Chapter 128 Remember, "When they stormed in, I begged you..."

"You're talking nonsense!" the merman suddenly shouted angrily.

"How could she possibly remember? I'm clearly not in her memory!"

Suddenly, a fierce wind arose, and a cold hand pierced through the wind and abruptly grabbed the black-clad swordsman by the neck.

"She has forgotten me." The white-robed mermaid's blue hair danced in the wind, her eyes as cold as stars. "Otherwise, why wouldn't she acknowledge me?"

Wen Yizhan hadn't expected him to be so angry. Caught off guard, he was subdued by him, his icy hands gripping him so tightly he was almost suffocating. But even so, he didn't let go, and said with difficulty, "You think... she forgot... ha, she just... didn't want to... hold it against you anymore."

"Shut up!"

The intense fluctuation of spiritual energy shattered the barrier behind Wen Yizhan.

Wen Yizhan was no longer able to utter a single word.

Having truly experienced the mermaid's real power for the first time, he suddenly understood why those people in Tianque had so earnestly placed their hopes on him to become a god, even though becoming a god was clearly a laughable legend after the separation of heaven and earth. Yet now, even with his cultivation level, he was being suppressed to such an extent by this mermaid; ordinary cultivators were nothing more than ants at the feet of a god statue in his presence.

Demigods, it's not an exaggeration.

The commotion startled the River Guardian Immortals, who were meditating on the other side, and they all rushed towards the woods.

"stop!"

The sharp shout came from the woods, accompanied by a broken branch.

The broken branch pierced the hand that was gripping Wen Yizhan's neck like a sharp sword.

"Pfft—" The broken branch tip pierced into flesh, as easily as stabbing into a rotten fruit.

When the River Guardian arrived, this was the scene before him: a powerful merman had his hand pierced by a broken branch. The River Guardian withdrew his attack, and they saw that the merman had released Wen Yizhan's neck, so they quickly caught him.

Jia Yue turned around and saw the figure in the forest that drove him crazy with longing.

She stood under the tree, looking at him coldly.

How could such a gaze belong to Xiao Jiang, who remembers Xiao Hai?

It must have been to deliberately provoke him.

The merman smiled and walked towards the people in the forest.

Jiang Yuhuo walked straight out, brushing past the person who was walking towards her.

She stopped beside Wen Yizhan.

The merman's smile froze, and he stood frozen in place, only his pierced palm still dripping blood.

Are you alright?

A fire on the riverbank, a cup of warm wine.

In the shadows where no one was watching, one hand pulled a broken branch from the other.

Wen Yizhan wanted to answer her, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out, and she could only shake her head.

"Don't speak, I understand." Jiang Yuhuo nodded to him, gathering spiritual power between her fingers and touching the ligature marks on his neck.

A warm spiritual aura wrapped around the skin of his neck. He wasn't actually injured; Jia Yue had only suppressed him, not truly harmed him. He could have healed himself with his spiritual power, but a glimpse of a white figure in the forest caught his eye. At that moment, the merman was also watching him. Even from that distance, Wen Yizhan could feel the resentment and jealousy in his eyes.

That intense emotion made Wen Yizhan inexplicably uneasy, so he took the initiative to hold Jiang Yuhuo's hand.

The bruises on his neck gradually faded.

Jiang Yuhuo looked at the river guardians surrounding Wen Yizhan and said, "Please help look after my senior brother. I'll be right back."

Bai Hui pouted and pointed to the hand Wen Yizhan was holding, "But I think Yizhan would rather you stay with her."

Jiang Yuhuo then noticed that her other hand was being held. She gently pulled her hand away and patted Wen Yizhan's hand. "Don't worry, I'll be back after I say a few words to him."

After saying that, she turned and walked towards the woods, not seeing the fleeting disappointment in Wen Yizhan's eyes.

The moment Jiang Yuhuo turned back, Jia Yue reset the barrier. The indestructible barrier quietly descended behind her, blocking all spiritual energy and vision from the outside world.

He waited quietly for her in the woods, holding the broken branch in his hand, without tending to his wounds.

