After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 41

The two of them stared quietly at the chaotic string of characters on the temple gate, as if the Wish Temple’s cognition had malfunctioned. The once-familiar words now resembled the nonsensical scribbles of a young child.

“Luo Qingyi,” Wu Ruo said doubtfully. “Does this mean you also made a wish? Did it come true for you? Why is it different for me?”

Luo Qingyi gave a bitter smile and shook her head lightly. “I don’t know.”

Wu Ruo pressed further, “When I made my wish in the past, were you with me?”

Luo Qingyi paused. “Yes. Your wish was.”

The woman tilted her head slightly, her gaze lost in deep thought. After a long silence, she finally met Wu Ruo’s eyes again, though her own seemed to waver. “It was probably a bonding ceremony. We held one in the Miao village, but both of us suffered unexpected physical setbacks midway. We planned to hold another after returning to the immortal sect, but it never happened.”

At this point, she added apologetically, “I failed you. While waiting for you to wake up recently, I’ve been preparing for it. Once our mission is over, perhaps we could.”

Wu Ruo waved her hand, cutting her off. “Don’t bother. I don’t need it.”

Seeing Luo Qingyi’s expression dim but not pressing further, Wu Ruo felt an inexplicable pang in her chest. Forcing herself to stay composed, she seized on the inconsistencies in the other woman’s words. “Wait. According to you, my wish to have a bonding ceremony with you was never fulfilled, right?”

“It was held but interrupted midway, so it counts as incomplete. Then my wish probably wasn’t that, but rather to become your cultivation partner?”

This was the conclusion she had reached recently. As the Holy Maiden of the Miao village, the only explanation for her relationship with Luo Qingyi, a peak master of the immortal sect, had to be this.

Raising an eyebrow, she added, “So, in reality, your feelings for me might not stem from love but from the Wish Temple. Once I find out how to undo the wish, you won’t have to be tied to me anymore.”

“No!”

Luo Qingyi protested urgently, “That’s not it. I know it’s not because of the Wish Temple.”

Wu Ruo didn’t believe her. “Then what is it?”

“Because once, when I suffered a qi deviation during training and fell off a cliff, you saved me. During that time, I experienced a way of life completely different from what I was used to, and I was deeply moved by the Miao village’s culture. We, I fell in love with you. Over time, our feelings grew, and we became cultivation partners.”

The woman across from her spoke earnestly, even with a hint of unease, as if afraid of rejection or her departure. Yet as Wu Ruo listened, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Pfft.” Wu Ruo curled her lips, wanting to retort but holding back, knowing her words would come off as if she still cared.

In the end, she merely replied with feigned indifference, “Ah, right. Luo Qingyi, the Emotionless Sword Cultivator.”

She emphasized the words “Emotionless Sword,” intending only to highlight the contradiction in Luo Qingyi’s words. An Emotionless Sword cultivator, falling in love? Don’t make her laugh.

Yet the moment those three words left her lips, the other woman’s expression darkened instantly, as if struck by an unbearable sorrow, her features visibly dimming.

“I’m sorry,” Luo Qingyi inexplicably apologized.

“It’s fine.” Wu Ruo waved her hand dismissively, assuming the other was apologizing for being caught in a lie. She was magnanimous enough not to hold a grudge against a fibbing youngster.

Suddenly, Luo Qingyi grabbed her hand and quickly pulled her back several steps. Caught off guard, Wu Ruo let herself be dragged along as they ducked behind a large tree.

“Shh.” Luo Qingyi raised a finger to her lips, her eyes signaling caution.

Following her gaze, Wu Ruo saw another figure staggering in the distance short in stature, slightly hunched, walking with unsteady steps.

It was Jin Ruyun, the surviving elder of the Miaojiang tribe she had seen at the inn.

Why is she here? The thought flashed through Wu Ruo’s mind when she suddenly felt Luo Qingyi grasp her hand and begin tracing words on her palm.

She couldn’t make out the strokes, but her consciousness inexplicably received a message from Luo Qingyi: According to Yang Zhiruo, this elder never made a wish. Maybe we should observe her movements.

“Alright,” Wu Ruo wrote back.

Jin Ruyun walked along the dark mountain path, a dark green toad puffing its cheeks beside her, lazily hopping along.

The surrounding trees cast deep shadows under the moonlight, but the woman showed no fear. She straightened her back slightly, though the years had left their mark her spine could no longer stand as straight as a wall.

Unbeknownst to her, two pairs of eyes were closely tracking her every move.

After watching for a while, Wu Ruo sighed inwardly and wrote quietly, “In my memory, she was the most fastidious about propriety her clothes always immaculate, her posture always upright.”

“Time spares no one,” Luo Qingyi replied in writing.

Wu Ruo couldn’t help but glance at Luo Qingyi’s white hair, recalling how it had been jet-black in Jiang Qingbei’s dream. She quickly shook off the thought and wrote, “Can you tell if she’s practiced demonic cultivation?”

Instead of answering immediately, Luo Qingyi gave her a meaningful look, then slowly closed her eyes. A gentle surge of spiritual energy began circulating around her, radiating outward.

In that instant, Wu Ruo could no longer sense the presence of the person beside her. It was as though Luo Qingyi had ascended existing in the sky, the air, everywhere except within the empty shell next to her.

“Luo!”

Wu Ruo anxiously traced the character, but in the next second, she felt Luo Qingyi’s warmth return. The other woman wrote on her palm: Jin Ruyun carries an extremely faint trace of demonic cultivation, but she hasn’t practiced the bloodthirsty arts of demonic cultivators only the marks of a gu master.

She still hadn’t turned to demonic cultivation.

