The system asked: Do you now know what it means to be an unlucky fool?
Chao Jinsui did not speak, she simply remained silent.
Very vivid, very concrete.
The system said, she was the white moonlight sacrificed at the beginning of a novel. After her death, the male protagonist began slaughtering in all directions and rose to the pinnacle of life.
Chao Jinsui asked: The male protagonist? Who? Yan Xueyi?
But she had obviously misunderstood. The male protagonist was Su Liuyun; as for Yan Xueyi, he was the ultimate villain in the novel.
Chao Jinsui and the system continued watching the world after her death.
After she died, she was gradually forgotten by the cultivation world. Only a few people who knew her remained, and whenever she was mentioned, they would grit their teeth, filled with contempt and disgust.
It was said that back then Chao Jinsui betrayed the human race, sold out her sect, colluded with the demon realm, slaughtered her own kin, and countless fellow disciples died beneath her sword. Stepping on the corpses of righteous cultivators, she achieved the title of “leader of the righteous path.”
It was said that she had worked hand in glove with that demon lord, that she would stop at nothing to seek greater power, and that she was precisely the instigator of that great war with the demon race.
If not for the final moment at the Kunshan battle, when Su Liuyun turned the tide, the entire cultivation world might have been overturned in her hands.
The only thing worth applauding was that when she died, ten thousand arrows pierced her heart, and not even her bones remained.
As for Chao Taichu and Chao Xiaotu, father and daughter, their wishful calculations soon fell through. They had placed their bet on Su Liuyun, yet did not know that his designs on Kunlun would soon be exposed.
Su Liuyun was not human at all — but a thorough demon-blooded hybrid.
After that great demon lord was sealed, his prestige was unmatched for a time. This frenzied opportunist, this iron-blooded suppressor, killed all who resisted him. The Kunlun Sword Sect ran with rivers of blood.
But by then, Chao Jinsui was already dead. No one would come to save them anymore.
Chao Taichu finally discovered his wolfish ambitions, but could do nothing to turn the tide, and died without a sound.
Chao Xiaotu, however, survived by sheer luck.
The reason was inconceivable: she looked like Chao Jinsui.
Chao Jinsui: …?
Many years after Chao Jinsui’s death, Su Liuyun still could not forget her, and sought out many substitutes. But only Chao Xiaotu resembled her the most. He liked most of all to watch Chao Xiaotu practice swordsmanship, to see her dressed in white — although Chao Xiaotu did not know any sword techniques at all, nor did she like such plain colors.
Watching in the dream, Chao Jinsui only found it laughable.
— She did not even know that this person loved her.
Every stormy night, he would hold Chao Xiaotu by the waist, calling another person’s name over and over again.
At the right moment, the system added an emotional narration: “In his youth, Su Liuyun pursued overwhelming power and did not understand love. He would stop at nothing to pluck the moon from the sky. Only after her death did he regret beyond measure, but the one he loved was forever lost.”
Chao Jinsui watched for a long time, then asked the system, “Is he sick?”
The system choked.
Chao Jinsui’s eyes had suffered torment for many years. Until Yan Xueyi returned. Yan Xueyi, who had been sealed by her during the Kunshan battle, awakened a hundred years later — but now he had returned as the Demon God.
Su Liuyun and the righteous path resisted together, yet they still could not withstand this world-destroying catastrophe.
But this time, no one could seal him anymore.
His power, at some unknown time, had already swelled to a level no one could match. Wherever his black robe passed, all resistance crumbled.
He still had that familiar long hair, yet during the hundred years of sealing, it had turned white inch by inch;
Those narrow and beautiful, sharp yet affectionate phoenix eyes had become a frenzied blood-red.
Kunlun was reduced to ashes.
After Su Liuyun was captured, he suffered the torment of ten thousand arrows piercing his heart every day.
Pierced through the heart, then healed again.
And in the end, he was cut into a thousand pieces, his bones ground to dust and scattered to the wind.
After death, even his soul was cast into purgatory, enduring every conceivable torment.
