Chapter 46: Who Is the Blood Moon?

Jiang Xiaoyu nodded in a gratified manner and urged her hurriedly: “Go on, Mother, Jiaoyue can’t wait much longer.”

Lady Wang took a deep breath and leaped forward.

“Huh?”

She didn’t fly up!

Looking back in confusion, she saw Madam Zhao gripping her arm tightly, causing her brows to knit together: “What is the meaning of this, Sister?”

Madam Zhao said hastily: “Sister, do not be rash. Let this younger sister go ask about the situation first, lest the family end up on bad terms.”

Upon hearing this, Lady Wang figured it made sense, nodded, and stepped back to her original spot.

Jiang Xiaoyu stood rooted to the spot, his face a mask of shock: We’ve reached this point, and my two mothers are still dragging their feet? Is helping out really that difficult?

Lady Wang sighed, walked over, and patted Jiang Xiaoyu’s shoulder: “Huan’er, Auntie understands how you feel right now, but things must be done step by step. Do not be impatient; Auntie will go ask Jiaoyue right now.”

Jiang Xiaoyu silently screamed for his life in his head. Jiaoyue is clearly in a rush to use the bathroom! Does this really need to be questioned again in front of everyone?

Before he could voice his thought, Madam Zhao added: “Wait until Auntie asks, Huan’er, don’t rush to conclusions just yet.”

Jiang Xiaoyu let out a long sigh and waved a weak hand: “Alright, Auntie, hurry then.”

Madam Zhao nodded and stepped forward.

Seeing his wife take the stage, Leng Feng could no longer sit still, springing abruptly to his feet and walking to Madam Zhao’s side.

Madam Zhao tilted her head and asked in a low voice, “Husband, will you ask or shall I?”

Leng Feng’s face was grim as he lowered his voice to a whisper: “You ask. Mother and daughter are easier to talk to.”

Madam Zhao nodded and spoke softly to Jiaoyue: “Yue’er, is this the secret you’ve been telling everyone about?”

Jiaoyue let out a soft sigh, not answering directly, but instead posing a question that left everyone baffled: “Mother, if a woman’s heart is only one-third with a man, can they become husband and wife?”

Madam Zhao froze at those words, and then her expression turned pale with shock: “Yue’er, what kind of nonsense are you spouting!”

Leng Feng gave a cold snort: “Forget one-third! Even if there were no feelings at all! Parents’ orders and matchmaker’s words—she’s getting married! She has to marry!”

The words carried immense weight. Lady Wang immediately pressed a hand onto Leng Feng’s arm: “Yue’er, since you’ve attained the inheritance of divine arts, you should naturally shoulder the responsibility of reviving the Lengyue Palace and the Spirit-Taming Sect after your marriage. As for other matters, you mustn’t let your mind wander.”

Jiaoyue slowly turned her head, light and dark intertwining within her pupils as if she were desperately suppressing something.

Her voice was very light, falling like a feather, yet every word struck everyone’s heart like a nail: “Father, Mother, you’ve misunderstood my meaning. My meaning is—I am not me. I am only one-third of myself. I have feelings for Xunhuan brother and am willing to marry him. But the remaining two versions of me… are not willing.”

As those words fell, the entire room went dead silent.

Lady Wang was the first to react, her voice pitching out of tune: “Yue’er, could it be that just as Huan’er said, out there you have…”

Jiaoyue’s gaze fell on Jiang Xiaoyu, her eye sockets reddening slightly: “I do not! But they do! Until I finish gathering the twelve powers of the moon, I cannot control them.”

Hearing this, the four elders were completely flabbergasted.

“This… what is going on? Has Jiaoyue been possessed?”

They couldn’t understand a word, but Jiang Xiaoyu understood crystal clear. Jiaoyue was laying her cards on the table.

“She! Is emotionally cheating!”

Just then, Ye Lingtian slammed a hand onto the table and sprang up, his face ashen enough to drip ink: “This is going too far! You…”

Jiang Xiaoyu roughly knew what his father was about to say. To prevent the two families from having a public falling-out that couldn’t be smoothed over, he immediately stepped in to cut his father off.

“This kind of thing is completely normal; none of you should stand on any moral high ground to point fingers at her. Little sister Jiaoyue has her own freedom, and I support her!”

As the words fell, Madam Zhao let out a stricken gasp of “Huan’er,” and her tears began to fall uncontrollably.

