Divorce by Agreement C02

Chapter 2

#Skilled and Fearless—Bold in Thought, Bold in Action!

I sucked in a sharp breath. The icy air rushed into my lungs, jolting me wide awake. I snapped my eyes open.

Above me stretched a clear night sky, sparse with stars, lit by a bright moon. Not a single cloud in sight. A few streaking meteors traced across the heavens.

So peaceful and serene—this moment made the earlier chaos and pain feel like nothing more than a dream.

It had to be a dream, I told myself. Xie Zhuo is a monster, how could he possibly come across the Pangu Axe? Why would he say he wanted to kill me? We were husband and wife, for heaven’s sake—even a day’s marriage comes with a hundred days of grace. We’ve been together for five hundred years, and it’s just a divorce. No need for threats of murder…

Before the thought had even settled, I turned my head—and saw the man in black sitting beside me.

Xie Zhuo, my ex-husband, sat with a chill radiating off him, his eyes dark and dangerous. He was casually toying with a battered axe, looking every bit like those terrifying killers in tales beyond Kunlun.

I gasped, scrambling upright and scuttling three meters back across the ground. I stared at him warily.

He didn’t show much expression, simply looked me over for a while before lowering his gaze and murmuring almost to himself, “I thought you were dead.”

What did that mean?

Was he worried I’d been unconscious too long, or was he just disappointed I wasn’t dead?

I didn’t dare ask. Ever since the divorce, Xie Zhuo’s temperament had become completely unreadable.

Before, even if he was a bit cold, talked little, and had too many rules, I could still read him. Whether he was happy, sad, displeased, about to lose his temper, or just sulking—I could always tell.

But now…

It was like he’d slammed shut the narrow door he once used to communicate with the world. Bolted it. Nailed it shut. Locked it from the outside with a thousand keys.

I couldn’t see through him. Couldn’t guess what he was thinking.

Just like… when I first met him.

He said no more. Simply dusted off his clothes and stood.

I followed suit, though warily. But as soon as I moved, my head spun, and my limbs went weak like they’d turned to jelly. I lost balance and plopped right back down. Xie Zhuo glanced at me but didn’t bother helping.

Back then, whether I fell while training or just sat on the ground playing, if Xie Zhuo saw me, he’d always walk over, silently reach out a hand, and wait for me to obediently place mine in his so he could pull me up. Then he’d scold me: “The ground’s cold…”

Now, we were divorced. Nothing worth getting sentimental about.

I pouted and stayed where I was.

“Where did you bring me?” I asked, looking around. The place felt familiar yet strange.

“Kunlun Summit,” he replied.

I frowned. Weren’t we already on the summit before? Where’s the black vortex? His barrier? And those immortals outside who were trying to kill him for wielding the Pangu Axe?

I looked at him, confused. He met my gaze and stayed silent for a long moment before finally explaining, “Five hundred years ago.”

Five hundred years ago? What part of Kunlun was this back then?

Just as I was puzzling it out, something clicked in my mind.

“Five hundred years ago!?”

I stared at him in shock, then slowly, inch by inch, lowered my gaze to the half-ruined axe in his hand.

Only then did I notice the carvings on it—patterns every immortal in Kunlun Ruins had to memorize and draw from a young age. The markings of the mountain’s guardian artifact: the Pangu Axe.

“You… you split the sky with the Pangu Axe and what you cut open was…”

His lips curved into a faint, mocking smile—full of contempt and derision. “Yes. Time.”

I was stunned—and panicked.

It hit me that over five hundred years of marriage, I might’ve just married a mystery. Because I knew nothing about my ex-husband’s power.

Xie Zhuo…

What kind of monster is he!?

“You… how can you hold the Pangu Axe? Use a celestial artifact as a demon? Split time and space… and even bring me with you…”

My voice grew smaller with each word. Each fact stacked on the next, each one a hundred, a thousand times harder to believe than the last.

Yet Xie Zhuo—he made it all look effortless.

While I was still reeling, he casually flipped the Pangu Axe in his hand. In an instant, it turned into a beam of light and slipped back into his sleeve.

Just like that!

Then, of all the questions, he answered the most irrelevant one: “I didn’t plan to bring you along.”

“…What are you planning?”

Xie Zhuo turned his back to me and walked toward the edge of the Kunlun Summit. Below his feet lay a sea of clouds stretching for miles, and a cliff so deep it seemed endless.

“Fu Jiuxia.” He said my name calmly, but with a determination I’d never heard from him before. “You’ve already severed your fate with me. Now, I’m going to sever mine.”

He turned slightly.

“And I’ll do it myself.”

As the words fell, he stepped off the cliff.

“Xie Zhuo!” I forced my weak body upright, scrambling and crawling toward the edge in a panic.

Was this lunatic really going to throw himself off a cliff five hundred years in the past!?

But just as I reached the edge, a fierce wind howled past. Wrapped in demonic aura and the night wind, Xie Zhuo soared through the cloud sea beneath Kunlun. His silhouette carved a bright path through the clouds like a heavenly river—beautiful, yet distant.

I must’ve lost my mind earlier. A demon who could split time and space with the Pangu Axe? No way he’d die from falling off a cliff…

And just then, as his light grew fainter in the distance, his final words echoed in my head—and I finally understood his purpose.

He came to change history.

He wanted to stop the version of me from five hundred years ago from ever meeting the version of him from five hundred years ago.

He wanted to cut off our fate—at its very root.

To avoid our divorce in the future, he simply came back to a time where we never married at all…

“This monster…” I couldn’t help but sigh. “His way of thinking really is… unorthodox.”

Truly skilled and fearless—bold in thought, bold in action!

