Heat. Unbearable heat.
His thoughts were muddled, his consciousness drifting in a boundless haze.
Xu Ziqing had no idea where he was. He sensed only a violently restless energy circling around him. Whenever he struggled toward wakefulness, it dragged his consciousness back into endless darkness.
Perhaps a very long time passed. Perhaps it was only an instant. Suddenly an agonizing pain swept through his entire body, as though countless ants were gnawing at his heart and raging flames were burning him alive. His meridians and skin seemed to tear apart and heal over and over. At last, driven by a powerful thought, he opened his eyes!
But what he saw was still darkness, deep and thick as the blackest night.
Xu Ziqing realized he was lying on his back. There was no sky overhead, no sun, moon, or stars. When he tried to spread his spiritual sense, he discovered it could perceive only the area within one zhang of him.
He attempted to move.
His limbs were limp, his body powerless. Even his dantian was empty, as though he had suffered terrible injuries.
…What had happened?
Suddenly Xu Ziqing jolted. Senior Brother!
He wanted to rise immediately. He remembered now. Before losing consciousness, he had been rushing toward Yun Lie. Something unknown had struck him, and he had passed out. So where was his senior brother?
Xu Ziqing could scarcely move. The sense that his limbs and torso no longer obeyed him made him feel, for one terrifying instant, as though he had returned to his first life. Back then, although he had occasionally been able to leave his bed, he had more often been in precisely this condition, capable of moving little besides his head.
Yes. He could still move his head.
Desperate to understand his circumstances, Xu Ziqing laboriously turned toward the left.
What he saw left him stunned.
Some ten zhang away, a figure stood perfectly upright.
The figure was shrouded in ink-black darkness. Xu Ziqing could barely make out that it was a man. A dangerous, ominous aura emanated from him.
That alone might not have been astonishing.
What truly shocked Xu Ziqing was that this man was unmistakably Yun Lie.
Xu Ziqing would never mistake him. His senior brother’s silhouette was etched so deeply into his memory that he could recognize it even if it dissolved into dust and smoke.
Yet Yun Lie’s sword intent ordinarily reached toward the heavens. He was a formidable sword cultivator who used killing to stop killing but steadfastly upheld his principles as an immortal-path cultivator. How could he possibly look so unnatural and sinister?
Or rather… what had happened to him?
Xu Ziqing grew anxious. Perfected Master Luofu had clearly been a generous, benevolent elder of the immortal path. Yet this place was saturated with demonic energy. How could it possibly be an immortal cultivator’s sanctuary?
Yes, he had finally recognized it. The substance thick as ink that filled the region was not ordinary darkness. It was demonic energy concentrated to an extraordinary degree. As a Essence Transformation cultivator of the immortal path, Xu Ziqing had exhausted the true essence in his dantian merely resisting its corruption in order to survive.
All this had happened while he was unconscious. Only when his strength was nearly spent and he had been reduced to something like a mortal did an instinctive warning of mortal danger force him awake.
Otherwise he might have died in his sleep.
Seeing his own condition only deepened Xu Ziqing’s worry for Yun Lie.
He opened his mouth. After gathering strength for a long time, he finally forced out, “Se… Senior Brother…”
Boom!
A roar like a thunderclap and a violent gust sounded together. An ink-black figure crossed the distance in an instant.
Xu Ziqing had no time to react before an overwhelming presence descended upon him, looming above his body.
Long strands of hair brushed against his cheek. His pupils contracted. A face he knew intimately was suddenly so close that their noses almost touched, their breaths mingling.
A faint metallic scent and an all-encompassing chill surrounded him. Xu Ziqing felt completely trapped beneath the man above him, as though everything else in the world had disappeared.
It was Yun Lie, his senior brother. But the circumstances were terribly strange.
Yun Lie braced his arms on either side of Xu Ziqing and positioned his legs around him, almost pinning him beneath his body. Xu Ziqing was trapped within the space enclosed by Yun Lie’s limbs.
Ordinarily, such closeness would have made him blush with embarrassment. Now, however, he could not summon a single romantic thought.
All his attention was drawn to Yun Lie’s eyes.
They were an extraordinarily profound black. The entire surface of each eye had turned opaque, with neither pupil nor white visible, dark as black glass or deep ink jade.
They scarcely resembled human eyes. They seemed to have become something unnatural.
Xu Ziqing recognized what filled them: demonic energy.
Senior Brother… seemed to have fallen into demonic corruption.
But how was that possible, given his willpower?
For a moment, Xu Ziqing wished he could turn back time, that he had not fainted so uselessly and could have seen what had happened to his senior brother.
