Chapter 68: The Art of Taming a Beast

For now, lacking other evidence and it not being the right time to further verify with System Sir, Sang Zhiyi silently noted this matter in her heart.

Then she blinked again, imperceptibly cleared her throat, and lazily said to Yue Buping, “Come here, untie the ice chains on me.”

She had called Yue Buping over specifically to use him as a thug.

Breaking the ice prison was only half the work; the chains binding her limbs still needed to be dealt with.

Yue Buping still hadn’t fully recovered his composure.

When he heard Sang Zhiyi’s words, he didn’t immediately grasp what she meant.

Sang Zhiyi’s tone was entirely commanding, yet her enunciation remained soft, making her words lack edge and aggression, instead carrying a hint of proud charm.

This made Yue Buping’s first instinctive reaction to tighten his grip on his sword and want to fulfill Sang Zhiyi’s wish.

But the next second, Yue Buping snapped out of it.

Yue Buping: “…!”

What had he just been doing?!

His brow, which had just relaxed, furrowed again.

Yue Buping was both embarrassed and angry, practically grinding his teeth.

“Yi Jinghong, who do you think you are, daring to order me around?!”

He glared viciously at Sang Zhiyi.

“Do you believe that with just a flick of my finger, I could make your soul scatter?!”

“I believe you,” Sang Zhiyi answered matter-of-factly, very crisply.

She looked directly at Yue Buping without the slightest fear, her expression smiling.

“Isn’t that exactly what you did on the night of our wedding ceremony?”

Hearing Sang Zhiyi suddenly bring up the killing of his wife to attain enlightenment—the most sensitive matter between them—Yue Buping certainly didn’t feel very good about it.

No matter how resolutely he had carried it out, how greatly he had benefited from it, or even how proud and pleased he was with his actions, facing Sang Zhiyi—especially now, seeing her looking at him with a smile that showed no trace of resentment or hatred—Yue Buping still felt a twinge of unease.

He instinctively averted his gaze slightly, a wave of awkwardness spreading through his heart that he couldn’t ignore.

Sang Zhiyi’s smile remained unchanged, but a layer of ice had seeped into her eyes.

After all, the male lead was the male lead, with skin as thick as a city wall, believing he was the only one worthy under heaven.

It was already good that she could catch him off guard and create a brief crack in his mental defenses.

Knowing that Yue Buping would soon adjust his fluctuating emotions and become righteous and self-justified again, Sang Zhiyi continued her offensive while he was still feeling a bit guilty and short of breath.

“During those years in the ice prison, I would occasionally have brief moments of clarity,” Sang Zhiyi’s voice was light and sweet, as if telling a story.

“Unable to speak or move, I could only think.”

“I thought a lot, a lot… especially about everything since I met you.”

Yue Buping: “…”

Dragged by Sang Zhiyi’s words into fragments of past memories, Yue Buping’s expression grew even more complex.

Apart from today’s unusual behavior, Yue Buping had never found Yi Jinghong particularly attractive.

But during those days he had deliberately spent with her, this female sword cultivator, hailed as “the number one below Nascent Soul” throughout the Lingyun Continent, had shown him a devotion and love that was utterly pure, which had greatly satisfied Yue Buping’s vanity.

See, this woman, so talented and famous, was easily toyed with in the palm of his hand, infatuated with him.

There had been some sweet memories between them, after all.

Sang Zhiyi chuckled softly.

“But then I realized that I had never truly understood you.”

“You had ulterior motives from the very beginning, yet I never saw clearly.

I only thought I had found a good husband to entrust my life to.”

She stopped at just the right point, before Yue Buping could develop any rebellious psychology or negative emotions from these words, and then shifted the topic again.

“You are actually a completely different person from what I once thought.

If I have to say it, I can somewhat understand you.”

The second “I” in this sentence, Sang Zhiyi subtly emphasized.

Because the following words were spoken in the identity of “Sang Zhiyi,” not representing the identity of “Yi Jinghong.”

This minute detail did not escape Yue Buping’s notice, but he only heard Sang Zhiyi continue.

“Cultivators are those who contend with the Heavenly Dao.

To seek the great path, it is very normal to have schemes and plans.

Decisiveness is also a virtue.”

“What you did to me now is merely a matter of the victor being king and the loser being outlaw.”

For the first time since this meeting, Yue Buping calmed down and looked seriously at Sang Zhiyi, speaking in a low voice.

“…You have changed a lot.”

