Moonlight Beyond the Branches

Also known as The Gloomy Immortal Lord's Abduction and Pursuit of His Lover After the Fact. I want to write a story about a scum gong chasing his wife after driving her away. A second gong appears, and there are plenty of intense love-triangle scenes, so be warned.

When Xu Biezhi was young, his parents were killed by their enemies. With no one to rely on, he was taken in and raised by his uncle.

His uncle, known as Liguang, was the foremost sword master of his age. He could hold the sun and moon in his palm and command the winds and clouds, giving Xu Biezhi a worry-free world to grow up in.

Xu Biezhi regarded his uncle as the hero he admired most and the most important person in his life.

*

People say that the higher you climb, the lonelier it gets.

The Liguang Sword Lord was cold, proud, and lonely... until an unexpected person entered his life.

As the tiny child he'd held protectively in his arms grew into an elegant, dashing young man, the Liguang Sword Lord realized that, somehow, he'd fallen in love with the nephew he'd raised from childhood.

He knew they were separated by heavenly principles and family morality.

More importantly, he knew Xu Biezhi didn't love him.

But the Liguang Sword Lord didn't care.

There was nothing in the world he couldn't do, nothing he couldn't obtain. Love wasn't that important. All that mattered was making sure Xu Biezhi couldn't leave him.

The Liguang Sword Lord eliminated everyone who bullied or humiliated Xu Biezhi. He spent his cultivation and painstaking effort refining immortal pills and magical artifacts for him, and bound their lifespans together with a contract so they could share the years and take in the same landscapes.

Apart from Xu Biezhi, no one else in the world could make him spare them a glance.

At the same time, he tricked Xu Biezhi into dual cultivation, forced him into a marriage bond, and drove away the person who had loved him in return.

He made his love a cage, binding the wings of the carefree young man who longed for freedom.

Everything went as the Liguang Sword Lord wished. Xu Biezhi couldn't leave him, so the child he'd raised from a young age would have to stay by his side forever.

After all, he wielded the most powerful force in the world, and no one could defy him.

Unfortunately, he failed to notice the adoring, affectionate gaze of the boy who had once looked up to him slowly turning cold.

At some point, the warmth in the young man's eyes had given way to annoyance, fear, and indifference.

*

His uncle had once been his hero, his closest family.

Later, he became his lover.

Lover: that was what Xu Biezhi had once thought.

But in the end, he understood.

The Liguang Sword Lord had no love in his heart. He didn't know how to love anyone, and he had never loved Xu Biezhi.

He had simply treated him as a cherished toy he'd raised from childhood, molding him however he pleased.

The moment Xu Biezhi stopped doing what he wanted, he would be crushed beneath a calamity.

But Xu Biezhi would not be anyone's puppet.

That day, beneath a clear sky, at an auspicious hour, the Liguang Sword Lord took his hand and led him step by step toward the towering Ascension Platform.

There, the two of them would officially become cultivation partners, their souls bound together so they could never part in any lifetime.

As they held hands and looked at each other, the Liguang Immortal Lord's eyes seemed, for a moment, to hold deep affection.

Xu Biezhi smiled at him, then swung his sword to sever the red silk between them and leaped off the Ascension Platform!

He wouldn't give him his heart, or his body.

PS: The uncle and nephew are not blood-related.

Theme: Beneath the bright moon, Xu rests on a separate branch. Do not startle the lone magpie; it speaks not of parting.