Chapter 95

For a brief moment, Liu Shuang almost believed that the person shielding her right now had never held any resentment, and had always loved her.

Before Yan Chaosheng arrived, tribulation clouds had gathered.

Caught unprepared, Liu Shuang had to face the thing she feared most deep within her heart.

The ghost maids, sensing something was off, all scattered in panic.

Not a single one tried to undo the soul-lock contract binding her.

When Liu Shuang gritted her teeth and tried to break the soul-lock, she truly thought she would die here.

She believed Yan Chaosheng was unwilling to come.

Just then, a drop of soul essence landed on the back of her hand, lingered for only a moment, and then dissipated into black mist.

She realized what it was, and was nearly stunned out of her mind.

Across two lifetimes, since meeting Yan Chaosheng when he lay bloodied beside a patch of immortal grass, until now when they’d faced death together, she had seen many sides of him: violent, cruel, weak, and powerless…

But she had never imagined Yan Chaosheng would shed tears.

Every drop of a ghost cultivator’s soul essence is part of their soul force.

He… cried?

Liu Shuang’s mind turned slowly.

She almost reached out instinctively, wanting to catch that fleeting tear.

It was absurd.

She desperately needed something to prove this was real.

If there were a mirror in front of her right now, she was sure she’d look utterly foolish, just like that silly little immortal grass she once was.

Before she could dwell on it, the heavenly thunder had already thickened like a grown woman’s arm, crashing down like a raging storm.

The black mist from Yan Chaosheng’s body shielded her completely.

A warm sensation, like basking in spring sunlight, wrapped around her.

Liu shuang knew this feeling well…it was tribulation thunder force that had passed through her.

For two hundred years, he had always protected her like this.

She couldn’t help but think of that person.

She bit her lip and looked at Yan Chaosheng in front of her.

At the corners of his eyes, silver scales had emerged.

Far from being ugly, they lent him a strange kind of demonic charm.

His fingers still held her face, sensing her warmth.

He seemed, at last, to have calmed down from his frenzied state.

His expression twisted briefly, awkwardly, as if out of place and he moved to let go of her.

But Liu Shuang wasn’t going to let him leave.

Her heart was full of questions…Who exactly is he? After all the bizarre things she had experienced, what if…?

Fear and confusion surged up in her, and she gripped Yan Chaosheng’s hand tightly.

Although the tribulation thunder had grown several times stronger because of Yan Chaosheng’s resistance, to him now, it would only cause injury not death.

Seeing the lightning die down, Liu Shuang feared she’d lose this fragile moment and quickly asked, “Who are you?”

He remained in that position, not letting her go.

With his head lowered, his body still glowed faintly with the lightning, making him look both terrifying and grim.

His fingers slowly stroked her cheek.

He gave a clenched smile and said, “What do you think, Immortal Liushuang?”

The hatred of his youth returned in an instant, fully visible in his expression.

His cold fingers made her skin crawl, goosebumps rising all over her.

She nearly cried out, but managed to hold it in and pushed his hand away.

He let out a cold laugh, as if utterly used to her “burning the bridge after crossing it.”

There was no longer that same feeling in Yan Chaosheng as before when he had protected Liu Shuang.

He stood stiffly and took the last few strikes of heavenly thunder head-on.

Then, with eyes like blades, he gave her a sharp glare, unable to hide the weight in his gaze.

With a flick of his sleeve, he turned and left.

Naturally, the soul-lock contract on Liu shuang was not undone either.

She sat on the bed for a long time, watching the dense ghostly aura scatter in the air, and guilt began to stir in her heart.

Liu shuang finally realized how different this life was from the last.

Yan Chaosheng was no longer cultivating the ghost path in his demon body—he did not even have a demon body anymore.

All that was left was a wisp of soul, as fierce and twisted as an evil ghost.

He could no longer bleed.

No matter how badly injured he got, it would only manifest as dissipating ghost aura, his cultivation waning and vanishing from the world.

That drop of soul essence earlier probably had not been a tear at all, but a part of his cultivation force fading away.

Her fingers played with the lingering traces of ghost aura that had yet to disappear, and she felt a pang of sorrow.

Liu shuang understood that because of her, Yan Chaosheng likely would never be able to reincarnate again.

And just earlier, she had even briefly mistaken him for the despicable demon lord of her past life.

Liu shuang felt deeply dejected.

She had never treated anyone so cruelly before.

Yan Chaosheng was the first.

Harboring resentment for the harm he caused her in the past life, she had projected all the blame onto the youth he was now.

She stared out at the beaded curtain, and after a long while, lay down facing the door.

But Yan Chaosheng never returned.

In her heart, she thought that since both of them had made mistakes, and in a world as chaotic as this, with Feng Fuming on the verge of becoming a true demon, then she should speak to Yan Chaosheng properly.

This time, she must speak to him sincerely.

That night, when it was completely dark, Liu shuang, stripped of her spiritual energy and no different from a mortal, should have needed rest like anyone else.

But she could not sleep.

Eyes wide open, she lay awake.

When the ghost crows of the ghost realm cawed thrice, a shadow appeared behind the beaded curtain.

