The Widowed Demonic Lord Remarried Again?! - Chapter 4

Why did he have to tie him up, and why use the immortal artifact Chijiang of all things?

Chijiang belonged to the ribbon-class category of immortal artifacts, a rare therapeutic treasure possessing healing properties in this world, and was also Ye Tang’s natal immortal artifact. Yet ever since Ye Tang acquired the divine artifact Moon Shadow, he had practically never summoned Chijiang again.

As for Chijiang how should one put it? When not in use, it would wrap around its master’s arm. Despite being healing-oriented, it looked obscenely erotic, with dark purple radiant Chijiang flowers blooming at its tips. Its thickness and length could be adjusted at the master’s whim, making it look precisely, unsettlingly like some sort of tentacle monster!

The crux of the matter was that Ruan Yibai was currently fit and healthy, without a single illness or injury. Having such a vivid, sensuous thing coiled tightly around him made him feel as though he were being constricted and dominated by a lustful serpent…

So did this scumbag Ye Tang harbor some sort of special fetish?!

[System:] [I don’t know, but considering you lay completely motionless like a corpse for two hundred and fifty years, and now you can suddenly move, it made the Celestial Lord… oh wait, during the time you were corpse-lying, he already became the Celestial Lord. So what I mean is, your sudden mobility must have made the Celestial Lord somewhat unaccustomed to it?]

My foot!

I could see he adapted from start to finish without missing a beat!

The one who’s unaccustomed is me, okay!!

Realizing the situation had completely spiraled past his expectations, Ruan Yibai used his bound hands to block the space between them and said, “Old Ye… uh, no, Yaoquang Immort… Yaoquang Celestial Lord! There’s something I want to make clear with you!”

“You and I have already officially formed a contract and married, and we’ve already consummated our marriage as husband and husband. There’s no need to address me so formally.” Seated with practiced elegance right beside Ruan Yibai, Ye Tang gently twirled a strand of Ruan Yibai’s hair that had cascaded onto the couch, carefully smoothing and flattening it out so that his wriggling body wouldn’t press against it.

“So what does A-Ruan wish to say?”

Every single time he heard this fellow Ye Tang call him “A-Ruan,” goosebumps would involuntarily break out across Ruan Yibai’s skin.

“Can you untie me first? You know I don’t have any spiritual power right now and can’t untie this Chijiang myself.”

Ye Tang tilted his head slightly to study his eyes.

“Alright.”

The Chijiang vanished in an instant, though because the user lacked spiritual power, a distinct red binding mark remained etched around his wrists.

Ruan Yibai was naturally fair-skinned, and his body had been meticulously preserved for over a century away from the sun, making him paler to the point of a sickly delicacy. The binding marks against his wrists lent him a striking, bruised sort of aesthetic appeal.

Sitting up and shaking his wrists, he assumed a serious expression and said to Ye Tang, “There’s something I’m going to tell you that you might find hard to believe, but the truth is, I am no longer the person I used to be.”

Stunned by Ruan Yibai’s declaration, the system nearly experienced a short circuit in its mainframe.

On the contrary, no particular expression could be discerned on Ye Tang’s face. He merely lifted his eyes slightly and uttered a bland response: “Oh?”

[System:] [Host, what are you… attempting to pull here?]

What kind of bizarre trick is he trying to play now?!

Wearing an expression of profound, hard-earned enlightenment after deep contemplation, Ruan Yibai continued, “Let me put it this way: I’m not from this world at all! To me, your world is nothing more than a web novel! In our realm, my situation is extremely common—the professional term for it is ‘transmigrating into a book.’ I entered the book’s world, parasitizing this gorgeous, captivating, and soul-stirring body. Though I retain the original owner’s memories, I am fundamentally not my original self… Tch, explaining it like this is a bit complicated; you can simply understand it as ‘possession’.”

[System:] [No, host, what kind of possession are we talking about? Who taught you this kind of wild BS, and how deeply has internet literature rotted your brain?! Also, if you’re going to make things up, why do you have to slip in self-praise? What even are those descriptions like ‘gorgeous, captivating, and soul-stirring’?! Even if it’s the absolute truth, you can’t be this shameless!]

Though the system had overheated to the point of turning searing hot, Ye Tang didn’t look particularly surprised upon hearing this. He simply went along with his words and asked, “So?”

So?

Ye Tang’s tone carried the exact vibe of an owner watching a pet cat play hide-and-seek with a baby hamster. While the little hamster squeals with triumphant joy, shouting I’m hidden, I’m hidden so well!, its short, fluffy tail is still sticking out and swaying back and forth in plain sight. And the cat just sprawls lazily outside, watching that tail with boundless, doting indulgence, thinking to itself, Where could my little baby possibly be hiding? I can’t find you at all, how amazing are you…

The crucial point was that the “little hamster” remained utterly oblivious, leaving the system watching from the sidelines breaking out in cold sweat.