Leng Feng squeezed two words out from between his teeth—”Rebellious son.”

His mother walked quickly to Jiang Xiaoyu’s side, patted his shoulder, her lips moving, though in the end not a single word came out. She turned silently to come to Ye Lingtian’s side, murmuring words of comfort.

Jiaoyue froze for a moment, then realized they had misunderstood.

She offered a bitter smile: “If it were as you think, merely a matter of emotional entanglement, why would I need my uncle to open the grand protective sect array?”

At those words, everyone lifted their heads in unison. A flicker of hope danced in everyone’s eyes; after all, no one wished for such an unsightly scandal to be true.

“Inside my body, aside from myself, there are two other avatars. I have given my heart to Xunhuan brother, but those two possess another predestined romantic trial. If the three of us cannot achieve unity, I cannot marry. To force a union would only… cost Xunhuan brother his life.”

Leng Feng’s heart sank back into the abyss, his voice hoarse: “The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment… Yue’er, you have truly disappointed this father!”

Madam Zhao choked out: “Yue’er, while there’s still time, lay it all out in the open, lest it cause a catastrophic disaster after marriage—at that point, there will be no turning back whatsoever.”

That sentence felt like a brand of heated iron, branding fiercely into Leng Feng’s heart.

“Speak! Who is that person, what family, what’s their name!”

Jiaoyue’s expression shifted, and she argued anxiously: “Father has misunderstood, please listen to Yue’er explain—”

“SPEAK!!!”

The thunderous roar exploded like a thunderclap, shaking the entire Moon Lake.

At that moment, the full moon behind Jiaoyue was suddenly stained with an eerie, bloody red, and the silvery water beneath her feet began to churn with dense, bloody foam.

Aura surging wildly, Jiaoyue glared into the void and shouted coldly: “Blood Moon! Hold on, let me explain things clearly to my family first—”

“Hehehe…“

A cold laugh filtered out from within Jiaoyue, as chilling as a wind blowing from the deepest depths of the netherworld. The next moment, towering black flames erupted fiercely from Jiaoyue, swallowing the cold moonlight completely.

“Since you can’t make it clear, I’ll be the one to explain!”

As the words fell, countless skeletal undead emerged densely from the sea of blood. Their hollow eye sockets burned with greenish ghost-fire, their lower jaws opening and closing as they roared the exact same word from the depths of their throats—

“Hatred! Hatred! Hatred!“

Jiaoyue clenched her teeth, her voice trembling with uncompromising resolve: “You must not harm my family! Otherwise, I’d rather burn to ashes together with you!”

“Hehehe… Rest assured, Jiaoyue, I won’t harm your family. I will simply make things clear to them.”

With a sigh, Jiaoyue abandoned her struggle, her body swallowed completely by the black flames in the blink of an eye.

Leng Feng and his wife retreated a step in unison, their sword-fingers flicking as two flying swords unsheathed themselves with a frosty, lethal gleam, looking as though facing a formidable enemy. Ye Lingtian and his wife flew forward as well, four immortal swords pointing as one toward the black-robed woman who called herself Blood Moon.

Blood Moon smiled coldly, slowly rising from the moon boat, walking step by step down the moon stairs. Every step she took on the stairs sent dark-red ripples splashing outward.

She paused on the eighth tier, looking down at everyone from on high: “Do you… have anything you’d like to ask?”

Veins bulged on the hand Leng Feng used to grip his sword: “What have you done to my daughter!”

Ye Lingtian raised a hand to stop Leng Feng, asking in a deep voice: “What relation does Your Excellency bear to Jiaoyue?”

Blood Moon chuckled evilly: “She, along with Feng Huo and I, are the Three Phases of the Moon Goddess.”

Leng Feng flew into a rage: “Utter nonsense! Brother, take her down first, then we can slowly investigate the cause!”

Ye Lingtian’s gaze hardened: “It seems we have no choice.”

Lady Wang and Madam Zhao exchanged a glance, taking a step back in unison to clear the battlefield.

Blood Moon smiled lightly, her right hand curving in the empty air as a black-flame longsword materialized out of nowhere. She tilted her head, a playful arc hooking the corners of her mouth: “Splendid! Let’s talk after we fight!”

Before the words could fall, Leng Feng and Ye Lingtian exchanged a look, two beams of sword light tearing through the void like thunder as they slashed down overwhelmingly.