Luo Luo was stunned.
If she hadn’t misunderstood, this so-called Divine Lord had carried her to his bed while she was asleep and then accused her of climbing into it herself?
Who in the world could do something so shameless?!
Oh, right. Li Zhaoye could.
:)
Luo Luo’s emotions were a tangled mess as she braced her hands against the edge of the bed, glaring reproachfully at this Divine Lord.
He scowled back. "The truth is, you climbed onto my bed yourself, deliberately seduced me, and begged me to devour you."
Absolutely unbelievable—the more he spoke, the angrier he got. What could be more infuriating than this? He was telling the absolute truth, yet it sounded faker than anything. Even he wouldn’t believe it if he heard it.
His heart turned to ash as his face darkened. "Enough. If you dare say another word, I’ll kill you. And don’t even think about it in your head!"
Luo Luo: "...Oh."
She was wrong. Li Zhaoye wasn’t this shameless.
Just look at this man’s skill in twisting black into white—his face had to be at least two hundred years thick.
Using underhanded means, he forcibly silenced her. After shooting her a resentful glance, he went back to fiddling with the seals embedded in his body.
These seals were like shackles, deeply embedded in his flesh. He yanked at them violently, each pull drawing blood and unleashing a surge of brutal, oppressive energy.
Luo Luo had never seen seals like these before.
Twisting and overlapping, layer upon layer—when he tugged at them, she could feel the earth beneath her feet trembling faintly, as if in secret resonance.
She suspected these seals were connected to the massive ones binding the entire sacred mountain.
Using an entire mountain to suppress one man.
Luo Luo felt no sympathy. Instead, she muttered inwardly: Serves him right, the beast.
In the afternoon, Holy Maiden Wu Xie sent a puppet servant with a serving of beggar’s chicken.
Divine Lord: "..."
So there really was chicken?
He smirked disdainfully, then blurred into motion, reappearing by the west window. Narrowing his eyes, he tilted his head up to gaze at the cold, gray sky sealed with a Tai Chi sigil.
As if a dignified Divine Lord would eat chicken. What a joke.
The puppet servant placed the chicken on the ornate yellow-iron table and used its blade-like hand to thump thump crack open the hardened mud shell that had been roasting overnight.
A burst of rich, fragrant steam billowed out.
Peeling back the leaves revealed two mountain chickens, roasted to crispy perfection. The puppet servant deftly pulled them apart with silver chopsticks—crispy on the outside, tender and juicy inside, the bones brittle and the meat plump.
It was the finest beggar’s chicken one could imagine.
Luo Luo stood frozen by the table.
Yesterday, she’d casually asked Holy Maiden Wu Xie for these chickens just to keep her busy. She’d completely forgotten—both she and Li Zhaoye were chickens raised by their master.
Who in their right mind would eat their own kind?
Her body trembled slightly as she took a deep breath, about to order the puppet to take the chickens away—when suddenly, her vision blurred.
The Divine Lord teleported over.
Then teleported away.
The ornate table was now empty. Without a word, he’d taken the chickens for himself.
Luo Luo: "..."
Hogging all the food—how shameless. Truly a dog. Only dogs were this possessive over their meals.
He paused mid-action, then slowly turned his head halfway, his gaze eerie. "I’m hogging the food? Come here, then. I’ll give you the chicken butt."
Luo Luo: "..."
Truly worthy of being a Divine Lord—he always had a miraculous way of making her forget her sorrows.
He beckoned. "Come."
She sat down across from him and watched as he picked up a drumstick, chewing through meat and bone alike.
Crunch crunch—down it went, bones and all.
Li Zhaoye had also liked gnawing on bones, as if his teeth itched and he needed something hard to grind them against, or else his whole body would feel restless.
"Eat."
He pushed a chicken butt toward her.
Before Luo Luo could even react, he picked out another one for her.
Two chicken butts, neatly arranged before her.
Luo Luo: "..."
She wanted to scream. She wanted to claw at the floor. She wanted to crawl around the palace like a madwoman!
