After Yan Chaosheng left, Su Lun was stunned, completely unaware of what had happened.

Earlier, when the Demon Lord had sent him as an envoy to the Heavenly Realm, he had been very pleased, thinking Yan Chaosheng had come to his senses and wanted to bring the Lady back.

Unexpectedly, what Yan Chaosheng used the Floating Island Red Lotus to exchange for was actually Heavenly Consort Mi Chu’s shattered life-essence jade bamboo.

When Feng Fuming asked Su Lun to choose between Liu Shuang and the jade bamboo, Su Lun struggled momentarily. However, recalling Yan Chaosheng’s words before his departure, he could only smile faintly and choose the jade bamboo.

Su Lun, who always presented himself as a refined gentleman, for a moment truly wanted to curse: To hell with the life-essence jade bamboo! Who wanted the life-essence jade bamboo? He only wanted to bring the Lady back!

Perhaps knowing that Su Lun might waver, before Su Lun left, Yan Chaosheng had coldly said: “If you fail to bring back Mi Chu’s life-essence jade bamboo, return with your head.”

Su Lun had tried to persuade Yan Chaosheng to show some compassion: “Your Majesty, pardon my presumption, but Feng Fuming has never been a kind or merciful person. The Lady… Immortal Liu Shuang, in his hands, will surely suffer humiliation. Your Majesty has opposed Feng Fuming for hundreds of years, and Feng Fuming will inevitably vent his resentment toward you on the Lady.”

Yan Chaosheng, as if seeing through his thoughts, looked at him: “Oh? So what?”

“With a hundred years of marital bond between you and Immortal Liu Shuang, can you bear to abandon her?”

“Su Lun, you overstep your bounds,” Yan Chaosheng said. “Ridiculous, you speak to me of reluctance? She’s merely a woman. Since she dared to leave the Ghost Domain, she should bear the consequences of leaving.”

Yan Chaosheng spoke coldly: “Go now, don’t make this lord repeat himself a third time. Just bring back the jade bamboo and pay no attention to anything else.”

On the return journey, Su Lun held the translucent piece of jade bamboo, sighing deeply.

In Su Lun’s view, even if the Demon Lord had married Liu Shuang as a substitute, Liu Shuang was so good. After a hundred years, how could Yan Chaosheng truly bear to leave her with Feng Fuming? Although he didn’t know what had happened between Mi Chu and Yan Chaosheng seven hundred years ago, Su Lun didn’t think that Mi Chu, who had married Feng Fuming and then changed her mind to follow the Demon Lord, was all that good.

Fickle and inconsistent, it made him sneer.

But unexpectedly, before Su Lun could fully hand over the jade bamboo exchanged for the Floating Island Red Lotus, Yan Chaosheng suddenly disappeared.

The beautiful, translucent jade bamboo, with no one to receive it, fell to the ground.

Su Lun raised an eyebrow, watching as another crack appeared in the jade bamboo, much to his surprise.

Su Lun blinked, suddenly struck by an unbelievable thought.

Feng Fuming was difficult to deal with and suspicious. If he knew the Demon Lord cared for the Lady in the slightest, forget about exchanging her back—the Lady would likely be held forever by Feng Fuming, becoming a pawn against the Demon Lord.

Only by showing complete indifference might the Lady have a chance to survive.

Su Lun’s eyes flickered, surprised by this thought. Looking again at the life-essence jade bamboo on the ground, Su Lun was unwilling to admit his schadenfreude. Was a life-essence spirit core really this fragile, unable to withstand the slightest damage? He couldn’t be blamed for this additional misfortune.

But if this were true, some things didn’t make sense. If the Demon Lord truly didn’t care as he appeared, why dissolve the bond with the Lady, and why issue an order forbidding her from entering the Ghost Domain? What had just caused the Demon Lord’s sudden change of expression?

Su Lun pondered, but as a strategist, he didn’t dare to truly step on Mi Chu’s jade bamboo a few times out of spite. He could only shake his head, pick it up, and temporarily place it in his dimensional pouch.

When Su Lun left the Ghost Domain, he unexpectedly saw another person.

“Fu Hang?”

Fu Hang frowned as he looked at the horizon, rarely appearing so grave. Hearing Su Lun call him, he didn’t respond with his usual angry stare, merely nodding slightly.

“What happened?” Su Lun asked. Fu Hang, as Yan Chaosheng’s right-hand man who had accompanied him in battle for years, might not match Su Lun in strategy and composure, but his spiritual power was considerably higher.

