Chapter 70

When love gradually grew, I belatedly understood.

There are countless transformations in this world, and there is no situation that is necessarily fatal. Even in the most desperate circumstances, there is always hope for survival.

I originally thought that cultivating the Path of Emotionlessness would result in the loss of all emotions and desires, turning the cultivator into an emotionless tool for cultivation until death.

Unexpectedly, when I developed feelings for someone again, I was able to break through the control of the Dao technique.

I began to frantically seduce her, initially perhaps for the purpose of possession, but later because of love.

In five hundred years, even a stone can be ground into a needle, let alone a person?

I melted into the hilt of Cangming, which she later refined into a sword in her heart.

She never said she loved me, she would only point to her heart and say I was the person at the tip of her heart.

She cultivated the Path of Emotionlessness for five hundred years, and was the only cultivator who was not controlled by the Emotionless Dao technique.

She said that after she successfully passed her tribulation, she would be reborn with me and accompany me to experience the joys and sorrows of mortal life.

But such a promise was ultimately a luxury, as the demon seed was about to be successfully nurtured.

By gathering the seven emotions and six desires of ten most yin and yang, most pure and kind cultivators, the demon seed could break out of its confinement.

A year ago, the ninth tribulation period ancestor affected by the Emotionless Dao technique perished, and the demon seed’s emergence was truly just a step away.

At that time, the last lucky one chosen by the demon race was none other than Liu Cangyun.

On the day when the tribulation clouds arrived for her ascension, the demon seed arrived as promised.

The demon seed, about to take form, already possessed spiritual power incomparable to ordinary cultivators.

From within the Cangming sword, I watched helplessly as she struggled against the nine heavenly lightning bolts, while the demon seed took advantage of the opportunity to enter and extract her seven emotions and six desires. And I… was powerless!

In that desperate situation, I made the boldest decision of my life.

On her extracted seven emotions and six desires, I placed a love curse that only the Vermilion Bird clan would know.

The demon seed, infected by the curse, would love her to madness, forgetting all past events. As long as the curse remained unbroken, it would only exist for one person, becoming a demon because of love.

A love demon falling in love with its own nourishment would surely not harm her in the future.

I was about to be reborn through nirvana and could no longer protect her. The love demon was cunning, and the Path of Emotionlessness was rampant.

This was the last layer of protection I left for her.

After completing all the arrangements, I shot out from the small sword, holding her soul in my embrace.

Whispering in her ear with a smile, I said, “Cangyun, I’ll wait for you to find me in the next life.”

On this day, amidst the nine heavenly lightning bolts, a soul phoenix flew out, carrying a weakened soul. It soared towards the horizon.

The nine heavenly lightning bolts and a streak of black smoke chased after them, splitting open a crack in the sky.

The phoenix slipped through the crack into the space-time continuum. Behind it, the black cloud followed the phoenix’s tail through the crack – that black cloud was a love demon in the process of taking form!

――

Liu Changning carefully placed Pei Yuanshao in the meditation room of Nanhua Temple.

Looking at his light pink lips and constantly trembling eyelashes, she leaned down with a pained expression.

Kissing his lips and gazing at his eyes pretending to be asleep, she asked, “Ziyuan, does it hurt?”

Pei Yuanshao’s eyelashes trembled violently twice, and he struggled to open his eyelids, his ink-black eyes filled with glistening waves.

He tried hard to open his mouth, wanting to say it didn’t hurt. But a slender white finger was placed on his lips.

Liu Changning coaxed in a hoarse voice, “Be good, endure it for a while. Ningxin will be here soon. Sleep for a bit, when you wake up, it won’t hurt anymore.”

After speaking, she covered his eyes.

Ningxin, treading through the snow, rushed from outside and happened to see this scene.

The usually expressionless woman, when looking at the man on the bed, had eyes filled with an intense, inseparable tender affection.

Ningxin coughed once and entered the room.

The blood-stained woman by the bed suddenly turned her head, her brows filled with anxiety and urgency.

She carefully tucked the blanket around the person on the bed before stepping out of the inner chamber.

“Ningxin, please check my husband’s wounds,” Liu Changning said hurriedly as she welcomed the grey-robed Taoist nun into the room.

Upon closer inspection, one could see a small sword flickering in and out of view in her eyes, following her intense emotions.

Ningxin’s hand paused as she opened the medicine box. She looked at her friend in shock, who merely nodded at her.

With the understanding of years of friendship, Ningxin realized that Liu Cangyun was serious. Husband? It meant what she thought it meant.

She looked up and glanced at Liu Changning again, this time unintentionally. In the bright meditation room, she saw the vertical sword shadow flickering in and out of view in her eyes.

She suddenly remembered the star chart, connecting the most important stars in the sky into a line, which resembled the vertical sword shadow in Liu Cangyun’s eyes.

The shock and doubt in Ningxin’s eyes almost spilled out. She opened her mouth but ultimately didn’t voice the tumultuous questions in her heart.

She quickly stepped forward to treat the wounds of the dying man on the bed.