Chapter 102: How Can He Hate? Li Xun’s Previous Life (3)…

Li Xun looked for her for a long time.

But she seemed to have disappeared out of thin air. Until that day, everyone knew that the person who married the Demon Lord was actually her.

Before this, her whereabouts were kept secret by the Demon Lord, and everyone only knew that the Demon Lord was going to marry a human woman, but no one thought that person was her.

It's hard to say what that feeling is like.

Anyway, it's not very good.

It’s not very good and not appropriate.

It’s actually very bad.

He felt very uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable, but he didn't know why he felt so uncomfortable. It was as if someone had dug out a piece of his flesh, along with the tendons and bones, and hollowed out together.

He had a vague answer in his heart, but he didn't want to admit it. His subordinates said he was jealous and sad. Maybe he liked her, but how could he like her? He didn't like her. If he liked her, how could he be worthy of himself?

After his fingers were cut off and his spiritual veins were severed, he lived a life worse than a dog.

He couldn't even stay in the mortal realm. Even if he slew his enemies that day, there wouldn't be just a few demons hunting him down. Once the demons learned he was in the mortal realm, they sent even more to find him. He tried seeking help from the righteous immortal sects, but no one came to his aid. Only then did he realize that the Li family's fate wasn't solely at the hands of the demons, but also of several righteous sects, led by the Heavenly Sword Sect.

No wonder the Li family could die so cleanly.

He couldn't go to the Immortal Sect, and the demons searched the entire human world to find him. He had no cultivation, and the wound on his broken finger festered and rotted, and his whole hand was rotten. He looked like a cripple, worse than a dog. Even a dog could bite him and tear his flesh, but he didn't even have spiritual power, and he had to bite the dog to fight back. How funny was that?

The world is so big, but there is no place for him to stay.

Finally he jumped into an abyss.

This abyss is a place of extreme darkness and evil. Although it is in the human world, it is like purgatory. No cultivators or demons dare to go there. Only after Li Xun jumped in did he realize what was inside. There were dense swarms of scorpions and centipedes, poisonous vines, ferocious beasts, dense snakes, and omnipresent poisonous fog, each of which was enough to kill him.

But he didn't want to die yet, his revenge was not yet complete.

When he was fighting with the evil creatures in the abyss, when he was looking for a way to survive in it, when he was reconnecting his spiritual roots after escaping death, every time he climbed up with one breath, he would think of the past hatred, the Tianjian Sect, and the demon clan; but on the night when he was tortured to death by snake venom, when half of his body was bitten by a ferocious beast, and every day and night when he crawled on the ground dragging half of his skeleton, and when he was dying with only one breath left, he would think of her.

If he loved her, then what were the thousands of days and nights he spent in the abyss?

Li Xun asked himself.

So there was no way he could love her, so why was he upset?

Li Xun thought about it for a long time and found the answer, because she owed him, even if his family was broken up, he would not be so miserable and painful.

Had she ever tried lying on the ground, fully aware of the sensation of being devoured by several ferocious beasts? The pain of flesh being torn from bones, the chill of blood draining away, the sound of the beasts chewing on his skin, and then, with his last breath, he would drag his skeleton forward, then hide in the dark, waiting for new flesh to grow back on his skeleton, day after day, year after year.

But how had he wronged her to deserve such retribution?

She would think, if she stole his magic weapon, would he be so miserable?

Maybe she doesn't care.

Li Xun ultimately attributed it to the fact that she owed him, she had hurt him, and she should spend her whole life repaying him. How could she just throw herself into the arms of another man?

He felt miserable, terribly miserable, and that made perfect sense, didn't it?

So Li Xun went to find her.

He broke into the demon world, grabbed her arm, and wanted to take her away.

But the moment he touched her wrist, he was stunned and realized that she had become a complete mortal: "Where are your spiritual roots?"

Qingqing slowly pried open his fingers: "I've cut it open, so we're even now. Don't come looking for me anymore."

…

Why did she want to cut open her spiritual roots?

Li Xun found it ridiculous. He had clearly said that he could help her solve the problem of the love thread Gu. She would rather cut open her own flesh and tear out the root bone bit by bit than marry him?

He was so angry that blood came out of his throat.

Later, he often went to the demon world, forcing her to divorce the Demon Lord and force her to go back and marry him.

It is not quite right to say that she was forced, as she was also tempted, but she was not moved and refused to take the bait. Li Xun became hysterical and paranoid. He didn't know why he was so paranoid, but threats and inducements were ineffective. In the end, he climbed into her bed and forced her to take responsibility with red eyes.

Until later,

Qingqing was helpless: "So why do you have to pester me? Are you saying we're even now no longer a promise?"

