Chapter 846: Your Dowry

Chapter 846 Your Dowry

Ever since Zhao Changhe had started throwing direct pitches, Ye Jiuyou had seemed rather dazed.

No matter what, the matters that had previously left her perplexed could indeed find a perfect answer from this perspective—why he absolutely had to help her, why he was willing to use his own body for experiments without fearing death, why he refused to let her be detested by others, why he cared so much about whether she trusted him or not...

These various measures, which would be regarded as mentally deranged coming from an ordinary partner, suddenly became perfectly clear the moment the reason was attributed to "he wants to hit on me."

So, he really was trying to hit on her...

Only now did it vaguely occur to her that it wasn't as if she hadn't subtly guessed it before, but her subconscious had simply excluded that possibility... yet only now did she realize that this was the sole answer. This bastard of a thing had never been like those other demon gods whose minds were entirely filled with the grand Dao of cultivation.

Precisely because she had vaguely guessed it, she had faintly felt "as expected" the moment it left his mouth, and thus had shown no reaction... It was only now that she felt she should have been furious about this... Sadly, she hadn't beaten him out with a flurry of staff strikes at the very first instance, and now the atmosphere and conditions for beating him out no longer existed.

Ye Jiuyou did not know how else to get along with a man who was so blatantly interested in her besides beating him out, much less handle Zhao Changhe's current battle-hardened routines. Other than becoming reticent, there seemed to be no other way; words she couldn't figure out how to answer simply went unanswered.

What stroll through the marketplace, absolutely nonsensical.

Fortunately, she originally possessed this cold and detached attribute, so she still appeared quite normal. Even Zhao Changhe couldn't tell that she was actually dazed at this moment, rather than cold.

Thus, he continued his direct pitch: "Taking your silence as assent then... Alright, I've finished resting. Your research from just now isn't done yet, so you can continue to play with my body."

"..." Ye Jiuyou's lips twitched.

When regarded under the concept of an object of research, the other party would bound to feel a trace of humiliation, especially since she had deliberately tortured him before. It turned out he had consistently interpreted it as having his body played with by a woman. In that case, of course he was exceedingly cheerful and willing. Even being deliberately tortured carried a bit of heavy-taste pleasure for him, didn't it?

This time Zhao Changhe was cheerful, while she, Ye Jiuyou, felt an immense ache.

Even the research had taken on a different flavor, no longer able to remain as pure as before. Ye Jiuyou even doubted whether she could still quiet her mind to perceive the tainted darkness and life-and-death within his body.

The atmosphere stagnated for a brief moment. Seeing that she remained motionless throughout, Zhao Changhe said with a beaming smile: "Don't tell me your heart aches for me?"

"Truly a loathsome face!" Ye Jiuyou didn't even want to move her palms. Sitting cross-legged, she suddenly turned her body sideways, attempting to send him flying with a vicious sidekick.

This time, Zhao Changhe actually began to resist, abruptly reaching out his hand to scoop up her foot.

Only at this moment did he discover that she was also barefoot.

The jade foot swept through the snowflakes, whiter than the snow itself.

Perceiving his intention, a cold sneer rose upon Ye Jiuyou's face once more. The trajectory of her horizontal kick remained unchanged, yet she secretly added a violent surge of force. If this fellow insisted on trying to scoop up her foot, she would absolutely make him fly off the cliff.

Zhao Changhe could obviously tell and indeed did not dare to scoop it, only able to honestly lean backward to evade.

He was also sitting cross-legged facing her. With this backward lean, the jade foot swept past above his waist. Ye Jiuyou sneered, shifting her strength to alter the move, chopping a foot straight downward.

If this position was chopped squarely, it would be a total ruin of his manhood.

Zhao Changhe broke out into a cold sweat, placing both hands over his groin, forcibly supporting this chop: "Hey! You..."

As if having regained her wit, Ye Jiuyou smiled radiantly: "What, shouldn't I cripple you?"

Of course... if you really wanted to cripple me, with your strength that still crushes mine by a margin at this moment, I wouldn't be able to support this foot at all. Zhao Changhe's thoughts turned like lightning, though of course he did not utter these words aloud, instead channeling his strength to inject his own Qi of life and death.