Seeing that Ye Tang had “taken the bait,” Ruan Yibai swept his wide sleeve outward and declared with supreme, magnanimous tolerance, “Therefore, since I am no longer that past person, and the two of us aren’t all that close anyway, let’s simply write off our hundred-year feud and let it vanish like smoke in the wind! From this day forward, bridge to bridge, road to road, each walking their own grand path under the heavens. You don’t need to enter into a contract with me just to humiliate me publicly…”

Hearing this, Ye Tang unceremoniously interrupted him: “Does A-Ruan believe I formed a contract with you just to humiliate you?”

Why yes, obviously!

Because of love?

Do you think this is a pure-love web novel platform where pairing up characters must involve a mutual kill-and-love trope?

Do I look like someone who hangs out on those spicy green-river literature sites?

The system was left hovering in an awkward state of wanting to speak yet halting.

The host seems to understand quite a bit… yet somehow understands nothing at all…

Be that as it may, these two individuals had indeed been irreconcilable, fated archenemies over the past hundred years. The reason the host wound up transmigrating to the modern world—put nicely, was due to a cultivation deviation; but speaking bluntly, it was because he had been forced to his death in this world.

Though the system didn’t know the exact details, one thing was certain: the host’s death bore an immense, inextricable connection to the Celestial Lord. Thus, it wasn’t an unreasonable, temper-tantrum-driven whim for the host to harbor lingering resentment toward the Celestial Lord.

How should one put it? Not all novels strictly follow the author’s outline; certain dark subplots probably remained obscure even to the author holding a God’s-eye view.

Characters alter fate, fate dictates plot, and plot serves the characters.

Who could say with absolute certainty that the world one lived in wasn’t simply a novel written in someone else’s hands?

Realizing Ye Tang’s response wasn’t at all what he had hoped for, Ruan Yibai let out a cold internal chuckle. True, he’s the supreme Golden Immortal, the light of Lanquetian after all; how could he ever admit to harboring such sneaky, malicious intentions?

Waving a hand dismissively, he stated, “The reason for the contract doesn’t matter. What matters is that you must let me leave.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Your current spiritual power lacks even the most basic capacity for self-preservation,” Ye Tang replied in a tone that sounded remarkably like a senior grandmaster reprimanding a reckless grand-disciple. “You wish to die a second time?”

Hearing this, Ruan Yibai burst out laughing. He sat up and draped one arm casually across Ye Tang’s shoulder: “Have you forgotten our respective identities? You are the light of righteousness, I am a wicked demonic cultist; my death should logically be a joyous occasion that adds another stroke of eternal glory to your magnificent reputation.”

Ye Tang extended a hand. Expecting the fellow to recoil in horror to avoid suspicion, Ruan Yibai was instead caught off guard when Ye Tang placed a hand directly on his waist and pulled him firmly against his chest: “The one who has forgotten their identity is you, my wife.”

Aha! Twenty-five years apart, and the kid has started learning new tricks, has he?

Yet when it comes to playing tricks, Ruan Yibai was truly afraid of no one!

[System:] [Ahem, let me remind you once again: it’s two hundred and fifty years! Two! Hundred! And! Fifty! Can we please have some basic concept of temporal passage?!]

Shifting sideways, Ruan Yibai crossed his legs over, planted both hands on Ye Tang’s shoulders, and looked down at the man with a half-smile: “You’ve given me an idea. When you called me that just now, I wonder what your elder brother, Ye Ling, would think if he knew?”

“Oh?” Ye Tang placed both hands on his partner’s waist. “Does A-Ruan still care about my brother’s feelings?”

Ruan Yibai deliberately provoked him: “Though your brother and I were married for less than a year, as the saying goes, a single night of husband-and-wife brings a hundred days of grace. Calculating it that way, the grace between Ye Ling and me adds up to well over a hundred hundreds of days…”

“Is that so?” Ye Tang’s tone remained completely flat, as if entirely unbothered. “So what?”

Ruan Yibai’s heart skipped a beat. This fellow seems… unnervingly calm?

Back in the day, the reason he had married Ye Xiaocheng—meaning Emperor Xiao, Ye Tang’s imperial father—certainly stemmed from his own motives, complete with a three-point pact between them. Though they married, they shared no substantive relationship, operating purely as a commercial partnership… As for later, when Emperor Xiao passed away and he was forced to marry his son Ye Ling to become Empress, on the surface it looked like a forcible seizure, but in reality, he and Ye Ling maintained an equally pristine relationship, since everyone harbored their own plans and cared little for petty romance.

However, Ye Tang shouldn’t have known about any of this. Judging by Ruan Yibai’s understanding of Emperor Xiao and Ye Ling, father and son, neither of them would have ever leaked such details to Ye Tang.

