Chapter 21

#Our relationship can’t just end like this

I rushed frantically toward the cave in the Snow Bamboo Forest.

Before I even got there, I spotted Xie Xuanqing standing at the cave entrance from afar.

He really hadn’t left!

He held the flute made of snow bamboo in his hand—he had come back for it…

I couldn’t quite tell what I was feeling at that moment, and didn’t have time to sort it out. I just saw Xie Xuanqing’s serious face as he prepared to ride the wind toward the tribulation cloud. I hurriedly called out to him, “Xie Xuanqing!”

The wind technique around him dispersed as he turned back to look at me, frowning.

Panting, I ran over to him and heard him ask, “Why are you here?”

“I…” I scrambled to come up with an excuse. “Even though I told you to leave just now, I… I still…”

“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”

I froze. “Then what are you asking?”

“That’s your tribulation cloud,” he said, pointing to the thunderclouds already crackling in the distance.

I denied it outright. “No, it’s not mine.”

But even as I denied it, I could tell from Xie Xuanqing’s expression that he didn’t believe me. Trying to maintain composure, I forced an explanation. “I’m standing right here—how could that cloud possibly be mine?”

He didn’t wait for me to finish. The wind technique flared up around him again.

I immediately reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Wait!”

But he didn’t stop…

Instead, he twisted his hand and grabbed mine, dragging me upward into the sky!

Panic surged in my heart—Xie Zhuo was over there, and so was Xiaxia. If Xie Xuanqing dragged me over there now, forget whether I’ll give blood or not—we’d both die on the spot!

What would be the point of any of this then?

I quickly channeled my energy and cast a Heavy Weight spell on my feet, anchoring myself to the ground and yanking him down with me. “We can’t go over there!”

Xie Xuanqing didn’t say a word, but his determination was rock-solid.

He gripped my hand tighter, and I could feel my spell weakening. At the critical moment, I blurted out, “I’ll be fine over there! Someone’s already gone to help! I will survive this tribulation!”

The force dragging me lightened, and at the same time, the heavy weight on my heart lifted a little as I faced him.

I let out a long sigh, thinking—things had gotten to this point. There was no use hiding it anymore.

I looked up at Xie Xuanqing. “Let me be honest with you. I’m not the me of now—I’m Fu Jiuxia from five hundred years in the future. I know what fate has in store for me, so you don’t have to worry.”

Wind still swirled under Xie Xuanqing’s feet as he stood above me, gazing down. After hearing my words, the technique finally dissipated completely. He landed and met my gaze in silence.

I looked away a bit, unable to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I was the one constantly messing with you before, trying every trick to push you away.”

“I knew long ago.”

His response completely blindsided me.

I stared at Xie Xuanqing in shock. His anxious expression from earlier had vanished, replaced by his usual calm indifference. “You carry my blood, but I never gave it to you. So I figured it out long ago—you weren’t the Fu Jiuxia of this time.”

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

Thinking back, the first time I met Xie Xuanqing here, he had indeed asked me, “What have you eaten?” But I hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

Turns out, he’d already begun to suspect then. And over time, he must’ve realized how different I was from the current Xiaxia.

“Back then, I didn’t know what you came back for. But today, at Cuihu Terrace, I finally understood…” He lowered his gaze, sounding a little desolate. “All your strange, reckless behavior… you were trying to drive me away.”

My lips parted, and looking at his face, I felt a pang of guilt. But I didn’t know how to begin apologizing.

In that moment, I finally understood why Xie Zhuo always took so long to say what was on his mind.

Sometimes, there’s just too much to say, and it clogs up your throat.

I stayed silent. He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “Looks like, in the future, I must’ve treated you terribly.”

I covered my face with a sigh. “Yes. We got married… and then divorced.”

Xie Xuanqing stayed silent. He didn’t show much emotion, but I saw his pupils tremble slightly.

