"Sisi, I severed all ties with that wretched slave Ruan Meizhen long ago. You have to believe me!"
Before the majestic mountain gates of the Primal Demon Temple.
The fair-skinned young man wore a black robe trimmed with gold and held a bloodstained Demon Sword in one hand, his face angry with a desperate need to be believed.
He was tall and slender, exceptionally handsome, and even his anger carried a graceful composure.
"If you won't believe me, I'll cut off the wretched slave's other arm!"
The young man brandished his Demon Sword, which kept spraying purple light, and charged toward the young girl lying in a pool of blood with murder in his stance.
Her figure not yet fully developed, Ruan Meizhen seemed to have forgotten the pain of her severed arm. She sat motionless in her own blood, her heart reduced to dead ashes as she watched the black-robed young man approach with his sword.
How could the pain of her severed arm compare to the agony tearing through her heart?
She simply could not understand how the man she loved, who had sworn vows as enduring as the mountains and seas only recently and repeatedly promised to spend his life with her, now called her a "wretched slave" with every breath.
Cutting off one arm had not satisfied him. He wanted to cut off the other in front of Zhan Jingsi.
"How could I not believe you?"
Zhan Jingsi, the only daughter of Primal Demon Temple elder Zhan Tiankuo, leaned against a massive Heart-Grinding Stone, an inscrutable smile on her slightly plump face. "Enough, Brother Lang. Leave it at that."
Xu Lang seemed uncertain of her true thoughts. After hesitating, he walked toward Ruan Meizhen again and declared in a low voice, "This wretched slave has been pestering me for ages. I might as well kill her so you won't have any more doubts!"
Neither Zhan Jingsi's figure nor her looks stood out; only her status was exceptional. Her gaze chilled. "I said enough."
Xu Lang, who had intended to kill Ruan Meizhen to prove his devotion, hurriedly stopped upon hearing that. In a voice thick with disgust, he said, "Ruan Meizhen, why aren't you thanking my junior sister Zhan for her gracious mercy?"
Ruan Meizhen seemed to wake abruptly from a nightmare.
Clutching her dripping severed arm with her remaining hand, she stumbled away from that hellish place, utterly bereft.
"Whew..."
Ruan Meizhen let out a long breath, grateful that she was still in the Sola Desert rather than before the Primal Demon Temple's mountain gates.
That memory had sunk so deeply into her bones that years had failed to erase it. She could not even make it fade a little.
Whenever she felt she had nearly worked through it and gathered the courage to attempt a breakthrough, the scene would appear vividly once more.
She knew it was her obsessive inner demon, yet she deceived herself again and again, doggedly attempting to break through to the Primordial Spirit Realm until she ended up in her present state.
Thank goodness. Thank goodness it isn't that day. Anywhere but before the Primal Demon Temple's mountain gates...
That was what Ruan Meizhen thought.
She would rather die immediately from the backlash of the Ten Thousand Poisons Art than endure that cruel humiliation again, a torment worthy of an asura hell, for it was suffering harder to bear than death.
Death of the body was better than the death of the heart under such degradation.
No sorrow was greater than a dead heart. She understood those words with devastating clarity.
That day, when Xu Lang cut off her arm, he seemed to have severed her soul and vitality along with it.
It's better to end this way. If there will never be any hope of avenging myself, every day alive is torture.
Ruan Meizhen stopped struggling.
She let the poison seep into her flesh and organs, calmly feeling the pain in her body intensify as she waited numbly for death.
When had she ever feared death?
All she feared was being unable to kill that faithless man with her own hands!
She wanted to die, but someone else did not, and a certain power did not want her to die so easily either.
Unable to move her limbs, she felt someone suddenly grip her remaining hand tightly. An immense suction sprang forth at once!
The potent toxins remaining in her body had already saturated her flesh and marrow, yet that suction forcibly drew them out!
Horror filled Ruan Meizhen's eyes, and she could not help turning toward the person beside her.
As the toxins rapidly left her body, her stiffened limbs could move again. She truly managed to turn her neck and saw the face mere inches away.
It was not as handsome as her faithless lover's, but it possessed the distinctive, angular lines of a resolute man. His slightly narrowed eyes gleamed with the naked edge of an unsheathed sword, leaving her momentarily dazed.
Gradually, the sharpness in Zhao Changfeng's eyes faded, replaced by something more complicated and inscrutable.
A moment later.
"Give me the Slaughter Spirit Techniques that go with the Essence-Devouring Demon Art."
Zhao Changfeng calmly made his demand.
A little light returned to Ruan Meizhen's dull eyes, which had been like a pool of dead water. As though she had only just returned from death's door, she said mockingly, "It's useless. You're no match for Zhang Mu."
How could she not know what sort of men Chen Haoming and Zhang Mu were?
Both she and Zhao Changfeng were at the Yuanqi Stage. Their corpses would be excellent materials for cultivating the Corpse Demon Art. How could Zhang Mu let them go so easily?
"I told you to give me the formulas for the Slaughter Spirit Techniques, not to say anything else!"
Zhao Changfeng's voice was low but forceful, carrying an unquestionable resolve. "Whether you want to die is your business. I don't want to die this soon. Give me the matching Slaughter Spirit Technique formulas, now!"