But… something felt off. I rubbed my chin, thinking for a moment…

“Wait a minute!” I suddenly snapped back to reality. “No! You need to return the Pangu Axe!”

Xie Zhuo brought the Pangu Axe from five hundred years in the future to the present. That means, in the future timeline, the Kunlun Summit is now missing its guardian artifact.

Without the protection of the Pangu Axe, the barrier around the Kunlun Ruins will collapse. The miasma and demonic corruption outside will seep in, destroying this rare haven of peace.

Countless little immortals like Mengmeng, who just want to grow flowers and tend gardens, will struggle to survive.

Xie Zhuo can cut our ties however he likes—our relationship is our business. But no matter how messy things get between us, we can’t let it affect the lives of others.

That’s my bottom line.

“Xie Zhuo!” I shouted into the vast sea of clouds—no answer, of course.

Watching his figure vanish into the endless sky, I grew desperate. Ignoring my limp limbs, I immediately formed a wind-riding spell and took off after him.

But just as I followed his lead and stepped off the cliff, my body plunged like a rock dropped into water, crashing straight through the cloud layers with a series of heavy thuds, falling rapidly toward the canyon below.

Damn it! Our bodies were both torn through time and space—so why is it that Xie Zhuo adapted instantly the moment he arrived, while I’m practically disabled, weak-limbed and useless!?

I turned my head just in time to see the last layer of clouds part beneath me, revealing the perpetually snow-covered mountains of Kunlun. The terrain was jagged with broken rocks, some sharpened by the wind and snow to resemble blades of stone.

If I crash down hard like this, even with my Celestial body, I’d probably break several bones.

I steadied my mind, bit open my finger, hoping to draw on the power of my bloodline to cast a spell—but I was falling too fast. There was no time, no space left for me to form a seal.

The snowy ground was right beneath me, blindingly white, and I was bracing for a brutal impact when suddenly, a gust of wind came from the side—fine and silky like a ribbon—wrapping around me in an instant. After spinning me gently in the air twice, it set me down steadily on the snow.

I exhaled deeply, twice, then looked up at the sky.

Xie Zhuo hovered in the air, clothed in black. The sea of clouds above him blocked the moonlight, casting a shadow over his face, making him look rather cold and grim. As if saving me had been something he did entirely against his will.

But he saved me all the same.

When judging a person, don’t just listen to what they say—look at what they do.

He said earlier that he wanted to kill me. Ha. Men—always saying one thing and doing another.

We were married for five hundred years, after all! It’s not like he could just kill me or abandon me without a second thought. Even if love is gone, there’s still some duty left.

That one act of saving me gave me some reassurance.

At least he hasn’t gone completely mad…

“Xie Zhuo, we need to talk.” My body was still weak, so I couldn’t walk. I simply sat cross-legged in the snow. “Come down first.”

He descended, standing in front of me, but his expression was even colder than before.

“If you want to die…” he said indifferently, “then don’t let yourself bleed.”

That sentence came out of nowhere—totally baffling. I was about to die anyway, and now I’m supposed to control whether or not I bleed?

I figured he was just trying to save face. After all, only moments ago he had so decisively said he would cut off our marriage bond and walked away like it was nothing. Now he turned right back around to save me—anyone would feel a little awkward about that.

I chose to ignore his nonsense and pushed forward with my own topic.

“I know the divorce probably came as a shock to you… and wasn’t exactly pleasant. I’m also regretful that our marriage didn’t end well…

But that doesn’t mean you can take the Pangu Axe into your own hands and endanger all the immortals of Kunlun. Let’s return to five hundred years later with the axe first. It’s okay if it’s a little damaged—Queen Mother of the West can repair it…”

“You now,” he interrupted me, “what right do you have to ask me for anything?”

I swear, no one on this earth is better than a husband at stepping right on his wife’s last nerve with a single sentence.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. You can’t beat him, you can’t beat him, I reminded myself. Just talk, just talk!

But even after that mental pep talk, the first words out of my mouth were: “I’m not asking you for anything!”

I rubbed my forehead and pressed down on the twitching vein there, trying my best to speak calmly and evenly. “I’m reasoning with you. The collapse of our relationship and the divorce is between you and me…”

Xie Zhuo didn’t even bother replying. He just turned around and walked away.

“Xie Zhuo!”

Who can wake a person pretending to sleep? And who can get through to someone feigning deafness? Seeing that he was dead set on ignoring me, frustration boiled in my chest. But the situation was out of my control, so I shouted after him:

“Do you really have to destroy our marriage bond before you’ll go back?”

If I remembered right, before we came here, Xie Zhuo had said that when he returned, he would kill me.

Whether or not he’d actually kill me was another matter—but he said “when” he returned. Which meant he always intended to go back—just after he finished whatever he had to do here.

“I’ll help you!”

The moment I said those three words, Xie Zhuo froze.

He turned slightly, looking back at me.

I propped myself up with my sore and aching legs, using a rock beside me for support to slowly stand up. Just then, the clouds in the night sky parted, and moonlight spilled down between us—pure and white, reflecting in his pitch-black eyes, adding an even sharper chill to his aura.

To keep him here—and to reach my own goal—I raised my voice again and said:

“Our marriage never bore fruit anyway. I’ll help you sever it!”

The wind of Kunlun blew from behind him, sweeping past his side and up to my ear, bringing icy snowflakes that pricked my cheek like needles.

I ignored the pain and went on: “Once we’re done, let’s return and give back the Pangu Axe.”

He stared at me—just stared, not making a single other move.

Just as I began to wonder if the cold had frozen him stiff, I saw his lips part slightly and heard his voice—rough and hoarse—as he said:

“Alright…”

“Fu Jiuxia, you’re something else.”