Chapter 3
By the time I stepped inside, the cave was a wreck.
Furniture shattered.
Stone cracked.
Spiritual energy still shook in the air.
And in the middle of it all, Kira was straddling Shane’s waist with a knife pressed against his face, apparently deciding where to cut first.
Both of them were injured.
But Kira was clearly winning.
Shane looked furious and humiliated.
Blood trickled where the blade had already nicked his cheek. One of his hands was locked around Kira’s throat, trying to wrench her off.
I stood there for a second, expression complicated.
Then I cleared my throat.
Two heads snapped toward me at once.
Kira’s eyes widened for a heartbeat.
Then, instead of getting off him, she leaned down even closer over Shane and turned to me with an almost provocative look.
“Senior Sister,” she said sweetly, “your husband spent his wedding night fooling around with me. Did you see that?”
Shane started struggling violently.
“You liar—”
Kira slapped a hand over his mouth.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Kira,” I said carefully, “get off him first.”
She looked at me for a second.
Then she lowered her head and bit Shane hard on the side of the face before finally climbing off him.
He thrashed harder.
I stared.
This had gone well beyond anything I had expected.
Kira turned back to me. Her eyes were already red.
“So?” she asked. “Even after seeing this, are you still going to forgive him?”
I set down the wine jar and walked toward them.
As I bent down, Kira actually shut her eyes.
As if she expected me to hit her.
Instead, I slipped my hands under her arms and lifted her up the way I might pick up a child.
She blinked in stunned confusion as I moved her behind me and settled her against my chest.
The marks on her neck from the system-controlled shove the night before were still faintly visible.
I looked at them and felt a surge of guilt so sharp it almost made me wince.
Then I leaned down near her ear and said quietly, “It’s been three years. Aren’t you even going to look at me properly, Junior Sister? Why are you holding him instead?”
Kira froze.
Then very slowly turned to stare at me.
“You…” Her voice shook. “You haven’t called me Junior Sister in a very long time.”
I touched the bruises at her throat lightly.
“That wasn’t me.”
Her whole face changed.
I met her eyes. “A foreign soul took my body. It controlled me for three years.”
She stared at me.
Then her lashes trembled.
“I suspected something was wrong,” she whispered. “I thought maybe you’d been possessed. But every soul-checking spell I used told me your soul was still in your body. So I thought…” Her voice broke. “I thought you had just fallen for the wrong person. I thought you really had changed. I watched for three years and did nothing.”
Her eyes filled all at once.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Senior Sister. I’m sorry.”
I rubbed her head gently.
“My soul never left, so the spells weren’t wrong. It’s all right. I’m back now.”
I let healing light flow from my fingers over the marks on her neck until they faded.
Then I looked up.
Shane had already gotten to his feet.
He’d gone strangely quiet.
Not because he doubted me.
Because he didn’t.
In fact, he looked as though something inside him had finally clicked into place.
Later, I would realize why.
Years ago, before he entered the path of cultivation, he had been just another frightened mortal boy cornered by a demon beast. I had happened to pass by during an exorcism mission. I had cut the beast down with one strike, blood splashing warm across his face, then healed the wounds on his body and left without a second thought.
That had been the version of me he first met.
Distant.
Calm.
Untouchable.
Not the clinging, simpering creature the system later forced him to marry.
He had known the difference all along.
He just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
He had wanted the unattainable immortal.
But he had married the counterfeit.
And now the real one was standing here again.
Only my arms were around Kira instead of him.
Shane’s gaze darkened by the second.
His eyes moved from Kira in my arms to my face, and the jealousy in them turned ugly fast.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rushed.
“Evelyn, last night wasn’t what she said. She tricked me into coming here. She wanted to kill me. She’s insane. Look at my face—she cut me.”
Kira tightened her hold around my waist and buried her face against me as if trying to disappear.
I sighed.
“Shane, you heard what I said. This marriage wasn’t my choice. I’m sorry for the trouble it caused you.” I paused. “And I apologize for Kira’s part in this.”
Then I finished, plainly, “Let’s separate.”
I raised a hand to heal the cuts on his face.
But before I could, he caught my wrist.
Hard.
He stepped closer, eyes burning.
“Apologize?” he said. “Why are you apologizing for her? Evelyn, we’re married. You’re my wife. How can we separate now?”
I looked at him in genuine confusion.
He hadn’t loved the counterfeit me.
Not really.
So why was he acting like this now?
One broken illusion later, and suddenly both of them were behaving strangely.
I opened my mouth to free my wrist—
and cold fingers touched my cheek from the other side.
I turned.
Dark red eyes met mine.
A faint demonic mark glowed at Julian’s brow, lending his face a dangerous beauty that would have made anyone else step back on instinct.
His mouth curved, but his gaze was heavy.
“So this,” he said softly, “is your idea of solving the problem?”
I stared at him.
“How did you get out?”
“If I hadn’t come,” he said, looking meaningfully at Shane’s grip on my wrist, “the two of you would probably be kissing by now.”
At once, both Kira and Shane looked between us.
Kira was first to speak.
“Senior Sister,” she said slowly, “who is this?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
Because at that point the situation had become ridiculous.
My waist was still trapped in Kira’s arms.
My wrist was in Shane’s hand.
And Julian’s fingers were resting against my throat like he had every right in the world to be there.
I closed my eyes for one second.
Then lost my patience.
Spiritual power burst outward and shoved all three of them back.
