Chapter 45

#These Five Hundred Years, Not Torment

I suddenly remembered the day I cut the red thread—how the light in Xie Zhuo’s eyes had quietly extinguished without a sound.

That tiny light, on that day, was merely something I glimpsed without care. But today, it had turned into a needle piercing straight into the core of my heart, stabbing through my chest.

I gently pushed Xie Zhuo away.

He was still staring at me in a daze, seemingly still caught in the lingering emotion of my previous words.

“Xie Zhuo,” I called his name and gripped his hand tightly in mine.

“We won’t separate,” I said. “We won’t separate.”

His black pupils fixed on me.

In his eyes, there was only me—the pale-faced me, the trembling-lipped me, the tear-streaked me.

I untied the rope that had originally bound us together at the waist, wrapped it three times around my own wrist, then three times around his. I bit down on the other end of the rope, pulled it tight, and fastened our wrists firmly together.

“The red thread,” I said, wiping away the tears still falling uncontrollably from my face. Through the haze, I looked at him. “I’ll reconnect it myself!”

Xie Zhuo didn’t speak.

He lowered his head to look at the rope on his wrist. His expression was a mix of disbelief and cautiousness. He moved his wrist slightly.

The knot was secure. A slight movement like that wouldn’t loosen it. Yet he still placed his other hand over the knot, gently covering it.

He was silent, head bowed, lashes casting shadows beneath his eyes.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, so I simply followed his breathing, waiting quietly.

“Fu Jiuxia…”

He called me. I wiped away my tears and looked at him, heart in my throat.

“The red thread… has already broken,” he said. “It can’t be reconnected.”

I’ve always been talkative in front of Xie Zhuo, no matter the time. But right now, I had nothing to say.

I watched as he moved his fingers and slowly untied the rope I’d fastened.

He held it in his hand.

His gaze on me was calm and emotionless. “Things in a dream don’t have to be taken seriously. You don’t need to pity me just because of what you saw.”

He thought I was pitying him.

He untied the rope, said those words of rejection. But I don’t know why—looking at him like this, I seemed to see the child in the dream again…

The hand he reached out with was empty. It grasped nothing.

“In the Undying City, evil aura runs rampant. Your emotions will become more volatile. You must remain calm,” he said almost coldly. “Forget the dream. No matter what you saw, don’t dwell on it.”

I looked at Xie Zhuo.

I didn’t know how long he’d been resisting the will of the evil god in the depths of his soul to achieve this current calm.

I also didn’t know whether the overwhelming emotions I felt for Xie Zhuo were love, or the sympathy he spoke of.

And I certainly didn’t know if I’d truly been affected by the evil aura—maybe everything in the dream was fake.

I had no clue. I was lost and confused. But I did one thing.

I grabbed his hand.

So that his palm wouldn’t feel empty again.

Xie Zhuo clearly froze again. His gaze shifted from our clasped hands to my face.

“Still… let’s not separate,” I murmured. “I know now why you don’t drink or eat spicy food. I know why you kept things from me. If we can be honest with each other, if we can continue walking side by side, then… there’s no need to separate.”

“When we’re done here, let’s go back—back to five hundred years later. And live well…”

Xie Zhuo didn’t let me finish.

He pulled his hand from mine.

I pressed my lips together, meeting his gaze directly.

But as he withdrew, I saw his breathing grow slightly ragged, as if he had exhausted all his strength.

He avoided my eyes and looked into the distance. A long while passed before he finally found something to say.

“Dawn is breaking. While it’s still light, let’s cover more ground.”

Without giving me a chance to respond, he pulled me to my feet, hoisted me onto his back, and bound us together at the waist with the rope—just like our journey to the Undying City.

I looked down at the rope around our waists and leaned close to his ear, persistent:

“So, we’re really not separating?”

He had just tied me to him again and now heard this. He must’ve realized he couldn’t escape today, and finally gave me a direct response.

“Now is not the time to talk about this.”

“Then when?”

He fell silent again.

A long moment later, he spoke slowly: “After you’re healed…”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. He leapt forward, carrying me easily from one rooftop to a shattered wall—without even using any cultivation techniques.

But in that moment of movement, I caught a glimpse of my sleeve—and the arm within.

I was shocked—

Inside my sleeve, my arm was covered in bulging black veins, a hundred times worse than before.

Now… truly wasn’t the time for “marriage discussions.”

“How long has this dream lasted?”

I remembered the last time—on the snowy plains—when I woke up, Xie Zhuo said I’d been unconscious for half a month.

This time…

“Three days…”

Three days, carrying me while I was out of my mind, dodging evil creatures and cultivators. Xie Zhuo must’ve… had a hard time.

Still, “Thank goodness… only three days…”

Just as the words left my lips, a sharp pain struck my chest, as if dragging me back into the dream.

I clenched my teeth and endured it, not wanting to distract Xie Zhuo. But we were so close—how could he not feel it?

“Adjust your breathing,” he said as he continued moving. “Don’t focus on one specific pain. Let your qi flow with your thoughts. We’re almost to the inner city wall. Don’t be afraid…”

I looked ahead. The towering inner walls of the Undying City still loomed ahead.

Xie Zhuo carried me swiftly through the city.

In the jolting pain, I dazedly asked, “The evil aura I’m carrying—you didn’t have that before.”

When we first met, Xie Zhuo had been gravely injured, but there was no evil aura on his body.

I asked, “When did it start?”

He didn’t answer.

Until I said: “Just distract me a little…”

“After the incident in Southern Jingnan, it started.”

Southern Jingnan… In our timeline, the man-eating incident there began not long after we married.

