CHAPTER 145: 145- LIN ZHAOYUE

Fang Yuan’s gaze locked onto Lin Zhaoyue, every muscle coiled. Battle readiness thrummed through him.

Who wouldn’t abe wary?

The carnage before him was undeniable, her father, Lin Xukong, broken and gasping while her brother lay there, dead.

Lin Zhaoyue lifted her head. Her eyes, wide and glistening, found Fang Yuan.

A tremor ran through her voice, raw with desperate hope. "Husband! You’re alive!"

Fang Yuan’s stance didn’t waver.

Trickery.

How could anyone behold their slaughtered kin and feel anything but rage or grief? This is likely a ploy, a feigned vulnerability to lower my guards.

His expression hardened, suspicion etched into every line.

She saw the cold disbelief in his eyes. A flicker of sadness crossed her face, vanishing as quickly as it came.

Her gaze drifted downwards, settling on her father’s ruined form.

She knelt beside him, movements unnervingly graceful.

"Husband," she murmured, her voice softening into something disturbingly intimate, "I came as soon as I heard you were in danger. You know I would."

Her hand reached out, fingers trembling slightly as they brushed Lin Xukong’s cheek.

But it wasn’t comfort she offered.

Under her touch, the dying patriarch flinched, a choked gasp escaping him, pure and primal fear.

"Dad," Lin Zhaoyue whispered, the word dripping with bitter irony. "It’ll be the last time I’ll call you that."

Her voice sank to a whisper, a venomous secret poured only into her father’s dying ear. "Mom always told me... to respect you. To obey your words."

A brittle smile touched her lips, devoid of warmth. "Even as your other wives carved pieces of her soul away, slice by tiny slice, every single time she crawled back to you."

Her fingers, delicate yet terrifyingly strong, tightened on his cheek. Nails bit deep, drawing tiny beads of blood like crimson tears.

"I wanted to be her good girl. So I listened. Every word. Every cruel command. I became your perfect, silent blade..."

She leaned closer, her breath cold against his skin. The brittle smile vanished, replaced by a terrifying vacancy that promised annihilation. "...because she asked it of me."

Then came the sound. A soft, breathless giggle, utterly incongruous with the scene, bubbling up as if sharing a delightful secret.

It was the sound of sanity fraying beyond repair.

"But this?" Her whisper turned razor-sharp, laced with incredulous, icy fury.

"You dared to aim for my husband?" The giggle died, replaced by a silence more chilling than any scream.

Her eyes, wide and unnervingly bright, locked onto his fading ones, filled with a terrifying blend of triumph and absolute, unshakeable conviction. "Oh, Father... I’m not remotely sorry."

Light flashed.

A subtle, lethal pulse of Nascent Soul energy. Lin Xukong’s terrified eyes glazed over forever.

In one fluid motion, Lin Zhaoyue rose.

She turned to Fang Yuan, the haunting sorrow and chilling fury wiped clean.

A brilliant, wide smile bloomed on her face, dazzling, yet utterly devoid of warmth.

Her eyes, however, held an unnerving intensity, a bottomless hunger fixed solely on him.

"Husband," she breathed, taking a step forward, arms opening slightly. "Can I hug you now?"

Fang Yuan remained silent, a statue carved from wariness. His lack of response hung heavy in the blood-scented air.

Lin Zhaoyue’s radiant smile flickered, replaced by a desperate intensity. He needs proof. More proof.

Her hand flew to her hair, retrieving her weapon, the jade pin and her spatial ring.

"Husband," she breathed, her voice thick with fervent promise, holding both objects out like sacred offerings.

"See? Here’s both my weapon and spatial rings. I’ll also swear the oath again with your family heirloom ring. Right here, on their graves if you wish. My life, my soul, bound to yours. Ever and ever." Her eyes, wide and luminous, pleaded for his belief, for his acceptance of her terrifying devotion.

The sight of her sent a jolt through Fang Yuan. She’s beyond reason.

His gaze snapped past her, locking onto Gu Jian and Gu Lanyue.

They were loose ends also the clue to his parents dead, he couldn’t get rid of them, not yet.

"Restrain them," Fang Yuan commanded, his voice cutting through Lin Zhaoyue’s fervent plea like shards of ice.

He didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the Gu father and son. "Destroy their Dantians."

Lin Zhaoyue’s reaction was instantaneous. The desperate hope in her eyes flared into pure, terrifying delight. A dazzling, manic smile split her face. Husband trusts me! He gives me a task!

"Yes, Husband!" she chirped, the sound chillingly bright against the backdrop of carnage.

Her focus shifted from supplicant to predator in a heartbeat, her earlier vulnerability vanishing like smoke.

She spun towards the fuo, her movements a blur of lethal grace.

The Gu men barely had time to register the command before the crushing weight of a Mid-Stage Nascent Soul’s aura slammed into them, pinning them like insects.

Gu Lanyue’s shout of protest died in his throat, choked by sheer terror.

Gu Jian managed half a draw of his sword before invisible bands of pure energy coiled around him, snapping bone and spirit.

Lin Zhaoyue didn’t physically touch them. She didn’t need to.

With a flicker of will, two precise, devastating pulses of energy, sharp as scalpels, heavy as mountains, lanced out.

They struck with surgical accuracy.

Thud Crunch.

Thud Crunch.

The sounds were sickeningly soft, yet echoed with finality.

Gu Jian and Gu Lanyue convulsed, their faces draining of color and twisting in silent agony as the very core of their cultivation, their Dantians, was irrevocably shattered.

Their connection to Qi severed, their power bled out instantly, leaving them broken shells slumped over their mounts, gasping in the sudden, crushing weight of mortality.

Lin Zhaoyue turned back to Fang Yuan, her smile radiant, her hands clean.

The silver ring and jade pin still glinted in her palm.

"Done, Husband!" she announced, her voice bubbling with pride, as if she had just fetched him a cup of tea, not crippled two powerful cultivators for life.

"No more interruptions. Now... about our oath?" She took a step closer, the ring held out like a key to a gilded cage.