Alone, Beautifully – Chapter 8.2

Sharing a bridal chamber with you (end)

“Winter is about to end.”

At this moment, Xu Jiao couldn’t see Xia Jingzhe’s exact expression, nor the surrounding environment, unable to gather information, so she finally spoke a bit more.

But Xia Jingzhe only asked, “If I become the Immortal Lord, will Senior Sister love me?”

Xu Jiao: “…”

Xia Jingzhe chuckled softly twice, embraced her, and said, “Then let’s forget it… Thousands of years of loneliness are too hard to endure.” Her voice grew much quieter towards the end, as if she was about to fall asleep while chatting.

Xu Jiao remained silent for a while before asking, “Are you about to die?”

She responded, “What exactly do you want to do, Junior Sister Xia?”

Xia Jingzhe raised her hand to cover Xu Jiao’s eyes, feeling her eyelashes move slightly, brushing past her palm, causing a slight tickle. After a long time, she slowly said, “This confusion of Senior Sister is related to me, so let it linger in Senior Sister’s heart for a while longer—”

In this way, she could pretend that she too lingered in Xu Jiao’s heart for a bit longer.

For a while, the two of them quietly listened to the sound of snow falling between heaven and earth.

It was a barely audible, fluttering sound.

Snowflakes gently landed on Xu Jiao’s hair and shoulders. Not knowing how long the cold had condensed, Xu Jiao suddenly moved. She felt a sign of the long-sealed restriction within her loosening.

Was it because Xia Jingzhe, who set the restriction, was running out of time, causing the seal to loosen?

She didn’t know. She just felt that the long-dry meridians finally had spiritual energy flowing through them, like parched land finally receiving rain, making her heart feel refreshed.

Xu Jiao instinctively operated her cultivation method. As she circulated her energy through her body, she discovered that there was something else flowing in her meridians.

That threadlike coldness…

It was demonic energy.

Yes, Xia Jingzhe had previously made her soak in that demonic spring.

However, Xu Jiao had thought she would turn completely into a demon, not expecting there would still be spiritual energy within her. The spiritual energy and demonic energy flowed together… Hey? Isn’t this the setting she wrote about the divine-demon body?

“Senior Sister, I once visited your library.” At this moment, Xia Jingzhe spoke again, bringing up something completely unrelated.

Xu Jiao responded with an “Mm,” not wanting to miss any of her words, just to resolve the confusion in her heart.

“You once read the book 《Journey through the Nine Provinces》 and left some insights and reflections in it.”

“You said you wanted to see the myriad sights of the Nine Provinces, and also wanted to see what the Demonic Realm was like…” At this point, Xia Jingzhe stopped talking, as if she had no more strength or interest to continue.

But Xu Jiao felt as if she had been struck by lightning, suddenly frozen, even her breathing stopped.

After a long time, she asked the system in her mind, “Did she bring me to the Demonic Realm because she thought I wanted to see its sights?”

However.

That was not something she wrote.

It was a detail setting the system automatically added to perfect her identity when she entered this world.

Without waiting for the system to respond, Xu Jiao continued to ask, “What else did it write?”

The system’s mechanical voice remained as calm as ever: “After traveling the world, ‘I want to work hard to cultivate, become an immortal, and see the sights of the Immortal Realm.'”

At the same time—

The hand covering Xu Jiao’s eyes fell away, and she sensed a soft light.

It was a sign of her vision returning.

Xu Jiao squinted her eyes, then opened them again, finally seeing everything clearly.

There were collapsed and broken stones around her, which she recognized as the demon pillars that had previously trapped her. They were now scattered, their ominous patterns shattered, and the great hall above had cracked open.

Not far away, fluttering snowflakes fell from the gray sky, covering the red spider lilies in the courtyard in front of the hall. The extreme whiteness covered the enchanting red, leaving only a blood-like edge, sketched all over the ground with unknown blood-colored lines, still so breathtakingly beautiful, yet carrying a certain inexplicable cruelty.

In front of her, Xia Jingzhe was half-holding her, with a gaping hole in her chest, smiling exceptionally beautifully, her eyes full of satisfaction.

Xu Jiao lowered her head, seeing the blood flowing from her, almost drained, and the complex, almost formation-like marks on the ground containing an unknown power.

