I couldn’t find Xie Zhuo.

I searched in the Immortal City, in the forest enclosed by the Immortal City, and in the snow and wind outside the Immortal City. I even searched many places in the Northern Wilderness, but…

I couldn’t find Xie Zhuo.

I don’t know if one month passed, or two, or three.

Time seemed to stand still for me. Each day without eating or drinking, I only knew to keep walking, examining everyone I met, changing from looking for Xie Zhuo to seeking out anything in others that resembled him.

But I couldn’t find anyone who resembled Xie Zhuo in the slightest.

Only now do I understand how special Xie Zhuo was to me—so special that in countless worlds, I couldn’t find even a pair of eyebrows that resembled his.

Finally, I returned to that forest, the home of the Snow Wolf clan.

Time seemed frozen here too, perpetually in deep autumn, with orange-red fallen leaves painting the only color in my eyes.

I stayed in the forest for a long while, until… Xi Wang Mu came.

It had been so very long since I’d seen anyone from my past life.

Now, seeing Xi Wang Mu, I felt a familiar warmth, as if seeing family. After this brief moment of familiarity and closeness, I looked at Xi Wang Mu like the most helpless little immortal in Kunlun. I stepped forward, clutching the hem of her robe, and begged my deity:

“Please help me find Xie Zhuo.”

Hoarsely, softly, I pleaded, “I’ve lost him. Please help me find him.”

Xi Wang Mu sighed deeply and stroked my head. “Jiu Xia, come back to Kunlun.”

She said, “During his life, Xie Zhuo carried Kunlun’s mark. The scenes of his battles with evil spirits outside were transmitted back and preserved. Originally, I used them to study the evil miasma…”

I stared blankly at Xi Wang Mu.

Her expression was resigned and somewhat sorrowful: “This time, before his sacrifice, Kunlun’s mark also transmitted the scene back. Come and see.”

Finally, I…

Went back…

I never knew that behind Kunlun’s main hall, there was a hidden palace.

It was concealed within a spirit stone formation behind Xi Wang Mu’s main seat.

Xi Wang Mu led me inside. In the hidden palace, there was only a huge stone.

The stone had been split into a mirror-like flat surface. Xi Wang Mu guided me to stand before the stone mirror. She gently drew a formation on the mirror’s surface—the mark of Kunlun’s art.

Then, mist slowly rose from the stone mirror, swirling around me, finally condensing into the shapes of people and objects.

Through these mist-outlined figures, I finally saw Xie Zhuo again.

The stone mirror, through the mist, restored the scene from that day.

“The mark cannot bring back scenes from five hundred years ago, only the events after you returned,” Xi Wang Mu explained.

In the scene recreated by the mist, traces of the space-time rift still lingered in the air.

Xie Zhuo had laid me on the ground. At that time, the forest was still snow-white, with tree trunks like ice, leaves like snow, and the ground like a frozen lake of ice.

“I lay on that ice lake, with Xie Zhuo kneeling on one knee beside me.

On the ice lake beneath us was a formation.

From my current perspective, I could see what this formation was—a formation to draw out the evil miasma.

Earlier, when evil miasma had entered Xie Zhuo’s body, I couldn’t bear to see him suffer, so I drew the evil energy from his body into mine. That was why he began to take me on our journey to the Immortal City.

He had always said we were going to a place that could heal me, that there was a way to cure me.

I believed him and didn’t ask many questions.

Now I finally understood—there was no cure. He simply planned to draw the evil miasma from my body back into his.

But…

Why did it have to be in this place?

As if to answer my question,

Xie Zhuo activated the formation beneath us.

The formation began to rotate, and the evil miasma from “my” body started to drift toward Xie Zhuo.

However, this evil miasma did not transfer as simply as when I had drawn it before. It seemed very reluctant to leave “my” body.

Although it had already burst through my meridians and skin before, when it was being drawn into Xie Zhuo’s body, it was still so unwilling.

The formation Xie Zhuo had drawn beneath “me” was powerful, seemingly leaving no escape for the evil miasma.

It was gradually extracted from “my” body. However, as it left, the blood from “my” body was also drawn into Xie Zhuo along with the black evil miasma.

Was Xie Zhuo… draining all my blood?

Just as I realized this, I saw on the other side, at “my” other wrist, a stream of white energy flowing in.

This energy seemed to come from this pure land-like “ice lake.”

While Xie Zhuo drew out all the blood and evil miasma from “my” body, he let the energy from the ice lake fill every inch of the blood vessels in “my” body… as if he were…

Replacing my blood…

Seeing this, I looked down at my wrist.

There was no wound on my wrist’s skin; it even seemed more delicate than before.

“I’ve taken back the blood oath,” said Xie Zhuo as overwhelming evil miasma poured into his body. Yet he spoke as calmly as if nothing was happening, as casually as when he would say “the ground is cold” or “don’t drink alcohol.” “With me gone, the blood oath would be a burden to you.”

I stood beside Xie Zhuo.

Now, he was just a trace of the past outlined by mist, but as I looked at him, my eyes, dry until now, finally began to sting and ache.

“Someone once told me to cherish my own life, to love this mortal world. I never understood how to feel warmth, or why to love… I had never encountered passion, nor did I know what ‘liking’ looked like, so when you asked if I loved you, I didn’t know. I couldn’t judge.”

