“That’s because I’ll never pretend to be a good person, approach you with malicious intent, confuse you with sweet lies, make you lose your way through lies, and render you unable to see the truth.” Xu Yingchen bent down and lifted my chin with his index finger. His move really made me feel sick, and I immediately pushed his hand away.
“You will not get what you want!” I shouted ferociously. “No matter what you’re planning on doing, you’d better give it up as soon as possible. Wen Jiubo won’t tolerate your behavior. He’ll come and kill you instantly! He is not as kind as Zhu Xuan and I. With this temperament of his, he might dismember you!”
Surprisingly, Xu Yingchen burst into laughter after hearing this, and his laughter sounded so exaggerated.
“Hahahaha! Him? Dismember me?” Xu Yingchen shook his head; his expression showed that he was disappointed. He sighed. “Princess, you’re still so naive even today. You have no idea what happened, do you?”
Xu Yingchen looked at me with sympathy.
“What?” I did not understand what he meant.
“Do you want to see that sly fox?” All of sudden, Xu Yingchen grabbed my wrist so violently that for an instant I thought my arm would be twisted off by him. “Very well, then let me show you what happened to him!”
After he said that, the world began to whirl and my vision became blurry. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself standing in the courtyard of the old residence.
And not far in front of me, there were a group of strange people wearing gray robes. They acted like well-trained soldiers, each one of them holding a wand. A faint light came out from the wands, forming a bright barrier. And Wen Jiubo was trapped in the middle of the barrier.
I had never seen him like this before. It seemed that the light from those wands could subdue Wen Jiubo’s power. He was shaking; his hands pressed on the ground to support his body. Apparently, he did not have enough strength to stand up.
“Wen Jiubo!” I rushed over without thinking, but unexpectedly, I directly went through the body of one of the grey-robed people, unable to touch anything.
This was not reality. I immediately realized that this was just an image of the past. I could not do anything except helplessly watch it happen in front of my eyes.
Soon, a man stepped out from the crowd, and he came to the front. He took off his hood, and I immediately recognized him; he was Xu Yingchen, or should I say, the Taoist priest Lingxiao.
“Pathetic. How pathetic you are, nine-tailed fox.” The look full of disdain in Xu Yingchen’s eyes made me want to beat him to death. However, I could not touch him.
“Isn’t it painful being unable to see your beloved before dying?” Xu Yingchen went on casually. “Ah, ‘I have gone through the cycle of life and death hundreds or even thousands of times, but you’ve left before you could know my name’, how sensational, how touching! It’s been six years since you last saw him, right? And now that you’re going to die, he’s still unable to come and see you for the last time! Oh, wait, I almost forgot. Why haven’t you seen him for six years? That’s because since he used his dreams to travel through time, he tore a hole in the timeline. He distorted time, and it won’t take long for him to be recognized as an anomaly before being slowly erased and eliminated by the laws of Nature. Oh, how come he didn’t know traveling through time was so dangerous for him?”
Xu Yingchen bent down, mockingly staring at Wen Jiubo and he said in a measured manner. “Because of you, you hypocritical fox, you forced him to travel through time to save your own life. Because this is what you are; you only live for yourself. No matter how hard you try to look like a human, you’re nothing more than a savage beast. And beasts should never live in the human world!”
Wen Jiubo knelt on the ground and remained silent. There was no expression on his face, and I could not guess what he was thinking about.
“I’ve let you escape once, but I won’t let it happen again.” Xu Yingchen held out his hand, and a man behind immediately presented a sword to Xu Yingchen. Xu Yingchen grasped the hilt. The sword created a long shrill sound as it was pulled out of the scabbard. “Beast, from now on, you can no longer harm our world!”
Xu Yingchen raised his sword high in the air. The blade shone brightly in the sunlight.
“Do you have any last words, old fox?” Xu Yingchen sneered.
Wen Jiubo finally got some response after hearing this. He raised his head slightly. There was a faint smile on his face.
“Yeah, I do have one,” Wen Jiubo seemingly whispered to himself. “Tell Gu Yu, I’ll be back.”
Xu Yingchen laughed after hearing this. “In your dreams, Wen Jiubo! You’re not coming back this time!”
After saying that, Xu Yingchen chopped down with his sword and blood splashed out. But he was not satisfied. Xu Yingchen, acting like a madman, stabbed the body with his sword again and again until he was bathed in blood, and then he panted and stopped.
