The days after becoming an Evil Demon passed in a muddled daze, like a fog-bound city that never saw the light of day all year round.

It wasn't actually difficult—ordinary people lived in constant fear, struggling to survive, while the Immortal Sects had to protect their surroundings, vanquish demons, and defend the righteous path.

Evil Demons were different. Evil Demons only looked out for themselves, and thus, they actually held the upper hand.

Muddled Evil Demons who hadn't yet gained intelligence, or those who had just entered the path, would still feel a jolt of fear upon encountering disciples from the Immortal Sects and could be easily killed in retaliation.

But Yun Hai did not.

He cultivated extremely fast. Not only could ordinary disciples not handle him, but even if the heads of the Immortal Sects came, they would likely have to fear him somewhat.

He should have been living a happy life, running rampant without restraint, but he was not.

He avoided all the Immortal Sects, terrified that even the slightest bit of news about him would reach the Immortal Capital and be heard by that Head Immortal of Lingtai.

He even made a special trip to the Southwest Wildland—the immortal art of creating avatars could no longer be used. In the southwest, he learned many forbidden and miscellaneous arts, and expending the greatest patience of his life, he molded a puppet that even an Immortal would find hard to distinguish from a real person.

He shaped the puppet's face to look like his own and placed it in Chunfan City, where the Hua Family resided.

Chunfan City had hundreds of thousands of residents. The puppet was like a drop of rain in the ocean, submerged in the crowds of the streets and alleys. The chances of a member of the Hua Family encountering it were actually minuscule.

But he still commanded the puppet, making it live an ordinary life day after day, pretending that the Yun Hai who had fallen from the Immortal Realm back to the Mortal Realm was living out his life in the manner of a common person.

After settling everything, Yun Hai went to Guizhou, which was far from Chunfan City.

Evil Demons gathered there; one more made no difference.

Rumor had it that there was a Great Sealing Technique there, and cultivating it could eliminate everything, including joy and anger. But very few actually cultivated this forbidden art, because Evil Demons were beings of heavy desire, enjoying those thrills and supreme pleasures.

If everything was sealed away, not to mention the self-harm it caused, what difference would there be from some of those boring Immortal Sects that achieved the Dao through emotionlessness?

But Yun Hai cultivated it.

Sealing away joy, anger, love, and hate, the things that caused him pain no longer entangled him day and night. He felt no sorrow, no joy, no fear, no dread. Be it plants and ants, or immortals and demons, in his eyes there was no longer any difference—if they lived, they lived; if they died, they died.

What he could never achieve in the Immortal Capital, he managed to do after becoming an Evil Demon.

Come to think of it... it was still unreasonable.

The Great Sealing Technique was a good thing. For several years, he was a true Evil Demon, truly doing as he pleased and truly killing without restraint.

There was even one time, when he was passing through Immovable Mountain City, that he heard the name "Immortal Leader Mingwu, Hua Xin." He was utterly unmoved, merely lifting his eyes for a moment without even pausing his steps.

The only drawback of that forbidden art was the self-harm.

For one or two days every few months, his entire body would ache with excruciating pain in his bones and muscles, unable to use even a bit of magical arts or Qi, leaving him weak and sensitive to the cold.

Those one or two days were a form of extreme torture. In his delirium, he often felt as if his soul was split in two, crying one moment and laughing the next, frenzied one moment and calm the next.

Every time he regained consciousness, he would find himself covered in wounds, half his face clawed ghastly and demonic from the pain.

But by then, he was again without sorrow or joy, and even felt that this wasn't so bad. Half his face looked like a man's, while the other half revealed a ghostly visage...

Wasn't this just him? Nothing could be more fitting.

In those years, even other Evil Demons avoided him. It was unknown whether it was because of that face that was neither human nor ghost, or because he had truly done too many crazy things.

Yun Hai had thought that he could live like this forever. As long as the people of the Immortal Capital lived, he could live.

But perhaps the Heavenly Dao truly could not tolerate him, and doing too many crazy things indeed brought retribution.

He could no longer remember how it all began. He only remembered hearing a piece of news that day, saying that a group of Evil Demons he had driven out of Guizhou had taken refuge in Great Sorrow Valley.

When he heard the words "Great Sorrow Valley," he just scoffed. He didn't even recall the dull past of being the Mountain God of Great Sorrow Valley.

