Bengtie: My death fueled their madness.

When serving tea to my master, my fingertips might inadvertently touch his hand.

When walking side by side, your shoulder will unintentionally brush against his arm.

Each touch felt like a tiny electric current running down my spine.

She trembled inwardly, and became secretly infatuated.

But Master's reaction was always so restrained, so... distant.

When the two get too close, they casually take a half-step apart as if nothing has happened.

Looking back, I realized that before that incident, my master had never explicitly refused her approach, nor had he ever spoken to her to stop her.

The master knew perfectly well that her approach would only bring him endless impulses and pain, and would also cause two other people to bear the consequences in her place.

To put it bluntly, Mianxue and Qinghan were practically their master's mobile blood bank; to put it even more bluntly, they were his personal medicines used to suppress the onset of his illness.

They will eat whenever they feel the symptom of the illness.

Yes, that's right. The seniors had no complaints about it, but the master felt only a growing sense of guilt.

Compared to her incompetent disciple, who was lost in her own world and completely unaware of the many hardships and sufferings—

The help her mentor received from her seniors far surpassed what she received in every aspect.

But what about the two seniors?

She clearly loved her master and had given so much, yet like her, she never received a response from him.

In this respect, she is actually the winner.

Because my master had said that he might have fallen for her, but the other seniors hadn't.

All those beautiful speculations from the past were misunderstandings.

Sometimes, Master would stay overnight in Mianxue and the others' rooms, but only to impart his insights on the practice of the Free Manifestation Body.

Time flowed on, and finally that day arrived...

It was a warm, sunny afternoon in early autumn.

While strolling with my master along the scenic lakeside, we saw people cuddling intimately.

She also wanted to hold her master's arm and lean on her beloved like an ordinary woman.

Driven by an impulse accumulated over hundreds of years, she mustered her courage, reached out, and tightly took her master's arm.

As a result, as soon as he felt the warmth from his master's skin, he reflexively pulled his arm away.

The speed of the action and the obviousness of the rejection were evident.

Her master frowned and asked her what she was doing all of a sudden, but she could no longer control her overwhelming emotions and contradicted her master for the first time.

She loudly questioned him why, after hundreds of years, despite her desperate efforts to become stronger and chase after him, she could never earn a single glance from him.

Why can he dance and have close contact with his seniors, but avoid her like the plague?

She unleashed the doubts that had been brewing in her heart for many years without holding back, questioning her master why he hated her so much.

Looking back now, it's easy to see that the master was desperately suppressing something, despite his similarly silent behavior and expressionless face.

It was only the coldness on the surface that made her let go.

They simply used a lame excuse as a way to dampen her fiery outburst, mercilessly extinguishing it.

And she was heartbroken, feeling as if the whole world had fallen into darkness.

For the first time, the thought arose that I should distance myself from my master and focus on improving myself in order to become stronger faster.

Her obsession didn't disappear; instead, it nearly drove her mad.

Especially after the emergence of Bu Liren's new warrior.

This hungry wolf named Hu Lei became her final destination in pursuing her master and being able to stand rightfully by his side.

Even if—that endpoint was just wishful thinking on her part.

At least it gives people something to look forward to.

However, this hope persisted for hundreds of years without ever being fulfilled.

For more than a hundred years before his master's death, Hu Lei remained extremely well hidden, making him arguably the most cunning leader of the Bu Li Zhan clan in history.

She felt comfortable living in Luofu.

On an ordinary morning, Mianxue, who had already retired from the military, opened the paper calendar for the new year.

Astrological year 7200.

There are still 138 years until Master and Shuhu perish together.

"Mianxue, I will need your help in the coming days."

Qi Zhimu appeared behind her.

"Go ahead and say it," Mianxue replied without hesitation.

"I want to forge a sword."

"But neither my younger sister nor I know how to..."

"You don't need help with the forging process, just follow me."

Upon seeing this, Jingliu suddenly felt a sense of foreboding.

Could the sword that Master wants to forge be Zhan Hui?

However, it was only in the winter of 7277 in the astrological calendar that her master entrusted Zhanhui to her.

What sword takes 77 years to forge?

Jing Liu harbored a glimmer of hope.

However, what happened next completely shattered that last bit of hope she had.

She covered her lips tightly, trying her best to hold back her sobs.

Day after day, the master dissected his own body and removed bones from specific parts of his body.

For positions that were inconvenient for them to reach, Mianxue and the others would take care of them.

Those bones will regenerate, and once they are regenerated, they will be taken again.

Her master regarded bones as a special consumable material that she could not understand, and used it to forge the Zhanhui Sword.

The sword blade is melted at extremely high temperatures, mixed with powdered bone, and then reshaped.

After Zhan Hui completed the second shaping, it seemed to come to life.

The integration into the bone no longer requires grinding it into powder; simply bringing the two into contact will allow Zhanhui to automatically absorb the bone and integrate it into the blade.

After that, the master added many other things.

Blood, bone marrow, organs... it might even break its own neck and merge its head into it.

This……

It's not that Zhan Hui seems to have a life of his own, but that he truly does!

Jingliu's pupils trembled violently as he incredulously took out the sword, which had been broken into several pieces, and gently stroked it.

No wonder he feels incredibly at ease every time he falls asleep with his sword in his arms.

The fundamental reason is that this sword was forged by the master himself.

Zhan Hui is the embodiment of the Master, possessing a life connection; wherever there is damage, it will automatically recover...

It took him a full 77 years to forge this sword!

The moment it was completed, Qinghan finally couldn't help but ask him why he had used his own body as material to forge this sword.

Mianxue cast the same glance.

Qi Zhimu did not answer immediately, but instead put the unnamed finished product back into its sheath, a look of relief flashing across his face.

"Qinghan, some monsters are very difficult to kill, or even impossible to kill. The only people who can easily kill monsters are gods and often the monsters themselves."

"..."

The two sisters looked at each other without saying a word, and immediately understood.

Deep down, I had guessed the correct answer, but I just didn't want to believe it.

"...So, this is a sword you specially forged for Kagami-ryu, right?"

"good."

"Isn't this too cruel for her...?"

"Perhaps, but someone has to do it. I taught her that if I ever fall into demonic possession on the battlefield, I must not show any mercy."

Falling into the demonic body makes one a monster, and a monster is equivalent to the demonic body.

"If I could kill Shuhu, that day might not have come. But what if the worst happens..."

Qi Zhimu did not continue speaking.

Whether it was the two sisters or Jingliu looking back on the past, they all understood what the unspoken words were.

"..."

Jingliu's emotions completely broke down, and he collapsed into an uncontrollable breakdown.