Qi Le died a terrible death.
The fiance she'd supported through his cultivation by scrimping and saving bought off wicked cultivators to ruin her chastity so he could marry the daughter of the top sect in the cultivation world.
When her broken, battered body was thrown beneath a cliff, she finally understood one truth:
Being a love-struck fool gets you killed!
Unfortunately, she understood too late.
She followed the Soul Reaper away without looking back, and left so decisively that she never saw the young man who arrived afterward and gently lifted her corpse into his arms.
He gathered her remains, and was willing to step into hell for her.
After working diligently as a soul cultivator in the Underworld for two hundred years, Qi Le finally earned a chance to be reborn.
In the Underworld, she had encountered the soul of the wicked cultivator who had violated her in her previous life, now hacked into pieces by heavenly lightning. She had also seen the scumbag fiance who abandoned her, his soul shattered beyond repair.
She personally sent them to hell, and heard from their curses that all the misery they suffered in life and the agony they endured before death were because of her. The one who tortured them to death was Jiang Wang, the deranged Demon Lord of the Demon Realm.
"Jiang Wang..." Qi Le murmured unconsciously.
In her memories, there had indeed once been a boy. They had supported each other when they were covered in wounds and huddled together for warmth on freezing nights. What had he whispered in her ear back then?
Qi Le couldn't remember.
But when she crawled out of her grave, covered in grime, and looked up to meet a face that was three parts familiar and seven parts mad with obsession, her blurred memories began to return, bit by bit.
The frail, pale little boy who had once been all skin and bones had grown into a strikingly beautiful young man with a fierce presence. He stared at her obsessively for a long moment, then rasped, "Sister, you slept with me. You have to take responsibility."
Qi Le: "???"
Jiang Wang lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. His trembling voice spilled from between their lips. "Please."
Qi Le: "..."
Oh, heavens. He can stomach me even when I'm nothing but rotting flesh and bones?
Theme: Grow strong and love yourself. Stay true to freedom and to yourself.