Why?

It’s definitely not because of love.

Li Xun thought for a long time and said, "Because I still feel you owe me."

On the bed, he pointed to every wound on his body, guiding her hand to touch them, explaining to her one by one how these injuries came about, and how many of them were indirectly caused by her. He held her with his hand, slowly inserting his cold artificial finger into her body, then pulling it out, letting her feel the icy warmth. "And this finger, all these wounds on my body are because of you. How can we ever settle the score between you and me? As long as I'm not dead, I can't settle the score."

There has long been a mess between them.

Later,

She sighed: "If I had a choice, I wouldn't want to hurt you."

Li Xun always thought that she had no heart and never thought that one day in his life, he would hear her say such words.

He didn't know what he was obsessed with.

Until he heard her say to him: "You really never owed me anything, so this matter is actually my fault."

It was as if a corner of the ice had finally melted.

He felt that something was wrong with him. All those years, all those pains, and his current paranoia and entanglement, were they just to get an apology from her and a little regret?

Li Xun didn't want to admit it, but he gritted his teeth and asked knowingly, "Do you regret it?"

Qingqing shook her head: "No regrets."

She said: "Although I'm sorry, but if I had to do it again, I would still make the same choice."

She has no regrets about any choice she has made.

Maybe she made the wrong choice, but she absolutely, absolutely does not regret it.

…

Li Xun knew that what he did was wrong.

But he once again coerced and bribed her to follow him back. If she did, he could rebuild a new spiritual root for her. He planned to use the jade token on her. He knew he shouldn't, but he wanted to do it.

Even though he originally looked for the jade token in order to reshape his severed fingers and rebuild his spiritual roots.

But he could no longer explain his feelings.

He hated her, but he still wanted to use this on her. He didn't know what reason he should find to explain his behavior, but since he couldn't find a reason, he didn't look for it for now. Maybe one day in the future, he would find an explanation for this behavior.

To activate this jade token, the Li family's secret method is required.

He sent someone to search for the secret method, only to discover it was in the secret realm of Shangqing Immortal Palace. The secret realm had already been opened once, and it would take another hundred years to wait for the next one. Cultivators have long lifespans, but Qingqing was already a mortal. How could she afford to wait a hundred years?

Li Xun thought of a way and entered the secret realm again.

…

If you force your way into the secret realm, you will suffer backlash.

The moment he found the Li family's secret method in the cave, he was also trapped in the cave and dragged into the illusion.

This is the illusion of the inner demon.

The illusion brought him back to the past, but the content of the illusion was completely opposite to reality.

Qingqing in the illusion did not betray her, but because she was a mortal, the demons forced her to tell them his location, but she refused to tell them even if she died. In the end, a knife was stabbed in her throat, and blood splattered everywhere. She died without closing her eyes. Then, in order to know his location, the demons began to search her soul. After the search, the demons still found him, but Qingqing's weak soul was shattered by the soul-searching technique, and she didn't even have an afterlife.

Li Xun covered his head and struggled to break free from the illusion in pain.

Then the illusion was shattered, but a new illusion followed.

In this illusion, Qingqing betrayed him, told the demons his whereabouts, saved her life, and then escaped. However, she did not take his life-saving magic weapon, so Li Xun's fingers were intact and his spiritual roots were not damaged. He easily killed the demons and cultivated smoothly thereafter, avoiding the abyss. Many years later, his skills were fully developed and he avenged himself.

But he still hated Qingqing, hated her for betraying him. After taking revenge, he searched for her for many years, wanting to find her, trample her under his feet, and make her regret betraying him. He sent many people, but they searched all over the world and couldn't find her.

Many years later,

He finally found a weak and thin skeleton, the bones were even broken.

She died many years ago, a mortal girl who continued to wander. In the troubled times, her money was robbed, and even the treasures and money he had given her were taken away. In the end, she died silently.

Li Xun was hysterical. No, this was not what he wanted.

So he once again struggled out of the illusion in pain.

But he still didn't return to reality.

He was dragged into the third illusion.

The third illusion was exactly the same as the reality. He fled to a small town on earth and depended on her for a while. When the demons came, she betrayed him and took away his magic weapon. One of his fingers was chopped off and his spiritual roots were removed. The world was so big that he had nowhere to stay, so he finally jumped into the abyss.

He saw snakes, insects, centipedes, and ferocious beasts tearing at his flesh.

He turned into a young man with his spiritual roots cut off again, trapped in the deepest and most tormenting inner demon. He watched insects and beasts bite and gnaw at his body. He didn't know how many days and nights had passed. He almost died in the secret realm of the inner demon, but he thought of her again.