Ye Jiuyou froze for a moment. Starting her research and perception in this posture?

Was there something not quite right...

With this exact freeze, her foot was fondled once by him.

Ye Jiuyou added force in a violent rage, treading down viciously. Zhao Changhe, having long been prepared, performed a lazy donkey roll. With a booming crash, even the mountaintop was trodden down by several Zhang.

Amidst a swirl of dust and smoke, Zhao Changhe took to his heels, employing even spatial shifting. Sadly, no matter what routine he used, Ye Jiuyou followed like a shadow, always able to block his front.

A jade foot enlarged before his eyes, kicking violently against his chest with a thud. Zhao Changhe flew backward in a spinning motion as if riding the mists, pasting onto the distant mountain wall with a smack before slowly sliding down.

Ye Jiuyou arrived in an instant, hoisting him up by the collar: "Did it feel good to touch?"

Zhao Changhe spat out the snow clumps and mud from his mouth: "Just wait until I can beat you."

Ye Jiuyou's hairs suddenly stood on end.

This meant that if he could beat her, she really would be casually grabbed by the feet and played with by him? Ye Jiuyou had never felt that strength was such an important matter before, seemingly even more important than when she vied with Ye Wuming.

Yet she hadn't considered that, in truth, she only needed to slaughter him at this time to be rid of that future trouble.

Annoyed, Ye Jiuyou dragged Zhao Changhe back to the trodden-down mountaintop. This time there was no need to deliberately inject shadow and death Qi; that kick just now had already kicked everything inside. She took several deep breaths to smooth her emotions, pressing a palm flatly against Zhao Changhe's chest with a stiff face to continue perceiving what she had been perceiving before, too lazy to bicker further with him.

Zhao Changhe lay in the pit, his eyes darting around as he looked at her.

Beautiful she truly was, and the amplification from this identity and martial power was even more absurd than Piaomiao's, offering unparalleled stimulation.

That was, after all, the greatest antagonist defined under the entire Heavenly Dao, a deity representing chaos, silent extinction, death, and darkness. Just thinking about having a romantic entanglement with such an existence could make one's heart rate quicken by thirty percent.

This direct pitch had indeed been a bit impulsive; he was psychologically prepared to take a beating. In truth, the "inflated" part mentioned by Ye Jiuyou did have a partial reason—even a demon god devoid of emotion and desire like Piaomiao could be gentle as water, so what was impossible about Ye Jiuyou? Moreover, judging by Piaomiao's experience, love and hatred were even more intense during her state of falling into demonhood, and Ye Jiuyou was the very embodiment of a demon.

But the more critical factor that led to such directness this time was that the situation did not permit a slow process of mutual cooperation and testing. Ye Jiuyou was no ordinary minor witch; she was the topmost great arch-demon, with many schemes laid out in the dark. This time it was merely playing with corpses, what about next time? For an entity of her attributes, plotting the destruction of the world wouldn't be surprising. Coupled with the dispute over the White Tiger, opposition between them had already appeared. If it wasn't extinguished in time, was he supposed to wait until something truly happened to fall out with her...

How to extinguish it? Relying on martial force? Gathering the Four Symbols and Piaomiao and the others, even linking up with the Sword Emperor, to directly pile Jiuyou to death?

Perhaps taking advantage of her current weak transition state, it could indeed be accomplished... but could he bring himself to do it? Zhao Changhe knew he couldn't. When he had looked at her figure alone in the darkness by the edge of her pool, not feeling it to be terrifying or treacherous but instead feeling that she was very lonely, Zhao Changhe knew he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Perhaps his entire life would always be infatuated with beauty... Even toward Ye Wuming he had dared to harbor thoughts, and Ye Jiuyou was merely a bit more wicked, what was there to be afraid of...

Then he would strike with direct pitches. Even if it didn't succeed, it could at least make the relationship simple and clear. The most troublesome point about Ye Jiuyou lay in her habituation to darkness; she was never willing to trust anyone, always secretly planning very antagonistic matters on her own... Once she was willing to lay it out in the open, Zhao Changhe truly didn't believe there was anything that couldn't be resolved. This was the optimal path to solving the problem.

