"Cang Yaochen, everything you did to me... it was all real, wasn't it?" Jiang Li's voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried a deathly chill that could freeze the soul.
Blood continued to pour from the wound on Cang Yaochen's thigh. Due to the "Pain-Sharing Resonance," the agony of Jiang Li's soul being eroded by the fragment exploded within his sea of consciousness with manifold intensity. He struggled to stand, wanting to explain that those memories were traps tampered with by the Old Blind Man, but every movement of his throat brought only a mouthful of blood; he could not utter a single word.
Deep within his soul, an invisible earthquake was taking place. His originally compassionate "True Buddha" persona was being forcibly suppressed by an incredibly scorching and viscous power.
It was the "Love God" persona. He was frantically absorbing what remained of Cang Yaochen's divine power. In his logic, explanation was now meaningless; this world served only to harm Jiang Li. Everyone, every truth, and even Jiang Li's own memories were blades intended to cut her. The only salvation was to lock her away, hiding her in a place where no one could find her—a place where she would forget her own pain.
[System Prompt] Warning: Host's "Love God" synchronization has reached 95%. Obsessive possessiveness locked onto target: Jiang Li.
Cang Yaochen slowly raised his head, the violet light patterns having completely seized his pupils. The gaze he turned toward Jiang Li once again held that terrifying, bottomless tenderness.
"Li'er, don't look at those things anymore," he spoke, his voice as gentle as if talking to a child.
"Don't come any closer!" The crimson light in Jiang Li's hand flared. She instinctively sensed that the man before her was once again consumed by obsession. She had thought this persona of Cang Yaochen's had become normal, but now it seemed far more terrifying.
Seeing Cang Yaochen unmoved, she lashed out with a killing strike—a surge of demonic breath from the ten-thousand-year-old Demon Seed, powerful enough to move mountains and fill seas. Yet, Cang Yaochen did not dodge or parry. Instead, he opened his arms, allowing her to shatter his protective Buddha light and crush his chest inward.
"Ngh..." Cang Yaochen groaned as his body was flung several yards, crashing heavily against a broken stone pillar.
Jiang Li froze. She stared at her trembling hands and then at him, collapsed in a pool of blood. Even though she wished to kill him in this moment, the soul-tearing agony transmitted through the "Pain-Sharing Resonance" made her instinctively want to rush to his side.
This was exactly what the Love God persona wanted. He was exploiting Jiang Li's guilt, utilizing that cursed chain of fate.
"Li'er feels pained for me, doesn't she?" Cang Yaochen stood unsteadily, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth as he approached Jiang Li again. Every step was slow, yet carried an undeniable pressure.
"You're mad... you've truly gone mad." Jiang Li retreated step by step until she reached the edge of the reef, the bottomless abyss yawning behind her.
"I am mad. From the moment you cried for me on the altar, I was already lost." Cang Yaochen suddenly reached out, his fingers entwined with countless thin, violet-gold threads. These were the "Soul-Binding Seals," forcibly condensed by burning his True Divine Origin.
"Sleep, Li'er. When you wake, there will be no slaughter, no fear, and no monk to make you cry. There will only be everything you ever desired."
"Cang Yaochen, you wouldn't dare—!"
Before Jiang Li's roar could finish, the violet-gold threads surged over her like a tide. She found that the Turbid Qi she had painstakingly cultivated was utterly powerless against these threads. Her eyelids grew heavy, her consciousness began to scatter, and the "Pupil of the Past" slipped from her nerveless hand, only to be caught firmly by Cang Yaochen.
Cang Yaochen caught the slumbering Jiang Li, gently brushing her snow-white silver hair behind her ear with an obsessed gaze.
"A-Mu, take your Master's corpse and follow me," Cang Yaochen commanded without looking back.
Crouched behind a pile of stones, A-Mu shivered. He watched as Cang Yaochen, cradling Jiang Li, manifested a pair of massive wings made of light and shadow behind his back, sweeping away most of the black mist surrounding the Burial Soul Reef.
Cang Yaochen summoned the main body of the Abyssal Mirror. As divine power was poured into it, the originally pitch-black surface began to emit a soft pink glow. This was the perfect, illusory cage he had constructed for Jiang Li by combining his power with the "Love God" persona—[Peach Spring Illusion: Arcadia].
With the warping of the void, the grotesque reefs, foul seawater, and shattered warships vanished instantly.
The once-barren wasteland was suddenly covered in lush vegetation. A light breeze blew, and peach blossoms fell like rain. Here, time was frozen, and the season remained an eternal mid-spring with blooming peach trees. There were no pursuers from the Three Great Holy Lands, no harvest from the Heavenly Dao—nothing at all.
Cang Yaochen carried Jiang Li through a dense peach forest and into a bamboo house. He gently placed her on a soft couch covered in silk and sat beside her, his fingers lightly tracing the Red Sand Imprint on her forehead. The mark still pulsed slightly, as if protesting this forced confinement.
"Li'er, you will be very happy here," Cang Yaochen murmured, his eyes full of obsession. "You will forget who you are, and you will forget who I am. You will believe... that we have always lived here."
[System Prompt] Warning: Host has forcibly opened a high-level illusion; the True Divine Origin is depleting too rapidly. Predicted to enter a state of weakness in ten days.
Cang Yaochen turned a deaf ear to the warning, even casually sealing the system's notification sound. He took the "Pupil of the Past" fragment and placed it into the formation eye beneath the bamboo house. He would use the power of this fragment to maintain the illusion.
"Repairing the Abyssal Mirror is that dull monk's task, not mine. What I want is only this girl—the girl who made me obsessed from the very first moment."
He stepped out of the bamboo house and stood under a peach tree, looking out over this lie he had woven with his own hands. Inside the house, the sleeping Jiang Li's fingers unconsciously clawed at the velvet beneath her.