Divorce by Agreement C05

Chapter 5

#In Xie Zhuo’s eyes, he never saw anyone else.

I grabbed Xie Zhuo by the collar, so angry I wanted to smash his head in.

But I held back.

Because although Xie Zhuo had become ten million times more annoying than before, his cultivation had also become ten million times stronger!

Could I beat him? Did I not know my own limits?

I asked myself that a few more times in my heart, then finally let go of his collar. I even helped smooth out the wrinkles I’d made in his clothes.

Swallowing my pride, I sat back down, took a deep breath, and tried to keep my emotions in check. Then I calmly asked, “So what do you plan to do?”

I smiled at him — and I was sure he could feel the overwhelming displeasure simmering behind my stiff, fake smile.

He didn’t comment on me grabbing him, just straightened up and slowly took a sip of the snow bamboo tea before calmly spitting out one word:

“Hit.”

I was stunned. After a moment, I slapped the table and stood up again.

“You dare hit me!?”

No matter how bad his attitude was toward me, Xie Zhuo had never laid a hand on me. So when I heard those words, I was overly shocked and furious, like he’d already hit me…

He stared at me, silent.

I glared back at him for a while, and then I figured it out.

Right now, I couldn’t meet my past self. And he couldn’t meet his past self either. So that only left the option of meeting each other’s past selves.

How do you make two people who already have emotional ties instantly despise each other?

Simple — one of them does something absolutely unforgivable.

Hitting someone was quick, efficient, and required zero cost — a perfect way to make someone hate you.

And me… not only could I not beat the current Xie Zhuo, I couldn’t even beat the one from five hundred years ago, even if he was injured right now.

Besides, if Xie Zhuo hit me, it would be far more effective than if I hit him.

He was temperamental; he might even enjoy it if I hit him.

But me? I had a quick temper — everyone in Kunlun knew that. If Xie Zhuo dared to hit me, especially after I’d taken care of him for two or three months, and without any reason… I’d be furious. I’d definitely stop loving him.

Just like that — bam! — the relationship would be over.

So, the idea of Xie Zhuo going to hit my past self? On second thought, it was a brutally simple and effective solution.

I stared at him. He stared back. The more I thought about it, the calmer and more rational I became.

I tidied my clothes and sat back down again.

Although I was still angry, thinking that Xie Zhuo was an absolute bastard for coming up with such a rotten plan, I still felt that returning to the time five hundred years later and returning the Pangu Axe was more important.

If my past self had to suffer a bit… then so be it. I’d forgive Xie Zhuo on her behalf!

“Fine, go hit me,” I said.

Xie Zhuo raised an eyebrow. He clearly didn’t expect me to agree so easily.

“Get it over with quickly. Best if you go right now and beat me up. Let’s get this over with and head back.” I said it with no sense of psychological burden whatsoever.

Xie Zhuo paused, blowing on his cup of tea. He said lightly, “You’re quite generous.”

I shot him a side-eye and sneered, “What, the sun rose in the west? You finally opened that stingy mouth of yours and wasted some precious words to mock me? You know exactly why I’m being generous. If it weren’t for Kunlun, do you think I’d willingly take a beating from you? Swallow this kind of humiliation? Hurry up and—”

“I won’t hit you,” he said, calm and resolute, his dark eyes locked onto me.

His tone and gaze were so firm, it stunned me for a moment.

I couldn’t meet his eyes. I turned my head away and stared at something else.

Then I kept repeating to myself: I’m divorced from Xie Zhuo.

After suppressing my emotions, I turned back and asked him in my usual tone, “Then who are you going to hit?”

“Mengmeng.”

Meng…

“What did Mengmeng do wrong!?” I cried out on her behalf. “If she were here, she’d be scared to death by you! She’s still just a kid in this timeline — why hit her? Doesn’t your conscience hurt?”

“And also Wu Cheng.”

Wu Cheng had been my closest deputy at the Kunlun garrison five hundred years ago.

“You—” I was just about to speak when Xie Zhuo continued listing names—

“Huanhuan, Li Shu, Gu Chengzhi.”

All people I was close to.

My expression darkened.

“And also, Queen Mother of the West.”

Clang! My immortal sword slammed down, skewering the bamboo cup in his hand straight through and pinning it to the table in front of him.

Water steeped with snow bamboo leaves trickled down to the ground, drip, drip. I stared at him with a blank expression. “I dare you…”

He didn’t flinch, meeting my gaze. “I dare.”

“Xie Zhuo, I’ve told you many times — the divorce is between the two of us. Don’t drag other people into it.”

“In my eyes, there has never been anyone else.”

Yes — in Xie Zhuo’s eyes, he never saw anyone else.

And that… that was one of the fundamental reasons we always fought over these five hundred years. He never gave a damn about the other immortals of Kunlun. So, to sever our bond, he could disregard the Kunlun of five hundred years in the future, even raise his hand against my friends — even against the Queen Mother of the West.

