The Jade-Breaking Tower

[Forbidden Captive Love • Dark, Obsessive Romance • Transgressive Master-Disciple Relationship • Inner Demon Trial]

Everyone says that Qi Wu, the leading disciple of the Xuantian Sect, is a carefree young man who lives life on his own terms. Only his master, Li Que, knows of the mad obsession lurking in this wicked disciple's eyes. What no one knows is that the aloof, ascetic saint of the immortal sect has already been swept up in a tempest of feeling for one person.

The delusion Li Que tore from his own heart takes shape in the Eight Sufferings illusion as a blood-red Linglong, grinning savagely. "Birth, aging, sickness, and death; meeting those you resent; parting from those you love; desiring what you cannot have; and the raging fires of the five skandhas. Which of these sufferings isn't the deepest fear in your heart, Li Que?"

"You fear Qi Wu will fall to demonic ways and destroy himself, but even more, you fear the forbidden, heart-searing desire burning beneath that layer of ice!"

"Leading you into demonic corruption is the best revenge I can take on you, Li Que!" At last, the immortal lord in the golden cage trembled. Between the crisscrossing lash marks, he gasped, "Let everyone hear what the master they worship as a god is doing beneath the rebel disciple he hates most...!"

Bloodstained fingertips rolled over prayer beads, while in the throes of passion he whispered a forbidden name.

"What are those clay and wooden idols you worship worth?" Qi Wu pinned Li Que before the shrine and licked the blood from his lips. "The way you fall to demonic corruption because of me... now that's a true miracle!"

"Force him to face his delusion!" At last, Qi Wu understood: this trial of the Eight Sufferings was the most agonizing cage of love his master had ever made for him.

The maddest love means shouldering all your sins for you, then making you hate me to the bone.

He craves the pain of forbidden love. The more he knows that a romance between master and disciple is a sin, the more he wants Li Que to confess his love beneath the lash.