Chapter 37

#The “Evil Being” was covered in wounds, while the “Immortal” had chewed through blood and bones.

The moonlight was thin and cold as it draped over me. Xie Zhuo’s arms wrapped tightly around me—I could feel his trembling, his struggle.

I didn’t know how he would react to this embrace once he came to his senses. I didn’t know how to explain it to him either—how could I, the one who had asked for separation, not resist this hug? I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself.

But I decided that this moment belonged to this moment. If my heart didn’t resist, I would allow myself to sink into it.

I thought the embrace would last for a long time, until Xie Zhuo calmed down…

Suddenly!

Xie Zhuo’s arms tightened fiercely. I froze for a second before I felt him uproot me from the ground!

My feet left the ground. Still dazed, I was abruptly flung behind him in one sweeping motion.

I landed hard on the ground, stunned and muddleheaded. I could only look up blankly at Xie Zhuo’s back. He stood in front of me in a defensive posture, black smoke curling off him like ribbons.

“You—” I hadn’t even had time to ask a question when a sudden flash of light slammed into the barrier in front of Xie Zhuo! A thunderous boom echoed out, and the barrier I had failed to break moments before instantly shattered into pieces.

The residual force of the spellstorm swept over us, forcing me to turn my head to avoid it. A broken, heavy iron shard flew with the aftershock, grazing my ear. Had I not turned, my ear might’ve been sliced clean off.

Heart pounding, I looked forward.

A familiar figure walked in from the moonlight outside the cave. I squinted slightly, unable to believe what I was seeing. “Wu Cheng!?”

That iron dummy? When did he gain this kind of strength? That iron shard just now…

I turned my head and saw that it was actually Wu Cheng’s own immortal artifact. He’d used it to smash the barrier? Strange. He didn’t seem like the type to act this way.

“Jiuxia!” Wu Cheng, however, looked completely normal. He stood at the cave entrance, furious, facing off against Xie Zhuo. “We’ve searched for you for so many days. I didn’t expect—you were really here in the Snow Bamboo Forest, colluding with an evil being!”

I glanced at Xie Zhuo. Black energy roiled around him, making him indistinguishable from an evil creature. I didn’t know how to explain. I could only pat the dust off and stand up, trying to walk out from behind Xie Zhuo. “Why are you here?”

As I spoke and walked to his side, Xie Zhuo raised a hand wreathed in black mist and stopped me.

“Don’t go over there…”

I turned to look at him. I could see his profile clearly—those pitch-black eyes were eerily terrifying.

By appearance alone, Xie Zhuo was beyond doubt an evil being. But he… hadn’t lost his mind. At least…

I believed he hadn’t.

“You’re still siding with that evil thing!? Hurry over here!” Wu Cheng called anxiously, “I’ll take you to see Queen Mother of the West. She can purge the evil energy from you and bring you back to the right path!”

These days, I had been thinking of every way to get away from Xie Zhuo, but…

I looked at Wu Cheng. He still looked the same as usual, but a faint, strange unease lingered in my chest.

Instinctively, I chose to trust Xie Zhuo—even in this form.

I stepped back, closer to him.

That one step made Xie Zhuo slightly turn his head. He looked at me, his black eyes meeting mine. Without saying much, I turned back to Wu Cheng and said, “I haven’t fallen into the path of evil. And he… he’s not an evil being either. I’ll deal with this myself—you go back first.”

Wu Cheng didn’t move. His gaze gradually darkened. “You don’t want your final chance, Jiuxia?”

I frowned and said nothing.

“General Jiuxia, I didn’t expect this…” A cold, sinister voice came from behind Wu Cheng.

My heart clenched. That cold feeling twisted up from my stomach.

In the moonlight, Jing Nanshou stepped out slowly from behind Wu Cheng. His head tilted ever so slightly as he spoke softly, “So you really are colluding with an evil being.”

When he spoke, he bared slightly white teeth, just like he had that day when he opened his mouth beside me.

But today wasn’t the same. Though Jing Nanshou seemed to be addressing me, his eyes were locked on Xie Zhuo—glowing with a strange light.

This man-eating wood immortal and Xie Zhuo…

I grew wary. In front of me, the black mist around Xie Zhuo grew increasingly violent with Jing Nanshou’s appearance.

