The moment those words left his mouth, Feng Qingyun froze as if struck by lightning. A thousand emotions surged up in his chest all at once, so fierce they felt as though they could grind his organs into dust.
Because I was a God born for you.
Turns out, of all the lies Long Yin ever told him, that was the one thing he never lied about. That shattered, broken Heavenly Dao… had retaken shape because of him. His name, his appearance, every bit of it had been molded after the preferences buried deep in Feng Qingyun’s heart.
Yet no matter how much effort he spent, even as the Heavenly Dao itself, in the end, he had never earned even a shred of tenderness from Feng Qingyun in their previous life. So love truly did follow the order of who came first.
But clearly, he was the one who arrived first.
Feng Qingyun’s heart felt as though it were splitting apart, as he cried until his voice nearly broke. Yet Long Yin himself seemed completely unconcerned with all those regrets and heartbreaks of the past. Perhaps the sweetness of holding the one he loved now was enough to cover every sorrow, to make the past feel weightless and irrelevant.
But Feng Qingyun cared. And he cared unbearably.
Clutching the Heavenly Dao with trembling hands, sobbing like a fool, a faint and twisted resentment sprouted quietly in his chest.
He was the Heavenly Dao. Why did he insist on living so bitterly?!
If he loved someone, couldn’t he just say it?! If he wanted someone, couldn’t he just take them?!
Even if he hadn’t regained his memories, even if he hadn’t known anything… if he had taken Feng Qingyun back to the Demon Palace and kept him there for a few hundred years, wouldn’t he have naturally come to love him?! Why had he chosen to act so magnanimously?!
The difference between Feng Qingyun, with his spiritual plant mindset, and Long Yin revealed itself in full. Clearly, he was the Demon Emperor, yet because his essence was that of the Heavenly Dao, he believed love meant letting go. But for Feng Qingyun, no matter that he’d walked the Righteous Path, no matter that he’d become the revered Lingshuang Sword Master, deep in the bones of a demon, love could only ever mean possession.
That was why, even though he knew and had cared that Mu Hanyang loved someone else, he still agreed wholeheartedly when the man proposed. In his stubbornness, he believed they would become Dao companions simply because he wanted to.
But if the one who had nurtured him from the beginning had been Long Yin, then with so much affection, he should have bloomed long ago.
And yet, life had no “ifs.”
Tears streaming down, Feng Qingyun nearly crushed himself into the man’s embrace, his love and unwillingness twining so fiercely they almost turned into hatred. But he could not blame Heaven or fate, not when the Heavenly Dao itself stood before him in person. So he could only direct all resentment toward himself alone.
And in the end, he couldn’t bear to voice a single word.
His Heavenly Dao had lived far too bitterly. Bitter to the point he could do nothing but cry for him.
Seeing Feng Qingyun cry like that, the heart demon of Love couldn’t help but hold him close and kiss away his tears. But because he was the incarnation of the Heavenly Dao before it ever had a name, for the pure heart demon born of love without any desire mixed in, even his kiss was clumsy, nothing like the practiced moves of his predecessors. There was an unfamiliar awkwardness to it, because even as the heart demon of Love, he had never before kissed Feng Qingyun’s human form.
Feng Qingyun’s tears surged harder. Seeing that his attempts weren’t helping at all, the heart demon grew flustered and, in the end, he decided to try something else. “Little Rose, don’t cry,” he murmured, “I’ll tell you a secret, just between us… Actually, even my main body probably doesn’t remember all those things yet.”
Feng Qingyun startled, momentarily distracted, lifting his head in a daze as he asked: “…Are you sure?”
“Yes, he most likely doesn’t,” the heart demon said, shaking his head. “Baihu’s heart is with the Mistress of the Underworld, very close now. So I’m affected by it and remembered these things. But he only began awakening the Heavenly Dao’s power after… meeting your Master. With all the chaotic information around him, his memories likely haven’t fully returned.”
A faint sense of dread crept up Feng Qingyun’s spine. “…But since you already knew you were the Heavenly Dao, why have you been hiding it from me1?!”
“I don’t know,” the young heart demon shook his head. “But I know he’s deliberately not saying it. As for why… I’m not too sure.”
That ominous feeling in Feng Qingyun’s heart grew heavier, and tears brimmed again, threatening to spill. He’d cried more today than he had in hundreds of years combined, yet he still couldn’t stop. Seeing that, the heart demon panicked, and to comfort him, he began… betraying everyone, including himself.