He lifted a lazy eyelid. "Really not eating?"
Luo Luo shook her head indignantly.
Two breaths later, not a single bone remained on the table.
He truly had no qualms about what he ate—just like Li Zhaoye.
Back then, whenever Luo Luo spat out chicken bones, Li Zhaoye would always look pained, staring at her mouth as if he wanted to fish the discarded bones out and chew on them himself.
And now, this guy was doing the same thing—his gaze lingering on her lips as if he were still hungry.
Luo Luo: "?"
She hurriedly said, "I didn’t take a single bite from you."
His pupils shifted slightly, the dark marks in his irises turning away.
His throat bobbed as he let out a vague mm.
Something felt off.
It wasn’t that the chicken was lacking—it was just that, as he ate, he couldn’t help but recall another flavor from last night.
Sweeter, softer, more delicate. It had set his blood boiling.
But he hadn’t had enough. Why hadn’t he had enough?
Annoyed, he turned his gaze back to her, looking for trouble.
"Are you stupid?" he asked.
Luo Luo: "?"
What kind of baseless insult was this?
He rapped the table impatiently with his knuckles. "That pretty boy already ran off with someone else, yet you’re still pining day and night, never letting it go. Are you deliberately disturbing my peace?"
Luo Luo didn’t know how to explain.
The Divine Lord had witnessed the whole farce at Tai Xuan Sect—her fiancé’s betrayal, her desperate attempt to drug him.
"Li Zhaoye" and Gu Menglang were all lovey-dovey, while she, Luo Luo, kept calling his name in her heart a thousand times over.
What a cliché, melodramatic mess!
How pathetic.
She forced out the words: "It’s not like that. The Li Zhaoye I’m thinking of… he’s already dead."
His face remained expressionless as he let out a cold laugh. "Ha."
He tapped the table.
"Pathetic," he sneered. "Your fiancé betrays you, and your response is to curse him to death?"
Luo Luo pressed her lips together.
She knew he’d misunderstood—thinking she was so bitter that she’d deluded herself into wishing death upon someone.
A mix of indignation, anger, and sorrow welled up inside her, but before she could sort through it, he spoke again, his voice eerily calm—
"You should kill him yourself."
Luo Luo blinked, then nodded so vigorously her head became a blur.
Of course the one she most wanted to kill was that "Li Zhaoye"!
He scoffed. "You’re so lovesick you’d die for him, yet you’re nodding like this?"
Luo Luo froze, belatedly realizing… her thoughts about Li Zhaoye and that "Li Zhaoye" were so tangled that, to him, she must sound like some lovesick fool torn between love and hate.
How embarrassing.
But this Divine Lord was wicked and unpredictable—she couldn’t possibly tell him that Li Zhaoye had been possessed by Daoist Xuan Yi. This was a matter of life and death for the sect… Wait! Stop thinking! Change the subject! Quick, think of something else—anything—like, uh, trashy romance novels—
Too late.
The Divine Lord’s eyes lit with understanding. "Ah. Possession. So that’s how it is."
Luo Luo’s soul withered.
She stared at him, dead-eyed, suddenly feeling like a crab sprawled pathetically on the bed.
Don’t ask why she thought of that—she just really wanted to cast off all restraints and scuttle sideways in circles, over and over and over…
His lashes lowered, the dark marks in his eyes shifting slightly.
After a long silence, he kept his head bowed and asked quietly, "For the one who possessed him… you must hate him to the bone?"
Luo Luo nodded: "Of course. Not just hate—utter disgust. If they cross my path, I’ll kill every single one—"
Just as she was about to continue, she looked up to find him smiling at her.
His thin lips curled slightly, his dark, abyss-like eyes glinting with a cold light as he drawled, "This venerable one seems to be a soul usurper as well."
He tilted his head closer, posing a lethal question: "Don’t you want to kill me?"
Luo Luo shook her head: "No, you couldn’t be."
He chuckled: "Why couldn’t I?"
He wanted to see how she’d take back the words she’d just spoken.
