Chapter 0182

Chapter 182: Zhou Tong doesn’t cry like you do!

Primal Heaven Earth Mountain, Jade Purity Sect.

Everyone watched Tang Qi’s back as he left, and a faint hope rose in their hearts: maybe he could really kill Zhou Tong and bring great fortune to the sect.

Just then, with a boom, Mo Liu Su burst out with all her strength and shot into the sky: she was trying to flee!

Her master stepped out to block her as if he had been waiting for this: “Rebellious disciple, where do you think you’re going?”

As Mo Liu Su’s master, Wu Zhan had already prepared. He took one step forward, cut her off, and sent a streak of light into her body.

Mo Liu Su cried out as she fell like a bird with broken wings: “Ah… my cultivation!”

Her power was completely sealed. She crashed to the ground and could not rise.

She clutched at the dirt and begged in a trembling voice: “Master, please, let me go!”

Wu Zhan answered coldly: “Stop dreaming. You must face the consequences of what you’ve done.” Then he ordered without emotion: “Someone, throw her into the dungeon.”

No one dared move, afraid of being caught by the backlash of Heavenly Tribulation.

Xia Hong Xiu stepped out with a sweet smile and volunteered: “Let me do it.”

Wu Zhan warned her with a hard look: “Girl, don’t play tricks. If you let her escape, you cannot bear the price.”

Xia Hong Xiu bowed and spoke calmly: “Please rest assured. I swear to the Heavenly Dao that I will never let Master escape.”

Wu Zhan nodded and accepted it: “Good. I believe you.”

“Thank you, Sect Master,” said Xia Hong Xiu as she hurried off with the powerless Mo Liu Su, eager to be away from everyone’s eyes.

Halfway down the passage, Mo Liu Su looked at her with wet lashes and whispered, moved to the core: “Girl, you are so good to me. To help me flee, you even swore to the Heavenly Dao!”

Xia Hong Xiu couldn’t hold back a strange smile as she shook her head: “Hehe… Master, you misunderstood.”

Mo Liu Su stared, shocked: “You really mean to lock me in the dungeon?”

Xia Hong Xiu spread her hands with a helpless face: “What else? I cannot defy the Sect Master.”

“You…” Mo Liu Su’s finger trembled as she pointed at Xia Hong Xiu, too choked to speak.

Xia Hong Xiu lowered her eyes and sighed: “Master, please understand. I have my own troubles too.”

The dungeon door opened with a heavy groan. Inside it was dim and damp. Countless chains hung from the ceiling, each crusted with old blood.

Xia Hong Xiu glanced back with a soft apology: “Forgive me, Master, but I have to hang you up.” Metal snapped and clicked; the shackles closed on Mo Liu Su’s wrists. Only her toes could barely touch the floor.

With her power sealed, she quickly ran out of strength. Thin red marks bit into her wrists.

She began to cry, shame and rage twisting her face: “Is this really necessary? I am the Sect Master’s personal disciple, the future Sect Master… sob…”

“To think I’ve fallen to a prisoner, forced into a pose like this,” she muttered, voice breaking. “This crosses my bottom line.”

She bit her lip and glared through tears: “You villains… if it were Zhou Tong…”

Xia Hong Xiu cut her off, cold and sharp: “If it were Zhou Tong, he would not treat you like this. But you drove him away. He would have given you his heart, so why did you treat him that way?”

Mo Liu Su’s mouth opened, yet no words came. Only tears flowed.

Xia Hong Xiu waved, impatient: “Stop crying. Zhou Tong doesn’t cry like you do.”

She backed out of the dungeon and, just before she left for good, paused and looked over her shoulder: “Oh, one more thing.”

Her voice sounded almost cheerful as she added: “These Binding Chains holding you up also bound Zhou Tong many times back then. You ordered those punishments yourself. He never cried. Not even once.”

Mo Liu Su’s last defenses shattered at those words. She screamed from deep in her chest: “Ahhhh!”

Her cry was full of regret and guilt, and something else she could not name.

Outside the dungeon, Xia Hong Xiu finally let out the laughter she’d been holding: “Hahaha…”

Her aura rose all at once, soaring in a blink as she broke through to the Heaven-Severing Realm. She drew a long breath and shivered with delight: “It fell into my hands without effort. I can finally absorb her fortune. This feeling is so wonderful it’s hard to stop!”

In that lightless, airless dungeon, damp and crawling with bugs, only Mo Liu Su’s soft sobbing and her heavier and heavier breathing remained.

She whispered to herself in the dark: “So dark… so tired… so much pain… did Tong’er go through this too?”

Then she shook her head and sobbed harder: “No… he must have suffered far more than me.”

Mo Liu Su trembled as fear wrapped around her: “I’m so scared… someone please save me. I don’t want to stay in this darkness.”

Old memories floated up without warning, blurry yet deep. She had always feared the dark. She didn’t know when it started. She only remembered once falling into endless darkness.

It felt helpless and bleak, so much that she wanted to end her life. At her lowest point, a glowing figure came and saved her, like a god descending from the sky.

She tried to remember and murmured in confusion: “Who… was that?”

She shook her head. She had forgotten the face, yet whenever she thought about it, her heart filled with a sweet warmth.

Suddenly her mind buzzed and a sharp pain stabbed through her skull. She cried out and kicked uselessly, her long legs swinging in the air. With no foothold, she looked even more pitiful.

This was not the cycle of five punishments. A new tribulation had fallen. She had a calamity-drawing constitution. Without Zhou Tong to suppress it for her, this was bound to happen.

This time it was the Forsaken Solitude Tribulation, where everyone turns their back and you are left utterly alone.

Right then, a faint light bloomed in the dungeon and drew Mo Liu Su’s gaze. When she looked at the glow, a soothing feeling washed over her. The pain in her body faded.

She stared hard and saw it clearly at last, and her heart shook: it was her own name, formed by strokes of blood, thick with vow power and stubborn will.

Her lips quivered as tears rolled down again: “Is this… something my poor Tong’er wrote with his own hand?”

Those bloody characters drifted free of the wall and flowed into her like fireflies returning home.

A gentle warmth spread through her. The stabbing pain in her head ebbed, and at the same time the seal on her cultivation loosened a little. These blood-written characters were like the wooden ball Zhou Tong had once given her. They held the power to ward off evil forces and shield her from the tribulation.

…

On the road to the Desolate Mountain secret realm, Tang Qi flew at full speed with the wind screaming past his ears as he clamped one hand on Chen Ling’er’s throat.

Chen Ling’er struggled and snapped at him like a wildcat: “Let go of me, you monster!”

Tang Qi snarled and slammed her to the ground with a thunderous crack: “You wretch!”

Her aura scattered. Blood spilled from her mouth in great gulps.

He rolled his shoulders and spoke in a harsh, eager voice as he tugged open his shirt to bare a muscular chest: “I was going to deal with you later, but you don’t know your place. Don’t blame me for handling you right here.”

Fear flashed across Chen Ling’er’s face as she spat her threat: “If you touch me, I’ll reveal your true face to everyone!”

Tang Qi laughed, cold and scornful: “You’re a nobody. Will the Jade Purity Sect believe you or me?”

Despair sank into Chen Ling’er’s eyes.

Just then a voice called out from behind them, light and curious: “Junior brother and senior sister, what are you doing?”