Not as intense as the day I split with Xie Zhuo, but it was real. It made me feel that he was honestly a little saddened and reflective.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Even though I’m standing here now saying I like you and want to stay by your side forever, in the end… we still didn’t make it to a happy ending.”

He closed his eyes gently, letting his lashes hide whatever was in his gaze.

“Why… did I treat you badly?”

“You kept everything from me.”

He fell silent, as if realizing—yes, that was something he would do.

I explained calmly, “But I’ve come to understand it now. The root of your lies was that you didn’t want me to know about your identity as a snow wolf demon. To keep that secret, you had to tell countless other lies.”

I finally told him what I hadn’t told Xie Zhuo before. “At the start, it didn’t matter. I always thought, I’ll understand eventually. But after we got married, it was different. Five hundred years later, I still knew nothing about you. Xie Xuanqing, I had already exhausted all my courage.”

“So… you came back here to change the past? To prevent the blood pact from ever forming?”

I gave a bitter laugh. “Xie Xuanqing, you don’t know just how thoroughly you hid everything from me in the future. Before coming here, I didn’t even know you were a snow wolf demon—let alone anything about some blood oath between us. I was the one who asked for the divorce, simply because I thought I couldn’t go on with you anymore.”

Xie Xuanqing frowned slightly, looking a bit puzzled. So I kindly clarified.

“You came here on your own.”

He blinked in surprise.

But he was a clever demon. After a moment, he turned his gaze to the tribulation clouds in the sky.

I guessed he’d figured it out.

So I laid it all out. “The one over there helping the other me with the tribulation… is you, from five hundred years in the future.”

Xie Xuanqing stared at the clouds, deep in thought, his expression turning solemn.

“Xie Xuanqing, even though we divorced, I never wanted to erase our past. I believed that one day, I could talk about it with a smile. Everything I went through—good or bad—made me more whole. But you… you were different…”

Bringing this up, my tone shifted as memories surged.

“You hated me so much after our divorce, for some unknown reason. You stole my Kunlun Pangu Axe, split space and time, and insisted on coming back five hundred years to sever our bond—to stop yourself from…”

I pointed to the clouds in the distance. “Feeding me your blood.”

Xie Xuanqing silently stared at the center of the gathering black clouds.

“And you even…” Thinking of it made me chuckle. “Before you came here, you said you wanted to kill me…”

Xie Xuanqing froze. He turned sharply to look at me.

His expression was deadly serious. “I said… I wanted to kill you?”

“Yes, you used the Pangu Axe to cleave open time and space. You said you were coming back to make up for your mistakes, and you even said that once you returned, you could finally kill me.” I laughed at him. “It’s just a divorce. Why go to such extremes, shouting about killing and vengeance? The future you… really has a poor mindset.”

Xie Xuanqing’s expression grew even more solemn. “I really do want to kill you.”

I was dumbfounded. “What did you say?”

“Maybe I really want to kill you.”

I froze.

I looked at Xie Xuanqing, then looked toward the center of the storm, and turned back to him in utter confusion and disbelief, staring him down: “Why would you want to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” Xie Xuanqing said. “But if I used the Pangu Axe to tear through time and space and come back to the past, and I said those words… then maybe I truly did want to kill you.”

He looked deadly serious as he said something that made my brain throb: “I would never say something like that without a reason.”

Xie Xuanqing is Xie Zhuo. He might not fully understand the future him, but he definitely understands him better than I do.

Hearing this made me feel a bit afraid.

Thinking carefully about everything leading up to this… Xie Zhuo really might be dangerous…

But still!

“Why?!” Shocked and bewildered, I couldn’t shake the questions in my heart. “Why? Why would Xie Zhuo want to kill me? And how is he planning to do it?”

Xie Xuanqing clearly felt there was no time left to explain. He grabbed my hand, activated his wind-riding technique again, and this time I didn’t even try to stop him. I quickly canceled the weight-binding spell under my feet and wished I could help him ride the wind faster.

