Chapter 51

#Xie Zhuo’s Old Acquaintance

To safeguard the peace Xie Zhuo left behind…

The Queen Mother of the West placed expectations on me that were far too high. I felt I might not be able to live up to them.

After returning from her secret sanctuary, I fell gravely ill.

During that illness, my mind was constantly foggy, as if trapped in a dream.

In the courtyard where I lived, all the moments I’d shared with Xie Zhuo played out over and over like a lantern reel, appearing and vanishing before my eyes.

I barely took care of myself during that time. Sometimes I would fall asleep under a tree, sometimes wake up on the rooftop.

But more often, I’d sit at the gate of the courtyard, just like so many times before, resting my chin on my hands, staring at the road beyond, waiting for the figure of someone returning home to appear.

In my feverish state, I would sometimes hallucinate and see Xie Zhuo coming back—but the illusion would always fade quickly.

I think it was those flickering illusions that made me, almost subconsciously, unwilling to truly get better.

But eventually, I did recover. After the water from the ice lake entered my bloodstream, my spiritual power rose by several levels. Even though I treated myself carelessly, I still healed.

The power of the ice lake left within me feels like a lingering trace of Xie Zhuo in this world. It still supports me, just like when he was here, telling me—

“The ground’s cold, don’t sit on it.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“Don’t give up.”

And so, in the tug-of-war between my will and my body, I slowly, grudgingly recovered.

But even after regaining my health, I remained resistant to the outside world. I didn’t want to leave the house.

Mengmeng and the rest of my friends came looking for me many times, but I refused to see them. Wanting to comfort me, they came up with an idea.

They wrote down everything happening outside, or drew it in pictures, folded them into paper cranes, and used spellwork to send the cranes flying into my room, where they would settle on the ground.

When I got out of bed, I’d accidentally bump into one and it would unfold.

I read about how the world was now free of all traces of demonic miasma. So, though the Pangu Axe disappeared along with Xie Zhuo, Kunlun no longer needed a barrier.

Kunlun was now fully open, with people coming and going freely.

Life in Kunlun was thriving. The East and West markets were livelier than ever.

They also said that someone had returned from the Northern Wastes and told them about a place that once existed called the Undying City—and the secret that the people of that city had guarded.

At last, the once-ignorant masses learned how much had been hidden from them—and how much they had been protected.

Then the arguments began. Some said people had a right to know the truth about the world.

Some said the Prime Gods had been wrong. Others condemned the mountain gods for locking up those who accidentally learned the truth in the Undying City, calling it a cruel act…

Thus, the question of whether the Prime Gods should atone for the Undying City stirred up intense debate.

The Queen Mother of the West and the gods of the mountains remained silent.

Many joined the discussion.

But one thing no one disputed—Xie Zhuo, who eliminated the demonic miasma, was a hero.

They wanted to erect a monument to him, write his biography, and someone even proposed—before the Queen Mother—that I should be granted an honor…

Because I was Xie Zhuo’s… widow.

My friends urged me to go out and see the world. They said that even though people couldn’t stop arguing, the world was still beautiful.

But I still didn’t go out.

I burned all the paper cranes.

I knew my friends were trying to comfort me. They were good people—genuine and kind.

Kunlun was more stable than ever.

Even my body was healthier than before.

I knew these were all good things.

But the moment I thought about how all this good came at the cost of Xie Zhuo, I could no longer bring myself to open my eyes to see the beauty of this world.

Until… one morning, a man stood beside my bed.

“All of Kunlun is saying Xie Zhuo is dead, and Fu Jiuxia is so heartbroken she might as well follow him. I didn’t believe it at first, but now… looks like it’s true.”

Qin Shuyan—the old fox—had arrived.

I lay on the bed, glanced at him, then turned over and closed my eyes, pretending not to see him.

“Tut tut,” Old Qin clicked his tongue. “Look at you like this. If Xie Zhuo saw you, wouldn’t he haul you up and scold you inside and out?”

“He can’t see anymore.”

I replied muffledly from under the covers.

Old Qin fell silent.

In this world I returned to, the past between Xie Zhuo and me was shaped from the past between Jiuxia and Xie Xuanqing. Though the ending was the same, the journey was different.

Here, Jiuxia and Xie Xuanqing had first crossed paths thanks to Old Qin. They…

Or rather, we—in this version of us—once hid in a secret chamber that Old Qin found for us. Our feelings grew in secret. Then we fought side by side against the Lord of Jingnan, and eventually got married.

