As Liu Xing ran through the forest, the world blurred around him. The wind slammed into his face and body as if trying to stop him. He gritted his teeth. How had he not realized it sooner? In hindsight, it was obvious. Qing Lian had just received the news that her husband was dead, and her eyes had morphed into emotionless pools. Considering her fragile mental state, despite her lucidity upon waking up, running off a cliff was not out of the realm of possibility. He could have realized it sooner, but he hadn't. It wasn't because he hadn't been paying attention. His curiosity about her baby simply outweighed his concern for her.

The electricity surrounding him crackled, and his steps were strong enough to crack the ground. He sharpened all of his senses to the max, trying to sense her whereabouts.

"Found you!" Liu Xing said as he turned right. A mortal felt different from a cultivator or a spirit beast, but even among mortals, her presence was unique. The ambient qi around her churned and swirled like a restless lake.

Liu Xing made a sharp maneuver, planting his feet on a tree. Then, he pushed off with all his power. The bark exploded into splinters, and the tree toppled as Liu Xing shot across the ground like a cannonball. Bushes and trees stood in his path, yet he didn't maneuver. Instead, he braced himself and let his body ram through them.

In a moment, he burst from the overgrowth. His eyes caught Qing Lian's back. She stood at the edge of a cliff that opened suddenly in the earth, a great gash in the ground as if left by some giant's attack. In the distance, a waterfall cascaded down a faraway cliff, creating a rainbow near its base. His subconscious told him this cliff was perhaps tens of meters high; a mortal would certainly die from such a fall.

Liu Xing reached out his hand, his mind calculating how to arrest his momentum so he wouldn't hurt Qing Lian. However, in the fraction of a second it took for him to emerge from the overgrowth and reach for her, Qing Lian took a small step, a tiny jump. And then, she plunged down, vanishing from his view.

Liu Xing gritted his teeth, fighting his anxiety as he summoned his shield to accelerate further. He was strong and fast. His Lightning Cloak crackled with arcs of electricity. He had fought many high-speed battles with this technique; he had to be confident he wouldn't be too late. There was no way he would fail to catch her.

"Damnit!" Liu Xing kicked his shield again and shot over the cliff. In this blurry world, he tried to perceive everything around him. He rotated his body so his feet pointed to the sky, summoned his shield, and kicked it as hard as he could, making him plunge toward Qing Lian like a meteor. She was falling headfirst, her eyes closed as if death were no problem. He accelerated faster and faster, and in the blink of an eye, he caught up to her. He reached out, spreading his body to let the wind slow his momentum. Then, he grabbed her and pulled her into a hug, securing her. Normally, he could just summon his shield and stop their fall, but he had to remember she was a mortal. A sudden stop would likely hurt her, and while her body was abnormally tough for a mortal, he couldn't risk it. He needed to slow their descent as gradually as possible.

As the wind howled in his ears and he began to wrap his qi around them both, she opened her eyes. They widened, as if she couldn't believe he had caught her. Soon, however, her expression morphed into rage. She began to repeatedly hit his shoulder with all her might, the veins on her arms popping as she shouted, "Release me! Let go of me. Let me fall! Let me die!"

["Shut up!" Liu Xing raised his voice, trying to concentrate on cocooning them with his qi. There was a reason he never flew by simply enveloping himself in qi. Besides being inferior to jumping with his shield, it interfered with his senses, especially his qi sense. But right now, it was the best option to arrest their momentum, since he could fine-tune his control to gradually slow their fall. It wasn't easy, especially because her curse, for the first time since he met her, was actually working with her. The ambient qi interfered, trying to coax his own qi to let go so that she would fall to her death. Liu Xing gritted his teeth and fortified his will, ordering his qi to slow down little by little. However, the ambient qi was persistent, so Liu Xing sent some of his own qi toward his gun, pulled it back to his body, and then let it envelop both of them. Instantly, the annoying curse recoiled as if it were a rat that had seen a lion, and it fled.

"Slow down!" Liu Xing ordered, and his potent qi obeyed him easily. It gradually slowed their fall.

Looking down, Liu Xing could see a small river at the base of the cliff, its banks carpeted with rocks. If he had been late and she had landed headfirst on them, her head would have split open.

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"Let me go!" The woman was still hitting his shoulder and trying to wriggle out of his hug. Her attacks were nothing, but he had to admit they were stronger than anticipated. Unfortunately for her, there was no way he would let her die. He ignored her rage and violence, willed the qi so they would land feet first, and began to descend as softly as a feather. A moment later, his feet touched the ground. He let out a sigh of relief before finally releasing her.

