This unexpected scene was beyond everyone’s expectations.

Qiu Zhao’s triumphant smile, which had just formed a moment ago, gradually stiffened and cracked with the changes to that half dragon’s breath, finally snapping shut like a suddenly closed fan. His face was terrifyingly pale under the violent lightning.

His breathing became rapid. He instinctively looked toward Qiu Tong, his voice strained: “Imperial Brother, what is—what happened?”

Qiu Tong didn’t know either.

His dark eyes rarely showed a bewildered look of being caught completely off guard. It wasn’t until he saw that crack on the dragon’s breath that his heart suddenly tightened, pupils contracting. He abruptly looked toward the court magician standing beside him, his voice filled with barely restrained fury: “What happened?”

Elder Zhang and Elder Sun from the Law Enforcement Hall exchanged glances and stepped forward almost simultaneously. They closed their eyes to sense the vitality hidden within that dragon’s breath. When they opened their eyes, they felt bitter. One of them bowed deeply to Qiu Tong and said: “Your Majesty, when the dragon’s breath absorbs blood energy, it’s most defenseless. Xuanji struck and extracted a strand of life essence from within the dragon’s breath—”

“Tell me the result directly.” Qiu Tong took a deep breath, his chest heaving violently twice. He looked at the kneeling person and spoke word by word: “What happened to the dragon’s breath?”

“The dragon’s breath is probably temporarily useless.” Both elders bowed their heads submissively and promised: “We ministers will do our utmost to seek remedial measures.”

Hearing this, even someone with Qiu Tong’s resilient nature couldn’t help but clench his fist tightly, veins bulging on the back of his hand.

Over a decade of painstaking effort, just when he was about to see the light of dawn, he encountered such a devastating blow.

Remedial measures—for something so rare and precious, even encountering it was already asking too much. What remedial measures could there be?

Even if there were, how many more decades did he have to waste?

Xuanji.

Qiu Tong turned the jade thumb ring on his finger again and again, thinking that today he truly understood what it meant to hunt geese all year, only to be pecked in the eye by a gosling.

What was even more absurd was that, facing such a major crisis and failure, he didn’t even understand the reason or know which link had gone wrong.

Without giving them time to recover, Bai Su soon hurried up the high platform holding his whisk, breathing heavily. His tone urgent, he looked toward Qiu Tong and said in a low voice: “Your Majesty, people from the Sacred Land have come to search the residence.”

“What about the prefect’s guards?”

Qiu Tong’s thin, bamboo-joint-like fingers touched the crack on the dragon’s breath’s surface. Even though, as a mortal, he couldn’t sense the earth-shattering storm occurring within the pearl, he still caressed it carefully and thoroughly, not daring to use too much force.

The moment his fingertip contacted that dragon’s breath, images flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern.

For this dragon’s breath, he had been cautious and methodical, spending great costs and resources to construct teleportation arrays connecting to the imperial city in distant places like Junzhou, Luozhou, and Suzhou. Besides this, he had nurtured ghost infants, poured flowing streams of heavenly materials and earthly treasures into the Heavenly Mechanism Diagram that was always one step away from developing spiritual intelligence. He had even been forced to build his mausoleum to deceive Xue Yu.

And the result?

All efforts wasted, a complete loss.

Absurdly laughable.

Bai Su’s lips were so dry they were peeling. He spoke rapidly: “Your Majesty, the prefect’s guards can barely hold on. The number of people who came far exceeds our estimates, and each one is extraordinarily skilled. They’re about to breach the two barrier formations and find their way here.”

“What did you say?” Qiu Tong finally looked up, as if he hadn’t heard clearly, asking word by word: “Where did they get so many people?”

Facing those eyes that were gloomy enough to bring knife winds and sword rain, Bai Su’s shoulders trembled. He held his breath and dared not make another sound.

“Too much deception.” Qiu Zhao spoke angrily, his hair almost standing on end. He took a sharp breath, grabbed the sword from a guard beside him, and was about to charge down the platform, gritting his teeth: “I’ll fight them to the death.”