We’d always been close with Old Qin, so now, in this timeline, he was far more familiar with me than the one I knew from before.

The sound of Old Qin’s fan fluttering in the air persisted by my bedside. After a long while, he sighed and said:

“I’m taking you to see someone. Are you coming or not?”

“No.”

“An old acquaintance of Xie Zhuo.”

I opened my eyes, sat up, and turned to look at him.

There was a hint of helplessness in Old Qin’s smile. “Xie Zhuo probably wouldn’t want you to meet that person. But you need a reason to keep living, don’t you?”

For the first time since I returned, I left the house.

Old Qin took me to a subterranean lava cavern. The walls and floor pulsed with glowing red molten rock.

I’d never been here before—but something about it felt familiar.

I searched my memories, and a scene surfaced from five hundred years ago when Xie Zhuo and I had traveled back in time.

Back then, a person named Zhu Lian had just attacked me. Xie Xuanqing went to settle the score with him, and Xie Zhuo—hiding in a corner—witnessed it all.

At that moment, I had reached Xie Zhuo through the Yin-Yang fish, and saw this very cavern through his eyes.

Thinking carefully, before Zhu Lian attacked me, it had been a Kunlun soldier who led me into danger.

Now that I recall it, that soldier looked exactly like the demons from the Undying City. From appearance alone, it was impossible to tell he had been infected with demonic miasma…

Even the conversation between Xie Xuanqing and Zhu Lian back then had sounded strange.

Zhu Lian asked Xie Xuanqing to kill him, but Xie Xuanqing refused, saying he would not. But he also said…

He would protect me.

Recalling all this, I lowered my head.

Back then, I hadn’t truly thought about what it meant—for him to protect me, to what extent he would go…

Now, I understand.

But it’s already too late.

Old Qin had been silently leading the way. As we neared the deepest part of the cavern, where the lava was most active, he finally stopped.

He turned back, his expression solemn. “That person knows more about Xie Zhuo than any of us. But he was also Xie Zhuo’s enemy.”

“I know,” I said. “He once told me—if he ever got the chance, he would tear me apart in the cruelest way possible, just to make Xie Zhuo watch.”

Old Qin raised an eyebrow—clearly not expecting me to say that so calmly.

“You’ve met him?”

“Zhu Lian, right? You could say that.”

Old Qin tapped his chin with his fan in amusement, putting on the look of someone about to enjoy a good show as he led me forward.

The ground beneath our feet was covered in vivid red lava, like the earth’s blood flowing through a torn stone cavern. Beside the flowing magma sat a black iron cage. Inside, a man with long, loose hair sat quietly.

He seemed to hear our footsteps. His ears twitched slightly, and then he opened his eyes.

It wasn’t my first time seeing him, but maybe I’d missed Xie Zhuo too much lately—because somehow, in this man’s features, I saw a faint shadow of familiarity.

He looked… a little like Xie Zhuo.

When Zhu Lian saw me, the corners of his lips curled into a faint smile. He said nothing, but that single expression made my heart feel cold, a strange shiver rising from the depths of my soul.

I was afraid…

But I knew clearly, it wasn’t him I feared—it was…

Some kind of strange aura within him.

That aura reminded me of the despair in the Undying City, and the terror I’d felt in that muddled dreamscape when I was infected by the miasma of malevolence.

“You’ve come…”

Suppressing the dread inside me, I frowned. “You knew I would?”

“Xie Zhuo is dead. Sooner or later, you were bound to come looking for me.” He chuckled softly and called me—“Sister-in-law…”

That name struck a nerve deep in my heart.

Suddenly, I remembered a past I’d once seen in a dream—

The chief of the Snow Wolf Clan had summoned back the soul of an evil god. In order to give that god a physical vessel, the chief had chosen Xie Zhuo’s mother. And at that time, she had already had a husband and…

A child…

I stared at Zhu Lian in shock. He slowly sat up straighter in his cage, and then—suddenly—lunged forward, grabbing the black iron bars.

The clang of metal echoed throughout the stone cavern.

“What a shame,” Zhu Lian said, his face full of regret. His eyes locked onto mine. “Xie Zhuo died too early. I so wanted to tear you apart in front of him.”

As he spoke, it was like he saw the image in his mind, and he started to laugh. Happy, almost delirious laughter.

The sound echoed again and again, making my heart pound in my chest. I furrowed my brow and stared at him.

But then Zhu Lian’s emotions shifted sharply—his laughter stopped, cut off mid-breath.

“What a shame,” he murmured again, voice low and almost wistful, “Even at the end… he never went mad.”