In that moment, she understood better than anyone. All his words, all that talk, boiled down to the same few words she’d once heard Gu Zhixuan sneer at her:

“You want to die. Or live?”

Back then, she chose not to die. So how could she slap herself in the face now by regretting it?

A bitter laugh trembled in her chest but never made it out. She steadied herself, then said in the calmest tone she could manage, “Words alone prove nothing.”

That one line marked a complete shift in her stance.

The man chuckled behind her. His hand lifted from her back, and after a moment, the fingers pressed against the back of her head also withdrew.

But instead of answering her directly, he gave the jade bottle in his hand a little shake. And said calmly, “This Creation Gold Pill can thicken your primordial qi, but it can’t restore life itself. Best not to take it, Mistress. Of course, the real issue is…”

In the darkness, a string of incantations suddenly echoed through the space. As Tianzhi listened closely, her heart began to pound faster and faster.

The meaning of the words was obscure and twisted, almost painful to comprehend. Yet with her knowledge, she could tell that this was no ordinary technique. It was strange, yes, but also exquisitely refined. Even the rise and fall of its syllables carried a cleansing power, stirring the blood and qi within. Something that profound couldn’t possibly be fake.

What caught her even more off guard was a flicker of familiarity in the words. She listened a little longer. And then it hit her.

“The Heart Demon Refinement Technique?”

The man burst out laughing. “Exactly! And far stronger than the version you once cultivated. More importantly, its path of life born from death... well, that’s precisely what you need right now.”

Tianzhi went over the secret technique carefully in her mind. In this world, only a handful of people could hope to master something of this level. She already had a pretty good idea who he was, but she didn’t say it out loud. She just hummed and asked, “And the rest?”

Silence was her only reply.

She paused for a moment, then understood. She let out a quiet, cold chuckle, but didn’t rush. Taking a deep breath, she felt a bit of her strength returning. Propping herself up on one arm, she pushed upright bit by bit, feeling along the icy wall beside her until she managed to sit cross-legged.

Through it all, the man said nothing. The chill from the ice seeped into her bare back, making her shiver. But at least, in her mind, it gave her something solid to lean on.

Only then did she speak. “What is it you want?”

He laughed.

“You sit atop a mountain of treasures and hold the lion’s share,” he said matter-of-factly. “The final choice is yours, of course.”

The answer caught Tianzhi off guard. It wasn’t what she expected. And it left her even more uncertain about what he was really after. Still, after centuries as sect master, she wasn’t someone who could be easily unsettled.

Her thoughts flicked rapidly through the assets she still held. Her “capital,” so to speak. Then she spoke slowly: “You said I missed the perfect chance to kill Gu Yin. You’re right about that. But… don’t you want to know why I missed it?”

The man gave a curious oh, then replied, “I’m listening.”

And just like that, their first negotiation began.

Tianzhi finally caught a glimpse of his train of thought. A slight mocking smile tugged at her lips. “The reason’s simple. I overestimated Gu Yin’s strength. Or, more precisely... her strength turned out to be far below what I expected. Because…”

She paused, letting the words hang in the air. “She’s nothing like what she was back then.”

“Not like before?” he echoed.

“That’s right, nowhere near what she used to be. I won’t deny it. Back in the days at Milang Lake…” At that name, her voice faltered for just a moment before she went on, “At that time, Gu Yin’s cultivation was far beyond mine. If I’m not mistaken, she’d already reached the True One realm, while I was still just at the Real Person stage. Crushing me back then would’ve been effortless for her.”

The man gasped quietly, and she didn’t pause. “But now, whatever tricks she’s picked up aside, her strength itself has clearly fallen. At least one full tier lower. As for why… I have a few guesses.”

She stopped there.

The darkness seemed to hold its breath. Then the man chuckled. “Not bad. Just this bit of information alone is worth three lines of mantra.”

Straightforward enough, he picked up right where he’d left off and recited three more lines. Forty, maybe fifty words in all. At the end, he “helpfully” reminded her, “This whole foundational scripture runs to about two thousand words, around a hundred lines. You’d best make sure you remember it, Mistress.”

