"The water was tainted."
This time even Xuan Ye couldn't resist interjecting.
"Yes, the water was tainted."
Chi Wangchuan sighed.
It wasn't an instantly lethal poison, merely tendon weakening powder that left him immobilized, unable to even lift an arm.
The secret passage was less than ten feet deep, yet to him at that moment, it became an utterly insurmountable abyss.
The courtyard stood empty, the door locked with three separate bolts inside and out.
Even if he screamed until his throat gave out, no one would hear him.
So he remained seated at the bottom of the passage, waiting inch by inch for death, breathing in his own increasingly pungent sour stench.
After four days and five nights passed this way, ants began swarming the tunnel, crawling brazenly across his face. Just when he thought he had already died, he suddenly heard a sound above.
The lock clicked open, footsteps slowly approaching. He knew it was Ji Li.
She had returned.
"She came back to tell you that you were actually her enemy all along, that you were her original target for revenge?"
Ban Xia's thoughts immediately drifted toward classic martial arts revenge dramas.
Chi Wangchuan shook his head, raising his hand to remove the half-mask covering the left side of his face.
The skin beneath was indeed hideously disfigured, barely recognizable as human features, shimmering with an eerie silver hue.
"She didn't speak a word after returning. She simply poured a pot of boiling mercury over me. Fortunately, I was sitting slightly to the side, so only half my face was destroyed."
These words made Ban Xia's hair stand on end, her voice trembling uncontrollably: "You were already as good as dead! Why would she pour mercury over you? What was she trying to accomplish!"
"I didn't know then. From beginning to end, she never uttered a single word."
"Do you know now?"
"Yes." Chi Wangchuan answered, slowly tracing his fingers over the ruined half of his face. "It took me a long time afterward to finally understand everything."
"For instance, that pot of mercury was mixed with bewitchment spells, designed to weigh down resentful spirits, preventing their souls from ascending."
"She was very thorough. Believing I would die with unresolved grievances, she layered the tunnel exit with numerous talismans, trapping my soul for a full century."
"During those hundred years, I constantly pondered why she did this, formulating countless hypotheses until finally one revealed the truth."
He paused here, still chilled by the revelation despite the passage of time.
"What was the truth?"
What was the truth?
Chi Wangchuan laughed at the question.
The truth was she hadn't lied completely. Her clan truly had been exterminated, and that man truly was her enemy.
But her ambitions extended far beyond mere revenge.
She used the jade pear to curse her enemy, binding his heart to her for eternity. He taught her martial arts, bequeathed his family fortune to her, and when he had nothing left to give, he tore out his own fingernails and cast another curse on the pear tree, forcing it to bear a second jade pear.
As for the man who had torn out his nails - like Chi Wangchuan - he became mere hindrance to her path, inevitably meeting the same fatal end.
The following year, another man fell victim to the jade pear's curse, becoming her prey.
"This was an endless cycle. Seven men successively offered their living fingernails to her." Chi Wangchuan whispered, his voice astonishingly hoarse though he spoke without force. "And I... was the only one never cursed, the only one who gave willingly."
Ban Xia and Xuan Ye fell into heavy silence.How could there truly be someone in this world so utterly malicious.
And Chi Wangchuan’s inexplicably hoarse voice continued: “She lived to the age of ninety-three, enjoying the pinnacle of glory and immense wealth. On the day of her death, despite having no descendants, thousands of people, young and old from the entire city, mourned her and attended her funeral.”
Such a malicious person actually met a peaceful end!
Ban Xia was furious, gritting her teeth as her voice squeezed through the gaps: “What about after you emerged a century later? Did you find her?”
“Young lady, you’re confused. A hundred years later, she had long since passed away.”
“You could have searched for her reincarnation.”
Chi Wangchuan fell silent.
At that moment, Xuan Ye’s Moon Glow lit up, and his voice turned stern and deadly: “You must have searched for her while killing along the way—killing women who, like her, harbored greed beyond love.”
“Yes.” Chi Wangchuan’s long hair billowed, his slanted eyes now filled with malevolent resentment. “I tore out the fingernails of these women, these women whose hearts had already rotted, and then cast a Curse upon the pear tree. The Jade pears that grew from it could drive people mad, making them kill themselves—stab themselves to death, tear out their own entrails to strangle themselves… as malicious as it gets!”
“So now, when I claim your soul, you are not wronged.”
“That depends on whether you can!” Chi Wangchuan roared, bringing his hands together, his ten fingers plucking the air as if playing a zither.
Under the pear tree, countless pear peels began to evaporate, releasing a foul, crimson-tinged emerald fragrance that gradually coalesced into the image of a woman with disheveled hair.