“I’m not sure. The Heavenly Realm’s spiritual energy is overflowing abundantly, so intense that even in the Ghost Domain, one can sense it. Listen if you don’t believe me; the ghosts are growing restless.”

Su Lun concentrated and indeed heard countless small ghosts wailing miserably in purgatory. It sounded like fear, and also like lamentation.

Su Lun’s expression darkened: “The Demon Lord has gone to the Heavenly Realm.”

Going to the Heavenly Realm alone, regardless of the purpose, was completely suicidal. Fu Hang immediately understood his meaning: “I’ll mobilize troops immediately and follow.”

Deploying troops without orders was a violation of command, but no matter what, they couldn’t let their emperor go to the Heavenly Realm alone.

However, by the time they reached the outer edge of the Nine Heavens, thunder was rolling across the sky, clearly indicating that Feng Fuming and Yan Chaosheng had already begun fighting.

Yan Chaosheng had a death grip on Feng Fuming’s throat, with his long halberd poised just above Feng Fuming’s head. One inch lower and it would pierce Feng Fuming’s skull.

The formerly dark-clothed, black-haired Yan Chaosheng now had silver markings spreading across his face, and even his pupils had turned a cold, silvery radiance!

“Tell me, where did she go?”

Feng Fuming narrowed his eyes. After hundreds of years of confrontation, this was the first time he found himself at a clear disadvantage against Yan Chaosheng.

Looking at Yan Chaosheng’s silver eyes and markings, Feng Fuming seemed to realize something: “So that’s it, that’s it!”

He had wondered how a mere cultivation prodigy of several hundred years could match him, the Heavenly Lord with ten thousand years of cultivation. So he was the one left behind by the rebel forces—the last bastard child of the Xiangyao Emperor. Yan Chaosheng’s face remained impassive, but the markings drawn out by his bloodline betrayed him. He had lost control because of Liu Shuang crushing her spirit core, transforming into this appearance.

And in front of so many witnesses.

Feng Fuming glanced at the varied expressions of those around them and smiled sinisterly, saying to Yan Chaosheng, “Why ask this lord now? Didn’t you already abandon her? As for what happens when a spirit core shatters, don’t you know better than this lord?”

Yan Chaosheng’s cold silver pupils contracted—it was at this moment! Feng Fuming seized the opportunity to repel him, returning to the circle of Heavenly generals, and commanded: “Intruder in the Heavenly Realm—kill him!”

The Heavenly Realm leaders looked at Yan Chaosheng’s silver eyes with trepidation, whispering among themselves.

“It’s him…”

“Wasn’t the Xianliu clan destroyed? How could there still be…”

Fu Hang immediately stepped forward: “Demon Lord!”

Yan Chaosheng looked at the silver markings on the back of his hand, closing his eyes momentarily. Centuries of careful planning couldn’t be ruined in a day. Today… how could he have been so impulsive?

Purple feather-like fragments floated everywhere in the sky, seemingly silently recounting the past tragedy.

Yan Chaosheng suppressed the pain in his heart, withdrew his halberd, and said in a hoarse but calm voice: “Retreat.”

Su Lun glanced at Yan Chaosheng’s silver hair and eyes gradually receding to black. After hiding for hundreds of years, at this moment, the emergence of Xiangyao was no longer a secret.

Liu Shuang, at the cost of her shattered spirit core, instantly returned to the outskirts of Cang Lan Immortal Realm.

Fresh blood continuously welled up in her mouth. Liu Shuang knew her days were numbered and hastily got up, rushing inside: “Tree Grandfather, Xiu Lang, Sister Shan Yu…”

Liu Shuang had originally expected to encounter the barrier Tree Grandfather had mentioned before entering Cang Lan, but as she walked into Cang Lan’s territory, she found nothing.

In that moment, Liu Shuang didn’t feel fortunate; instead, she felt a chill.

A burnt smell drifted to her nose, causing intense unease to surge in her heart.

Liu Shuang, as if her soul had been pulled away, walked step by step into the Cang Lan Immortal Realm.

Beneath her feet was scorched earth, emitting a nauseating smell. Liu Shuang crouched down, retched a couple of times, then quickly gritted her teeth and stood up, stubbornly continuing forward.

Until she saw the clear stream, floating with countless black ashes. She knew what these black ashes were—plants completely burned, just like this.