"If you dart your eyes around to stare at me again, I will truly gouge them out." Ye Jiuyou's voice seemed to come from the dark underworld, exceedingly deathly cold.

Various wicked auras tortured Zhao Changhe within his body even more crazily than before.

With both hands pillowed behind his head, though sweating from the pain, Zhao Changhe still said with a chuckle: "In truth, torturing my flesh really isn't that interesting. You have spectated many of my battles; this kind of thing is child's play to me. How about you use a steel wool scrub?"

Ye Jiuyou did not know what a steel wool scrub was, though she did know that physical torture was of little use against Zhao Changhe. Recalling this fellow's unyielding character when scraping his own flesh to heal wounds, there truly was no physical agony that could compare to it. In fact, Ye Jiuyou dared say that Piaomiao taking a liking to Zhao Changhe had a very direct relation to having witnessed these performances of his beforehand. A person like Piaomiao highly valued heroes, which resulted in her initial favorability being quite good even before they met.

She, Ye Jiuyou, did not necessarily value them any less... Having grown accustomed to those mice in the ditches like Anmie and Yingkui, a person like Zhao Changhe could indeed bring her a different sort of feeling.

Of course, it was impossible for words of praise to leave her mouth. Instead, she said coldly: "Do you truly think my means of torturing people are only to this extent? I can attach shadows to your bone marrow, and by then you will know what it means to..."

Zhao Changhe interrupted directly: "How can bone marrow compare to the cruelty of the soul? My heart-soul chains have already been undone. Come on."

Ye Jiuyou froze for a moment, charging into his soul sea in a fit of rage.

Do you truly think I dare not turn you into a puppet! At the very least, I dare to plant a shadow, so that in the future I can make you act like a dog with a single snap of my fingers. Do you know none of these routines?

Having only just barged inside, she froze once more.

This was no ordinary soul sea, but an imagination constructed by Zhao Changhe within his own soul sea to present before Ye Jiuyou.

What appeared before her eyes was a patch of dark void. Ahead was a slowly rotating sphere. Upon closer inspection, the sphere possessed continents and oceans; upon the continents were rivers, mountains, as well as various types of life, houses, and bridges.

"Is this... your world?" Ye Jiuyou couldn't help but ask.

Receiving no answer, the sphere before her eyes gradually grew distant and small. Other surrounding celestial bodies appeared, each rotating on its own. Ye Jiuyou's heart stirred slightly. Was this... the Seven Luminaries?

As the perspective drew further back, an endless river of stars presented itself before her eyes. Countless magnificent nebulae possessed an indescribable, ethereal beauty, while billions of stars seemed like dust.

At this moment, looking for that original sphere again, it was almost impossible to find, leaving only an extremely minuscule speck.

The perspective continued to stretch, until it could no longer be seen.

"Looking at this background color, is it your darkness?" Zhao Changhe's voice rang out.

"...Yes."

"You say that without accumulating small steps, one cannot reach a thousand miles... The words are correct." Zhao Changhe said: "But you think it is merely the gap between small steps and a thousand miles. Do you truly have a clear idea in your heart of the actual gap? When the quantity differs to a certain extent, that is a qualitative difference. Having an erroneous cognition of the essence means that no matter how much you do, it is merely climbing a tree to catch a fish."

Ye Jiuyou's mind and soul were shocked by the vast and boundless universe, momentarily speechless.

Suddenly, countless spheres broke away from their trajectories, colliding frantically. From ahead came a continuous and endless starburst, its fragments silently scattering into the void.

Whether or not there is life within, utter stillness, not even a sound.

"Is this the chaos, death, and stillness you sought?" Zhao Changhe's voice rang out again.

The next moment, all images vanished, becoming Zhao Changhe's proper sea of consciousness—a small world with mountains and water, sun, moon, and stars. The phantom of Zhao Changhe's soul stood within the sea, smiling at her: "Can there be an enlightenment that breaks free from the mold of the Heavenly Dao?"

Ye Jiuyou took a deep breath: "Yes."

Zhao Changhe smiled faintly: "Then... stop playing with my body. Nothing is as meaningful as this, right?"

"...Right." At this moment, what shook Ye Jiuyou was not these things.

But rather that Ye Wuming had known all along!

