By the time Xuan Ye and the others arrived, the fight between Hu Po and Yan Liu had essentially concluded.
Yan Liu's Silver Threads were severed into nine segments, each stained with Hu Po's blood.
Hu Po stood panting, locked in a standoff with Yan Liu. An Aura Vortex swirled around her, radiating an unprecedented murderous intent and ferocity.
"Elegant Confinement, help Hu Po!" Chi Xue cried out urgently, grabbing Xuan Ye's sleeve.
Yan Liu's situation immediately turned unfavorable. As a fox spirit, she naturally knew how to assess circumstances. After casting a few reluctant glances at Hu Po with lingering resentment, she finally stamped her foot, abandoning her usual composure, and stumbled hastily into the thicket.
"Elegant Confinement, you should have captured her!" Chi Xue continued to gesture animatedly at Yan Liu's retreating figure.
"Why?" Xuan Ye retorted, "What makes you so sure she's the villain?"
Chi Xue froze, clutching his chest as a sudden wave of pain overwhelmed him.
"Because Hu Po hates her," he said slowly, moving closer to Hu Po. "Why can I sense what you're thinking? Why... do you resent yourself so much?"
Hu Po staggered, covering her face with her hands, ultimately unable to suppress her vulnerability. She collapsed weeping beside Li Luo, her shoulders shaking with violent sobs.
"He's gone," Chi Xue announced after checking Li Luo's pulse. "There's no resentment. His soul has already departed, entering the cycle of reincarnation."
Hu Po gradually stilled her trembling, lowering her hands from her face. Her eyes, once vacant, gradually cleared into a translucent amber hue. After a dazed moment, she whispered, "He didn't want me to seek revenge. He wanted me to live the life I choose."
"He sought to become a woman... all to set me free..." Her voice trailed off with infinite melancholy, barren as withered grass, devoid of vitality.
Yan Zhi, who had been guiding Xuan Ye's group, rolled over and nestled at Hu Po's feet, whimpering softly.
Hu Po embraced her, sinking to the ground as the two leaned against each other, a picture of profound loneliness and helplessness.
"Elegant Confinement," the simple-minded Chi Xue turned back to look at Xuan Ye, "we..."
Xuan Ye remained silent, merely flicking his finger to release a Moon Glow. Gripping his blade with five fingers, he pointed behind Hu Po.
"No!" Hu Po jolted awake, stumbling to her feet to shield Mo Xie. "He's not at fault, he truly isn't! Listen to me, please listen!!"
"He's not at fault," Hu Po repeated after recounting the entire story. "He's just a misguided soul, pitiful and lost. I beg you, spare him!"
"Bi Xi was your sister? Did she die of illness? Then how was she involved with that fox spirit?" Chi Xue crouched down, his slow-witted nature somehow grasping the inconsistency in the story.
Hu Po began biting her lip.
"You must understand, one lie means everything you've said could be false."
"The fox clan's leader wasn't originally Yan Liu," Hu Po clenched her fists, finally resolving to speak the truth. "One day Yan Liu came to my sister, proposing a deal. She promised that if my sister helped her secure the clan leadership, she would forge an agreement ensuring peace between our clans for ten years."
"How could your sister help her become leader? Your sister wasn't even from their fox clan," the slow-witted Chi Xue immediately asked another foolish question.
"With the current clan leader still alive, Yan Liu couldn't possibly assume leadership," Hu Po sighed, shaking her head slowly. "So the only way was for her sister Yan Huai to die."
Sisters turning against each other - thus despite the fox clan's prosperity, it couldn't conceal the bloodshed and filth beneath the surface.Fortunately, Bi Xi and Hu Po were not like that.
Dragging her bloodied and broken body, she still stood between Hu Po and Mo Xie.
The longer days passed, the more Bi Xi felt her existence was glaringly superfluous.
How much Yan Liu actually knew about their situation, she wasn’t sure. She only knew that it was Yan Liu’s words that solidified her final resolve.
Yan Huai possessed formidable spiritual power. In her current state, Bi Xi stood no chance against her in a fight.
But if she were willing to stake everything, to exhaust her cultivation and perish together with Yan Huai, then it was not impossible.
Fox clans valued trust. From then on, the marten clan could recuperate in peace. And she herself would cease to exist.
What a perfect ending.
