“Step aside.” With a flick of her sleeve, Li Yueying wrapped one arm around Li Jiangying’s waist and forcibly dragged her into the courtyard. She moved with large strides, walking fast. Li Jiangying, constrained and in an awkward position, stumbled repeatedly, nearly falling several times. Left with no choice, she grabbed onto Li Yueying’s lapel.
“Come.” Li Yueying dragged her into the courtyard. Her cold breath ghosted over Li Jiangying’s ear tip. “Prove to me you weren’t lying.”
Li Jiangying lowered her brows, obedient. “Ah. Suddenly found… I held it in.”
“You liar!” the Moon Shadow Devil Venerable hissed through gritted teeth. The next second, her hand shot up to choke Li Jiangying’s throat, but this time it failed, because Li Jiangying, with great foresight, was already covering her neck.
Li Jiangying tilted her head, looking up at the furious woman. “Talk nicely, don’t be so violent. You’re not me, how would you know if I really held it in?”
Li Yueying stared at her coldly and moved her hand from her neck to the back of her head. Grabbing a fistful of hair, she yanked. “You’re courting death!”
Li Jiangying gasped sharply, almost tearing up from the physical sting. She grimaced. “Gently, gently… you going to take responsibility if I go bald?”
Li Yueying looked at her incredulously, not understanding why she kept provoking her again and again. “Li Jiangying, have you gone mad? Or… are you just that eager to die?”
Li Jiangying sighed. She let go of her own neck and grasped her hand back. Turning her body, she faced Li Yueying. “Actually… there are some questions I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.”
A low chuckle emanated from the reaper’s throat. She said, “Ask then. Since you’re about to die anyway, This Venerable One doesn’t mind graciously dispelling your doubts.”
“Fine, I’ll ask.” Li Jiangying took a deep breath and rubbed her scalp. “First question… do you have memories from when you were in your mad state?”
Li Yueying: “No.”
Li Jiangying didn’t believe her. “Really?”
Li Yueying’s voice was cold and hard. She tugged her hair again. “I said no, so it’s no!”
“Ow, ow, ow!” Pressing her scalp, Li Jiangying rasped in pain. “Tch, doesn’t matter if you don’t remember. I’ll help you recall. Back then, you clung to me all day calling me Yingying, boneless like, thick-skinned and disobedient, always finding loopholes to try stealing kisses from me… Still, you were pretty easy to coax.” She chuckled.
Li Yueying ground her teeth audibly. “If you have no more questions, This Venerable One will send you to hell right now!”
Li Jiangying lifted her head, meeting the Snake Demon’s blood-red pupils, and said, “I do. Second question… You’re so powerful.” She raised her hand to Li Yueying’s shoulder, then followed it down to her cold, trembling hand. Smiling, she asked, “You could clearly kill me in one blow. So how come after so many times… you still haven’t managed to do it…”
Before she could finish, the woman who hated her to the bone cut her off urgently. As if trying to prove her mercilessness, or perhaps convince herself, her voice involuntarily rose slightly. “Nonsense! It was clearly you, cunning and crafty, exploiting This Venerable One’s illness to escape time and again! Rest assured, Li Jiangying… this time, this time, This Venerable One will not let you go!”
Seeing her tightly pursed lips, Li Jiangying smiled. “Is that so? I haven’t finished yet.” Her hand slid across her hand again.
As if burned, Li Yueying abruptly released Li Jiangying’s hair. She instinctively hid her hand behind her back, clenching it tightly, shocked to see Li Jiangying place a hand against Li Yueying’s heart.
She opened her mouth, her throat suddenly dry. “Li Jiangying…”
“What did Li Jiangying do to you in the past?” Li Jiangying suddenly asked.
“You betrayed This Venerable One… you know it yourself!” Her voice inexplicably lost some of its force. The pain of memory made a flash of anguish cross her eyes. She was almost unwilling to recall more, because even she didn’t know why Li Jiangying had betrayed her.
This question was a torment that had lingered in her heart for millennia, torturing her day and night, trapping her in Heart Devil afflictions with no escape.
“I don’t know. None of you are willing to say, so how could I know.” Li Jiangying sighed softly and suddenly continued, “But, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to say it. I just wanted to ask… do you still have lingering feelings for Li Jiangying?”
