A bowl-shaped magical treasure hovered upside down above Demon Lord Yeshuang's head, emitting a black light that enveloped her.
Under this black radiance, Demon Lord Yeshuang was immobilized, her hand holding the pill bottle frozen in a tilted position.
Hongxiao stared blankly at the two people before her, then suddenly cried out with all her might: "Young Master, what are you doing?!"
Tian Xuan's gaze was heavy. Without even glancing at Hongxiao, his silver false hand extended and struck Demon Lord Yeshuang's back several times in succession.
Unable to move, Demon Lord Yeshuang endured the blows directly. When Tian Xuan delivered the final strike, the Demonic Qi within her body stagnated, and her entire cultivation base was truly sealed.
Mo Tiange and the other three stared dumbfounded at this sudden turn of events. They had considered various possibilities before, but they had never imagined such a development!
"What is he doing?" Mo Tiange asked in a low voice.
They were inside the sacrificial temple, where the White Tiger's breath suppressed Demonic Qi. Outside, ghost cultivators surrounded them like an iron barrel. He was only an early-Nascent Soul cultivator; even if his supernatural abilities were extraordinary, how could he possibly break through? Just moments ago, the three of them had traveled together and returned severely wounded. In such a situation, why would he attack Demon Lord Yeshuang? Did he truly want to be trapped here forever?
Moreover, they were not only master and disciple but also lovers.
Qin Xi shook his head without speaking.
"Why?"
After a long pause, Demon Lord Yeshuang asked softly. She tried her utmost to control her emotions, but her voice trembled involuntarily.
"Because I hate you!" Tian Xuan said, enunciating each word.
A myriad of emotions flickered across his face—affection one moment, resentment the next, followed by confusion and sorrow.
"Hate... me..." Demon Lord Yeshuang murmured in repetition, her expression bewildered.
"Young Master!" Hongxiao shouted sharply. "When has the City Lord ever wronged you? Without the City Lord, where would your cultivation base have come from?!"
Tian Xuan stared at Hongxiao and sneered. "That's right, she hasn't wronged me. But what of it? I hate her. What does that have to do with anything?"
Hongxiao was stunned. "You..." She didn't understand. Since there was no wrongdoing, why the hatred? Her mind was simple; though a servant, she had never suffered hardship and knew nothing of the complexities of the human heart.
"I hate you," Tian Xuan said indifferently. "Why did you have to find me and bring me back? I hate you for being with me. I hate you for never being able to forget Yesha."
When he uttered the last sentence, a violent rage flashed in his eyes, revealing intense hatred.
Yesha? Hearing this name, Mo Tiange's curiosity was piqued. Yesha—what relation did he have with Yeshuang? Could it be...
"Yesha," Demon Lord Yeshuang said, "Yesha is you. Why must you..."
"I am not Yesha!" Tian Xuan said furiously, his pale face contorting. Only after taking a deep breath could he speak calmly again. "I long ago lost the memories of my past life. What does Yesha have to do with me?"
He continued sneering. "You treat me as Yesha, but have you ever considered that I never wanted to be Yesha?"
Demon Lord Yeshuang closed her eyes and shook her head gently. "I didn't think..."
"Of course you wouldn't think," Tian Xuan said coldly, gazing at her. This late-Nascent Soul demonic cultivator, one of the Three Great Demon Lords of Yunzhong, appeared so fragile from behind. "You found me of your own accord, took me as your disciple of your own accord, treated me as Yesha of your own accord. Did you think I would be grateful?"
"So... your feelings were all fake..."
"No," Tian Xuan said firmly, staring at her back. A flash of tenderness appeared and vanished. "Everything I ever said to you was true. It was always true... But in your heart, there is only Yesha. You only saw me as Yesha..."
His voice was filled with such sorrow, as if the one who had betrayed was Demon Lord Yeshuang, not him.
"Is that all?" Demon Lord Yeshuang couldn't suppress a laugh. "Is that why you want to kill me?"
Tian Xuan didn't answer, speaking indifferently instead. "You are ranked among the Three Great Demon Lords, hold Night Owl City, and are one of Yunzhong's top great cultivators. You are too remarkable. You treat me as Yesha, keep me by your side, and I can only be Yesha, your pet—how do the people in the City Lord's mansion see me? How do the cultivators of Yunzhong see me? They show respect to my face but whisper behind my back. Just as Hongxiao said, without you, where would my cultivation base have come from? That's what every single one of them thinks, treating me as your male concubine!"
"So what?" Demon Lord Yeshuang said softly, her gaze fixed on empty space. "I know it's not true. You know it's not true. Isn't that enough?"
"It's not you, so of course you don't know how agonizing this feeling is!" Tian Xuan shouted.
Demon Lord Yeshuang pressed her lips tightly together, saying nothing.
"I love you," he said, a trace of warmth surfacing on his pale face before slowly cooling again. "But I am not Yesha. I cannot bear you looking at me while thinking of Yesha!"
He continued, "From beginning to end, the one you loved was only Yesha. Yesha died, and you exhausted all means to search for his reincarnation. You couldn't bear Yesha leaving you. After several hundred years, you found me, brought me back to Night Owl City, and rushed about for the unusual blood within me... Whatever Yesha liked, you made me do. Whatever Yesha hated, you never let me see... But I have no memories of my past life. The things he liked, I might not like. The things he hated, I might not necessarily hate. I am completely different from Yesha, yet you turned a blind eye! I wanted you to truly see me—not Yesha, but me..."
