Hearing this, Qin Qingluo lifted her head to look.

From the very first meeting, the more she came into contact with him, the more Qin Qingluo felt that Chen Yi was someone she sometimes understood, and sometimes utterly could not.

He was like some fickle whore whose thoughts drifted everywhere, his actions rarely followed any common logic; call him a lust-crazed hungry ghost and you wouldn’t be wrong, yet he let the tiger back to the mountain; say he was riddled with old and new grudges and you wouldn’t be wrong, yet he kept tangling, never letting go. His heart’s path was riddled with contradictions—he dared to touch her reverse scale, and yet... he was afraid...

Afraid that if he grew too close to her, he would be devoured by her until not even his bones remained.

Qin Qingluo seemed to catch something, and suddenly found it funny.

Chen Yi sat high above her, then slowly descended. At this moment the two of them both appeared in the form of their Divine Souls. "This isn’t anywhere else, it’s in my Heart Lake... Let’s talk, shall we?"

They had once used the sword to transmit their hearts; wanting to talk didn’t seem so hard.

Qin Qingluo was still laughing, a scornful curve on her lips.

"Between you and me, what is there to talk about?"

He flicked his hand lightly, and the Heart Lake shifted and warped. Suddenly, the tender, adorable face of an infant surfaced. Qin Qingluo’s smile slowly faded, an indescribable look crossing her features.

Her pupils were as cold and sharp as blades.

"There are times when our hearts resonate, aren’t there?" Chen Yi said slowly.

"Those are precisely the times this Prince most wants to kill you." She spat the words out coldly.

Qin Qingluo did not know what Secret Technique Chen Yi had used to draw her into this Heart Lake. She only knew that, for the moment, she could not kill him.

In that case, they might as well talk.

"My entry into the Southern Border... was for the Divine Sect, not to kill you." Chen Yi drew in a deep breath, and in this moment when they could not kill each other, he cautiously entrusted his thoughts.

"Back then it was a misunderstanding, I know that."

"If you knew it was a misunderstanding, why did you still make a move against me?" Chen Yi was slightly taken aback, but the moment he finished speaking he himself felt it absurd. What lay between the two of them was enough to be called a vendetta of blood-deep hatred—on that alone, she had every reason to kill him.

Only, in her heart, it wasn’t...

Chen Yi suddenly thought,

Could it be that she still hadn’t realized?

"Three years ago, I already warned you never to set half a step into the Southern Border again. Since you came, you must die." Qin Qingluo said slowly.

Chen Yi came back to himself and said mockingly, "You make it sound like you spared my life."

"But I did spare that bastard child’s life."

With a single sentence, Chen Yi’s words were blocked in his throat.

Perhaps in this female Prince’s eyes, Qin Yue’s birth was not proof of some lingering, unsevered tie, but a mark that from then on, all debts and grievances were settled.

Otherwise, at the time of parting, she would not have loosed that arrow with the hairpin nocked to the bowstring.

The female Prince said with an abnormal calm, "Let us speak plainly. In these three years, I have wanted to kill that bastard child more than once, and more than once stayed my hand. Besides Aunt Zhu’s sake, you were also indeed part of the reason. You once saved me, and you once helped me. I am not a heartless, ungrateful person like you. I remember everything clearly."

"I even considered that, if you came, I would receive you with courtesy."

"But I have discovered that, after your appearance, compared to that faint, almost nonexistent trace of grace, my killing intent runs deeper."

Chen Yi lowered his eyes and smiled. "Then I should thank you for hating me so much. If you didn’t hate me, I wouldn’t have come to look for you."

"Since that’s the case, what’s the point in more words?" Qin Qingluo laughed carelessly.

As she spoke, her already tall figure suddenly erupted with a cutting, solemn aura of slaughter. In her vertical pupils, killing intent condensed like ice, as though in the next instant she would rip Chen Yi to shreds!

A vast, towering Martial Intent exploded forth like an iron mountain rising from the earth, carrying the might to crush everything as it bore down heavily.

The waters of the Heart Lake shook violently, waves surging high.

"But do you know," he spoke slowly, laying bare heaven’s secret, "that on you there coils a trace of a heart demon tied to me."

"Do you truly want to kill me so badly?"

"Or is it that... aside from killing me, you simply don’t know how else to face me?"