It was the image of Ji Li, his greatest hatred and deepest resentment.
In this battle, he had indeed given his all.
The fragrance spread through the forest, and Ban Xia could already smell the stench of decayed desire.
Xuan Ye’s Moon Glow had also left his hand, hovering in mid-air as if greatly invigorated.
But Ban Xia remained dazed, feeling that there was still one question she had to ask, and finally, she voiced it.
“Did you find that woman’s reincarnation or not?!”
As her words echoed, the great battle had already begun.
The emerald fragrance, like vines in water, sprouted countless tendrils that entwined the Moonlight scimitar.
“I found her.”
After three exchanges, Ban Xia finally heard this reply—clear and unmistakable, three words.
I found her.
No matter how perilous the situation became afterward, these three words lingered in Ban Xia’s heart.
It was as if an answer was on the verge of revelation, like a flash of insight, always just within her reach.
On the other side, the fight between Chi Wangchuan and Xuan Ye raged on.
Xuan Ye’s spiritual power was depleted, while Chi Wangchuan held the advantage of terrain, making the battle evenly matched.
Two hundred exchanges passed.
The moon was about to set, and the sky began to turn pale.
The sickly emerald fragrance transformed into a green python, hissing as it coiled toward Xuan Ye’s side.
Xuan Ye threw the Moon Glow, and the scimitar, originally less than two feet long, now blazed with radiant light, cleaving the python in two with a vertical slash.
The python dissolved into a plume of smoke, but from within the haze, a crimson streak suddenly shot out—like an extremely long serpent’s tongue, eerie and cold—directly slicing toward Xuan Ye’s right neck.
At the same time, Xuan Ye’s Moon Glow surged against the wind, propelled by all his remaining spiritual power, and finally struck Chi Wangchuan between the eyebrows.
The stars and moon faded, and the night sank into the deepest darkness before dawn.
The crimson smoke ultimately cut into Xuan Ye’s right neck, but it missed the artery by an inch.
Meanwhile, the Moon Glow had accurately pierced Chi Wangchuan’s brow.
That inch made all the difference—victory was decided.The Moonlight scimitar glowed with flowing radiance, and at this moment, it suddenly stirred that spark of insight in Ban Xia’s heart, abruptly piercing through the final haze of confusion.
“That reincarnation of Ji Li is—Yuan Fang!”
She shouted these words clearly and loudly.
The Moonlight scimitar pressed another inch deeper.
Chi Wangchuan’s face turned ashen, his eyes slightly closed, his fingers ceasing their movement. In an instant, the mist filling the garden completely dissipated.
“You actually spared her, actually…”
Ban Xia still couldn’t believe it, stepping forward one pace at a time, trying to see clearly into Chi Wangchuan’s eyes.
“Does the young lady think I still love her?”
“It’s inevitable.”
Chi Wangchuan lowered his head, continuing to smile bitterly. “It has been over a century, and she treated me like this. Yet the young lady believes I still love her—you overestimate this humble Chi.”
“Then why did you spare her?!”
“I asked her ten questions, extremely harsh ones, and even devised the most vicious death for her…” Chi Wangchuan whispered, “But she passed the trial. Regardless of beauty or ugliness, wealth or poverty, status or lowliness, length or brevity, regardless of stance, dignity, or right and wrong… she loved him. With such a sincere heart, I had no grounds to refute.”
“Just for the sake of keeping your word, you spared her?!”
Chi Wangchuan raised his head; the spiritual power within his body was gradually being drawn away by Moon Glow, yet he remained standing straight.
“Whether living as a human in this world or existing as a ghost in the next, keeping one’s word is the foundation of a man’s integrity.”
He spoke these words with such heroic spirit that even Xuan Ye was moved, unable to help but pause in surprise.
Ban Xia sighed.
Chi Wangchuan looked at her.
“I am different from you.” He laid bare Ban Xia’s thoughts: “Though we both loved the wrong person, I am not like you—I do not regret having loved.”
“It’s true that there is rarely so-called pure love in this world, but you must believe that, stripped of these external factors, love itself is not wrong.”
“It’s like the Jade pear.” He reached out, plucked a pear, and actually began peeling it with a knife: “Such an evil pear, due to the Curse, its skin is tainted with the foul desires of women. But once the skin is peeled away, the pear is truly just a pear.”
As he finished speaking, the pear was fully peeled.
The sickly green, blood-streaked peel fell to the ground in pieces, and resting in his palm was a crystal-clear, snow-white pear once more.
“Have a pear. Truly, it’s just a pear.”
He extended his hand, the Soulfire gradually dimming, and for the third time, extended an invitation.
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