After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 61

From Wu Juncheng’s account, Wu Ruo gradually learned of the past events that had transpired at the Wish Temple.

Back when Wu Ruo had first concocted the Love Gu, the vibrant spiritual energy within her bloodline awakened the Life Soul among Wu Juncheng’s three souls. In a dim and desolate hall, she came to understand the uses of the Love Gu, as well as its unavoidable harm.

Burdened with this worry, she faced her beloved so close yet seemingly out of reach with caution and heartfelt sincerity. She chose to abandon the Love Gu, opting instead to win Luo Qingyi over with her genuine feelings.

If the other loved her, she would be overjoyed. If not, she would treat it as a cherished memory, a fleeting encounter sealed away in her heart remembering it would be enough.

Yet, while descending the mountain with Spring Grass and Lanting to purchase supplies, she found herself inexplicably drawn to the small town’s Wish Temple.

The Wish Temple seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. With its rare red-tiled brick walls in the cultivation world, it was rumored to be a symbol of the eerie and mysterious. Isolated from the outside world by various cultivation clans and sects, the Miaojiang region remained cut off, with little news reaching in.

As she pushed open the door, her thoughts were of Luo Qingyi.

She knew that a cultivator like Luo Qingyi might possess a tranquil, untroubled heart, making it difficult to stir emotions. Yet, she had no desire to forcibly bind the two of them together with the red thread of the Love Gu.

Thus, as she knelt on the prayer cushion, her wish was.

“I hope that Luo Qingyi may have everything go smoothly and achieve all her desires.”

Her wish was grand so selfless that it contained not a trace of her own involvement. Her wish was small so concise that it encompassed only the one person in her eyes.

The workings of the Wish Temple, as Luo Qingyi later discovered, operated on the principle of “exchange of fortune”, a non-equivalent transaction. The Red Temple would help fulfill a wish, but the wisher had to pay a greater price in return. In this way, the temple could collect the “difference,” adding to its vast reserves.

And so, on that night when darkness was at its deepest, as she emerged from the temple, Luo Qingyi was alone, her thoughts wandering, yearning to regain her memories.

The Wish Temple granted her desire. However, as the saying goes, fortune often conceals misfortune. The means of fulfillment came in the form of a vanguard team led by Golden Flower, headed by the Bloody Gate Sect Leader, dispatched to Miaojiang to gather intelligence.

Luo Qingyi, vigilant and perceptive, overheard the group’s sinister plot. Enraged, her spiritual energy broke through the dullness and tainted blood within her consciousness, merging with clarity and wisdom to pierce through the veil over her memories. She successfully regained her peak strength and memories.

The cost of the wish was embedded in this very outcome. The price Wu Ruo paid was, the demonic cultivators setting their sights on Miaojiang, plunging her into an inextricable dilemma.

On one side was her homeland and the selfish desires stirring within her heart; on the other, morality, reason, and the teachings from her elder in her dreams.

She chose the former.

In the end, burdened by complex emotions, she resorted to the Love Gu for the safety of her tribe, planting the second cause of her entanglement with Luo Qingyi.

She did not believe in supernatural forces and was unaware that her wish had been granted, thinking it nothing more than an unexpected twist of fate.

Yet, the Wish Temple was the binding place of Wu Juncheng’s Earth Soul, inextricably linked to the Gu cultivators of Miao descent. As long as both Luo Qingyi and Wu Ruo remained alive, Wu Ruo’s wish would continue to unfold.

Later, under the influence of the love gu, Luo Qingyi’s wish was to stay with Wu Ruo. The price demanded by the Wish Temple, however, was…

External threats and internal strife.

The external threat was the calamity befalling Miaojiang. The internal strife was the pitiable and lamentable situation the two found themselves in within the Zhiyuan Immortal Sect.

Later still, as the heavenly tribulation approached and the sect’s primordial spirit had yet to select a martyr, Luo Qingyi had only one wish: to restore her cultivation power, for she wanted to save the cultivation world from peril.

Thus, Wu Ruo removed the love gu.

“Hmm… To fulfill this wish of hers, the price you paid was.”

