The black mountain cave had no windows.
Only the faint violet glow of dying spirit crystals and the wet sound of breathing
They had stopped counting days
Time here was measured in the intervals between deviations
Su Qingxue sat naked against the cold stone wall, knees drawn to her chest. Between her thighs lay a shard of phoenix ice, thin as paper, sharp as regret. She had not cut herself tonight. Not yet
Instead she stared at the small pool of her own blood from yesterday—already dried into a perfect crimson mandala on the floor. She had arranged it carefully, like an alchemist arranging ingredients
"I used to believe," she said to no one, voice cracked from disuse, "that love was the strongest force in the heavens. That it could redeem any sin.
She laughed once—short, hollow
"Now I understand. Love is the heaviest chain. The more you pull, the deeper it cuts.
Across the chamber, Ling Xue'er knelt before a small pile of ashes
Every night she wrote the same letter on rice paper
Senior Brother Zhao
I still remember the day you gave me this hairpin. You said it would shine brighter than any moon when we stood together at the altar
Tonight it shines while another man is inside me
I hate you for not being enough
I hate myself more
Then she burned it
Mixed the ashes into her qi-gathering pill
Swallowed
The taste was always the same: charcoal and guilt
She looked up at Xiao Yang
He sat in the center of the chamber, naked, eyes open but unfocused
His yang essence still leaked faintly from his skin—golden vapor that made the air taste of iron and sex
He had not spoken in two days
The system had not chimed either
For the first time since rebirth, it was silent
As though even the mechanism of damnation had grown bored
Xiao Yang finally moved
He rose without sound and walked to Su Qingxue
He knelt before her
He took the ice shard from her unresisting fingers
He pressed the point against the inside of her thigh—exactly where she always did
Then he looked into her eyes
"Do you want me to cut deeper tonight?" he asked. His voice was calm. Almost gentle
"Or do you want me to stop pretending this is punishment?
Su Qingxue's pupils dilated
She leaned forward until their foreheads touched
"I want you to hate me," she whispered. "I want you to see what you've made of me and recoil
Because if you still want me after that… then there really is no hell left to fear.
He dragged the shard upward—slowly—drawing a single red line that bloomed like a flower
She did not flinch
She only smiled
A tear fell from her eye and landed on the wound
It burned
Ling Xue'er crawled over
She pressed her mouth to the fresh cut
Licked the blood
Then looked up at Xiao Yang with eyes that no longer held any light
"Use me next," she said. "Make me bleed where the hairpin sits
Make me scream his name until my throat ruptures
I need to hear how broken the sound is.
Xiao Yang looked at both of them
Then he looked at his own hands—still faintly golden
He thought about the first time he died
About the sword through his dantian
About how clean the pain had been compared to this
He spoke quietly, almost to himself
"I thought I was stealing them from their men
But I was only borrowing them from themselves
And the debt is due in full.
He dropped the ice shard
It shattered on the stone
The sound was very small
Very final
Outside the cave, the sky had turned the color of old bruises
Another tribulation was gathering
This one would not be lightning
This one would be memory
It would show them every moment they had once believed in something greater than hunger
And when it passed—if it passed—they would be stronger
But they would also be less
Less human
Less capable of lying to themselves
Less able to pretend that love was ever anything but mutual cannibalism
Xiao Yang lay down between them
They wrapped around him like vines grown through corpses
No one moved to kiss
No one moved to fuck
They only breathed
And in the silence between breaths, the system finally spoke again
Not with a chime
Just a single line of text that burned behind his eyes
You were never the hunter
You were always the grave
The tribulation began to howl
And none of them looked up
Because they already knew what it would show them
They had lived it. .....:......"....."....."...".......,:.".".....them looked up.
Because they already knew what it would show them.
They had lived it.