Xie Zhuo led me into the city.

Inside the city was like outside, completely shrouded in fog, utterly silent.

The streets were lined with dilapidated houses and broken roads. Their mere existence seemed to serve only as evidence that people had once lived normal lives here, but now…

I surveyed my surroundings, my heart unsettled. After a long while, I finally looked at Xie Zhuo.

Had Xie Zhuo grown up in a place like this?

If so, then his wariness of others at Kunlun, not letting me go to Cuihu Terrace or other chaotic places, seemed to have an explanation—he didn’t trust people.

Because he didn’t know who might be a malevolent spirit, he couldn’t trust anyone.

Understanding this connection, I suddenly understood much about his controlling behavior during our five-hundred-year marriage.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” I asked Xie Zhuo. “If you had told me that malevolent spirits are difficult to identify…” My voice trailed off as I looked at the desolation around us.

I understood now what Xie Zhuo had meant when he said it was “for my good.”

If I had known that anyone in the world could potentially be a malevolent spirit, then playing with Meng Meng alone, training with the defense troops, and many moments in daily life would have taken on a different flavor.

I would have been guarded, suspicious, and mistrustful. Living each day in anxiety.

“Not knowing is what makes you happy…” Xie Zhuo had once said this, and now it appeared in my mind.

So that’s what he meant.

If I had known, it would have been my disaster. If everyone at Kunlun knew, it would be a disaster for everyone at Kunlun. If everyone in the world knew, it would be a disaster for everyone in the world. All cities would become like the Undying City, and all people would become like the people in this city.

“How was this kept secret?” I asked Xie Zhuo. “Why does no one in the world know about the Undying City?”

“The Undying City lets people in but not out. All cultivators who enter either become malevolent spirits or fight against them until death.”

My jaw tightened. It seemed like such a simple statement, but it was built on countless bones.

“The head gods of each mountain know about it.”

“Xi Wang Mu knows?”

Xie Zhuo’s silence was confirmation…

I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

Xie Zhuo continued walking with me on his back, saying, “Qin Shuyan also knows. They are the last line of defense the Undying City has placed outside.”

“What do you mean?”

“The malevolent spirits in the Undying City are not only difficult to identify, but also far stronger than those outside. The Undying City prevents malevolent spirits from escaping. Qin Shuyan and others are like the extended arms of the Undying City, sending cultivators who accidentally learn the truth into the Undying City. They also relay outside news to the snow barrier boundary outside the Undying City.”

Suppressing information…

Ruthless, yet unavoidable.

“They?” I caught a detail in Xie Zhuo’s words.

“Throughout the Eight Wildernesses, at every place of cultivation, there are places like Cuihu Terrace. Mixed with all kinds of people, with well-connected information.”

So, a net controlled by the head gods of each mountain, woven by countless people like Lao Qin, was spread across the Eight Wildernesses.

It locked in the malevolent spirits in the Undying City, and also locked away the existence of the Undying City itself, letting people throughout the world live in a dreamlike drunken stupor on the edge of a knife.

So Xie Zhuo had kept secrets from me because the rules of this world required him to, not a word to be leaked, for my good, to prevent me from being sent to the Undying City, and to prevent me from living in constant anxiety.

So Xie Zhuo was willing to trust Lao Qin, because they both knew the truth about the world, with nothing to hide.

“And what about you?” I asked Xie Zhuo. “What role do you play in all this?”

The Undying City let people in but not out, yet Xie Zhuo had been outside before and now could bring me in.

He knew the truth, yet Xi Wang Mu and Qin Shuyan allowed it.

Before, I had thought that Xi Wang Mu was moved by my feelings for Xie Zhuo, so she allowed us to marry. Now it seemed Xi Wang Mu had merely made an exception for Xie Zhuo.

Why could he exist outside the world order woven by the head gods?

His relationship with malevolent spirits seemed stranger than anyone else’s in the world.

“I am…” Xie Zhuo thought for a long time. As he walked through the fog, I studied his profile. I could tell he wasn’t deliberately stalling, nor was he unwilling to answer my question. He was just thinking, as if…

As if he didn’t even know what his place in this world truly was.

Only after a long silence did the corner of his mouth turn up slightly.

“I am an error that needs to be corrected.”

I didn’t understand…

Xie Zhuo turned his head and glanced at me. His throat moved slightly, as if holding back countless words.

His avoidance of answers was familiar to me, but at this moment, it felt somewhat strange. An indescribable feeling lingered in my heart, reminiscent of that day when he told me he would save me, not because of the blood oath.

