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Meng Fuyao's palm blocked the sword's blade firmly.

Fresh blood dripped steadily from her hand, following the blade as it flowed onto the wound on Zhangsun Wuji's back. Their blood was mixed together as it fell onto the deep purple leaves covering the earth.

Meng Fuyao's expression remained unchanged as she wrapped her fingers around the tip of the sword, intending to snap the blade. However, the sword seemed to be made of an extremely slippery material and Meng Fuyao's hand slipped, resulting in another flesh-splitting wound.

She roared in anguish and lunged forward, wanting to hit the sword with her own shoulder and push the blade out of Zhangsun Wuji's back.

However, Zhangsun Wuji suddenly reached out and pulled her behind him, making the longsword embedded in his back sink even deeper as fresh blood spurted out, dyeing his lavender robes a deep purple. Tai Yan's hand trembled as a look of panic flashed on her face, but Zhangsun Wuji had already grabbed his sleeve.

Upon grabbing his sleeve, his robes instantly hardened and lashed out heavily onto the blade of the sword, causing strange shockwaves. Tai Yan's hand slackened, and she involuntarily let go of the sword. Immediately, Zhangsun Wuji turned and pulled out the longsword, and with a wave of his hand, the sword shone brightly as though it were lightning and, not targeting her, flew towards a nearby pond.

Tai Yan flipped in the air, rushing to retrieve the sword bestowed to her by her master. The sword had hit against a rock by the pond and rebounded, suddenly shooting towards her with greater speed. Tai Yan hastily evaded it and reached out to grab the sword when suddenly, her body stopped moving.

Zhangsun Wuji's finger had already tapped between her eyebrows.

His hand was stained with blood, and he left a deep red fingerprint between her eyebrows, making Tai Yan's plump and flushed face look like Sudhana, the kind child God. However, her expression was anything but kind, frightening even, as she glared at the finger in shock, screeching, ”You dare to use the forbidden technique on me—”

”You've forgotten again, apart from shutting one's memories, the Heaven Reversal Point can also leave a permanent mark.” Zhangsun Wuji stared at her dispassionately, his expression calm as he watched Tai Yan's face instantly turn ashen. He flicked a finger against her and said, ”I think this is the most fitting punishment for you!”

Tai Yan tumbled backward onto the fallen bamboo leaves as she frantically rubbed at the mark on her forehead to no avail. The brilliant red mark remained fresh on her forehead, looking extremely comical.

Tai Yan's face paled, and tears sprung to her eyes as she stamped her foot, turned around and left angrily. Meng Fuyao couldn't care less about her and rushed forward like the wind, holding onto Zhangsun Wuji and feeling his body in a blind panic. ”How are you, how are you…”

She felt Zhangsun Wuji's back, her hands stained red with blood, shocking her to the point where her voice changed as she tore at her own clothes with trembling hands to tie up his wounds. However, her hand trembled too greatly and no matter how hard she tugged, she couldn't tear the fabric. Feeling Zhangsun Wuji's body slacken slightly, she hurriedly settled him down and tore at her clothes again, but Zhangsun Wuji suddenly reached out a hand and stopped her.

His palm was slightly cold and damp with blood, yet it carried the same gentleness as it pulled Meng Fuyao's trembling hand away from her clothes and caressed her face, bringing tears to her eyes as it dripped on his hand, mixing with the blood. Meng Fuyao stared dumbly at his fingers and touched her eyes only to realize that her face was already filled with tears.

This knowledge made her heart ache—it turned out that one's feelings would betray one's willpower. No matter how much she fought against it, she would still cry when it was supposed to hurt. She stared at her own tears numbly, and even more tears gushed out as she sobbed openly and loudly onto Zhangsun Wuji's chest.

”It's my fault, it's my fault… I don't know what came over me… I suddenly went overboard and said those nasty things… It was my fault… Hit me, hit me, hit me…”

As she sobbed, she pressed a hand against the wound, searching desperately for the Ajuga grass medicine in her and Zhangsun Wuji's robes before stuffing those precious pills into Zhangsun Wuji's mouth. The wound against her palm felt as though it was stabbing her heart to the point where she was filled with scars, and those scars suddenly began to bleed as it enveloped her heart, causing her heart to beat even faster and tumultuously until she almost couldn't tell where her heart was.

Yet, Zhangsun Wuji chuckled lightly as he lay in her embrace, bringing his tear-soaked finger to his lip as though he were tasting the saltiness of her tears. He reached out again and stroked her hair, closing his eyes wearily as he said, ”Let me sleep for a while…”

True to his word, he fell into a peaceful sleep, and Meng Fuyao gazed intently at his pallid face and the long lashes on his closed eyelids. Suddenly, her heart felt as though it were hit by a war carriage. 'He, he, he, he wouldn't have died, right?'

With trembling fingers, she reached for Zhangsun Wuji's pulse and actually couldn't locate it several times before finally feeling it. She silently spat out the breath she had been holding and suddenly felt at a loss, unsure what she should do.

Several guards rushed over and tried to carry Zhangsun Wuji, but by then she had recovered her wits and pushed them away, saying, ”Let me do it.”

'It's my fault, let me do it.'

Zhangsun Wuji and Meng Fuyao had entered the cold war period.

Actually, to describe it in that way was not very accurate; more accurately, Meng Fuyao no longer had the face to see Zhangsun Wuji, so the two of them stopped meeting each other.

Every day, she lay on the roof drinking her sorrows away, singing nonsensical songs to the moon and falling asleep after getting drunk, tumbling down from the roof in the middle of the night and kicking off several tiles—Zhangsun Wuji was still recovering from his wounds and since his injuries were severe, Zong Yue and Yun Hen were busy tending to him and couldn't care less about her. Even Zhangsun Wuji's beloved pet moved around with its eyes stuck on its forehead, simply ignoring her existence.

Meng Fuyao continued to drink every day as she allowed her drunken thoughts to roam freely. The more she thought, the more she felt that there was something off about the events of the day, that there was something off about the sudden bout of viciousness from herself; it was definitely not something she would have done in a relatively calm state of mind, unless there was a trigger, but what was the trigger? If it wasn't something Zhangsun Wuji said, the problem lay with Tai Yan.