And in the night sky not far away, more and more small lights were appearing in the distance.

I knew those were other immortals from Kunlun approaching on their swords. That night, when Xie Zhuo split space and time open with the Pangu Axe, Kunlun was just as lively.

I glanced at Xie Zhuo. “Hold it in.”

I whispered, “If you keep this up, once the other immortals arrive, it’ll be impossible to explain.” But Xie Zhuo seemed unable to hear me. His lips quivered uncontrollably, mumbling something under his breath.

I couldn’t hear clearly, so I leaned closer. Then I understood what he was saying:

“He hurt you.”

I froze. Then I glanced at my hand. I was an immortal—whatever wound Jing Nanshou gave me had long healed. I hadn’t thought… it was even worth remembering.

While I was stunned, Xie Zhuo vanished in a blink, a gust of black wind brushing past my ear.

When I saw him again, he was already several yards away on a rocky outcrop. Accompanied by a deafening crash, Xie Zhuo had seized Jing Nanshou by the throat and slammed him viciously into the mountain stone!

Jing Nanshou’s back smashed the rock into a dent, stone fragments flying everywhere.

I was stunned…

Jing Nanshou was a high immortal! Wasn’t Xie Zhuo severely injured? How…

Where did he get this power? Was he faking weakness before?

But that doesn’t make sense. What would he gain by deceiving me? If he wanted, he could’ve dragged me back to five hundred years later and fulfilled his wish long ago.

Of course, Xie Zhuo couldn’t see my astonishment right now, nor hear my questions. He tightened his grip on Jing Nanshou’s neck, jaw clenched. As he spoke, dark evil energy leaked from the corners of his lips like smoke.

“If you dare touch her, I’ll kill you again.”

Murderous intent radiated off him…

Today’s Xie Zhuo was not the same as before. Perhaps under the influence of the evil energy, his emotions were more exposed, and his words lacked any filter.

Jing Nanshou didn’t understand what he meant, and laughed bitterly, “Sir, what do you mean by again?”

But I understood.

In the timeline where I had lived with Xie Zhuo, the man-eating immortal Jing Nanshou—was someone Xie Zhuo had killed.

He never told me. He never told anyone. Until now, under the sway of evil energy, he let it slip.

I stared at him from afar, lips pressed tightly. That long-overdue answer… didn’t even matter anymore.

Just then, another shadow loomed over me.

“Jiuxia.” Wu Cheng stood before me. “If you won’t see the Queen Mother of the West, then I’ll send you to the King of Hell instead.”

As he said this, I looked up at Wu Cheng—only to see a smile playing at his lips. As if killing me… was something that brought him joy.

I froze, not even turning sideways to dodge, as a piece of rubble flew straight from the distance and struck Wu Cheng hard on the head. His entire body tilted to the side and crashed to the ground, falling unconscious, blood streaming from his forehead.

Staring blankly, I looked at Wu Cheng, then at Xie Zhuo in the distance. He still had his hand around Jing Nanshou’s throat, but those pitch-black eyes cut through the night and landed squarely on me.

In that moment, I felt like I had glimpsed his true form—a genuine snow wolf, with a beast’s instinct and decisiveness.

But…

I turned to look at the unconscious Wu Cheng.

We’d been so close just now, and yet I hadn’t sensed anything strange about him. He wasn’t a fake, there was no sign of demonic energy, nor did he seem like he was being controlled. He was Wu Cheng, a fellow soldier of the Kunlun Defense Army who’d stood by me for years—my friend. But just now, he’d said… he was going to send me to the King of Hell?

Even if I really was some evil entity, the real Wu Cheng wouldn’t have tried to kill me with joy, right?

What… happened to him?

Up in the sky, more immortals arrived flying on their swords.

I knew, with the way Xie Zhuo looked now, there was no explaining any of this. I couldn’t let him stay here.

I glanced at Wu Cheng again and saw that he was still breathing steadily. I rushed toward Xie Zhuo. “We have to go!” I shouted. “Now!”

But Xie Zhuo turned his head back to Jing Nanshou. His grip only tightened, as if intending to crush Jing Nanshou’s throat right then and there.

But Jing Nanshou was glowing with a protective celestial spell, fiercely resisting Xie Zhuo.

The power they wielded was far beyond mine—just standing near their clash was a struggle.

