Xie Xuan frowned deeply when King Qin Guang used her sleeve to wipe his tears.
Why can this old man still move? Is it because Feng Xun's magic is ineffective, or is King Qin Guang too powerful? After thinking it over, Xie Xuan concluded that it was because King Qin Guang's magic was too strong. If Feng Xun himself had come, he would definitely have been able to immobilize him.
To some extent, Xie Xuan's guess was correct. If Feng Xun were to hug the old man at this moment, King Qin Guang would also be so frightened that he would freeze in place.
Xie Xuan felt that she urgently needed to become stronger. King Qin Guang had told her before that there were some cultivation techniques and secret manuals in his family's library, and she should go and take a look.
She was usually silent, keeping all her plans to herself. It was precisely this quietness that brought great comfort to King Qin Guang, whose heart was churning with sorrow. He leaned on Xie Xuan's shoulder and it took him a long time to wipe away the tears on his face.
After regaining his composure, his face returned to that divine and dignified expression.
"You little devil." King Qin Guang straightened up, straightened his robes, and said solemnly, "Don't tell anyone about this."
He didn't want to be ridiculed by his colleagues.
Xie Xuan was stunned for a while, still not understanding what was going on, but she had already automatically translated King Qin Guang's words in her mind as, "The fact that King Qin Guang was sitting by the Bridge of Helplessness crying must be spread around."
At this moment, a low laugh came from the waning snow in the distance of Fengdu. Xie Xuan and King Qin Guang looked up together and followed the sound.
The newcomer was dressed in a dark black robe, with a golden token hanging from his waist, exuding an ancient and dignified air. Even though he had a young and handsome face, anyone who looked into his eyes would feel that he had experienced millions of years of vicissitudes.
King Qin Guang was like a child born from the mortal world, worldly-wise yet still possessing a sincere heart, while this person was like an observer standing above the mortal world, looking down with cold eyes—or perhaps, the one in charge.
"Li Wen, you—" King Qin Guang suddenly stood up, straightened his disheveled clothes, and his beard trembled uneasily, as if his biggest secret had been discovered by an acquaintance.
"Young lady, King Qin Guang only goes to see the human world every hundred years—or perhaps every thousand years, in short, whenever he feels like it. Please excuse my poor manners." When a smile appeared on Li Wen's face, the cold and dignified aura around him instantly melted away, like a snow mountain collapsing.
Xie Xuan withdrew her somewhat stiff arm and stared intently at the man in black who had suddenly appeared. Her gaze met his pure and ruthless eyes, and she realized that his current kind expression was just a disguise to close the distance between him and others.
She knew that the man in black didn't actually want to make that expression. The upturned corners of his mouth and narrowed eyes were just a polite pretense. Xie Xuan understood his gaze so well because she felt she had found a kindred spirit.
She stared straight at Li Wen, her eyes narrowed like a wild beast's. She was wary of him, but also wanted to find an opportunity to attack him and defeat him.
King Qin Guang didn't notice Xie Xuan's expression behind him, as if she had seen a fellow intruder in her territory. His little secret being discovered by his colleague made him very nervous, so he could only awkwardly touch his nose and say repeatedly, "What's so funny about this?"
Li Wen glanced at King Qin Guang, nodded in acknowledgment, and walked straight toward Xie Xuan.
As he approached, Xie Xuan felt herself being seized by an extremely powerful force, choking her until she could hardly breathe. King Qin Guang and Feng Xun were both no less powerful than this man, but they would deliberately conceal their aura to avoid harming Xie Xuan. However, Li Wen did not. He displayed his power without any restraint as soon as he arrived.
It seemed that he wanted to use this power to forcefully suppress Xie Xuan, to make her submit, to make her bow her head, to make her kneel and beg for mercy—just like the sinful souls who had entered the icy hell under his control over the past millions of years.
Instantly, Xie Xuan felt as if she had fallen into an ice cave. Her back slumped involuntarily, as if a powerful, mountain-like token was pressing down on her. She braced herself with her arms at her sides, using all her strength to keep herself from falling to her knees.
"Li Wen!" King Qin Guang noticed something amiss and said in a deep voice to stop him. Li Wen raised his palm and pressed it down in his direction, signaling him to be quiet.
"On the Mirror of Retribution, she was judged innocent. Even if she is an evil spirit, now is not the time for you to fulfill your duty." The usually gentle King Qin Guang became firm at this moment. He could not watch Xie Xuan be taken back to the eighteenth level of hell by this cold-hearted King Chu Jiang.
"It's not my place to punish a mere soul." King Chujiang rubbed his wrist calmly. "The Lord said she really wants to learn some ghost cultivation techniques and has entrusted us to teach her."
