Madam, please ascend.

Chapter 3 The most familiar stranger
When Yun Yi had eaten and drunk his fill, he heard someone calling him from inside the house, "Yun Yi, come in."

So he put down his chopsticks and asked knowingly as he walked into the house, "How is Aunt Qiu?"

Song Xinci knelt beside the bed, while Qiu Qinglian lay there soundlessly. She said expressionlessly, "She's dead."

Yun Yi was stunned. "This... please accept my condolences."

"My mother put a spell on you, did you know that?"

"Gu?" Yun Yi was still acting. "Just now I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my heart. Is it related to this? No, I just met you and your daughter by chance. Why would she want to harm me?"

Song Xinci stood up, spread out a thin blanket and covered her mother's body. At first glance, the woman seemed to be just sleeping.

She explained, "It's a poison called Tongxin Gu, and I was also poisoned by it."

"Your mother actually poisoned you too?"

"The Tongxin Gu is poisonous, but it's not poisonous either. The lives of two people infected by it are bound together from now on, living and dying together."

"You mean, if you live, I live, if you die, I die?"

Song Xinci continued, "To be precise, the Gu you were infected with was a servant Gu, while mine was a master Gu. From now on, if I die, you will die too. But if you die, I may not die."

Yun Yi suddenly felt like laughing. This black-hearted woman was starting to lie. There was no master-servant distinction in the Tongxin Gu. These words were just a means for her to control him.

Song Xinci hated Yun Yi's nonchalant look the most, so she secretly drove out the poisonous insect in her heart, causing the Tongxin poison to begin to attack.

Yun Yi noticed the woman's face had turned pale, and combined with his experience in his previous life, he immediately guessed that she was using the Heart-to-Heart Gu. So Yun Yi had an idea, and although he was not poisoned, he pretended to have a severe heartache.

Although this pain was fake, he had endured such heart-wrenching pain countless times.

He pretended so well that Song Xinci couldn't find any flaws, and she thought she had succeeded. She pretended to feel no pain and said casually, "Now you believe it, I want you to live a life worse than death, and you will live a life worse than death."

Yun Yi gritted his teeth and refused to beg for mercy.

Song Xinci made herself feel even more pain.

Yun Yi still gritted his teeth and persevered.

Song Xinci is in even greater pain.

Yun Yi remained unmoved.

Song Xinci couldn't hold on any longer.

She thought to herself, if I can cure this poison one day, I will definitely avenge what happened today!
Yun Yi couldn't help but smile in his heart when he thought of Song Xinci foolishly hurting himself.

After some absurdity, Song Xinci gritted her teeth and said, "From now on, you are not allowed to leave my side for even a single step."

Yun Yi said, "But I still have to go to Beijing to take the exam."

"Fame, wealth, and status are like flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water. When you are about to die, they are all empty. From now on, you must practice with me!"

Song Xinci felt this was a last resort. What if after a hundred years, she could live for a thousand years thanks to her cultivation, but Yun Yi was already old and frail? Wouldn't she be dragged down to death by him?!

Yun Yi said: "Did I hear correctly? You can practice cultivation?"

He looked at Song Xinci's ugly face and obviously didn't believe it.

Song Xinci didn't know why Yun Yi always provoked her. At this moment, she no longer cared about hiding her identity. She reached out and wiped her face, removing the flawless method, and her pretty face finally reappeared in the world.

Yun Yi looked at this extremely familiar yet extremely unfamiliar face, with mixed feelings in his heart.

In their previous life, the two got married and held a ceremony in order to dispel the thoughts of those in the Demon Sect who coveted Song Xinci.

Fake couples are not real couples after all, and the most familiar strangers are just like that. Frankly speaking, Song Xinci's appearance can be described as stunningly beautiful. If we use the realm of cultivation to compare, she is at least in the realm of immortals.

Even though she was wearing coarse linen clothes and no makeup, when her true face was revealed, it still seemed to illuminate the entire shabby room.

She is indeed a beauty, but unfortunately, she is also a tyrant.

Song Xinci felt uneasy when Yun Yi looked at her, because the way he looked at her was different from the way he looked at other men. Those men might be shocked by her beauty, showing infatuation, fanaticism, or other kinds of desire.

But in Yun Yi's eyes there was only reminiscence, confusion, and a little bit of... disgust?
She said coldly, "I am a disciple of the Demon Sect. I will take you back to practice with me. Do you understand now?"

But Yun Yi said, "I'm not going."

"What?!" How many people dream of the opportunity to cultivate immortality, but he didn't want it. Song Xinci explained: "The Demon Sect is not a dangerous place. It is just against the righteous path, so it is called the Demon Sect."

Yun Yi said, "How can the Demon Sect be as interesting as the Hanlin Academy?"

Song Xinci was so angry that her voice rose a few notches: "When one reaches the pinnacle of cultivation, they become immortal immortals. How can mere worldly fame compare to that?!"

Yun Yi said, "But I just feel that cultivating immortality is not as fun as being an official."

"You! Do you believe I will kill you right now?!"

"Since you can kill me now, why didn't you dare to fight back when you and your daughter were bullied?"

"I!"

"If you really are an immortal, why did you watch your mother suffer?" Yun Yi changed the subject, "I understand. Just like what's written in the storybook, you sealed your cultivation and returned to the human world just to send your blood relatives away. From then on, you would be free from all worries and focus on cultivating immortality, right?"

Song Xinci was shocked and didn't understand why the core of "Taishangwangqing" was spoken out like this by a scholar.

Yun Yi continued, "But in my opinion, this kind of logic is... bullshit!"

"You're looking for death!" Song Xinci's face changed, and she suddenly stretched out her hand in the air, sending Yun Yi's body flying towards her. She grabbed Yun Yi's neck, and with just a little force, she could kill him instantly.

"Ugly girl...you actually know magic?"

"Don't make me angry again, or I will really kill you."

How is that possible? If you kill me, won’t you die too?

Yun Yi had already grasped Song Xinci's vital point and continued to talk relentlessly, "I insist on continuing. Cultivating immortality itself is a kind of desire. You want to become an immortal with all-powerful hands and eyes and an endless lifespan. But true immortals must be free of desires and demands, which is completely contradictory. Or, in other words, if you can truly achieve the state of being free of desires and demands, without emotion or sex, you have already become an immortal, because fate is not what you seek, and magic power is not what you seek. All you seek is the present moment!"

"Enough!" Song Xinci roared, and suddenly an invisible force spread out. Except for the bed, all other debris in the hut flew everywhere in an instant.

Why? Why are you saying these things?!

For some reason, Yun Yi's words resounded through Song Xinci's heart like thunder, making her suddenly begin to doubt the "Taishang Wangqing Zhenjing" that she had been practicing since childhood.

It also caused a crack in her originally perfect state of mind.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and finally she spat out a mouthful of blood.

Yun Yi was shocked when he saw this. This kind of thing had never happened in his previous life. At that time, he was shocked by his wife's beauty and had completely lost his own opinion.

Song Xinci gritted her teeth and said, "Stop talking, or we'll all die here."

Yun Yi's face also became serious because he felt the movement outside the house.

The next moment, a sudden gust of wind blew and blew the door open.

(End of this chapter)