Wind howled as Xie Zhuo’s body seethed with black mist, while Jing Nanshou’s radiant spell shone like glass, slowly shattering. Their confrontation looked, to any onlooker, like a true demon wreaking havoc and a righteous immortal fighting to stop him.

But only I knew—the “demon” bore the scars of fighting demons, and the “immortal” had chewed flesh and bone with his own teeth.

“Heh…” Jing Nanshou let out a twisted laugh. “You look more and more like what the lord wanted.”

I couldn’t understand what he meant, but Xie Zhuo’s black aura surged even stronger. The protective light around Jing Nanshou cracked like glass.

At that moment, streaks of sharp celestial spells rained down from above.

“What demon dares wreak havoc in my Kunlun!”

“Release Vine-Immortal!”

Accompanied by shouts from the arriving immortals, more and more spells stabbed toward Xie Zhuo. The black mist behind him blocked several attacks, but some slipped through. One beam of light pierced his shoulder. His body shuddered. My eyes flew wide.

No matter what had happened between me and Xie Zhuo before, in that instant, it felt like I had been stabbed.

Gritting my teeth, I looked to the sky, channeling every bit of soul power I had gathered over the past days and formed a barrier to block the hundreds of incoming immortals.

“That’s a Kunlun Defense Seal!”

“There’s a traitor in Kunlun!”

One of the immortals in the sky noticed me. Spells shot down toward me. I had no strength to form another barrier. I could only duck and flee under the barrage.

In all my centuries of immortal life, it was the first time I’d ever been chased and attacked by Kunlun’s own.

Still—I had to get Xie Zhuo out.

If he were caught like this, he’d be executed on the spot. That was Kunlun’s law.

There was no way I could stop hundreds of people in this chaos, no way they’d believe me in just a few words.

Even if it were me from years ago—I probably wouldn’t have believed it either. That a creature possessed by demonic energy could still have a will of its own.

“Xie Zhuo!” I charged toward him again, shouting his name through the chaos.

My barrier encased him from above. Under its glow, Xie Zhuo turned his head and looked at me.

“Come with me!”

In those black eyes, lit by countless magical lights, I saw my own reflection.

I had reached him. I flung myself into his arms, and his eyes went wide as I shoved him away from Jing Nanshou.

Freed from Xie Zhuo’s grip, Jing Nanshou didn’t fight back. He had exhausted himself and fell to his knees, clutching his throat and gasping for air—but his cold, mad gaze still locked onto Xie Zhuo.

It was only then I realized—Jing Nanshou had gone truly mad after he came into contact with my blood.

And what’s special about my blood? Of course—the blood oath.

Jing Nanshou’s target from the very beginning… was Xie Zhuo!

No time to hesitate.

The demonic energy around Xie Zhuo started to fade—and with it, his body visibly weakened.

My barrier wouldn’t hold much longer. I had no choice but to carry Xie Zhuo and flee into the snowy bamboo forest, hoping the dense growth would help shake off our pursuers.

“Wait,” Xie Zhuo grabbed me, biting his finger and drawing a pattern in the snow.

“What is th—” I didn’t even finish before the pattern glowed.

The light enveloped us both. In the blink of an eye, the surroundings changed. The celestial light, the bamboo grove—all gone. Only darkness remained, and a vast snowy plain stretched into the distance.

“A teleportation array?” I asked Xie Zhuo. “Where are we?”

No answer…

Xie Zhuo slipped from my shoulder and collapsed into the snow, unconscious.

The demonic energy around him was completely gone. On his exposed skin, only gruesome wounds remained, bleeding freely, painting the white snow around him red like spilled dye.

I knelt down and checked his breath. Weak and shallow—but he was still alive.

Alive—that’s all that matters.

I looked up at the boundless snowfield ahead, then fell into silence. In Kunlun, no matter where you were, you could always see Buzhou Mountain. You could see the barrier held down by Pangu’s axe. But here…

There was nothing.

“Classic you, Xie Zhuo,” I muttered. “Just had to take me all the way out of Kunlun.”

Outside Kunlun, demons ran rampant. For the last five hundred years, every book taught to Kunlun’s children had said the same.

And now, I wasn’t sure which was safer—staying in Kunlun and getting beaten… or dragging a half-dead man across this endless, demon-infested snowfield.