“Xie Zhuo, if I hadn’t come here, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t be able to stop you. But now I’m here. If you try to lay a hand on them, I won’t let you. Even if you raise the Pangu Axe, I will block it with this Shu He Sword.”

He looked at me for a while. “You’d stake your life on it?”

“Yes. I’d stake my life.”

He lowered his gaze.

“Fine.” After a brief pause, as if deep in thought, he suddenly gave in. He said:

“I won’t go.”

I was a bit stunned. His sudden and decisive compromise made my dramatic sword-stabbing-the-table moment seem a little over the top.

It was… unexpectedly touching that he cared about my life. But all his actions and words earlier had been like he was ready to kill me…

I really didn’t get Xie Zhuo.

I put away my sword and sat back down.

But the bamboo table was already a mess.

Xie Zhuo didn’t reach for his cup again, and I didn’t know how to keep this conversation going after our half-fight fizzled out like that.

But the problem still had to be solved. The longer we delayed, the more chaos Kunlun would be in five hundred years later.

“So… how about…” I opened awkwardly, “you still go hit me?”

Xie Zhuo looked up. “No.”

Now he was the one being stubborn!

“Then let’s think of something else. Enough of all this fighting and killing — use your brain a little!” I rubbed my chin and brainstormed:

“Isn’t the goal to make my past self utterly disappointed in you, to the point she never wants to see you again? Then just say some really hurtful things. Stuff like, ‘What kind of trash do you think you are?’ or ‘You’re so ugly, don’t dirty my eyes,’ or ‘I don’t like you, I like someone else.’ Stuff like that. I was really innocent back then — I wouldn’t have been able to take that kind of emotional blow. So just—”

I hadn’t even finished saying the word do.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest, and a familiar wave of weakness swept over my body.

“Huh? Since when was there a house here?” A voice drifted in from outside—strange and yet intimately familiar. That was…

My voice…

I whipped my head toward the edge of the snowy bamboo grove. “Crap, crap, I’m here… I actually made it here…”

My lips, pale as paper, muttered nonsense that only someone aware of the situation would understand. And before I could say another word, my body gave out and collapsed to the ground.

But just in time, Xie Zhuo caught me in his arms.

He swiftly changed position, turning the embrace into a carry, and with a flick of his hand, tossed me back into my room.

The door slammed shut with a loud bang.

Xie Zhuo’s barrier wrapped around the outside of the room, isolating me.

Immediately, I could feel the force of the time-space pull ease significantly. As soon as I caught my breath, I grabbed a mirror and stuck it out the window. Using its reflection, I watched what was happening outside.

Xie Zhuo’s courtyard had been set up within the snowy bamboo grove. In just one day and night, it had completely blended into its surroundings.

I watched as the “me” from back then, carrying a bamboo basket, walked cautiously into the front yard, glancing left and right. The basket held a few freshly dug snowy bamboo shoots. To have found such a hidden place in search of food—yeah, that was definitely me.

“This house isn’t bad. Maybe I can build one like it for Xuanqing someday.”

Xuanqing…

I paused in silence. So back then, I wasn’t even calling him “Xie Zhuo” by his full name.

The younger me was still looking around the yard when Xie Zhuo suddenly walked out.

So direct it actually surprised me.

He wasn’t even wearing a mask! And “Xuanqing” at that point in time was still supposed to be recovering!

Aren’t you afraid your identity will be exposed? How are you going to pretend to be your past self and fool the past me after this!?

I was getting anxious just watching.

The me from back then clearly froze too. She looked at Xie Zhuo in front of her, then glanced behind herself—probably in the direction where “Xie Xuanqing” was supposedly recovering.

I watched my past self’s face go blank as she asked, puzzled, “Xie Xuanqing? Weren’t you just… huh? Your leg… your leg’s all better!”

She lit up, circling around Xie Zhuo with wide eyes locked onto his leg, even reaching out to touch it twice. “Your leg’s healed? You got your spiritual techniques back too?”

She accepted it—didn’t even think it was strange.

I fell silent…

So back then, I really trusted anyone with Xie Zhuo’s face that much?

“You were just pretending to be sick, weren’t you? Were you trying to surprise me?” My past self playfully patted Xie Zhuo’s shoulder, joy written all over her face.

Xie Zhuo looked at her, lips twitching. He held his breath, and after forcing himself for a long while, finally squeezed out a line:

“What kind of trash do you think you are?”

Me: “……”

Past me: “……”

Xie Zhuo stared at her without blinking, then added, “You’re… too ugly. Don’t dirty my eyes.”

Past me was completely dumbfounded—like she was in a dream, or had just seen a ghost.

Honestly, Xie Zhuo, there was really no need to use everything I just suggested all at once! Those lines I gave earlier weren’t exactly carefully thought out. Couldn’t you at least try to reflect and ease into it? Did you really have to go full blast already!?

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