Chao Jinsui watched this mortal enemy.
She thought: If he knew she was dead, would he be happy?
This person was extremely narrow-minded and hated her to the bone. He probably dreamed of killing her.
Unfortunately, in the end, she had exhausted everything and used her life to seal the fated enemy of her destiny.
Yet she had not died at his hands.
She had thought that when he frantically searched for her remains, it was to grind her bones to dust, to whip her corpse and vent his hatred.
But no.
That demon had actually gathered her remains and built a grave for her.
She died for the sake of all living beings, yet after death, it was this world-destroying demon who collected her bones.
What was this? Respect for a mortal enemy?
But the next second, her expression froze.
She saw that familiar figure, supporting himself against her gravestone.
Only then did she realize that the heart of that cruel, bloodthirsty demon was black — and the tears that fell from him were black as well. Drop by drop, they slid along the cold, hard lines of his jaw and fell upon her tablet.
The Demon God, his hair entirely white, his fingers trembling. The aura around him seemed to condense into a thick, suffocating despair without words, like sinking into a sunless swamp.
Silent grief surged like a tide, drowning this desolate world.
She froze.
— Why was he crying?
She was dead, dead so miserably — wasn’t he happy?
The people of the Kunlun Sword Sect had not cried, Su Liuyun had not cried, and her own family had not shed a single tear.
She died for all living beings, yet all living beings made her into a joke.
And yet this lifelong mortal enemy, before her grave, fingers trembling, tears pouring like rain.
Anxious, she circled her own grave, wanting to tell him not to cry —
Of course, if he insisted on crying, it wasn’t impossible, but at least tell her — why, why cry in front of her grave?
She suddenly realized that certain deeply rooted beliefs were beginning to crumble.
Things were starting to move in an uncontrollable direction.
She could calmly accept death. She had thought that although her life as an unlucky fool was miserable, at least she had died with clarity.
But now—
She could not rest in peace.
✦ ─ ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ ─ ✦
Her figure dissipated, rapidly pulling away from the dream.
The system appeared the moment she left the dream, tempting her:
“As long as you sign a contract with the system, reversing your life is no dream!”
The system had asked her this sentence for a hundred years, once every night before sleep, but it had never succeeded even once. Yet the system had a premonition that this time it would succeed.
The system said craftily, “If you refuse, once you wake up, you will forget everything.”
The system had watched her grow up and believed it understood its host: she could accept dying miserably in the end, but she could not accept betrayal, could not accept a life manipulated by others, and even less could she accept Chao Zhaoyue’s death.
Sure enough, it heard her speak.
She asked, “What do you want me to do?”
The system suppressed its wild joy and said:
“Host, after Su Liuyun died, the world-destroying calamity still occurred. The residual power from the Demon God’s suicide was enough to completely shatter this small world.”
The Demon God, suicide? He actually killed himself.
The system said, “We cannot let this world shatter, so naturally we must prevent the world-destroying calamity!”
She paused, because this demand was actually quite similar to the heaven-and-earth oath Chao Taichu had once forced her to swear.
The system sensed her thoughts — she was actually comparing it to that scumbag father—
It only wanted her to sacrifice a little dignity, it wasn’t asking for her life!
The system quickly said, “After countless simulations, this world will ultimately be destroyed because the great demon lord Yan Xueyi loses control. It seems that as long as he ultimately returns to his position as the Demon God, disaster will occur. So we can only start with him.”
Chao Jinsui fell silent.
If this had been before that great dream, she probably would have agreed;
But now, whenever she closed her eyes, she saw that demon standing before her grave.
The world bleak and desolate.
Like a beast that had lost its most precious treasure, fallen into frenzied despair, mourning in anguish.
At that moment, she had actually found that mad demon pitiful.
She had thought she and that demon understood each other completely, but after that great dream, she realized she had never truly understood that person.
She hesitated and asked, “Kill him?”
System: ?
System: “Sleep with him!”