Black energy continuously poured into Xie Zhuo’s body. The surging evil miasma made his calm expression seem unnatural.

“But not long ago, when you drew this evil miasma into your body, when you fought with me for half a month…” he lowered his head slightly. “You don’t know, even if you were ten times stronger, you still couldn’t defeat me.”

Hearing him still argue this point so seriously now, I found it somewhat amusing.

Of course, I couldn’t defeat him. During our five hundred years of marriage, whenever I was upset and fought with Xie Zhuo, he always let me win.

“You became an evil spirit. I should have killed you. Even if it meant shedding your blood and violating the blood oath, I should have killed you. But I… finally understood then, I didn’t kill you, not because of the blood oath, but because I didn’t want to kill you, and even…”

As he spoke, he reached out and grasped “my” fingertips as I lay unconscious.

“Just thinking about it made me ache.”

“More painful than violating the blood oath.”

He took “my” hand and pressed it against his chest. He let my palm rest against his heart:

“But you are a cruel person. You couldn’t feel it at all.”

He looked at “me,” his eyes showing what seemed like grievance, with a hint of reproach. “You were the one who so firmly declared your affection, you were the one who so insistently wanted separation, cutting the red thread without even a moment’s hesitation…”

“I’m sorry…”

“It truly hurts…”

I covered my mouth, looking at him in the mist, hoarsely apologizing. Besides these words, my mind was completely blank.

“Perhaps, if you disappeared, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. That’s what I thought then. So I wanted to kill you, to destroy the blood oath. I struggled for so long…”

Xie Zhuo removed “my” hand from his heart, gently stroking the lines on my palm.

“Finally, I realized I was wrong.”

“How could I ever win against you?” He smiled bitterly, as if resigned. “The killing blade was always in your hand.”

“This, perhaps, is what they call joy and love.”

I stood before Xie Zhuo, tears streaming down my face, unable to force any words from my throat.

Amidst the overwhelming evil miasma, I saw longing in his eyes.

The scene before me felt absurdly extreme. Everything Xie Zhuo had done was to protect me, yet he never uttered a word about “love.”

And now, while performing what he called “severing our fate,” he spoke nothing but words of “fate.”

All the evil miasma and blood from “my” body had been drawn into Xie Zhuo’s body.

What now flowed in my blood vessels was the purest energy from this ice lake.

At that moment, Xie Zhuo himself completely severed our relationship, but in my soul, our bond could never be broken again.

Even through life and death, even through rebirth.

All the black evil miasma had been concealed within Xie Zhuo’s body.

He fell silent, no longer speaking about “us.” Without stopping, he raised his hand and pressed his five fingers onto the formation beneath me.

The formation’s light instantly scattered, seeming to illuminate all between heaven and earth.

Xie Zhuo had expanded the formation that absorbed the evil miasma!

Such a large formation! What did he intend!?

In my shock, I saw countless strands of evil miasma surging from the distance.

All the evil miasma poured into Xie Zhuo’s body.

Xie Zhuo’s expression became pained.

He knelt on one knee on the ground, but soon, as if unable to support himself, he sat on his knees, ten fingers pressed on the formation on the ground. Countless evil miasmas surged toward him from everywhere.

“Xie Zhuo…”

I reached out, wanting to pull him back, but as soon as I moved, the mist beneath me swirled and flew.

I couldn’t help him. This was a scene from the past, it was all in the past…

“It was on that day that all the evil miasma in the world disappeared,” Xi Wang Mu said softly behind me. “Xie Zhuo absorbed all the world’s evil miasma into his own body.”

I was stunned. “How? How is that possible? How could this be achieved?”

Xi Wang Mu looked at me: “When you returned to five hundred years ago, did something happen? Before this, we had been searching for a way to resolve the world’s evil miasma, but had no clues. This time, when Xie Zhuo returned, he seemed to have found a method. He must have comprehended something in the time-space you visited.”

I stared blankly at Xi Wang Mu, then looked at the mist before me.

I shook my head: “He didn’t tell me anything.”

“Well, now it seems…”

As Xi Wang Mu spoke, I saw the Xie Zhuo outlined by mist had turned completely black, his eyes showing no whites. He waved his hand, drawing a pure white blade from the formation.

Just like the image I had seen in my mind.

He thrust the blade into his own heart, then twisted it, chanting: “With my body I contain you, and with my body I bury you.”

“No…”

I knew what might happen next. I could no longer control myself. I lunged forward to embrace Xie Zhuo.

But Xie Zhuo, in my arms, turned to mist and scattered with a roar.

The surrounding mist also transformed with a thunderous sound, instantly changing its appearance. All the evil miasma disappeared.

Along with it, the ice and snow in the snow forest vanished. The tree trunks regained their color, and the leaves became what I saw when I woke up—heavy with autumn. The ice lake also turned into ordinary ground.

In my arms, there was nothing. Where was Xie Zhuo’s shadow?

At this moment, I finally realized, finally admitted, that Xie Zhuo…

Had truly left.

I would truly never see him again, never hold him again.

I knelt on the ground, no longer able to restrain myself, and wept bitter tears.

“Jiu Xia,” Xi Wang Mu’s voice carried compassion, “Xie Zhuo used his own life to send all the evil miasma in the world into the earth beneath his feet. He returned peace to the world. This tranquility was bought with his life. You should pull yourself together and continue to guard it in his place…”