Jia Yue smiled at the newcomer, "If it were the moonlit star, this hand of mine would already be broken."

He slightly raised his hand, blood still dripping from his pale fingertips, as if he were feeling sorry for her.

"Why didn't you block it? With your spiritual energy protecting you, I shouldn't have been able to hurt you." Jiang Yuhuo looked at his hand, her brows furrowed.

Jia Yue looked down at her, her gaze softening as she thought of the past. "I can never refuse anything you give me."

She used to feed him fruit and put him in a glass bottle. Everything was something he couldn't have tolerated before, but because it was her, he inexplicably accepted it all.

Jiang Yuhuo looked away, her brows furrowing even deeper. "You didn't leave. You've been following me all along."

"What exactly do you want? Jia Yue, I thought I had made myself very clear."

The merman gently turned her face back to him, making her look directly into his eyes, and said in a seductive voice, "Look at me, what do you think I want?"

Jiang Yuhuo saw herself in his eyes; her figure was reflected in two pools of azure water.

What does this mean?

Jia Yue is right-handed; it was her right hand that formed the bond with her in the first place, and it is also her right hand that has been pierced by her now.

He grasped her hand with his own blood-soaked hand, then hooked his little finger around hers, letting his blood stain her hand.

I want to be with you, just like before.

He raised his intertwined hands to his face and kissed them, revealing the faded seal on his long, slender fingers. "You promised me you'd be with me forever."

Have you forgotten?

Jiang Yuhuo looked at his hand in silence without saying a word.

Jia Yue sighed almost imperceptibly.

He didn't want to pressure her; he only wanted to secretly watch over her and give her time to gradually accept him. But the sight of her leaving him for someone else just now had truly broken his heart, and he had no choice but to make her face him.

He still couldn't believe Wen Yizhan's words. She made no attempt to hide her feelings; her eyes clearly revealed both love and hate. Since their reunion, her gaze towards him had remained calm; she hadn't looked at him this way back then.

“He said you’ve never forgotten.” He gently brushed the hair from her face, his movements tender. “Do you remember me? Jiang Yuhuo.”

That's how I asked the question, that's how I handed my fate into her hands.

For a moment, Jia Yue held her breath.

"Remember."

The fingertips that were touching her face paused, and the other hand that was entwined with hers slipped away silently.

She completely crushed him with just two words.

Remember.

So, the moment they met again, she recognized him, but she kept pretending not to know him.

It turns out that she didn't want him from the very beginning.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you pretend not to know me?" Jia Yue stared into her eyes, trying to find even a trace of the warmth from the past, but Jiang Yuhuo's gaze remained calm, as if she didn't care about him at all.

"Do you hate me for forgetting you? I didn't forget on purpose. I've regained my memories now, we can..." His words were cut off as he saw her slightly furrow her brow.

Jiang Yuhuo looked up at the merman she had once trusted and loved so much in her youth.

He has changed a lot. From Xiao Hai of Liyue Village to Jia Yue of Tianque, he seems to have changed again, becoming different from the Tianque Sect Master she remembered. Even though no one can hurt him anymore, he seems to have become more vulnerable than before, always showing this fragile look in his eyes.

Can a memory really change a person?

Was that memory really important to him?

"That day, you said you would wait for me to come back, so I went back to find you."

She suddenly spoke, but not in response to his question.

Jia Yue realized that she was referring to what happened in Liyue Village.

“You weren’t in your room. I wanted to go out and look for you, but something happened in the village. Those people want to take away our land.” She took a deep breath, as if she needed to gather a great deal of strength to continue.

"This was my first time killing someone; I killed a lot of people."

"I have no other choice."

She spoke with unusual calmness, so calm that it seemed as if she were talking about someone else's affairs.

But the calmer she was, the more uneasy Jia Yue felt, as if he were being suffocated by an invisible net. It didn't exert any force, but it made him feel suffocated and tormented him, waiting for the final, fatal blow.

