Jealousy stemmed from his unspeakable feelings for Tang Xianxiao, which gave rise to many uncontrollable emotions.
Therefore, while he was punishing Tang Xianxiao, he was also punishing himself.
They alleviated their guilt by torturing each other.
Xie Shuci stared at Xie An for a moment. It was indeed something he had imagined, exactly the same as what he had thought in his mind.
"Now that we know Xu Yi's inner demons, what should we do?" Xie Shuci asked.
Sikong Xin pondered for a moment and said, "After Xu Yi went into seclusion, we returned to the starting point. I suspect that Xu Yi has been repeatedly experiencing his love-hate entanglement with Senior Tang in his sea of consciousness. If that's the case, then the others in his sea of consciousness must all be figments of his imagination."
"I understand now, only Xu Yi is real?"
"Okay, let's go in and find him."
The group re-entered the city and, as before, boarded a small boat to reach the river.
Tang Xianxiao leaped out of the attic window and landed on their cabin, where everything was exactly the same as before.
However, just as Tang Xianxiao was about to be tied up by Xu Yi with his whisk, Sikong Xin suddenly said, "Dazhuang, chop her down."
Liu Dazhuang was confused, but he was always a simple-minded guy with strong limbs. He listened to Sikong Xin, pulled out the axe from his waist, and threw it at Tang Xianxiao.
Tang Xianxiao was unable to dodge in time and was struck squarely by the axe. His figure instantly vanished into thin air like sand.
As Tang Xianxiao disappeared, everything around them suddenly came to a standstill. In this still space, only a whisk swept through the air, like a sharpened sword, piercing towards the group.
Seeing this, Liu Dazhuang stepped forward and used his axe to block the whisk. The two collided and generated a huge shockwave that almost capsized the boat beneath their feet.
Above the eaves, a Taoist priest in a gray robe walked slowly and steadily toward them, seemingly stepping into the void.
Upon seeing this, Master Xu quickly knelt down on one knee, clasped his hands in greeting to the Taoist, and said, "I am Xu Chong, greetings to the Grand Ancestor."
Xu Yi stood in the void, coldly watching the group.
"My name is Sikong Xin. I greet you, senior."
"My name is Liu Yunhan. I greet you, senior."
"...I am Xie Shuci, greetings to you, senior."
"Thank you for your help."
Xie Shuci was stunned when he suddenly heard the voice of the person next to him.
He suddenly realized something: although everyone in his sea of consciousness was in a state of stillness, why was Xie An, whom he had imagined, completely unaffected?
Xu Yi's gaze swept over the five people and finally settled on Sikong Xin.
With a flick of his wide sleeve, the small snake that had been coiled around Sikong Xin's wrist rose into the air and slowly flew into Xu Yi's palm.
Zi Xi is different from them. They only enter this place with their consciousness, but she separates a wisp of her soul. If her soul is damaged, her body will also suffer a great loss of vitality.
Sikong Xin immediately knelt down and clasped his hands, saying, "This is my contracted beast, Zixi. Without your permission, it has entered your sea of consciousness. I really had no other choice."
The purple snake floated in his palm; with just a little force, he could crush her soul to pieces.
"What's the reason?" Xu Yi asked.
Sikong said, "Tang Xianxiao, Senior Tang, is currently in Huaizhou. She wants to see you. If she doesn't see you within three days, she will go on a killing spree."
Upon hearing this, Xu Yi's eyes widened in surprise. "She's already dead."
"After the senior left, the water god Banxia in the Immortal Tomb protected her heart meridian and helped her separate her soul from her body to suppress her murderous nature. Now, she has returned to the cultivation world with the water god."
Xu Yi was stunned.
After a long silence, he opened his mouth, but remained speechless: "She...is still alive?"
Sect Leader Xu said, "Senior Tang has returned to the Tang family's former immortal sect. She... wants to see you."
"Alive...alive...she's still alive..."
Xu Yi lowered his head and murmured.
"Even after hundreds of years, I still haven't ascended to immortality. How can I face her?"
"Senior, how are you any different from back then? You're afraid to face her, afraid to face yourself..."
"It was your avoidance of taste that led to this disaster. Do you want this tragedy to repeat itself?" Xie Shuci said, mustering his courage.
Xu Yi gave him a cold glance, and Xie Shuci shrank back, hiding a few feet behind Xie An.
"Don't glare at me, I'm just stating the facts."
“I didn’t run away, nor was I afraid to face anyone,” Xu Yi said.
Xie Shuci curled his lip, stubborn as ever.
