After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 66.1

Luo Qingyi knelt like that on the Snowfall Peak, kneeling for a long time. She couldn’t stand up, desperately wanting to return to the place where Wu Ruo had once stayed, but the former Snowfall Peak was gone too.

She had completely lost the other person, lost all traces of their existence, lost every mark of their love.

She gripped the blade of her sword, her icy body temperature seemingly frozen like the heavens and earth. She no longer knew what pain was, no longer knew what bleeding was, what injury was.

The blood on her fingers kept flowing.

First, her robes were stained with large patches of fallen plum blossoms, then the patch of snow where she knelt melted from the blood, leaving the shadow of her kneeling form.

She knelt like that on the ground, as new snowflakes seemed to fall from the sky, landing on the completely renewed Snowfall Peak. The surrounding snow grew thicker, forming a thick blanket of snow.

Wu Ruo was dead.

She murmured something, but it was just an illusory, floating name, accompanied by meaningless interjections soft, quiet.

If she had been earlier, could she have saved Wu Ruo?

Could she have found her battered dao companion, held her in her arms, and said she was sorry?

No. If she had been earlier, she wouldn’t have awakened. She would still have been influenced by the hatred brought by the love gu, she would have completely disregarded Wu Ruo.

It was an unsolvable problem.

But she had clearly, clearly only missed it by those few moments.

She thought idly like this, her thoughts scattering endlessly. Or perhaps she was just tired she had depleted her dantian and spiritual sea to repair the breach in the heavenly tribulation, she had entered the formation with her own body, expending immense amounts of essence and spirit.

She was just tired, she wanted to sleep, to rest, to sleep on the rattan bed in Miaojiang like ten years ago, and wake to see a warm, caring face smiling sweetly at her.

Maybe she should just sleep.

Since regaining her power, she hadn’t slept properly, hadn’t had a single moment to herself.

Regaining her peak strength, accepting the inheritance, practicing the formation, repairing the heavenly tribulation, rebuilding the sect and Snowfall Peak.

Like a spinning top without rest, what kept her going was a name she wished she could crush in her mouth and swallow.

Only after everything was settled did she realize, she loved her.

The string snapped.

So tired!

“Senior Sister! Ah! Senior Sister, what happened to you! Who hurt you?”

Who was speaking? So noisy.

“Senior Sister, why are you bleeding so much! Ahhh! I have so many hemostatic pills! And medicine, don’t let anything happen to you!”

The figure squeezed in front of her, trembling as if terrified, gasping several times before shakily sprinkling hemostatic powder on Luo Qingyi’s hand.

Was there still someone who cared about her.

Luo Qingyi softly hummed in acknowledgment.

“Thank goodness, the wound isn’t deep. Senior Sister, what exactly happened? Why did you harm yourself? Did my mother talk to you about those incomprehensible sect matters again? Senior Sister, I’m cutting ties with her, I hate her to death!”

Hate?

As if triggered by that key word, Luo Qingyi mustered all her strength to open her eyes, leaning on her sword as she wobbled to her feet.

“Don’t speak of hate.” She still stared at the blood on her sword, yet seemed to be looking at someone else.

“You will find that your hatred is only ever connected to love.”

Jiang Qingbei’s expression instantly changed. Her small face twisted into a knot as she retorted defiantly, “How could that be! My mother never respected me. She only treated me like an object. She didn’t love me at all, how could I possibly love her!”

Luo Qingyi didn’t press further; she had lost interest in arguing with others.

Love or hate, the person she had loved and hated was already dead. Her sword had pierced through their heart; she had killed her own beloved with her own hands.

“Senior Sister!” Jiang Qingbei watched as Luo Qingyi stood up. Unable to read the mood, she thought her senior sister had recovered and mindlessly approached again. “Senior Sister, have you designed the new Falling Snow Peak? You mentioned before that you wanted to start over. I have an idea, I want to dig five large hot spring pools on the mountainside. I’ll go to the Five Continents to buy some high-quality hot spring jade. I’ve heard that bathing in these pools long-term can invigorate blood circulation, remove stasis, and even enhance cultivation!”

“Do as you wish.”

Luo Qingyi rarely visited the mountainside anyway, so she let Jiang Qingbei have her way.

Jiang Qingbei chattered on, brimming with confidence about rebuilding Falling Snow Peak. “Senior Sister, what do you want the peak to look like? I still have some Yinan spirit jade that could be used for a new plaque. If you want to change the name.”

“Let it remain,” Luo Qingyi said. “Keep everything as it was.”

“Huh? But Senior Sister, you said you wanted to tear it all down, that you didn’t want to see any trace of that person.”

Jiang Qingbei’s voice trailed off as she visibly noticed her senior sister’s expression growing increasingly rigid, almost as if she had been possessed by some inner demon, turning somewhat gloomy.

