“Damn it, how did it come to this…”
In the dim underground room, a white-haired girl was firmly chained to a corner of the wall.
Iron chains were locked tightly around her neck, wrists, and ankles.
Su Ling tried to see if she could break free like the protagonist of a novel, but unfortunately, there was no miracle.
She deflated completely, the ‘clatter’ of the iron chains causing her a fair amount of irritation.
She had been imprisoned by Luo Qianxue.
In this underground room without windows or even a door, it seemed the space was designed specifically for captivity.
In front of her sat a plate holding an exquisite piece of cake.
It was prepared for her by Luo Qianxue.
That jerk even told her to eat more and put on some weight so she would be ‘better to touch.’
‘Dammit! This is too much!’
‘Once she gets here, I swear I’m going to give her a nasty bite!’ Su Ling vowed viciously.
Just then, in a flash of white light, Luo Qianxue’s figure appeared before her.
Su Ling’s delicate body trembled, and the expression on her face instantly stiffened.
“Th—That… you… you’re back…”
“What did you call me?”
…
“Ma… Master…”
…
Su Ling lowered her head and spoke with a deep sense of shame.
…
Hearing this, the corners of Luo Qianxue’s mouth curled upward.
She pulled Su Ling into her arms.
“Do you know how to dance?”
“Huh?”
…
“It’s fine. Just follow me.”
Luo Qianxue supported Su Ling’s slender waist with one hand and held her hips with the other.
Su Ling’s small face instantly flushed red.
But Luo Qianxue ignored her.
Like a puppeteer, she guided Su Ling’s body into a dance within the dim underground room.
…
Clatter, clatter.
The sound of the iron chains served as the accompaniment to this absurd dance.
Su Ling tried her best to keep up with the steps, but Luo Qianxue’s pace grew faster and faster.
Thump!
The two were thrown onto the bed by their own momentum.
“Huff! Huff!”
Su Ling panted heavily, unable to understand what kind of madness had gripped Luo Qianxue.
Meanwhile, Luo Qianxue just looked at her.
“You look truly beautiful in this.”
It was a provocative outfit she had meticulously selected.
Su Ling was currently dressed very suggestively.
Luo Qianxue stared blankly at Su Ling, making Su Ling’s skin crawl.
‘A lunatic. This person is absolutely a lunatic.’
“Th—That… Master… I… can I go out?”
“Why would you want to go out?”
Luo Qianxue snapped out of her daze and tilted her head.
…
“Wasn’t this what you told me before? If someone stands in the way of what you want to obtain, then lock them up.”
“Unless… you are my enemy.”
And for an enemy, there was only one word.
Kill.
Su Ling really wanted to give herself a hard slap across the mouth.
‘Stupid mouth, why did you have to talk so much trash?’
“B—But what is it that you want?”
“The Path of Heartlessness.”
Luo Qianxue caressed Su Ling’s small face, her gaze somewhat lonely.
“The Path of Heartlessness? What exactly is that?”
Su Ling was nearly at her breaking point.
To be imprisoned for the sake of such a thing—she felt so much grievance in her heart.
Hearing this, Luo Qianxue fell into a daze.
…
Fire. Nothing but fire.
Overnight, the home she had lived in since childhood was reduced to a sea of flames.
“Run! Run quickly!”
Her mother cried as she stuffed her into the last escape pod.
She cried and tried to hug her mother, but the pod door closed, and the escape pod turned into a shooting star, fleeing her homeland.
And the last scene she saw was actually her other mother!
Her other mother, holding a long sword, expressionlessly plunged the blade into her mother’s heart!
Why?!
She wailed loudly but was soon enveloped by the deep-sea fluid of the escape pod and fell into a deep sleep.
She was only a six-year-old Ordinary Witch; she couldn’t withstand light-speed jumps, and only being encased in this special deep-sea fluid could guarantee her survival.
The tragedy of her hometown soon attracted the attention of the Witch Empire.
After a week of drifting, she finally arrived at the coordinates her mother had last set.
“Xiao Yu, she…”
The deep-sea fluid receded, and she was reawakened.
Opening her eyes, she saw a beautiful Immortal, her long hair fluttering and her brow cold.
The woman looked at the final message left by her mother in the escape pod and fell into thought.
“My name is Bu Yao. I am your mother’s close friend.”
“From now on, you are my disciple.”
She became the disciple of a Great Witch.
Yet the sea of fire from that night and the scene of her mother crying for her to escape left her unable to sleep night after night.
What she understood least of all was why the mother who was usually so affectionate toward her other mother would suddenly commit such an insane act of slaughtering their entire family.
She had asked her Master, but her Master only fell into a long silence and said nothing.
When she was eight years old, she learned that her mother had been taken to the Witch Court.
But the result of the trial was that her mother was innocent.
“Why?”
She didn’t understand.
She had clearly seen with her own eyes that it was her mother who killed their whole family.
“I don’t know.”
Bu Yao looked at her, her eyes filled with self-reproach.
“There are many things involved…”
Her Master seemed to know something but found it difficult to say.
“I want revenge.”
To that end, she embarked on the Path of Heartlessness.
Because the Path of Heartlessness was born specifically for revenge—cold, fearless, and decisive.
It meant killing all emotions just to temper that final, fatal strike.
She tempered this sword of revenge for twenty years.
The moment she broke through to become a Great Witch was to be the beginning of her revenge.
However, it had all ended before it even began.
“I know, it’s my own fault.”
Luo Qianxue clutched her hair in agony.
To temper this sword, and to make the Path of Heartlessness make this sword even more lethal and sharp, she had cut away every emotion that hindered her over these twenty years.
Witches were naturally a race of many desires.
When she was ten, she fell for a junior sister who had just entered the sect.
But the thought of revenge was like a massive stone weighing her down until she couldn’t breathe.
She used her sword to wound the junior sister who also had feelings for her, personally severing that relationship before it could even begin.
At eighteen, her body began to develop, and she craved the intimacy between witches.
During that time, she thought about those things almost every day.
The silver-bell voices and slender figures of her junior sisters were like fine wine placed before a drunkard, constantly tempting her.
That was her most painful period.
“The Path of Heartlessness is not the only choice.”
Bu Yao saw her pain.
To escape those desires, she used her sword to frantically cut her own body every day, attempting to use physical pain to suppress her lust.
“But only the Path of Heartlessness will allow me to complete my revenge faster and better.”
The Path of Heartlessness was cold and resolute; it was the easiest path for focusing one’s attention during cultivation and the one where progress was most rapid.
“And after your revenge? Have you thought about what you want to do?”
“I don’t care! I just want that woman dead!”
Thinking of the sea of fire that night, hatred bit at her heart like a venomous snake.
Her Master sighed and spoke no more.
“But everything… is ruined now…”
Luo Qianxue pinned Su Ling down, a murderous red glow flickering in her pupils.
“You broke my Path of Heartlessness…”
…
Over the past twenty years, the Path of Heartlessness had granted her unparalleled focus, allowing her cultivation to advance by leaps and bounds.
She became a standout among her peers, touching the threshold of a Great Witch at only twenty-six.
But since her Path of Heartlessness was broken, she had tried to cultivate during this past month, yet every time, her mind automatically replayed the scenes of pleasure with Su Ling from that night.
She knew that the desires she had suppressed for twenty years had found an outlet in Su Ling.
It was now impossible to plug the leak.
What terrified her even more was that she could no longer feel that thin membrane leading to the rank of Great Witch.
…
Her realm was declining.
Su Ling shivered beneath Luo Qianxue’s body.
‘Wait, your past is that heavy?’
‘But… the problem is…’
…
‘I didn’t do it on purpose!’