"If you commit suicide now, the merit will be credited to you. In the next life, you might be able to be born into a good womb."

"Or..."

Yi Jianghan looked at me intently, his eyes carrying an inexplicable fascination, even unbeknownst to himself.

"Do you want to stay alive?"

I looked back into his eyes, where a hope I couldn't understand flickered.

It seemed like he really wanted me to survive.

But I didn't tell him that when the divination first appeared, a sealed memory was unlocked in my mind.

A memory sealed by my parents' own hands.

Holding young me, they were chased to a desperate situation by numerous dark forces due to the Hongmeng Sacred Fire in our bloodline.

In the moment of peril, in order to save my life, my father personally extracted his own ancestral god's bloodline as a sacrifice to the heavens.

My mother took her own life on the altar, praying for the protection of the power of the heavens, so that I, an orphan without parents, could grow up safely like an ordinary person.

An ancestral god's bloodline, a covenant of life and death.

My existence was concealed by the heavens, and the Tai Feng lineage disappeared as a result.

In the final memory, the couple that often appeared in my dreams were covered in blood, their eyes filled with profound reluctance.

"You An, live well."

Should I continue living?

But my identity has already been exposed to many gazes, and they all want to take my life.

The sky has darkened, and faint streaks of light can be seen in the air—immortals arriving on their flying swords, Yi Jianghan told me. They came following the divination from the Eight Trigrams Plate. As long as they obtain the Eight Trigrams Plate, they can find the trace of the Tai Feng descendants.

Yi Jianghan said with confidence, "They will fight among themselves for the Eight Trigrams Plate. We can take the opportunity to escape."

He focused his attention on the commotion over there, but I felt puzzled.

"Yi Jianghan, don't you want to kill me?"

This great merit is within easy reach.

Yet, instead of killing me, he risked everything and hid me, deceiving the gods.

I couldn't see what he was plotting.

He didn't look at me; instead, he raised his head and looked up at the sky.

"Do you know why I insisted on descending to the mortal realm back then?"

Upon careful recollection, he only mentioned that Sang Yan descended on the orders of the Lotus Peak, but he never mentioned himself.

He grasped my wrist and placed it against his chest.

"When Junior Martial Uncle fell that year, I gave birth to a demon in my heart."

He didn't understand why the master insisted on sealing the ferocious beast with Junior Martial Uncle's life. If they had waited a little longer, they could have waited for the joint efforts of the immortals.

Mingzhai True Immortal told him that it was a necessary sacrifice for the peace of the Three Realms.

However...

He overheard Mingzhai True Immortal say to someone else, "Fortunately, he died quickly. With his death, Lotus Peak gained a hundred thousand merits."

Since that day, he swore he would never stay in the heavenly court again. He looked at those hypocritical immortals and found them disgusting.

But he was also afraid, afraid that he was just the same as them.

Over time, it became his inner demon.

"But look, it's gone now."

The heartbeat under my palm was steady and strong.

He smiled at me, his eyes filled with relief.

"You made me realize that I am not..."

"Even if great merit is presented before me, I still find them disgusting."

Yes, they want to protect their own subjects, achieve their own merits, become the supreme gods, but they always require others to sacrifice.

I also think they're disgusting.