In every difficult time, every time he was on the verge of death, he kept repeating her name in his heart. He thought about her and remembered that she was also living tenaciously like a thorn. She had suffered so much, but she could still survive. Her bones were as hard as stones and could not be cut. If she could do it, why couldn't he?

He held on to his last breath and finally survived, returning to the human world from the abyss.

Then he realized that he was in the illusion of his inner demon, so he broke through the illusion again.

This time, the illusion was truly shattered.

He returned to reality, to the cave in the secret realm. When he opened his eyes, he discovered that in the cave, whether it was the stone walls or the ground, every crevice was engraved with her name.

When he was in the demonic world, his physical body was actually in this cave.

He endured those difficult days, thinking of her in his heart, and his flesh was engraved with her name here. Every stroke was neat and messy, and even a little sloppy and crazy at the end.

Li Xun was rarely confused——

So did he really hate her?

He remembered everything in the inner demon illusion.

He hated her, but if it weren't for those moments when he was on the verge of death, he would have thought of her and missed her, whether it was because of her stubbornness or his hatred for her. But if it weren't for her, he would have collapsed and would not be alive today.

Is this also hatred?

This is not.

He realized that his hatred for her wasn't pure and simple. If he did, he should have killed her like he did his other enemies, eradicating her completely. It was precisely because it wasn't pure hatred that he couldn't kill her so simply.

He couldn't accept that she would no longer exist in this world. If she didn't exist, what about him? After his revenge, the meaning of his life seemed to have disappeared. If she didn't exist, he would have died in that abyss long ago.

But if she doesn't betray him, she won't be able to survive the demons, her soul will be shattered and she will never be reborn.

But if she hadn't stolen his magic weapon, she wouldn't have come to Tiandu alive. She would have died quietly in some unknown corner and would not have met him again after so many years.

So what exactly is his hatred?

Li Xun later realized that he did not hate her.

He couldn't forgive her, but he couldn't hate her either.

This is the cause and effect in the world, but it is difficult to break the deadlock.

…

He was trapped in the inner demon's fantasy world, in the secret realm,

After I got out, I realized that a long time had passed, two years.

He held the jade token in his hand and went to look for her again, only to find out that she was dead.

Dead?

...dead?

Li Xun's mind went blank, as if he couldn't understand such simple words.

He thought for a long time, what is death? Death is no longer existing in this world.

...How can that be?

Li Xun charged into the demon world and saw the Demon Lord cradling her corpse, treating it like a lover, cherishing it with a morbid tenderness. Yet, he knew the Demon Lord had killed her himself. Li Xun could no longer recall the emotions he felt at that moment. Perhaps it was the sheer agony that had hollowed him out, a mere corpse. It was as if the last string that had sustained him all these years had snapped. Like a madman, he slaughtered his way through the demon world, determined to kill the Demon Lord, even if it meant cutting him to pieces.

The Demon Lord did not struggle at first.

Until he was about to take away her body, the Demon Lord went crazy and fought with him, but their cultivation levels were equal, and in the end both of them were injured.

…

at last.

Li Xun still took her body away.

He hadn't attempted to revive her like the Demon Lord had. He didn't know why he hadn't. Was it because he wasn't suffering enough? It didn't seem so. He had become unusually lucid, knowing that there was no chance of her resurrection. The jade token could revive the dead, but she had been dead for so long that this token was the only thing keeping her body from decaying.

Finally he brought her back to the Tianjian Sect.

Her body was placed on the bed, dressed in luxurious clothes, and laid in a brocade room filled with treasures.

The woman lay there, her skin pale yet lively, her hair black, her lips pale, as if she was just asleep. It seemed that as long as he sat beside her and waited for a while, he could wait for her to wake up and open her eyes.

But that room was locked forever.

No one sat by her bed waiting.

Li Xun did not guard her body, perhaps because he knew that he would never see her open her eyes.

He returned to the haunted house where they had depended on each other for survival, but the house was no longer there. It had been demolished and a new and magnificent house had been built. It was said that a wealthy businessman in the human world took a fancy to this place and built a house there.

He went to many places again, just like he did after coming out of the abyss. He never used the technique of shrinking the earth, but traveled across thousands of mountains and rivers in a carriage.

But the mood is different.

Because this time, he knew that he would never find that person again.

In fact, the person who carved a boat to look for a sword already knew that he was carving a boat to look for a sword.

At last he returned to the abyss,

Surrounded by ferocious beasts and snakes and insects, he quietly closed his eyes here.

From then on, there was no more Sword Master Li Xun in this world.

…

Love? Maybe.

So why not admit it sooner, sooner?

...Why do you always have to be so stubborn?