After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 21.2

Luo Qingyi turned back and asked Wu Ruo with concern, “Are you alright? Qingbei has a fiery temper. I’ll make sure to punish her severely when we return. Please don’t take it to heart.”

“I’m fine.”

Wu Ruo trailed behind her, dejected, her eyes stinging but no tears falling. She blinked hard, forcing the pain back down.

She still remembered Jiang Qingbei.

Luo Qingyi’s junior sister, she had met her on the same day she first encountered Luo Qingyi.

Back then, Jiang Qingbei was no different from now: exceptionally close to her senior sister, blunt and outspoken, with a warm and cheerful disposition.

At the time, she had envied Jiang Qingbei deeply.

But Jiang Qingbei didn’t remember her, nor was she wearing the silver bracelet Wu Ruo had given her. That young mistress probably came from a wealthy family, surrounded by gold and jewels, and couldn’t care less about a simple silver bracelet. It had likely just been a passing fancy, something pretty to wear on a whim.

Except, that silver bracelet had originally been meant for her best friend, A-Xiang. Yet, on the eve of A-Xiang’s birthday, because of her own foolish kindness in yielding her spot, she had lost her forever.

She had given the bracelet to Jiang Qingbei only because her eyes resembled A-Xiang’s.

Hanging her head low, she followed Luo Qingyi, weighed down by guilt, self-reproach, and a pang of betrayal.

The goodwill once tied to that silver bracelet had not blossomed into radiant flowers on the branches of friendship. Instead, it had gnawed viciously at the roots, rotting the tender sapling until it withered beyond recognition.

That day, Wu Ruo had no idea that the targeted malice and insults were just the beginning.

From then on, people like Jiang Qingbei multiplied so many they formed crowds, so many they became a sea.

Luo Qingyi never renewed their covenant ceremony with her. Instead, she grew busier and busier.

She was frequently summoned by the sect leader and elders to face the Mirror of True Heart, to reincarnate and cultivate in minor worlds, to enter the Chamber of Dao Reflection, the Refinement Pool, the Hall of Tempered Will gone for days and nights on end.

Occasionally, Wu Ruo would catch sight of her trudging wearily up the mountain, offering only an apologetic smile when their eyes met.

Wu Ruo would embrace her gently, hiding the bruises on her knees, lowering her head to conceal the loneliness in her gaze.

Time in the dream passed swiftly, slipping away in the blink of an eye. Perhaps because she didn’t want to recall those wretched days in the Zhiyuan Immortal Sect, the details faded in the haze of old dreams, leaving only the relentless march of time.

A year later, Luo Qingyi’s cultivation regressed instead of advancing, falling to the Soul Formation stage.

Five years later, her realm dropped to Nascent Soul, and she was stripped of her position as Peak Master.

Eight years later, she plummeted to Golden Core. The sect leader removed her from the ranks of personal disciples, reducing her to a lowly, nameless servant who swept the floors.

Images flickered and intertwined. The pain in the dream was chaotic physical wounds, heartache, and the occasional backlash of the love gui, leaving her coughing up blood.

Finally, it froze on…

“You are Qingyi’,” The elder before her had graying hair, his face deeply lined. He had not bothered with youth-preserving elixirs, instead exuding an air of gentle benevolence.

He seemed to deliberately avoid saying the word, covering it with a knowing look. His words were cautious likely aware she was a gui cultivator and thus wary of her.

The old woman spoke in riddles, circling around the point before landing on a blunt hint:

“Qingyi has been chosen by the Primordial Spirit.”

“What is this?”

“It’s the hope of the Three Realms. The Primordial Spirit can restore her power to its peak. If you love her, surely you wouldn’t let her cultivation continue to decline because of you, would you?”

The old woman left, carrying words that were only half-understood and the news that Luo Qingyi would not be returning home.

Next came the second visitor, a middle-aged male cultivator who had taken an Ever-Youth Pill. Tall and stout, his booming voice shook the heavens, and his knocking threatened to collapse the narrow door.

“You don’t even know this? How can a lowly Gu cultivator from some backwater be so ignorant? You people who dabble in crooked methods.”

The man abruptly stopped, as if realizing his words were inappropriate, and quickly changed the subject.

“The entire cultivation world is talking about it, the Hundred Stars dimming, the Great Dao scattering without return. It’s an omen unseen for tens of thousands of years, a sign that the Heavenly Dao is collapsing! Our path is doomed!”

“Unless the Five Phenomena Veins unite to break the barrier, led by the Heaven-Blessed Chosen of the Primordial Spirit, only then can all living beings be saved!”

These terms were only vaguely familiar to Wu Ruo. She wasn’t entirely ignorant, occasionally, when she overheard others discussing Luo Qingyi, she would catch fragments of these strange, celestial anomalies.

“You mean Luo Qingyi, right?”

