Chapter 3: The Truth Revealed, Qin Hongyi's Collapse
"Master, we found something."
A voice echoed from the command token at Qin Hongyi's waist.
Her body tensed, and her voice came out tight and unsteady. "Speak."
"The massacre at Pingning Town fifty years ago… may be linked to the Blood Demon Sect."
The Blood Demon Sect was one of the sects she conquered during her rise to power.
Her eyes turned cold. Killing intent surged from her like the chill of midwinter.
The next instant, she vanished.
"If the Blood Demon Sect was behind it," she muttered, flying through the air, "then I'll bury them all."
Moments later, Qin Hongyi appeared in the sky above the sect, her red robes fluttering like fire.
With her current power, crossing vast distances was as easy as taking a breath.
Without a word, she drew her sword and struck.
A blinding arc of light slashed down onto the sect's protective barrier which shattered instantly.
Disciples scrambled from every direction, chaos erupting across the grounds.
But she ignored them.
She flew straight toward the sect's inner sanctum.
"Who dares cause trouble at the Blood Demon Sect?!" A deep voice thundered out.
A black-robed elder ascended into the air. It was Zhu Changhai, the sect master of the Blood Demon Sect. The instant his gaze landed on her, his body froze.
His voice softened. "This one did not recognize the Great Emperor's presence. May I ask what brings you to our humble sect?"
Qin Hongyi's eyes were like ice. "I have a question."
"Please, ask anything. I will answer what I know."
He dared not resist. The woman before him had crushed the righteous path and unified the demonic sects. She was the terror of the continent—the beautiful red-robed empress who had destroyed all who stood in her way.
Qin Hongyi didn't waste words. She told him everything about the Qin clan, the massacre, and the suspicion.
Zhu Changhai stiffened as a surge of panic ran through him. That day was burned into his memory. At the time, he had only been an outer elder, responsible for finding cultivators with potential and bringing them into the sect.
One of their subordinate sects, Hidden Ghost Sect, had reported discovering a girl in a northern town with a rare Extreme Yin Demon Physique.
That girl was supposed to be his golden ticket. If he brought her back, he could become an inner elder.
To ensure success, he personally led a team to raid the town.
Everything was going smoothly until a man in white appeared. His presence alone froze them in place. His sword cut down every attacker with ease.
Zhu Changhai survived only because that man spared him.
That man would later become known across the continent as the Sword Saint of Xuanming—Shen Shuchou. And the girl who once walked silently at his side, the very one Zhu Changhai failed to capture, had become the Great Emperor herself.
Years later, Qin Hongyi killed her master before all the sects. She impaled Shen Shuchou with a single sword, then led a demonic uprising that swept across the righteous path like a storm.
Zhu Changhai had buried the secret deep in his heart.
But now, facing Qin Hongyi's cold gaze, he felt the end drawing near.
Could he admit it?
"Great Emperor… I know nothing of it," he said, forcing calm into his voice.
But his trembling hands gave him away.
Qin Hongyi narrowed her eyes. Killing intent surged from her body, coiling like a storm around her.
Her pupils flashed red.
A soul-searching technique.
Zhu Changhai's defenses were meaningless before the might of an Emperor. In the next breath, his memories spilled into her mind—clear, vivid, and undeniable.
She saw it all. Zhu Changhai leading the slaughter, the screams tearing through the night, the blood soaking the ground of Pinging Town.
And then she saw him. Shen Shuchou.
He descended like a god into a hellscape, his sword singing death as he cut down the invaders one by one. At the end of the carnage, he knelt before a bloodstained little girl with pigtails and wide, tear-filled eyes.
He reached out, voice as soft as she remembered.
"Don't cry. Come with me."
And in that moment, it all came back to her. Every memory. Every truth she had buried beneath fifty years of hatred.
A tremor rippled through Qin Hongyi's body as the last piece of her past locked into place. For fifty years she had lived in darkness, driven by rage, fed by betrayal that had never truly existed.
The man she had spent her life hating, the one she believed had slaughtered her family and left her to grow up in the ruins of her childhood, was the very one who had saved her.
He had knelt in the blood-soaked courtyard, his white robes torn and drenched in the blood of strangers, not her kin.
Amid the silence and death, he had reached out to her with hands that trembled not from fear, but from heartbreak, lifting her gently from the lifeless bodies that once called her daughter.
A choked cry tore from her throat.
She stumbled back, shaking, gasping for breath as if the truth itself was suffocating her.
How many years had she clung to vengeance like it was the only thing keeping her alive? How many people had she killed in the name of a lie?
The truth didn't just shatter her hatred. It unraveled her.
She threw her head back and screamed, a sound of grief so raw it split the skies. Her voice echoed across the Blood Demon Sect, carried by a storm of killing intent that churned above her like the wrath of heaven.
The clouds boiled black. Lightning cracked in the distance.
Every disciple below froze in terror as the air grew heavy with killing intent.
Death had arrived in the form of a woman wrapped in red, and she had not come to talk.
Zhu Changhai's body stood motionless, eyes blank, lips parted in silent horror. His soul had been searched, stripped bare, his secrets clawed into the light.
Now, with a final flicker of divine will, Qin Hongyi turned her gaze on him. There was no mercy in her eyes.
Qin Hongyi's figure streaked through the air, her movements wild and frantic as she raced back the way she came. She had only one thought left. She needed to see him. She needed to see the man she had misunderstood for an entire lifetime.