Wu Juncheng glanced at Wu Ruo, smiled helplessly, and did not continue.

When Wu Juncheng spoke of “later,” this was no longer a story Wu Ruo was familiar with. Her memories only extended to the moment she had cast the love gu on Luo Qingyi; everything that followed was a blank.

But this did not hinder Wu Ruo from thinking quickly. Drawing from her recent explorations into the past, she pieced together the answer with little effort.

“The price… I’ve guessed it. If the gu was successfully removed, then she would surely kill me, right?”

Wu Ruo stood calmly before Wu Juncheng. The illusory scene around them remained dark, supported by four towering celestial pillars.

Suddenly, she realized that this scene resembled her first entry into the Red Temple, the dilapidated shrine and eerie candlelight, where she had knelt on a prayer mat and confessed her love for Luo Qingyi.

She was no longer afraid, no longer lamenting the past. She understood the story of that time better than anyone.

“Yes.” Wu Juncheng nodded. “The backlash from removing the gu, or perhaps the ultimate price of the Wish Temple, was your life.”

Luo Qingyi loved her not because of the love gu, but because of a love that grew more complex with each passing day over the ten years under the gu’s influence.

It might have started as a fleeting fondness, or perhaps she was gradually moved during their time together. It could have been the countless life-and-death embraces over the decade, or the powerful emotions Luo Qingyi had long suppressed due to her cultivation of the Emotionless Path, which ultimately rebounded with overwhelming force.

Yet, under the effect of the gu’s removal, this love ultimately turned into hatred.

A heart full of affection, influenced by the gu-dissolving insect, transformed into overwhelming animosity. Luo Qingyi wanted to save the crumbling heavenly order, to return to her peak and inherit the legacy of the sect’s primordial spirit. She needed to prove her Dao.

By immediately executing the evidence of her emotional attachment, the demonic path that had disrupted her Emotionless Path and caused her fall from Mahayana to Golden Core she could rediscover her Dao and restore her lost cultivation.

Thus, Luo Qingyi drew the Jianhong Jiangshi and pierced Wu Ruo’s heart with a single arrow.

Blood flowed along the gleaming blade, dripping one by one onto the pure white snow of Luoxue Peak. Luo Qingyi’s eyes turned piercingly cold as her cultivation in the Emotionless Path coalesced once more, rapidly restoring her to her peak.

The Emotionless Path had returned.

“You, don’t be sad, and don’t blame her.” At this point, Wu Juncheng sighed. “Like you, I was a victim of the gu’s removal. In fact, when I was. slain by that person, the thought that crossed my mind was, ‘So, despite her claims of indifference, she actually loved me this deeply.’ Does thinking this way make you feel any better?”

“Hmm… Not really. Probably because, during the time I spent with her, I could feel her heart.”

Wu Ruo smiled faintly and added, “I suppose you haven’t finished the story, have you? Since she killed me, how did I come back to life? How did you come to know her, and why did she make me drink the Forgetful Dust?”

“…”

Unable to keep her in suspense any longer, Wu Juncheng could only flick Wu Ruo’s forehead playfully. However, since her three souls were separated her earthly soul bound and her living soul without a physical form, he merely brushed his descendant’s head in the void. “I can’t hide anything from you,” he admitted.

“After the heavenly tribulation, as the sole survivor among the six martyrs, she became revered as the most divine and spiritual immortal elder in everyone’s hearts, beloved and respected by all.”

“Yet, she developed a heart demon a severe one. Perhaps this heart demon did not arise when she repaired the heavenly tribulation but earlier, when she lost the one she loved most.”

“The myriad phenomena of the world are vast and intricate. Luo Qingyi should have been the esteemed Immortal Elder Luo, worshipped by the masses and in harmony with the ways of heaven and earth. Yet, she wandered the world like a soulless corpse, repeatedly on the verge of falling into demonic madness.”

“No, she had long since fallen into demonic ways, but she had never harmed anyone. Instead, she confined herself to a solitary mountaintop, fearing her heart demon would grow and bring chaos to the world.”

