“First, a question.”

Inside the bamboo hut, all the furniture was made of snow bamboo. Xie Zhuo and I sat facing each other at a bamboo table.

Across the table, the flickering light from the snow bamboo oil lamp cast shadows on our faces. I seriously asked him: “Now, exactly what time is it five hundred years ago?”

“May 18th,” Xie Zhuo answered coldly.

I counted on my fingers, calculating in my mind.

Xie Zhuo and I had met on February 12th, five hundred years ago. Today, being May 18th, meant it was the third month after our meeting. At this time, Xie Zhuo should have been…

“Back then, weren’t you…” I suddenly turned to look at the snow bamboo forest outside, where it had started snowing again, and remembered, “Weren’t you recovering from injuries somewhere in this bamboo forest?”

Xie Zhuo neither confirmed nor denied, drinking a sip of melted snow water from his bamboo cup.

Looking at Xie Zhuo’s face in the firelight, which had hardly changed in five hundred years, the memories of the past that had been sealed away by daily trivialities slowly reopened.

My first encounter with Xie Zhuo was in mid-February at Kunlun Xu.

This month, some regions outside Kunlun had already begun to warm up, but Kunlun was still wrapped in heavy snow.

This snow bamboo forest was deep in Kunlun’s interior—desolate, secluded, with thin spiritual energy. Normally, the cultivating immortals of Kunlun would hardly ever come here. Yet I particularly loved the quietness here and… the snow bamboo shoots.

February was precisely when the snow shoots sprouted. All one had to do was dig through the snow, extract the jade-white shoots, take them back to briefly blanch in boiling water, let them cool, then mix them with spices and chili that Meng Meng grew herself. That taste… crisp, tender, fresh, and spicy—so delicious you could swallow your tongue…

I came looking for bamboo shoots every year, but that year, unexpectedly, I found a blood-covered Xie Zhuo in this snow bamboo forest.

At that time, I hadn’t undergone the heavenly tribulation for ascension to become a high immortal; I was just an ordinary immortal with unremarkable immortal techniques. And Xie Zhuo, this demon…

Although he was severely injured and barely breathing then, the murderous aura emanating from his body still made me shudder.

I turned to run, but Xie Zhuo directly grabbed my hand. I was so panicked that my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Almost instinctively, I drew the immortal sword from my sleeve, turning to fight Xie Zhuo to the death.

But at the moment I turned, I saw a silver light brush past my ear, directly grazing Xie Zhuo’s cheek, and pinning into the snow bamboo he was leaning against. It pierced through the bamboo and directly burrowed into the snowy ground, to an unknown depth, instantly melting the white snow in that area.

Had he not pulled me, I might have been pierced through the chest by this silver light…

He… this demon saved me? Realizing this, in that lightning moment, I withdrew the immortal weapon back into my sleeve.

All these actions happened in the blink of an eye. By the time I fully reacted, I could no longer steady my body. I fell headlong into Xie Zhuo’s embrace.

His embrace was damp, bloody, full of danger yet strangely alluring.

I froze in his arms. As a female immortal born and raised in Kunlun, I had never been in a man’s embrace like this before…

Xie Zhuo made no further movement.

The wind and snow howled. I waited for a while and finally stirred in his arms. Looking up, I saw that Xie Zhuo had tilted his head and fallen unconscious.

I stood up from his embrace, my immortal robe already stained with his blood, too dirty to look at.

I examined him, then looked back in the direction from which the killing move had come. I thought at the time that this mysterious demon, beaten so badly, with pursuers willing to follow him to Kunlun to deliver a blow, must have gotten himself into some big trouble…

Perhaps I shouldn’t have meddled in this affair. I could have just carried the unconscious demon and handed him over to Xi Wang Mu, letting the senior immortals interrogate him.

But looking at his hand and the marks left on my wrist where he had pulled me, I hesitated for a long time before finally hoisting him up.

However, instead of taking him to Xi Wang Mu, I brought him to a cave I had dug in the snow bamboo forest for collecting bamboo shoots.

The cave was simple, but after lighting a fire, it was better than leaving him outside in the cold.

I took care of him, originally planning to send him away from Kunlun after he woke up. After all, how could a place of immortals allow a demon to stay here indefinitely?

But Xie Zhuo slept for half a month, and by the time he woke up, it was almost March. Still, I couldn’t send him away because… his legs were crippled, and he appeared unable to use any techniques.

With no choice, I cared for him for over two more months. For nearly three months in total, Xie Zhuo stayed in this cave in the snow bamboo forest!

No wonder after descending from Kunlun, he headed straight to this place without looking back. It wasn’t to accompany me, who temporarily couldn’t ride the wind, but because he had found his target!

