Su Liumeng stared at the unconscious girl lying in her arms, her emotions suddenly becoming incredibly complicated.
Xi Xinyan had hidden her pregnancy from her—and still agreed to let Su Liumeng pursue her.
She felt like she shouldn’t be this calm.
She wasn’t saying she needed to throw a tantrum or cut ties with Xi Xinyan or anything that extreme.
But at the very least—
She shouldn’t be running herself ragged like this for her, time and again.
Even a clay figurine has some temper.
Su Liumeng was once just a little girl too, and more than once, she had fantasized about sweet, innocent romance.
A thousand unsaid words swelled in her heart, and in the end, they all dissolved into a silent sigh.
Su Liumeng gazed at Xi Xinyan’s face.
This was the first time she had ever looked at her this closely.
Her trembling fingers stopped just short of the girl’s skin, instead slipping downward along the loose strands of hair by her cheek.
She had once judged Xi Xinyan, said she loved too deeply and foolishly, that she was the stupid one in their story.
But wasn’t she the same?
All the pain, every bitter consequence—she had swallowed them alone.
Suddenly, Su Liumeng let out a bitter laugh.
So I still can’t let go, huh?
She crushed the name card into a ball in her hand.
The rare material resisted, returning to its original shape once her grip loosened.
She’d had a dream last night.
In the dream, Xi Xinyan clung to her arm, smiling as she said:
“Silly girl, I’ve never been in love at all. Everything you thought… was just in your head.”
But dreams were only dreams.
Su Liumeng lifted the girl into a bridal carry, the crisp sound of dried leaves and branches cracking underfoot echoing in the quiet forest.
That kind of future… would never be reality.
She tucked the card neatly back where she found it.
Behind those cold eyes was a will honed by time.
The faint killing intent she exuded was like a breeze brushing the ground.
Her skirt swayed rhythmically with each step.
She had said it more than once:
No one was allowed to hurt Xi Xinyan.
At least—
Not before she stopped loving her.
Even if that person was the so-called “Saintess of Mount Kunlun.”
The scorching summer air hung heavy, with only a faint breeze brushing across the ground.
Suyi had chased her prey all the way to the edge of a steep cliff, forcing her twin sister into a dead end.
“Qingyi, there’s nowhere left to run. Give it up.”
In Suyi’s hand was the sacred relic of Mount Kunlun.
Qingyi had been beaten into a pitiful state—blood at the corner of her lips, hair disheveled, barely able to fight back.
Then suddenly, she lost all composure and doubled over laughing.
“Suyi, you really are as hypocritical as ever.”
She abruptly stopped, her eyes glinting with a strange, mocking light.
“You… can’t kill me.”
“You hold Kunlun’s sacred relic. Yes, I’m no match for you,” she whispered as she slowly licked the blood from her face, her gaze growing more and more deranged.
“But have you… already forgotten?”
“I was never your sister to begin with.”
Suyi’s expression shifted drastically.
A sudden sharp pain stabbed through her head, and she instinctively reached up to clutch her hair.
Qingyi, seeing this, laughed even more wildly.
Her voice was like a nightmare given form, a demonic whisper drilling endlessly into Suyi’s ears.
Suyi gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand, raising a pitch-black scythe high into the air.
She was about to strike down this demon spewing nonsense.
“Enough with your lies. You’re coming back to Kunlun with me to face punishment.”
But Qingyi remained where she was, hands hanging limply at her sides, making no move to resist.
Just as the scythe crackling with dark energy was about to strike her neck—
She suddenly lunged forward and embraced Suyi tightly.
Suyi’s body froze, paralyzed. Her mind filled with a blinding flurry of images.
“I told you… you can’t kill me.”
Qingyi leaned in and exhaled warm breath beside her ear.
“Because… we were never two people to begin with.”
“It seems you really have forgotten. When you were three years old—it was you who personally tortured and murdered your own mother in that room…”
“I’m the darkness you’ve been desperate to shed.”
“The past you’ve tried so hard to cut away.”
A single tear suddenly slid from the corner of Suyi’s eye.
With a loud clang, the scythe in her hand fell to the ground, out of her control.
“It’s useless… I’ll be your nightmare for life, clinging to you until the day you die.”
Qingyi’s laughter grew more and more maniacal.
“This round, you won.”
“But next time… it might not be the same.”
Their two bodies began to merge.
With a flash of blinding light, a girl in plain robes collapsed unconscious to the ground.
Fifteen minutes later, the girl slowly stood up.