The corrupt fire had scorched everything, leaving not a blade of grass.

The Cang Lan of her memories, filled with laughter and the flourishing of spring, had become a tract of scorched earth.

She had failed to arrive on time.

The pain she had been suppressing finally erupted at this moment. Liu Shuang desperately searched through the scorched earth, choking with sobs: “Why is it like this, why! I rushed back as fast as I could. Tree Grandfather, Xiu Lang, Sister Shan Yu… come back, please come back!”

No one answered her; no one comforted her.

With her spirit core shattered and having lost the heart that sensed joy and pleasure, Liu Shuang could no longer shed tears—only large drops of blood tears fell onto the scorched earth.

“Who can save them, who can save Cang Lan, ah—”

Liu Shuang had thought that with an empty chest cavity, with nothing left, she would no longer feel pain. But when the corrupt fire had scorched everything, she knew all her loved ones had died in the flames.

She finally broke down in devastating sobs: “I was wrong, Liu Shuang was wrong. Liu Shuang shouldn’t have married Yan Chaosheng, shouldn’t have left Cang Lan. It was my fault for not protecting you well, for not striving to improve, for wasting my cultivation.”

The black plant ashes were blown up by the wind, staining Liu Shuang’s red wedding attire. The space in her chest—she didn’t know if it hurt more from losing her heart or if the lingering emotions made her suffer more.

Gradually, her chest seemed to cool. Liu Shuang thought she would die, but as she moved her fingers, she found she was still alive.

She got up from the ground and made her way in a daze to her mortal parents’ tombstones.

Under the corrupt fire, nothing remained; even the tombstones had been completely burned.

Yes, she still had a home, one last residence in the mortal world. That was where her parents had lived.

Liu Shuang directed her thoughts, and in an instant, returned to the mortal world.

Liu Shuang concealed her overflowing spiritual power. Now she was like a living dead person holding on to her last breath. Liu Shuang knew that when the power gained from her shattered spirit core dissipated, it would be the moment of her death.

Two hundred years had passed. The mansion was somewhat similar to her memory, yet different.

She looked up at the plaque above and softly read: “Zhang Mansion, why is it Zhang Mansion?”

Her father’s surname was Yue; it should be Yue Mansion. Her mother had once joked, “Naming you Yue Liu Shuang, it sounds like ‘moon flowing frost.’ Heart like crystal, you are our peerless treasure.”

Their… peerless treasure.

Liu Shuang stepped forward to knock on the door. At that time in the mortal world, it was just after noon, the sunlight perfect. A servant boy shouted: “Coming, coming, please wait a moment.”

Opening the door, the servant saw a red-clad young woman standing in the sunlight. The boy stared blankly for a while, having never seen such a beautiful person in his half a lifetime.

The young lady of his household was praised as having celestial beauty and had even become the emperor’s favored consort, but she couldn’t compare to even half the beauty of the woman before him.

She wore red attire, her hair styled in the most common bridal hairstyle of the mortal world. Her body and fair face were stained with black ash, yet it didn’t diminish her beauty in the slightest.

The servant nervously swallowed: “M-miss… who are you looking for?”

“Are there any relatives of Lord Yue still here?”

“I-I’ve never heard of Lord Yue. My master’s surname is Zhang, Lord Zhang Pinglan. Miss, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

“The wrong place?” Liu Shuang said softly. “It was I who made a mistake.”

The servant boy was about to comfort her, but when he looked up, he found the young woman had already vanished.

The Eight Wilderness was vast; Liu Shuang had known this since childhood. Her home, Cang Lan, was large, but beyond Cang Lan was the even larger mortal world. Above the mortal world was the Demon Realm, below it was the Ghost Domain, and further above were the Nine Heavens.

Within the Nine Heavens were several beautiful immortal realms, each more beautiful than her home in the Cang Lan Immortal Realm.

But with the Eight Wilderness so vast, she didn’t know where to go.

Liu Shuang wandered from noon until dark in the mortal world. Winter in the mortal world had not yet passed. Perhaps because her spiritual energy was diminishing, she couldn’t even resist the cold of the mortal world anymore.

Liu Shuang could only curl up in a cave.

The mortal winter had little rain; it was the time when snow melted, and the sky rumbled with muffled thunder. In an immortal’s instant, her hundred years of life, dynasties in the mortal world had changed, and everything was different.

