Chapter 22

#Xie Zhuo, you real son of a bitch.

My dagger was snatched away by Xie Zhuo—effortlessly, like it was nothing.

But he was clearly furious. He stared daggers at me and called my name through gritted teeth: “Fu! Jiu! Xia!”

I heard him loud and clear. I knew that right now, not only could he not lay a hand on me, he actually had to protect me.

And the moment I handed my life over entirely to Xie Zhuo, I realized—I trusted him more than I trusted myself.

So my every move became calm and composed. I unhurriedly turned off the earring on my ear, then raised my cut palm toward him.

Magic began gathering in my hand, and I hurled a blinding beam of immortal light straight at Xie Zhuo’s face.

I didn’t bother controlling my spiritual energy. The light surged like a flood, sharp as an arrow, flying straight at him.

Of course I knew that a direct attack like this couldn’t hurt Xie Zhuo. He reacted in a flash—just a tilt of his head, and the spell skimmed past his temple and ear, shooting upward into the tribulation clouds, where it exploded into a burst of blinding white.

He frowned and stared at me. “What exactly are you trying to do?”

Now that was the question I’d been waiting for him to ask.

“Sending a signal to Xie Xuanqing,” I said. “So he knows it’s time to feed blood to Xiaxia. Nice and steady.”

Xie Zhuo’s gaze turned even more dangerous. In his pitch-black eyes, it looked like a bolt of tribulation lightning was about to fall.

He obviously couldn’t go back to Xiaxia’s side now.

Sure, he was fast—but was Xie Xuanqing not fast too? They were the same person. Who could really outpace who?

Xie Xuanqing had already gotten my signal and would be heading toward Xiaxia. He’d definitely get there first.

If Xie Zhuo charged in recklessly now and the two met—if Xie Zhuo was weaker, he’d die. If Xie Xuanqing was weaker, Xie Zhuo would still die. After all, the past version of him already died. The present one wouldn’t live much longer.

No matter who died, Xie Zhuo was screwed.

So he had no choice but to stay here, fuming in silence.

And right then, the spell I’d fired into the tribulation clouds triggered a follow-up reaction. Those clouds, originally gathered to strike me, now rumbled with fury. After all this time, not only had I refused to yield, I even hit them back with a “heavy punch.” They were clearly pissed off.

The clouds rolled and growled—just like the relationship between me and Xie Zhuo.

But I wasn’t afraid of them. Because I knew Xie Xuanqing would follow our destined path and feed me the blood. As for Xie Zhuo…

As long as the blood was fed, what did I have to fear?

Storm clouds churned. The tribulation clouds finally gathered their “revenge” strike. A massive bolt of lightning split the sky behind me and Xie Zhuo.

It was the strongest, the final bolt of lightning. It tore open the heavens and blanketed everything in searing white. Xie Zhuo and I, burdened with the emotions of our shared past, stared at each other in silence.

My gaze was mocking. His was furious. Until the thunder faded and the light vanished.

The world was reborn. Sunlight pierced the clouds.

Xie Zhuo and I both buried our emotions deep down, forced our faces blank. He lowered his head, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. I dusted off my clothes and stood up.

“Xie Zhuo,” I looked him straight in the eye. “Just answer me one thing. Did you come back five hundred years just to kill me?”

Xie Zhuo opened his eyes, staring back at me. No extra words, no nonsense.

“I told you from the start,” he said. “I came to kill you.”

I nodded. Calmly and firmly, I said to him, “Xie Zhuo, you really are a fucking bastard.”

Xie Zhuo took the insult without flinching.

Maybe he didn’t know why I forced him out earlier. But now, with the tribulation clouds gone and the question I just asked, he had to realize what Xie Xuanqing had already told me.

“You almost made me kill myself with my own hands,” I sneered. “Brilliant. Truly brilliant.”

“You were the one who suggested it.”

True!

I closed my eyes and all I could see was myself proposing one scheme after another to split Xiaxia and Xie Xuanqing up. God, I was so dumb!