A look of benevolent compassion once again graced her face—like a sacred lotus blooming atop a holy mountain, untainted and pure, casting equal grace upon all beings.
Suyi retrieved her communicator and sent out a short message:
[Qingyi has been imprisoned beneath Mount Kunlun.]
[My body is unharmed. I will continue my journey among mortals.]
As she typed out those words, she noticed nothing wrong.
To her, that memory was the truth.
But deep within her sea of consciousness—
A shadowy figure, with a hoarse and sinister grin, loomed like a demon crawling up from the depths of hell.
Suyi… you can influence me, but have you forgotten?
I can influence you too.
Next time… I’ll completely replace that disgustingly virtuous version of you.
Her gaze flickered, remembering the things she had just forgotten.
If she said them out loud… oh, what fun it would be.
She felt a twinge of regret—not being able to see Suyi’s wonderfully torn expression.
But that could wait until next time.
“Was it really me… who pushed Su Liumeng into the Ice Pool?”
“Seems like even you can’t tell us apart anymore.”
“No matter how powerful a secret art is, it will eventually reach its limit.”
“I don’t carry Kunlun’s sacred token like you do… so how did I even sneak into the Su Clan’s secret trial realm?”
*****
Hotel.
Su Liumeng placed Si Xinyan gently onto the large bed, then sat alone on the steps outside the hotel room, lost in thought.
Finally, she stood up and walked out, intercepting Suyi at a corner of the parking lot downstairs.
“What are you doing here again?”
Su Liumeng’s eyes were hostile, glaring at Suyi with unmistakable suspicion.
Suyi’s voice was calm, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I came to check if she was hurt… by my sister.”
She had always sympathized with Si Xinyan’s circumstances.
Now, with Qingyi having attacked her, that sense of responsibility only grew stronger.
This—was something she had to do.
Su Liumeng suddenly laughed, her tone thick with mockery.
“She has nothing to do with you now. Can you stay away from her?”
Suyi narrowed her eyes.
“Reason.”
“No reason.”
Su Liumeng casually took off her bracelet.
The qi in her dantian had already begun to boil—ready to erupt in the very next second.
Suyi smiled again, her expression calm and serene like a Buddha untouched by worldly provocation.
“All I can say is—sorry. She and I share a fated connection. I can’t just leave her alone.”
That soft-spoken reply was even more infuriating, like a blade sheathed in silk.
While smiling on the surface, Suyi inwardly scoffed coldly.
The eldest daughter of the Su family had always been arrogant and willful.
Miss Si had already suffered enough—leaving her in Su Liumeng’s hands?
Who knew what disaster might befall her.
Su Liumeng took a deep breath, barely suppressing her rage.
“Are you fucking deaf?” she gritted out.
“I told you—stay the hell away from her from now on!”
“I like her. Got it?”
With a sudden step forward, Su Liumeng’s body flared with energy.
A phantom golden dragon seemed to coil around her form, and within the underground parking lot, a faint, majestic dragon’s roar echoed.
Facing the blast of power, Suyi’s simple robes flapped violently in the wind.
Yet she didn’t take even half a step back.
Instead, what she said next was enough to stoke an inferno in anyone’s chest.
“You like her—what’s that got to do with me?”
“Oh wait, let me rephrase—does she like you?”
“If she doesn’t… then tell me, on what grounds are you making decisions on her behalf?”
“Don’t be trash, thank you.”
Suyi laughed coldly to herself.
Si Xinyan really was cursed by fate—to be surrounded by scumbags of all kinds, regardless of gender.
Su Liumeng was practically seething, her lungs about to burst from sheer fury.
You’re lucky I haven’t labeled you the scum here, she thought.
And now you dare turn around and call me trash?
Unforgivable.
Boom—!
A violent gust erupted through the underground space as the two figures clashed in a fierce, lightning-fast burst.
Su Liumeng stared down at her tightening fist, her last shred of rationality warning her:
Before you punch someone, you’d better make sure.
“Lin—whatever-your-name-is, I’ll ask you one last time.”
“Does Si Xinyan’s pregnancy have anything to do with you?”
“You go around in that baggy plain robe all day, flaunting yourself like some saint—and you’re as flat as a damn board. How the hell am I supposed to know if you’re a man or a woman?”
Before entering the cultivation world, Suyi’s family name had indeed been Lin.
Upon hearing Su Liumeng’s teeth-gritting accusation, her eternally serene, ripple-less expression finally cracked.
Even her usual compassionate facade fractured for a split second—
Clearly, she still wasn’t used to the kind of explosive topics that were so casually tossed around by modern young people.