Chapter 73: A rebellious son is born under the stick!

Damn it!

I raised him wrong again.

Hearing such a beastly statement, Su Bai immediately knew that this life, he hadn’t grown into a normal person either.

Originally, she thought she could orchestrate an ambush involving the righteous and demonic paths, the human and demon tribes, and though her disciple was rebellious, he was still a remarkable individual. But after hearing this, Su Bai realized this was just another one lusting after her body.

Is it so common nowadays for disciples to rebel against their masters, and for sons to go against their fathers?!

“I’ve raised you so normally since you were little. I treated you like my own son, so how did you end up looking like this damn beast?!” Su Bai’s heart ached with pain and sorrow.

“Normal?”

The man in the white robe with golden patterns seemed to hear the most absurd joke in the world. The gentle, teasing expression on his face shattered instantly, turning into a ferocious and cold visage.

He suddenly tore open a section of his white robe behind him, turned around, and his back was fully exposed to Su Bai—covered in intersecting, dense whip marks, like a terrifying spiderweb.

“This one,” his voice trembled slightly, each word squeezed through clenched teeth, “is from when you whipped me at age three because I was afraid of the dark.”

“This one is from when I was four. You hit me because I didn’t swing the spear ten thousand times that day.”

“This one is from after I drank blood, while you cursed that man’s name as you struck me.”

“And this one…”

Blow after blow, line after line, intersecting densely, the countless scars were clear as day to Su Bai—but these were all superficial wounds. Why did he keep them? A little bit of spiritual energy could wash them away…

“Su Bai, my master, my mother…”

Su Xiaohei turned around, tears filling his beautiful eyes, his voice trembling with sobs and resentment. “Is this how you treat me like your own son? Where in this world can you find a parent as unqualified as you?”

“This is the kind of discipline that produces filial children. Don’t you understand? I did this so you wouldn’t become a rebellious—” Su Bai tried to explain, but her words abruptly stopped.

She met those pitch-black eyes rimmed with red veins, filled with a myriad of emotions—disappointment, anger, injustice, resentment, grievance—countless feelings interwoven like a raging tide, threatening to overflow.

Had she really done wrong?

Su Bai couldn’t help but ask herself.

She had once comforted herself, saying that in her last life’s pampering education, she had raised a clingy, perverse disciple. She had justified it as “for your own good,” but he had haunted her for three hundred years like a nightmare she couldn’t shake.

So this life, she had enforced “discipline with the rod,” thinking strictness would mold him into a strong and outstanding man.

But…

The pain and hatred in Su Xiaohei’s eyes now struck her like a hammer, smashing her self-righteous beliefs.

Had she really been wrong?

“Rebellious? A disobedient disciple? Ungrateful and treacherous? Hmph! Half of what I’ve become is because of your whipping.” Su Xiaohei seemed to have heard the unspoken words from Su Bai, his cold laugh mixed with cries.

“Su Bai, my master, my mother, my foster parent who raised me—have you ever thought I wanted to be a good disciple? Have you ever thought I wanted to be a righteous hero? Have you ever thought I wanted to be like ordinary children, with a mother making peach blossom porridge for me, a father shielding me from the wind and rain?”

“But did you ever achieve that?”

“No.”

“You only ever knew how to hit me!!”

“So I hate you!!”

Su Xiaohei’s voice gradually deepened, full of strong accusation and bitterness. “I hate that you picked me up so I wouldn’t starve to death there! I hate that you forced me to train until my bones broke, making me into some pillar of righteousness! I hate that after I drank blood, you still cursed that man’s name and whipped me!!”

“It’s my fault.”

Su Bai lowered her eyes, her voice low.

“Kill me.”

“I saw you as him. Though you resemble each other, you are not the same person. I hated the house and burned the barn—I took my hatred of him and vented it all on you.”

“Those three Divine Transformation artifacts can be considered my compensation to you.”

Her voice was faint, filled with sorrow and guilt.

At this moment, Su Bai finally understood that this life she had been too emotional about Su Xiaohei’s situation. She claimed to be a strict, rod-wielding father, but in truth, she was only venting the frustrations of her previous life.

“No!” the man said, “It’s not enough! Far from enough!”

“Then see what else valuable I have on me. If you want it, just take it—even if you want to tear me apart and sell me off piece by piece, fine. Consider it my debt to you. I was definitely wrong when I was young.” Su Bai spread out her small hands, looking like she’d given up.

This life’s education had been such a failure—she felt ashamed that her own mother was a teacher.

Better to die and restart~ better to die and restart~~

“I want you! I want your heart! I want you to fall in love with me! I want you to be my wife, so I can taste what it feels like to be loved!” Su Xiaohei’s tone was firm.

Su Bai suddenly raised her head, full of surprise. She had thought this little bastard was only after her body, but now he was even coveting her heart.

“I have a heart in my chest. If you want it, you can dig it out. But the other heart… I can’t give it, really can’t.”

Facing the little bastard’s eager and greedy gaze, Su Bai shook her head in disbelief. He was still young, and aside from the simulator, she herself had just finished the college entrance exam, hadn’t even found an ideal girlfriend in her heart yet, and here she was being asked to be a man she raised’s wife, to love him.

How was that possible?!

“I don’t care! You said you’d compensate me!” Su Xiaohei was as willful as a child.

“But I really can’t.”

“I’ve told you before, I’m a Qian Cultivator, it’s just because of the cultivation method that I ended up like this.”

“First of all, don’t talk about us being master and disciple or father and son. Even if we weren’t, I’m not interested in other Qian Cultivators. My body has changed, but my orientation hasn’t.”

Su Bai said it all in one breath, then looked at Su Xiaohei, hoping he would give up and take the three Divine Transformation artifacts as compensation.

Unexpectedly, Su Xiaohei smiled faintly: “It’s simple. From now on, call me Zhou Xuan. Then sever the master-disciple, mother-son relationship with your master.”

“As for your dislike of Qian Cultivators, that’s even easier. I once excavated a True Lord’s tomb who practiced the Path of Pleasure. That True Lord’s sect, the Pleasure Sect, has a tradition—‘the loser becomes Kun.’”

“I’ll make you gradually accept your identity as a Kun cultivator, and step by step, fall in love with me.”

Saying this, Su Xiaohei—no, Zhou Xuan—suddenly pressed forward, pinning Su Bai beneath him, and breathed softly into her ear.

Warm and intimate, like a gentle feather brushing against her earlobe, sending a tingling sensation, with a hint of temptation that made the Empress’s body stiffen slightly.

“Now, I’m going to give my master the first lesson—what’s closest to love is desire~~”