Luo Luo answered honestly: "How could you possibly usurp the Divine Master? You’re just a brainless fish."
A fish who’d lost half his head walking down the road—or so he’d claimed.
He: "..."
Now he was genuinely furious.
A puppet servant approached to clear the plates.
Luo Luo studied it, suddenly sensing something amiss.
"Divine Master? Divine Master! DIVINE MASTER!"
The one who’d been sulking in one-sided silence finally turned his head, casting her an indifferent glance.
Luo Luo remained blissfully unaware of the "cold war": "Divine Master, look at this puppet. It doesn’t resemble plants, stones, or crane-birds."
Divine cultivators, borrowing the power of the Great Dao, typically animated puppets in three forms: plant puppets for delicate tasks, stone puppets for heavy labor, and crane-bird puppets for aerial deliveries.
But this one defied categorization—clearly female, yet its origins were inscrutable.
He smiled wordlessly, letting Luo Luo lean in for a closer inspection.
Only when her nose nearly brushed the puppet did he lazily remark, "Corpse puppet."
Luo Luo’s horror arrived a beat late: "...?!?!"
He helpfully pointed at its abdomen.
Following his gesture, Luo Luo noticed the hollow emptiness beneath its robes.
He leaned over, lifting the fabric to reveal—
Luo Luo: "..."
This Divine Master had no sense of propriety, just like Li Zhaoye!
Li Zhaoye would strip corpses regardless of gender or age during examinations.
What Luo Luo saw was a gaping hole.
The corpse puppet’s abdomen was split in two, as if something had torn its way out.
Luo Luo sucked in a sharp breath.
She knew each Divine Master clawed their way into the world by ripping through their mothers—including the current one.
His eyes curved in amusement: "Seems the old witch wants you. Go on."
Luo Luo: "..."
Her straightforward mind couldn’t grasp these convoluted hints.
Why would Holy Maiden Wu Xie send a corpse puppet (possibly the Divine Mother) delivering roast chicken as an invitation?
Unfathomable.
With an "Oh," she turned to leave.
At the threshold, he called after her: "Hey—if you don’t understand, keep quiet. Don’t let them see you’re an idiot."
Luo Luo: "..."
You’re the real beast here!
The corpse puppet led Luo Luo across the vast training grounds, through corridors beyond the rotating Taiqi seal’s glow.
Holy Maiden Wu Xie waited beneath a black pagoda, sleeves folded.
Taking his advice, Luo Luo greeted her with a cryptic nod.
Wu Xie gestured for her to enter the tower.
The pagoda loomed impossibly high, its peak obscured by the swirling black-and-white seal summoning thunder—a counterpart to the divine palace’s mountain-top array.
The iron doors groaned shut behind them.
With a wave of Wu Xie’s hand, ghostly green lights flickered along the walls, casting a cold, oppressive glow that made Luo Luo grimace.
Noticing her discomfort, Wu Xie waved again.
Metal clanked as a floor-to-ceiling window opened on the eastern wall, flooding the space with sunlight.
"You’re clever," Wu Xie said. "I prefer clever conversation partners."
Luo Luo: "..."
Flattered, but you’ve mistaken me for the one whose eyeballs got split by lightning.
Wu Xie stated impassively: "You saw the corpse puppet. Correct—it birthed the current Divine Master."
Luo Luo: "Oh."
Wu Xie: "As you witnessed, coupling with the Divine Master has two outcomes."
Either madness in the cold palace, or death and puppetification.
Wu Xie: "You have a bright future. I understand not wanting ruin. Since you’ve avoided his favor, let me offer an alternative."
Their eyes met.
Wu Xie was momentarily taken aback.
This young woman’s inscrutability surpassed even her own millennia-honed discernment.
Luo Luo: Can that bastard still hear my thoughts from this far?
When Luo Luo stayed silent, Wu Xie sighed and continued: "Have another woman take your place. He favors you now, so this requires your... assistance."
Luo Luo understood: "You want me to drug him?"
Wu Xie smiled.