Qiu Tong looked up indifferently, glanced at the dragon’s breath in the jade box, swept his eyes over everyone’s miserable expressions on the platform, and finally fixed his gaze on the overly impulsive Qiu Zhao.

Obviously, without him, both the court and the human race would scatter like sand.

Just before Qiu Zhao could charge out in anger, Qiu Tong drew a jewel-encrusted sword and threw it forcefully at the wooden boards of the platform. The sword tip, driven by force, penetrated three inches into wood, the blade trembling as it stood pinned one step in front of Qiu Zhao.

“Have you made enough of a scene?” Qiu Tong met Qiu Zhao’s eyes. Due to his surging blood, he covered his lips and coughed softly several times. His voice was so light it was bone-chilling: “If you’ve made enough of a scene, get over here.”

Qiu Zhao opened his mouth to speak, but seeing his expression, he reluctantly swallowed his words back down.

“Bai Su.” Qiu Tong turned his head deeply to look at Luozhou’s dark sky. His breathing hadn’t yet calmed, but the commands he issued recovered their composure one by one: “Take the dragon’s breath, activate the teleportation array, return to the imperial palace.”

“Imperial Brother!” Qiu Zhao’s eyes were full of grief. He felt a surge of anger rampaging in his chest, frustrated to the extreme: “Are we just letting this go?”

“Tell me, what else can we do?” Qiu Tong suddenly looked at him mockingly: “Use that broken sword in your hand to fight the Sacred Land inheritor to the death?”

“Believe it or not, if you’re discovered by them today, tomorrow the one sitting in the Golden Throne Hall won’t be someone from the Qiu imperial bloodline.”

Qiu Tong stood with hands behind his back, storms raging in his eyes. Whether he was consoling Qiu Zhao or himself was unclear: “If we can’t cultivate immortality, does that mean we can’t live anymore?”

He closed his eyes and almost became that strategically minded, invulnerable Human Emperor again. His voice was steady and light, brooking no argument: “Return to the palace.”

Inside the real Feitian scroll, there was another world with hidden mysteries.

After entering the painting, the raging wind and rain stopped. Influenced by the Feitian Diagram’s true form, the entire painted space became a blazing sea of fire. Tongues of fire shot up half a person’s height, licking at rolling hot flames like magma, condensing into whip-like shadows that danced wildly like dragons and snakes, lashing out mercilessly one after another.

Before those whip shadows could reach them, they were scattered by crisscrossing sword energy, pressed down like willows, and the surging heat waves diminished by more than half.

A pair of jade feet landed ten steps before them, lightly stepping into the sea of fire. As soon as Xuanji appeared, the entire turbulent space seemed to welcome its backbone—wind and rain rose again, flames grew larger.

Xuanji’s delicate goose-yellow dress had completely changed appearance. Bells hung in a semicircle around her slender waist, her eye corners drawn long and straight. If before she wore no makeup, now she was carefully adorned with elaborate details that brought out the complete aspect of an enchanting demoness.

Xuanji tilted her head slightly in the sea of fire and pointed down with one finger. Where her finger fell, the sea of fire erupted, forming a huge flaming vortex that surrounded the two of them like a devouring sky and earth.

“No reasoning with her. The Feitian Diagram’s true form has suffered irreparable damage, and she’s completely lost her sanity.” Xue Yu frowned at the opening through which they had entered, thinking of the countless citizens of Luozhou City affected by the Feitian Diagram. She decided immediately: “Capture her alive.”

Su You nodded in understanding. The sword intent in his hand suddenly changed, layering exquisite angles and force within sharp sword flowers.

Speaking of which, this was the first time Xue Yu truly witnessed his strength.

He approached with leisurely confidence, each sword falling in unexpected places, the sword momentum rising higher and stronger.

Seeing the ninth sword bloom diagonally, Xue Yu’s eyes flickered slightly. Even though it was inappropriate timing, she still sighed and lowered her hand. The countless snow threads that had brightened between her ten straight, slender fingers dimmed accordingly.

She no longer needed to act.

Victory and defeat were clear.

This person was truly formidable.