It wasn’t Xie Zhuo’s fault! I handed him the knife myself! If I hadn’t pulled back at the last second, I’d already be six feet under!

Clearly, my greatest enemy… was me.

Fu Jiuxia, the Knife-Passer! I own the title fair and square!

At that thought, my heart skipped a beat. I had to take a few deep breaths and press a hand to my chest to calm myself.

Took quite a while to steady myself…

“Fine! I accept it! I won’t even ask you why you wanted to kill me anymore. You probably have a million reasons, but none of them matter!” I gritted my teeth, locking all my anger and resentment away. “I’ll take all your schemes—open or hidden—and swallow them down!”

Swallowing broken teeth with blood—what else could I do? I couldn’t kill him!

At least not here…

I shot Xie Zhuo a dark look. “Xie Xuanqing has already fed the blood. Our fates are sealed. Your plan’s failed. Staying here is pointless.”

I held out my hand. “Hand over the Pangu Axe. We’re going back.”

Xie Zhuo stayed true to form—silent as ever.

Honestly, that was for the best. Because if he’d said even one extra word right now, I would’ve gone ballistic and fought him to the death.

He looked down, staring at my outstretched hand. The wound in my palm had stopped bleeding. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but eventually, he looked up at me. “If we do it all over again, will you still cut the red thread?”

Of all the times to ask that bullshit!?

Does it even matter if we cut the red thread or not!? The Kunlun red string doesn’t bind him in any way! What’s between me and him—can that really be settled by a thread!?

But honestly, even cursing him felt pointless now. I didn’t want to waste another word on him, but I still couldn’t hold back a cold laugh. “Do it again?”

“I’ll cut the damn thing with a blade myself!”

Xie Zhuo hadn’t turned off his earring’s shared vision, so I clearly saw myself through his eyes in that moment.

I’d spoken so decisively, even I thought I looked a bit too ruthless.

But all this mental and emotional sparring with him—I’d had enough. My patience was long gone. I urged him again, “The Pangu Axe. Give it!”

He lowered his head. Before long, his palm flipped over, and the Pangu Axe appeared in his hand.

Looking at the axe that had almost cost me my life, I felt… indescribably complicated.

Rubbing my temples, I prodded him again. “Let’s go back. Hurry up.”

I couldn’t help but say coldly, “I don’t want to waste another second tangled up with you.”

I looked toward the spot where the tribulation lightning had faded. That was where my Immortal Abode lay. Over there, the bond between Xie Xuanqing and Xiaxia had just begun. And here, the bond between me and Xie Zhuo… had finally come to an end.

Fate. It’s truly exhausting.

“Fu Jiuxia,” Xie Zhuo said, voice a little hoarse, “do you know why I wanted to kill you?”

My heart skipped again. Wow, look who’s suddenly explaining himself. Did the tribulation lightning strike the sun into rising from the west?

“Because the moment you cut the red thread of fate…” Xie Zhuo’s abyss-like eyes fixed on me. “I felt… an unbearable pain.”

At his words, I finally turned to look at him again.

His face looked awful—just like the day I cut that red string.

The Pangu Axe in his hand gave off a faint glow as he continued, “My clan was cursed by the Evil God. Speaking causes me pain. But in that moment, it hurt ten thousand times more than speaking ever could.”

Xie Zhuo spoke very slowly, and for once, I truly heard the emotion in his words. It was as if he really was in pain.

But…

“Why are you telling me this now? Right now, I couldn’t care less about your clan, and I don’t want to know anything about you either. Whether you’re in pain or not has nothing to do with me. I’m no longer curious about how you feel.”

I sneered. “What, did you try to kill me and now want to confess your feelings? Forget it. Don’t give me that cheap act.”

I didn’t know if Xie Zhuo actually heard me. He was silent for a moment, then muttered to himself, “That day, I went back and thought for a long time…” He raised his hand and reached toward me.

I frowned and tried to step back, but an invisible force pushed against my back, stopping me. I turned my head and saw that Xie Zhuo had placed a barrier behind me.