The squirrel spirits hibernating for winter saw her and ran away squeaking, fearing the immortal might harm them.

Liu Shuang watched them flee from a distance, never imagining that her home was gone, and by a twist of fate, she had occupied someone else’s home.

Yet she huddled in the cave, not wanting to move, without any strength left.

The squirrel spirits chattered, unwilling to run too far, merely observing: “What’s wrong with these immortals? A few days ago, the thunder was so loud the sky nearly split. Grandmother said it happens when the Heavenly Realm and the Demon Realm go to war. Today, an immortal came and occupied our cave.”

“Don’t immortals have their caves?”

“Yes.” The squirrels chattered in unison. “They all have caves, some even have entire immortal realms. I heard they’re very beautiful. Why would she come to the mortal world? I hope she hasn’t seen the pine nuts in the cave. I’ve been storing them for a year!”

“Look at your small ambitions. If we please this immortal, maybe she’ll take us as disciples.”

“Forget it. If she truly had a way out, a place to go, she wouldn’t come to our shabby place. As long as she doesn’t touch our pine nuts, that’s good enough.”

Under the rumbling thunder, Liu Shuang curled up, shivering from the cold.

When dawn came the next day, the squirrel spirits peeked in to look, but the fallen immortal was gone, leaving behind only half a jade pendant imbued with spiritual energy—a lifelike fish.

The squirrels gathered around: “Hee hee, come look, the immortal left us a treasure. She’s not a bad immortal.”

Before the jade in their paws could warm, it was snatched by a man.

The squirrel spirits were about to cry out, but were muffled by their companions. Then, sensing the pressure emanating from the newcomer, they all prostrated themselves, trembling: “Your Excellency, spare us, Your Excellency.”

Yan Chaosheng asked: “The immortal who gave you this jade, which direction did she go?”

Yan Chaosheng had traced the faint immortal energy to this place but had lost the trail. He held the half of the double fish pendant, his expression calm, bearing the pressure of a ruler of two realms.

He had always been proud. The situation wasn’t yet hopeless. First, he would find her—with so many talented individuals in the Eight Wilderness, there had to be a way.

“We don’t know. The immortal left this and went away. We small spirits didn’t dare to ask.”

Yan Chaosheng said nothing.

Seeing that he had no intention of troubling them, the small spirits quickly scattered.

Yan Chaosheng reactivated his tracking technique to search for her, but the last trace of immortal energy around Liu Shuang had dissipated, leaving no trail.

He frowned, left a high-grade spirit stone, and departed from the forest.

After a few steps, the sky suddenly began to rumble with muffled thunder again.

Yan Chaosheng looked up, his pupils pitch black.

This kind of muffled thunder was familiar to him. Not being mortal flesh and blood, he could naturally see at a glance that the muffled thunder wasn’t a weather change, but because someone was about to face a tribulation.

He didn’t dwell on it further. After walking a few steps, Fu Hang appeared silently behind him.

“How is it?”

Fu Hang shook his head: “This servant is incompetent and cannot find the Lady.” With her spirit core shattered and deliberately concealing her immortal energy, she was like a mortal—finding her in the vast Eight Wilderness was like searching for a needle in the sea.

Yan Chaosheng coldly uttered: “A bunch of useless fools.”

After hesitating for a while, Fu Hang said: “Cang Lan Immortal Realm… has become like this. Your Majesty, the Lady went back and saw everything.”

Speaking these words, Fu Hang rarely found it difficult.

Fu Hang glanced at a jade-green pearl in Yan Chaosheng’s palm, obtained by burning the entire Cang Lan.

Refining all things, creating killing karma.

Yan Chaosheng caressed the pearl, looking up: “What? Do you also have objections to this lord’s actions?”

“This servant wouldn’t dare!” Fu Hang quickly knelt.

“Then continue searching.” Yan Chaosheng’s voice was calm and unperturbed.

Fu Hang opened his mouth, wanting to say: Even if they found her, what then? With her spirit core shattered and Cang Lan gone, fate was already sealed.

But when Fu Hang looked up and saw Yan Chaosheng’s cold, resolute eyes, recalling the true form he had revealed that day when he lost control, Fu Hang suddenly couldn’t say anything.

“Yes.” Fu Hang accepted the command. Why should he say more? Beneath the mask of restraint, desperately suppressing turbulent waves, it wasn’t himself.

Just waiting for a moment, he feared Yan Chaosheng would collapse.