After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 20

The dreamscape remained the same an empty, vast hall cloaked in familiar darkness. The same sigh echoed in her ears, wordless yet laden with meaning.

Wu Ruo stood still, her narrow shadow stretching thin under an unknown light before dissolving into the endless void.

“Why am I, coughing up blood?”

She clutched her robes tightly, only to realize that in this dream, her body was free from illness stable and healthy.

When the voice didn’t answer, her urgency grew, edged with the numbness of despair.

“Is it because of the love gu? Because she doesn’t love me, so the gu is rebounding? Is changing her heart the price my cultivation, my health, my life?”

“……” Wu Ruo stood motionless, her knees buckling as she collapsed to the ground with a dull thud.

Silence enveloped her, broken only by the echoes of her own ragged breaths. The reality she refused to face now lay bare before her cruel, icy, and undeniable.

Luo Qingyi did not love her.

The Luo Qingyi who had indulged her every whim, who had doted on her endlessly, was nothing more than a puppet of the love gu. And the price Wu Ruo paid was her cultivation, her vitality perhaps even her life.

Was it worth it?

Kneeling on the ground, she stared blankly at the cracked floor beneath her, its fissures twisting like sinister veins.

Then, a sudden thought struck her. She jerked her head up, her voice tearing from her throat in anguish, “What about Luo Qingyi? She’s coughing blood too, does the love gu harm her as well?!”

If she had harmed Luo Qingyi. If her selfishness had hurt the one she loved.

“No.”

The voice finally spoke. “The love gu, when cast against the natural order, reversing fate’s decree, consumes the caster’s essence, spirit, and lifespan. It does not affect the recipient.”

“If she too coughs blood, it must be tied to the cultivation method she practices.”

Half the weight in her chest lifted. Wu Ruo steadied herself with a hand against the floor, at least relieved that Luo Qingyi’s condition wasn’t her doing. Her actions hadn’t harmed Luo Qingyi, right?

But what cultivation method could it be?

A few words surfaced in her mind, terms she’d once read in ancient texts and stories, now standing stark before her. The tides of thought rose and fell until, like the moon pulling back the sea, the truth emerged.

Luo Qingyi’s indifference to novels and tales.

Her detached, frosty demeanor.

And that day, when Chuncao had probed, Luo Qingyi’s sharp rebuke her words about the “proof of the Great Dao”.

Wu Ruo had thought she’d forgotten, that she could bury the past and cling only to joy. But as she searched her memories, the old pain returned, shadowing her relentlessly.

“The Great Dao is the law of heaven and earth. How could one forsake the root for the sake of fleeting romance?”

Severing emotions, forgetting love.

Of course. Luo Qingyi was young, formidable, the strongest sword cultivator among practitioners. Only by walking this path could she remain unwavering, undisturbed in her pursuit of the Dao.

Suddenly, the surroundings receded like a tide. Before Wu Ruo could rise, she stumbled again, crashing to the ground. No.

Her vision cleared, and she found herself back in the familiar room, the familiar bed, the familiar window lattice, and the familiar.

She was resting her head on Luo Qingyi’s lap, the other woman touching her forehead, fingertips inadvertently brushing past the space between her brows as she gazed at her with concern.

“Anuo?” Seeing her open her eyes, the usual coldness in Luo Qingyi’s features softened slightly, her tone unconsciously gentler as she spoke softly, “You’re finally awake. Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”

“Nothing serious,” Wu Nuo replied.

Her chest still felt uncomfortable, though the pain was much more bearable than during the Oath Ceremony. The sensation of her heart hanging by a thread in the dream lingered, and facing this familiar yet unfamiliar Luo Qingyi, she suddenly felt a wave of trepidation like the nervousness of returning home after a long absence.

She wanted to ask why the other had coughed up blood, but she didn’t dare nor did she want to.

“That’s good,” Luo Qingyi said, gently lifting Wu Nuo’s head from her lap and shifting to take her pulse. “Your meridians were in chaos. I’ve already regulated them for you. Just rest quietly these next few days.”

The woman’s words were sincere, filled with care, every syllable concerned for Wu Nuo yet not a single one mentioned herself.

But what about Luo Qingyi?

What of her physical condition? What of her cultivation?

Wu Nuo suddenly grabbed Luo Qingyi’s wrist. The other’s icy temperature seeped into her bones, her pulse faint and unbearably slow.

Though Wu Nuo was a Gu cultivator with a unique cultivation method, she could still sense a fellow cultivator’s power. Before, when she had held Luo Qingyi’s wrist and tried to probe her spiritual energy, the realm within her heart had felt like the ebb and flow of tides, like snow blanketing a mountain.

But now, she was merely walking across soft snow, each step leaving a hollow imprint, the crunching sound beneath her feet the only noise and the snow had stopped falling.

“Your cultivation has regressed. Your foundation is damaged, isn’t it?”

Not a question, but a statement. She asked with certainty, watching as Luo Qingyi blinked lightly, then lowered her head with a helpless smile.

“It’s fine. Why are you sitting up? Lie back down for a while.”

Wu Nuo suddenly felt an overwhelming sorrow.

“You,” she gritted her teeth, her grip tightening abruptly, the surging emotions in her heart reaching their peak in an instant, “are you cultivating the…”

Her voice grew smaller and smaller, until it was barely a whisper, nearly inaudible: “Path of Severed Emotions?”

