Farewell to Love, Never to Meet Again in This Life

In our Rapture Sect there is a rule: once we come of age, we must choose a cultivation partner. Without one, the moment we practice our cultivation art, the flow of blood and energy reverses, our meridians rupture, and we die.

Thinking of the three junior brothers who once came to blows over me, I found myself in a bind.

When my eldest junior brother fell into cultivation deviation, I transferred half my cultivation to him. Afterward he told me, again and again, that he would give himself to me.

My second junior brother had a weak foundation, and his cultivation was slow to advance.

Watching him grow more dispirited by the day, I sought out every kind of heavenly treasure I could find for him, and he swore that once his cultivation bore fruit, he would marry me.

My youngest junior brother was a beggar boy I picked up at the foot of the mountain. When I found him, the village children were bullying him. Pitying him, I brought him back to the sect.

From then on, he followed me everywhere like a shadow.

This time, though, not one of the three chose me.

They had all set their hearts on the new junior sister, Sabrina Chastain.

My eldest junior brother had used his own cultivation to forge a treasured sword, and he held it out to her.

"Cultivation is hard, junior sister. With this sword you'll get twice the result for half the effort."

My second junior brother handed her the Heart-Guard Elixir I had gone to such trouble to find for him.

"Junior sister, you're so delicate. You need this to protect yourself."

Even my third junior brother, always so silent, was clutching the spirit beast I had given him and trailing eagerly after her, unwilling to leave her side.

Watching the deadline draw near, I turned and went to the Grandmaster.

"Grandmaster, the marriage alliance between the cultivation world and the Demon Realm. Let me be the one to go."

I had just come out from the Grandmaster's when the three of them blocked my path.

"Cloralie Yardley, don't tell me you went to the Grandmaster to force us to choose you?"

"Why would you do this? Your cultivation art is superb, and you've long been respected throughout the sect. You'd have no trouble finding a partner. Why must you fight junior sister for one?"

"Junior sister hasn't even begun foundation building. She's just an ordinary, fragile girl. Only we can protect her. Can't you just give way to her?"

Wyatt Rowe, my eldest junior brother, let it all out at me in one breath.

Before I could say a word, Marlin Black, my second junior brother, spoke up too.

"That's right, senior sister. Let junior sister choose first. When it comes down to it, the rest of us will still choose you. Why be in such a rush over this one moment?"

And my third junior brother, Ferran, gripped junior sister's sleeve and would not let go, as if I were the villain here.

I nearly laughed out loud. But over there, junior sister Sabrina Chastain was already on the verge of tears.

"Three senior brothers, please don't fall out with senior sister over me. It's Sabrina who isn't worthy of fighting senior sister. It's all Sabrina's fault."

At that, the three of them turned on me at once, eyes gone red, all staring at me.

It was like a small knife pricking my chest. Not terribly painful. Just a sickening little sting.

I twitched the corner of my mouth, unimpressed.

"You aren't worthy of fighting me."

Then I looked at the three of them, a stubborn edge to my voice.

"How about this. Eldest junior brother, give me back that half of my cultivation. Second junior brother, return every heavenly treasure I gave you, then self-cripple your meridians. And you, third junior brother, ask to be expelled from the sect. What do you say?"

"If all three of you can do that, I won't fight anymore."

Their expressions shifted. All of them fell silent.

I could not help but sneer.

"What is it? Didn't you say you like junior sister? You can't bear to give up everything for her after all?"

When I finished, the looks on their faces were, somehow, wounded.

Wyatt spoke first.

"Cloralie, I thought you did all that for me willingly. So it turned out it was only to make me cultivate with you?"

"If crippling our whole cultivation is the price of being with junior sister, of course we're willing!"

"It's just that we still have to protect her. Once junior sister has made her choice, whoever's left of us will cripple his cultivation and repay you."

The other two chimed in, one after another.

Watching the three of them wear that look of noble martyrdom, I felt a wave of boredom.

"Don't worry. The likes of you? I wouldn't stoop to fighting for either way."

With that I paid their reactions no more mind and walked straight back to my cave dwelling.

Looking at the thatched hut before it, I suddenly remembered how things had been before I first met those three.

It seemed I had nothing but a bare cave.

"Cloralie, the three of us built you this thatched hut. You've lived alone so long that you live too roughly. From now on, with us here, we'll make sure you live finer than the noblewomen of the Imperial Capital."

The exquisite chests and cabinets on the walls, Wyatt had made those.

"Senior sister, I've made you some food. I went down the mountain and secretly learned this from the head chef at the big restaurant in town! I promise, from now on you'll eat something different every single day!"

Gone was Marlin, who used to sit by the table watching me with such expectation. The table was bare.

"Don't you dare get hurt!"

Gone too was Ferran, who used to bind my wounds with his eyes rimmed red.

Only then did I finally sense a thread of loneliness.

I had grown up in the Rapture Palace since I was small, and from my earliest memories I had done nothing but cultivate.

