Chapter 40

#A Day as Husband and Wife, a Hundred Days of Grace

I lay on the ground, staring up at Xie Zhuo’s upside-down features. I thought, given the state of our relationship now, he’d at least argue a little.

But he didn’t…

In his dark pupils was a reflection of the snow-white bloodstained ground, and my pale face. The rims of those pupils trembled, just like his fingertips, as if he sealed away emotions I couldn’t understand in those crystalline eyes.

It was as if he realized I was prying into the secrets within them—his finger, which had been resting at the center of my brow, slid downward, covering my eyes completely.

The sky and he were blocked out by his fingers. I could only see a sliver of light through the gaps between them.

“Xie Zhuo…” I asked him softly, “what’s wrong with you?”

I had never seen Xie Zhuo like this. We’d been husband and wife for five hundred years. It wasn’t like we hadn’t faced crises before. Even the time I was expelled from Kunlun—when he came for me—he hadn’t looked like this.

He was afraid. He was terrified. He was trembling.

And… he was in pain.

I didn’t understand…

Why would he show such emotion? If he was only protecting me because of a blood oath, then he shouldn’t feel anything.

This kind of emotion, in the mundane world as I knew it, usually went by another name—

Love.

But Xie Zhuo… had never said as much to me.

He kept his hand over my eyes for a long time. So long that my numbed limbs gradually began to feel the cold of the snow and ice again. Then, I heard him let out a quiet breath.

He lifted his hand, and stepped away from above me. He walked to my side instead. When I looked at his expression, it had already returned to its usual calm, as if everything just now had been my illusion.

Xie Zhuo didn’t answer my question. He only asked, “Can you feel your limbs again?”

I wiggled my fingertips, then nodded at him with some effort.

He crouched beside me and reached into the snow to slide an arm behind my neck, helping me sit up.

The moment I sat up, I was stunned.

All around me, the snowy plain was in ruins—there wasn’t a single spot left untouched. In some places, even the earth and rocks beneath had been completely overturned.

“This place… there was a battle?”

He said nothing.

I looked at Xie Zhuo again and froze once more. “Your wounds… healed pretty quickly.”

Before I passed out, his chest had been a bloody mess. Now, there was only a scar left. “You really are something…”

“Half a month,” Xie Zhuo interrupted me.

“Half…” It took me a while to react. “I… I was unconscious for half a month? A whole half month?” I couldn’t believe it. “There was such a fierce battle happening around me, and I didn’t even wake up?”

“With you.”

“What?”

“There was no one else,” Xie Zhuo said calmly. “It was you who fought me.”

I was instantly stunned. I looked around again, then gasped. “Me? I was possessed by that evil aura, wasn’t I?”

“Mm.”

“I thought… I thought it was just a dream…”

I remembered that strange, ever-changing person in the dream. He told me to kill Xie Zhuo, and seemed to harbor deep hatred toward him. They must have known each other. There was a whole history I didn’t know. I opened my mouth to ask, but in the end, I closed it.

Knowing Xie Zhuo, he wouldn’t answer anyway.

“I was possessed… and I still managed to regain clarity?” I murmured, moving my stiff fingers. As I lowered my head to look, I saw that the veins in my palm had turned black.

I jumped, immediately lifting my other hand. Sure enough, the veins on the back of that hand were also black. I tried to roll up my sleeve, but a cold hand grabbed my wrist, holding my sleeve in place.

“Don’t look.” Xie Zhuo stopped me, his voice slightly hoarse.

I lowered my hand. Even that small motion left me panting. I turned to look at Xie Zhuo. “Are my pupils still clear?”

He stared into my eyes, then gave a slight nod.

I believed him. Then I looked back at my own palm. The black veins, hideous and frightening. But after the initial shock, I calmed down quickly.

It wasn’t all that unexpected, really.

The evil aura in Xie Zhuo’s body was so intense. I knew the moment I tried to draw it out that this was a dangerous move. But still…

“Why did you save me?”

Xie Zhuo’s voice rang out beside me.

He rarely asked questions.

My eyes lingered on the lines of my palm—those black lines, ugly and terrifying.

I thought for a long time, and finally remembered something. “A day as husband and wife, a hundred days of grace.”

I said, “I didn’t save you. I saved our past.”

After speaking, I turned to stare into his eyes.