Ruan Meizhen had never imagined Zhao Changfeng would address her with such an attitude and tone. Still less could she understand why he was not only alive, but also brazen enough to absorb the many toxins remaining in her body.
She did not know how Zhao Changfeng had managed it, but his domineering manner infuriated her. She said coldly, "What if I refuse?"
Having already resolved to seek death, what did she have to fear?
"Refuse?"
"Then I'll strip you naked before Zhang Mu arrives and leave your bare corpse sprawled in the desert."
As he spoke, Zhao Changfeng abruptly sat up, his skin a blackish green from severe poisoning.
His grip on Ruan Meizhen's remaining hand tightened further. With both her dantians depleted after her failed Realm Breakthrough, she had no strength to pull free. Then he made as if to act.
"Do as you like."
Ruan Meizhen tugged at the corners of her lips. Intent on dying, she did not care about this little extra humiliation before death. Once she was dead, she would know nothing anyway.
Zhao Changfeng fell silent.
One glance told him that Ruan Meizhen was determined to die and feared neither threats nor humiliation.
Clearly, the failure of her final Realm Breakthrough attempt had utterly crushed her, convincing her that success was no longer possible.
At that moment, inside Zhao Changfeng's body, above the Sea of Spiritual Qi.
The illusory Azure Small Cauldron remained perfectly motionless, yet a scene kept unfolding within it, seemingly without end.
Before the Primal Demon Temple's mountain gates.
Xu Lang, who had severed one of Ruan Meizhen's arms, held his Demon Sword and courted Zhan Jingsi's favor as he advanced on Ruan Meizhen once more, calling her a "wretched slave" over and over.
Her heart reduced to dead ashes, Ruan Meizhen watched Xu Lang approach step by step with the expression of someone staring at demons and monsters.
Zhan Jingsi spoke up to stop him, putting an end to Xu Lang's murderous actions.
Clutching her severed arm, Ruan Meizhen raced down the mountain as though she had lost her soul. At times she fell among piles of jagged stones, then kept running, oblivious to the pain.
Hatred, resentment, heart-rending agony, disbelief...
An endless obsessive inner demon surged skyward within the cauldron's little world, so dense that it seemed about to overflow.
A strange power, real but not yet accessible, kept brewing within the illusory Small Cauldron. Its intense fluctuations were apparent whenever Zhao Changfeng focused his mind.
Resonating with the real, enormous cauldron far away in Beyond the Heavens, the illusory Small Cauldron had absorbed the toxins remaining in Ruan Meizhen's body—and also manifested the Heart-Demon Obsession that had tormented the first half of her life and that she could never let go.
The deeper and fiercer her obsessive inner demon became, the clearer the scenes within the cauldron grew, and the more violently the uncanny power it could nurture surged.
This unknown power was extraordinarily mysterious and continued to strengthen, but Zhao Changfeng could not yet control it.
He had a vague feeling that as long as Ruan Meizhen remained alive, as long as she continued sinking into the misery of her past, the uncanny power within the cauldron could keep brewing and growing stronger.
"Senior Sister Ruan."
When Zhao Changfeng spoke again, his tone suddenly softened. He said gently, "Don't you want to kill your enemy with your own hands? Don't you want to go to the Primal Demon Temple and demand an explanation?"
Ruan Meizhen, who had been intent on dying, suddenly shrieked as though driven mad. "How do you know? Who told you?!"
She had never told any of her fellow disciples about that agonizing experience etched into her bones. In the entire Crippled Demon Sect, only Teng Kun knew!
How could Master have told him about this?!
Ruan Meizhen could not believe it.
"Never mind how I know. I can help you. Not only can I keep you alive, I can also help you break through to the Primordial Spirit Realm."
"And it will happen on your very next Realm Breakthrough attempt."
Zhao Changfeng had the uncanny impression that he was a devil tempting someone. Smiling, he said, "That obsessive inner demon that shackles you again and again, ruining your Realm Breakthrough attempts—does it feel any lighter?"
Bewildered, Ruan Meizhen examined herself closely, forcing herself to recall the past despite her discomfort.
Within the illusory Azure Small Cauldron in the small world of Zhao Changfeng's Lower Dantian, the scene before the Primal Demon Temple's mountain gates unfolded faster, immediately generating a tiny thread of new power.
Whenever Ruan Meizhen recalled that scene and it flashed through her mind, this obsessive inner demon could turn into a little new power and flow into the Small Cauldron.
Wonderful!
This astonishing discovery filled Zhao Changfeng with delight.
"It seems... it seems..."
The bewilderment on Ruan Meizhen's beautiful face deepened. She keenly sensed that, as she recalled the past this time, the heart-rending agony that seeped into her marrow really did seem to have weakened.
"I don't know when Zhang Mu will arrive. Please don't delay any longer, Senior Sister."
Zhao Changfeng urged her with a sharp, quiet command.
For Ruan Meizhen now, the only reason to keep living was the hope of killing that faithless man herself. Even if there was only a sliver of hope, she would not abandon it.
That was the hope Zhao Changfeng offered her.
"Both my dantians are depleted right now. I'm afraid I can't do much to help you, but I can give you the formulas for the Blood Shadow Art!"
Suddenly appearing even more urgent than Zhao Changfeng, Ruan Meizhen recited the Blood Shadow Art as quickly as she could, explaining how to resolve several of its difficult points.