Cultivation: I Can Traverse Otherworlds

Chapter 220: Chapter 205: Sword Light Division

The blade was ice-cold.

The piercing wound brought excruciating pain.

Zhou Yuantong, however, seemed to feel nothing. Her body went limp, losing all strength as she collapsed to the ground. Her dazed eyes stared at the figure behind her.

The wound on her body was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.

"Ugh..."

She lowered her head, looking at the blade in her chest. Her eyes were bloodshot, it was impossible to tell with anger or sorrow, and her voice was faint.

"Why?"

"Why?" Zhu Ju sneered.

"As I thought, you don’t understand. A Furnace Tripod can bite back. I, too, can use you to become a Dao Foundation Cultivator."

"The Dao Foundation!"

"A Dao Foundation Cultivator lives for three or four hundred years! It’s the Realm countless Innate experts dream of. Who wouldn’t be tempted?"

"..." Zhou Yuantong lifted her head, tears streaming down her face as she looked at the crazed ’stranger’ before her.

"Did you know..."

"I had already given up on living."

"If you had just asked, I would have given you anything, including my life. I would have willingly helped you achieve the Dao Foundation. All you had to do was stop lying and just ask me."

She had even decided where she wanted to be buried. The moment she learned of her beloved’s betrayal, she had lost all reason to live.

Zhu Ju’s expression stiffened slightly.

"It doesn’t matter."

He shrugged.

"The result is the same."

"The same..." Zhou Yuantong’s body trembled, her heart turning to ash. She struggled and roared:

"Why?"

"I have no parents, no family! I only had you! You were all I had left!"

"Why..."

"See, that’s the problem." Zhu Ju crouched down, looking directly at Zhou Yuantong with a serious expression.

"The reason your state of mind can’t reach Perfection is because a piece of you is missing, and you need someone else to complete it."

"Parents, family, a husband..."

"But unfortunately, everything you speak of will leave you. The only one who can make you whole is yourself. As long as you rely on others, your state of mind will never achieve Perfection."

What of one’s closest kin?

They were, in the end, outsiders!

Zhou Yuantong stared at him, her expression shifting from confusion to despair, then to fury. Her body trembled uncontrollably.

"All these years..."

She gritted her teeth and growled:

"You were lying to me the entire time?"

"I wouldn’t put it that way." Zhu Ju shrugged.

"I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me. In a way, my deception was a form of repayment."

"Wasn’t it?"

"All these years, you’ve been carefree, enjoying happiness and joy. And I was the one who gave you all of that."

"Liar!" Zhou Yuantong reached for him, but her hand grasped only air. She could only grit her teeth and scream in fury:

"Liar!"

"You liar!"

"You were willing to spare even a rabbit. How could I have fallen in love with someone like you?!"

"The original rabbit died long ago. I just bought a new one to replace it. Have you ever seen a rabbit live for so many years?" Zhu Ju shook his head.

"Zhou Yuantong, it’s time you woke up."

He rose to his full height, his expression frigid, and abruptly pulled out his long blade.

"You’re not a child anymore, yet you’re still so naive you can’t even tell truth from lies."

"You don’t really think ’naive’ is a compliment, do you? Oblivious to the ways of the world, ignorant of the human heart... Even if you don’t die by my hand today, you’ll die by someone else’s tomorrow."

"If you die by my hand, at least you’ll get a complete corpse. I’ll even bury your body under the apricot tree. The fruit it bears should be exceptionally sweet then. When they’re ripe, I’ll pick a few and have a taste, letting you continue to contribute to me."

"Haha..."

At this thought, Zhu Ju couldn’t help but throw his head back and laugh.

"My dear wife, dying for me is what you wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t that a beautiful thought?"

Zhou Yuantong’s expression was blank. Through her tear-blurred eyes, she watched the man before her, feeling as if this were all a long dream—a nightmare from which she could not wake.

’Why?’

’Why is all of this happening?’

She slowly stood up, tears streaming down her face.

"So..."

"It was all fake?"

"I’m so stupid. Utterly and completely stupid!"

"That’s right." Zhu Ju raised his blade and pointed it at her, shouting:

"Zhou Yuantong, you are indeed stupid. But choosing me as your Furnace Tripod was the only correct thing you’ve ever done."

"Now, die!"

"Hm?"

Just as he was about to swing his blade down, his expression suddenly changed. He stared in horror at the figure standing straight before him.

"You... How are you unharmed?"

"My dear husband." Zhou Yuantong’s eyes were bloodshot and brimming with tears as she gently took a Spirit Talisman from her robes.

"You used this to trade for my sincere devotion, making me enter the Ice Cave for three years. Have you forgotten?"

"A Substitute Death Talisman!" Zhu Ju gritted his teeth.

"That bitch, Princess Consort Yuann! She told me to my face that she favored me over you."

"And you actually believed her?" Zhou Yuantong gave a bitter smile.

"Master has very little of her lifespan left. Even if you managed to reach the Dao Foundation, she might not have been able to wait that long."

"And even if she could wait, what Master needs is my special constitution, not just any Dao Foundation Cultivator."

If it were just a matter of finding a Dao Foundation Cultivator, Princess Consort Yuann could have found a partner, even with her poor reputation.

Zhou Yuantong,

was irreplaceable!

"Zhu Ju."

Zhou Yuantong sighed softly.

"You’ve been clever your whole life. Why were you so foolish this time?"

"AHH!" Enraged and humiliated, Zhu Ju lunged forward, raising his long blade high for a vicious strike.

"Die!"

WHOOSH...

Zhou Yuantong raised her hand, and True Qi from the Broken Eight Acupoints Innate Realm erupted from her Dantian, surging forward without restraint.

The gap between the Late-Stage Innate and Early-stage Innate realms is like a heavenly chasm.

BOOM!

The long blade in Zhu Ju’s hand instantly shattered. His body, covered in blood, was sent flying backward. He convulsed twice on the ground, and then his breath ceased.

As he ’died,’ a surge of Divine Soul Power left his body and flew out, merging into Zhou Yuantong’s Primordial Spirit.