Chapter 20

Ming Jing kept her eyes open, her smile both brilliant and mocking. Her voice was so cold it seemed capable of drawing blood.

“Zhe Yu.”

She no longer called her Junior Martial Aunt, nor did she call her Young Dao Venerable.

Instead, she addressed her directly by name.

“Do you think I’m beautiful?”

Under Zhe Yu’s puzzled, frowning gaze, Ming Jing’s smile gradually deepened.

She raised a hand and touched the Black Lotus Mark between her brows, laughter threaded through her voice.

“With this black lotus added, I’m even more beautiful, aren’t I?”

“Xiao Jing.”

Zhe Yu parted her lips and firmly seized both of Ming Jing’s hands.

With her other hand, she gently stroked the Black Lotus Mark, her voice clear and tender.

“You have always been beautiful.”

“Whether or not you bear this Black Lotus Mark, you remain the most astonishingly gifted prodigy beneath heaven and earth, your brilliance surpassing even the Ninth Heaven.”

“So come back with me now, all right?”

The green-robed woman’s voice was soft, coaxing and almost deceptive.

That cautious tenderness was something she had never given Ming Jing before.

Ming Jing looked at her, her gaze profound.

She felt as though even breathing had become difficult.

The moon was bright, the stars sparse, and a gentle breeze drifted past, yet it seemed as though the weight of mountains and rivers pressed down upon her, leaving her nearly unable to breathe.

Zhe Yu should not have been like this.

In Ming Jing’s memories, the woman named Zhe Yu—her Junior Martial Aunt—always wore a faint smile, no matter the time or place.

She smiled, yet the aura surrounding her remained distant and cool, keeping bailiantales.com everyone a thousand miles away.

Unlike Murong Chi’s lofty arrogance and lonely coldness, Zhe Yu’s detachment seemed carved into her bones.

She had been born that way.

She maintained an exact sense of distance at all times, calm enough to permit no mistake, more precise than formation patterns engraved into an array.

She had been like this while teaching Ming Jing swordsmanship.

She had been like this during life-and-death trials, when she rescued Ming Jing from the claws of demonic beasts.

She had been like this when ordered to take Ming Jing with her to slay demons and eliminate evil, pointing toward the solitary moon in the Ninth Heaven with heroic spirit and declaring that one day their swords would reach it.

Only when she saw the so-called Dao Venerable would she transform into a lively, adoring young girl.

Her eyes would fill with longing and anticipation, her reverence resembling that of someone beholding her faith.

She was proud and composed.

Cold and indifferent.

She possessed peerless elegance and walked upon the clouds of the Ninth Heaven.

With one sword, she tore through darkness and slaughtered countless evil spirits and demons, suppressing them beneath her blade.

She had resembled the former Ming Jing more than anyone else, their paths through life nearly overlapping.

The name Zhe Yu had once represented the hope and dreams countless people yearned for.

It carried the purest aspirations.

She had truly been magnificent beyond compare.

Ming Jing looked at her.

Her voice caught in her throat, and in the next instant, she murmured uncontrollably,

“Junior Martial Aunt, back then, I truly never colluded with the demon race. Why wouldn’t you believe me?”

She had believed that even if everyone beneath heaven refused to trust her, Zhe Yu would certainly stand beside her.

Because Ming Jing believed Zhe Yu understood her, just as she understood Zhe Yu.

But the truth was that not everyone in the world had necessarily doubted her.

Zhe Yu, however, had been the one person who unquestionably did.

She had even intended to personally capture Ming Jing and return her to the Human Realm Prison.

So they had never understood each other.

When Ming Jing had not colluded with the demon race, Zhe Yu refused to believe her.

Now that Ming Jing truly had become entangled with a demon, Zhe Yu seemed not to care.

Ming Jing found it increasingly laughable.

And so she laughed aloud.

Her tone gradually returned to calm, her voice entirely devoid of emotion.

“I can’t go back.”

“I won’t return with you. Never again.”

“We no longer walk the same path, so naturally, our roads have diverged.”

And they would never converge again.

“Xiao Jing.”

Zhe Yu seemed about to say more, but Ming Jing impatiently flung away her hand and interrupted her.

