Chapter 27

#Once You’re Healed, I’ll Smile at You Every Day

For hundreds of years after that, I remained wary of the world outside Kunlun—mostly because of the terrible impression I got on my very first venture beyond its borders.

The malevolent being took me to its lair—somewhere we’d sent countless scouts to find, but had never succeeded. It was a small valley two hundred li from Kunlun.

Not a single blade of grass grew there. The place was so overrun by malevolence that the air itself was nearly too foul to breathe.

Dizzy and weak, I was bound and tossed to the ground. As I lay there, I wondered whether my Kunlun command token might be able to transmit my location back to the sect—when suddenly, a sharp claw pressed up against my chin.

I looked up to find a face with eight eyes and a long, vertical mouth. Fangs jutted out, gleaming coldly. Just seeing that face made me gasp.

I’d seen plenty of strange-looking creatures before, but never anything this strange.

It looked like this creature had been a spider demon in life. Its fangs scraped and ground against each other with an awful click-click-click, a sound that made my ears ache. From the corners of its vertical mouth dripped a liquid that hit the ground and stretched into web-like threads.

All eight of its eyes rolled continuously, each one fixed on my face.

“So you’re the one Xie Zhuo married?”

The voice came out hoarse and broken, as though the words weren’t coming from its mouth at all, but from some other place.

“After all that effort, I finally got you out here to meet you.”

I frowned in confusion and asked directly, “Who are you? What’s your history with Xie Zhuo? Why have you taken me?”

I asked, “What are you creatures scheming outside Kunlun?”

The spider demon didn’t answer. It only let out a bizarre laugh, then twisted its head to look around. “Come see for yourselves! This is Xie Zhuo’s wife…”

Its throat vibrated with a command-like rasp. “Remember her…”

A strange, malevolent aura surged around me. I looked around and saw, in the dark, countless glowing red eyes—all staring at me with a bloodthirsty glint.

Back then, I barely knew anything about my husband Xie Zhuo. I had no idea what he’d done to attract so many malevolent creatures who clearly hated him with every fiber of their being. He’d been in Kunlun for a hundred years already—yet these things still came seeking revenge.

And even now, I still don’t know what connection he has to them…

“Master, he’s here.”

A deep voice echoed from the hall’s entrance.

I didn’t know who had arrived, but the next moment, the spider demon raised its hand and touched my shoulder with a thread of sticky silk. Instantly, the web expanded and wrapped tightly around my entire body.

The web covered my eyes and ears, cocooning me like a cicada. It felt like sinking into an ocean—my vision blurred, my ears filled with static. The chittering of the spider’s fangs disappeared, along with every other sound.

I was hoisted upside-down and hung from the hall’s ceiling.

Only then did I faintly make out that I was inside a large stone hall. At the entrance, a heavy stone door was half-open, just slightly ajar.

All the malevolent beings had their eyes on that narrow opening. They seemed both on guard and afraid. The air churned with thick, oppressive energy.

No one paid any attention to me anymore, so I began trying to figure out how to escape the web.

My hands were tied behind my back. I tried to summon my internal energy to break free—but the very first strand of silk that had stuck to my shoulder suddenly drove into my skin like a needle.

I felt a chill seep into my body. A cold sweat broke across my back as my heart began to race. I opened my mouth—and coughed up a mouthful of black blood.

It hit me then: when poisonous spiders hunt, they inject venom into their prey and cocoon them. They wait until the poison melts the prey’s organs before drinking the liquefied remains…

I—I’d become the spider demon’s prey…

Mind spinning, I fought to circulate my internal energy to resist the toxin.

Just then, the stone door below was blown off its hinges by a powerful force. The impact shook the web binding me, making my entire body tremble.

Someone stepped through the entrance. My vision was so blurry I couldn’t make out his face, and the noise below seemed eerily silent to me—as though time itself had come to a halt.

In the blink of an eye, all the malevolent beings in the hall fell still. The next time I opened my eyes, the intruder had already seized the spider demon’s head.

That horrifying, eight-eyed head was crushed like it was nothing—skull and all—right there in his grip.

The moment the spider demon lost its head, the web restraining me loosened and fell away. I slipped free, and finally saw the face of the man outside—

Who else could it be but Xie Zhuo?

But the murderous fury on his face was something I’d never seen before. He looked like a reaper from the underworld, his killing intent saturating the entire hall. Blood pooled beneath his feet.

This was the first time I’d ever seen Xie Zhuo slaughter anything.

His methods were brutal, swift, and merciless—clearly honed through countless battles.

I opened my mouth, wanting to call out to him. But as if sensing it, he looked up at me.

And in that instant, all the killing intent vanished. The cruelty, the sharp edge, all gone—replaced by terror and deep worry.

The last thread of web binding me snapped, and I fell from the ceiling. Xie Zhuo caught me, but the moment he did, he noticed something was wrong.

Black blood was still spilling from my mouth.

“Jiuxia,” he called my name, visibly shaken.

“Poison…”

I managed to say a single word, and he immediately understood. He found the puncture on my shoulder without hesitation.

Placing a hand on the wound, he said, “Bear with it…”

His energy flowed into me through the injury. Unlike the earlier cold poison, his presence brought warmth. My numb limbs slowly regained feeling.

Bit by bit, he drove the poison from my body. I didn’t feel much pain—but the look on his face, the way his brow furrowed and his lips pressed tightly together, told me just how much it hurt him.

