Xue Hui saved a man of transcendent beauty, as if he were an immortal banished from heaven. She cared for him devotedly for three months. Before leaving once his injuries had healed, he promised to return and marry her.
Xue Hui waited for him day and night. True to his word, six months later he arrived with the proper betrothal gifts and ceremonies, carried her into his home in a grand bridal sedan, and made her his wife.
Xue Hui thought she had been blessed with a match everyone would envy. But after they married, her husband, Qi Wu, was affectionate and loving toward her in public, yet distant and cold in private, as if he had married her only to repay a debt of gratitude.
It was only when Xue Hui stumbled upon a secret room in Qi Wu's study and found a manual for the Supreme Art of Emotionlessness that she finally understood. Her husband had not been born coldhearted. He had cultivated the Emotionless Dao.
The final page of the manual stated that when the Emotionless Dao reached its final stage, one had to kill one's wife and child to attain enlightenment.
Xue Hui calculated that Qi Wu was on the verge of completing his Emotionless Dao cultivation.
That night, she put on Qi Wu's favorite plain silk dress, adorned her brow with a dot of vermilion, and danced one final dance for him.
When the dance ended, a sword pierced her chest. Her white clothes soaked with blood, Xue Hui collapsed into Qi Wu's arms. Summoning her last bit of strength, she raised a hand to his horrified, bewildered face and comforted him: "I don't blame you."
But Qi Wu had never realized that Xue Hui was a once-in-a-millennium cultivation prodigy who had secretly learned his Emotionless Dao.
That sword did not fulfill Qi Wu's Dao. Instead, it severed Xue Hui's ties of love, brought her cultivation to perfection, and sent her ascending to immortality on the spot.
Xue Hui returned to the immortal realm and recalled her past.
It turned out she was no mortal. This life she had shared with Qi Wu was a tribulation she had arranged for him herself, meant to help him overcome it and ascend to godhood.
But the tribulation had failed. Still in the mortal realm, Qi Wu's cultivation had collapsed because of Xue Hui's death, and he was now on the brink of becoming a demon.
Xue Hui: Uh... I've really made a mess of things this time.
Theme: Let bygones be bygones with a smile