Some said she was meditating in solitude, contemplating the heavens. Others claimed she was calculating the next heavenly tribulation. There were even those who believed her merits were complete, that she was an immortal descended from the Primordial Immortal Sect, soon to attain enlightenment and ascend, bringing salvation to all living beings.

But Luo Qingyi was merely a solitary figure atop the Snowfall Peak, clutching the remnants of her late wife’s clothing, locking herself in a self-made prison, desperately resisting the descent of her heart demon as she neared the end of her life.

There was love.

There was hatred.

Like potent wine and clear water poured into the same bottle unable to be separated, indistinguishable, tangled and unbreakable.

The intense, overwhelming love dissolved into boundless hatred, yet it was sweeter than the most cloying candy. Luo Qingyi could not control the effects of the love gu, nor could she restrain her own love and hatred. She knew she would kill Wu Ruo, it was the price of the love gu and the Wish Temple.

But Luo Qingyi could not bring herself to do it. She was merely a cultivator who had fallen from the Great Ascension stage to the Golden Core stage, her path of emotionlessness shattered. From childhood, she had been taught to sacrifice herself to save the world in times of crisis. She had watched helplessly as the heavenly order crumbled and disasters loomed, knowing she must step forward, it was her conviction.

Because of this, she lost the only love of her life.

Perhaps, from the moment she drew her sword, “Startling the World,” she had already been ensnared by her heart demon, unable to free herself.

Later, Luo Qingyi, who had confined herself to the Snowfall Peak, finally learned of the Wish Temple and went to the Red Temple to make a wish.

Given her past deeds and her reputation and power, the Wish Temple welcomed her gladly.

Luo Qingyi’s wish was simple. She knelt resolutely on the prayer mat, in the very spot where Wu Ruo had once knelt, with the same unwavering determination in her eyes.

She wished to exchange her entire life, everything she had, for her former lover to be revived.

Naturally, Immortal Elder Luo’s merits were boundless, and her fortune immense. The Wish Temple was more than willing to trade her life for that of a mere Golden Core stage gu cultivator.

But the Wish Temple did not know that the Saintess of Gu Cultivators possessed a vitality as tenacious as that of venomous insects and snakes. At the moment she was pierced through the heart, Wu Ruo did not die. Instead, her consciousness merged with her dao bones and her life-bound gu insect.

Thus, Wu Ruo’s wish, “to fulfill Luo Qingyi’s heart’s desire” continued to be carried out.

Luo Qingyi, who willingly exchanged her life for another, once had a wish: “To grow old together with Wu Ruo.”

Thus, propelled by two forces, Luo Qingyi revived Wu Ruo at the cost of her own life, yet she did not die. Instead, her raven-black hair turned as white as snow, symbolizing her nearly extinguished vitality.

She did not die, but the inner demons grew stronger and more pervasive amidst the depletion of her life force.

Without Wu Ruo, she would have been closer to death than a walking corpse.

Later, that immortal elder Luo became obsessed, repeatedly searching across the three realms for someone who resembled Wu Ruo.

And eventually, she found her.

“So that’s how it is..”

After hearing Wu Juncheng’s words, Wu Ruo fell into a long silence.

The bond between her and Luo Qingyi should have ended at the very beginning, when the other left Miaojiang.

Yet, in the temple of wishes, her emotions overwhelmed her mind. Using herself and the circumstances around her as the price, she made a beautiful wish for Luo Qingyi: may everything go smoothly for her.

This became the second cause, followed by the consequence as the effect. Then came the third cause, the third effect.

One cause led to another, and this chain of karma was initiated by her. In the end, the one trapped and unable to escape was Luo Qingyi, who had been innocently and despairingly dragged into it by her impulsive actions.

The intertwined karma between the two, who were originally destined to walk separate paths, became densely entangled and inseparable. A red thread bound them tightly together, unbreakable even by death.

Since she awoke, the white-haired Luo Qingyi had always been by her side, never mentioning her sacrifices. Like a perfectly normal partner, there were some deceptions and lies, but more than that, there was love, a love that obsessively and persistently guarded her within her own world, fearing she might leave.

Luo Qingyi was truly foolish. If she had told her the truth from the very beginning, how could she ever have chosen to leave?

She longed to see Luo Qingyi again.

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