Her consciousness gradually revived, and the sounds of the outside world came to her ears, extremely noisy, so much so that Chao Jinsui did not hear what the system said.
The system still wanted to say something more, but making the host dream this had already consumed too much of its strength. After speaking so much to her, it could no longer hold on and once again fell into slumber.
Chao Jinsui’s awareness slowly returned, and that burning, ant-crawling sensation gradually returned as well.
When she opened her eyes, it was still that pitch-black rock cave.
She had lived through a long life, and once again returned to the turning point of everything. At this time, Chao Zhaoyue had not yet died, she had not yet sworn the heaven-and-earth oath, and everything — everything — had not yet happened.
She wanted to support herself with the Fumo Sword and stand up, but the poison of the love gu made her throat taste of blood and sweetness.
This poison was called the Spring Chill Gu, a supreme secret treasure of the Hehuan Sect. Su Liuyun must have spent great effort to obtain it. This gu was extremely overbearing and tyrannical. At first, it felt like ten thousand ants gnawing, then the blood throughout the body would surge and boil. If it could not be resolved within three hours, it would be just like in the previous life — qi and blood reversing, meridians shattering.
Just at that moment, footsteps like those of death approaching sounded.
It was that demon.
She could not repeat the same mistakes.
Thinking of this, her gaze gradually grew resolute.
She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth: there was no other way. Within a hundred li, there was no one else — it had to be him.
The footsteps drew nearer.
Chao Jinsui lifted her head and saw a pair of familiar eyes, overlapping with the ones from her dream.
A mocking smile hung at the corner of his lips. His gloomy gaze, sharp as steel blades, scraped across her as he spoke with cutting malice, as if steeped in poison:
“What? Injured?”
His rising tone was full of ridicule.
“Last time it was for that junior sister. This time, which junior brother are you saving?”
He walked toward her, pressing her back step by step into the corner.
“Who do you think you are? Some saint who saves all suffering?”
They were extremely close, their breaths entwined.
Her fingers grasped the cold, chilling blade pressed against her throat, her gaze meeting his.
Perhaps because of that great dream, seeing him again felt like a lifetime apart.
His black hair had not yet turned to snow over a hundred years of sealing, he did not yet possess those frenzied, despairing blood-red eyes — he was still a beautiful, vicious demon.
His complexion was excessively pale, his phoenix eyes thin and cold. His gloomy gaze scraped over her like a steel blade, yet at the corner of his eyes there was a strange, enchanting flush of red, like blazing peach blossoms blooming in the darkness.
She suddenly spoke: “Yan Xueyi, I just dreamed about you.”
The demon: …
What?
When he slowly realized what she had said, he suddenly stepped back, as if greatly startled, almost crashing into the rock wall behind him.
After quite a while, he looked her up and down, as if trying to see through her heart, lungs, and entrails, to figure out her intentions. Suspiciously, he said, “Sweet talk won’t save your little life.”
She said, “Yan Xueyi, I really dreamed about you.”
Dreamed that they were enemies for a lifetime, and neither met a good end.
Inside the rock cave, it was quiet for a while.
This demon’s figure was extremely tall. When he lowered his head, the shadow almost engulfed her. In the darkness, his phoenix eyes showed a cold, dangerous scrutiny.
After quite some time, he said coldly, “You… are… lying.”
In the past, their words had clashed like blades, yet he had never been angered. But the moment these words left her mouth, she clearly realized that this demon was truly enraged by her.
As if she had touched a reverse scale that must never be touched.
— She thought, would what she was about to do next get her thrown into the Ten-Thousand Demons Pit and torn to pieces?
She said, “I dreamed that you were visiting my grave.”
The demon: …
— It had to be said, that was extremely possible.
His expression immediately darkened.
His towering fury was like a cold flame, yet it had not ignited—
The next moment, he felt a gentle, clean breeze brush past his face, and something warm and soft touched his lips.
Sizzle — the towering flames went out.
His tall body stiffened, as if starting from the sensation on his lips, he was being petrified inch by inch into a stone statue.