So she made up her mind. Without informing Hu Po, after arranging everything, she would challenge Yan Huai alone and keep that fatal appointment.
"Mo Xie may love me now, but it’s just youthful infatuation. Once I’m dead, after three or five years, when grass grows over my grave, he’ll only mourn on Qingming Festival, burn some paper money and shed a few tears. Just that one day, he’ll grieve a little."
When she returned, barely clinging to life with her last breath, Bi Xi remained unyielding. Stroking Hu Po’s hair, she didn’t shed a single tear.
"As for whether you still wish to be with him, that’s entirely up to you." Even as she said this, she wiped Hu Po’s tears. "I have only one wish—to die with dignity, without reverting to my true form. When the time comes, use a Glamour to conceal my wounds. Let him bury me, believing till the end that I was still the whole, unbroken Bi Xi."
"I want you to swear that you will never speak of me in front of him, never. I’ve always been proud—I cannot bear to lose face like this."
These were the last words Bi Xi would ever speak in this world.
From beginning to end, she never admitted that she had loved Mo Xie.
Why did she toss and turn every night? Why did she fight so desperately to maintain her human form, to preserve the last memory of herself in Mo Xie’s heart?
All these thoughts, she never spoke aloud. Proud and unyielding to the very end, she swallowed all her secrets.
"And so my sister died. They were truly in love, a match made in heaven." Here, Hu Po finally revealed the whole story. "If not for my brother-in-law’s sudden return, their ending wouldn’t have been like this."
Xuan Ye remained silent, his fingertips still glowing with Moon Glow.
"So he isn’t at fault. He’s just a simple hunter, with the most straightforward of hearts, incapable of deceit." Hu Po quickly stepped forward, her amber eyes burning as she looked at Xuan Ye. "So please spare him, I beg you."
"As a human, he indeed did nothing wrong. But as an evil spirit, he has absorbed human resentment and taken lives."
"That was unintentional! He didn’t know what he was doing!"
"But he has done it nonetheless." Xuan Ye’s voice was cold, unyielding as stone. "Once done, the price must be paid."
All hope ended there.
Hu Po began to step back. With each step, the grass beneath her feet withered and turned yellow—an eerie yellow tinged with a faint, clear glow, much like her own nearly transparent amber eyes.
Xuan Ye still held his blade, but he felt as if his heart had been seized by an invisible hand. Strangely, it began to beat against his will.
At first, it was persuasion, word by word, urging him toward mercy.
Then his heartbeat began to slow.
"Carrying such a heavy secret, destined to betray those you never wished to betray... Why continue bearing such exhaustion?"He heard himself faintly speaking to himself, gradually as if having convinced his own heart to cease beating.
His breath could no longer flow continuously, his vision darkened gradually, and he could only vaguely see Hu Po standing at the other end, her long hair fading in color, turning into a clear yellow, with Demonic Intent beginning to seep from her entire body.
"For personal desires, you would take human lives, using your Psychic Power to kill and slaughter. Hu Po, is this truly what you want?"
Summoning his last ounce of strength, he threw Moon Glow through the air, simultaneously raising his voice, his words like thorns, instantly piercing Hu Po's heart.
In the final moment, Moon Glow finally pierced Mo Xie's brow, while Hu Po, with her hair disheveled, finally knelt on the ground, giving up her struggle.
"I can release some of his spiritual power, let him awaken, and give you a chance to let him know the truth." Xuan Ye remained motionless, the blade at Mo Xie's brow, yet never fully piercing through.
"He loves Bi Xi, the perfect, god-like Bi Xi. Their love is mutual, even the hatred stems from his genuine feelings for Bi Xi." Hu Po covered her face: "I don't think he needs the truth. This truth is too cruel; he doesn't need it, nor can he bear it."
"What about you?" Chi Xue asked softly from the side.
Hu Po fell silent, slowly lowering herself to the ground.
Meanwhile, as Moon Glow exerted its power, Mo Xie's soul seemed like a wisp of dust and smoke, slowly being drawn in, never to be free for all eternity.
For all eternity, the one he loved was only Bi Xi.
As for her heart, it was merely like the wind brushing the willow or a swallow passing through the clouds—gone once it passed, the traces faint, with no need for anyone to remember.
"I don't matter."
In the end, she spoke, her long hair hanging down, connecting heaven and earth in a vast expanse of withered yellow.
OpenNovel