Su Wenjing stopped talking and stared at Li Yunxian blankly.
‘Did she just agree?’
Su Wenjing wanted to believe it, yet he didn’t dare to.
“What do you mean by that?” Su Wenjing eventually asked dryly.
Li Yunxian smiled but did not answer. Instead, her fingers moved slightly, forming a very simple spell.
An invisible force gave Su Wenjing a shove from behind. This spell lacked any real power, yet it directly pushed a mighty being of the tribulation stage like Su Wenjing forward one step, delivering him right in front of Li Yunxian.
Li Yunxian looked up slightly at Su Wenjing, who appeared somewhat dazed. He was both cute and interesting.
Li Yunxian could clearly feel a surge of happiness and pleasure welling up within her heart, and her eyes curved into crescents.
Having followed her feelings to make this choice, she hadn’t expected to be this happy after making the decision.
When she looked at Su Wenjing now, he suddenly felt different. No matter how she looked at him, she found him adorable. She reached out and hooked her finger into the hem of his upper garment.
Her fingertips felt his abdominal muscles suddenly tense up, and her wrist was abruptly caught in a tight grip.
“What are you doing?!” Su Wenjing looked at Li Yunxian with eyes full of shock.
Li Yunxian replied righteously with a voice tinged with laughter, “You said it yourself—anything he can do, you can do too.”
Upon hearing this, Su Wenjing’s face instantly turned shades of blue and purple.
He immediately thought of his current situation and connected it to the scenes that must have occurred between Li Yunxian and Yin Ke. Su Wenjing pressed his lips together tightly, feeling somewhat at a loss.
Everything happening now left him feeling dazzled. It all seemed too fast.
‘Is this how it is? Is this right?’
Su Wenjing felt he finally understood what it was like for one’s head to feel like a pile of mush.
However, the strength in the hand gripping Li Yunxian’s wrist suddenly lightened significantly, as if he had already finished some internal struggle and was preparing to slowly compromise.
It was a very smooth transition.
Only Su Wenjing’s voice remained stubborn as he clung to his point. “So, he let you do these things too?”
Li Yunxian blinked, putting on an innocent look. “Not really. Yin Ke was actually quite observant of etiquette.”
“Besides, I was quite young at the time,” Li Yunxian added, her voice carrying a hint of regret.
Su Wenjing, whose emotions were being toyed with and tossed up and down by Li Yunxian’s words: “…”
But knowing that Li Yunxian was only like this toward him, Su Wenjing couldn’t help but feel a bit happy. However, he soon felt Li Yunxian’s mischievous fingers on his abdomen again.
Something was wrong! He was being toyed with by Li Yunxian again!
“Li Yunxian!” Su Wenjing shouted her name in anger.
Li Yunxian, however, thought that Su Wenjing looked quite handsome even when he was angry and annoyed. Thus…
Li Yunxian leaned up again and kissed Su Wenjing’s lips softly. She asked with a smile, “Is it not allowed?”
Su Wenjing stopped talking. He wasn’t angry anymore, and he no longer cared about Li Yunxian’s mischievous hand.
Whether it was allowed or not didn’t even enter Su Wenjing’s ears. Instinctively, he chased after Li Yunxian’s retreating lips and kissed her deeply. It wasn’t just a light peck.
Li Yunxian didn’t close her eyes. She looked into Su Wenjing’s narrow fox eyes; they seemed to be both seductive and filled with a fierce longing.
‘He really is good-looking.’
Li Yunxian allowed herself to be immersed in the moment. But sensing Li Yunxian’s enjoyment, Su Wenjing couldn’t help but feel annoyed again, and he bit her lip.
Li Yunxian let out a soft hiss and pushed Su Wenjing away. “Why are you unhappy again?”
Su Wenjing looked at Li Yunxian with an unpleasant expression. He recalled the words she had said to him. Things like ‘you are the best-looking’ or ‘using your beauty to commit crimes.’
‘Could this person just be craving my looks?!’
Every time he asked Li Yunxian for an answer, she always brushed him off! This person probably had no intention of taking responsibility for him at all!
The more Su Wenjing thought about it, the more unwilling he became. He was the type of person who followed his own heart and would not compromise, so he chose to press her again.
“Aren’t you going to give me an answer?” Su Wenjing asked crossly.
Li Yunxian finally realized what Su Wenjing was being so awkward about. She chuckled softly, then turned the question back on him. “But you haven’t officially asked me, have you?”
All Su Wenjing had said was ‘he could do it too,’ hadn’t he?
However, Li Yunxian didn’t dwell on such trivial details. She was very frank as she raised her hands to hook around Su Wenjing’s neck, whispering into his ear, “I like you.”
“I like you,” Li Yunxian said with a smile. “Is that enough?”
Su Wenjing: “…”
He pulled Li Yunxian into a tight embrace. Although his entire frame was one size larger than hers, he managed to bury himself into her embrace.
“Me too,” Su Wenjing said.
“I thought you would reject me,” he added in a muffled voice.
At the very least, when Su Wenjing had transformed from his little fox form into a human and spoken those nearly coercive words to Li Yunxian, what he had expected to receive was a very clear and direct rejection.
He didn’t want to hear any love stories about Li Yunxian and Yin Ke. He didn’t want to see how sweet they had been together. What Su Wenjing wanted was a definite answer that would allow him to give up.
That way, he could move aside with a clear conscience. He would only need to appear by her side at the final moment to ensure she didn’t lose herself within the ruins.
In the end… he got a positive answer. Li Yunxian liked him too.
She liked him.
Su Wenjing’s heart was completely filled with joy, followed by a surge of bitterness and resentment. Thinking about what he was about to face…
“You’re too much!” Su Wenjing said through gritted teeth. “How am I supposed to watch you date that guy next?”