“Senior, she has been trapped in the Dragon Fang Secret Realm for over a hundred years. Now, there are only a few members of the Tang family left. The only person she knows in the world is you. Whatever grudges you have with her, running away is not the best way. I suppose you don’t want her to think that even after hundreds of years, you are still the same as before, afraid to face your own heart.”
Sikong Xin's words were sharp and accurately struck at Xu Yi's sore spot.
“She’s still alive… for hundreds of years, what harm is there in seeing her?” Xu Yi seemed to be talking to himself.
As soon as he finished speaking, his figure and the surrounding scene suddenly became blurry. Xie Shuci felt as if he was being pulled backward by a hand, his body became distorted, and the space also became distorted. The wind was whistling in his ears, and his feet felt unsteady. He vaguely saw Xie An not far away. He tried to grab him with his hands, but only grabbed a blurry figure.
With a "whoosh" in his ear, Xie Shuci's consciousness suddenly returned to his body, and he immediately felt a bone-chilling cold, which made him shiver unexpectedly.
He slowly opened his eyes, and a blinding white light shone from them. He subconsciously clenched his fingers and immediately grasped a warm hand.
Xie Shuci suddenly remembered something. He opened his eyes and looked to his side. Xie An was sitting on the stone platform, one hand supporting his temple, his eyes closed. As if sensing Xie Shuci's movement, his long eyelashes trembled slightly, and then he opened his eyes.
"You're back?" Xie An asked softly.
Xie Shuci was taken aback, staring at him suspiciously for a long time before saying, "Yes, you're back."
Recalling what happened in his sea of consciousness, Xie Shuci asked with an ambiguous tone, "You've been here the whole time, without going anywhere?"
Xie An seemed somewhat puzzled. He raised his right hand and shook the hand that Xie Shuci was tightly gripping, as if to say, "Where can I go if you're holding me like this?"
Sensing a hidden meaning in Xie Shuci's words, Xie An asked, "But what happened?"
At this moment, Liu Dazhuang and the others also woke up.
Upon seeing Xie An and hearing these words, Liu Dazhuang chuckled and approached him, saying, "Brother Xie, you have no idea, your elder brother is quite... um!"
Before he could finish speaking, Xie Shuci suddenly pounced on him, covered Liu Dazhuang's mouth, and said to Xie An, "It's nothing, it's nothing, don't listen to his nonsense."
Xie An raised an eyebrow dismissively and didn't ask any further questions.
Upon hearing this, Sikong Xin's gaze lingered on Xie An's face for a fleeting moment, almost imperceptibly. Logically, Xie Shuci's consciousness shouldn't have influenced the sea of consciousness for so long. He wondered if Xiao Xun had deliberately infiltrated while they were away. Despite these thoughts, Sikong Xin dared not expose him.
As their consciousness returned, Zixi's body went limp, and she slumped into Sikong Xin's arms, the black hair that had been wrapped around them retracting.
"How is she?" Xie Shuci asked worriedly.
Zixi had lost consciousness and transformed into a small purple snake in Sikong Xin's arms. Sikong Xin put her into his sleeve and said, "She has exhausted too much spiritual power and is just a little weak. She is fine and will recover after half a day of rest."
Xie Shuci nodded: "That's good."
As the group was talking, Xu Yi slowly opened his eyes from inside the ice coffin.
His eyes hadn't been exposed to light for so long that he had barely opened them a crack when the light stung them shut again, leaving a single, physiological tear in the corner of his eye.
"Grand Ancestor, are you alright?" Sect Leader Xu stepped forward and asked.
Xu Yi paused for a moment, then opened his eyes again and sat up from the ice coffin. He picked up the whisk placed to the side, glanced at it quietly, and his eyes held a mixture of emotions.
“Take me to see her,” Xu Yi said.
He had little spiritual energy left in his body, was extremely weak, his face was as pale as paper, and his limbs were stiff. He sat in meditation for a while before leaping out of the ice coffin.
Sect Leader Xu said, "Grand Ancestor, Senior Tang's visit is ill-intentioned. You are currently in poor health, so please rest for a while before you go."
"No need."
Having lived for so many years, he had long since figured it out.
Back then, he always said that Tang Xianxiao was stubborn and inflexible, but actually, the truly stubborn one was him.
Everything started because of him, and now that Tang Xianxiao is still alive, he naturally has to settle things.
Sect Leader Xu could not stop Xu Yi, so he had no choice but to leave the Xu Family Immortal Sect with Xie Shuci and the others and head to Little Immortal Mountain.
At that time, the moonlight was hazy on the horizon, and the moonlight shone on my robe, outlining a net woven from the moonlight, making everything seem so unreal.