Luo Qingyi said nothing. Instead, she simply leaned closer, allowing Wu Nuo to clutch her pale wrist tightly not pulling away, but instead wrapping an arm around her neck and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

The cool touch of her lips was like a snowflake, melting away after the faintest brush.

She heard Luo Qingyi’s voice, soft, yet because it was spoken right by her ear, it carried an unusual weight.

“Yes.”

The snowy mountain in her heart finally collapsed. Like a single leaf drifting down, the accumulated snow at the peak could no longer bear its own weight. She stared blankly at Luo Qingyi, suddenly unable to decipher the other’s silent words.

The woman murmured something by her ear, perhaps words of comfort, but Wu Nuo couldn’t hear any of it. Her mind was filled only with that faint, ethereal “yes,” and the image of Luo Qingyi coughing up blood.

That blood had been so blinding seeping through Luo Qingyi’s fingers. How could such a flawless, sacred face be stained with something so vivid, so horrifying?

She had ruined Luo Qingyi.

She was stubbornly obsessed, blindly and foolishly infatuated, clinging obstinately to her love for Luo Qingyi binding her with a love that was both blind and despicable, insisting that Luo Qingyi must be her destined partner!

What was she even doing?

Was it for the tribe? For the few pleading words of her teacher? For her family to no longer suffer under demonic cultivators? No, how laughable she was merely using these petty excuses to unconditionally indulge her own filthy, despicable selfishness!

She had harmed Luo Qingyi. She had caused her cultivation to regress, inflicted severe damage to her body, meridians, and spirit, and condemned her to remain in this half-human, half-ghost wasteland of Miaojiang as a cripple all because of a pathetic, ridiculous love curse, when she should have returned to her bright and righteous path!

Her chest heaved violently, and Wu Ruo’s vision blurred. The woman’s concerned words became mere background noise, drowned out by the mournful songs and overwhelming despair.

If she hadn’t cast the curse, Luo Qingyi should have returned to Zhiyuan Immortal Sect, followed the Great Dao, resolved her karma, overcome her inner demons, transcended her tribulations, and ultimately achieved enlightenment her heart pure and clear, embodying the path of detachment to ascend as an immortal.

That was Luo Qingyi’s true and righteous destiny.

“Luo Qingyi”

She called her full name, no longer the affectionate nicknames she used to feign closeness, but a formal address, carrying the weight of her promise as the Holy Maiden of Miaojiang.

What she had begun, she must now end.

“Let’s go to Zhiyuan Immortal Sect. There, we’ll ask your master, ask the healing cultivators if there’s any way to restore you.”

Luo Qingyi looked at her for a long time before finally letting out a soft sigh, leaving behind only an inexplicable sorrow.

“Alright. Once we return to the sect, I’ll make sure to give you a grand betrothal ceremony.”

The ebb and flow of emotions seemed to awaken something within her. The woman’s figure stood up in Wu Ruo’s vision, only to suddenly blur again.

She held her hand, though she wasn’t consciously moving her legs yet her body continued forward.

Chuncao waved a small handkerchief in farewell, while Lan Ting stood beside her, bowing deeply and promising to safeguard the tribe in her absence.

Drowned in endless grief, she said nothing but still bid the girls farewell. Without walking, she boarded a carriage and left the Miaojiang tribe behind.

A small snake coiled around her wrist, playfully biting her yet she felt no pain.

Her vision blurred once more, the scenes shifting chaotically. Suddenly, she realized that everything from her childhood until now felt like a dream of memories.

Yes, it must be a dream. Only in dreams would she feel no pain, only this boundless heartache.

Her consciousness grew muddled. She knew she was still dreaming but couldn’t recall where she had come from or what she had been doing before the dream began.

Before the dream, she seemed to have been in the mortal world in the realm of mortals? There was a sweet little girl who always called her “Elder Sister,” but then she had fallen asleep, taken away by a woman, brought to…

She couldn’t remember.

No matter. She would continue through the dream.

Now, she and Luo Qingyi had left Miaojiang. Next, they would go to Zhiyuan Immortal Sect, and then…

The scene before her eyes was bizarre and ever-changing, flashing by like a series of rough sketches in a flipbook, as if time had been sped up. It finally settled on a vast mountain range, at the foot of which lay an expansive and majestic plain. A massive boulder stood at the entrance, grand and awe-inspiring, its presence towering over all else.

Zhiyuan Immortal Sect.

“We’re almost there,” Luo Qingyi pointed and said to Wu Ruo, “This is my former sect. I once belonged here as the master of Luoxue Peak. Would you like to come with me.”

Her chest ached terribly.

It wasn’t the backlash of the love gu, but more like an external wound as if a sharp blade had pierced her skin, her veins severed by icy sword energy, leaving behind a searing, crosswise pain.

Had she experienced something here before?

Just the sight of this boulder, which served as the sect’s emblem, seemed to plunge her uncontrollably into an endless nightmare.

It hurt so much, so much as if blood were gushing from her heart, nearly draining her dry. As if ten thousand arrows had pierced her chest, her fragile flesh riddled with countless wounds.

She couldn’t control her body. Clutching the woman beside her for support, she still swayed unsteadily, barely able to stand.

Seeing her clutch her chest, Luo Qingyi quickly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, looking at her with concern. “Ah Nuo, what’s wrong?”

But the other’s face seemed to blur before her eyes.

Was this really Luo Qingyi? This wasn’t someone she knew. This was…

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