The Illusion Shattered

Jiang Jinyue stood silently, her gaze falling upon Ye Jinghuang, as if scrutinizing a dust-laden antique.

That face, once vibrant and bold, bearing the regal majesty of an empress, now held only a pallid, deathly aura.

Tears, mingled with smeared makeup, carved desolate furrows across the ruined expanse, each line a mockery etched by fate itself.

A heavy, almost palpable scent of decay emanated from her—the very scent of a heart that had died.

She parted her vermilion lips, appearing about to speak.

Suddenly, Mo Tingbei’s heart felt as if it were seized by an invisible, icy spectral claw!

A sense of profound dread, almost an instinctual terror, erupted without warning from the depths of his soul.

So potent and ominous was this sensation that it compelled his broken body to unleash an unimaginable surge of power.

He struggled violently, sitting upright despite the warm liquid gushing from his torn wounds.

With every ounce of his strength, he seized Jiang Jinyue’s slender, seemingly boneless jade hand, pulling her decisively behind him.

A flicker of surprise and delight briefly crossed Jiang Jinyue’s eyes.

She distinctly perceived a flash of anxiety and concern on Mo Tingbei’s face, a countenance usually as placid as an ancient well.

Without hesitation, she gripped his cold hand even more firmly, as if to imbue him with all her resolution and strength.

A silent cry echoed deep within her heart: ‘Senior Brother Mo, do you see? Yue’er is no longer the little junior sister who needed you to shield her. This time, it’s my turn to protect you!’

With her free hand, she nonchalantly formed a spell.

A gentle yet irresistible wind manifested from thin air, carefully cradling Mo Tingbei, who was now teetering and bleeding from his reopened wounds due to his forceful struggles.

The wind held him securely within its vortex.

Mo Tingbei felt a momentary daze.

The face before him, like that of a deity from the clouds, merged strangely with the adorable junior sister from his deepest memories—the one who, though still childish, always tried to act grown-up with a stern little face, and occasionally broke character to reveal a mischievous smile after he teased her.

Time, in that instant, seemed to flow backward.

Jiang Jinyue’s voice, like that of an oriole, resounded beside his ear, a telepathic message Mo Tingbei knew was meant only for him: “Senior Brother, you needn’t worry; Yue’er no longer fears that karma.”

The moment Jiang Jinyue’s confident words rang out, the dread in Mo Tingbei’s heart vanished.

He had expected to feel a measure of desolation, a touch of melancholy, upon witnessing his former junior sister, whom he once protected, now standing at an unattainable height.

Unexpectedly, however, a faint sense of solace welled up within his heart instead.

He suddenly recalled the expression of profound satisfaction his master had worn when he had once defeated a challenging archenemy on his master’s behalf.

‘So, I too can achieve such serenity now,’ he mused.

As his state of mind shifted, Mo Tingbei’s aura underwent an incomprehensible leap in an unperceivable fraction of an instant!

It was as if a single drop of water had abruptly transformed into an boundless galaxy, his life, once a flickering mortal candle on the brink of extinction, suddenly ascending to a realm subtly on par with the vast and profound aura emanating from Jiang Jinyue.

Yet, all of this transpired in but a fleeting moment.

Mo Tingbei merely sensed a strange, fleeting feeling—as if he could command heaven and earth—before it vanished.

When he recovered his senses, his cultivation remained utterly lost.

All of this remained indistinct even within Mo Tingbei’s own perception, let alone for anyone else.

Even Jiang Jinyue, standing so close and possessing supreme power, failed to detect that transient, ‘inhuman’ aura.

She loathed using powers beyond the established boundaries to pry into human hearts, for in her eyes, the darkness and defilement of the human heart far surpassed the Nine Netherworld’s tainted earth that nourished myriad demons.

Moreover, when she was with Mo Tingbei, she desired only to perceive him with the purest of gazes.

She cherished the unspoken understanding between them; a single glance, a subtle expression, was enough to surpass the scrutiny of a myriad of divine senses.

At this moment, the long-absent, pure concern and solace in Mo Tingbei’s eyes melted the ice in her heart like a warm sun.

It was as if she had returned to that carefully treasured, best of times.

Cultivators, by nature, were the most avaricious beings between heaven and earth.