Xu Yi had not seen such vivid moonlight for hundreds of years.
On his way to see Tang Xianxiao, Xu Yi felt very calm. All the great joys and sorrows seemed to have been worn away by the passage of hundreds of years.
They remained silent the entire way.
Upon arriving in the city and seeing the small fairy mountain not far away, Xu Yi, holding his whisk, flew onto the rooftop and gazed at the distant fairy mountain. At this moment, a slight ripple finally stirred in his calm heart.
Centuries have passed, and Little Fairy Mountain has completely changed.
The town where Tang Xianxiao grew up and acted recklessly had become so unfamiliar.
It was as if everything was reminding him that time had passed, but the mistakes he had made and the regrets in his heart had never faded with time.
He only learned of the attacks the Tang family suffered more than a decade after he went into seclusion, and by then it was too late to reverse the situation.
He personally destroyed Tang Xianxiao, destroyed the Tang family, and implicated countless innocent disciples in Huaizhou.
Perhaps Tang Xianxiao was right; he was too cowardly. When he left the Dragon Fang Secret Realm for seclusion, he only wanted to prove through ascension that he wasn't like Tang Xianxiao claimed—that he wanted to ascend, that he had to ascend. But he overlooked the people and Tang Xianxiao who were implicated because of him in the Dragon Fang Secret Realm.
Hundreds of years is enough time for him to figure things out.
A mistake is a mistake, so he punished himself by repeatedly repeating his mistakes in his mind's eye to remind and torment himself, even after he died.
But Tang Xianxiao is still alive; she is actually still alive.
She was forced to kill her own people, and so many innocent cultivators died, yet he and Tang Xianxiao are still alive.
Xu Yi took a deep breath and continued to approach Little Fairy Mountain.
Throughout the journey, Xie Shuci remained silent, seemingly lost in thought, occasionally glancing at Xie An.
Before long, the group arrived at the foot of Little Fairy Mountain.
The disciples stationed there immediately came to greet Master Xu.
"Disciple greets Sect Leader. And this is..."
Before he finished speaking, Xu Yi walked into the mountains as if no one else was there.
The disciples, unaware of the truth, were about to step forward to stop him when Sect Leader Xu raised his hand to signal them to stay still. He then followed along with Xie Shuci and his group.
As soon as Xu Yi stepped into the mountains, a fierce wind suddenly arose, whipping up dry branches from the ground and using them as weapons to pounce on him.
Xu Yi neither dodged nor avoided the attack, nor did he make any defense. His robes were torn by the leaves, and many marks were left on his skin. His clothes were quickly soaked with blood.
Xie Shuci and the others followed behind without saying a word. The strange wind in the air seemed to avoid the five of them and blew only towards Xu Yi.
He was naked. His exposed skin was torn and bleeding from sharp leaves, and after walking only a few steps into the mountains, there was hardly an inch of unscathed skin on his body.
Although the wounds were not large, they were very deep, and blood gushed out with every step.
Even so, Xu Yi didn't even blink and continued to move forward.
The star-studded sky was suddenly shrouded in a black cage, swallowing up the surrounding light. A gale swept leaves around Xu Yi, relentlessly leaving wounds on his body, his blood covering him, just like Tang Xianxiao when he went mad in the Immortal's Tomb.
Time has passed, but the bloodstains on his body are still as glaring as they were back then.
Xu Yi sensed it; the familiar atmosphere permeated the mountains and fields. The former Tang family, now Tang Xianxiao—everything felt so familiar to him.
fresh blood
The drops fell to the ground along his steps, their vibrant color leaving an indelible mark on the earth.
A newly sprouted blade of grass, soaked in blood, instantly lost its vitality.
As he moved closer, a single source of light suddenly appeared in the pitch-black darkness.
That was the only sacred tree that remained after the Tang family was wiped out hundreds of years ago.
Moonlight filtered through the leaves and fell on the tree trunk.
A vine hangs precariously in mid-air, forming a concave bridge, on which sit two people.
One of them was a young man with a blank expression and lifeless eyes, holding the woman in red in his arms.
The woman nestled intimately in his arms, her face deathly pale and lifeless, her expression empty and eerie. Her wide, dark eyes stared blankly in the direction Xu Yi and the others had come from.
"Soup……"
Through the dense, dark leaves surrounding him, Xu Yi looked up at the woman in red on the vines.
But as soon as he opened his mouth, a sharp leaf sliced through the corner of his mouth, slicing away the rest of his words.
The woman's expression was blank. As she opened and closed her red lips, she uttered a few words: "What right do you have to call me by my name?"