Immediately after, he heard more: a caravan of carriages and horses from Chunfan City transporting goods had perished in Great Sorrow Valley, plundered by that group of Evil Demons. Among them were some ordinary people who had been seeking the caravan's protection to pass through the valley.

One of them looked almost identical to him, which had startled the Evil Demons, who almost hadn't dared to act. Later, they discovered it was just a resemblance.

Hearing that, Yun Hai knew it was the puppet he had molded and placed in Chunfan City.

The original purpose of placing that puppet there was to deceive a certain person in the Immortal Capital into believing that he was living peacefully as a commoner.

After cultivating the Great Sealing Technique, he no longer cared about such things and had cast the puppet to the back of his mind, never checking on its whereabouts again.

When he heard the rumor, he was stunned for a moment, but still didn't let it affect him.

It was just the death of a puppet. To him, aside from wasting the three days and nights he had spent molding it, there was no loss.

If he didn't care, no one else would care either.

But he heard that the news of the deaths of those commoners in Great Sorrow Valley had been reported to the Hua Family, the Immortal Sect stationed in Chunfan City.

It was said that the Hua Family had already sent people, who were on their way to Great Sorrow Valley.

It was hard to say what Yun Hai was feeling at that moment. His Great Sealing Technique was still active, and the backlash that occurred every few months was still several days away. He should have been indifferent.

He went about his days as usual, one day, two days...

But he didn't make it to the third day.

On the night of the second day, he was standing on a high cliff in Great Sorrow Valley.

He had once been the Mountain God who protected this place, but everything here had been peaceful, and no one had prayed for protection. Instead, after he fell back to the Mortal Realm, this place was no longer peaceful, and Evil Demons ran rampant.

He had been to many places over the years but had never once come to Great Sorrow Valley. Coming here again now, he found that the Immortal Temple was still standing, but the god statue was gone.

And on the altar, which had been neglected for years, there were actually several sticks of recently burned-out incense.

He stood outside the empty Immortal Temple, gazing at the ash-gray sky for a while, then, following the scent of Evil Demons, he entered the narrow valley path.

At that moment, his soul seemed to split in two.

One half asked, 'Why have you come here? What has this to do with you?'

The other half answered, 'I'm going to take care of these underlings and then mold another puppet.'

He wanted to clear out the troublemaking Evil Demons in the valley before the people from the Hua Family arrived, and then place another puppet near the caravan.

He had even thought about how many wounds to put on the puppet, how severe the injuries should be so they wouldn't look strange, and whether he should mold two or three more commoners.

The only thing he hadn't thought through was why he was doing this.

To have the puppet 'Yun Hai' pretend to have survived a great disaster, to have it luckily escape with its life, be brought back to Chunfan City by the Hua Family members, and continue to be a safe and sound commoner...

And then what?

Who was this pretense for?

And who would care?

Such perfect lack of sorrow and joy, severing feelings and cutting off love.

Yun Hai mocked himself, gathered his black robes, and swept through the entire Great Sorrow Valley with a heaven-soaring demonic aura. Those Evil Demons were already afraid of him; when he was in a foul mood, they were no match for him at all.

When he went berserk, he couldn't even control himself, killing until the very end, his fingers trembling lightly with excitement.

The Evil Demons were slaughtered, and the corpses and remains of the caravan were not spared either.

They were shattered into pieces by the heaven-soaring demonic aura, those skins flying up and then falling back down like torn pieces of cloth.

Not until rocks tumbled about, kicking up clouds of dust, did Yun Hai regain some clarity from within the surging demonic aura.

Just as he was about to rein it in, he heard Sword Qi slicing through the wind, whistling down from some unknown height in the sky, piercing through the wildly surging black demonic aura of Great Sorrow Valley and heading straight for him!

In that instant, his pupils contracted sharply, and his body went rigid, as if he had been plunged into the frozen Endless Sea.

He didn't even need to see the sword; he could recognize the person just from the sword's cry.

It was the Sword Qi of Immortal Leader Mingwu, Hua Xin.

Yun Hai had imagined their reunion many times. Even though he knew that day would never come, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about it.

He had thought he would evade, leaving early before Hua Xin could see him and disappearing without a trace.

He had also thought he would be calm and unmoved, just like that time in Immovable Mountain when he heard the name "Immortal Leader Mingwu, Hua Xin," and then they would cross blades.

The one thing he had never thought of was that he would cover the half of his face that belonged to 'Yun Hai,' revealing only the ghastly, demonic half, and envelop that Immortal who descended from the heavens in black demonic aura.

