Forcing the Aloof Master to Madness - Chapter 20 

This was the first time Wang Xi had punished her.

In the book, Wang Xi was always tolerant of the original female protagonist, never punishing her, perhaps pitying her frail body, and had never even spoken a harsh word.

And the original female protagonist had matured early, maintaining a disposition that was well-behaved and restrained.

This was completely different from the current Shen Lezhi—defiant of Wang Xi, maintaining a forceful posture, covered in painful thorns.

But those thorns probably couldn’t hurt Wang Xi.

Shen Lezhi thought to herself.

She was the weaker party in this conflict; she had no means to resist. Aside from her refusal to bow her head, her dignity, she had nothing.

Shen Lezhi looked slightly up at the sky. Rain mixed with snow fell onto the world. All things were quickly soaked in icy water droplets. Layers of water vapor gathered, and everything before her began to blur.

She did not know how long this “punishment” would last. After Wang Xi finished her sentence, she walked into her cave residence alone, leaving Shen Lezhi standing under the torrential rain.

Shen Lezhi attempted to mobilize all the spiritual energy in her body to resist the cold. She always did this when she came to Linglong Peak, but the rain now carried Wang Xi’s spiritual energy. No matter how hard she tried to mobilize her spiritual energy, she couldn’t suppress the bone-chilling cold.

Since Wang Xi called it “punishment,” how could she allow her to resist?

Shen Lezhi’s entire body was soaked. The merciless raindrops battered her body, growing colder and colder, colder and colder.

It felt as if her breath was filled with water, as if water mist was rising before her eyes.

Her fingertips were frozen stiff, perhaps now the same temperature as her heart.

Inside the cave residence, Wang Xi sat cross-legged on her cushion as usual. She closed her eyes, attempting to enter meditation and regulate her breathing. She could see Shen Lezhi’s miserable appearance outside, and the indifference pouring out of those eyes.

She found it strange that Shen Lezhi’s eyes contained no disgust toward her, and then wondered if the other party was still pretending, as Shen Lezhi should have guessed that her spiritual consciousness covered Linglong Peak.

However, Wang Xi felt unfamiliar with her own emotions. She hated Shen Lezhi, but she never thought she would be driven to such great anger by Shen Lezhi’s disobedience.

At that moment, a ball of fire ignited in her chest, watching Shen Lezhi’s pointed defiance, wrapped in a posture of proud resolve.

That was the first time Shen Lezhi had torn off her mask of obedience and acted this way toward her.

Even in the previous life, after Wang Xi fell into daemonization, when facing Shen Lezhi, the latter mostly referred to her as Master in a timid voice, being cautious and extremely fearful, as if Wang Xi was the one who had been wronged.

Wang Xi closed her eyes. She didn’t consider her desire to make things difficult for Shen Lezhi to be entirely impulsive; she truly wanted to punish the other party. The fire in her heart, her resentment, cascaded down like the overwhelming rain and snow, relentless and torrential.

She simply wanted to torment Shen Lezhi; she wanted to see a look of suffering on that person’s face.

But the Shen Lezhi outside the cave did not show it.

Despite trembling all over from the cold, she still held her back straight, standing alone under the rain and snow, without even a hint of anger.

Wang Xi raised a hand and pressed against her brow. The fire in her heart burned ever stronger. With her cultivation, she could completely control the fluctuation of her spiritual energy, but she chose to ignore it now.

Since returning to life, she had always indulged her emotions in front of Shen Lezhi. She wanted to see Shen Lezhi tear off that mask; she wanted that obedient face to reveal its true self.

She finally saw it.

The entire cave residence grew several degrees colder. The entirety of Linglong Peak grew several degrees colder.

Gales and heavy rain.

They began to mercilessly sweep across every blade of grass and tree on Linglong Peak, only the sound of the howling wind, like sharp daggers; the pouring rain, like hard stones falling.

The myriad spirits on Linglong Peak were subjected to this sudden devastation.

Shen Lezhi on Linglong Peak was powerlessly enduring all this suffering.

Her frail body seemed to bear countless hardships—hardships imposed on her by Wang Xi.

The storm would likely intensify. She was here, with nowhere to hide.

Her completely frozen body gradually showed symptoms of hypothermia. Shen Lezhi could no longer hold up. Her staggering body finally knelt down.

Her knees heavily struck the ground. The puddle of water that had gathered on the surface splashed all over her, but since she was already drenched, getting more water on her made no difference.