The river wind was strong, blowing her long hair and clothes, making her look as if she might disappear with the wind at any moment. He longed to hold her in his arms, to be close to her as before, but the next sentence made his outstretched hand freeze in place.

“I begged you when they stormed in.”

Jiang Yuhuo extended her little finger and moved it slightly. "Use this, remember? You taught me."

“You said that as long as I move like this, no matter how far apart we are, you will come to find me.”

You said you would protect me.

She frowned, her expression finally showing a hint of distress. "But you left."

"I kept begging you, until the last person died before my eyes..."

The invisible net tightened little by little, cutting into his heart, drawing blood, and penetrating his most vulnerable spot.

Jia Yue felt an unprecedented, intense suffocation, as powerless as a fish out of water, only able to watch something slip away from her life with open eyes, no matter how much she struggled, it was all in vain.

"You made me realize that it's useless to place your hopes on others."

"Because these things are none of anyone else's business."

She stood before him, so close yet, yet at that moment, it felt as if they were separated by an ocean.

It turns out that a huge barrier had long existed between them, perhaps even harder to overcome than death.

Upon learning of her miraculous recovery, he was overwhelmed with joy. Even though she had uttered so many heartless words, he never truly believed they would become strangers. Since they had shared a beautiful past, the future could only be better.

He thought they just needed time.

At that moment, he realized that what he thought was a beautiful past might only have brought her cruelty.

He made promises to her, then turned around and broke his vow.

They left her alone on the slaughterhouse, gave her hope, and then shattered it with their own hands.

"So, seeing me reminds you of them, right?"

Jia Yue added what she hadn't said: she was still too kind and hadn't plunged the sharpest sword into his heart.

"Therefore, they do not want to see me again, nor do they want to have any contact with me."

"What about hatred? You won't even give me hatred?"

Normally, he should have apologized to her, explained his predicament, and sought her forgiveness. But he found himself unable to say sorry; faced with her pain, his words felt too light, too affected, even hypocritical.

Jiang Yuhu remained silent, which was taken as tacit agreement.

Jia Yue gave a defeated smile, and he raised his hand to touch the corner of her eye. "And you? How did you survive?"

From the corners of her eyes to her temples, and from her temples to the ends of her hair, her appearance shows no trace of her original self.

"How did you become like this, Xiao Jiang?"

How did a girl who lost all her relatives overnight survive without any support, and how did she travel from Liyue Village to Pinghai County, thousands of miles away?

He knew without asking that it wouldn't be easy, but his heart was already riddled with holes, and he was just torturing himself to make himself feel even more pain.

What is this little pain compared to hers?

If it could make her feel a little better, he would be willing to cut open his chest and let her reach inside to crush that hypocritical heart. But it was too late.

"Don't ask anymore."

He dug up the deepest, most painful memories buried in her heart, so much so that Jiang Yuhuo felt she needed to muster all her strength to even speak.

"You can leave now."

She turned her back to him.

Jia Yue noticed the redness in her eyes.

Her silhouette was as lonely as a tree standing in the wilderness. As Jia Yue watched her silhouette, it became increasingly blurry, as if something was obscuring his vision. It wasn't until he blinked that she became clear again.

"Okay, I'm leaving."

The cold voice disappeared behind him, and the forest was filled with various sounds again: birdsong, insect chirping, wind whistling, and leaves rustling. All the sounds that had been suppressed by that person returned.

He's gone.

Jiang Yuhu stood there for a while, sighed at the hazy moon in the sky, then wiped the water off her face and walked outside.

We cannot dwell on the past; the pain and sorrow must pass as soon as possible, for she doesn't have much time left.

Suddenly a cool breeze swept over her, and she was enveloped in a refreshing embrace.

Jiang Yuhuo looked up in astonishment and met a pair of eyes that were even redder than hers.

"Give me a little more time, okay, Xiao Jiang?"

The merman lowered his head, his eyelashes trembled, and a crystal pearl fell into Jiang Yuhuo's arms. There was a hint of pleading in his moist eyes, "After tonight, I will not appear in front of you again, Xiao Jiang."