Just then, Yun Lie leaned closer.
Tilting his head slightly so their noses no longer met, he approached until they touched.
Xu Ziqing felt something cool against his lips, and his eyes widened.
Th-this was…
He had never imagined kissing his senior brother. No, perhaps this was merely their lips touching. But everything was so strange that he could not feel happy, even at such an intimate moment. Instead he was seized by apprehension.
In his alarm, Xu Ziqing used the little strength he had regained to push against Yun Lie’s chest.
But Yun Lie immediately caught his raised hand and pressed it above his head, leaving him more defenseless than before.
Throughout, Yun Lie’s lips remained against his without moving.
Having exhausted his last reserves of strength, Xu Ziqing felt an almost helpless urge to laugh.
In the past, simply holding Yun Lie’s hand had filled him with boundless joy. Now they were closer than ever. If his senior brother were fully conscious, Xu Ziqing might have believed that his feelings had been discovered and they were on the verge of confessing everything.
But Yun Lie seemed to have entered a demonic state. What could such a gesture mean when he was like this?
Unable to make sense of it, Xu Ziqing sighed inwardly and stopped trying.
Demonically corrupted or not, Yun Lie was still his senior brother. If Yun Lie wanted to remain like this, so be it. Xu Ziqing would not regard their touching lips as a true kiss, and his tangled thoughts subsided. He relaxed, allowing Yun Lie to stay as close as he wished while silently attempting to circulate the little true essence remaining in his dantian and recover his cultivation.
About half a shichen later, Yun Lie slowly released him.
Xu Ziqing felt himself lifted. A supporting force settled beneath his back and knees: his demonically corrupted senior brother had picked him up in his arms.
Powerless, Xu Ziqing leaned against Yun Lie’s chest. The posture was intimate, quite different from the ways Yun Lie had helped him before.
But at the same time, he noticed Yun Lie’s body was cold.
Terribly cold, like profound ice that had endured for ten thousand years, without a trace of warmth.
This was not how his senior brother had felt before.
Xu Ziqing clearly remembered clinging to Yun Lie’s back, being picked up like a small child, and holding hands with him. Every time, Yun Lie’s body had been faintly warm. Never burning hot, but steady and reassuring.
Like a father and elder brother, a teacher and friend. His most cherished family member, and the person he loved.
But now…
Xu Ziqing nestled a little closer. Now Yun Lie was cold. Xu Ziqing could only hope that he himself still had some warmth to give.
Yun Lie walked forward without haste. Every step was firm, just as in the past.
Xu Ziqing keenly noticed that with each step, the surrounding demonic energy parted slightly, as though afraid of Yun Lie and giving way before him.
At the same time, light began appearing ahead.
A gentle radiance flickered in the distance. As they approached, it grew brighter and the demonic energy thinner.
At the border of the light, Yun Lie stopped within the shadow.
Xu Ziqing raised his eyes in astonishment.
There was a pool!
A pool filled with lotus leaves, constructed from Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Jade.
Yun Lie gave a gentle toss. A soft force enveloped Xu Ziqing and carried him into the brilliant light.
Yun Lie remained in the shadows and did not take another step forward.
Almost immediately, Xu Ziqing’s strength began returning. Every breath brought exceptionally pure spiritual energy into his body. His cultivation art resumed circulating, and his true essence awakened.
Once he could move freely again, his first act was to turn and approach the edge of the light. Raising his head, he met Yun Lie’s pitch-black eyes and asked earnestly, “Senior Brother… what happened to you?”
Yun Lie said nothing. He merely extended a hand and slowly placed it against the side of Xu Ziqing’s face, touching him without much force.
Xu Ziqing did not evade. Yun Lie’s hand was cold enough to chill him to the bone. He also noticed that the instant it entered the light, the dense demonic energy behind Yun Lie erupted into violent turmoil, churning through the air like boiling water.
Yun Lie stood at its center. His black hair, falling below his waist, suddenly lifted without a breeze, the ends drawn upward by some invisible force. The demonic energy split swiftly to either side, opening a long passage.
A strange plant stood silently within it.
Entirely black and without leaves, it bore a single fist-sized blossom at the top of its bare stem. The flower was an eerie red.
An overpowering sweet scent drifted outward. Xu Ziqing accidentally breathed in a little, and his Dao heart immediately began to waver.
It felt on the verge of collapsing.
Horrified, Xu Ziqing cried, “Senior Brother! That’s the Seven Emotions Demon Mara! You…”
Yun Lie remained expressionless. Apart from his strange eyes, he appeared little different from before.
Then he spoke: “Who are you?”