Xie Zhuo had been acting somewhat strange and unfamiliar these past few days.

Ahead in the fog, an orange light suddenly appeared in the sky, like a flame being lit.

As that flame ignited, flames on both sides gradually lit up as well. The flames resembled beacon fires, one by one burning up, forming a slightly curved line in midair.

Only then did I see that under the orange flames stood another hundred-zhang-high city wall, still very far from where we were.

“There’s another city wall ahead?”

“Yes.” Xie Zhuo collected his emotions from moments before and said, “The Undying City is not quite a city. It’s more like a closed, giant ring city.”

A ring city?

I looked back at the enormous hundred-zhang-high wall behind us. The wall indeed had a slight curve, winding away and disappearing into the fog. “The one behind us is the outer wall, and the one ahead with the never-extinguishing fires is the inner wall. The inner and outer walls connect at their ends, forming a ring city.”

“If the inner and outer walls are both over a hundred zhang tall, and if they’re just to imprison malevolent spirits, there would be no need to build an inner wall,” I puzzled. “Unless… there’s something else inside the inner wall?”

A ring-shaped city—if the inner wall was one line of defense, then the outer wall would be the second. And that transparent, towering, formless barrier we had walked through earlier would be the third line of defense. With such layers of containment, such thorough precautions, what exactly were they guarding against?

Xie Zhuo looked at me. Today, his willingness to answer my questions surprised me:

“Fifty li inside the inner wall, at the center, is my Snow Wolf clan’s homeland, Mirror Forest.”

The Undying City enclosed Xie Zhuo’s homeland?

“What’s in your homeland?”

“Countless malevolent spirits. And a frozen lake that can remove your malevolent energy. That lake is our destination for this journey.”

“A place with countless malevolent spirits has a frozen lake that can remove malevolent energy?” I found it fascinating. “How did this lake form? If it can remove malevolent energy, couldn’t those infected spirits simply walk onto the lake and be cured?”

“If they walk onto that lake, they’ll be reduced to ashes.”

I fell silent for a moment. “So you’re planning to take me to that lake? What makes you think I won’t be reduced to ashes?”

“You have me.”

Those two overly confident words ended our conversation.

I closed my mouth and noticed that Xie Zhuo had stopped moving forward and had turned into a small alley.

“Aren’t we continuing our journey?”

“The Undying City is shrouded in fog, making it difficult to distinguish day from night. Only the never-extinguishing fires mark the passage of time. When the fires brighten, it’s night. Time to rest.”

“Rest?”

Xie Zhuo’s words were truly abrupt. How could I rest now? Suddenly seeing this unheard-of Undying City had shocked me to my core. How could Xie Zhuo expect me to rest at a time like this? I’d be surprised if I could sleep at all.

“I don’t need to rest. We can continue.”

Giving me no room to refuse, Xie Zhuo had already carried me to the innermost part of a small alley.

He untied the rope around his waist and set me on the ground. He knelt on one knee before me, looking at me. In the alley, three sides were extremely hard stone walls, and Xie Zhuo blocked the only exit.

He faced me directly, his expression serious.

Infected by his serious demeanor and influenced by our surroundings, I became even more tense. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

I lowered my voice. “Is someone following us? Did you deliberately say we needed to rest? Are you trying to draw them out?”

The corner of Xie Zhuo’s mouth twitched. “No.”

After his denial, he remained silent for a moment, then suddenly raised his hand and pressed it on my shoulder. “Don’t move…”

I dared not move. I felt Xie Zhuo must have something extremely important to do, so I obediently froze like a block of wood.

Then I saw Xie Zhuo’s head move closer, and he… bit me on the neck.

“Mmm!?”

Wasn’t this a bit inappropriate for the situation?

This place…

I stared wide-eyed, looking sideways at the head at my neck, too stunned to push him away. “Xie Zhuo,” I asked blankly, “what are you doing?”

He didn’t rush to answer me, but stayed at my neck for a moment, until the fog before us had rolled by three times. Only then did he rise. When he moved away, the skin on my neck pulled slightly with him…

He had truly bitten down hard!

He straightened up, and I looked at him inquiringly, only to see a flash of black energy at the corner of his mouth—

Malevolent energy…

Was he helping me draw out the malevolent energy?

“I was about to say…” I unconsciously muttered, “I didn’t think you’d suddenly have those kinds of feelings for me…”

After I said this, I realized it was… somewhat inappropriate.