Feeling the heartbeat under her palm suddenly accelerate, watching the bewildered and panicked look in her eyes, Li Jiangying grinned wickedly.
“I don’t!” Li Yueying refuted urgently. Her heart pounded uncontrollably. She had to refute it. Hatred was the skeleton that had propped her up for five thousand years. How could she let it be shattered so easily?
Li Jiangying stepped closer. She barely used any force, yet Li Yueying stumbled back a step as if unable to bear it.
“You do,” Li Jiangying said with pitying eyes. The roles of looker-down and looker-up reversed once more. “You still like Li Jiangying, even though she did terrible things to you. Isn’t that right? You hate her… and you love her.”
Li Yueying’s body trembled. She abruptly raised a hand and grabbed Li Jiangying’s wrist, yanking her hand away from her chest. She hissed, “I hate you! I stopped loving you a long time ago!”
Li Jiangying let out a mocking laugh. “How pitiful. Next, the third question.”
She suddenly seized Li Yueying’s wrist back, forcefully preventing her from escaping. “Why won’t you face the fact that I remember nothing? Do you think that by fighting Tao Sanyu, you could just avoid admitting this?”
Instantly, Li Yueying’s face drained of color. She stared at her. The mighty Moon Shadow Devil Venerable, a peak expert at the Late Transformation Stage, now looked like she’d encountered something so terrifying it could shatter her convictions, trembling like a helpless infant.
When she mouthed the words “impossible,” there was even a faint, barely detectable sob in her voice.
In this moment, Li Jiangying pitied her from the bottom of her heart. “‘Impossible’ what? That I couldn’t possibly have forgotten? Or… that I can’t possibly be Li Jiangying?”
“No!” She refuted helplessly, biting her lip fiercely, struggling to maintain her sanity and hatred.
If she didn’t hate her, she wouldn’t have survived until today.
“Why not?!” Li Jiangying said sharply. “When testing my physique, when Gu Qinglin was diagnosing me, didn’t you already know? I’m just a mortal! I couldn’t possibly have met you five thousand years ago, much less be that Li Jiangying who did god-knows-what to you!”
Li Jiangying gripped her hand tightly, venting her own anger. “I am not her!”
Pale-faced, Li Yueying staggered back a step. She swayed, teetering like a kite with its string cut. She opened her mouth, but was speechless.
Yet in this moment, a vengeful satisfaction suddenly surged within Li Jiangying’s heart. So she smiled and said, “It’s not incomprehensible that you mistook me for her. After all… I probably really do resemble her. I really want to ask you… You’ve waited for Li Jiangying so long. After she left, did you ever get the slightest bit of news about her?”
She relentlessly provoked her. “Maybe she hid from you, ran off to marry some other man and bear children, and then through generations of descendants, there was me!”
Li Jiangying grinned cheekily. “Stop waiting. You won’t find her. Li Yueying… you’re just a fool. Deceived for several millennia… Tsk, what should I call you? Granny Yueying? Ancestral Granny? Or maybe thrice-removed Ancestral Granny?”
Plip.
A crystalline teardrop slipped from the corner of Li Yueying’s eye, falling into the filthy dirt.
Li Jiangying: “…” Having vented all her pent-up frustration, she suddenly felt a bit regretful.
“Cough, I was just teasing, don’t take it seriously.” She cleared her throat with slight discomfort. What was this… whether Little Madwoman or the Moon Shadow Devil Venerable, they were the same person at heart, this prone to tears.
Drip… drip… The woman before her wept as if her tears were pearls slipping off a broken string, unstoppable. Her beautiful face was drenched, and in her eyes, there was nothing but despair.
Conditioned, Li Jiangying raised her hand instinctively to wipe the tears for the Little Madwoman who used to depend on her. Slap. Her hand was smacked away.
Right. This Li Yueying… hated her now.
“I don’t believe…” Sobbing, Li Yueying choked out these three words. Then she turned her back, wiping tears from her face with one hand as she stumbled away.
Her retreating figure was utterly pathetic, as if fleeing from some flood or savage beast.
Instinctively, Li Jiangying reached a hand toward her retreating form. Halfway there, she snapped out of it and lowered her hand. She could only watch her escape.