The man looked at her in surprise, his brows furrowing in disdain. “So you’re not as stupid as you seem? I don’t know what tricks you used to make her so devoted to you, but this is a matter of life and death. How can your selfish desires compare to the fate of all living beings?”

The second visitor left as well.

Then came the third, the fourth each one a mysterious, reclusive elder from the Zhiyuan Immortal Sect.

“Only she has this power.”

“If she overcomes the inner demons in her heart, she can return to her peak.”

“You cannot turn your back on the world.”

“Don’t drag her down any further. If she saves all things, you too will have contributed greatly.”

“If she abandons the world because of you, and a demon takes root in her heart, can you bear the consequences?”

But. In your sect, everyone looks down on me, humiliates me. So why should I give up the only person who loves me to save a world that only brings you glory?

She bit her lip, forcing herself to play along something she would never have done before politely ushering out wave after wave of people who had never spared her a second glance.

Yet, in her heart, she clung to the vows Luo Qingyi had once made to her, foolishly hoping that someone else someone with the same celestial gifts might appear, so this unbearable torment could end sooner.

No one came. No one.

Only the kind-faced old woman returned a second time. She didn’t pressure her, didn’t try to sway her with reason or emotion. Instead, she told her one thing.

Luo Qingyi had gone alone to the Hall of Eternal Mirrors. For ten days, she sat before the Mirror of True Heart and now, she lay unconscious.

The Mirror of True Heart, those with a sincere heart could shatter their inner demons, return to their original nature, and reunite with the Great Dao.

What inner demons did Luo Qingyi need to break?

“She wants to save you all too, doesn’t she?”

Wu Ruo clutched the feathered cloak in her arms, a gift from Luo Qingyi to keep her warm. Absently, she ran her fingers over the feathers, tangling them into disarray.

“Yes,” the old woman replied with a gentle smile.

“Luo Qingyi,” Wu Ruo lowered her head, gazing at the delicate buttons on the collar of her cloak, her voice so soft it seemed not to come from her throat.

“She is also confused about where her love for me comes from, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“She…” The greater good in her heart far outweighs everything, even me. She doesn’t want to keep loving me either, but she’s forced by some inexplicable rule, a rule that compels her to continue loving me, to persist in a love that brings her nothing but harm, isn’t that right?

The world lay in ruins, riddled with scars.

Wu Ruo couldn’t bring herself to ask.

She simply set down the clothes in her hands, leaving the last few feathers she had ruffled unstraightened, sticking up like a hedgehog’s spines. She let the precious garment she cherished fall to the ground, gathering dust from the room.

“Yes,” Wu Ruo said to herself, answering the question that had taken root in her heart.

Her love was a burden, an excess, a hindrance, an unnecessary flourish, the biggest stumbling block on Luo Qingyi’s path to immortality.

Perhaps she had been wrong from the very beginning.

This time, she would yield to Luo Qingyi’s wishes. If the other woman wanted to save the world, then she would let her. Consider it her final act of tenderness toward her.

“Alright, I do have a way.”

She bowed deeply to the elderly woman’s kind eyes. “I’m sorry for reducing your heaven-sent prodigy to this state. But after I end her love for me, Sect Leader, could you escort me away immediately?”

Once the love curse was broken, affection would turn into deep-seated hatred.

Though Wu Ruo didn’t know how much Luo Qingyi loved her now, she doubted it was much. The resulting hatred, then, should also be minimal likely not life-threatening, perhaps nothing more than seeing her as an insignificant ant.

Still, she was afraid of pain. Afraid of Luo Qingyi’s gaze. Afraid of meeting her eyes and seeing nothing but indifference and disdain in those familiar pupils.

“Very well, I promise you. Once it’s done, I will see you safely out of the sect.”

“Thank you, Sect Leader.”

She had received the confirmation she sought, yet she couldn’t bring herself to feel any joy.

In the Mirror Hall of Zhiyuan Immortal Sect, every room housed ancient, intricately carved mirrors some that peered into hearts, others that revealed demons, each with its own purpose.

The most revered among them was the Hall of True Reflection, situated at the very center. True to its name, standing before its mirror cleansed the soul, silencing all noise.

“Ah Ruo, what brings you here?”

Luo Qingyi had been kneeling on a cushion, her forehead smudged with soot from where she had collapsed earlier. But at the sound of Wu Ruo’s footsteps, she stirred, supporting herself on the table as she hurriedly rose.

The usual Luo Qingyi, even in adversity, carried herself with unshaken composure. Such haste was unlike her.

“Nothing much. I heard you fainted, so I came to check on you,” Wu Ruo said.

Her overly long sleeves concealed the small porcelain vial in her hand, its stopper made of flawless jade, sealed tight.

No one knew this was something she had carried with her every single day for the ten years she had been at Zhiyuan Sect.

Inside lay a thread-thin gu worm though “worm” was a misnomer. It was more of an antidote, capable of unraveling even the most potent love curse in mere moments.

“Qingyi, if you’re tired, go rest for a while. Let me help you.”

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