“And you?” I asked. “I was possessed by evil aura and fought you.” I nodded toward the devastated landscape. “It must’ve lasted quite a while? Days? A whole half-month? Why didn’t you kill me?”

His lips pressed into a tight line. The curve was barely visible, but I caught it.

He had so many wounds from fighting off evil beings. He must’ve killed plenty of them. Yet me—possessed and unconscious, essentially already a creature of evil—

Someone completely controlled by evil aura isn’t supposed to regain consciousness. By all logic, I shouldn’t have been able to wake up.

He should’ve killed me.

“Why didn’t you do it?”

My question shattered the calm in his eyes like a needle breaking glass. Xie Zhuo’s hidden emotions slipped through once more.

So much fear. So much conflict.

He lowered his gaze, letting his lashes cast shadows over his eyes.

After a long silence, I answered for him: “I know. The blood oath hasn’t been undone yet.”

Xie Zhuo lifted his gaze and looked at me strangely.

I didn’t flinch. I stared back at him and told him, “But Xie Zhuo, if I’m ever possessed by evil aura again, don’t hesitate. Kill me. If you can’t do it, have someone else do it. If no one else can, then drain every drop of blood from my body and make it happen.”

His eyes trembled. I went on, “I don’t want to become a mindless monster. I don’t want these hands to be stained with the blood of innocents. I’m a soldier of Kunlun. My blade is meant only to slay evil.”

He looked at me quietly, but it felt like he was seeing something far beyond me—something from a distant past.

I didn’t know what he was remembering. After all, I still knew nothing about his past.

Not until I felt his hand press firmly against my back did I realize—he’d come back to himself again.

And then, without a word, he lifted me into his arms!

My eyes widened. That was definitely… not normal!

“What are you doing? I can walk on my own—”

He ignored me and muttered to himself, “You’ve fought so hard to survive this long. And now you dare ask me to kill you.”

I pouted. “Being killed over a divorce? That I’d never understand. But if I became something evil… dying by your hand would be dying for my beliefs.”

He carried me forward, and as he moved, I saw more and more of the surrounding devastation—huge rocks scattered, snow tainted with corruption, and the frozen river in the distance, shattered.

The battle between me and Xie Zhuo had clearly been massive…

Possessed as I was, I’d actually been… kind of terrifying.

“Fu Jiuxia.” Xie Zhuo suddenly spoke. “If… five hundred years later, I didn’t kill you, would you still leave me?”

I froze in his arms.

The icy wind of the snowy plains tugged at our hair and robes, its chill sharp enough to cut skin.

I looked up at his side profile from below.

His jawline was sharp, his expression indifferent—Xie Zhuo was the same as he had been in every moment of these five hundred years. But today, for once, he lowered his head. He looked at me, his expression calm and composed.

I thought carefully for a moment, then told him, with equal calm and seriousness:

“What’s over is over,” I said. “Whether you kill me or not.”

Our separation had seemed sudden, like a joke. But in truth, it was the final answer I’d arrived at after countless restless nights.

“Heh…”

A soft sound escaped his nose—a laugh.

It sounded like self-mockery, like resignation, like release.

While I was still surprised that Xie Zhuo could even laugh, he parted his thin lips, facing the warm hue rising in the distant sky, and breathed out a puff of white mist, along with a slightly hoarse voice—

“Alright…”

It felt like he’d made many decisions—though I didn’t know what they were.

“The evil aura you drew into yourself, I have a way to deal with it.” He walked across the vast snowy plain with me in his arms. “You don’t need to rush. Don’t be afraid. I’ll save you.”

He said, “This time, it’s not because of the blood vow.”

I didn’t understand. Xie Zhuo always left me confused. I had just rejected him—so why would he still say something like that?

Was it because he thought that since I had saved him, he owed me now—and once he repaid that debt, he’d take me back five hundred years and kill me?

I looked him over, but he only kept walking forward, eyes firm and unwavering, as if there was no more hesitation, no more struggle or doubt.

“Xie Zhuo…” A strange sense of unease began to rise inside me, though I didn’t know where it came from.

When I called his name, he looked at me, waiting for me to speak.

“You…” I wet my lips. “Carry me on your back…”

I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him… so I clumsily blurted that out.

Xie Zhuo didn’t say much either. He stopped walking, and hoisted me onto his back. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned my head against his shoulder.

Thinking back, it was honestly kind of ironic.

Even when we were married, moments of intimacy like this… we could count them on one hand.