“Alright, don’t cry,” he quickly said. “I hate it when they lie to you, so now I’m telling you things even the main one hasn’t thought through yet… Come on, don’t feel wronged, don’t cry, alright?”
But the gentler he was, the more numb Feng Qingyun felt, and the more the tears pressed out of him. With a hoarse sob, he whispered: “I don’t believe you. You must be lying to me again… You always lie to me…”
“That was them lying to you. What does that have to do with me?” the heart demon murmured, resting his forehead against Feng Qingyun’s. “They tricked you for personal reasons, but I would never. Because I represent… the love heheld for you, from the very first momenthe was born.”
Feng Qingyun went still, and then, suddenly, violently broke down.
[Take my heart and give it to your sweetheart.]
[…]
[I am the one he first loved!]
[This Lord cannot compare to the one the Little Palace Master favors?]
So everything had always followed a pattern. From start to end, Feng Qingyun truly was the Heavenly Dao’s chosen one. And his dragon, his Heavenly Dao, had long since given his heart entirely to him. He had simply never known.
Realising that, Feng Qingyun broke completely. He threw his arms around the man’s neck and sobbed into his shoulder, but the heart demon held him as though holding a handful of snow, something that could melt away with the slightest mishandling.
After crying for a long time, Feng Qingyun choked out against his neck, “Since you won’t lie… then tell me. The ascension method you said would let everyone live… what is it?”
But the heart demon suddenly smiled, kissing Feng Qingyun’s cheek. “You’re crying like this and still scheming against me…” he said. “Am I really that easy to bully, Little Rose?”
Feng Qingyun didn’t answer, only curled his arms around his neck, eyes red and fixed on him. Those eyes, the ones the Heavenly Dao had begged for tens of thousands of years to see, finally rested completely on him.
Brimming with tears born for him, never looking away.
No one could withstand a gaze like that, not even the Heavenly Dao, so he surrendered instantly. “Don’t cry, alright?” the heart demon whispered. “But… I truly don’t know. You’ll have to ask the main one.”
However, Feng Qingyun clearly didn’t believe that, so he continued looking at him without blinking.
The young and inexperienced heart demon nearly broke apart, finally lowering his voice in defeat. “Alright, alright… I’ll tell you a little,” he started. “I vaguely know that if you were to learn of his true intentions, you’d be very angry. That’s why he didn’t dare say it.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking before Feng Qingyun’s expression abruptly went cold, already on the brink of anger. The heart demon tried to smile, coaxing like a man begging mercy. “Will you punish us for this, Little Rose?”
He had betrayed the other heart demons, even sold out his own main body, all to coax his beloved, yet even that wasn’t enough to soften Feng Qingyun’s heart.
“I will!” Feng Qingyun snapped, wiping his tears with fierce determination. Through clenched teeth and a trembling voice, he growled, “…Just wait! I’ll make sure you never dare lie to me again in your life!”
“So fierce. I’m terrified,” the heart demon said, laughing softly. “But no matter what you do, I will love you.”
Feng Qingyun still clung to his neck, his voice shaking with anger and tears as he complained: “You bastard… hiding so much from me all this time… I hate you.”
He said he hated him, but his eyes were full of tears. And the Heavenly Dao clearly heard the truth in his heart.
I love you. I will always love you.
The Heavenly Dao’s heart instantly melted into a pool of water. He could have done what he did earlier, blurt out whatever he sensed from Feng Qingyun’s heart just to coax him. But this time, he played a tiny trick. Since Feng Qingyun hadn’t asked, he simply didn’t say.
He hadn’t broken his earlier promise; after all, he hadn’t lied. He had merely not spoken.
And that became the one and only secret the heart demon kept hidden. Of course, he knew how angry Feng Qingyun would be once he learned the truth.
But he couldn’t help it.
Even as the Heavenly Dao, even as the heart demon born of pure Love, his essence was still the same wicked, incorrigibly mischievous Demon Emperor who could never resist teasing his Little Rose.
“Alright, it’s getting late,” the heart demon held the person he had longed for across millennia and gently brushed away the tears at the corner of his eyes.
“Say my name, Little Rose.”
Feng Qingyun took a deep breath and whispered something soft.
The heart demon blinked, then suddenly smiled.