Within the tribulation clouds, thunder and lightning intertwined. The purplish-blue bolts even sparked with blood-red light. Thunder cracked and sizzled around us.

As Xie Xuanqing pulled me through the storm, he explained, “A blood contract oath, to my clan, is a lifelong, unchangeable vow.”

“So only by going back in time could you alter this,” I said, “That I understand. But what I don’t understand is—why would Xie Zhuo want to kill me?”

“Within the contract, my bloodline power compels me to protect you. I’m forbidden from harming you.”

I was stunned. This was the first time I’d heard of this.

So the restriction Xie Zhuo faced as a member of the Snow Wolf Clan was this: by feeding me his blood, he made me his mate, a bond that could never be broken in this lifetime. And he was fated to protect me—an order written into his very destiny.

So, all the times Xie Zhuo told me he wouldn’t hit me—he was telling the truth.

During our 500-year marriage, every fight we had, I was the only one doing the hitting. He never struck back, only dodged, and waited until I was exhausted before things would calm down.

Even here, in this timeline, when he was furious, he never truly hurt me. Whenever I bled, he could always locate me and rush to help…

All of that was due to the influence of the bloodline in his body. The blood oath bound him—made him restrain himself, made him protect me.

I thought cutting the red string at the Temple of Yue Lao was our divorce. But to him, the red string of Kunlun held no real power. What truly bound him… was fate.

To truly sever the bond, they had to go back in time and prevent the blood-feeding.

If he truly had murderous intent toward me, then he had to stop his past self from feeding me his blood.

Then, when we returned to five hundred years later, I’d no longer carry his blood in my body. Without his blood, there would be no blood oath, no fated bond, no constraints…

And he’d be free to kill me.

In my mind, I clearly recalled the day we traveled five hundred years into the past.

That day, atop Kunlun Mountain, fierce winds whipped at Xie Zhuo’s and my robes and hair. I asked him what he was planning to do. He said coldly:

“I’m going to atone for my mistakes.”

And then he added, “Once I come back, I’ll finally be able to kill you.”

Goddamn it, Xie Zhuo—you weren’t joking. You really do want to kill me!?

I thought we were parting on peaceful terms, but you’re planning a murder born of love!?

“Why do you want to kill me?!” Fear and rage overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t help raising my voice to question Xie Xuanqing.

But after a moment of silence, he only said five words: “I’m not him yet.”

I fell silent.

Xie Xuanqing really isn’t Xie Zhuo. He hasn’t married me, we haven’t lived together for five hundred years, and we haven’t gone through a divorce. So of course he wouldn’t understand what Xie Zhuo is truly thinking in this matter.

Just like I can’t understand why, as a child, I cried so loudly when I scraped my knee—while the child-me would never understand why the present-me would, after falling, first look around awkwardly to see if anyone saw…

Even if it’s the same person, at different points in time, different experiences make it impossible to fully empathize with one’s own past emotions.

The present him wants to save me. The future him wants to kill me.

The same person, at different times, holds completely opposite views on the same matter. Both conflicting… yet unified.

This world really is full of mind-bending contradictions.

Why Xie Zhuo wants to do this—maybe only the present-day Xie Zhuo can answer.

“I must get you to drink my blood,” Xie Xuanqing said, like he was making a vow.

I weighed the situation in my heart.

Whether Xie Zhuo actually wants to kill me—I’m still not certain. It’s only a possibility right now.

Maybe Xie Xuanqing is wrong. Maybe he’s right.

If I stick to the plan Xie Zhuo and I made, and stop Xie Xuanqing from feeding blood to Xia Xia, then the outcome is: Xie Zhuo succeeds in his plan and feels satisfied.

But if there’s even a one-in-ten-thousand chance that Xie Zhuo really wants to kill me—then I would’ve personally handed him the knife. Once we return five hundred years later, and the blood oath is gone, I’d be defenseless…

That would be a one-way ticket to death.