Her tone was extremely slow, each word sounding as if it had been spoken over a long period of time.
Xu Yi didn't speak again, and his approaching steps stopped in place.
Several feet away, looking at the woman on the vine, with her black hair flowing freely, pale skin, and empty expression, and her Tang family disciple's robes stained with blood, one could no longer see a trace of the once arrogant, domineering, and quirky Tang Xianxiao.
But that face, that aura, felt so familiar.
"You didn't ascend...you really didn't ascend..."
The woman murmured, repeating the phrase over and over.
"Xu Yi, why is that? Why didn't you ascend?" The woman was extremely puzzled. She sat up straight, supporting herself on the man's shoulders. Then, she lightly touched the ground with her toes, stepped through the void, and flew across the night wind, gently landing in front of Xu Yi.
"We have harmed so many people, but I did not die, and you did not ascend to heaven. Why?"
The woman looked at Xu Yi, who was a few steps away, and asked in confusion.
"I'm waiting for an opportunity, what are you waiting for? Why don't you just die?"
"I am the one who harmed them."
Compared to the physical pain, the piercing pain in my heart seemed even more intense.
He was wrong, terribly wrong.
"No, no." Tang Xianxiao took two steps back, shaking his head. "It's me, it's me. It's all my fault. I'm the one who made you hate me to this extent. Didn't you say that only one of us could live? Come on, I won't wait any longer. Kill me and continue your path to ascension."
Xu Yi lowered her head. "I can't kill you."
"You can't kill me...you say you can't kill me?" Tang Xianxiao chuckled softly, her laughter muffled yet incredibly grating. "Xu Yi, you actually...say you can't kill me?"
Tang Xianxiao spread her arms wide, and like a blood-soaked butterfly, she spun around on the ground. A branch from the divine tree lifted her up.
"You can't kill me... then why did I become like this?"
“I am stubborn and reckless, and my hands are stained with the blood of my own kind. Daoist, shouldn’t you kill me to uphold justice?”
Xu Yi took a deep breath, his heart trembling with pain. He was filled with regret and resentment, wondering why it had taken him hundreds of years to understand such a simple truth.
"You're not wrong, I'm the one who's wrong," Xu Yi said, her voice trembling.
"You're wrong? What did you do wrong?" Tang Xian asked with a puzzled smile.
“I was single-mindedly devoted to cultivating the Tao, stubborn and unyielding, thinking that I could torment myself while tormenting you.”
“Torture…torture…” Tang Xianxiao murmured these two words, seemingly not understanding their meaning. “You did it, Xu Yi, you did it.”
"I was wrong."
Tang Xianxiao looked at him, his expression suddenly turning sorrowful. "You're wrong...you're wrong? What can 'you're wrong' change? The disciples of my Tang family who died, the cultivators who died because of you and me, can they come back to life? They...they can't even be reincarnated."
They didn't even have a chance... What did they do wrong?
Hearing this, Xie Shuci's heart skipped a beat.
They had no chance to be reincarnated, but Tang Xianxiao had no chance either. Not only did she not have a chance, but after death she would also be completely destroyed, disappearing forever.
Perhaps, in Tang Xianxiao's view, this was a punishment for himself.
“They are not wrong, you are not wrong, the one who is wrong is me, it’s just me,” Xu Yi said in a trembling voice.
The gentle breeze in the air suddenly turned sharp, and Tang Xianxiao's voice became stern: "Yes, you're the one who's wrong! Back then, you said that only one of us could live, and today, it's still the same as before—only one of us can live!"
As if sensing her anger, the branches of the divine tree wove together into a net and pounced on Xu Yi with overwhelming force.
But as they approached Xu Yi, they suddenly seemed to sense something frightening. The vines tried to move forward several times, but retreated before they could touch him.
Everyone present was stunned by what they saw.
Tang Xianxiao froze, a look of disbelief flashing in his eyes.
Upon seeing this, Sect Leader Xu burst into tears, "The Great Ancestor... he wasn't incapable of ascension..."
Sikong Xin looked at Xu Yi speechlessly and shook his head helplessly.
Xie Shuci was somewhat puzzled.
Xie An explained softly, "Xu Yi cultivated the path of slaughter. Most living beings in the world are inclined to good, and the path of slaughter is their natural enemy."
Upon hearing this, Xie Shuci's eyes widened in surprise. "He...cultivated the Path of Slaughter?"
Sikong Xin said in a deep voice, "Moreover, it has already reached a great level of mastery."
After saying that, he sighed again and said, "If only I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have done it in the first place."
“You cultivated the path of slaughter…” Tang Xianxiao’s expression was blank, a tear slid down his cheek and disappeared into his clothes.