Those capable of transcending that boundary possessed a depth of desire so profound that even the ancient Tāotiè (TL Note: Tāotiè, a mythical beast from ancient Chinese mythology known for its insatiable greed and gluttony), fabled to devour heaven and earth, could not hope to match it.

The avarice lurking within Jiang Jinyue’s heart was far greater and more… perilous than that of Ye Jinghuang or Lin Xiaoxiao.

Lin Xiaoxiao watched the ‘exchanges of glances’ between her Master and Senior Uncle, her unease and jealousy intensifying with each passing moment.

Her fingers twisted frantically, almost abrading her delicate skin.

She completely forgot about Ye Jinghuang, who was lost in self-pity to the point of oblivion.

A far greater threat had emerged!

The sobbing Ye Jinghuang had utterly lost the composure and sharp perceptiveness she once held as empress, sinking into a mire of regret and resentment from which she could not extricate herself.

Just then, Jiang Jinyue’s voice, as placid as still water, echoed through the prison.

“I severed all worldly attachments and past karmic ties long ago.

The affection you cling to was merely a fleeting illusion, a ‘mirror flower, water moon’ (TL Note: A Chinese idiom referring to something beautiful but ultimately illusory and unattainable), crafted for you by a puppet I left behind.”

“Even my father and mother, they too passed away long ago.

The warmth you remember was simply a beautiful dream I bestowed upon you.”

The final sentence, like a definitive judgment, utterly crushed Ye Jinghuang’s last vestiges of illusion regarding ‘A-jie’:

“Ye Qingluan was merely a karmic tie, a name I left in the mortal realm.

But ‘I’—Jiang Jinyue—was never her.”

No sooner had her words fallen than a dark crimson bolt of lightning, the width of a bowl, manifested from thin air within this underground prison, a hundred zhang (TL Note: A traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately 3.33 meters or 11 feet) beneath the surface, utterly disregarding the bricks and rubble.

It streaked directly toward Jiang Jinyue!

Two thinner tendrils, each the thickness of a chopstick, even branched off, aiming for the other two women present!

Having lost his cultivation, Mo Tingbei only reacted when the lightning bolt was mere moments from striking Jiang Jinyue.

Disregarding his bodily injuries, he lunged forward, instinctively attempting to block the malevolent assault.

Yet, how could a lone individual, whose cultivation had been crippled, possibly match the speed of that lightning?

With the lightning poised to strike, Jiang Jinyue appeared utterly oblivious to the peculiar bolt.

She simply re-gripped the strange lantern that had, at some unknown point, left her hand and hovered in mid-air.

The lantern flame, solidified into a single, jade-like entity, suddenly flared to life.

Its milky-white radiance, with unimaginable speed, engulfed the sudden lightning bolt like a tsunami, even pausing for a moment before resuming its steady flicker.

This spectacle, witnessed by all present, gave them the bizarre illusion of… a single flame burping.

Ye Jinghuang, however, paid no mind to the sudden lightning bolt.

The instant those words fell, her entire world utterly collapsed!

It was not a cataclysm of crumbling mountains and rending earth, but a profound, absolute silence.

It was as if all sound, all color, all sensation had been instantaneously siphoned away by an unseen hand.

Her mind went utterly blank, leaving only those few icy words echoing and lacerating through an endless void.

A mirror flower, water moon… a puppet… a beautiful dream… never her…

So… so her struggles, her pain, her resentment over these eight years, even her twisted dependence and desire for vengeance against Mo Tingbei… all the ‘pillars’ upon which her survival rested, whether fueled by hatred or that pitiful flicker of hope for warmth… all were false!

All were mere charity!

All were… a complete and utter farce!

“Hoh… hoh-hoh…”

A deeply peculiar, dry laugh, like the wheezing of a dilapidated bellows, was squeezed from deep within Ye Jinghuang’s throat.

The laughter grew louder, more frantic, imbued with a chilling hollowness.

Empress, hatred, Mo Tingbei… none of it held any meaning now.

Everything that had sustained her until this moment had been reduced to dust by Jiang Jinyue’s few words.

She felt as though she stood on the edge of a ten-thousand-zhang (TL Note: A traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately 3.33 meters or 11 feet) precipice, and the very last stone supporting her feet had been effortlessly pulled away.

She felt herself perpetually falling, falling… into an endless void.