Xing Shuishui lay barely conscious on the ground, the rain soaking through her clothes. The binding rope held her tight. She didn’t reveal why she approached He Liansheng, or why she went to the forbidden mountain that day. She wouldn’t even explain why she killed the right ceremonial official during the mountain sacrifice ceremony. She kept her eyes closed, refusing to speak a single word despite days and nights of torture.
Her silence only enraged the celestial masters of Lingshan more.
“Spirit woman, even now, you still won’t speak?”
Xing Shuishui opened her eyes to look at Li Yu who questioned her. Though she was just a weak spirit, her gaze was chilling.
Perhaps fearing discovery, the spirit blade had dissipated during the mountain ceremony. Few had noticed that knife.
She waited for death in the rain, waiting for the ceremonial platform’s formation to activate. But some were already too impatient.
“Why wait? Just kill her!”
“She’s just a lowly spirit who dared seduce Senior Brother He Liansheng. She deserves worse than death!”
So many here hated her, wanted her dead.
He Liansheng was probably among them. She had deceived him for so long—he must want to grind her bones to dust.
Just then, the crowd began to stir.
“Senior Brother He is here!”
“Why has Senior Brother He come?”
She lifted her gaze to the dense crowd and caught a glimpse of white robes.
—He. Lian. Sheng?
The white-robed youth emerged from the crowd, sword in hand. The sword tassel swayed with his steps as the crowd automatically parted to make way. His expression was cold, his eyes tinged with melancholy. Had he come to kill her?
The Sect Leader coldly looked toward the He family patriarch. The patriarch frowned—they had used magic to lock him in the ancestral hall, yet he had still walked out on his own!
“Senior Brother He, this spirit woman has been deceiving you all along. Kill her now and you can still turn back!”
“Yes! Senior Brother He! You’re Lingshan’s most talented celestial master. Don’t throw away your future because of her.”
The youth looked down at her weakened form. Xing Shuishui raised her eyes without speaking. He slashed through the binding rope around her.
The sword’s shadow crossed her cheek as her pupils trembled.
He Liansheng said: “I knew all along.”
“You thought you hid it well.”
“But I knew you were a peach blossom spirit that time you fell in the water, Xing Shuishui.”
He crouched down and planted his Peach Source Sword beside her in front of everyone, shielding her from the frost and wind of the ceremonial platform.
Xing Shuishui froze.
She suddenly remembered that time in Qingzhou—the concealment talisman should have failed in water, yet she woke up the next day completely fine. She had thought her talisman skills had improved.
She never expected He Liansheng had known all along.
He had known she was a spirit from that moment, yet said nothing. He gave her the Xian Cloud, rewrote the concealment talisman, offered her his true heart—just like now—
He lifted her in his arms, recklessly pointing the Peach Source Sword at his former master, telling her: “Don’t be afraid, I’ll get you out of here. With me here, you could blow up all of Lingshan and nothing would happen to you.”
“He Liansheng, don’t be foolish…”
Xing Shuishui grabbed his hand with all her remaining strength. This was the ceremonial platform, as severe as execution by lightning.
Master Sui Xu’s expression was cold: “Activate the formation. Let’s see how stubborn he can be. Not afraid of the forbidden mountain, not afraid of the Ice Cave of Ten Thousand Years, not afraid of the ceremonial platform either, is that it?”
Indeed, he wasn’t afraid.
The Formation of Ten Thousand Spirits activated and the sky turned dark. Spirit arrows imbued with the power of heaven and earth rained down, piercing through the youth’s body. Blood splattered on the ground.
Xing Shuishui tried to summon the spirit blade but found she could no longer control her body.
She instantly turned cold.
Several more spirit arrows pierced through his shoulder blades. The youth only paused slightly, still holding her tightly, never loosening his grip for a moment.
His beloved white robes were now stained red with blood.
She pleaded: “He Liansheng, let me go…”
“No.”
She cried: “If you don’t let go it will kill you!”
The young woman’s hand fell limply as she watched helplessly as he pressed forward, taking spirit arrows meant for her, dyeing his celestial robes red, his body covered in wounds.