Before she left, her voice rolled across the Blood Demon Sect like a death knell, cold and merciless.
"The Blood Demon Sect shall be obliterated."
Inside the dim cell, Shen Shuchou stared at the countdown in his mind. Ten minutes remained. His thoughts were tangled, heavy with emotions he did not bother to name.
He sighed quietly. So be it. Everything is about to end anyway. Qin Hongyi had not come these past two days, and whether she comes or not no longer matters. I will be gone soon.
Then without warning, the air rippled. A figure appeared before him.
Qin Hongyi stood there, her chest rising and falling as she took in the sight of him. The sight of the man she tormented into something almost not human. A surge of regret crashed through her heart, so sharp she could hardly breathe.
She rushed forward and unlocked the chains, but Shen Shuchou was so weak that his body collapsed the moment the restraints fell away. She caught him instantly, pulling him into her arms and holding him as though she feared he would vanish if she loosened her grip.
She said nothing. She only held him, her tears falling like rain and soaking into his broken skin.
She was an Emperor, the strongest cultivator in the world, yet now she had no idea how to speak. Her arms tightened around him with a helpless trembling that she could not restrain.
Shen Shuchou had no idea what she was planning. Perhaps she wanted a new form of torture before he dies.
He had no strength left to resist anyway. Ten minutes were all he had.
But then a warm drop touched his cheek.
She was crying.
Shen Shuchou's heart moved painfully in his chest. It had been so many years since he last saw Qin Hongyi shed a single tear.
"Hongyi," he rasped, his voice hoarse from long suffering.
The moment his voice reached her, her whole body trembled, and the fragile control she had been clinging to finally shattered.
"Master, I am sorry… I wronged you… I was wrong…" Her voice cracked, and tears streamed down her beautiful face.
Shen Shuchou froze. Slowly he opened his eyes. Through the blur of exhaustion he saw Qin Hongyi crying like a lost child, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
"So… you found out," he whispered.
"Master, you knew, didn't you… Why did you never tell me… I made a mistake, I hurt you, I…" Her words crumbled into broken sobs as she clung to him, unable to stop trembling.
Shen Shuchou remained silent for a long moment. Of course he had known. But he could never tell her.
"Hongyi," he said softly, "Master is leaving. From now on, you must take care of yourself."
A sharp pain cut through her chest. She sensed it. Something important was slipping from her grasp. She threw out her spiritual sense in panic and examined his body.
Her face went pale.
Shen Shuchou's life force was draining away at a terrifying speed.
"No… no… Master, I will not let you die," she cried, her voice breaking as she forced waves of qi into his body.
But the moment her qi entered him, it vanished without a trace.
She grew desperate. Her hands flew into her robes and pulled out a pill which she tried to press to his lips.
Shen Shuchou only shook his head and looked at her with heartache and tenderness. The end was already closing in. Heaven itself was pulling him away, and he could feel it.
Two minutes. That was all he had left.
When he turned his head away from the pill, a sharp ache spread through Qin Hongyi's chest, and she could not stop herself from believing he was rejecting her because he still blamed her, a single thought that split her heart wide open.
With shaking hands she placed the pill in her mouth and bit down, the bitter powder spreading across her tongue. Then she leaned in, held his face between her palms, and kissed him.
"Hongyi… you…"
His eyes widened in shock, but she pressed deeper, her lips warm and trembling against his. When he did not push her away, her restraint shattered.
Her tongue gently pushed past his teeth, sweeping along his in a desperate effort to share the half-chewed medicinal powder, but also something far more fragile—every ounce of love and regret she had carried for fifty years.
Their breaths mingled. Their warmth intertwined. Every emotion she had suppressed surged through her like a flood.
Her beautiful face flushed deeply, her breath growing heavy as tears continued to fall. Her eyes, normally sharp and cold, softened into a hazy, trembling gaze that held nothing but him.
She kissed him without restraint, drowning in the bittersweet closeness and the forbidden intimacy between master and disciple, as if this moment was the only thing keeping her alive.
But then her heart clenched.
Her fingers touched emptiness where his warmth should have been.
She broke the kiss and looked up in horror.
Shen Shuchou's body was turning transparent, fading at the edges like smoke unraveling in the wind.
"No… no… please…" Her voice broke as she sank to the ground, half kneeling as the world collapsed around her.
"Hongyi, you must be good," Shen Shuchou murmured gently.
And with those last soft words, his body dissolved into shimmering light and vanished from her sight.
"Master, do not leave me… please… do not leave…" Qin Hongyi reached forward with frantic hands, trying to hold him, trying to pull him back, but she grasped nothing but cold air.
Her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the stone floor, her red hair spilling everywhere as her body shook violently.
"I killed him… I was the one who killed Master… I destroyed him… I…" Her voice twisted into broken laughter and sobs, slipping between madness and despair.
The pain in her chest was unbearable, as if her heart had shattered into pieces.
She did not know how long she cried. Eventually, her voice faded, leaving her slumped on the floor like an empty shell.
Three days later, a chilling message spread across the entire continent.
The Blood Demon Sect had been annihilated. All three thousand members were dead.
And every day afterward, Qin Hongyi returned to the small cell she had once prepared for Shen Shuchou. She stood there in silence, staring at the empty space where he once knelt, waiting for a shadow that would never come back.
"Master, no matter where you are, no matter how far, I will find you."