In front of me, the pad of Xie Zhuo’s finger brushed my cheek—then slid toward my neck. The feeling of being threatened surged into my brain. My body instinctively went into high alert.

What the hell?! Didn’t Xie Zhuo say his bloodline power was restraining him? That he couldn’t kill me?!

The Pangu Axe glowed brighter and brighter like a small sun, illuminating me and Xie Zhuo within his barrier.

I stared at him, uncertain and wary. His hand landed on my neck. “If I kill you, will the pain finally end?”

Xie Zhuo, you son of a—

Are you out of your mind?

What kind of twisted logic is that?

The spiritual energy around him surged, compressing the space inside the barrier. My chest tightened with frustration, but all I could force out were two words: “Of course…” I couldn’t even say the “not.”

The spiritual energy crushed my chest and throat. Just those two words nearly made me pass out. I finally understood—there really are times when speaking hurts.

The choking sensation made me cough, dry and hacking.

I cursed Xie Zhuo to hell in my heart. Suddenly, he coughed too—then spat out a mouthful of blood, splattering it onto my chest.

I froze in shock.

The pressure of spiritual energy around us abruptly lessened. I looked up at him.

“So it turns out… hurting you hurts even more than that day…”

Hearing those words, my heart gave a jolt.

It was hard to describe what I felt in that moment hearing Xie Zhuo say that.

I told myself to stay clear-headed about Xie Zhuo. The pain he spoke of wasn’t the kind of pain I was thinking.

He was merely experiencing real, physical pain due to the restrictions of the bloodline power in his body.

Sure enough, the next thing he said was: “If I break the blood oath, the pain will stop.”

“Don’t even think about it. It’s useless.” I calmly and firmly told him. “Your plan has already failed. You’ve lived for hundreds of years, either as a god or demon, and it’s just a breakup. Go your way, I’ll go mine. What’s the point of all this drama and bloodshed?”

Xie Zhuo stared at me like a soldier without armor, watching the arrow fly straight at him.

I continued, “Killing me won’t fix the problem. This is about your emotions—you have to deal with them yourself.”

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His pitch-black eyes gleamed coldly, like a wolf driven to the edge with nowhere to retreat. His chilled fingertip lightly grazed my neck.

“Fu Jiuxia, if only I had never met you…”

As he said this, the Pangu Axe in his hand flared with blinding light.

With a gentle swing, he split open time and space once again. The glow of the rift shone from behind me, casting light on his face. He gave me a light push on the neck, and I stumbled backward—right into the fissure of space-time.

The scene of Kunlun vanished in an instant. All around me became distorted streaks of light and color.

Unlike the last chaotic tumble, this time I clearly saw what a split in time and space looked like. My figure seemed infinitely stretched and layered, plunging into an abyss so deep I couldn’t see the end.

Xie Zhuo was right beside me, his body also split into countless versions. He said, “Go left. Take yourself home.”

Leaving those words, he turned and headed to the right.

Left led five hundred years into the future. Right…

He hasn’t given up!? He wants to do it all over again!? He still wants to stop Xiaxia and Xie Xuanqing!?

I saw him take a step and immediately reached out to grab his sleeve—but Xie Zhuo clearly didn’t want me to succeed. He slapped my hand away, his figure flickered, and he vanished into the rift.

I hadn’t caught him, but how could I just let him run off like that? I chased right after him and stepped out of the rift too.

One step apart, mere seconds later—but when I emerged, Xie Zhuo was already gone.

I stood on the ground, and thanks to my familiarity with Kunlun, I knew this was the same place Xie Zhuo and I had just been standing.

But now, it wasn’t the lush late-May bloom. It was a world of ice and snow.

This was… Kunlun in the twelfth lunar month.

Xie Zhuo had gone back to an even earlier point five hundred years ago. Could it be…

He wanted to sever our fate before we even met!?

I thought the game was over, and now you’re telling me we’re starting over!? And with a damn prequel storyline this time!?

Xie Zhuo—what snow wolf clan? He’s clearly just a dog! Obsessed with killing me to the bitter end, won’t rest until he gets his way!?