"Once the next Divine Master is born, this one will sacrifice himself to seal the divine temple—for the world’s sake." Wu Xie spoke conspiratorially. "Thus, we both gain freedom."
A self-aware Divine Master was dangerous. Best disposed of promptly.
Luo Luo asked: "What if he refuses?"
She knew he’d rather end the world than die.
Wu Xie: "Leave that to us."
Luo Luo pressed: "What if I refuse?"
Wu Xie shrugged lightly: "You’ve no choice. Unless you prefer death."
Service meant certain death. Compliance was the only option.
The carrot followed the stick.
Wu Xie painted grand promises: "Once you administer Yu Fusheng, we’ll handle the rest. In return—treasures, artifacts, elixirs, manuals... The upcoming Ascendancy Summit—don’t you want to dethrone that betrayer Chen Xuanyi?"
Luo Luo’s pupils contracted.
The Ascendancy Summit.
Three years ago, Li Zhaoye had dominated the competition, claiming the Cliff’s Edge crown.
Luo Luo, leg broken, watched from her wheelchair as her master pushed her through the crowd, forced to witness his triumph.
This time, Chen Xuanyi would compete.
Crushing him beneath her feet—how could she not crave that?
Wu Xie strolled to the window, leaving Luo Luo to ponder.
"Agree," a man’s voice suddenly murmured in her ear.
Luo Luo’s heart skipped a beat as she turned her head, catching sight of a faint crimson thread as delicate as spider silk.
It hovered near her ear, vibrating softly, carrying a voice only she could hear.
The thread swayed slightly, guiding her gaze upward to where that figure loomed like a ghostly shadow high on the tower wall, his expression lazy as he idly tugged the sealing thread drawn from beneath his collarbone.
As if flying a kite.
Luo Luo: “…”
Her thoughts raced: I know the secrets of the Divine Palace—how could they truly let me leave? This is a scheme! I won’t agree, even if you hadn’t come!
He chuckled. “You have no choice. Even if they really let you go, you’re no match for them. Your talent isn’t enough, and neither is the time left to you.”
Luo Luo: “…”
Infuriating. As if I didn’t already know that! Why did he have to say it?!
Chen Xuanyi had the body of a Nascent Soul cultivator and the soul of a Daoist, wielded the Taiyi Sword, and stirred chaos in the Netherworld—his cultivation had soared to who-knew-what heights.
And her? A mere Golden Core cultivator.
Suddenly, he smiled again. “But I have a way.”
Luo Luo eyed him skeptically.
“That medicine contains abundant spiritual energy.” He nodded at her. “Ask her for Yu Fusheng—the more, the better. I’ll train you in the dream realm.”
Luo Luo pondered slowly, a tingling warmth creeping into her cheeks.
This… might actually work!
Her breath quickened as she blurted, “Give me Yu Fusheng—as much as possible!”
Holy Maiden Wu Xie’s eye twitched. “…Understood.”
“Ah, one more thing,” his voice drifted through the thread by her ear, amused. “Corpse puppets might retain fragments of their past memories. For a drug meant for multiple users, see if you can dig up anything interesting.”
This man truly had no taboos.
Luo Luo nodded and relayed faithfully, “Yu Fusheng—the kind for multiple people!”
Holy Maiden Wu Xie: “Fine. Multiple doses, multiple users. I’ll inform the three sects to arrange it. Remember—if the Divine Palace decides to kill you, even the Divine Sovereign won’t be able to protect you.”
Luo Luo answered earnestly, “I swear on my life—if the secret leaks, it won’t be because of me.”
It’s because you’re loudly scheming right in front of her, Holy Maiden!
After leaving the black tower, she’d only taken a few steps when realization struck like lightning, leaving her frozen in horror.
Her request would be announced to the world—she’d asked for Yu Fusheng, multiple doses, for multiple people.
Masters, elders, senior brothers and sisters, acquaintances and strangers, past rivals and allies—everyone would hear this scandalous news.
Her hard-earned reputation for propriety—shattered in an instant!
Life was so unfair.