He Liansheng knelt on the ground, blood at the corners of his mouth. He casually wiped it away and told her: “Actually, what I taught you before wasn’t a spell to make peach blossoms bloom. If you recite it backwards, it’s the incantation to open the Floating Spirit Mirror.”
He forcefully placed Lingshan’s sacred treasure, the Floating Spirit Mirror, into her hands.
He Liansheng said softly: “From now on, it’s yours.”
“You deceived me, I deceived you. Now we’re even.”
So… it wasn’t that she couldn’t remember such a simple spell. It was never a blooming spell at all.
The young woman held the mirror, thinking to herself.
He Liansheng was so good to her. She loved him so much.
His voice was weak but as determined as ever. “Remember that story you told me before? Called Legend of the White Snake.”
“Once, I wanted to be Fahai. But after meeting you, I only wished to be Xu Xian. The Xu Xian who could protect White Snake Lady for all lifetimes.”
He Liansheng gazed down at her, his tone gentler than ever before: “Shuishui. You should know that if it were me, I would never let you be trapped under Leifeng Pagoda.”
And so he protected her, proudly facing all of Lingshan, with no regrets even in death.
Above the mountain, the sky shattered. Spirit arrows fell like meteor showers—surely the cruelest punishment in the world.
Xing Shuishui swallowed her bitterness, knowing the time had come, and began reciting the soul-gathering incantation.
A golden light pierced through the dark sky. At this sudden change, the Lingshan crowd looked up at the heavens in confusion. At the same time, papers in the King of Hell’s palace were blown into the air by a strange wind, and a new name appeared in the Book of Life and Death: Xue Zhuangxin.
The spirit blade suddenly flashed in her hand.
Rising flames burned through all the spirit arrows falling from the sky. When Lingshan cultivators tried to stop her, the flames wrapped around them, drawing out screams of agony. The ceremonial platform instantly became ruins. The flames gathered at the blade’s tip.
Controlled by the system, Xing Shuishui gripped the spirit blade with both hands and viciously stabbed toward He Liansheng’s heart.
No one expected her to suddenly strike with this blade.
It was completely unexpected.
The youth suddenly looked at her, his eyes filled with only her image.
Squelch—
This fatal strike was followed by heart-piercing pain. The youth’s hot blood splashed onto her eyes, her spirit trembling.
What came after, she didn’t know how to face.
“No!!!”
“Xing Shuishui you ungrateful wretch! Senior Brother He was so good to you!”
He Liansheng’s lips were white, his sword-holding hand trembling. His form swayed.
—”Liansheng, you are fated to face a life-or-death tribulation. Her mission in coming to this world was to kill you.”
He hadn’t expected it to come so soon.
The umbrella on Buddhist Heart Cliff, the persimmons under the eaves, the days and nights she spent with him, the joy she brought him—he would cherish them all in this life.
I knew you were a spirit.
I knew you didn’t love me. But I still loved you.
I loved you so much that I gave you the path to life while taking death for myself. Your pain was my pain too. Even knowing that loving you meant parting in life or death, I still willingly walked through fire and water for you.
You are my only feeling.
There will never be another like you.
He had planned to tell her all this when the persimmons ripened.
Though he still didn’t quite understand why she suddenly stabbed him.
But Xing Shuishui was crying, crying as she said: “I’m sorry…”
Fine then. My life is yours.
The Floating Spirit Mirror activated. In his final moment of life, he was still thinking of her future safety. The last thing she saw through the mirror’s light was the blood and red on the ceremonial platform, a piercing red.
The youth blocked a sky full of spirit arrows, all to give her one blood-soaked path to life.
Her heart had never hurt so much before.
He Liansheng’s figure gradually disappeared, as did Lingshan. She didn’t know where the Floating Spirit Mirror had transported her. She collapsed on the ground, feeling utterly exhausted, strength gone from her entire body.
The system’s voice appeared beside her ear, just like the first time she heard it when she came to this world. Even its congratulations were emotionless.
“Congratulations, host. Mission successfully completed. Please choose whether to stay in this world or give up.”
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