“Wen Jiubo! !” At that moment, everything in front of me became black, I could hardly stand up as anger and hatred spread all over my body.
However, there was nothing I could do besides stand there. I watched helplessly as Xu Yingchen grabbed Wen Jiubo’s head and dragged his lifeless body on the ground; he laughed wildly like he was holding a trophy.
“Xu Yingchen!”
My anger, like a flood, filled in my entire chest, the power of which made me break through Xu Yingchen’s control and escape from this horrible image. At that moment, I thought I had gone crazy. My mind was blank except for the fact that I wanted to kill him.
Kill him. At this point, the only thing I wanted to do was to break his neck with my own hands!
With a click, before I could react, extreme pain spread all over my body from my shoulder. Xu Yingchen easily dodged the fatal blow that I thought I could succeed, and not only did he dodge my attack, he forcefully twisted my arm behind. I was unwilling to go down. I tried to strangle his neck with my other hand, but before I could touch him, he kicked me down on the ground then stepped on my chest.
“Don’t worry, I only dislocated your shoulder.” Xu Yingchen looked at me, feeling amused and sympathetic. “You know, I could have asked the beast Nian to do me a favor and alter time so that your arms would rot just like what happened to Bai Ze. But I can’t do that to you. After all, unlike those two old monsters, you’re the princess. You’re precious.”
I curled up on the floor. All I could smell was the disgusting scent of blood. My body ached so badly as If every cell in my body was screaming. No matter how hard I struggled and how much I wished I could kill this bastard where he stood, I could not move an inch.
How beautiful my fantasy was, and how brutal the reality was. I thought everything was on the right track. I thought hope was just around the corner. However, this bastard from nowhere suddenly showed up and told me that all my fantasies would never come true.
Wen Jiubo was killed… by such an asshole.
“I’ll hunt you down, no matter where you run, I’ll hunt you down. As long as I can breathe, I’ll kill you. I’m going to kill you,” I gasped and murmured in a low voice.
“I don’t understand.” Xu Yingchen was puzzled. He moved his foot away from my chest. He lowered down and stared my face. His tone showed that he was curious. “Why are you still so obsessed with that old fox? As you’ve seen, he’s not powerful at all. I killed him and it was easier than crushing an ant. But that is not the point. You saw the past, don’t you know that he has been lying to you all this time?”
Xu Yingchen grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “You see, you certainly remember the dream before, right? Yan City University disappeared along with all of your classmates. And you vanished into the void for six years. This has already begun. The old fox——Wen Jiubo, has not seen you for six years. Do you know the reason why all of this happened?”
I did not reply. Xu Yingchen went on, “Because Wen Jiubo recklessly sent you into the future to save his own life. However, in this world, except for the beast Nian who was born in four-dimensional space, nothing can interfere with the timeline not even through dreams. Time itself rejects everyone who recklessly tries to change it, and that person will become a stain on the timeline and slowly be erased from this world. Soon, you’ll be forgotten by all the people you love and then slowly vanish as if you’ve never existed in the first place. And all of this is currently happening becausethat old fox wants to kill you!”
“You bastard! How dare you say that!” I yelled angrily. “Even if he really wanted to kill me, it has nothing to do with you! I won’t let your plot succeed again. You sealed him with the Jade Ruyi once. I won’t let you go out with that thing and hurt other people again!”
“Hurt other people?” Xu Yingchen repeated those words, and then he laughed loudly. “Is that what he told you? He told you that I used the Jade Ruyi to hurt people? That I needed it to seal him? Lies!”
“I believe in him,” I said with difficulty.
Xu Yingchen felt angry and amused at the same time. He squatted down in front of me again and he swung the Jade Ruyi in front of my eyes. “Oh my goodness, princess. You pathetic fool. I did not seal him! You were the one who sealed that fox. It had nothing to do with this Jade Ruyi! The only reason I’ve been looking for it is because I’m the only one who can control its real power!”
What? I was dumbfounded. What did he mean? How could… I seal the fox?
My reaction appeared to provoke Xu Yingchen. He suddenly stood up. “You’re so disappointing, princess. I thought you would be the only one who could understand me. I expected that you would help me! I never anticipated that you would be so bewitched by that fox that you wouldn’t even be able to tell right from wrong! In that case, you can just indulge yourself in your ridiculous fantasies all you want. After all, I still have greater things to do!”