I wanted to say something to ease his worry—but in that moment, behind Xie Zhuo, the headless spider demon suddenly stood back up.

My eyes flew wide in shock.

“Xie Zhuo!”

But he didn’t move. He let the demon’s blade pierce through his back and burst out his chest—right in front of me.

Blood dripped from the blade, dangling before my eyes.

Even then, the flow of energy expelling the poison from my body didn’t stop—not until the last trace of it was gone.

There’s no way he didn’t notice the spider demon’s movement. He just… chose to ignore it.

Only after I was completely safe did Xie Zhuo let

“This is only the beginning.”

I waved my hand and scattered the flying ash, then held Xie Zhuo in my arms.

His face was pale, but he showed no sign of pain.

I knew the spider demon’s attack must have carried some kind of evil force. That power would burrow into his inner energy, and for days to come, it would continue to tear at him from within. Many immortals and demons had ended their lives after being wounded by such malevolence, unable to bear the agony of having their inner energy ripped apart.

“Go back,” Xie Zhuo said. “This place isn’t good for you.”

Not good for me—again.

By then, Xie Zhuo and I had been married for a hundred years. I’d heard those words plenty of times. I’d started to get used to brushing them off, but this time, I didn’t.

I hoisted him up. “We’ll go back together. I’ll take you to Kunlun to heal.”

“Don’t worry about me, Jiuxia.”

I turned to look at him, only to find he was already gazing at me, speaking gently: “It’s safe now. Smile a little.”

Of course I couldn’t smile. “Once you’re better, I’ll smile at you every day.”

He nodded. “Alright…”

Later on, of course, I didn’t keep my promise. I didn’t smile at him every day. We still had four hundred years of marriage left, and during those four hundred years—not to mention smiling—I yelled at him, cursed at him, even hit him. In the end, I even struck Unending Mountain off its mark…

All that, naturally, was me rebelling against his many unreasonable demands.

But the reason those four hundred years existed at all was because, despite all his deception and cruelty… Xie Zhuo had once risked his life to save me.

Still, a bond forged through life and death can’t withstand the slow grind of time. Day after day, even the deepest passion will be worn away.

Outside the cave, through the Yin-Yang fish, I told Xiaxia about this piece of the “past” she had not yet experienced. She was stunned for a while, then finally asked:

“So, Xie Zhuo was already terrifyingly strong back then and wiped out all the evil forces in that valley, and you didn’t even realize how powerful he was? And then for the next few hundred years, you still kept fighting him?” She was blunt. “Was I trying to die or something?”

I pursed my lips. “When I was leaving that stone hall, Queen Mother of the West was there too.”

That day, as I carried Xie Zhuo out of the hall, sunlight spilled through the shattered stone gate, but what met my eyes was a mountain of stone and a sea of blood…

All the evil spirits in the valley had turned into thick, sticky blood flowing across the ground.

One step forward, and I could splash through it.

I was briefly stunned by Xie Zhuo’s power—but just a few steps later, I saw a glowing figure descending from the sky. It was none other than the chief deity of Kunlun—Queen Mother of the West.

I immediately carried Xie Zhuo toward her.

Then she took us back to Kunlun, healed his wounds, and granted me half a year of leave—not because I was injured, but because… the plague of evil spirits that had been troubling Kunlun was gone.

“At the time, I naturally assumed it was Xie Zhuo and Queen Mother of the West who had joined forces to wipe them out. With her there, something like that happening seemed perfectly normal.”

Xiaxia thought for a moment. “So, the wound on Xie Zhuo’s chest was from the spider demon that struck him while saving you? From back to front, straight through? That’s no light injury.

“But I saw worse scars on his body—ones that must’ve taken months to heal. You lived with him day and night and really didn’t notice anything?”

I reflected for a while, then let out a long sigh.

“How do you know we lived together day and night?”

“Weren’t you two married…” Xiaxia trailed off, then muttered, “Never mind. Five hundred years, and you didn’t even sleep together. What else is there to say?”

I was left speechless…

Xie Zhuo disappearing during our marriage became practically routine—months, sometimes half a year gone without a word.

Back then, I was annoyed by him. But now that I’ve seen his wounds, I think I finally understand where he was going…

Looking back, there were clues. Like after the spider demon incident, when he lay in bed for three months—those were probably the happiest three months of our marriage.

He got better under my care, then vanished again.

It was nearly half a year before he came back. By then, all my tenderness had turned into fury.

I completely lost it. How could anyone just up and leave when things were finally good between us?

And as always, he wouldn’t tell me where he’d been.

After that…

After that, everything between us began to spiral downward…

But also from that moment on, there were no more evil spirits beyond Kunlun. For the next four hundred years, Kunlun became a paradise in the cultivation world. They even opened up the East Market, allowing little demons and immortals to do business together.

“So…” Xiaxia asked, “Was it Xie Zhuo who cleared out all the evil spirits beyond Kunlun?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “He never told me anything.”

“But if he was doing something like purging evil, why not tell you? Isn’t that a good thing?”

I glanced back into the cave. Xie Zhuo was still inside, asleep. I had protected his heart meridian—he shouldn’t be in any real danger.

I lowered my eyes.

“If he had just said something… would we have ended up like this?”

Because, truthfully, I had loved Xie Zhuo.