“I can’t quite remember the location of the cave after so long. Do you remember?” I asked Xie Zhuo.

Xie Zhuo unhurriedly took another sip of water.

I looked at him anxiously: “If you remember, we can start taking action tomorrow.”

He raised his eyes to look at me. I rubbed my chin, having already worked out a plan: “It’s like this—I remember during the time you were recovering in the snow bamboo forest, I would come to see you every day. It’s been three months since we met, and if I remember correctly, I had already started to develop some slight feelings for you by then. I’m not sure what you were thinking, but I understand myself. Let me go tomorrow!”

Xie Zhuo crossed his arms, wearing a contemptuous expression as if waiting to see what other useless nonsense I would spout.

I didn’t take offense at his disrespect and went straight to the point: “I believe I was a practical person back then. Tomorrow I’ll go directly to find myself…”

When Xie Zhuo heard these words, he raised an eyebrow with a subtle expression.

Unable to interpret his microexpression, I continued with my plan: “Then I’ll directly reveal my identity, tell her the outcome of our marriage, and persuade her to stop interacting with you from then on. This way, if we can sever our marriage bond, wouldn’t it be convenient, quick, simple, and easy!”

Xie Zhuo stared at me, remained silent for a while, and finally said: “Fine.” He looked at me, “You go…”

If you say I go, then I go.

With the arrangement settled, I didn’t bother talking more with Xie Zhuo and directly went to the small room he had prepared for me.

He wasn’t that bad after all; he hadn’t tortured me with the accommodations.

Before sleeping, I looked at the night view of the snow bamboo forest outside the window, thinking smugly about how clever I was. How easily I could solve this problem.

Early the next morning, I got up excitedly. After a night’s rest, my body, which had been torn through time and space, finally didn’t feel so weak. Although I still couldn’t use many techniques, at least walking and running were no problem.

I had Xie Zhuo draw me a rough map of where my cave had been back then, and I set off full of confidence.

I thought, who could understand me better than I? Who could persuade me better than I?

I…

I…

I hadn’t even reached the cave when I came back clutching my chest.

Pain, real fucking pain. The closer I got to the cave where Xie Zhuo was staying, the more my chest hurt.

This pain was somewhat different from yesterday’s spacetime-tearing pain. My heart rate increased, my face turned pale, my limbs weakened, and the closer I went, the more insubstantial I felt, as if… I was about to disappear.

Mission failed before it began. I retreated directly to the small hut in the snow bamboo forest and drank several cups of warm water before I finally recovered.

I looked at Xie Zhuo with a pale face: “Why am I like this?”

He sat composedly in the room and uttered four words: “Kings cannot meet kings.”

“Speak plainly…”

“In one time and space, in one place, there cannot be two of you.”

I was stunned, staring blankly at Xie Zhuo: “What happens if there are?”

“One will disappear.”

“Who will disappear?”

“The weaker one.”

I looked at my current condition and understood. My body, having been torn through time, couldn’t even cast spells, so of course I wasn’t as strong as my lively past self. Therefore, if I and my past self appeared in the same place, I would disappear.

I patted my chest: “Fortunately, I sensed something was wrong and came back early…”

I consoled myself, “Then wait, wait until I adapt to this timeline before trying to persuade my past self…”

As I spoke, I suddenly realized something was amiss.

My current body was weaker; I couldn’t meet my past self, or I would disappear.

But I could also feel my body slowly adapting to this place. Eventually, I would adapt completely to how I was before.

I would become a high immortal, and my past self would become weaker than me. If I met my past self then, my past self would disappear…

But!

If my past self disappeared, where would my current self come from?

I realized this was a dead end either way—whether I disappeared or my past self disappeared!

I looked at Xie Zhuo in shock.

“You didn’t stop me?” I was dumbfounded. “You just let me go like that?” My emotions were too complex to express. After the initial shock subsided, that legendary fury of a long-married wife erupted within me.

I slammed the table as I stood up, reached across it, and grabbed Xie Zhuo’s collar, pulling him forward.

His chest bumped against the bamboo table, making it clatter loudly.

I confronted him: “Do you want to kill me?”

Yet Xie Zhuo remained completely calm, returning my gaze with the deadpan stare of a long-married husband impervious to any threat.

He even tugged at the corner of his mouth. Slowly enunciating each word he wanted to say:

“You want to help, then help. You want to go, then go.”

The implication—

You… die if you want to.

Looking at his face, I hated him so much my teeth clenched, a thousand words in my heart condensing into one phrase…

Xie Zhuo, you are something!