He dodged the sword's edge, and while exchanging blows, he sneered and asked in a voice so hoarse it wasn't his, 'This tiny Great Sorrow Valley, a few carriages and commoners died, that's all. Why would it warrant a High Immortal to bear his sword and descend to the Mortal Realm?'

They were separated by the thick demonic aura, neither able to see the other. But he could feel an unprecedented killing intent from Hua Xin's Sword Qi, and it was growing heavier.

For some reason, that killing intent made his heart pound like a drum.

It was as if all these years, all his meandering had actually been in wait for this very day.

With one taunt after another, he provoked Hua Xin's sword moves to become faster and faster, his killing intent running wild. Under that Sword Intent, the mountains of Great Sorrow Valley trembled, vibrating ceaselessly.

He saw Hua Xin execute a fatal strike, the tip of the sword carrying the force of a thousand armies as it stabbed toward his heart.

And then... he dropped all his defenses.

As the sword tip pierced through his heart, immortal energy exploded from the wound, clashing violently with the demonic aura that filled his body. Under the heavy blow, he was pinned deep into the ground by the sword.

Hua Xin descended with the sword, a strike already gathered in his palm, intending to add another grievous wound when the Evil Demon resisted.

When that palm strike landed, the mountainside cracked.

The dense black demonic aura was finally blasted away, revealing Yun Hai's other half-face.

…

A fatal strike from the Head Immortal of Lingtai was something an Evil Demon couldn't block even if they tried, let alone when he didn't even try to block. There was only one outcome—soul shattered and scattered, a certain death.

That was the first time Yun Hai had ever seen such an expression on Hua Xin's face. Those dark eyes widened in an instant and trembled.

He saw his own face reflected in the other's pupils—half-human, half-ghost, and beneath him, a river of meandering blood.

He could feel his own soul shattering, scattering rapidly. He could also feel the heaven-soaring demonic aura, freed from its fleshly prison, flowing through the valley like a cloud.

He could still feel the usually warm hand of the Head Immortal of Lingtai, which, at that instant, was as cold as ice.

'Yun Hai?'

'Yun Hai...'

He heard Hua Xin's voice, both hoarse and soft. He wondered what kind of expression Hua Xin wore while calling his name like this. Was it pity? Or sorrow and grief?

He was actually very curious, but he could no longer see.

His five senses were fading, his consciousness was muddled; he was about to die.

But in that instant, he felt an indescribable sense of pleasure—

'You see, this way, you won't forget me.'

He smiled in his final moment.

He thought, 'I'm still such a bastard.'

Endless darkness and drifting demonic aura mingled together. It wasn't until the cry of Xiao Fuxuan's sword ceased that the crowd, after a long, stunned moment, realized the interrogation had stopped.

Human memories are inherently fragmented images, and during an interrogation, they become even more interwoven. Aside from High Immortal Tianxiu himself, who presided over punishment and pardon, a casual glance from an ordinary person could not possibly untangle them.

They could only remember the fleeting glimpses that flashed by: the high White Jade Steps when Yun Hai first ascended to the Immortal Capital, the mountain of blades and sea of fire when he knelt in punishment at the Twelve Peaks of Lingtai, and that masked Spirit King who had never appeared in any immortal registry...

When Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu were led into the round chamber by the interrogation, that was the scene they saw.

The reason that scene left such a deep impression on them was because of the Spirit King's action of receiving the sword, which gave them a momentary feeling of familiarity, as if they had seen it somewhere before.

So much so that after the interrogation ended, they were still pondering that scene, unable to come back to their senses for a long time.

Until they heard a very soft breath from within the deep pit.

They were suddenly startled. Driven by curiosity, they moved closer to Wu Xingxue and craned their necks to look into the deep pit. There, bound by vines, Yun Hai, who had been suppressed in his black robes for several hundred years, abruptly opened his eyes.

His dark pupils focused, from scattered to gathered. The first person he saw upon opening his eyes was Wu Xingxue, who was leaning over the edge of the deep pit.

In that instant, he stared at Wu Xingxue, his chapped lips moved, and he subconsciously called out a name.

His voice was hoarse, almost inaudible.

But if one discerned carefully, one could still tell that he had uttered two words—

Spirit King.

The one who had never appeared before, the Immortal who received the Heaven-Bestowed Word 'Zhao'.

Fang Chu: '............'

Ning Huaishan: '............'