Comparing the two…

Of course I’d choose to stay alive!

This is life or death! Why the hell should I care whether Xie Zhuo can break our old marriage bond?

I was dragged into this mess to begin with. I only ran around helping him because I wanted to get back. Why would I sacrifice my own life just to fulfill his agenda?

Thankfully, Xie Xuanqing seemed reliable. He was thinking up a solution beside me: “I can’t meet him face to face. And you can’t meet your current self either. So we need to lure him out.”

After sorting through the relationships and weighing the pros and cons, I calmed myself down and came up with a plan rationally: “Put me down first. Don’t get too close to the center of the tribulation clouds—who knows what might happen in there.”

Xie Xuanqing followed my instructions and set me on the ground.

This spot was about ten li away from the place where lightning was striking like crazy—the location of my Immortal Abode. Not too far, not too close.

I pulled out a dagger and aimed it at my palm, ready to cut—but before the blade could pierce my skin, Xie Xuanqing grabbed my wrist.

Sure enough, because I had his blood in me, protecting me was something he did on instinct. No matter which version of him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I pushed his hand away. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m using your Snow Wolf Clan’s bloodline instinct! If I hurt myself and bleed, and threaten to kill myself, Xie Zhuo will definitely show up.”

Xie Xuanqing stayed silent.

“Don’t worry about me. Just get out of here—out of sight, out of mind. Go somewhere else for now. When Xie Zhuo shows up, I’ll create a big commotion. Once you hear it, head straight to the center of the tribulation cloud.” I looked at Xie Xuanqing with a seriousness I’d never shown before.

“Xie Xuanqing, you must give my other self your blood,” I entrusted him as if entrusting a child to him. “Our bond… it can’t end like this.”

Thunderclouds rolled and rumbled overhead. Xie Xuanqing looked at me for a moment. He wasn’t someone who hesitated. Soon, he nodded.

“Alright…”

He gave me his word, and I knew—he would follow through.

I watched him until his figure vanished into the farthest point I could see. Then, without hesitation, I slashed down with the dagger—blood immediately poured from my palm.

In mere moments, my ear warmed, my earring began to glow, and Xie Zhuo’s voice rang in my mind: “What are you doing?”

I raised both hands—one holding the knife, the other bleeding freely. I brought the dagger to my wrist and said, “Xie Zhuo, get out here.”

He didn’t speak. But the very next second, a scene from his side flooded into my mind.

Over there, the sky was blanketed in pitch-black tribulation clouds. Xiaxia lay unconscious on the ground. Beside her, Xie Zhuo had raised a barrier that absorbed every strike of tribulation lightning falling from the heavens.

“Are you trying to die, Fu Jiuxia?”

Xie Zhuo’s low voice, thick with anger, sounded as if it was right beside my ear.

I hesitated again. If “I” took a few hits from the tribulation lightning, I might not die.

But if Xie Zhuo really helped me survive the tribulation, and Xie Xuanqing failed to get the blood into Xiaxia’s mouth, then the blood oath between me and Xie Zhuo would vanish… and once he comes out, I might really die.

Sorry, past me!

If it means I get to live, you’re gonna have to take some lightning for the team!

I drove the blade into my wrist, and slowly breathed out two words of command:

“Come out…”

Who was Xie Zhuo? Someone like him couldn’t be fooled with a half-hearted act. As I clenched the dagger in my right hand, about to slice through the veins in my wrist, a violent gale tore through the sky. The scene in my mind shifted sharply.

And then—I saw myself.

Hair flying wildly, sleeves dancing in the wind, blood and dagger glinting in the violent storm—like someone with no way out, about to make a final, desperate move.

And Xie Zhuo, perhaps in his mind, saw himself grabbing the dagger from my hand—rage, shock, disbelief, and teeth-gritting fury written all over his face.

Maybe—for the first time—we truly saw each other so clearly, so unmistakably.

Objectively speaking, the me in his eyes… looked pretty damn good.