At first, the people of Kunlun thought disappearances were caused by evil spirits. Then rumors started spreading—that the monster who married me was the one eating people. And as more and more people went missing, the rumors intensified until, after someone who broke down our mansion’s gates was devoured, everyone began to believe the man-eater was Xie Zhuo.

We were placed under house arrest by Queen Mother of the West. After that…

Xie Zhuo disappeared for a long time.

“You went out carrying me on your back after being wrongfully accused—was it to catch the culprit in Southern Jingnan?”

“Yes.”

“You came back covered in wounds—was it because you fought him?”

“Yes.”

“You were the one who caught him.”

“Mm…”

“You really hid it well.”

He never told me anything. That time, he returned on a rainy night, covered in blood. He went straight to the room, shut the door, set up a barrier. I stood outside, knocking on the door all night.

Back then, I didn’t understand why Xie Zhuo treated me like that. It was the first time I felt shaken about our marriage.

Turned out, he had been inside, healing his wounds…

“He’s hard to deal with. Is the evil energy in your body because of him?”

“He is indeed hard to deal with. But the evil energy in my body wasn’t entirely caused by him. He was just the catalyst, the one who opened the door.”

At that, I thought of all those wounds on Xie Zhuo’s body that I’d never known about.

That was also why he never undressed in front of me.

After that, who knows how many evil spirits he fought, how much foul energy he absorbed—day after day, year after year, until now.

And in that moment, despite the excruciating pain in my body, I still felt my heart clench for him.

“Five hundred years…” I asked, “Is this how you’ve endured all this time?”

Xie Zhuo was silent for a long while.

“There was no endurance,” he said. “These five hundred years… weren’t hard to bear.”

Liar…

How could it not be hard? It hurt this much.

Struggling like that every night—how could it not be torment?

Having to face my confusion and questions, yet not being able to say anything—how could it not be torment?

I didn’t understand. How could he still say “it wasn’t hard” with such calmness, after all this time?

But on the night I cut the red thread, he picked up the Pangu Axe, split open space and time, said he wanted to go back, to make up for his mistakes, to kill me.

Completely lost control. Mind and soul twisted.

Whether he admits it or not, I know—on that night, he was tormented.

I tightened my arms around his neck.

I thought of that little boy under the Tree of Longing, the one who told me that once the green scissors cut the red thread, it could never be reconnected—but if I make it back to five hundred years later, I’ll find a way. I’ll find a way to tie it back together.

“Fu Jiuxia. Stay conscious.” Xie Zhuo didn’t hear me speak for a while, probably thought I’d passed out from the pain.

“I’m awake,” I told him.

More awake than ever.

He was a little relieved and continued forward.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced through my hand. I looked down—those black veins rising beneath my skin could no longer contain the evil energy inside me. They tore through my flesh and burst out.

The evil energy flowed from the back of my hand—thicker than anything in the entire Undying City.

It drifted in the air, and even in broad daylight, strange movements stirred within the city.

I pressed my other hand against the ruptured skin.

“Xie Zhuo.” I looked toward the inner city gate that was getting closer. I’d been a cultivator all my life, sword-riding through the wind like it was nothing. Yet now, I was bound to the ground. So close, yet I couldn’t reach it.

“If I say I won’t divorce now… it might be too late.” I looked at the black mist dispersing from me. The restless air around us grew louder and more chaotic.

Maybe it was the evil spirits following us, or maybe cultivators within the city preparing to kill me.

“You should put me down.”

I didn’t want to drag him down with me.

“You still have the Pangu Axe, right?”

These five hundred years—I may have tormented him enough already.

“If you go back to five hundred years later… maybe you’ll still make it in time.”

He said nothing, but summoned his cold sword with a flick.

He didn’t stop running. At a street corner, when an evil spirit lunged at us, he raised his sword and cut it down in one blow—turning it into a cloud of black mist.

He didn’t answer me—but that was his answer.

I sighed internally. I knew—he was just as stubborn as ever.

With me on his back, Xie Zhuo leapt again, landing on top of the shattered ruins.

From above, I saw people flooding the streets below—darting through alleyways, chasing after us. A fierce battle was about to begin.

Suddenly, from the alley below, came a familiar sound—hooves.

I’d heard it before!

I turned around—and sure enough, a black-armored soldier with a spear appeared in the alley! The same one from that night!

My heart tightened. I remembered how he’d slain the evil spirits, and now with so much foul energy pouring from my hand—I didn’t know what I looked like to the spirits, but to this soldier—if he was a proper cultivator, he’d surely spear me to death on the spot!

And I couldn’t tell if he was stronger than Xie Zhuo—but I was certain he could take on ten of me. If he caught up to us, and Xie Zhuo was still carrying me while that guy had a horse—

“Put me down.” I thought, there’s no way Xie Zhuo could outrun four legs with two. If he put me down, maybe he’d stand a chance in a fight.

Before the thought had fully formed, a ragged figure suddenly lunged at us—mouth wide open.

But in that moment!

A flash of silver light. The attacker was instantly pierced through by a silver spear and pinned to the side.

I froze. I turned back—just in time to see the black-armored soldier leap onto a rooftop behind us, yank his spear free, dash forward a few steps, and flip back down onto his warhorse.

All in one fluid motion—sharp, clean, and fast.

He rode alongside Xie Zhuo. One on the rooftops, one in the alley below. Anyone along the way who looked even remotely off—was swiftly dealt with by his spear.

If there had been any doubt before, now I truly understood.

“He’s really helping us.” I asked Xie Zhuo, “Didn’t you say it’s hard to tell friend from foe in the Undying City? Then who is this helping us?”

At last, Xie Zhuo spared a glance at the black-armored soldier.

He frowned. “Not sure. Might be… the main deity of the Undying City.”

I was stunned. This Undying City… has a main deity!?