Somehow, I even seemed a bit… disappointed.

Xie Zhuo, who was wiping the malevolent energy from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, heard this and froze slightly.

He looked up at me.

After a moment of eye contact…

I was the first to become embarrassed. I shifted my gaze, trying to explain: “I mean, we’ve divorced, so doing this is a bit inappropriate. I mean, even when we were married for five hundred years, we rarely did things like this…”

I sounded even more disappointed as I continued…

I closed my mouth.

Xie Zhuo looked at me for a while, then spoke with complete seriousness: “The malevolent energy is reluctant to leave your body. Direct skin contact is necessary for the transfer.”

“Oh…”

The air grew quiet. Just as I was trying to find a topic to discuss something more substantial, Xie Zhuo continued: “We did this often during those five hundred years.”

“Hm?” I didn’t immediately understand. “What?”

Xie Zhuo looked at me. “After you drank alcohol in Kunlun or went to complicated places, your body would absorb slight malevolent energy. I would find time to help you transfer it.”

He paused, then added, “I never told you.”

I opened and closed my mouth, looking at him, wanting to say something but unable to form words.

Being rendered speechless was probably how Xie Zhuo usually felt.

“Is that why you wouldn’t let me drink or wander off to play?” I asked after a long pause. “What about spicy food? Does that make me absorb malevolent energy, too?”

“Spicy food causes restlessness, which indeed isn’t good for your cultivation.” He paused. “Also, too much makes your stomach hurt.”

Snow shoots with spicy sauce were delicious enough to make one’s mouth water, but eating too much did cause stomach pain.

I understood why he didn’t tell me normally—there were too many secrets to keep. Explain one thing, and another needs explaining, until eventually everything circles back to the malevolent energy that cannot be fully explained.

It was simpler for him to say nothing and keep everything hidden.

And so he became the mute in our marriage.

I took a moment, then asked him: “So now you’re telling me that you frequently bit my neck. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“To reach the frozen lake in Mirror Forest, we’ll need to spend several nights on the road. Every night, malevolent energy increases compared to daytime. To prevent you from being controlled by malevolent energy again, I’ll help you transfer it.”

He spoke calmly. “Next time, don’t be surprised. This has been done many times before.”

I remained silent…

“Just neck biting? Are there any other things you’ve done to me many times that I don’t know about?” Seeing how cooperative Xie Zhuo had been these past two days, I decided to dig for more information.

Xie Zhuo stared at me. After a moment, he looked away. “No…”

He was evading! He was lying!

Seeing his averted gaze and turned face, I knew that pursuing this matter further would yield no results.

So I cleared my throat and changed the subject: “I transferred the malevolent energy from your body to mine, and now you’re transferring it back. With all this back-and-forth, won’t you be in trouble again before I’m even cured?”

Xie Zhuo looked back at me. “Only when severely injured would that happen.”

After speaking, the corner of his mouth twitched. “Don’t worry.”

“I… I’m not worried about you,” I also turned away. “I just don’t want you to run into trouble before you get me to the place to remove the malevolent energy.”

“That won’t happen.” Xie Zhuo turned his back on me, standing in front of me. “Even if something happens, I can still save you.”

My heart stirred as I looked at Xie Zhuo’s back, truly feeling that he seemed to have become… somewhat different.

While I was still puzzling over this, suddenly I saw a flash of silver light in Xie Zhuo’s hand. A sword radiating cold light appeared in his palm.

I had rarely seen Xie Zhuo use a sword. This one was piercingly cold, with a blade like solid ice, very much like Xie Zhuo himself. I was still wondering why he had drawn his sword when I suddenly heard rustling sounds from the front of the alley, like a snake flicking its tongue, like snake scales sliding across the ground.

A wisp of black energy drifted past from the foggy street ahead.

I covered my nose and mouth, holding my breath.

A malevolent spirit…

In the fog, at the entrance to the alley, a dark shadow slowly stretched out. From the shadow alone, it was impossible to tell who was approaching, until a little girl hopped like she was playing hopscotch and landed at the alley entrance.

Only then did I see that the shadow’s owner was a thin little girl with two ponytails, just like the girl next door, adorable—until she turned her head.

“Hee hee…”

She smiled widely, her mouth splitting to her ears.

“Found you…”

Xie Zhuo was lying! What do you mean malevolent spirits in the Undying City are hard to identify! Who the fuck couldn’t tell she was a malevolent spirit? I’ll do a handstand and eat shit right now!