Chapter 52

#Even in Death, He Did Not Lose

I stared at Zhu Lian, saying nothing, and walked straight toward the cage atop the rocky platform.

Old Qin looked surprised and tried to stop me.

I shook off his hand and took two strides to stand in front of the cage.

Zhu Lian looked at me coldly through the black iron bars. His eyes were much lighter in color than Xie Zhuo’s—more of a wolfish gray.

It was as if there were whirlpools in his eyes, able to dredge up the deepest fear and dread hidden in a person’s heart.

I faced him, raised my hand…

My fingertips were trembling almost beyond control, but I still reached into the cage and grabbed Zhu Lian by the front of his robe.

Under his stunned gaze—clang! I yanked him forward and slammed him against the bars, letting the metal ring out.

I glared at him, gritting my teeth. “What did you do to him?!”

Fury overpowered every other emotion in my body. I dragged him forward again and slammed him hard against the cage.

“Speak!”

Bang, bang! Zhu Lian was slammed quite hard. He coughed, unable to speak.

Behind me, Old Qin seemed stunned.

After a moment, he hesitantly said, “Uh… maybe let him catch his breath?”

My hand gripping Zhu Lian’s robe was trembling from how hard I clenched it. A few seconds later, I forced myself to calm down and threw him off violently.

Zhu Lian was weak. My throw sent him stumbling back a few steps until he hit the rocks behind the bars and finally steadied himself.

He’d just been beaten, yet he didn’t look angry. Instead, he looked amused.

“Sister-in-law, in all the hundred-odd years you were married to him, I never realized you had such deep feelings for him.”

I paused at his words.

“What I had with Xie Zhuo—how would you know anything about it?”

Zhu Lian smiled faintly. “I have eyes outside.”

He paused. “Or rather, the evil god has eyes outside.”

My expression darkened. “You’re connected to that evil god’s soul fragment too.”

“Of course,” Zhu Lian said bluntly. “Thousands of years ago, our clan leader used an ancient forbidden art to summon back the soul fragment of the evil god. As the evil god instructed, the clan leader selected a woman in the tribe whose aura matched the evil god’s, and had her give birth to a vessel for him to return to the human world.”

I had already seen this in a dream. Thinking of those images, I remained silent.

“My mother gave birth to the vessel for the evil god. From then on, our clan gathered soul power from all across the world to nourish that body—Xie Zhuo’s body—so it could one day hold the evil god’s power.”

An entire clan dedicated to raising Xie Zhuo…

Now I finally understood why Xie Zhuo had such immense strength, strong enough to wield the Pangu Axe and cleave open time and space, despite being a demon.

He had been cultivated from childhood as the vessel for the evil god’s power.

“Over a hundred years passed like this. But one day…” The smile faded from Zhu Lian’s face and was replaced by darkness. “Xie Zhuo forcefully drew the soul fragment into his body. In madness, he slaughtered the entire clan, including… me and his mother.”

My throat tightened as I recalled what Xie Xuanqing once told me—

“The massacre of the entire clan, killing his own kin—it’s all true.”

I stayed silent. Zhu Lian continued, “That day, I happened to be away. When I returned, all I saw was a sea of blood and corpses—and Xie Zhuo, mad beyond reason. He had killed everyone, yet still tried to kill me!”

Zhu Lian lowered his head and covered his face as if frightened, speaking pitifully, “I ran for so long, so far, finally escaping the Northern Wastes… but he kept hunting me…”

I stared at him coldly and interrupted, “Xie Zhuo wouldn’t slaughter the entire clan for no reason. He wouldn’t hunt you without cause.”

Zhu Lian dropped his hand and stopped playing the victim. He looked at me with a twisted smile.

The smile made my skin crawl. Through it, I seemed to glimpse that ever-changing figure from my dream.

“You really do know him well. He wasn’t hunting me, but rather…” Zhu Lian paused and then grinned coldly, “the evil god’s soul fragment within me.”

My breath caught.

The evil god’s soul fragment… was inside him!?

Seeing the fear on my face, Zhu Lian burst out laughing, delighted by my horror.

“The evil god’s soul fragment is already gone,” Old Qin said from behind me, tapping my shoulder with his fan. “All the evil miasma in the world has vanished.”

Right—together with Xie Zhuo, it had disappeared…

I glanced at Old Qin and steadied myself.

Inside the cage, Zhu Lian seemed to have laughed enough. He looked at me with smug composure.

“Xie Zhuo killed everyone in the clan, including his own mother. Maybe he was trying to perish along with the soul fragment. But I came back just in time, and the soul fragment fled into me.”

Zhu Lian toyed with his loose hair as if he didn’t care. “After that, I ran away with the soul fragment.”

My fists clenched at my sides. “You brought the evil miasma out of the Northern Wastes and spread it across the world.”

“I did.” Zhu Lian smirked mockingly. “Xie Zhuo and the Northern Wastes’ god tried to trap me, the soul fragment, and the growing miasma in the Undying City…”

“And he did succeed.”

Old Qin cut him off. “Xie Zhuo and Lord Ji did succeed. The inner walls of the Undying City sealed the vengeful spirits. The outer walls trapped the miasma. Even if any leaked out, it could only produce corrupted beings that were easy to identify.”

He turned to me, expression calm and certain. “Xie Zhuo didn’t try—he did succeed.”

At those words, my heart stirred with a flood of complex emotions.

The Undying City was created by Xie Zhuo and Lord Ji.

That’s why he could find it in the blizzard. Why he could take me there. Why he could open the inner gate.

He had trapped the evil within—and now, he’d destroyed it.

He saved me. He saved the world—not just once…

And I… only now understood even a sliver of the truth.

