Under the heavens, no one dared to scold me in such a tone, nor did anyone dare to pull me into such a familiar embrace—except for him.

  But in my current state... I continued to stutter, "You... you know me?"

  "Oh right, I actually forgot," he said, as if teasing a child, gently pinching my face with both hands, almost nose to nose with me. "Only you, this foolish woman, would recognize me. How could I not recognize you?" He sighed and called out, "Sha Luo... Sha Luo... Sha Luo..."

  That call of my name felt like I had been waiting for it for ten thousand years.

  But that wasn′t the most important part. What mattered was the person calling my name.

  His hands tightly protected me, and from the pair of handsome eyes before me, I saw my own reflection, along with the intense warmth and long-lost attachment.

  Right, this was the person I had been searching for. This, was my Ao Chi.

  My body was surrounded by infinite safety and warmth, and my soul felt as if it had fallen into the comforting cradle of an infant, gently rocking. It transformed into pieces of starlight, drifting toward the distance.

  All that didn′t belong to me was leaving, and all that was mine was returning.

  "The wedding dress isn't bad, but it's not quite right for you." Ao Chi′s critical comment brought me back from my wandering thoughts.

  Wedding dress?!

  I looked down and saw that the wedding dress on Mu′s body had somehow ended up on me. No, wait, this was clearly my body.

  The curse and poison in me dissolved in Ao Chi′s words, vanishing into nothing. I was back, the tree yaokai Sha Luo, the real deal.

  I joyfully touched my face, then casually picked up a silver pte from the ground, flipping it over to use its smooth, mirror-like bottom to desperately check my reflection.

  "Stop looking, damn it! If you keep staring, you′ll just look like an old yaokai!" Ao Chi impatiently snatched the pte away, then turned to Jiu Jue and said, "You′re not dead yet, huh? I didn′t expect even a heavenly immortal to have such a ruined image. Ha ha."

  Exhausted, Jiu Jue still maintained his composure and reminded him, "This East Sea vil is no ordinary pce. It can confuse human nature and absorb the vital spirit of non-humans. If it weren′t for that, how would someone like you, a little dragon, be in a position to mock me?"

  "Being mocked by a savior is deserved," Ao Chi continued to smirk, as if this was his usual behavior—whenever he saw someone angry, he seemed to enjoy finding every way to make them even angrier.

  I wasn't angry; I had a whole bunch of questions to ask.

  "You..."

  Before I could speak, Ao Chi sealed my mouth with his hand.

  "Now is not the time for questions. I'll expin ter."

  With that, he took my hand and led me forward.

  It was then that I noticed the crazed guests who had been chasing us, all standing frozen in pce. Each one had their head hung low, their hands drooping, neither speaking nor moving.

  "Annoying puppets."

  Ao Chi merely waved his hand, as if swatting away annoying flies or mosquitoes. Those blocking our path truly flew away like flies, colpsing to the ground in a heap.

  "If they were just ordinary humans, don't go too hard on them," I reminded Ao Chi, noticing the women and children on the ground, including the little girl who had just tried to kill me.

  "That's why I didn't turn them into roasted fish," Ao Chi shot me a gre.

  Cp—cp A round of appuse rang out ahead of us.

  The star of tonight, "Groom Ao Chi," cpped his hands and smiled as he walked toward us. Behind him was Mu, dressed in blood-soaked clothes, covered in wounds. What a pity; the body I had given her didn′t look too good.

  The two Ao Chis, at least in appearance, were identical. Standing between them, I would have thought I was trapped between two mirrors.

  Mu said nothing, merely gazing at me with a pair of dull, gray eyes.

  "To see you once, truly not an easy feat," he stopped three steps away from us, his smile faint and seemingly non-threatening. "Twenty years of hiding? Truly not easy."

  I thought that solemnity and seriousness were foreign to someone like Ao Chi. But today, I realized, that wasn't the case.

  "How should I address you?" He sighed. "Anusbi God? Ao Shuo? Or... my dear brother?"

  I couldn't have heard that wrong, could I? He called him Ao Shuo, and... brother? Could it really be that my saying "all weirdos are of the same family" was actually true?

  "We look quite alike, don't we?" His gaze at me was completely different from before, now infinitely gentle. He pointed to himself, then to Ao Chi. "He must not have told you that he has a twin brother."

  "I′m not interested in other people's family matters," I replied coldly, still remembering how he had treated me earlier.

  "Haha, I just like women like you—brave and a little foolish." He suddenly ughed loudly. "Especially that stubborn, proud aura that radiates from your bones, the way you refuse to bow to anything. It's very captivating."

  Mu's eyes were like candlelight blown out by the wind, dark and empty.

  I despised being "complimented" by such a man and turned my head, choosing not to respond.

  "You've put so much effort into this, set up such a huge scheme to force me to show myself, and this is all just to reminisce?" Ao Chi suddenly raised his voice, angrily interrupting him.

  "What's wrong with reminiscing?" He wasn't angry at all, walking toward me.

  Ao Chi stepped in between us with one stride, his voice cold and deliberate: "Take one more step, and don′t bme me."

  "Is that so?" He stopped, his smile slowly fading. "Do you still want to do what you did a thousand years ago, and pierce my heart again with the knife in your hand?"

  Ao Chi's brows furrowed deeply, especially when he heard the words "pierce my heart."

  I could clearly feel his body slightly tremble.

  "At that time, if my soul hadn't been lost, the first man to walk into your life wouldn't have been Zi Miao." He slightly turned his head, stubbornly looking at me behind Ao Chi.

  Those words were like a thundercp, freezing my breath in an instant.

  He raised his head and let out a long sigh. "Exactly. If I hadn′t already died at the hands of my own younger brother and become a wandering ghost, I would have given you a human form and taken you away before Zi Miao found you."

  “Are you food poisoned or something?” I forced myself to stay calm, not to panic, and not to listen to this lunatic′s nonsense.

  “When you were still the ‘divine tree’ on top of Fulong Mountain, you must remember how many people died because of you,” he said, as if recounting a distant fairytale, with the most tranquil and serene tone. “I watched from the cloud opposite you, seeing how you remained indifferent and calm toward the deaths of those foolish humans. That′′s when I knew—I′d found a kindred spirit. You probably never thought about why, during all the long years you were worshiped as a divine being, no one from the underworld ever came to trouble you, even though so many people died because of you.”

  I suddenly remembered what Zi Miao had said to me the first time he met me—if you keep causing trouble, the underworld will deal with you sooner or ter.

  I thought he was just trying to scare me, because, in truth, no one had ever come to cause me any trouble.

  "Because I dealt with those annoying so-called fair and just spirits from the realm of death for you. I didn′t want them to ruin your talent and unique beauty," he said regretfully. "It′s just a pity that fate wasn′t on my side. The one who truly brought you into this world wasn′t me. By the time I returned to Fulong Mountain, you had already been gone for so long." He paused and gave me a deep, peculiar look. "The greatest pity is that by the time I found you again, you had already become just like those vulgar and useless creatures. Damn it, Zi Miao, and all those who ‘helped’ you utterly ruined you."