As the great one of the sect, everyone else revered me. Everyone else avoided me.

Not until I saved those three junior brothers did I finally taste a little of what it was to have family.

But now...

I shook my head, put those images out of my mind, and swung my sword straight through the pillars of the hut.

The thatched hut collapsed with a crash.

I was leaving anyway. There was no reason to keep this hut.

And no reason to keep the people, either.

The next day, my three junior brothers showed up at my door, the junior sister in tow.

Wyatt swept a glance over the ruins on the ground, then looked at me, his eyes rimmed red.

"Just because we let your junior sister pick first, you had to destroy everything?"

"Wrecking your own house is one thing. But you snatched her blade, threw away her medicine, and you even killed her spirit beast."

"Cloralie Yardley. You have the heart of a viper."

I looked down at the body of the spirit beast dumped in front of me.

They had died horribly, torn to bloody ruin.

The other two junior brothers glared at me the same way.

A frame-up this crude, I didn't even want to explain myself.

But Sabrina was already tugging at Wyatt's sleeve, the picture of pitiable fragility.

"Let it go, senior brother. Maybe senior sister didn't mean it."

The fury rose out of nowhere, and in the next breath I lunged forward and seized Sabrina by the throat.

"I, Cloralie Yardley, have always owned what I do. If I did it, I did it. If I didn't, I didn't. Not even a god come down from heaven gets to pin a crime on me for nothing."

"You keep saying I didn't mean it, and every word of it nails the charge to me. So do you dare stand before the Grandmaster's Mirror of Truth and let it show the truth?"

Sabrina's face went red from holding her breath, but she stayed stubborn.

"Senior sister, even if you... even if you strangle me to death, I won't lie!"

Sabrina almost made me laugh from sheer anger, and right then I meant to drag her straight to the Grandmaster.

But before I could move, a surge of powerful spiritual energy came at me and slammed me clean off my feet.

I couldn't hold back the mouthful of blood that came up, and I stared at Wyatt, unable to believe it.

Wyatt drew his hand back on instinct and avoided my eyes.

"Cloralie, if you weren't trying to strangle Sabrina, I wouldn't have raised a hand against you."

"I held back my strength. You shouldn't be hurt at all!"

At that, I clutched my chest and couldn't stop the sneering laugh, as though I'd lost my mind.

Something flickered across the three of them, and Ferran started forward to help me up, only to catch Sabrina falling into his arms as her legs gave out.

Sabrina, all weakness, said,

"Three senior brothers, it was all my fault. I lost that sword, I ate the medicine, and I killed the spirit beast too."

"I'm willing to confess my wrongs before the Grandmaster!"

While Sabrina spoke, I forced myself back to my feet and closed in on them, one step at a time.

The three of them went instantly on guard and drew their weapons.

Seeing them braced for a fight, I stopped where I stood and gathered a surge of spiritual energy of my own.

"Senior sister, don't try anything else, or don't blame us for casting aside our bond as fellow disciples!"

"Cloralie, stop!"

I paid them no mind. I simply used my spiritual energy to cut through my own robe and threw the cloth down in front of them.

"I cut my robe to sever all ties. I was a fool before."

"From now on, don't ever appear before me again!"

Whether it was the effect of cutting my robe that day to sever all ties, I couldn't say. But in the days that followed, none of the three showed their faces before me again.

That day I went to find the Grandmaster, meaning to settle the matter of the marriage into the Demon Realm. He looked at me and let out a sigh.

"Word has come from the Demon Realm. The one you're to wed in this alliance is the Demon Lord, Abyssius."

"Abyssius is ruthless. He cut down hundreds of demon lords, one after another, to seize the position he holds now."

"In the war between our world and the demons, he alone left dozens of our high immortals gravely wounded. So while we call it a marriage alliance, it's nothing more than the price our cultivation world pays for peace."

"The days ahead of you..."

The Grandmaster didn't finish, but I understood well enough.

The truth was, if not for those three junior brothers, I would have offered myself for this alliance long ago.

To buy ten thousand years of peace between the immortal and demon worlds for me, that would be a fitting way to die.

"Grandmaster, this disciple's heart"

But before I could finish, Wyatt and the others burst in.

The moment they saw me, all three wore the furious look of men who had guessed right.

"Cloralie Yardley, you say with your mouth that you don't compete, but behind our backs you've been persuading the Grandmaster to send our junior sister into the Demon Realm for the alliance! If word of the demons delivering betrothal gifts hadn't already spread everywhere, how much longer did you mean to keep it from us?"

"That Demon Realm is a pit of ghosts, a living hell. You're sending our junior sister to her death. You're vicious."

Marlin pointed at me, his face twisted with rage.

I swept my eyes over them. Clearly the other two thought the same, and instead of anger I found myself laughing.

"Wyatt, back then I spent half my cultivation to heal you. Do you know why I never entered another sect tournament after that?"

Wyatt's face went pale, a little panicked.

"You... you said it was to give us junior brothers a chance."

