My Master, You Lied to Me. You Lied to Me Too, Didn't You?

"They were the father and son who shattered your family and stole your whole life!"

Sun Jin's voice echoed endlessly in Jiang Qingyi's ears.

"Impossible. Impossible." Jiang Qingyi kept backing away, her face deathly pale.

"You must be lying to me! You must be lying to me! You have to be!" Jiang Qingyi's mind was in turmoil. She couldn't believe a word of what she'd heard.

She couldn't believe her master was the son of her enemy.

And right at that moment, Sun Jin seized an opening and hurled the hidden weapon in his hand at Jiang Qingyi!

But Jiang Qingyi merely tilted her head aside, and the weapon sliced past a strand of her hair.

Almost at the same instant, Jiang Qingyi pressed her fingers together, turning them into a sword, and slashed at his neck.

"Ugh."

Sun Jin clutched his throat as blood sprayed through the gaps between his fingers.

"Help... me..." Sun Jin reached out to Jiang Qingyi, his pupils slowly dilating.

Jiang Qingyi gazed at him with eyes like still water, not a flicker of emotion in them.

A few breaths later, Sun Jin's hand fell limp to the ground. His eyes remained wide open, staring ahead, while blood stained the earth red.

"Qingyi! Are you all right?"

Xiao Mo had finally caught up.

He saw his disciple's unharmed back and the corpse of a Blood Butterfly Pavilion cultivator beside her.

Only then did Xiao Mo breathe a sigh of relief.

Hearing her master's voice, Jiang Qingyi's slender body trembled, and she slowly turned around.

The moment Xiao Mo saw Jiang Qingyi's eyes, he couldn't help stopping in his tracks.

Xiao Mo had never seen his disciple look like that.

There was not a trace of life in Qingyi's eyes, as if she were dead, her very soul broken.

"Qingyi, what happened?"

Xiao Mo took a step forward, but Jiang Qingyi sent out a streak of Sword Qi that cut into the ground before him.

"Master... do you know?"

Jiang Qingyi spoke slowly, her voice as if it came from the depths of an abyss, steeped in despair.

"When I was very young—I think I was one year old—I was already able to remember things.

I remember having a very happy family.

My father was a merchant with a little money. My mother was ordinary, but she was gentle and loved me dearly. She loved my father, too.

When I was two, Mother gave birth to a little brother.

My little brother was adorable.

When he was one and a half, the first name he could clearly say was 'Sister.'

From the day I was born, I never knew what worry was.

But when I was four, everything changed.

Several people stormed into our home and began slaughtering everyone without restraint.

The guards, the servants, even the young maid who looked after me—all of them died.

Blood flowed across the stone paths, and the pond in the courtyard turned crimson.

My parents stuffed my two-year-old brother and me into a cabinet.

They told us not to make a sound, and not to come out no matter what happened outside.

Inside the cabinet, I clung tightly to my little brother, covering his eyes and ears.

Before long, I heard commotion outside.

Through a crack in the cabinet, I watched with my own eyes as those people killed my parents!

In the end, they found my brother and me.

Right in front of me!

They killed my little brother!

Master, do you know what it feels like to watch your family die one by one right before your eyes, when begging for mercy is no use?

They didn't even spare my two-year-old brother!

Master, do you know what that kind of despair feels like?"

Xiao Mo was silent.

When Jiang Qingyi spoke of all this, Xiao Mo knew she had learned the truth.

"My whole family was dead. Not a single person survived. I was taken to a courtyard.

There, I saw many people.

They tied me to a bed, took a knife to my back, cut it open, and removed one of my bones.

It hurt so much. It really hurt.

I passed out from the pain.

When I woke up, there were corpses all around me.

Later, I learned that the place where I'd awoken was called the Mass Grave.

I didn't know how my wound had healed, or how I'd survived.

Perhaps Heaven pitied me and sent an Immortal passing by to heal me.

But I knew that I had survived!

Back then, I swore to Heaven that I would live on, no matter what. I would avenge my parents and my little brother!

They killed my whole family, so I would kill their whole family!

I wouldn't spare a single one of their relatives, whether they were innocent or not!

I would kill their son and daughter right before their eyes, then hack them to pieces, one slice at a time!

Every last one of them would die!"

Jiang Qingyi lifted her head, her eyes filled with boundless hatred.

"All these years, I've been secretly investigating who killed my family, but I never found a clue.

The house we lived in back then had already been reduced to ashes.

But, Master...

Just now, when I killed that man,

he said...

that your father was the one who killed my whole family.

He did it so he could transplant one of my bones into your body.

Master, is that true?

Was everything he said true?"

Xiao Mo was silent.

"Master! Was he lying? Was he trying to deceive me?"

Xiao Mo was silent.

Tears blurred Jiang Qingyi's vision. Her right hand gripped the Xuan Shuang Long Sword tightly as she cried out, nearly hysterical:

"Master! Answer me, please!"

"Master! Say something!"

Xiao Mo sighed and raised his head to meet Jiang Qingyi's gaze. "The man you killed was called Sun Jin, one of the retainers of the Xiao Royal Mansion. Everything he said was true.

"The Xiao Royal Mansion killed your whole family, and I am the son of Prince Jing Xiao.

"Your Sword Bone is in my body."

Hearing her master's words, Jiang Qingyi shook her head. "No. None of this is true. It can't be true. Master, you're lying to me. You lied to me too, didn't you?"

"Qingyi, this is the truth."

"Liar!" In an instant, the young woman raised her sword and pointed it at Xiao Mo's eyes. "Then why did you save me? Why did you take me back to the mountain? Why did you teach me swordsmanship? Why did you treat me like a brother and a father? Why? Why?!"

"Because I owe you," Xiao Mo said calmly. "I reached the Nascent Soul Realm when I was eighteen. I thought I was exceptionally gifted, but it turned out I'd had a girl's Sword Bone transplanted into me. One day, a woman told me that the girl hadn't died. So I left the Xiao State Mansion to find you and make amends."

"Make amends... The son of the enemy who killed my whole family saved me! Taught me swordsmanship! Raised me! You should have killed me instead!" Jiang Qingyi roared.

Xiao Mo slowly closed his eyes. "Kill me. Fulfill your vow. It's what I owe you."

As Jiang Qingyi looked at the man before her, the long sword in her hand trembled without pause, and tears rolled down her cheeks onto the ground.

At last, Xiao Mo felt only a gust of sword wind sweep past him.

Xiao Mo slowly opened his eyes. The piece of skirt the young woman had cut away drifted up before him.

Holding her sword, she turned and walked away. Her voice came from behind her:

"From now on, we have nothing to do with each other."