Sang Zhiyi curved her eyes.

“If you were trapped in a place like this for who knows how many years, you would change too.”

Easily giving a very natural reason for the differences between herself and the original owner Yi Jinghong, after this series of groundwork, Sang Zhiyi gradually got to the key point.

“I can roughly imagine now what reason you used to make me disappear from the world properly after you struck.”

“You certainly wouldn’t burden yourself with the infamous reputation of ‘killing your wife.’

So in the eyes of the world, I am either dead or missing.

And you can use this to show the world your deep, unyielding affection for ‘me,’ not only creating a good image of loyalty and devotion, but also legitimately warding off your romantic interests.”

As the male lead of a male-oriented power-up feel-good fiction, Yue Buping naturally had no shortage of beautiful women who admired him.

However, Yue Buping’s ambitions were not in that direction; he only wanted to cultivate immortality and become a god, unwilling to spend much time or energy on these romantic interests.

In Yi Jinghong’s memories, she had more than once encountered stunningly beautiful women who had come from afar to seek Yue Buping, but Yue Buping never substantively responded to them.

Instead, each time he would clearly tell them that his heart already belonged to Yi Jinghong, thus rejecting their pursuits.

It was precisely because of this that Yi Jinghong’s feelings for Yue Buping grew ever deeper, until she could no longer extricate herself.

“So,” Sang Zhiyi finally revealed her hidden edge, “even if I don’t die here as you wished, you can’t just kill me again.”

“I am now as weak as a baby, completely immobilized, trapped here.”

Sang Zhiyi looked at the formation beneath her.

“But since I can make your carefully arranged formation reverse and flow backward, I might also be able to reveal the truth between us to the world.”

“I lost to you before, but I’m not completely spineless either.

I’ve made some preparations for a fight to the death.”

Sang Zhiyi tilted her head, her smile relaxed and comfortable.

“Do you believe me?”

This was Sang Zhiyi’s ultimate goal this time.

Wasn’t Yue Buping brooding over the reverse flow of spiritual energy?

Then let him become even more hesitant.

Between risking the unknown to kill her, and sparing this woman who stirred a faint trace of guilt in him and now even piqued his interest, Yue Buping’s choice was not a difficult question to guess.

With a light, effortless swing of his sword, all the chains on Sang Zhiyi’s limbs were severed.

In the end, suspicion and cruelty still surfaced in Yue Buping’s eyes.

After Sang Zhiyi’s mix of truth and falsehood, Yue Buping had indeed been caught off guard and led into a trap.

But Yue Buping was not without brains.

Once his emotions fully settled and he regained calm and rationality, he would certainly realize that something was wrong.

However, Sang Zhiyi acted as if she hadn’t noticed Yue Buping’s change in attitude at all.

She moved her body a little, stumbled a few steps, and only then could barely walk.

Putting on this appearance of a weak willow swaying in the wind, Sang Zhiyi muttered a few words with a hint of reproach.

“I’m really not what I used to be…”

Then, Sang Zhiyi turned her head and asked Yue Buping very matter-of-factly, “When are we going back to the Tianhuan Sect?”

Her tone wasn’t exactly warm, but it was indeed gentle enough.

Yue Buping: “…?”

What the hell?

Yue Buping completely couldn’t understand Sang Zhiyi’s train of thought.

Now that she had finally escaped, shouldn’t she be trying to get away from him as quickly as possible?

Why did she seem to want to keep clinging to him instead?!

Sang Zhiyi opened her eyes slightly, as if genuinely surprised that Yue Buping was looking at her like that.

“Calling me a cripple now would be putting it mildly.

Most of my meridians are destroyed.

I’m worse off than a healthy mortal.

Forget restarting cultivation, I don’t even know how many years I have left to live.

My best way out is to follow you, isn’t it?”

“You’re a Nascent Soul great power now.

Following you, it would be quite easy to ensure a peaceful, worry-free life for me.

And if I’m lucky, I might even get some life-prolonging heavenly treasures from you.

That’s certainly much easier than struggling on my own with this broken, sick body.”

“In exchange, I can cooperate with you to shape the image you want the world to see, earning you the reputation you desire.”

Not exploiting a beast like Yue Buping to the fullest would be such a waste.

Just letting him out of the ice prison was not enough, of course.

She would make him work as her laborer to bring her back to the sect, and also make him provide her with resources.

Gazing tenderly at Yue Buping, Sang Zhiyi’s smile was exceptionally alluring.

“Are you willing?”

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