Replacing my blood…
Seeing this, I looked down at my wrist.
There was no wound on my wrist’s skin; it even seemed more delicate than before.
“I’ve taken back the blood oath,” said Xie Zhuo as overwhelming evil miasma poured into his body. Yet he spoke as calmly as if nothing was happening, as casually as when he would say “the ground is cold” or “don’t drink alcohol.” “With me gone, the blood oath would be a burden to you.”
I stood beside Xie Zhuo.
Now, he was just a trace of the past outlined by mist, but as I looked at him, my eyes, dry until now, finally began to sting and ache.
“Someone once told me to cherish my own life, to love this mortal world. I never understood how to feel warmth, or why to love… I had never encountered passion, nor did I know what ‘liking’ looked like, so when you asked if I loved you, I didn’t know. I couldn’t judge.”
Black energy continuously poured into Xie Zhuo’s body. The surging evil miasma made his calm expression seem unnatural.
“But not long ago, when you drew this evil miasma into your body, when you fought with me for half a month…” he lowered his head slightly. “You don’t know, even if you were ten times stronger, you still couldn’t defeat me.”
Hearing him still argue this point so seriously now, I found it somewhat amusing.
Of course, I couldn’t defeat him. During our five hundred years of marriage, whenever I was upset and fought with Xie Zhuo, he always let me win.
“You became an evil spirit. I should have killed you. Even if it meant shedding your blood and violating the blood oath, I should have killed you. But I… finally understood then, I didn’t kill you, not because of the blood oath, but because I didn’t want to kill you, and even…”
As he spoke, he reached out and grasped “my” fingertips as I lay unconscious.
“Just thinking about it made me ache.”
“More painful than violating the blood oath.”
He took “my” hand and pressed it against his chest. He let my palm rest against his heart:
“But you are a cruel person. You couldn’t feel it at all.”
He looked at “me,” his eyes showing what seemed like grievance, with a hint of reproach. “You were the one who so firmly declared your affection, you were the one who so insistently wanted separation, cutting the red thread without even a moment’s hesitation…”
“I’m sorry…”
“It truly hurts…”
I covered my mouth, looking at him in the mist, hoarsely apologizing. Besides these words, my mind was completely blank.
“Perhaps, if you disappeared, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. That’s what I thought then. So I wanted to kill you, to destroy the blood oath. I struggled for so long…”
Xie Zhuo removed “my” hand from his heart, gently stroking the lines on my palm.
“Finally, I realized I was wrong.”
“How could I ever win against you?” He smiled bitterly, as if resigned. “The killing blade was always in your hand.”
“This, perhaps, is what they call joy and love.”
I stood before Xie Zhuo, tears streaming down my face, unable to force any words from my throat.
Amidst the overwhelming evil miasma, I saw longing in his eyes.
The scene before me felt absurdly extreme. Everything Xie Zhuo had done was to protect me, yet he never uttered a word about “love.”
And now, while performing what he called “severing our fate,” he spoke nothing but words of “fate.”
All the evil miasma and blood from “my” body had been drawn into Xie Zhuo’s body.
What now flowed in my blood vessels was the purest energy from this ice lake.
At that moment, Xie Zhuo himself completely severed our relationship, but in my soul, our bond could never be broken again.
Even through life and death, even through rebirth.
All the black evil miasma had been concealed within Xie Zhuo’s body.
He fell silent, no longer speaking about “us.” Without stopping, he raised his hand and pressed his five fingers onto the formation beneath me.
The formation’s light instantly scattered, seeming to illuminate all between heaven and earth.
Xie Zhuo had expanded the formation that absorbed the evil miasma!
Such a large formation! What did he intend!?
In my shock, I saw countless strands of evil miasma surging from the distance.
All the evil miasma poured into Xie Zhuo’s body.
Xie Zhuo’s expression became pained.
He knelt on one knee on the ground, but soon, as if unable to support himself, he sat on his knees, ten fingers pressed on the formation on the ground. Countless evil miasmas surged toward him from everywhere.
“Xie Zhuo…”
I reached out, wanting to pull him back, but as soon as I moved, the mist beneath me swirled and flew.
I couldn’t help him. This was a scene from the past, it was all in the past…
“It was on that day that all the evil miasma in the world disappeared,” Xi Wang Mu said softly behind me. “Xie Zhuo absorbed all the world’s evil miasma into his own body.”
I was stunned. “How? How is that possible? How could this be achieved?”
Xi Wang Mu looked at me: “When you returned to five hundred years ago, did something happen? Before this, we had been searching for a way to resolve the world’s evil miasma, but had no clues. This time, when Xie Zhuo returned, he seemed to have found a method. He must have comprehended something in the time-space you visited.”
I stared blankly at Xi Wang Mu, then looked at the mist before me.
I shook my head: “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Well, now it seems…”
As Xi Wang Mu spoke, I saw the Xie Zhuo outlined by mist had turned completely black, his eyes showing no whites. He waved his hand, drawing a pure white blade from the formation.
Just like the image I had seen in my mind.
He thrust the blade into his own heart, then twisted it, chanting: “With my body I contain you, and with my body I bury you.”
“No…”
I knew what might happen next. I could no longer control myself. I lunged forward to embrace Xie Zhuo.
But Xie Zhuo, in my arms, turned to mist and scattered with a roar.
The surrounding mist also transformed with a thunderous sound, instantly changing its appearance. All the evil miasma disappeared.
Along with it, the ice and snow in the snow forest vanished. The tree trunks regained their color, and the leaves became what I saw when I woke up—heavy with autumn. The ice lake also turned into ordinary ground.
In my arms, there was nothing. Where was Xie Zhuo’s shadow?
At this moment, I finally realized, finally admitted, that Xie Zhuo…
Had truly left.
I would truly never see him again, never hold him again.
I knelt on the ground, no longer able to restrain myself, and wept bitter tears.
“Jiu Xia,” Xi Wang Mu’s voice carried compassion, “Xie Zhuo used his own life to send all the evil miasma in the world into the earth beneath his feet. He returned peace to the world. This tranquility was bought with his life. You should pull yourself together and continue to guard it in his place…”