I Am the Fated Villain
chapter-859

“There are indeed higher powers watching from above, but these are merely rumours of the past. Why are you taking them seriously, Miss? Could it be that you’ve gone to the mountain peak up ahead and saw that powerful Demon for yourself?” Song Ming smiled faintly when he noticed that the young woman in red was heading in the same direction as they were. He and his Juniors soon caught up to her.

However, the young woman in red did not respond. She remained cold and indifferent. It was as if her earlier words were all she was willing to say.

“You seem to be heading towards the Nether. That happens to be where we’re going too. There are Demons occupying that place so it is really dangerous. You’ll be helpless if you encounter any danger alone. We are a pretty big group. It’ll be better if you join us. We can come to your aid if necessary…”

“Miss…”

…

The bamboo leaves continued to rustle as a great fog swirled through the area, making the forest look like the Celestial Realm.

Every bamboo stalk was covered in purple patterns. Some of the bamboo stalks that had been growing for over a million years were harvested by cultivators. They were exceptionally good materials for making flying swords.

“The Misty Purple Bamboo Forest…” A soft murmur rang out deep within the massive bamboo forest.

Chan Hongyi hovered in the void with a complicated look in her eyes. She seemed like an otherworldly being who was observing everything before her.

This bamboo forest was extremely familiar to her. It contained many traces of her cultivating the sword.

She had personally built the bamboo pavilion where the group of young men and women gossiped about her Master. However, she was now nothing more than a bystander peering into the past.

She watched as the young woman in red left. She saw the young man named Song Ming chasing after the young woman with his Juniors in tow.

The River of Time had been in chaos. The entire place had been shrouded in unceasing dark fog. She had been nothing more than a fragile leaf that was tossed around by the towering waves. She could have been crushed by that mighty power at any given moment. She could have drowned and remained buried in its waters forever.

Even an Immortal King could very well have died in that terrifying situation.

She had not regained the cultivation she possessed at her peak yet. In some ways, she was not any weaker than an Immortal King, but nevertheless, she was not truly in the Immortal King Realm.

At the time, Chan Hongyi thought she was going to die. The mark of her Soul would be shattered by the sea of lightning. She would be wiped from existence.

However, she did not feel despair. Instead, she was unusually calm. She felt a sense of relief, as well as a faint sense of regret.

Dying while searching for the truth felt like a decent way to go.

Yet, Chan Hongyi never expected that just as she made her peace with death, the chaotic River of Time quietened down all of a sudden. Even the flurry of lightning vanished.

An invisible power lifted her sinking body out of the water.

The invisible power… felt like a pair of warm hands. It was an extremely familiar sensation. She could not help but recall her youth.

Chan Hongyi thought it was merely her final glimmer of life before eternal death. She tried to open her eyes, but everything was dark. She could not see anything.

“Is it you, Master?” she whispered.

She did not get an answer, and when she opened her eyes again, she had woken up in a familiar bamboo forest.

She had gone back in time to the epoch she wanted to return to. She could scarcely believe it.

Chan Hongyi’s emotions were deeply conflicted. She thought it had only been a final vision before her death.

But instead, someone had pulled her out from the bottom of that sea of chaos.

Everything was real. It was not a dream or an illusion.

“But, why did you save me? Why did you send me to this era?” Chan Hongyii stood in the void and murmured, “Master, the one I love the most, and the one I hate the most too.”

She did not understand why Gu Changge did this.

The River of Time was surging with chaos. It was clearly due to the appearance of a powerful being on the other side of it that led to its upheaval.

The only possibility was that Gu Changge had entered the River of Time and attacked her and Tao Yao from the other side.

In that case, why did he save her later on?

“Master, I just realised that I’ve never actually understood you.” Chan Hongyi’s emotions had never been as complicated as they were now. Her conflicted emotions had tormented her for countless years now.

When she had been sealed up inside the Demon-Burying Abyss, she kept counting the days. Each time the light outside the abyss vanished, it meant that a day had passed outside.

Over and over again.

She counted the many years that passed since the Forbidden Epoch until she finally regained her freedom.

Over time, she had been driven to madness and truly became a Demoness filled with nothing but malevolence. All she wanted was to kill everything and everyone.

After escaping from the Demon-Burying Abyss, she slaughtered her way through the Upper Realm until she got to where Gu Changge was.

The deeper one’s love was, the more consuming one’s hatred was too.

Chan Hongyi thought that was an apt description of her. However, as she regained her cultivation, her emotions settled, and she was able to control the malevolence in her. Although she was still possessed by her demonic side, she did not lose all her senses the way she did back then. She no longer had that unquenching thirst for nothing but murder.

“What is the truth I’m looking for…” Chan Hongyi’s silhouette vanished, and like an innocent bystander, she followed the young woman in red. She saw the young woman heading towards the Nether. It was the same young woman who warned the Divine Sword Dao Sect disciples not to follow her.

She also saw the young man named Song Ming trying to build a connection with the young woman in red.

Alas, the young woman in red was entirely indifferent towards him. She did not even spare him a glance. She was holding herself in, for she wanted nothing more than to draw her sword and execute him.

Chan Hongyi’s expression became gentle as she watched her past self.

At the time, she simply thought that the young man she had only met for the first time was extremely annoying. She thought nothing else of his behaviour.

Now that she was looking at the situation again, she could tell that the young man named Song Ming had a favourable impression of her and was expressing interest in her.

It had only been his first time seeing her.

She did not think of it at the time. She merely thought he was an annoying person, though she knew he meant no harm. He even helped her kill a few Demons when they were in the Nether.

When he asked where she was from, she said she was from that mountain, but no one believed her. They all thought she was kidding.

Later on, she told her Master about this. However, he was a little displeased and told her to minimise her contact with these disciples.

The next day, an Ancestor from Song Ming’s Sect came with Song Ming. They kneeled at the bottom of the mountain.

Chan Hongyi thought that these memories had faded from her mind, but now, she realised that she had chosen to forget about them.

Now that she was back in this era, she could recall them clearly again.

She cut through the forest and kept heading further in time. Nevertheless, the moment in time and space that she was currently in was merely a tiny fragment in the River of Time. Still, it was more than tens of thousands of years.