Night fell, and Fangcheng remained bustling.
The flower street was brightly lit with lanterns and decorations.
It seemed as if the top courtesan of one of the houses had been redeemed.
The girl must have found herself a good man.
Dressed in a flamboyant red robe, she smiled radiantly.
She held candies in her hands and distributed them to the children who had gathered to watch the excitement.
Finally, she took one last look at the place that was both home and prison, then boarded the carriage.
Only when she was out of everyone’s sight did she pull out a handkerchief, cover her mouth, and cry quietly.
Fangcun Sect remained as desolate as ever, yet a guest had arrived—one who should not have been welcomed.
Strolling past the broken walls and ruins, the old woman stood quietly in the open space outside the main hall of the Taoist temple.
She looked at the row of wooden grave markers and found the last one.
In the silence, the old woman took out a crumpled oil-paper bag.
When unfolded, it was filled with various snacks.
Sugar-coated hawthorns, bean cakes, snowballs, cream candies—all treats that children loved.
Li Xingyue stood behind her, watching quietly. In her hand she gripped a sword, hanging low at her side.
Unlike the broken sword she had held the first time she met Su Zhan, this one was meticulously maintained.
She did not conceal her presence. With the old woman’s perceptive abilities, she must have already known she was there.
Yet the old woman seemed to deliberately ignore Li Xingyue.
She neatly arranged the children’s snacks, sat down cross-legged, closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, and softly chanted the rebirth sutra.
It was a scripture created by evil cultivators who had once been monks.
It could bring peace to the souls of the dead, so they would not linger in the mortal world but enter reincarnation as soon as possible.
Li Xingyue listened quietly.
Su Beiyan had once chanted this scripture for her.
It had been a long time since she last heard it.
The scripture was not long.
After chanting for about half an hour, the low murmuring before the wooden markers finally stopped.
“It’s been seven years…”
The old woman’s voice was slightly hoarse.
“I always thought… that rotten girl refused to see me because of the mistakes I made in the past.”
“She wasn’t that kind of person.”
Li Xingyue said softly, “Otherwise, this sword would have been thrown away somewhere long ago.”
The old woman slowly opened her eyes.
After a moment of silence, she let out a soft sigh, her tone indifferent.
“It’s just an ordinary low-grade spiritual sword. My skill in forging weapons isn’t great. She should have replaced it earlier. Perhaps if the sword had been a little sharper, she wouldn’t be lying here.”
“Even so, it was the first gift her mother gave her.”
Li Xingyue said earnestly, one word at a time.
“You feel guilty toward her, but what she remembered were only your kindnesses.”
“I don’t want to argue with you about this.”
The old woman shook her head.
“Since the demon-sealing array was established, a rampage has occurred roughly once every fifty years. Yet the last rampage was twenty years ago.”
She turned around and stared straight at Li Xingyue.
Her dim eyes were filled with ice.
“Tell me why, in such a short time, Fangcun Sect has been reduced to only you.”
Li Xingyue remained silent. She didn’t want to talk about this.
If it had been Su Zhan, she could have used their spar as an excuse, but facing the old woman, she could only remain silent.
“I only have a few years left to live, girl. Do you really want me to die with my eyes open?” Seeing no answer, the old woman spoke again.
“I only have three days left to live as well.”
Li Xingyue said calmly.
“The reason I don’t want to tell you is because I think it’s best for both of us.”
The old woman’s expression froze.
She stared at Li Xingyue for a long time before cursing.
“This old woman may be getting old, but my eyes aren’t blind. Your spiritual energy is abundant, without a single trace of internal injury. Do you really think you can fool me?”
“Then it’s even worse.”
Li Xingyue closed her eyes, letting out something that sounded like a sigh.
“My heart demon has already been born. I’m afraid I’ll go on a killing spree soon. You are my junior sister’s mother, so I don’t want to kill you.”
“Then why don’t you just die?”
The old woman sneered coldly.
“You once said you would protect her with your life. She’s dead now—why are you still alive?”
“Mm. I am going to die. I’ll go down below to accompany her.” Li Xingyue fell silent for a moment, then said softly.
“In these next three days.”
The old woman gave Li Xingyue a deep look. In the end, she didn’t press further and walked down the mountain.
Over the past few years, Li Xingyue had actually tried to end her own life many times.
But every time the blade touched her neck, her heart demon would stop her, then forcibly take control of her body and go kill people in Fangcheng in the dead of night.
The heart demon was threatening her this way, and she was powerless to stop it… Or rather, she was willingly using this to vent the fear of her approaching death.
She had been born in Fangcheng.
Because her family had too many daughters, her birth father had beaten her half to death and abandoned her in a mass grave.
With nowhere to live, she could only stay with the damp tombstones and corpses.
She stripped clothes from the bodies to wear and became a beggar.
She was often beaten for stealing a steamed bun or picking fruit from someone’s tree.
Every time her skin split open and bled, she thought she deserved to die, yet she always survived.
Then one day, she was chased by a demon in the mass grave.
Her master saved her and said she possessed a rare furnace physique.
No matter how severe the injury, her body would slowly heal on its own.
That day, the immortal asked the girl if she was willing to cultivate to protect Fangcheng.
She nodded—not out of gratitude, but because that way she could have food and clothing.
She lived her days in a daze, yet her cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds.
Her master praised her for having an untainted heart and said that with her guarding Fangcheng, it would be safe for a hundred years.
She actually never wanted to protect Fangcheng.
But after her master brought another girl back to the mountain, her feelings changed.
That girl would smile and call her Senior Sister.
She would pester her to train together, drag her down the mountain during rest days to shop and give her gifts, celebrate her first birthday, and hug her all night through thunderstorms before falling asleep…
At that time, she thought that if this girl liked the city, then she would protect Fangcheng for the sake of the girl’s smile.
She had been called a money-losing good-for-nothing since childhood and had never owned anything valuable.
She never cared for such things. But after the girl died, she sat holding the girl’s corpse in the rain all night and finally understood the pain of having something precious taken away.
Then a voice tempted her, urging her to vent all the resentment and hatred in her heart.
She obeyed and killed both demons and humans.
In the hazy rain curtain, she buried the girl, then wielded her sword to numb herself in the slaughter.
Rain mixed with blood and tears streamed down her cheeks, and only then did she suddenly realize that her heart demon had taken deep root.
She wanted to go down and accompany that girl. But the girl had loved calling her Senior Sister more than anything in her life.
She was afraid that if she revealed everything, she would no longer have the title of Fangcun Sect’s Senior Sister.
That was one of the only two precious things she had.
So she issued the commission but refused to disclose the details, luring people over in hopes they would kill her.
Yet every time, her heart demon would appear.
In this self-deception, she sometimes indulged it and sometimes suppressed it.
Until now, she could barely hold it back any longer.
If possible, she wanted to die as a human, with the title of Senior Sister, and go find that girl.
Li Xingyue held onto this hope.
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