“He succeeded?” Zhu Lian sneered. “But didn’t I still escape with the evil god’s soul fragment?”

“And then Xie Zhuo hunted you down,” I picked up the thread. “Five hundred years ago, you fled to Kunlun. He followed you, fought you, and sealed you here…”

Zhu Lian listened, his mouth opening like he wanted to say something—but in the end, he only smiled and nodded. “Yes…”

“He was gravely wounded… and then, he met me.”

“Yes.”

Zhu Lian smiled with a strange amusement. “The soul fragment was sealed with me. Though its power was weak, it could still sense everything through the lingering miasma. Do you know how delighted we were—me and the evil god—when you and Xie Zhuo made that blood oath?”

I said nothing.

Zhu Lian said, “My body has never been able to bear the power of the Heretic God. Only within Xie Zhuo’s body can the Heretic God truly return. Before you came along, Xie Zhuo had no weakness. He slaughtered all his kin; he had no ties, no attachments, no longing for the mortal world…”

But—

“But then you appeared.”

I appeared…

“And Xie Zhuo gained a weakness.”

He gained ties, attachments, and longing.

He also gained reluctance, fear of loss, and the desire to protect.

“To make Xie Zhuo the vessel of the Heretic God, his consciousness must be destroyed, his heart and soul crushed, driven to madness—forced to give up resistance.

“Five hundred years ago, the Heretic God and I tried countless times to let the heretical aura enter him, but Xie Zhuo never left us even the smallest opening. But then…”

Zhu Lian smiled warmly and happily. “You did…”

I did…

I was a guard of Kunlun. I patrolled, stood watch, trained…

I loved gatherings, spicy food, and strong drink…

I had a temper, got easily riled up, and had trouble sleeping when overwhelmed with tasks.

“Kunlun is truly wonderful. It gave you a true, unfiltered personality and gave us so many chances to exploit.” Zhu Lian’s voice, cold as a serpent, coiled around my ear. “Xie Zhuo also did everything he could to maintain the goodness of Kunlun. What we couldn’t give him through the heretical aura, we gave you. For five hundred years, day and night, Xie Zhuo drew out how much heretical aura from your body, just to protect you.”

So, back in the City of the Undying, when Xie Zhuo bit my neck, it felt so natural. It was something he had done countless times in secret, never telling me.

So those annoying phrases—“The floor is cold,” “Don’t eat spicy food,” “Drink less”—were actually his unspoken worries and care.

So, in those five hundred years by my side, he had learned fear, nervousness, and to tread cautiously.

“When the heretical aura built up too much in him, the Heretic God would fight him in dreams every night,” Zhu Lian said with a hint of pity. “I kept hoping the Heretic God would one day tell me that Xie Zhuo had finally given up, that his mind had collapsed, his soul lost. But he never did. Even now, dead, he never gave in.”

“If there was ever a time we were closest to our goal, it might have been… that night when you and he separated.”

Hearing this, it felt like my blood ran in reverse.

“He was just one step away from madness,” Zhu Lian sighed, his regret even deeper. “Who would’ve thought… After bringing you back, he actually went on to purge all the heretical aura from the world. What a joke—this body the Heretic God created in defiance of the heavens to return to the world, ended up being the only one capable of defeating him.”

I silently lifted my hand, staring at my wrist.

It was bare now. The red string that had been tied there for five hundred years—long gone.

Zhu Lian tilted his head, studying my expression. Slowly, sorrow appeared in his eyes. “You’re this sad, and Xie Zhuo can’t even see it. What a pity.”

I felt like my heart had just been violently seized—pain followed by a surge of inexpressible rage.

I looked up at Zhu Lian, reached out with a spell, yanked him to me, seized his throat, and clutched it tightly.

“Go on! Kill me!” Zhu Lian wasn’t afraid. He even laughed wildly. “Kill me! Xie Zhuo wouldn’t kill me! If you, the one he spent his whole life protecting, kill me today, so be it! Do it!”

“Jiuxia…” Old Qin’s low voice came from the side. “Xie Zhuo didn’t kill him… because he made a promise to the one who gave him life.”

I turned to look at Old Qin.

Was he talking about Xie Zhuo’s mother?

That woman from the Snow Wolf Tribe.

Also Zhu Lian’s mother.

“Even if he slaughtered the entire world, he could not kill Zhu Lian,” Old Qin sighed. “Xie Zhuo never broke a promise.”

Indeed, Xie Zhuo never broke a promise.

Not to me, not to anyone.

I stayed silent for a long time, then finally let go.

Zhu Lian now seemed to be completely devoid of spiritual power. He slumped on the ground, hair disheveled, face wretched. He clutched his throat, coughing nonstop.

I didn’t look at him again. I turned and left the lava cave.

Outside, the wind of Mount Kunlun swept gently through. I walked under the sunlight, but everything around me felt unreal.

Kunlun’s snow had melted. The flowers were blooming. Life stretched across the land in dazzling brilliance.

Summer was coming.

I heard footsteps behind me—Old Qin walking up from behind. As I stared at the flourishing life before me, I spoke hoarsely:

“All this time, I thought Kunlun was a paradise. But now I realize—it never was. It was Xie Zhuo who made it one…”

“Jiuxia,” Old Qin said. “Zhu Lian told you these things to make you grieve. But I brought you here to show you everything Xie Zhuo did to protect you.”

“You can’t take his absence as an excuse to waste what he once safeguarded.”

“He didn’t just want you to live. He wanted you to always be like the blazing summer sun—never touched by gloom or cold.”

Old Qin’s voice was soft, yet it sank deep into my heart.

“I understand.” I lowered my head, looking at my bare wrist. “I understand now…”

My life was exchanged with Xie Zhuo’s.

I must protect both myself and this world—for him.