Watching Wyatt lose his nerve the longer he spoke, I curled my lips, my eyes cold to the bottom.

"That's right. I crippled the greater part of my own cultivation, all to give you your chance. How very vicious of me."

I didn't wait to see the look on Wyatt's face. I turned to Marlin.

"Marlin, do you know what that Heart-Guard Elixir I gave you was made from?"

"Snow lotus from the Demon Realm. To get the blood lotus, I was hunted by demon-race killers for three days and three nights. I nearly didn't come back."

"If I really had died out there, would you still stand here calling me vicious?"

Marlin's face went pale too, and he shot back without thinking.

"But you said you'd come by it easily. You told me not to give it a second thought!"

Yes. I only said that so it wouldn't weigh on you. I never imagined you would turn on me so completely.

I sneered inwardly and turned my eyes to Ferran.

"The Rapture Sect never takes in those of unknown origin. To get you into the sect, I knelt and begged the elders for three days and three nights. Is that vicious too?"

Ferran's face flushed a deep red. He opened his mouth, but not a single word came out.

A wave of exhaustion rose in me. The truth was, all three of them had long known everything I'd done for them.

They'd simply seen how I cherished them, and grown spoiled on it.

Then an abrupt voice broke the silence.

"Senior sister, after all of that, aren't you really just trying to collect on your kindness forcing our three senior brothers to marry you?"

"But the three of them are living people, not puppets for you to move however you please!"

"As long as I'm here, though, I won't let you threaten them. If sending me into the Demon Realm for the alliance means you'll never again use your kindness to force them, then I do it gladly!"

"No! You can't!"

The instant Sabrina finished her righteous little speech, Wyatt and the other two burst out in fierce protest.

They pressed forward one after another to stop her, turning eyes full of reproach on me.

I lifted my lips into a smile that never reached my eyes.

"Very well. Then I hope you mean what you say, junior sister."

From that day on, Sabrina took to her bed, playing sick.

I watched, half-amused, as the three junior brothers ran themselves ragged over her illness, like three headless flies.

Ferran went so far as to kneel outside my cave dwelling day after day, begging me to plead with the Grandmaster and call off the marriage alliance.

So I sealed myself away and left them to their noise.

Then, the day before the alliance was to be sealed with the Demon Realm, all three of them fell quiet at once.

I took it to mean they had finally given up. What I did not expect was that they would be bold enough to break clean through my barrier and bind me.

I cursed my own carelessness. This body of mine was no longer what it had been at its peak.

"Cloralie, we don't want it to come to this either. But our junior sister is at death's door. She's so timid how could she ever survive a marriage alliance in the Demon Realm?"

"How about this. I promise I'll practice dual cultivation with you, and you go to the Grandmaster and get him to take back his decree, all right?"

Wyatt kept pressing his spirit energy down on me, holding me pinned, and yet his face wore a look of great reluctance.

Seeing that I only kept my face cold and said nothing, Marlin spoke up, a little awkwardly.

"Senior sister, if it's me you like, I'm willing too, so long as you let our junior sister stay!"

"Only, if you choose me, I hope the eldest and the youngest will take good care of her."

Even Ferran, frantic, blurted out one line after another.

"I can too!"

"As long as you two look after our junior sister!"

I watched the three of them yield the spot to one another, each waving it off. Not one of them had ever once considered that the real say in this belonged to me.

When they finished, all three looked at me, anxious.

"Senior sister, choose one, hurry!"

I looked at them with contempt.

"The three of you I don't want a single one."

The moment I said it, all three of their faces changed.

The next second, Wyatt's expression turned vicious.

"Then, Cloralie, you can't blame us for this."

And then I saw Wyatt scatter something over me. It took no more than an instant.

I felt as if tens of thousands of ants were gnawing at my body.

Wherever they bit, the skin did not only itch beyond bearing it burned like open flame, and the pain was agony.

I couldn't hold it in. I dropped to the ground, thrashing and rolling, crying out and screaming.

The three of them stood there dumbstruck at the sight.

Marlin grabbed hold of Wyatt and demanded an answer.

"Eldest brother, didn't you say it was just a small lesson for our senior sister? Why is she in this much pain?"

Wyatt looked just as lost.

"Could she be faking it?"

But before they could settle on any answer, I had already passed out from the pain.

They rushed to me at last, and only then did they find my whole body scalding hot, not one patch of skin left unbroken.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the Grandmaster's chambers.

The Grandmaster's face was grim.

"Rest easy. Those three put you to torture without cause, and this master will see them punished for it."

"It's fortunate the betrothal gifts from the Demon Realm included a medicine made precisely for fire ants. Any later, and the fire venom would have burned you to death!"

A wave of cold dread washed through me too.

For those three I had still held on to a shred of feeling, born of the days we once shared morning and night. But now, not a scrap of it remained.

I bowed low to the Grandmaster, and then I put on the bridal gown.

"Grandmaster, today I am to be wed. Let the three of them kneel and witness the ceremony."