Chapter 403: Do You Want to Kill Me Too?

Cangming stopped in his tracks and glanced back at Lu Sangjiu, a strange look on his face.

She returned his gaze calmly. It was different from the deliberately coy act she’d put on before, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what had changed.

He just felt... as if she had shed some kind of disguise, giving him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

This feeling made him strangely uneasy. His brow furrowed slightly, and his expression grew colder.

"To address me by my Daoist name... who gave you such audacity?"

Lu Sangjiu said nothing. An inexplicable irritation welled up in Cangming, and he spun around. "I’m not in the mood today. I don’t want to talk to you. Get lost."

With that, he continued walking. Just as he reached the doorway, he suddenly heard Lu Sangjiu’s calm voice from behind him. She said, "I am Gu Huang."

Cangming froze, his heart pounding as if struck by a heavy hammer. He whipped his head around.

He stared at Lu Sangjiu in disbelief. Her gaze remained placid as she looked at him and said slowly, "Now, are you willing to talk?"

In that instant, Cangming suddenly understood where that faint, phantom sense of familiarity had come from.

But... he still found it unbelievable. He even wondered if this was all just a dream.

’If this isn’t a dream, how could someone who died hundreds of years ago suddenly appear as someone else?’

His mind was in utter turmoil, leaving him standing there foolishly, unable to react for a long time.

Lu Sangjiu was patient and didn’t press him, simply waiting in silence.

After a long moment, Cangming seemed to remember something and snapped his head toward Fa Shan.

Fa Shan let out a soft sigh and gave him a helpless nod.

No more needed to be said; that single gesture was all the confirmation he needed.

Cangming turned his head back mechanically to look at Lu Sangjiu again.

He had once dreamed of seeing her again and had imagined countless things he would say when that day came.

But now that he was truly seeing her, he couldn’t utter a single word. All he felt was a dense, sharp pain in his chest, a pain so intense it brought tears to his eyes.

A long moment passed in silence.

Lu Sangjiu lowered her gaze and said to Fa Shan, "I’d like to speak with him alone. Please wait for me outside."

Fa Shan looked worried. "But..."

Lu Sangjiu shook her head. "Remember what I told you on the way here? It’s fine. You can go."

Fa Shan sighed, finally cupping his hands in a bow. "I will wait for you outside."

Cangming stared at Lu Sangjiu without blinking, his eyes fixed on her until Fa Shan had left and the two of them were alone in the great hall.

"...Is it really you? Have you returned?"

Lu Sangjiu looked at him again. "If you still don’t believe me, you can ask me something only I would know."

But Cangming didn’t ask. He just forced the corners of his lips into a bitter smile.

"...There’s no need. I should have known it was you all along. I was just too foolish to believe it."

’Thinking back on all the clues and Fa Shan’s attitude toward her... If it wasn’t her, who else could have made Fa Shan plead with me so many times?’

His eyes reddened. He couldn’t help but reach out, wanting to draw closer and touch her, but he stopped himself.

He remembered the things he’d said to her that day when he was drunk.

She already knew he was the one who’d gotten her killed. With her personality, she would never forgive him.

’She probably wouldn’t want me to touch her, would she?’

’Right. I’d better not get any closer.’

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself. He turned his back to her before asking, "How did you become like this? Are you a reincarnation?"

Lu Sangjiu had no desire to explain the details to Cangming, so she answered simply, "Not reincarnation. It was just a fortuitous turn of events that allowed me to rebuild my body."

"...Is that so? That’s quite lucky, then."

Cangming’s voice was hoarse. He wondered just how much pain and sorrow lay behind that short sentence.

He wasn’t a child. He wasn’t naive enough to think that gaining a second life could be a simple matter.

If it were that simple, she wouldn’t have taken hundreds of years to appear before him again.

Lu Sangjiu said coolly, "Surviving a backstabbing from one of my own subordinates... I suppose you could call that lucky."

"Alright, enough with the pleasantries. I told you my identity today not to reminisce with you, nor to seek revenge."

"It’s the same thing I said before... I hope you’ll agree to a truce."

"I don’t have any more bargaining chips. The only thing I can add is this: if you agree to a truce, I won’t pursue what happened in the past."

"...Although you’ve never said it, I imagine you must have felt some regret and self-reproach in the dead of night, right?"

"In exchange for me letting bygones be bygones, you can consider it a way to resolve your own inner demons. How about it?"

Cangming didn’t answer. He stood with his back to her for a long time before saying something completely unrelated.

"Last time, you said you had someone you liked... Who is he?"

Lu Sangjiu was immediately on guard. ’Good thing I didn’t bring Xie Ningyuan,’ she thought. ’Otherwise, wouldn’t he have been cut down on the spot?’

"That doesn’t seem to have anything to do with this."

Cangming turned to face her. "But I want to know."

Lu Sangjiu grew even more wary. "What are you planning to do?"

Seeing the suspicion in her eyes, Cangming felt a deeper bitterness in his heart. "...Are you afraid I’ll kill him?"

"Don’t worry. The Cangming from hundreds of years ago might have, but the me of today... I wouldn’t do something like that anymore."

Lu Sangjiu fell silent for a moment, but ultimately, she felt that her constant companionship with Xie Ningyuan was no longer a secret.

Before, Cangming hadn’t paid her much mind, so he hadn’t bothered to investigate. But now, if he wanted to, it would only take a little digging to find out. There was no point in her refusing to say.

So, she finally spoke. "His name is Xie Ningyuan. He was once the Buddha Son of the Ten Thousand Buddha Sect, Jichen."

Cangming didn’t recognize the name Xie Ningyuan, but Jichen... He narrowed his eyes and recalled the young monk who had saved Lu Sangjiu back then.

At the time, Cangming had been captured by the Ten Thousand Buddha Sect, so he’d never interacted with the monk. His only memory was of being used as a hostage, tied to the gates of Moon Palace, where he witnessed that monk risk his life to save Lu Sangjiu.

’So, from that moment on, was she already fated to never be mine?’

"So, after you returned, you went looking for him instead of coming back to the Western Demon Realm?"

Lu Sangjiu knew he had misunderstood, but she felt no need to explain.

Especially since, given their current relationship, reminiscing any further would just be awkward and unpleasant.

"Cangming, I really don’t have any more time to waste with you. Yes or no, give me a straight answer."

Cangming looked at her. "And if I don’t agree?"

Lu Sangjiu stated bluntly, "If you don’t agree, then the only way the Cultivation World can stop this war will most likely be to find a way to kill you."

He chuckled. "And what about you... do you want to kill me, too?"