Shen Lezhi could still feel the pain, a bone-deep agony. She didn’t know if there was any place in her body that was still warm. Even the water droplets flowing down the corners of her eyes felt chillingly cold.

Shen Lezhi suddenly remembered the humble little house in her hometown.

It couldn’t really be called humble. Her family’s small house was built with bricks and tiles, painted white, and had flowers planted outside the door—it was the nicest in the village.

Her grandmother was famous in the village as a flower seller in her youth and loved tending to plants. Even in her old age, she still planted flowers in the front yard.

Shen Lezhi didn’t particularly care for beautiful things, but as a child, while helping her grandmother tend to them, she loved getting close to sniff the fragrance of different flowers.

She wasn’t interested in the simple appearance of flowers, but she loved studying how they grew and changed every day.

Shen Lezhi lowered her head. Right in front of her knelt body was a small flower, about the size of two finger joints, hiding in a crack in the stone floor, lucky enough to have escaped some of the torment of the downpour.

Shen Lezhi didn’t know what kind of flower it was, but to be able to grow on the perpetually cold Linglong Peak, it certainly wasn’t a fragile plant.

On ordinary days, it should have been comfortable and carefree. When the sun appeared on Linglong Peak, it would poke out its head and enjoy the warm sunshine.

But now, even with the crack shielding it from some of the wind and rain, the tiny flower was shaking violently in the storm.

It was so pitiful.

She was so pitiful. Shen Lezhi looked at it and remembered the flowers her grandmother planted—those carefully tended flowers.

When the sun was too hot, her grandmother would put up a canopy; when the wind and rain came, her grandmother would prop up umbrellas for them.

Shen Lezhi curled her body, hugging herself with her arms, using her own body to shield the flower from the wind and rain.

She lowered her head. Her scant remaining consciousness kept recalling that sunny, warm, and gentle garden, and her grandmother’s kind smile.

Wang Xi kept her eyes on Shen Lezhi inside the cave residence, watching her finally show a pained expression when she could no longer bear it, watching her crawl miserably on the ground to shield an ordinary small flower from the wind and rain, even when she was utterly incapable of protecting herself.

The anger in Wang Xi’s heart did not subside because she was punishing Shen Lezhi. The more she watched Shen Lezhi, the more she was uncontrollably overwhelmed by anger that shattered her rationality.

She shouldn’t be like this. Wang Xi knew she shouldn’t be like this, but the emotions pouring in like a landslide were completely out of control.

The wind and rain outside were growing fiercer and fiercer. Wang Xi felt she should stop; she could not kill Shen Lezhi yet.

But her heart could not calm down. It was just like the first time she learned that Shen Lezhi had betrayed her all along—her world had collapsed into chaos.

Why?

Why desperately protect even a worthless plant, yet treat her that way?

The turmoil in Wang Xi’s heart became even more frantic. She would rather Shen Lezhi be a heartless person, someone who was only hypocritical, than see the other party desperately protecting a flower like this.

Oh, right, she also desperately protected that withered spiritual plant.

Wang Xi pressed her fingers against her chest. The pulse within her body also became chaotic.

She closed her eyes. This feeling arrived suddenly, yet it was not unfamiliar to her.

She had experienced it in her past life—it was a sign of the demonic Qi invading her body.

Madness raged incessantly in her mind, tormenting Shen Lezhi day and night in her dreams, hearing the other party cry, hearing the other party’s countless painful screams.

Wang Xi could already feel the pain transmitted from her meridians, the demonic Qi corroding her meridians inch by inch.

This process was soul-piercing and agonizing.

Until the inner demon arose, until she completely fell into daemonization.

Wang Xi waved her hand, summoning a water mirror. On the mirror surface, faint dark red demonic patterns had already begun to emerge on her snow-white neck.

Faintly discernible, yet the most obvious stain on white snow.

Wang Xi let out a mocking laugh. She had long been unable to turn back. Even if she lived another life, she would only walk the same path.

Her face was abnormally pale, cold sweat seeping from her brow. Her spiritual consciousness was still focused on Shen Lezhi. She watched Shen Lezhi’s body, which could no longer support itself, watching the other party helplessly struggle in the wind and rain.

Wang Xi watched all of this, her entire body trembling constantly.

Her eyebrows were cold and indifferent, yet fine blood vessels pulsed at the corners of her eyes. She tightly pursed her lips, unsure if she was enduring the bone-gnawing, heart-drilling pain or rejoicing that Shen Lezhi was finally suffering just as she was.