After all these years since the fall of Miaojiang, Elder Jin Ruyun had stubbornly refused to join the corruption. Perhaps she still held affection for her homeland and had only submitted to the demonic cultivators under duress?

Wu Ruo’s heart pounded fiercely, her mind burning with sudden fervor, as though an impossible dream had suddenly come within reach.

She nearly rushed out to grab Jin Ruyun, to tell her she was still alive, to ask if she still longed for their home, if she would be willing to

Rebuild it together.

But she clenched her teeth, taking deep, shuddering breaths to suppress the surging emotions. She couldn’t afford mistakes. She couldn’t take the risk.

She watched helplessly as Jin Ruyun walked up to the temple gate, first bowing in respect, and then the moment she pushed the door open

She was flung back out.

A familiar line of large characters appeared on the temple gate: “Those whose wishes have been granted may not enter again.”

But hadn’t Jin Ruyun not made a wish?

Wu Ruo glanced at Luo Qingyi, who returned her gaze with equal confusion and lightly wrote, “Back then, when you saved me and I was recovering in the Miao village, I hardly ever encountered this elder. So, she likely isn’t close to you. Be careful.”

“Got it,” Wu Ruo wrote back. Initially, she hadn’t believed a word of the other’s claim about falling in love with her savior during recovery, but since Luo Qingyi was so adamant, it must be true that Jin Ruyun had been left behind in the Miao territory. She continued writing, “What about the other one, the younger one who came with Jin Ruyun? Do you know her?”

“No,” Luo Qingyi wrote. “Never saw her during my stay in the Miao lands, but her features bear a slight resemblance to Jin Ruyun’s.”

A resemblance?

Wu Ruo thought back to Jin Ruyun’s social circle. The woman had no twin sister, and her otherwise unremarkable connections included only one daughter, Jin Hua, whom she doted on like a treasure, always prioritizing her in every matter.

Indeed, the moment she realized one of them was Jin Ruyun, she had subconsciously assumed the other must be Jin Hua.

If Wu Ruo were to rank the people she disliked most from her time in the Miao village, Jin Hua would undoubtedly take first place. The girl had opposed her at every turn since childhood, constantly picking fights, throwing tantrums, and competing with her over everything.

If the other woman was Jin Hua.

Back then, Wu Ruo had wanted nothing to do with such a troublemaker. But after all these years, could she have changed? Could she after losing her homeland, also be striving for a greater cause?

Lost in thought, Wu Ruo felt Luo Qingyi writing again: “Jin Ruyun just muttered to herself: ‘Why won’t she come out? If we wait any longer, that person will arrive, and they won’t escape.’”

Wu Ruo nodded. There wasn’t much time left for reminiscing. With no one around, she had an idea.

With a thought, she retrieved a Disguise Pill from her Qiankun pouch and, after a moment’s consideration, transformed into the likeness of the Witch Envoy. She was familiar with the woman’s speech patterns perhaps she could coax some information out of Jin Ruyun.

Jin Ruyun was still pacing anxiously before the temple gate like an ant on a hot griddle, muttering, “Why hasn’t my darling come out yet?”

Wu Ruo rummaged through her Qiankun pouch for a set of plain, mature-looking mortal robes, similar to the Witch Envoy’s old style. After rehearsing her lines in her head a few times, she stepped out from behind the trees and approached Jin Ruyun.

The dark-green toad noticed Wu Ruo first, extending its long tongue as thick black saliva dripped from its mouth, a silent warning.

Unfazed, Wu Ruo mimicked the Witch Envoy’s delighted tone and called out, “Elder Jin, you’re here too.”

The next moment, Jin Ruyun spun around. But the instant she saw Wu Ruo, her face drained of color. Her eyes bulged as if they might pop out of her skull, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Her legs trembled uncontrollably as she took small, involuntary steps backward.

Her once rosy cheeks were now as pale as parchment.

“Witch Envoy you ghost!.” Jin Ruyun’s face was as pale as paper, her lips drained of color from terror. “Have you come to seek vengeance on me, don’t blame me, please don’t!”

Wu Ruo stood frozen in place.

An inconceivable thought slowly surfaced in her mind, one that weighed heavily upon her. She took a deep breath and spoke softly, “I know. I don’t blame you. Calm down, there’s a good girl.”

The woman covered her face with her hands, hiding her expression behind her fingers, but the words that spilled from her lips were razor-sharp.

” I didn’t mean to lead them there. I only heard that the Right Envoy of the Demon Realm could save my daughter, so I brought her there!. I never thought she’d bring a whole crowd with her, I never imagined they’d kill anyone! You all died, and I’ve been tormented ever since. It’s their fault, all their fault all because they took my Jinhua away back then, why did she have to suffer like this?!”

What?

Wu Ruo stood rooted to the spot. In her memories, the Miaojiang was always a peaceful utopia, a sanctuary untouched by worry or filth, a pure land free of schemes, betrayal, death, or separation.

But the incoherent woman before her, her words devoid of order or logic, was slowly revealing a horrifying truth between the lines, one that made her.

Her fists clenched tightly, barely restraining the fury threatening to erupt. Her teeth ground together with an audible creak, nearly drawing blood from her lips as she glared at the deranged woman before her.

The downfall of Miaojiang was because of Jin Ruyun because of this woman!

And here she had thought to reconcile, to consider her an ally! This fool didn’t even understand the danger of making deals with wolves she had invited disaster upon their homeland, bringing about its utter destruction!

“Don’t blame me. I was wrong, I’ve repented! Spare me, let me go! All these years in the Demon Realm, I’ve lived a life worse than death. I barely managed to recover my daughter’s body, begged the Right Envoy to refine her into a medicine puppet so she could stay with me. If she makes a wish at the Red Temple, she can live again! Just kill me, don’t hurt her. She’s innocent, I beg you!”

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