CHAPTER 620: THE PAIN OF UNREQUITED LOVE

Han Jun felt the words leave him. It was as if a boulder, a weight he had carried for two thousand years, had finally been lifted from his chest. He regretted not saying something that day. If he had, perhaps Xue Wuheng wouldn’t have gone down this dark road. Maybe all those sects wouldn’t have been slaughtered like pigs.

He had lived with this burden, knowing one day he would have to face his senior brother. He worked even harder, cultivating day and night, just to become stronger than him. And as expected, the day he feared came, and he had to cage his senior brother.

Xue Wuheng wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand. "Why? Why..." His voice was low, filled with a twisted conviction. "...because true harmony can only be forged through destruction." Xue Wuheng actually believed it. In his mind, he thought he was purging weakness from the cultivation world, pruning a tree by hacking off its branches.

Han Jun was disgusted. He shouldn’t have bothered asking why. There was no rational way to explain this lunatic’s evil deeds. But Xue Wuheng wasn’t done speaking. He sat up, looking defeated, his head lowered.

"I also did it for you... for us."

Han Jun’s brows furrowed. He knew Xue Wuheng was selfish. This "you" and "us" wasn’t for their shared future, but for his own twisted desires. He wasn’t doing anything for Han Jun, only for himself.

Xue Wuheng continued, his voice now a desperate whisper. "I wanted to give us the world. We would have had so much power that no one would challenge us."

Han Jun knew the truth of his words was as hollow as the laughter that had echoed moments before. Xue Wuheng didn’t want a world for them. He wanted a world where he was the only power. His twisted ambition had consumed the love and admiration Han Jun once held for him, leaving behind only this scarred, broken relic.

The man before him wasn’t the senior brother he had looked up to, the one who had protected him from bullies and taught him the ways of the sword. This was a monster wearing his brother’s face, a ghost of the past haunting the present.

The burden of two millennia of silence had been lifted, only to be replaced by the crushing weight of a horrifying truth. Han Jun realized that the man he had cast into oblivion was already gone long before he had sealed him away, and what remained was a phantom of his own making.

Han Jun’s chest heaved. "Did I ask for that?!"

"I saw you suffer," Xue Wuheng said, his voice raspy but firm. "I saw how they treated you, how they treated your mother. I saw how those outer disciples beat you within an inch of your life." He got to his feet, a ghost of his former self. "You think that wouldn’t happen again?"

Xue Wuheng stared into Han Jun’s eyes. "You think someone more powerful wouldn’t come along and destroy us? I wanted to be the strongest in the world so I could protect you... I could protect us. But who would have thought you would abandon me and throw me into this hell hole to rot?"

Han Jun clenched his fists, struggling to restrain himself.

"It cost me everything to get to see you again, Little Ju," Xue Wuheng continued, his smile thin and cruel. "And what did I see when I finally saw you? You had not only fallen for someone, you also got married and had a child... how could I not be upset? It’s only natural that I wanted to get what was mine back."

Suddenly, Han Jun shot out his hand. He gripped Xue Wuheng’s neck, lifting him from the ground and dangling him over the edge of the mountain. Xue Wuheng couldn’t breathe. His veins throbbed, and his sickly complexion showed a twinge of color.

He smiled, a final, defiant act. "Go ahead. Kill me... at least I had my last wish and got to see your face."

The words were a choked whisper, but the taunt was clear. Han Jun’s rage threatened to consume him entirely, his grip tightening as the seal on Xue Wuheng’s wrist pulsed with a sickly green light.

His jaw clenched with a slight tremor in his body from his burning rage. He couldn’t kill Xue Wuheng without the Divine Council’s approval. Every ounce of his being was needed to restrain himself.

Xue Wuheng’s lips curled into a wicked smile. "At least I will bring your precious son down with me."

Han Jun’s fierce expression turned to one of shock. Xue Wuheng wasn’t one to make empty threats. This meant Han Xin was in danger. But how? The only person who could get to Han Xin right now was Peng Xiu, but she was dead.

Xue Wuheng didn’t need to ask to know what he was thinking. He only smiled wider.

Han Jun growled, and with a surge of power, he threw Xue Wuheng into the wall of the building. The wall, which had been sturdy moments before, collapsed. Debris rained down on Xue Wuheng.

Xue Wuheng lay there, eyes closed and lifeless, but a tear flowed from the corner of his eye. He wasn’t lying. He had loved Han Jun so much that even now, in this state, it still hurt.

When he had saved Han Jun from those outer disciples, who beat him every day, it had been a whim. Saving the scrawny kid was just for the sake of it. But then he saw the look of gratitude in those big, dark eyes, and he was intrigued. He didn’t know that from that day onwards, he would have a tail.

Han Jun worked so hard on his cultivation. He wanted nothing more than to be Xue Wuheng’s junior brother. Xue Wuheng once asked him why he pushed himself so much, and the little boy’s answer was simple. "Of course it’s to help you, senior brother." Xue Wuheng would be lying if he said he wasn’t moved.

He didn’t know when he fell in love with Han Jun. He just knew he wanted to kill anyone who hurt him. So he did. He slaughtered every one of those outer disciples. He killed not just them, but every family member who had bullied Han Jun and his mother. The only person he left alive was Han Jun’s sister (Han Zhan’s mother), whom he brought back. He did all of it to please Han Jun. He fantasized about them spending eternity together.

But all of it was shattered one day. Han Jun just stopped talking to him. He avoided him at all costs, whether it was through closed cultivation or by disappearing to do tasks without telling him. That was when Xue Wuheng’s mindset changed.

He had to be powerful. Powerful enough to lock up Han Jun so no one would be able to save him. He became even more greedy. With a divine weapon he had found, he could kill any cultivator, even those much more powerful than him. He attacked sects and lone cultivators. But the day he found out that Han Jun was just as powerful as he was, he panicked.