Chapter 323

The normally carefree sword spirit stood frozen, unable to utter a single word.

Night had deepened, and the last traces of the setting sun’s blood-red light had completely faded, leaving a dark tide flowing across heaven and earth.

A chilling wind suddenly swept in, piercing to the bone.

It blew a lone cloud from the horizon, which cast shifting shadows, revealing a faint, soft glow emerging from the endless darkness.

It was the moon of the fourteenth night.

A never-complete, perpetually waning moon.

Its cold, eerie light poured down like water, illuminating the girl’s pale face beneath the sand dunes.

Surrounded by the shadows of demons, Pei Ji finally stopped his relentless assault.

This pause allowed a long blade to pierce through his chest.

He felt no pain, only the intense pounding of his heartbeat, loud and persistent.

Everything around him fell into an eerie silence, with no sound at all.

The moonlight glinted off the blade under the dunes, turning it as white as snow.

One flicker, and there was a startling red.

The long sword that the young man had been holding so tightly fell abruptly to the ground.

“The puppet is dead,” murmured Huo Qiao under the shadows, closing his eyes slightly.

“The Soul-Confusing Formation is active.”

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He had always been alone.

No one had ever wanted to be near him.

Pei Ji opened his eyes in a daze, finding himself amidst a forest saturated in blood-red, a thick fog of demonic energy wafting through the trees, where blood-red light mingled with black mist.

A cold corpse dropped from a tree, and he recognized the uniform of the Liuming Mountain sect on the body.

A harsh voice yelled, “It’s him—it’s all his doing! He was in the ancient forest, and he triggered this whole catastrophe… he’s the one who killed those people! He’s the evil that must be purged!”

He looked down in confusion and saw that he, too, was covered in wounds, and each one throbbed with unbearable pain.

“You murderer!”

Another voice, choked with tears, screamed, each word laced with fury and loathing: “Get out of Xuanxu Sword Sect! You’re disgusting!”

Pei Ji wanted to tell them that they were wrong.

He had battled the demonic tree tirelessly, risking his life to defeat it—he wasn’t a demon and had no desire to harm anyone.

But no one believed him.

They only watched him coldly from the side, their eyes filled with contempt, rejection, and fear.

Alone in the crowd’s hostile stares, he was a terrifying joke to them.

It had always been this way—he had lived in shame and degradation.

Pei Ji told himself silently that he didn’t care.

He was used to the deliberate exclusion, the bullying, the cold treatment; it no longer mattered to him.

Even if no one ever stood by his side, he…

He wouldn’t feel sad.

Suddenly, his heart gave a heavy thud.

A shadow emerged from deep within his mind, blurry and indistinct, like a fractured moon reflected on water or the delicate outline of a begonia blossom swaying in mist.

He reached out to grasp it but found only a distant mirage.

His blood began to flow anew because of that shadow.

No, this isn’t right.

There was someone who had always been by his side.

Though he was born into filth, she was willing to smile at him gently.

Only she had been willing to draw near, step by step, pulling him out of the endless mire, smiling at him with warmth.

How could he forget?

He would never forget.

That person’s name was—

“The demonic energy has fully dispersed.”

Qing Heng gripped his long blade, his face lighting up with excitement.

“This boy’s demonic energy is incredibly potent; it’s sure to break the formation—he’s moving!”

Huo Qiao watched quietly, saying nothing.

Moonlight, like strands of glowing dust, drifted over the bloodstained long sword.

The sword’s master knelt on one knee, his back arched, trembling like a shivering beast.

Pei Ji was shaking.

At some point, his hair tie had slipped loose, letting his long black hair flow down his back like a cascade.

Streaked with blood, it fell in disarray across his face, leaving dark red marks on his cheeks.