In the heaven’s ruins, one had to relive the past. Just watching Li Yunxian and Yin Ke plant a tree and exchange sweet words had been irritating enough.
There would be much more to come. And he could only watch from the side, unable to do anything.
Just thinking about it made Su Wenjing half-dead with anger. But there was nothing he could do. If it were some other marker, he could just say ‘forget it’ and find another way out.
But this was a manifestation of Li Yunxian’s missing divine soul. He couldn’t just leave it.
Su Wenjing tightened his hold on Li Yunxian.
Li Yunxian’s eyes crinkled. She stroked Su Wenjing’s long silver hair and conveniently rubbed his large fox ears. She liked all these parts of him. As for the troubles he voiced, she liked those too.
“You’re right. How could I do something so cruel?” Li Yunxian asked him back.
Su Wenjing was stunned.
Ignoring his reaction, Li Yunxian continued, “The moment I actually saw Yin Ke, I confirmed that those feelings belong to the past.”
When she had seen Yin Ke, her first reaction had been to follow his words and look at Su Wenjing, thinking he was cute.
Perhaps there was nostalgia, but the past was the past. She had already accepted Yin Ke’s death. She had already let go.
“I don’t want to follow some script of the past.” Li Yunxian’s eyes were full of confidence. “I don’t believe there is only one way to successfully obtain a result in the heaven’s ruins.”
“Others have to accept the past because they haven’t accepted their past selves,” Li Yunxian said.
Fu Ling’s failure was based on this. Even though she understood the principles, she couldn’t accept the death of her family; she felt it was her own fault.
But Li Yunxian had always been able to accept it. She didn’t feel the need to ‘re-accept’ any past.
“The me of now is the me of now. Forcing myself to relive my past experiences just to call it ‘accepting the past’—I don’t agree with that.”
“This is my past, and this is my divine soul. Therefore, they should follow my current heart and obey my feelings,” Li Yunxian declared.
As her words fell, Su Wenjing felt the surrounding environment begin to vibrate.
He released his hold on Li Yunxian and stood up, staring blankly at his surroundings. He felt that the area had changed, yet it also seemed like nothing had changed.
“You… you reclaimed this piece of the past?” Su Wenjing looked at Li Yunxian in disbelief.
At this point, they had been inside this memory for less than one day.
Li Yunxian looked down at herself. Or rather, she was sensing her own divine soul. She could feel that after that vibration, her body and mind had suddenly become light and complete.
It was as if a gap deep within her soul had been filled. Her soul shard had returned.
“It seems so.” Li Yunxian gave a small smile, her gaze bypassing Su Wenjing to look behind him.
Su Wenjing turned around and saw a person standing not far away. Yin Ke. He didn’t know when the man had arrived.
But at this moment, it didn’t matter. This wasn’t the man himself; it was essentially an impression residing within Li Yunxian’s memories and soul.
After all, Li Yunxian had given up on the other and chosen him. Su Wenjing raised an eyebrow slightly at the figure.
“Are you leaving?” Yin Ke asked Li Yunxian, appearing as if he didn’t see Su Wenjing at all, still possessing that gentle and pure appearance.
Li Yunxian rose from her chair, her eyes looking at Yin Ke with warmth as she softly replied, “Yes.”
“I won’t bless you,” Yin Ke stated bluntly.
“I know,” Li Yunxian replied softly, her expression unchanged. “I won’t bless you either.”
Yin Ke laughed once, appearing somewhat carefree and satisfied. Eventually, his figure dissipated along with the crumbling of this past world.
Su Wenjing watched all of this with a cold face, then grumbled as he walked to Li Yunxian’s side, sounding quite unhappy. “What did you say that to him for?”
Li Yunxian’s eyes curved. “Those were the words we said when we broke up and I left the Yin mansion.”
It applied to the past, and it applied to the now.
Su Wenjing’s expression still betrayed his dissatisfaction with Yin Ke. He could hear the thick blend of love and hate in that brief dialogue. How could he possibly be happy?
“Let’s not talk about it then. You probably don’t want to hear it, do you?” Li Yunxian said.
Su Wenjing: “…”
“It’s not that I don’t want to hear it,” Su Wenjing said.
Having received Li Yunxian’s response and being firmly chosen by her, Su Wenjing’s facial expression was one thing, but his internal state was another. His mind was very stable now.
Thus, things that were originally hard to accept weren’t that difficult anymore. Instead, he wanted to understand Li Yunxian even more. He wanted to know her past—the past that didn’t include him.
Li Yunxian’s eyes twinkled. “So you do want to hear it.”
Su Wenjing: “…”
He was the winner; what was there to be afraid of hearing! Su Wenjing straightened his back.
Li Yunxian chuckled and asked him, “Then, where did I leave off?”
Su Wenjing: “…”
“…You two eloped.”
“You certainly remember that clearly,” Li Yunxian teased.
Su Wenjing was annoyed. “…Are you going to tell the story or not!”
“Fine, I’ll tell it.” Li Yunxian laughed, looking at the surrounding environment. She estimated that the collapse of the world would take a while longer.
The transformation required for her to successfully accommodate the divine soul would take longer than Fu Ling’s failure had.
So, she might as well speak of it.
“It couldn’t exactly be called an elopement; it was just that Yin Ke and I finally lived a free life,” Li Yunxian said.
“Without the troubles of the family, although we lived in poverty, we were very happy. We met many people and acted as heroes.”
“Our cultivation levels both rose rapidly.”
Escaping an environment where everyone but themselves seemed to be a burden—was that not beneficial for one’s cultivation?
“He reached the Nascent Soul Stage, and I reached the Jindan great perfection.”