Behind him lay the shattered desolation of the primordial wasteland and the Heavenly Dao’s final resting place, yet his face held a quiet, satisfied joy, as though nothing he had ever suffered was worth mentioning.
Because what Feng Qingyun had whispered was:
“I love you.”
He hid the name within the words and sent him his bare, unguarded love. Just that single sentence was enough to soothe tens of thousands of years of despair and longing. And with that, the illusion finally shattered, along with the smiling image of the young Heavenly Dao.
Fragments of mottled time swept past like the rings of a tree, growing and growing until someone took a blade to them and severed them abruptly. All joy and sorrow, all regret and pain, were buried beneath the ruins of the illusion. Once, there was no one left alive to remember them.
But this time, Feng Qingyun did.
He wiped his tears for what felt like the hundredth time, since he had cried more than in both of his lifetimes combined. Yet he had a faint, lingering feeling that the tears he would shed for Long Yin were far from over. The broken illusion gathered itself again, forming the next scene. Feng Qingyun, still sniffing, wiped his face as he braced for what came next.
Six emotions had already passed, and only the last one remained.
Hate.
Feng Qingyun inhaled sharply. He had assumed Long Yin’s hate would be directed at Mu Hanyang. He had even prepared himself to see that revolting face again. But when the fragments reformed, there was no darkness like before, no familiar environment, only a field of blinding white, like the Qilin’s illusion once held. Feng Qingyun froze, uneasy. Before he could fully comprehend what he was seeing, within the white light, someone suddenly drew a blade and slashed mercilessly at another.
“!”
Feng Qingyun stared, shocked, as his pupils constricted, his heart lodged in his throat.
Because the one attacking with ruthless force was Long Yin’s heart-demon.
And the one being attacked…
Was Long Yin’s true self.
But he did not sit and wait to die. His face cold, Long Yin drew his blade, and the two demonic swords collided violently. The clash rang through the pristine illusion like thunder. Missing the first strike, the two figures turned on each other like rival wolf kings meeting on a narrow path, one kill-stroke following another.
Feng Qingyun snapped as he quickly unsheathed his Lingshuang Sword, its frost sweeping across a thousand miles. In an instant, it was wedged between the heart demon’s blade and its target.
The sharp clang of metal rang out, and Feng Qingyun lifted his gaze, ready to speak… but collided straight into the extreme loathing still lingering in the heart demon’s eyes.
He froze as every word stuck in his throat.
That hostility was wild, deranged, and self-destructive to the extreme. It made Feng Qingyun’s scalp prickle, but the moment the heart demon registered him, he jolted, as if terrified of injuring him, and immediately withdrew his blade, followed by the emotion in his eyes.
That meant… his hatred was not directed at Feng Qingyun at all.
On the contrary, that violent emotion was aimed entirely at its own true self.
But who would look at themselves with such eyes?
A massive, indescribable wave crashed through Feng Qingyun’s heart.
A dragon God.
A Demon Emperor.
The Heavenly Dao incarnate.
How could he hate himself the most?!
Only someone drowning in extreme self-loathing would show such an expression, but why would he… However, before Feng Qingyun could think it through, the heart demon, realizing Feng Qingyun had stopped his strike, lifted his blade again.
But this time, he aimed at his own neck.
In that split second, Feng Qingyun understood everything.
Long Yin loathed the self who had let his beloved fall into the hands of villains, the self who, despite being the Heavenly Dao, had failed to protect anyone.
Seeing the scene unfold, Feng Qingyun suddenly recalled the image of the Heavenly Dao self-destructing earlier. Heat surged through his chest, and in desperation, words burst from his mouth, echoing through the illusion.
The moment before the blade reached the heart demon’s throat, time itself seemed to freeze around his shouted words.
Then…
The heart demon looked at Feng Qingyun without blinking. His body began to crack from the fingertips outward, and without saying a single word, he dissolved into the air, leaving no trace behind.
Feng Qingyun gripped his sword tightly. Only when the heart demon vanished did his mind snap back to clarity, and he realized… what he had shouted in the chaos was the heart demon’s true name.
He was the heart-demon of the seventh emotion, Hate.
And with Feng Qingyun’s recognition, the last of the seven vanished, and the vast expanse grew quiet, leaving only Feng Qingyun and Long Yin’s true self behind him. After so much pain and searching, he had finally found him… he should have run to him, sobbing, scolding, then telling him everything he had never known, piece by piece.
But Feng Qingyun didn’t move.
