Chapter 508: It’s Not Her
"Then come and feel my pain!" Bai Mo's nonchalant remark happened to strike a sensitive chord deep within Xu Xuanling's heart, causing her to instantly bristle with rage, transforming her completely, not a trace of her former calm remaining.
"Why?! It was clearly me first, so why did he choose that woman, who couldn't be more ordinary?!
I am the foremost genius of the Xuanxuan Family, so why does everyone ostracize me? Even he found me repulsive!" As she stared at that face, which bore a seven or eight-tenths resemblance to a certain faithless man, her tone was imbued with a mixture of resentment, or perhaps, lament.
Born into the Xu Xuan Family, one of the Four Great Bloodline Houses, Xu Xuanling had been cursed by a demonic entity while still in her mother's womb. From the moment of her birth, she possessed no facial features. Yet, she could still breathe, and she could "see" and "hear" everything in this world.
Aside from her terrifying face, she was perfectly healthy.
Of course, Xu Xuanling was fortunate. She wasn't born into an ordinary family, but rather into a Bloodline House where strength was revered. Otherwise, she would surely have been treated as a freak and disposed of.
Perhaps it was a mutation brought about by the demonic curse, for upon her birth, the family's internal instruments detected a terrifyingly powerful bloodline talent within her.
Thus, even with such an anomalous appearance, she was not killed as a monster. Instead, she received vigorous cultivation and support from the high-ranking members of the Xu Xuan Family.
To the Xu Xuan Family's elders, an ugly but powerful warrior was far more useful than a hundred beautiful, useless individuals.
In a circle of ordinary children, even merely being plump could lead to ostracism and bullying, let alone a being like Xu Xuanling, who was neither human nor ghost.
Naturally, she was excluded from all their play circles.
A face without facial features—not to mention children, most adults would feel "one's hair stands on end" just looking at it. Only those iron-blooded warriors who spent their days fighting on the demon-slaying front lines, having seen all kinds of disgusting monsters, could remain unperturbed.
Yet, there were exceptions among the children. A boy two years older than Xu Xuanling, and another girl who seemed entirely ordinary in every respect, couldn't suppress their curiosity. Slowly, they began to play with Xu Xuanling, and the three quickly became inseparable friends who talked about everything.
Those were the only two friends she had during her brief childhood, and the only two friends she had as an adult.
...
However, two hundred years later, he still made his choice, and the trio's love triangle reached its end.
At his wedding, the bride was not her.
"Why wasn't it me?" Xu Xuanling didn't choose to cause a scene at the wedding. She merely, alone, silently simulated the feeling of crying.
She could see, yet she had no tear ducts to hold her tears.
"I'm sorry..." After the wedding, she mustered her courage to ask him, but she received only those three words in reply.
Xu Xuanling didn't want to dwell on the reason, for she had already guessed the answer.
After all, she was just a monster with no face. To gain friendship was already an immense stroke of luck. How could she possibly be worthy of a luxury like love?
...
"Tomb of my friends Xu Xuan Tie and Xu Xuan Xiu." Every year on the ninth day of the second lunar month, a blood palm print would appear on the back of this tombstone—Xu Xuanling's unique method of remembrance.
After the other two married, she gradually drifted apart from them, and her personality became increasingly violent and twisted, constantly venting her frustrations through slaughter.
Ten years ago, on the ninth day of the second lunar month, she once again recalled the scene of their first meeting. The slaughter personality within her was awakened, and she had intended to kill some demonic entities to vent. Unexpectedly, she coincidentally encountered Xu Xuan Tie's family, who had come to visit her.
In her state of madness, Xu Xuanling directly interpreted their visit as the greatest provocation, and with a single palm strike, she killed the couple.
Because the nightmare came too suddenly, the two only had time to activate a random teleportation talisman before their deaths, sending the child, who was still in swaddling clothes at the time, away...
And then, Bai Mo happened to possess him.
...
"This sword seems to be nearing its limit." Bai Mo held the Annihilation Sword in his hand, parrying Xu Xuanling's attacks while continuously infusing it with power.
He knew nothing of sword arts, and barely had any experience wielding a sword. He relied purely on his superior speed and strength to raise the sword in defense, yet he firmly blocked the attacks from phantoms assaulting him from all directions.
After each clash, the Annihilation Sword in Bai Mo's hand would brighten by several degrees, going from emitting black smoke to gray smoke, then from gray smoke to white smoke, and finally from white smoke to white light. An unprecedentedly vast amount of power was forcefully crammed into this small sword, making its blade tremble ceaselessly under the pressure.
"He's insane! He's trying to make the Annihilation Sword explode!" exclaimed one of the Divine-level assassins, an expert in assassination and the sword's original owner, in a shocked voice.
"The sword can withstand at most the power of five cities! He's already crammed in at least fifteen cities' worth!" Seeing the cracks appearing on the black longsword's surface, the other two assassins could no longer remain calm.
Normally, when they carried out assassination attacks on ordinary Divine-level beings, infusing just the power of one city was enough to reduce the target to ashes.
One city, by their calculations, was enough power to flatten a large city.
Even if they were to drain themselves dry, they could only infuse three cities' worth of power in one go. Now, seeing Bai Mo casually cram in fifteen cities' worth of power without so much as a change in his expression, their faces naturally turned ashen.
With fifteen cities' worth of power released at the cost of over-exerting the Annihilation Sword, it would be extremely difficult for them to leave this place alive.
"Ling, stop being crazy! The one in front of you is also a lunatic!" At this critical moment of life and death, the assassins no longer cared about offending her with their words. They insisted on trying to wake Xu Xuanling from her 'madness mode,' even wanting to slap her across the mouth.
"Faithless man, go to hell!" Unfortunately, she was completely dominated by her slaughter personality and did not awaken from her madness. Instead, she was provoked again and again by that face, which resembled Xu Xuan Tie by six or seven tenths. Her later slashes even carried a barely perceptible hint of a sob.
"Old hearts change easily, yet they say old hearts are easy to change..." Bai Mo, his face indifferent, thought of these two lines of poetry, but then realized they didn't quite fit the occasion.
As a truly detached and emotionless outsider, it was difficult for him to comprehend Xu Xuanling's current psychological state.
As for the so-called "revenge for her father's death," it was merely a burden carried by this body, having not a single cent's worth of relation to him personally.
Any talk of transmigrating into a new body and bearing the previous owner's karma was meaningless to Bai Mo, who could detach at any time.
When wearing a bear skin coat, would one then seek revenge for that bear?
PS: "Le Zheng" from the previous chapter was a typo; it has all been changed to "Xu Xuan." Writing a blackened girl character truly feels impactful ORZ.
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