After a brief silence, Demon Lord Yeshuang finally spoke. "When did you start wanting to kill me?"
Tian Xuan revealed a bitter smile. "Before this, I could never bring myself to decide. Just now, as if guided by ghosts and gods..."
Demon Lord Yeshuang said mournfully, "The thought of killing me had long been in your heart. Otherwise, you wouldn't have hidden from me the fact that you possessed such a magical treasure."
"..." After a moment of silence, Tian Xuan said, "Perhaps so."
"Is there anything else you want to say?" With the facts laid bare before her, Demon Lord Yeshuang instead calmed down.
Complex emotions played across Tian Xuan's face. In the end, he shook his head. "No."
"Then do it," Demon Lord Yeshuang said lightly. "Alone, you'll have a better chance of getting out."
Tian Xuan gritted his teeth and slowly raised his silver false hand.
...
"How strange," Jing Xingzhi said. "If he kills Demon Lord Yeshuang, isn't he afraid of being outnumbered and killed by us?"
Qin Xi said, "I fought him before. He possesses a bizarre supernatural ability—his body can transform into intangible Demonic Qi, impervious to harm."
Nie Wushang's eyes lit up. "There's actually such an ability?"
"Yes. He couldn't defeat me, but I couldn't injure him either."
Watching Tian Xuan slowly raise his hand, Hongxiao suddenly lunged forward. The twin daggers in her hands spun rapidly as she stabbed fiercely toward Tian Xuan.
A cold light flashed in Tian Xuan's eyes. The moment Hongxiao leaped up, he swung his false hand and struck her squarely on the head, shattering her Nascent Soul along with it.
Seeing this, Mo Tiange felt a chill in her heart. This Tian Xuan seemed to favor such methods. The corpses of Huo Ziqi and Zong Si had been dealt with similarly—their Nascent Souls crushed along with their bodies, leaving no room for escape.
"Hongxiao!" Demon Lord Yeshuang cried out in shock at the sight.
Hongxiao let out a sharp scream, the light in her eyes instantly dispersing as she collapsed to the ground, motionless. Staring at Hongxiao's corpse with blood flowing from all seven orifices, Demon Lord Yeshuang was stunned. It took her a long while to regain her composure.
Tian Xuan said indifferently, "I never expected she would be willing to risk her life for you. I underestimated her."
Demon Lord Yeshuang smiled bitterly. "So I'm not a complete failure after all. Someone was willing to die for me."
Having said that, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and suddenly tossed the pill bottle in her hand aside. Forming hand seals with both hands, a surge of Demonic Qi appeared behind her, forcefully repelling Tian Xuan.
"You..." Tian Xuan was pushed back several steps, staring at her in shock.
Demon Lord Yeshuang slowly turned around, fixing her gaze on him.
"You... you weren't immobilized?"
Demon Lord Yeshuang reached out. The bowl-shaped magical treasure fell and landed in her hand. Looking at the object, she sighed. "The Illusory Void Immobilization Bowl. So it fell into your hands, yet you never told me." Then, gazing at him, she said calmly, "You underestimate late-Nascent Soul cultivators too much. Although this bowl is a rare treasure, it's still insufficient to immobilize a late-Nascent Soul cultivator."
Tian Xuan was silent for a moment before asking, "Are you going to kill me?"
Demon Lord Yeshuang didn't answer directly. Instead, she said, "You say I ignored your wishes, but why didn't you tell me you were unwilling? Was it that I wouldn't listen, or that you didn't dare to speak?"
Tian Xuan remained silent.
Demon Lord Yeshuang continued, "It's true, I always treated you as Yesha because you are indeed Yesha's reincarnation. If you didn't want to be Yesha, you could have told me directly. But you never said a word."
She let out a long sigh, and finally, a trace of sorrow appeared in her eyes. "Now I finally understand—you truly are not Yesha. Yesha was never insecure. He was open-hearted and forthright, only demanding of himself, never caring about others' gossip."
"I..." He wanted to say he wasn't insecure, but under Demon Lord Yeshuang's clear gaze, the words wouldn't come out.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I made you do things you didn't like."
"..."
"Back then, Yesha and I made a promise. If one of us died first, the other would seek out their reincarnation, lifetime after lifetime, to be together forever." She smiled sadly, tears glistening in her eyes. "I acted according to that promise, thinking we could fulfill our vow and be together for all our lives. Only now do I realize I was wrong. Our vow was nothing but a castle in the air, something that could never be realized."
Tian Xuan fell silent. This was something he had never known.
"I found you, saw that you still loved me, and thought it could truly work. I didn't know that after reincarnation, forgetting the memories of past and present lives, one becomes a different person. Since you are not Yesha, how could I demand you uphold a vow from a past life?"
"I..." He wanted to say he truly wasn't Yesha, but a dull ache throbbed in his chest. Was his past self really not him?
Demon Lord Yeshuang took a deep breath and said, "Let us end the vow we once made. From now on, you are you, and I am I."
A purple silk ribbon rose, transforming into a streak of violet light that shot like lightning into Tian Xuan's skull.
Tian Xuan's eyes widened in horror as he stared blankly at her.
"Hongxiao followed me for several hundred years and died for me. I cannot fail to avenge her." Watching his unwilling eyes, a tear rolled down her cheek as she whispered, "In your next life, you won't encounter me again."