“Stand up straight,” I snapped. “And stop touching me.”
They actually listened.
For once.
I picked up the wine jar from the floor and shoved it into Kira’s arms.
“I buried that three years ago. You’re the first one drinking it. After you finish it, you’re not allowed to stay mad at me anymore.”
Kira looked down at the jar, blinking.
Then she caught the murderous looks Shane and Julian were both shooting at her and immediately brightened.
“Neither of you get any,” she said smugly. “I hope it kills you with envy.”
I ignored them and turned to Shane.
The moment I lifted my hand, he bent his head almost reflexively and leaned his cheek into my palm.
I paused.
That was… uncomfortably dog-like.
Still, I cast a healing spell over him. The cuts on his face vanished. As soon as I lowered my hand, I turned away without another word.
Then I grabbed Julian by the collar.
He had been leaning against the wall watching the entire show with obvious enjoyment.
I kicked him in the shin.
“Ow,” he said.
“Everyone outside is hunting for you,” I said. “I told you not to come out.”
He lowered his eyes, suddenly wronged.
“So she gets wine, he gets healing, and I get kicked?”
“Julian,” I said through my teeth, “how old are you?”
He bent toward my ear and whispered with a smile, “Neither. Just kiss me once and I’ll go back to the dungeon obediently.”
Then he actually closed his eyes and waited.
I stared at him.
Finally, I put one palm against his forehead and gave him a healing spell instead.
He opened his eyes and looked genuinely disappointed.
“I think,” I said, “you need treatment more than romance.”
Before he could answer, the communication talisman at my waist lit up.
I froze.
There was one thing I had nearly forgotten in all this chaos.
The sect assigned regular exorcism missions to every disciple. The system had spent three years dodging mine, and the deadline had already arrived.
I unfolded the mission slip.
Mirror demon.
Qingyao Town.
Departure: tomorrow.
I turned and headed for the door.
“I have to leave on sect business,” I said. “The three of you stay here and do not fight.”
Then I looked directly at Julian.
“Especially you. Be careful.”
Behind me, Kira hugged the wine jar and scoffed at the other two.
“Idiots,” she muttered. “Senior Sister never said we couldn’t follow her.”
Julian looked at Shane and smiled slowly.
“So,” he said, draping an arm over his shoulder with far too much familiarity, “you’re the groom who abandoned Evelyn on your wedding night.”
Shane shrugged him off with a dark look.
Julian’s voice stayed lazy, amused.
“You don’t seem like much. Still, I should thank you. If you’d clung to her, she wouldn’t have been free to do what she actually wanted.”
Shane’s expression sharpened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Julian said, his demonic energy suddenly slamming into Shane’s shoulder through that casual touch, “you only got close to her because a counterfeit soul handed you the chance. Without that thing, would you ever have made it onto her bed?”
Blood rose at Shane’s lips.
He wiped it off with the back of his hand and spat two words.
“Homewrecker.”
Julian’s smile vanished.
“What did you call me?”
Shane’s hand closed around his sword.
“If you seduce someone else’s wife, what else would you be?”
Julian’s eyes turned fully red.
“You still think you qualify to call yourself her husband? She came here today to leave you.”
By the time I heard the crash behind me, I was already too far down the corridor to care.
Let them destroy each other a little.
I had a demon to catch.
Or so I thought.
In reality, before I left the sect, Kira appeared at my side, eyes bright.
“What mission is it?”
I showed her the slip. “A mirror demon in Qingyao Town. It’s harmed a lot of people.”
“I’m coming.”
“It’s a solo mission.”
Her voice dropped. “What if you come back different again? What if I lose you a second time?”
That stopped me.
I looked at her for a long moment.
Then I sighed and patted her head.
“I won’t change again. But fine. You can come.”
We returned to her residence to prepare.
The place was even more destroyed than before.
Julian and Shane were both sprawled on the floor, eyes closed, pretending to be dead.
I stared at them.
“I literally just told you not to fight.”
“He started it,” they said at the exact same time.
Kira walked past them, expression murderous.
“If my room isn’t cleaned by tonight,” she said sweetly, “I’ll kill both of you.”
That evening, for the first time in days, I thought I might finally get some peace.
I was wrong.
After I lay down, there was a knock at the door.
Then it opened.
Moonlight spilled across the figure standing there.
Kira wore a thin white nightdress, soft and gauzy, clinging in all the wrong places. She looked dangerously pretty. The kind of pretty that would have made people call her a fox spirit if they didn’t know better.
She bent over my bed.
“Senior Sister,” she murmured, “my room’s unusable. It’s cold.”
I blinked at her sleepily.
Then, without much thought, grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto the bed.
She landed in my arms, stunned.
I yawned, patted her back the way I used to when she was little, and closed my eyes again.
“Of course you’re cold,” I muttered. “You’re barely wearing anything. You’re still the same as when you were a kid. You always needed someone to coax you to sleep.”
Her entire body had gone stiff.
If the room had been brighter, I might have seen how red her face became.
Instead, I only felt the slight tremor in her shoulders as I drifted off.
Much later, when my breathing had evened out, she carefully leaned forward and stole the lightest kiss from my cheek.
Then tucked herself against me and fell asleep.
The next morning, all four of us went to Qingyao Town.
Me.
Kira.
Julian.
And Shane.
I looked at the three of them and genuinely considered turning around.
The mission slip had clearly said one person.
Apparently, none of them could read.