Su You stepped into the sea of fire step by step. The entire scroll space was like a restless giant mouth, greedily wanting to devour blood energy in great gulps, but it was bound together by some adhesive force. With more will than strength, it trembled urgently and irritably, churning like an earthquake.

Xuanji was finally trapped within a sword formation spanning mere inches.

Even with a thousand years of foundation, her birth was the result of Qiu Tong’s forced cultivation. In ten years, her techniques relied entirely on her haphazard exploration. Even with vast demonic power as support, facing truly devastating killing moves, she inevitably reached the point of being unable to continue, stretched to her limits.

But this battle ended much faster than Xue Yu had imagined.

She stood before Xuanji, meeting those eyes that had grown dim due to fading vitality, frowning slightly: “Xuanji.”

Xuanji’s eyeballs suddenly moved, sometimes sharp, sometimes hazy. After half an hour, she slowly blinked once.

The demonic flames on her body began to fade layer by layer.

“When fighting with this minister in the latter half, she suddenly withdrew her strength, hiding most of her power within her body.” Su You watched this scene, silently sheathed his sword, and added in a clear voice.

Xue Yu understood. She looked at Xuanji’s delicate, fresh face and spoke with pursed lips: “Qiu Tong burned the Feitian Diagram.”

With the true form destroyed, the diagram spirit would certainly die.

Xuanji looked at her, her fingertip suddenly condensing a small, thin piece of cloth. The cloth seemed to be carefully cut from an ancient painting, with very neat edges, depicting a lake-blue butterfly.

Xue Yu looked at that piece of cloth. After a moment of speechlessness, her eyes showed a trace of light amusement: “Still kept a backup plan—not stupid.”

For spiritual objects like Feitian Diagrams or calligraphy paintings, their life was related to their main body. But unlike other spirits, they could transform into any complete living being in the painting—a blade of grass, a tree, or even a butterfly.

Like that moon fox that had appeared and disappeared brazenly before Xue Yu—it too was part of the painting.

In the current situation, Xuanji had preemptively cut away a minuscule part of her true form. Apart from a sudden decrease in spiritual power and a long period of weakness, she had managed to escape through a crack, leaving herself a way out.

Xuanji’s gaze almost stuck on Xue Yu’s face.

She was so beautiful, and her voice was so pleasant, like jade, both cold and gentle.

In comparison, all of Qiu Tong’s forced tenderness lost its color.

Xuanji’s change of heart came quickly and forcefully, and she soon frowned with dissatisfaction, remembering the destruction of her true form.

Qiu Tong had promised her that even in death, he would let her exit like a blooming, brilliant flower, ensuring that until the moment she closed her eyes, she would be beautiful and dazzling like a celestial being.

He made her lose control, then deceived her.

Xuanji reached out somewhat coldly, forming a mixture of real and fake blood energy from the blood flowing from her wounds, wrapping it with the remaining power in her body, and sending it down.

Indeed, it encountered no obstacles along the way.

The dragon’s breath was active and happy. Qiu Tong seemed quite satisfied with a smile of certain victory at the corner of his mouth. So Xuanji struck and extracted a strand of the dragon’s breath’s essence.

With a snap, the dragon’s breath cracked open.

Now Xuanji was satisfied too.

After doing this, the demonic energy in Xuanji’s body receded like a tide.

Soon, her waist went soft, her clothes lost the support of frame and flesh, leaving only an empty shell. From that magnificent costume, a slender lake-blue butterfly gracefully spread its wings, landing directly on Xue Yu’s hair and lying still.

Xue Yu was slightly stunned. She reached up to touch the butterfly at her temple—no bigger than a fingertip, shimmering with spiritual light—sensing its weak, dimming aura: “About to fall into slumber.”

As if understanding her words, the spirit butterfly moved its wings. The spiritual power of the entire space gathered at an unimaginable speed, then transformed into two streams of light that entered Xue Yu and Su You’s foreheads one after the other.

Light swirled, mist exploded in clouds, and a thick layer of fog parted before Xue Yu.

This was the human world from over two hundred years ago.

In the scorching sun of June, heat waves rolled through the air. By the lakeside road, cicadas called incessantly from drooping willow branches, creating long, continuous echoes.