Tianzhi sneered. “And if I tell you my guess, and where it came from... how many more lines will that earn me?”

“If it’s detailed and true,” the man replied easily, “and it happens to touch on matters I care about; seventeen or eighteen lines wouldn’t be out of the question. But just so you understand, what I’m after is accuracy. Real detail. I know what’s important and what’s not, and I’ve no time to stir up trouble. As for keeping secrets, you can trust me on that. And this trade of ours doesn’t have to be just for information. Anything of value, I’m open to.”

Trying too hard to sound innocent, Tianzhi thought with a silent sneer. The picture was becoming clear in her mind.

She drew a slow breath, then said in a low voice, “If my guess is right… Gu Zhixuan was killed by his own niece.”

In this confined space, the air suddenly stiffened.

This time, Tianzhi didn’t hesitate in the slightest. She kept speaking, her tone becoming calm, distant, yet heavy with meaning.

“It must have been fourteen years before the last Forty-Nine Great Tribulation. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month, during the Gathering of Lotus on the Northern Sea. I went to meet Gu Zhixuan in the Yemo Heaven...

“That night, he was acting strange. Saying all sorts of things that didn’t make much sense. I can’t remember most of it now. But then, he dove down to the seafloor and picked up a Rainbow Shade Pearl, strung it with a Scarlet Refined Silver Cord, and gave it to me.

“And then he said something I’ve never forgotten:

‘For some people, breaking free of illusion isn’t a cause for joy. Don’t look at me. I mean you. What I’m trying to say is: when you see things more clearly, you’ll always find your goal, won’t you?’”

Tianzhi’s words drifted through the ice. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she felt like the way her voice rose and fell carried a faint echo from some distant memory.

That night, she had received a string of breathtakingly beautiful Rainbow Shade Pearls... and along with it, a memory she would never be able to forget. Nor forgive.

She could still remember it clearly. How that man, Gu Zhixuan, struck with a smile. One blow, and her meridians were sealed tight. In an instant, she was as weak and helpless as a newborn child. Just as she was now.

Then came Gu Yin, that unfathomable enemy whose thoughts she could never read. Like a collector reclaiming a long-owed debt, Gu Yin took her from Gu Zhixuan’s hands and left without a single glance back. But Tianzhi had seen it. The look on Gu Zhixuan’s face as he let go, the raw, bitter sadness that flickered there for only a moment.

What followed was a nightmare that stretched over endless days and nights.

It was as if the heavens themselves were mocking her. Or perhaps it was the work of the Rainbow Shade Pearl. The hallucinogenic incense Gu Yin and the others had prepared didn’t affect her at all. Fully awake, she endured those grueling days and nights, taking in every detail, remembering every single conversation.

For the next hundred years and more, those memories... those fragments of faces, voices, and pain, never once faded. They lingered, tangled around her heart like a curse she could never wake from.

And now, driven by some feeling she couldn’t quite name, she began to tell everything. To someone whose identity was still a mystery.

It was all so strangely delicate.

Gu Yin… killed Jade Wanderer?

Leaving Tianzhi behind to cultivate Blood God Child in the ice cave, Li Xun broke through the frozen surface and stood in stunned silence, staring at this land of endless night and never-ending snow.

It sounded like a bad joke. Yet once the thought crossed his mind, everything seemed to click into place. Though at the same time, even more questions started bubbling up.

He pressed his fingers against his temples without realizing it. After listening to that long, winding story, his mind felt foggy, adrift. It was as if Tianzhi’s soft, haunting voice still echoed in his ears:

“In the days that followed, they drank and played the zither. When they were drunk, when they were tired, they gathered around me and celebrated wildly. So I broke. Completely.”

“Before it all ended, they planned to kill me. To silence me. That was the first time I ever spoke to beg them. Not for my life, of course, but for a dignified death… and that’s when Gu Zhixuan walked in.”

No one ever figured out how Gu Zhixuan managed to appear at that exact moment. But according to Tianzhi, his demeanor then was… so strange. With his immense cultivation, he effortlessly suppressed Gu Yin and her companion’s killing intent, as if swatting away dust.