Because when the heart demon dispersed, a terrifying suspicion began to form in his chest. A suspicion regarding Long Yin’s so-called “method of ascension.”
His dragon, being the Heavenly Dao, never needed anyone to die for him. He never needed anyone to merge with him to be revived. All he needed was to gather the hearts of the Four Ancient Beasts, and once he returned to his rightful place as the Heavenly Dao, everything would fall into place naturally.
It was his Master, Zhong Yulan, who had deceived him.
She had split her soul into three parts, each believing its own memory was the real truth, and Feng Qingyun had thought that what he learned was the real story, and that what Mu Hanyang and Long Yin knew were the lies.
But only now did he understand: Both he and Mu Hanyang had been fed altered versions of the truth.
Only Long Yin…
Only the truth that belonged to him…
Was real.
That also explained why Zhong Yulan had “made up” that seemingly absurd lie about the Heavenly Dao taking human form to deceive Mu Hanyang… because she already knew that the Heavenly Dao taking form was not a lie.
It was the truth.
Only by letting the hidden immortals believe that Mu Hanyang was the incarnation of the Heavenly Dao could the real Heavenly Dao have the chance to rest, recover, and regain strength.
As for the lie she crafted especially for Feng Qingyun… that was merely to make him feel a little better. If the choice was placed before him, even now, between sacrificing himself or sacrificing his Dao companion, Feng Qingyun would choose the former without hesitation.
Zhong Yulan understood it, and that was why she forged a second lie.
But not everything she said to Feng Qingyun was false. At least the sentence, “The Heart of the Heavenly Dao has chosen you,” was not a lie.
What she didn’t expect was that the dignified incarnation of the Heavenly Dao, just because his beloved shed a few tears in his arms, would lose all restraint and spill everything. Even if he didn’t know the full truth at the time, Feng Qingyun was no fool. Once he realized Long Yin was the incarnation of the Heavenly Dao, the most important key, the other details naturally became easy to deduce. So Zhong Yulan’s sole mistake was that she could never have imagined that the Heavenly Dao would have moments of fearing his beloved that severely.
If she saw it now, she would probably fall silent.
At this point, even without Long Yin saying a word, Feng Qingyun had nearly pieced together his plan: gather the four divine hearts, then personally return to Heaven, sit atop the lotus platform, and repel all outside threats.
It was indeed the perfect solution.
A flawless method where no one had to die.
But… if it was so perfect, then why hadn’t the Heavenly Dao chosen that path back in ancient times when all Four Ancient Beasts were still present? Why had he chosen instead to endure the agony of having his body dismembered, and even self-destruction, all to create an illusory realm from scratch, wandering within it for millennia, rather than return to his rightful place?
Because returning to his rightful place would mean “he” would cease to exist.
The Heavenly Dao would still live, but he would no longer be that person. The one who watered Feng Qingyun’s seed with blood for a hundred years. Therefore, even at the brink of death, he fought with all remaining strength to survive as an individual and not the Heavenly Dao, to gamble for the tiniest chance to live on and one day meet his Little Rose.
But now, in that era of peace and prosperity, Long Yin seemed prepared to abandon the belief he had held for all his existence. Was it for the people of the world? Or for… something else?
Feng Qingyun didn’t know.
Or rather, he didn’t want to know.
The moment he thought of a certain possibility, emotion surged so violently that he had to close his eyes. It was not only sour or numbing…
It was anger.
A seething, uncontainable fury.
If truly… If Long Yin really intended to do that… Feng Qingyun drew a deep breath. His fingers clenched around the Lingshuang Sword until his fingertips turned white, a clear sign of the outburst to come.
Behind him, the man seemed unsettled by his silence. At last, unable to hold back, he spoke: “…The Little Palace Master won’t look back. Is it because you saw the ugliness of the heart demons… and now find this Lord repulsive?”
“…Ugliness?” Feng Qingyun put away the sword with unnerving calm. “I think they were more honest than you. And much cuter.”
Hearing his heart demons being praised, Long Yin narrowed his eyes, displeased. He tapped his blade against his own shoulder, complaining: “Cute?! That one just now tried to kill this Lord. Little Palace Master, you did not show a hint of concern, yet you favor…”
He didn’t finish.
Because Feng Qingyun suddenly turned, strode forward, and grabbed his demonic blade.
“!”