In a small town, because two small sects had been built on the mountain beyond, the area had some vitality with over a dozen households. Though it couldn’t compare to the prosperous life of large cities, the neighbors got along harmoniously, creating a plain but pleasant atmosphere.

One day, two people who seemed to have traveled a long distance stopped by a mountain stream. One impatiently wiped his face, and because of the hot weather, couldn’t help revealing the horns on his head. He looked at the ghostly woman holding a half-grown child with extreme dissatisfaction: “I told you to abandon him. I thought he had such pure bloodlines, but what’s the result? Half-demon, half-ghost. Look at our situation—can we still care about him?”

“So annoying. In June weather, one completely useless, one who can’t even see sunlight—when will this hiding and dodging end?”

The woman hesitantly raised her head, revealing large areas of ghost markings on her face. She frowned at the child in her arms, who didn’t cry or fuss, just stared with round eyes, her heart softening: “But we already agreed.”

She paused, looking around with seeming concern, lowering her voice to mumble: “After all, we agreed… he’s our child.”

“He’s not even half a year old.”

The male demon waved his hand with disgust, shouting: “Don’t curse me—could I produce such a mongrel?!”

The female ghost trembled from his shouting, but the next moment, when the man met the unwavering gaze of the child in her arms, he suddenly flew into a rage. Whether from shame or something else, he snatched the child and carelessly threw him into the grass by the stream, pulling the female ghost away.

After a while, the female ghost ran back. With a reluctant expression, she dabbed some water on the snow-skinned, black-haired child’s lips, cast a barely-there small spell, and stuffed a brocade cloth-like object into his tiny clothes, saying heartlessly: “Don’t blame us—we have no choice either.”

Before long, a couple who had come to gather firewood and wash clothes together discovered the boy.

They hesitated, not daring to approach, because the boy was surrounded by a faint halo of light that wasn’t pure, deathly, and evil.

At first glance, they knew he wasn’t a human child.

Perhaps women are naturally softer-hearted. Seeing him cry until his voice was hoarse, she gathered courage to look closer. One look made her heart tremble.

“This child has such a handsome appearance.” The woman with a matron’s hair bun and gentle expression tugged at her husband’s sleeve: “So pitiful. In this world, probably only those things could do such a deed.”

“Let’s go, let’s go, don’t look anymore. We can’t touch this child.” The man cautiously looked around, no longer bothering with firewood, determined to take his wife home.

“Eh.”

The woman kept looking back. Hearing the child’s crying behind her, she couldn’t help turning around, lifting her skirt to approach again. Tentatively, she placed a finger near the child. The next moment, the baby carved like pink jade reached out to hold her finger.

That moment of tenderness made the woman take him home.

Calling it home, it was just two small thatched rooms. The house was shabby but kept tidy. The woman fed the sleeping child two bowls of rice soup.

Days passed, and the child’s presence couldn’t be hidden from neighbors. Other children changed day by day, quickly growing up, getting taller, starting to study and learn, but only the boy remained unchanged year after year.

He was an incompatible freak.

The boy got his name at age seven.

He was called Su You—this was a name the couple had happily chosen when thinking of having a daughter. They didn’t know what it meant, just heard someone mention it casually and decided on this name.

Before this, he had been called a monster.

As rumors and gossip drifted into their home like snowflakes, the couple’s daughter also suffered ostracism from playmates around her. Usually returning home crying loudly, she would speak harshly to him, telling him to get out of the house in the dead of winter.

The couple’s attitude toward him changed from indifference to disgust, beating and scolding him at will, saying anything when unhappy.

The boy’s features grew more refined day by day, his personality more withdrawn day by day. Only when pulled into the yard by the neighboring widowed Aunt Su would his eyes show a bit of warmth.

The aunt was forthright by nature. Having lost two children herself, she treated all the town’s children as her own. Even Su You, who was seen as a heretic, would bring out two plates of soft-fried scallion pancakes from her house to tear and give him.

Everyone called him a demon ghost, rarely even using Su You. Only Aunt Su called him Su You Nineteen.