Was this… settled? Clearing up her identity issue while Li Yueying was lucid… so, that meant she likely didn’t have to worry about being killed by her anymore.
Ah, what a happy occasion. Shoulders slumped, utterly dejected, Li Jiangying glanced at the bright sunlight and the spirited flowers and plants, then dragged her feet slowly into the house.
Then she flopped onto the bed, hands folded over her lower abdomen, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling beams. Her gaze was empty, her mind equally blank.
This was clearly a day worth commemorating and celebrating. She should be cheerfully stepping into a future that, though rough, surely held some hope. But why couldn’t she just feel happy?
Li Jiangying felt tired. This weariness wasn’t just physical; it came more from the depths of her heart. She closed her eyes and feigned sleep in silence.
She lost track of time. Heaving a sigh, she felt the pressure in her lower abdomen was truly unbearable now. Only then did she open her eyes… Hiss! Right before her face was a tightly furrowed, beautiful face. Startled, the half-risen body crashed back down onto the bed.
Thump!
“Li Yueying! What are you doing!” Dejection and fatigue vanished instantly. Li Jiangying scolded her furiously. “Scaring people to death, you know!”
Li Yueying was bent over above her, her face full of paranoia, unwillingness, and severity. “I don’t believe it.”
By now, her tears had long disappeared. She’d probably gone to calm down somewhere, and the result of calming down was…
“There are countless methods of forgery in this world. This Venerable One does not believe a liar like you.”
Li Jiangying was angered into laughter. “Then what do you want?”
Li Yueying pressed her lips together quickly. Uncomfortably, she glanced at Li Jiangying’s chest and said, “This Venerable One wants to inspect.”
Li Jiangying: “Huh? Inspect my ass!”
As they say, courage grows with practice. Having previously danced through Li Yueying’s minefield without being blown to death, it was highly probable she wouldn’t be killed easily now… not ruling out the small chance that Li Yueying, believing her to be her enemy’s descendant, might have love disappear but hatred remain, thus strangling her.
Enraged, Li Jiangying plucked the tiger’s whiskers. Impatiently, she propped herself up on the bed to sit, halfway up before falling back down—Li Yueying had pressed a hand on her stomach and shoved her back.
Li Jiangying’s expression changed drastically. Aow! Clutching her belly, she curled up like a shrimp.
Li Yueying’s outstretched hand froze for a second. Recalling something, she quickly suppressed the bewilderment and fleeting concern on her face. Coldly and mercilessly, she said, “What trick are you trying to pull now?”
Li Jiangying’s face contorted. After a long moment, she shakily said, “My bladder…”
Pressing on someone’s stomach when they’re desperate… that’s murder!
Li Yueying gazed down at her haughtily. “Pretending.”
Li Jiangying’s mouth twitched. With great difficulty, she crawled off the bed and crept toward the outside.
Li Yueying lifted a foot and stepped on her back, her tone unfriendly. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Li Jiangying turned her head mournfully. “Nature calls…”
“Hold it in!”
“Can’t hold it anymore!!!” Furious and embarrassed, Li Jiangying scrambled up from under her foot, slightly bent over. “I really didn’t lie to you this time!”
The look in Li Yueying’s eyes was full of loathing and contempt. Her lips curved into a cold smirk. “Trying to lie again. Li Jiangying, a dog can’t change its habit of eating shit!”
Li Jiangying felt her character was gravely insulted. She raged, “What will it take for you to believe me?”
“Prove it to This Venerable One.”
“Fine, fine, fine! I’ll prove it to you right now. I seriously can’t hold it in this time!”
She turned to head for the outdoor latrine. Li Yueying grabbed her with one pull, then mercilessly pointed toward the chamber pot in the corner of the room.
Li Jiangying’s voice trembled. “Are you sure?”
Li Yueying sneered coldly.
Li Jiangying felt her sanity rapidly dissolving amidst the urinary urgency. She also sneered, glaring viciously at Li Yueying. “Fine! You asked for this!”
Both angry and annoyed, she walked up to the chamber pot, loosened her belt—
“You—!” Li Yueying was flabbergasted, her voice rigid. “You—you’re truly a shameless woman!”
Li Jiangying sat down indifferently. Pssssssssss. “You forced me.”
Scared now? Too late!