Her voice gradually choked up, "You cultivated the path of slaughter... How could you cultivate the path of slaughter?"
Xu Yi tightened her lips and remained silent.
"Didn't you want to ascend? You tricked me into cultivating the Path of Slaughter... forced me to suffer a qi deviation... and made me kill the sect leader and my fellow disciples with my own hands. Didn't you want merit? I did die at your hands back then, so why didn't you ascend? Why didn't you ascend? What right did you have to not ascend? What right did you have to cultivate the Path of Slaughter? What right? What right?!"
Tang Xianxiao's voice turned hysterical.
She made so many mistakes, and he forced her to make so many mistakes, all for the sake of ascension. But she died, all her fellow disciples died, and he changed his path, cultivating the path of slaughter that made ascension impossible.
Isn't this ridiculous? How ridiculous is this?
What about those cultivators who died because of them? What about the innocent cultivators who died at Tang Xianxiao's hands? What about all the disciples of the Tang family? What about the descendants of the Tang family who were expelled, changed their names, and never cultivated again? And what about Tang Xianxiao herself?
How could you trample on them once and then trample on them a second time?
Why? Why?!
“Xu Yi.” Tang Xian smiled, his face streaked with dried tears, his dark eyes shining like stars. “I have never regretted ever knowing you. It was my mistake to like you, it was my mistake to make you hate me, it was my mistake to not be able to distinguish right from wrong… But now, I regret it.”
"I regret knowing you, I regret liking you. You don't deserve my love. You haven't changed at all. You were a coward back then, and you are still a coward now."
Xu Yi shuddered, clutched his chest, and vomited a mouthful of blood.
"I must have been a complete madman in my past life to have met you in this one."
Her tone was very calm, but her words were like a sharp sword, piercing his heart again and again.
What's both funny and absurd is that this scene is strikingly similar to the time when Tang Xianxiao went mad in the Immortal's Tomb.
How ridiculous, how ridiculous!
Xu Yi felt all his strength drain away and knelt down. He lowered his head, tears rolling down his cheeks, only to be crushed by the sharp leaves in mid-air, leaving nothing behind.
He got to experience Tang Xianxiao's pain as he wished, but unfortunately, it was far less than one-thousandth of the pain Tang Xianxiao felt.
His current feelings are just the tip of the iceberg of what Tang Xianxiao felt back then.
But this was just the tip of the iceberg, yet it was enough to shake his already crumbling Dao heart and cause it to crumble.
Perhaps, what happened in the Immortal's Tomb will repeat itself.
"Watch out, Xu Yi has gone mad!" Liu Dazhuang stepped forward, took the axe from his waist, and shielded the others behind him.
Tang Xianxiao laughed ironically when he saw this scene.
She'd had enough of living. Dying at his hands and tormenting him for a lifetime was enough for her.
So, as Xu Yi gradually lost her reason, she jumped down from the vines, barefoot on the withered branches, and approached Xu Yi step by step.
Xu Yi's eyes were bloodshot, and he gripped a whisk tightly in one hand. With just a wave of his hand, he could shatter Tang Xianxiao's soul.
Just as he said before, only one of him and Tang Xianxiao could survive.
Driven by spiritual energy, the blood-stained whisk suddenly soared into the air.
"Wait!" Sikong Xin shouted.
Tang Xianxiao cannot die; they haven't yet found out the whereabouts of the Water God.
Before he could even utter the words, Xie Shuci didn't hesitate. He took out the Fulong magic weapon from his pouch, intending to use it to protect Tang Xianxiao.
Xie Shuci didn't think too much about it; he just didn't want Tang Xianxiao to die like that.
But at this critical moment, as the whisk fell from the sky, Xu Yi knelt on the ground and used his remaining spiritual power to swirl up the leaves around him, forming a small whirlwind that pierced his chest.
Fresh blood spurted out immediately, the warm liquid splashing onto Tang Xianxiao's face and clothes.
The scene froze for a moment, Xie Shuci and Sikong Xin's movements were stiff.
Tang Xianxiao's steps faltered in place.
The wind that had been swirling around Xu Yi dissipated, and the fluttering leaves returned to stillness.
Blood trickled down his arm like beads from a broken string, splattering onto the grass drop by drop.
His entire body was covered in wounds and blood, with two clear tear tracks running down his face.
At the same time, the whisk swept down from the sky.
It grabbed Tang Xianxiao's ankle, pulled her up, and hung her upside down in mid-air.
A bright and flamboyant touch bursts into the landscape ink painting, and after the clouds and mist clear, its true face is revealed.
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