"I'd like to see who dares to become our disciple—" King Chujiang's tone turned as cold and hard as ice when he said the last sentence.
At this moment, Xie Xuan had fallen into a dreamlike illusion that resembled hell—no, it was the real hell. In an instant, a bone-chilling cold crept up to her ankles, and this chill spread throughout her limbs and bones, as if to freeze her soul. But she was able to maintain a sliver of consciousness and only managed to lift her fingertips with difficulty and move forward.
She didn't investigate why the other party suddenly wanted to kill her. In her mind, this was the normal world, and beings like Feng Xun and King Qin Guang seemed fake.
In this frigid prison, she struggled forward. She had endured tortures a thousand times worse than this, so she managed to escape this level of hell and fall into a forest of blades. Fengdu, where she had previously resided, was merely a ghost city in the narrow sense of the underworld. In reality, beneath this vast and boundless realm of the underworld lay an even more terrifying and treacherous place—the eighteen levels of hell where countless souls were judged.
Countless sharp blades pierced her soul, the damage so severe it would have made many heinous souls kneel and wail in agony. However, Xie Xuan gritted her teeth, knowing she couldn't lose consciousness here. She lowered her head to carefully study the structure of the blades that had pierced her body, then managed to escape from the blades with minimal damage. The metal blades behind her nearly tore her soul apart but managed to remain intact, allowing her to stand up straight.
Is this hell in the underworld? Xie Xuan raised her eyes, gazing at the distant horizon. After escaping this small hell, her soul plunged into a blazing sun. This wasn't true sunlight, yet it was a thousand times hotter than the most intense sandstorms on earth. Xie Xuan felt her body begin to shrink from the heat, her breath being robbed by the intense temperature. She was consumed by agony, yet in a daze, a surge of pleasure welled up within her—so, people who died in the mortal world might have a journey to this hell. If she killed them, they too would experience this torment!
So it wasn't enough, not enough. She wanted to taste more pain. Greed took over her senses as she breathed in the scorching air under the blazing sun.
King Chujiang, his hands tucked into his sleeves, watched coldly as Xie Xuan sank into hell. He was astonished that she was still conscious—not long ago, rumors in Fengdu said that this evil spirit was incredibly fragile and would melt if exposed to the sun in the human world. Now it seemed that this was not the case.
As Xie Xuan felt a surge of pleasure, he also sensed her emotions, and in an instant, King Chujiang's pupils contracted sharply.
Although King Qin Guang couldn't see, he could imagine what had happened. He asked worriedly, "Did Your Majesty order you to throw her in?"
"Oh, Your Majesty instructed me to treat her well," King Chujiang said with a smile.
"Damn it, how dare you!" King Qin Guang jumped up and punched King Chu Jiang's shoulder several times with great force.
"I originally intended to treat her well, like a kind teacher." King Chujiang smiled as he had when he first met Xie Xuan, appearing exceptionally amiable now. "But she—seems to want to see the real me."
"If she wants to see it, let her see it. Don't worry, this little girl won't tell the Lord about this." King Chujiang said confidently. He hadn't really planned to take Xie Xuan as his disciple at first. He would just follow Feng Xun's instructions and teach her some basics.
But upon seeing Xie Xuan, a surge of excitement welled up within him. She was—a being very similar to them.
She didn't know how much time had passed when Xie Xuan walked barefoot across the red-hot bronze pillar. At the end, she saw a huge, open eye. Her weak, tenacious will had sustained her to this point, but upon seeing those eyes, she suddenly fainted.
King Chujiang carried her, drenched in sweat from the ordeal, back to Fengdu with one hand.
"Come to the Frozen Hell on the eighth day of next month." His icy voice echoed in Xie Xuan's mind, which meant that she had passed the test of one of the Ten Kings of Hell.
It wasn't just to fulfill a superior's task—he genuinely intended to take her as his disciple.
At the same time, Xie Xuan was thrown into the arms of the bronze-armored general guarding the city. The bronze-armored general was suddenly handed this little "poisonous snake" and felt like he had been given a hot potato.
"My lord! This... I didn't knock her unconscious! By the grace of the Lord, I did nothing!" the bronze-armored general cried out helplessly.
Even though he held no fondness for Xie Xuan, he still carefully carried her to one side and quietly watched over her as consciousness returned.
When Xie Xuan opened her eyes, she felt the icy sweat that had cooled to the bone clinging to her body. In the distance, a black light flashed past, shimmering with seven colors.
Feng Xun was returning; she could recognize him from afar.
Just as King Chujiang had predicted, Xie Xuan quickly shook out her clothes and licked her pale, dry lips, attempting to make herself appear as though she had not suffered any torment in hell.
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