“Back then, I told you I had never colluded with the demon race, but you refused to believe me.”

“So why do you believe me now when I haven’t said anything at all?”

The smile disappeared from Ming Jing’s face.

Hostility filled her eyes, and the Black Lotus Mark between her brows stirred restlessly, as though ready to choose someone and devour them at any moment.

Ming Jing lowered her gaze.

The Black Lotus Mark drew closer to Zhe Yu until they were nearly face-to-face.

A cold, murderous aura rose within the air.

“What do you know?”

Ming Jing stared at her, her eyes black as ink and fathomlessly dark.

The intelligence-lowering halo.

Ming Jing had once asked the voice what an intelligence-lowering halo was.

The voice had answered:

An intelligence-lowering halo was exactly what its name suggested. It irrationally reduced a character’s intelligence and reason, preventing them from pursuing deeper truths. Instead, they would carelessly settle the matter, abandon further investigation, and accept the predetermined situation.

When Ming Jing fell from the cliff, the voice had told her that Zhe Yu refused to believe her because of the intelligence-lowering halo.

Was it truly only because of that halo?

Could those four words really possess such overwhelming power that they stripped all reason from Zhe Yu, someone born resolute, composed, and unwavering?

Ming Jing blinked, extinguishing the last trace of moisture in her eyes.

When she looked again, her expression was utterly indifferent.

“Ten years have passed, and the renowned, exalted Young Dao [bailiantales.com]Venerable of the Wanxiang Dao Sect suddenly jumped from the cliff, claiming she came to take me back.”

“There must be a reason for that, shouldn’t there?”

She stepped forward.

Her spotless red robes faintly overlapped with Zhe Yu’s blood-soaked green clothing, while her aura became sharp and cold.

She hooked the demonic energy around her fingertip and suspended it before the woman’s heart.

“If you don’t tell me, I can’t promise what I might do.”

Zhe Yu raised her eyes and stared at Ming Jing in disbelief.

Her gaze trembled beneath its haze, bringing her fragile and disordered beauty to its peak.

Her severely injured body swayed beneath the sparse moonlight.

“If I say nothing, will you kill me?”

“Xiao Jing, will you?”

Instead of retreating, she stepped forward and pressed herself against Ming Jing’s fingertip.

Her clear, cold aura quickly intertwined with Ming Jing’s decadent, profound demonic energy.

Recklessly, she hooked an arm around Ming Jing’s neck and smiled with fallen, bitter sorrow.

“Then kill me.”

Her gaze was deep.

She watched Ming Jing’s finger trembling uncontrollably against her heart, both happiness and anguish filling her own.

In the next moment, her voice became broken and intermittent as she pressed close to Ming Jing.

“Xiao Jing, I truly regret it.”

There had never been any medicine for regret in this world.

Ming Jing herself felt no regret.

What did Zhe Yu have to regret?

Ming Jing looked at her without expression.

Her lips curved into a smile that resembled that of a fallen, unrestrained demon.

She remained silent, allowing turbulent emotions to race through her heart.

When she lowered her head, Zhe Yu’s face was pressed close to hers.

It was an extraordinarily intimate distance, a posture that had never existed between Ming Jing and Zhe Yu.

Zhe Yu seemed to have hung the full weight of her body upon Ming Jing.

She smiled through her tears, her black hair lifting in the wind.

Blood stained the skin exposed to the air.

She looked almost exactly like Murong Chi when she used to cling to Ming Jing and demand kisses.

She had become so unfamiliar that Ming Jing could barely recognize her.

Ming Jing frowned and tugged at her hand.

It did not move.

Her brows drew together even more tightly.

Hostility churned within her eyes, and she was nearly ready to forcefully tear herself free without caring about anything else.

Just then, a voice colder than ice traveled through the air and reached her ears.

“How lively it is here.”

Light footsteps followed.

A woman in magnificent crimson robes approached barefoot, her white hair still wet, several strands clinging to her cheeks.

Her robes were loose and disordered, nearly slipping from her body.

She stood not far from the rockery, her narrow phoenix eyes curved as she smiled at the two of them.

But the smile never reached her eyes.

It was the mocking, cold smile of someone who was smiling only on the surface.