Free from his restraint, the woman instantly stepped back, but then, as if something stoked her fury, she balled her fist and swung it right at his face. "You! How dare you save me? Who said you could do that?!"

That punch was strong for a mortal, but it was nothing to him. He wouldn't let her fist connect, however.

He took a step to the side, making her punch hit nothing but air. She began to shout and swing her arms wildly, but instead of dodging, he slapped her hands to the side again and again, causing her to howl and shout like an animal.

With each attack he deflected, Liu Xing's eyes sharpened, and he couldn't help but curl his lip down. "What the hell were you thinking? Why did you decide to kill yourself? Did my words go in one ear and out the other? That Spirit Flower can help you and your baby. Your life will be better. There's no reason for you to end it."

"Shut up!" she roared, her hair coming untied, her dress rumpled. Though she looked better than before, she had reverted to the madwoman she had been. "You don't know me! You don't know my life! It is up to me whether I want to live or die!"

Liu Xing gritted his teeth, anger flaring in his heart. "Such a selfish thought. It's naive to think that your life only belongs to you."

"What do you know about it, huh?!" she shrieked, lunging at his face, her hands open. When Liu Xing deflected her arms, she tried to latch onto him, to scratch and draw blood. "You're a cultivator! I bet you live in a castle and never even lift a finger for food. You know nothing of suffering. You wouldn't know the despair, the feeling when the world felt suffocating and tried to crush you. You don't know about it!"

Liu Xing's eyes sharpened, and he sneered. As a matter of fact, he knew it all too well. There was a time when he had done the same thing she had. The difference was she chose a cliff, while he had chosen his balcony. He wanted to berate her for assuming he knew nothing of suffering. But while the anger in his stomach bubbled, threatening to erupt, he remembered that he had once been in her position. He remembered what his friends had done for him.

Liu Xing took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions, and then said, "It's true that I don't know what you've been through. So, tell me. What made you decide to jump from that cliff? What were you thinking when you decided to jump?"

He realized he couldn't replicate Joni's, Mamat's, and Nui's words. They had already been friends. He knew a lot about them, and they knew a lot about him. In contrast, he had just met Qing Lian today. While he knew a thing or two about her, his words wouldn't have the same effect as his friends' words had on him. He needed to understand her perfectly so he could truly help her.

"It's because everything in the world is pissing me off! My husband died, and truthfully, I'm not surprised. His body was so frail, and yet he foolishly went on a journey because he didn't want to be called useless. He knew damn well that the chance of him coming back alive was really, really low. Yet, he was too prideful and decided to go anyway."

Liu Xing clenched his fist but reined in his emotion. Seeing her like this, and comparing her to the woman who had spoken so softly and tenderly of her husband, was surreal. It was like seeing two different women with the same face. He knew she had some mental problems, but he had thought they were lifted the moment she heard about her husband. It seemed he was wrong. She had merely been suppressing her madness.

"And that baby, fuck that little creep! It's not normal for a baby to see the world like that. It was as if I gave birth to a demon! If he were normal, even though my husband died in his futile endeavor, I could have gone back to the city and lived an easier life. But that baby creeped out the whole city to the point that people started calling him the cursed baby, and by extension, calling me—the one who gave birth to him—the cursed mother! What a joke!"

She roared and began pulling her hair. "I should have obeyed my father and forgotten that useless husband of mine! If I did that, my life would be better! I would live in a large and beautiful mansion, servants would do everything I said, and I would have a lavish and easy life. Yet, I chose to marry him, and look what I ended up with." She growled. "Ah, how frustrating! Now that my useless husband has truly died, my life is futile. And since it is futile, there's no use for me to live anymore. The world is trying to kill me, anyway. Might as well follow that shitty wind that always, always pushes me and trips me!"

Liu Xing observed her with a calm gaze as she ranted about her husband and her son. Her words were sharp. If her husband or her baby could hear them, they would be sad beyond belief. It was as if Qing Lian truly hated them, and now that she had an opportunity to let it all out, she spilled every bad thing about them. At one point, she began to list everything bad about her husband: how clingy he was, how he snored, how his stamina was so low that she rarely felt satisfied in bed, and many other little things.

But even as the sharp words left her mouth, Liu Xing knew they were lies. Her eyes shone with a grief so profound it was unmistakable.

"That's why, just leave me alone. Don't concern yourself with me. Let me die!"

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