And Ye Jiuyou suddenly realized that the shock she felt was not some unprecedented terror, but a vague recollection of some buried past. That is, she should have known.

She silently withdrew from Zhao Changhe's sea of consciousness, quietly watching his expression.

So all his fussing, deliberately letting her invade his sea of consciousness, was merely to prepare this grand gift... His illusion abilities were insufficient to manifest it externally, so he could only use his soul sea to present it.

Zhao Changhe still lay in the pit, his eyes darting as he studied her face.

Ye Jiuyou no longer had the thought of "look again and I'll gouge out your eyes"; she only said softly, "Do you know what consequences might come from enlightening me like this?"

Zhao Changhe jumped up, cheerfully taking her hand: "I don't know about the future; I only know that now you must fulfill your promise and accompany me to browse the Chang'an market."

Ye Jiuyou instinctively tried to shake off his hand, but Zhao Changhe's voice rang out again: "Don't move—spatial teleportation requires holding hands."

Ye Jiuyou wanted to say that she could teleport faster and farther on her own, why did she need him to take her... but before the words came out, space twisted, and when she opened her eyes, they were in Chang'an.

The two hovered in midair, looking down below.

Chang'an city was still bustling, but the gods who could read qi could clearly see its decline—the mountain and river qi veins had all but vanished. Ying Wu had cut off the Western Regions, Situ Xiao's army pressed on Hanzhong, Cui Yuanyong guarded Hangu Pass to the east, and Batu eyed them from the north. Chang'an's former prosperity had relied mainly on trade with the Western Regions; now Ying Wu's severance had completely cut the blood vessels, draining the land of life.

On a more ethereal level, the qi-vein goddess Piaomiao had previously cooperated with Ye Jiuyou, more or less recognizing this as part of the mountain and river lineage, but a few days ago she had utterly followed a rogue man, unwilling even to cast a glance here.

Heaven's timing, earthly advantage, and human harmony were all lost; all that was missing was a single declaration.

Yet in the short term, this was not reflected in the city's outward appearance; it still seemed lively with traffic, the market bustling with noise and crowds.

Ye Jiuyou said stiffly, "There are plenty of markets in the Western Regions too—why must it be Chang'an?"

Zhao Changhe replied, "To see your dowry."

Ye Jiuyou's mind was still lingering in the cosmos from before, and she said weakly, "Zhao Changhe, I'm not in the mood for your nonsense."

Zhao Changhe laughed, "At least I'm glad you didn't renege."

Only now did Ye Jiuyou remember that she could have chosen to renege and not come, but it was too late. Zhao Changhe took her hand, descended into the shade of a tree at a corner alley, then boldly pulled her toward the market.

Ye Jiuyou yanked her hand away again: "Let go! The agreement didn't include this!"

Zhao Changhe didn't insist, cheerfully releasing her.

Ye Jiuyou breathed a little easier, walking stiffly beside him through the crowded market. Meeting the auntie-like smiles and gazes that appraised them as a young couple, she realized why he had let go so easily.

In others' eyes, whether they held hands or not made no difference at all.

Fortunately, when she had posed as Miss Li here, she had always stayed behind the scenes; few had seen her face, or else she couldn't have walked this street. What was infuriating was that Zhao Changhe was fairly well-known—some people would likely recognize him, and the reputation of any woman walking with this scoundrel would be beyond saving...

"What exactly do you want to buy? Hurry up and buy it so we can leave." Ye Jiuyou stared straight ahead, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

Zhao Changhe looked around for a moment, then suddenly grabbed her hand again and dashed toward a stall at the street corner. It was cotton candy, fluffy clouds stuck around the stall, looking very cute, with a group of children gathered around, staring wide-eyed, almost drooling.

Zhao Changhe squeezed in, cheerfully tossing down a few copper coins: "Two, please."

Ye Jiuyou said expressionlessly, "Are you bored? Using such a high-stakes deal just to come here and eat candy?"

Zhao Changhe took one and handed it to her, laughing, "This isn't boring. Because this is something that, across two epochs and ten thousand ages, the demon god Jiuyou has never tasted."

Ye Jiuyou stood frozen for a moment.

So you wanted to come to Chang'an market—not to buy anything for yourself, but to buy this for me?