill me!

Even if you died from the pain! You still have no right to kill me! Because in these five hundred years of marriage, I never did anything to wrong you! I already tried my best to maintain this relationship! Why did I propose a divorce…”

With these words, I couldn’t help but become emotional.

Years of restraint and accumulation. I had always thought that towards Xie Zhuo, I had no expectations, didn’t care, was indifferent, but when these words came out…

I still felt my pitiful state.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” I lowered my head, my voice quieting, “You hide everything from me—your background, your past, your wounds…” I laughed self-mockingly, “And even this spirit stone mine…”

“But now, to achieve your goal, you’ve told Lao Qin everything.”

I looked at Xie Zhuo as if looking at a fog that, despite the passage of so much time, remained impenetrable.

“It’s not that you can’t speak; you just don’t want to speak to me.” I asked him, “A married couple… what exactly made us end up like this?”

I lowered my eyes, clearly seeing his blood-stained clothes and the wounds left by evil spirits beneath his collar.

“Xie Zhuo.” I heard my calm voice echoing in the cave where our fate began, “I’m tired, I’ve come to terms with it, and finally don’t want to investigate anymore. Why must you entangle us both until mutual destruction?”

I raised my eyes to look at him, trying to find answers in his abyss-like pupils.

“If you don’t know love, do you also not know what it means to let go?”

He looked at me, his black pupils full of me.

A me that was exhausted and powerless after hysteria.

He seemed to be clenching his teeth, seemed to be suppressing his emotions, seemed sorrowful, and also seemed distressed.

He said: “I don’t know.”

Four words, frightfully obstinate.

Like a trapped beast in the abyss, clutching at the last thread of hope. It clenched its teeth, gasping for breath, clearly dying, clearly with hands already torn by the thread called hope.

“I won’t let go.”

His stubbornness, I didn’t understand.

Why, after five hundred years, he appeared so calm, cold as solid ice, but after just cutting a string and saying “divorce,” he became like this.

But as I just said.

I was tired, had come to terms with it, and didn’t want to investigate anymore.

I just wanted to pry open his fingertips, pull out the thread stuck to me, and leave his side.

“Then let’s continue. Mutual destruction. Xie Zhuo, this is the path you’ve chosen.”

I made my threat, and he silently accepted it.

“Um… that…” In my ear, through the yin-yang fish, came Xiaxia’s somewhat hesitant and awkward voice, “Although I don’t quite understand the feelings between you two as a couple, and I’m reluctant to interrupt the communication between you, bitter enemies, there seems to be something more important here…”

I turned my head slightly to the side, and the scene from Xiaxia’s perspective became clear again in my consciousness.

“Xie Xuanqing… seems about to wake up…”

Xie Xuanqing, leaning against the stone wall, had slightly heavier breathing, and his eyelashes were trembling lightly.

“Don’t let your guard down, don’t let him act as the villain to kill you…” After I finished speaking, I immediately thought of something important: “Quickly remove the yin-yang fish and place it far away. Don’t let Xie Xuanqing see it. It was made by Xie Zhuo and has his spell on it.”

“Oh! Okay!” Xiaxia immediately walked toward the ice cave entrance.

“Remember to have the barrier block the sound and light from outside. Don’t let Xie Xuanqing discover the old fox outside.”

“Alright.” Xiaxia walked to the cave entrance and quickly completed the tasks I had instructed. The sounds and light from outside the ice cave were blocked. She lit a small flame in her hand, illuminating her surroundings, and spoke, “Finally, I have only one question… how can I avoid being seen as a villain by him?”

I fell silent, looking at Xie Zhuo in front of me.

Xie Zhuo, through my words, roughly understood the situation over there and had emerged from the emotional state of arguing with me. He frowned without speaking.

I solemnly told Xiaxia, “Trust in fate, hope that he falls in love with you at first sight.”

“He won’t,” Xie Zhuo interjected.

I glanced at Xie Zhuo but ignored him.

“Xiaxia, it’s up to you.”

“Okay, for the sake of being alive five hundred years later, I’ll try my best.”

The image was cut off; Xiaxia must have removed the yin-yang fish.

My world quieted down. I glanced at Xie Zhuo before me.

My knees were still pressing on his abdomen, our posture close, but our hearts far apart.

I didn’t want to hit him anymore. Xie Xuanqing had awakened; my fate was now in another’s hands. I just needed to wait here for Xiaxia to send me the results.

I twisted my body, trying to stand up and retreat to the opposite stone wall, but unexpectedly, just as I struggled to my feet, Xie Zhuo raised his hand and pulled me. With a “thud,” my knees fell back onto his abdomen.

Hard as iron, not soft at all…

“What are you doing?” I coldly looked at him.

This time, he didn’t even grunt, silently raised his hand, and his fingertips brushed through my hair, touching the yin-yang fish on my earlobe. I was stunned, tilting my head to dodge, but it was too late. Xie Zhuo, with lightning speed, removed my yin-yang fish!

“Xie Zhuo!” I shouted angrily, “What are you doing?”

“Disarming you,” he said, holding my yin-yang fish in his hand.

“Give it back to me!” I struggled, trying to nudge it with my mouth, wanting to snatch back my yin-yang fish with my mouth, but he held his hand above his head. As I lunged, I lost my balance and fell completely into his arms.

I was so angry!

Looking up at him, I could only see his strong jawline. I wanted nothing more than to bite his chin forcefully.

“You. Are. Despicable!”

I watched his movements as he hid the yin-yang fish in his left sleeve.

I struggled a couple more times, and after failing to break free, I was directly pulled off him by his right hand.

Xie Zhuo closed his eyes and began to regulate his breathing.

Seeing this, I struggled against the ropes binding me. These were spell ropes left by Lao Qin; they suppressed my magic, making it impossible for me to break free. I could only lean against the stone wall and also begin regulating my breathing.

I just hoped that before Xie Zhuo could wield the Pangu Fu, I would first recover my strength, escape the ropes, and flee for my life…