[System:] [Host, don’t you feel like you’re being completely eaten alive by the Celestial Lord?]

Hearing this, Ruan Yibai retorted internally: Nonsense! Watch me show you right now how I wrap him around my finger!

[System:] [Oh ho?]

“Let me guess: back then, the renowned and untouchable Yaoquang Immortal Lord actually harbored illicit, improper desires toward his own sister-in-law?”

Twisting the ribbon-like hair tie of Ye Tang’s immortal garment around his finger, Ruan Yibai leaned down close to the man’s ear, whispering in a soft, seductive murmur:

“Am I wrong, Little Uncle?”

[System (swallowing hard):] [Host, you and the Celestial Lord… are you playing some kind of dangerously thrilling new game?]

At that exact moment, squatting outside the door and eavesdropping through the crack, Jie Xun, the Right Commander of Lanquetian, whispered, “Brother, there’s movement inside. It sounds like there’s more than just the demon in there—should we go in and check?”

Standing guard with unyielding diligence and strict adherence to duty, Jie Shuya replied, “It’s the Sovereign.”

Jie Xun wore an expression of utter astonishment: “You’re saying the other person inside is the Sovereign? But the two of us have been standing guard out here this whole time and never saw the Sovereign arrive!”

“The window.”

Jie Xun’s face turned into a mask of pure disbelief: “So the Sovereign was so impatient he didn’t even bother walking through the front door, and opted for window-jumping instead?”

Gazing into Ruan Yibai’s alluring, bewitching eyes, Ye Tang casually reached out to smooth down a stray lock of falling hair, remaining completely unmoved as he replied: “You are indeed wrong.”

“When you became my imperial stepmother, I didn’t merely harbor improper thoughts once or twice.”

Ruan Yibai paused.

Th… this bastard, what kind of rebellious, taboo nonsense is he spouting?!

Cupping Ruan Yibai’s chin, Ye Tang continued, “Watching the two of you standing side by side, I couldn’t help imagining how pitiful you would look lying disheveled on a couch with red, tear-stained eyes…”

His brows twitched upward.

“So, does A-Ruan have any other questions?”

[System:] [Sex… sexual tension is literally exploding through the roof.]

Damn it, he did that on purpose! He absolutely did that on purpose!! Did he think saying something like that would shut me up?!

…Well, that trick didn’t work, but I’ve got another move up my sleeve.

When it comes to this sort of thing, no matter what, I refuse to lose to an Old Ye!

[System:] [Host, why are you suddenly harboring this… inexplicable competitive spirit?]

Ruan Yibai slid off Ye Tang’s lap, deliberately tossed his own waist sash onto the floor, and deliberately manufactured the sound of tearing fabric: “I have plenty of questions, but if you refuse to answer them properly, then I’ll have no choice but to…”

Staring at Ruan Yibai, Ye Tang watched as the fellow scrambled his own clothes into disarray, scampered over to the door, slammed a hand against the wooden panel, turned back to flash a provocatively sly grin with those breathtakingly gorgeous eyes, and suddenly shrieked in an exaggeratedly terrified, panicked tone: “Celestial Lord, no… you can’t do this here, there are people outside…”

Ye Tang: “…”

“Don’t, stop… you’re already the Celestial Lord of Lanquetian, how can you resort to such coercive bullying… What will others think if word gets out?! Let go of me!”

To sell the performance, he even slapped his palms hard against the door panel a couple of times!

The door rattled loudly under the impact!

The two guards outside heard every single word crystal clear. Jie Xun covered his mouth in shock, his face flushing bright red. He blinked frantically at his older brother Jie Shuya: Oh wow, brother, I never imagined the Sovereign would actually resort to coercion… yikes, this is way too thrilling! We’re separated by just a single door—th… this is way too wild!

Jie Shuya extended a hand and directly clamped it over his younger brother’s ears.

Witnessing this entire spectacle, the system felt an irresistible urge to give its host a standing ovation!

Host, where on earth did you learn this move? No, more importantly, where on earth did you borrow the guts to pull this off?!

Right after that, it watched as the Yaoquang Celestial Lord—who had been sitting calmly on the couch—stood up, strode over without a word of hesitation, and shoved Ruan Yibai forcefully against the door panel!

Right beside the back of Ruan Yibai’s head, Ye Tang’s voice dropped, carrying a low, measured timbre: “Shuya, take your brother and leave. Without my command, no one is allowed to approach this bedchamber.”

Jie Shuya: “Understood, Sovereign.”

Thus, Jie Shuya grabbed hold of the blushing, flustered Jie Xun and hauled him away at lightning speed.

The surroundings instantly plunged into absolute silence.

Pinning Ruan Yibai’s hands flat against the wooden door panel, Ye Tang delivered three deliberate syllables:

“Keep calling out.”