Her heart lifted, and she immediately sat up, only to find it was a small ghost maid bringing her clean clothes.

The maid placed the garments beside her bed.

Liu shuang asked, “How is the Demon Lord?”

Cultivation tribulation was different from bloodline tribulation.

Even for someone like Yan Chaosheng, recklessly shielding her from the tribulation must have caused him serious injury.

But the ghost maid did not answer.

She simply bowed and quickly withdrew, her face filled with fear.

What Liu shuang did not know was that the ghost maids who had served her during the day had all been dealt with.

None were left.

They had not treated her life with proper care, and this was the price they paid.

The new little ghost maid was terrified of making the same mistake.

So she chose to say nothing, just do her job, and treat herself like a deaf mute.

Yan Chaosheng left Liu shuang alone for three days.

She had thought he would not come again…until one morning, he suddenly dragged her out of bed while she was still asleep, waking her roughly and violently.

His tone was mocking, and his voice was laced with cold sarcasm.

“You can actually sleep so peacefully here? Immortal Liushuang, do you really think I would not hurt you?”

Liu shuang was dangling midair in his grasp, completely awake now.

To be honest, she had already come to believe he would not hurt her.

These past few days in the ghost realm, Yan Chaosheng had done nothing to her besides scaring her, treating her roughly, and carrying her around like a doll.

He had not actually done anything else.

He had not even thrown her into the Twelfth Hall.

A few days ago, he had even shielded her from tribulation thunder.

And not just shielded her, he had passed her some of his spiritual energy.

Even though he had every reason to hate her.

So Liu shuang looked up at him, her eyes carrying a hint of a smile she herself did not even realize.

That smile enraged him.

Yan Chaosheng grabbed her throat, leaned in, and tore open her clothes.

A large patch of her skin was exposed to the air.

Liu shuang trembled, not from fear, but from the cold.

Without spiritual energy to protect her, the ghost domain felt like a mortal winter, bitter and hard to bear.

Yan Chaosheng’s sudden action caught her off guard, and for a moment, she was frightened.

A soft sound escaped her lips.

He bit her shoulder.

It was not deep, but enough to draw blood.

As if rebutting her unspoken thought that he would not harm her, he bit down hard, trying to prove something—to show that his hatred was real, that he would not forgive her betrayal.

She winced in pain, her brows furrowing.

But before she could think, she silently reached out and hugged his head.

Her sleeve had been torn, and a strip of cloth dangled from her arm, fluttering in the morning breeze.

She thought of that drop of black soul essence again, and her heart softened.

“Do not do this… I am sorry.”

She said softly, “Yan Chaosheng… I am sorry.”

He suddenly froze and buried his head tightly against her neck.

Her voice was soft and warm, and she let him hold her like this as she finally spoke the words that had been trapped in her heart for three years.

“It was my fault. I lied to you. But I never meant to kill you. Three years ago, I only wanted to trap you in the Endless Sea. The array would not have taken your life. I did not know you had already been seriously wounded before arriving at Kongsang.”

He did not move.

He lay against her, completely still, not even breathing.

His entire body was cold, yet trembling slightly.

Even though he had come back, he was now just a ghost, one with a present life but no future reincarnation.

She held that black-haired head in her arms and awkwardly patted it.

Truthfully, she felt incredibly uneasy.

Neither of them had ever taken the first step toward the other.

Liu shuang knew she had always been waiting for an apology from the Yan Chaosheng of seven hundred years later.

But in this life, it was also she who owed the young man before her an apology.

She had planned never to say a word and to just let things go on like this, the two of them becoming strangers.

If he wanted to kill her or flay her, so be it.

But then she remembered the days they had huddled together for warmth in the demon palace, the brightness in the boy’s eyes, and the way he had held her high-spiritedly and said he was truly happy.

She remembered how he had come to her full of hope, risking life and death, only to die in despair at her feet, still clutching that wedding robe even in death. His body had crumbled to pieces, but the robe had remained perfectly intact.

She also remembered that even though he hated her so much, he still could not bring himself to hurt her.

The wounds the Xuanyuan Sword had left on her body were healed by the next day.

What else could she pretend not to understand? Even under the tribulation thunder, he had shielded her.

He said he wished she were dead, yet he had never laid a hand on her.

Even just now, when he bit her to prove his hatred, it was only the faintest bite, like a newborn puppy pretending to be fierce.

At that moment, her heart suddenly softened.

Everyone had done wrong before.

She would never get that arrogant demon lord from seven hundred years later to apologize.

But she could still do what she was capable of doing in this life and live with no more regrets.

Why should she become as cruel as Yan Chaosheng had been?

The wind stirred the beaded curtains with a faint rustle.

She pressed her lips together and whispered again,“It was my fault. It really was my fault.”

It was me who broke your heart.

She let out a breath, feeling unexpectedly relieved.

Once she started seeing them as two separate people, she realized that saying it out loud was not that difficult after all.

And the man who, just moments ago, had seemed so desperate to vent his fury on her was now so stiff and still that it was alarming.

Yan Chaosheng had never, until this moment, felt so clearly that he was filthy and unworthy.