First, he drove Gu Yin out of the building. Then he forced the Heart-Consuming Concubine to swear an oath: unless Tianzhi herself sought revenge, she was never to reveal what had happened there.

Only after that did he turn to Tianzhi. And said a few cryptic, unsettling words.

Those words… Li Xun already knew them, from when Shui Die Lan used her illusion technique earlier. Now, hearing Tianzhi’s story, the pieces finally came together. Almost all of them, except for one thing: that so-called oath

.

As long as Gu Zhixuan was alive, Tianzhi could never seek Gu Yin for revenge. If she did, Nightless City would fall into eternal darkness, its bloodline severed, its name forever lost. And during this time, Gu Yin was also forbidden from troubling Tianzhi, nor could any whisper about the Milang Lake leak beyond this realm. If it did, the oath would break on its own.

Playing with fire, huh?

This was Li Xun's first thought. After all, with Gu ZhiXuan's level of cultivation, if he wanted to live for ten thousand years, he wouldn't settle for a day less. Isn't he just painting a target on his own back for Tianzhi to come after him first?"

Tianzhi had thought the same back then. But Gu Zhixuan’s reply had been... intriguing. “Did you forget the Forty-Nine Heavenly Tribulation? I’m giving you your chance.”

To Li Xun now, those words didn’t sound like much. But at the time, the entire Tongxuan Realm was echoing with the thunder of tribulations. Every cultivator bracing to survive that once-in-millennia ordeal.

So to Tianzhi, it had sounded like Gu Zhixuan was hinting that he wouldn’t make it through the tribulation. That he might be wiped out entirely. And, honestly, that wasn’t an unreasonable thought.

Tianzhi was, after all, someone who knew when to bend and when to stand tall. Having clawed her way back from humiliation and near death, she understood better than anyone what it meant to endure in order to survive. So back then, she chose not to question what hidden traps might lie behind that seemingly “fair” oath.

But from that day on, Tianzhi never saw Jade Wanderer again.

Of course, that alone didn’t prove that he was dead. Much less that Gu Yin had killed him. Yet Tianzhi did mention one more thing…

Why had Gu Yin’s cultivation suddenly declined?

The Heart-Consuming Concubine, Gu Yin, Tianzhi, Jade Wanderer... oh, and the Demon Phoenix and Qing Luan. Somehow, all of them were connected. An invisible chain linked their fates together; tug one link, and the whole thing would shudder.

How fascinating. Truly fascinating.

He looked down at the sheet of ice below. Who would’ve imagined that beneath it lay a woman of peerless beauty, hovering on the thin line between life and death?

Right now, she was more fragile than a newborn, utterly defenseless, at the mercy of anyone who found her. The thought of that, contrasted with the powerful, commanding image she once carried, stirred something dangerous in his chest.

He seemed hear it all over again. The moans and whispers of Flayer of Yin in the southeastern forest not long ago. Those words that had once set his emotions ablaze.

“What a pity. Even if the daoist master gets his wish, you’ll never taste the very first bite. That silken robe, still stained with Gu Yin’s blood, and her precious ‘Jade Horn Mister,’ those are the sect master’s most treasured prizes...”

Blood-stained silk… the silver-white brocade robe.

He suddenly remembered that he had never once seen Gu Yin wear anything like what Flayer of Yin had described. But Tianzhi… from the very first moment Li Xun met her, she had always worn a robe of that exact style.

So that was it. The Heart-Consuming Concubine's prized “collection” hadn’t come from Gu Yin at all. It had come from Tianzhi!

And the “three nights at Milang Lake”… the three nights the Heart-Consuming Concubine mentioned weren’t about spending three nights at the lake. They referred to three people: Tianzhi of Nightless City, Gu Yin of Yemo Heaven, and herself, Mo Xuanye.

He tilted his head back and smiled silently at the sky. Everyone sees things in their own way, he thought. He didn’t exactly approve of the Heart-Consuming Concubine ’s daring “one night worth a thousand gold” philosophy, but deep down, he couldn’t help feeling a bit envious.

Just envy, though. Nothing more.

As he moved farther from the cave, something suddenly felt off. Where were Yin Wanderer and Shui Die Lan? They’d come out before him... so why had they vanished without a trace?