Xu Jiao slowly raised her eyes, following the formation’s path, extending her divine sense thousands of miles away, finally seeing the end of the formation.

Connecting to a completely white, no, at this moment, completely bloodied person.

The immortal power on that person’s body, just touching it with her divine sense, felt soothing.

It was the fallen Immortal Lord.

Due to his pure immortal body, his corpse remained uncorrupted for thousands of years after death. Even a trace of his immortal energy could nourish all things, let alone his bloodline.

Xu Jiao, however, withdrew her gaze, seeking the core of this formation, and the answer was easily found—

She herself was the heart of this formation.

She moved her lips, perhaps frozen by the extreme cold of the snow, her voice trembling: “You… want me to be this Immortal Lord?”

Bringing her to the Demonic Realm, forging her divine-demon body, killing the Immortal Lord for her, and in the end, all to make her the Immortal Lord.

Xu Jiao felt a moment of suffocation.

Because this was not her dream, it was just a lie, a false setting…

But Xia Jingzhe did all these crazy things just for these words.

Hearing Xu Jiao’s voice, Xia Jingzhe’s smile remained unchanged, gently and softly speaking, with a tenderness Xu Jiao had never heard before, as if it could drown a person, making it hard to breathe:

“Senior Sister is very suited to be the god of this world.”

She said, “The previous Immortal Lord could only see Kunlun, which was unfair to all beings. But I think Senior Sister is very suitable to replace him.”

Xu Jiao didn’t know how to respond.

In her silence, Xia Jingzhe raised her hand to touch the corner of her eye and asked again, “Senior Sister, do you remember the question I asked earlier? If I died, would you shed tears for me?”

As soon as she finished speaking, a snowflake fell into Xu Jiao’s eye.

Xu Jiao’s eyelashes fluttered, and soon a hint of moisture fell from the corner of her eye, an instinctive reaction.

It was like shedding a tear.

She answered aloud, “No, I wouldn’t.”

Xia Jingzhe smiled, her eyes slowly closing, as if talking to herself, “I thought so too.”

She released her hand, no longer embracing Xu Jiao, and gently reminded her, “Winter is about to end.”

But she would never see her spring.

“Xia Jingzhe’s blackening value, 100.” The system’s voice rang out mercilessly.

Xu Jiao listened to the system’s notification, looking down at Xia Jingzhe with her eyes closed, no longer smiling, no longer holding her.

Plop, plop.

More snow fell into her eyes, melting into warm tears, falling onto Xia Jingzhe’s face.

Unfortunately, that person would never open her eyes again to discern whether it was snow or tears.

The snow between heaven and earth stopped at some point, the gray sky cleared, and the sunlight pierced through once more—

It turned out that Xia Jingzhe’s demonic energy and the former Immortal Lord’s immortal power had merged into Xu Jiao, shaping her into the new master of the world. At that moment, her ears and eyes became sharp, able to perceive the chirping of birds and blooming of flowers in the mountains miles away.

It was a matter of a single thought.

Even if she lightly closed her eyes, she could sense the rules of the rotation of all things and the changes of the four seasons.

This was the power of the world’s rules.

Xu Jiao stood up and walked outside the hall, flowers blooming under her feet. On the left, the red spider lilies spread their claws, and on the right, tender and pink peach blossoms, both righteous and evil, surrounded her. From now on, whether in the Demonic Realm, the Immortal Realm, or the Mortal Realm, all would revere her as the supreme.

The first ray of sunlight from the horizon fell on her, the blessing of the rules. The demonic energy of the Demonic Dragon Palace gathered into a thick, inky black aura, also converging on her, unwilling to be outdone.

She looked back—

She stood in the vibrant spring, while Xia Jingzhe, in that place, remained forever in the unmelting ice and snow of winter.

Xu Jiao gazed at her for a long, long time and spoke her first words as the Immortal Lord.

Those words would become the rules of the world, recorded in the Heavenly Dao.

She softly said, “Perish, this world.”

The world fell silent for a moment.

Then, the Heavenly Dao sensed the birth of a new rule, starting from the ends of the mountains and seas, collapsing inch by inch, bringing true cataclysm, far surpassing any before.

No living being could escape this judgment.

The entire world thus collapsed—