“Don’t listen to those people’s nonsense. Those two characters, Su You have meaning. When your parents brought you home, you had a handkerchief on you. I saw it clearly—the front of that handkerchief was embroidered with Su You, followed by the number nineteen.”

“Your parents initially didn’t dare give you this name, afraid it was unlucky. Later, they thought, having raised you for so many years, what would it look like to have no name? Only then did they tell you your real name.”

The aunt told Su You that people should know gratitude, should know good from evil, shame from honor. She often spoke well of the couple, earnestly saying that though not biological parents, they treated him better than biological ones. In such times, their ability to raise him required enormous courage and was truly not easy.

All of Su You’s early understanding of propriety and righteousness, his naive longing and yearning for this world, came entirely from that small house next door.

Days stumbled along roughly for thirteen years, until Su You encountered the most painful, unbearable turning point of his life.

The couple’s daughter, pampered since childhood, participated in mountain sect trials and was noticed by an elder who took her as a disciple.

She righteously learned to eliminate demons.

Outside demons were fierce and dangerous—fighting them often meant injury and bloodshed. But Su You at home wouldn’t fight back.

He never struck back when hit, never retorted when cursed, his face more delicate than a girl’s, constantly gloomy.

He didn’t complain, or rather, he had no one to complain to—no one would take his side.

No matter how well he restrained his claws and fangs, disguised his appearance, wanting love and warmth was futile. Countless people would still maliciously curse in his ear, saying he was naturally base, deserving of death, a vile thing.

Day after day, year after year, these curses intensified without cease.

The girl took pleasure in this, using everything from her sect meant for dealing with demons and ghosts on Su You—demon-subduing staffs, soul-capturing bells, demon-catching nets—an endless variety.

Su You’s old wounds hadn’t healed before new ones appeared.

The couple seemed oblivious, neighbors watched coldly, and children clapped with glee.

On a snowy winter day, Xuan Su poured a bottle of pungent-smelling liquid over his head through a window. The medicine truly hurt—his hands and arms began to fester, emitting violent white steam, soon revealing stark white bone.

He curled up in pain, crouching at the threshold, prostrate and unable to enter the door. Inside, the family of three heartlessly turned off the lights.

Su You stood in heavy snow all night, looking at the house’s outline in the snow. At dawn, he bit by bit personally extinguished those naive, unrealistic hopes in his heart.

He never entered that house again, resolutely going to the city instead.

An immature demon ghost mixing in a chaotic city, needing both survival and strength—this was destined to be no simple path.

Su You met all kinds of people, suffered countless hardships, and finally gradually gained some reputation, no longer having to worry daily about losing his life.

A hundred years later, another winter came.

Su You and Xuan Su met on a narrow path. By then, she had become the senior sister of the small sect, just one step away from being the master’s first disciple.

He wore a great cloak, eyelids drooping listlessly, surrounded by two or three well-dressed, fawning lackeys. By comparison, he truly seemed like someone who had stepped out of a painting, his entire being radiating indescribable noble bearing.

Their eyes met, and Xuan Su was startled back two steps by that captivating presence.

The following spring, Su You received the first letter from that small town, signed by Xuan Su.

“How curious.” He held the letter between his fingertips, smiling lazily and carelessly. After glancing at it without interest, he tossed it to a subordinate beside him, saying impatiently: “Read it.”

The subordinate solemnly cleared his throat, observing his unpredictable expression while stammering through the letter.

After hearing it, Su You sat alone for a long time.

The letter was written by Xuan Su. Unprecedented, she called him “Elder Brother.” The latter half was in the tone of Xuan Father and Xuan Mother—these years, relying on spiritual treasures and pills Xuan Su brought back, they had extended their lives by over a hundred years. But mortals were ultimately mortals. Having lasted until now, their bodies were failing, and they might pass away at any time.

They wanted to see Su You.

They called him a child.

Not monster, not naturally born evil.

What warm words.

Even though Su You appeared completely indifferent, tossing that paper by the window for over half a month, by June, watching the increasingly vicious sun day by day, he couldn’t help but remember a hundred years ago.

Those two people had brought him home, given him a bed to sleep in, two bowls of life-sustaining rice porridge.

He returned to that small town.