She tried to laugh it off, but being straightforward by nature, she wasn’t good at sweet-talking. “Hmph, Senior Sister, you wouldn’t be influenced by that treacherous villain who poisoned you, right? Rebuilding Falling Snow Peak is indeed exhausting. Keeping it as it was is just fine.”

“Jiang Qingbei.” Luo Qingyi’s tone carried a hint of anger. “Don’t refer to her that way.”

“Huh?” Jiang Qingbei was stunned. She rarely heard her senior sister speak to her in such a serious, almost furious tone. Her senior sister was always unflappable and gentle with her junior sisters, why was she suddenly angry?

Besides, just a few days ago, she had openly called Wu Ruo by her name, and it was Luo Qingyi herself who had said it. Why the change now?

“And” Luo Qingyi straightened up and said.

“What?”

“…” Luo Qingyi fell silent. She distinctly felt as though some strange shadow had appeared before her eyes. It seemed she saw her former lover, only to snap back to reality the next moment, realizing she was alone.

Her gaze followed the apparition aimlessly, wandering. Panic-stricken, she watched as dream after dream shattered around her. Her beloved of old lay before her, gripping her lifebound sword, drenched in blood.

Clang!

She could no longer hold onto Jinghong Jiangshi. The blood-stained longsword fell to the ground with a crash. Yet, even with the sword out of her hand, the scene before her did not vanish.

She clutched empty air, gripping an imaginary sword, its blade pointing at Wu Ruo, whose chest bore a gaping, bloody hole, flesh torn and mangled.

“Qingyi,” the other called out.

In a daze, the figure disappeared. Then, it felt as though another presence emerged behind her, speaking in the same tone, “Qingyi, turn around and look at me.”

Behind her stood a figure with the same face, the same bleeding wound over the heart, and the same helpless smile.

Then a voice came from the left: “Qingyi, why did you kill me.”

She turned anxiously, but the figure vanished. Yet another voice whispered in her right ear: “Qingyi, it hurts so much.”

“Qingyi.”

“Qingyi.”

She was surrounded by countless illusory shadows, each calling out to her, in front, behind, beside her, before her eyes, at the edge of the world, in a mirage of flowers in a mirror or the moon reflected in water.

Hesitantly, she reached out, wanting to embrace every shadow that should not exist. But each one, just before her touch, would transform into a bleeding figure over the heart, dissolving before her eyes.

One after another, one after another.

This one wasn’t it, that one wasn’t either.

It was Waruo calling her, yet it wasn’t Waruo calling her.

She remained dazed for a long time, so dazed that she could no longer see the real Jiang Qingbei beside her. Waruo’s voice seemed to come from another century, distant and hollow, as if from the edge of the sky.

“Senior Sister!! Senior Sister, why is there a dark aura around you? Senior Sister, have you fallen into demonic cultivation? No, how could you have an inner demon.”

Somehow, Luo Qingyi’s cultivation had not dissipated along with the emotions in her heart. Perhaps it was because her spiritual power had been regained through re-cultivation and no longer fluctuated with the turbulence of her thoughts.

The hallucinations from that day persisted for a long time. They appeared when she went out, when she handled affairs, on Falling Snow Peak, and especially when she was alone.

An illusory shadow would flicker before her eyes, only to vanish in an instant.

It was an inner demon.

When she realized it was an inner demon, she let out a heavy sigh. She had long suspected it, but a tiny, almost imperceptible hope had lingered in her heart.

But alas, none of it was real.

She closed her book, cutting off her past hopes completely, yet she remained trapped in those memories, unable to free herself.

If nothing went wrong she would keep it. At least she could still see her lost love anytime, anywhere.

But the weather is unpredictable, and one day, while leading the disciples of Falling Snow Peak on a mission down the mountain, a flicker of illusion passed before her eyes.

It was as if Wu Ruo had walked past her, only to turn into a bloody, mangled figure the next second.

And as luck would have it, in the brief moment between the two illusions, a group of disciples from another cultivation family happened to pass by, on their way to confront a demonic creature with drawn swords, their spiritual energy swirling around them.

In that instant, she lost all reason. She struck out violently, her energy surging like a rainbow.

None of the surrounding cultivators were stronger than her, and no one could stop her murderous intent. They could only watch as she, like one possessed, attacked without a word, her killing intent palpable.

Fortunately, Sect Leader Sun of the Apricot Grove Sect was also present. In that critical moment, he intervened with all his might, using his sect’s puppet technique to substitute for the group of disciples, thus averting a disaster.

Later, when she regained her senses, she nearly took her own life to atone for her actions. Lying dazed on a sickbed in the Apricot Grove Sect, she heard Sect Leader Sun not blaming her but simply saying she was tired. In the end, he added softly, “Inner demons are hard to cure. To untie the bell, one must seek the one who tied it.”

Yes, how could her inner demon possibly disappear so easily?

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