Long Yin’s eyes widened. Instinctively, he tried to pull the blade back, but stopped immediately, afraid of hurting Feng Qingyun’s hand. But Feng Qingyun tightened his grip almost violently, letting the edge slice into his palm as blood spilled instantly.
His lashes still held tears.
His eyes were still rimmed red from crying.
Yet his expression was eerily composed.
But even the faintest drip of blood onto the ground would have made Long Yin’s throat tighten, so he didn’t dare move. Feng Qingyun clutched the blade, letting blood pool beneath him. With his head bowed slightly, he murmured: “How do you know… that I’m not speaking to you with my heart already sliced apart?”
Long Yin’s breath halted. Then the next sentence landed like a blade of its own.
“But no matter how I hurt, I’m afraid it doesn’t compare to you, does it… Long Yin?”
“The pain of the Heavenly Dao being dismembered, compared to my broken heart, is it not a hundred times worse?”
Long Yin stiffened, and his head lowered as if crushed by an invisible weight.
“…Who told you?”
Feng Qingyun’s red-rimmed eyes curved faintly, but the smile never reached them. “You’re supposed to know it all, right?” he asked. “Why not guess?”
Long Yin didn’t need to guess as he instantly knew which heart demon had broken under a beautiful face and spilled everything. He silently cursed those useless idiots as he quickly withdrew the blade, relieved that Feng Qingyun didn’t resist, and pulled him into his arms. Softly, he coaxed: “They’re only heart demons. They know nothing completely. I was already planning to tell you, I just hadn’t found the right moment…”
“Liar,” Feng Qingyun whispered.
Long Yin immediately fell silent, as if struck by a silencing spell. Feng Qingyun lowered his head. From the outside, it looked like he was simply sinking into Long Yin’s embrace.
Long Yin instinctively tightened his arms around him.
Then Feng Qingyun lifted a hand, pressing it lightly against Long Yin’s chest, as though feeling his heartbeat… as though wanting to tear that heart out and claim it forever.
“Long Yin,” he murmured, tears still at the corners of his eyes, “Your heart demons were far more honest than you.”
For the first time in Long Yin’s life, true fear crawled up his spine as his mind raced. What exactly had those traitorous heart demons told him?!
Right now, with only one of the divine hearts recovered, Long Yin’s authority as Heavenly Dao was incomplete. Baihu’s heart was still somewhere in the Underworld, and because that illusion was formed by the dreams of the Yellow Springs, one of his heart demons might have recalled fragments of the Heavenly Dao’s truths that his main self did not yet know.
So he attempted to peer into Feng Qingyun’s heart. But when he activated that power…
He sensed nothing.
Feng Qingyun’s heart was an empty wasteland.
Silent.
Terrifying.
Like the calm before an apocalyptic storm.
Meanwhile, on the surface, the beautiful man in his arms leaned against him with a fragrance of roses, appearing soft and dependent, as though utterly in love. But the steadfast, self-reliant Lingshuang Sword Master would never behave like that.
Only a blood rose, provoked to the point of wanting to devour him, would.
Blood roses were parasitic by nature. Rare, terrifying, and wickedly beautiful, but once bonded, they were notorious throughout the realm. And now, that fragile-looking beauty whispered against Long Yin’s chest, voice like an intimate murmur on the pillow: “Long Yin… I’m very angry.”
There was no anger in his tone.
Only unmistakable love.
Yet it made Long Yin’s hair stand on end.
So he nearly dropped to his knees on the spot to confess.
“Actually, this Lord…”
“Shh…”
Feng Qingyun pressed a finger to his lips, then whispered: “I don’t need an apology. Those who lie… must pay the price.”
“I have already paid once.”
“Now it’s your turn.”
Then he leaned in and kissed Long Yin, soft and deliberate.
And in that breathless moment, with Long Yin frozen stiff, Feng Qingyun murmured against his lips: “I’ll make sure the lesson is unforgettable…”
“So unforgettable that even in your next life, you won’t dare lie to me again.”
- So here, Feng Qingyun refers to all of Long Yin’s heart demons that he’d interacted with so far as “you”. For him, they are all the Long Yin, with no distinction between them. However, the heart demons act like they are their own entities, different from Long Yin’s main body, which they call “he”. So the pronouns are a bit confusing here, but keep in mind that there’s one original/main body and seven heart demons that represent one side of Long Yin, and together they make the whole man that Feng Qingyun has to correctly identify and find in this weird dream they’re currently having in the Underworld ↩︎
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