But before reaching the place, he encountered an ambush in the mountains. That third-rate small sect had mobilized almost all their masters and elders to intercept him, seeking the demon pearl nurtured within his body as a great demon.

Everything was fake.

That “Elder Brother” was fake, “child” was fake, the sincere remorse, the tearful longing—all lies.

As long as this achievement was established, Xuan Su could obtain the coveted position of master’s first disciple.

To take his life, they united to weave a giant web in the name of “family affection.”

Su You’s eyes turned red with killing intent.

Whoever wanted him dead, he would kill.

He insisted on living.

But in the end, when he walked step by step with his blood-stained sword to the trembling family of three, the sword tip only severed Xuan Su’s meridians. He looked at the aged couple who seemed unable to open their eyes, his voice dangerously bone-chilling: “Since you despise me so much, why did you save me in the first place?”

Xuan Su’s gaze was venomous as she screamed hysterically: “You wait, you wait! You’re audacious, slaughtering the human race. Senior Brother has already received news and reported to the Law Enforcement Hall and Sacred Land.”

Su You indeed didn’t escape the Sacred Land’s encirclement. In the hottest time of year, he was shackled and imprisoned in Xihe Sacred Land’s private dungeon, then brought to the judgment platform in the coldest time.

He had thought he would certainly die.

Then someone on the high, lofty throne pointed at him.

The scene abruptly stopped here. Xue Yu emerged from the long fragments of memory, almost instinctively seeking Su You’s figure.

He stood not far away, tall and solitary, lips pressed low, lashes fallen to cover the intense, churning emotions in his eyes, casting a heavy, melancholic shadow beneath his eyelids.

Due to restrictions personally set by the Lord of Yedu within Xue Yu’s body, Xuanji couldn’t spy on her memories. So in that brief half hour, Su You followed Xue Yu in reviewing his own past two hundred years.

At the moment when he most wanted to display his excellent, brilliant side before her, all his past disgrace, embarrassment, madness, and loss of control were laid bare before her eyes like festering wounds exposed after removing gauze—so direct and clear.

Su You stood leaning against his sword tip, each breath bringing shocking coldness.

Xue Yu walked to him in a few steps. He even held his breath slightly, lashes seeming frozen in mid-air, neither up nor down, maintaining a stiff, unnatural, balanced posture.

Xue Yu called his name, her voice clear as jade: “That Xuan Su—is she still alive?”

Su You hadn’t expected her first words to be about this. He paused, his Adam’s apple sliding to produce a low, muffled “mm” sound that inevitably reminded one of that half-grown boy who had pressed his corroded wrist and stood silently in heavy snow all night.

“In a couple of days.” Xue Yu said, “After finishing with Luozhou’s affairs, I’ll accompany you back for a visit.”

Su You finally looked up at her, his pupils holding deep, heavy ink that had spread extremely wide.

Under the blazing sun, her eyes were no different from their first meeting, but her words had softened, become much gentler.

“Nineteen.” Xue Yu called the name from the past that alone could make him show a smile. After an unaccustomed pause, she said: “The past is past.”

“Don’t think about former matters.”

“Now, you’re by my side, with all of Yedu standing behind you.”

“No one dares treat you that way again.”

Su You traced that flickering light at the corner of her eye, that naturally seemingly heartless little hook, thinking how late it was—so late that he had already walked all the wrong paths, done all the wrong things before meeting her.

If he had known earlier, he would rather waited another two hundred years of wind and frost, staying clean as white snow, carrying his heart full of romantic feelings to wait for her arrival.

But even so, Su You still heard the sound of a string in his heart completely snapping at the next moment.

All his hesitation, shock, and anger, those deliberate and awkward thoughts—all crumbled to dust.

He willingly sank to the ocean floor, stepped into the abyss.

Su You’s brows and eyes slowly filled with a trace of a smile. He looked toward Xue Yu. The distinction between sovereign and minister that had been awkward and estranged during this time completely dissolved in this smile. He seemed to become again the youth from ten years ago who followed closely behind her, every raised eye and arched brow full of vivid, captivating charm.

“Good.”

He said: “I’ll listen to Your Highness.”