A Sword Reverses the World's Spring - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

For three nights in a row, I had similar dreams.

On the first night, I dreamed there was a man locked in my family’s cellar.

Ink-black hair covered his body. He was naked, his wounds hideous.

On the second night, I dreamed he was actually my husband’s junior martial brother.

In that Yao Realm I had never once visited, my husband’s warm, dry lips had fallen countless times on the delicate curve of his neck.

On the third night-which was today-I dreamed he and my husband severed all ties.

My husband flew into a rage and schemed to imprison him in my family’s dark cellar, treating him like a forbidden plaything, humiliating him day and night.

At the end of the dream, I saw him kneeling weakly beneath my husband.

My husband, who had always been gentle, gripped his chin and forced him to lift his head and look straight at him.

But the young man’s gaze passed through my husband and landed on me, outside the dream.

I saw that face, so breathtaking that even blood and filth could not mar it. I saw him silently mouth the words to me:

“Save me.”

“Save me, Ah Wu…”

I jolted awake and followed the sound down to Lansheng, who was murmuring unconsciously in my arms.

His body was as cold as ice, but his cheeks were flushed an unnatural red.

Every meridian in his body had been shattered. Only his hands, pale and slender, were still more or less intact.

He said Lizhao had deliberately left them that way when he humiliated him.

Perhaps because he had finally escaped from that hell, the nerves he had kept stretched taut suddenly went slack, and the raging fever could no longer be suppressed.

I murmured an incantation, and a wash of pale orange light settled over him.

My meager spiritual power could only give him the faintest warmth.

Yet he hugged me tightly in return, like a kitten searching for its mother, like a drowning man clutching driftwood.

“Ah Wu…”

He called softly again.

On that starless, moonless night, two strangers on the run were like two weeds in a gale.

For one dazed instant, they almost gave me the illusion that we were living off each other.

In silence, I pressed my lips tight.

My name was Chen Qingwu.

But I had never told Lansheng my name.

So perhaps he was simply delirious with fever.

Through the face of his enemy’s wife, he was seeing someone else he longed for day and night.

Right?

Chapter 2

My Sword-riding speed was far inferior to Lizhao’s.

To keep from being caught, I slung the unconscious Lansheng over my back.

He woke soon after, his burning face buried in the hollow of my neck as he asked muffledly,

“Ah Wu?”

I turned my head to look at him.

“Are you calling me?”

His lips curved in a smile. His pitch-black eyes seemed to hold two little hooks, tempting a person to fall in.

“Who else would I be calling?”

I nodded.

Lizhao was even more perverted than I had imagined.

He had even told him that.

What troubled me was that an awake Lansheng was not much easier to deal with than an unconscious one.

He was clingy to an almost unbearable degree.

At this moment, he was twisting our hair together like a child, his fingers fluttering as he wove it into pretty knots.

The wind blew the braid he had just finished against my cheek, tangling there and tickling faintly.

For a moment, I had no words. “Aren’t you tired?”

Those limpid peach-blossom eyes slanted toward me, his smile soft and his voice gentle.

“Not at all.”

“Why do you think Lizhao left only these hands intact?”

“Naturally, because I’m good with my hands.”

When he saw me frown, he seemed to find it even more amusing and leaned closer.

His warm breath brushed my ear, his voice honey-sweet.

“My mouth is very sweet too. Does Ah Wu want a taste?”

Me: …

Calmly, I did not take the bait.

I had been married to Lizhao for three years, and Lansheng had been locked away for three years.

How could he not have gone mad?

Lansheng suddenly changed the subject. “How did you find me?”

I paused.

“Because of a dream.”

“A dream?”

I told him everything I had dreamed.

Seeing his odd expression, I could not help adding,

“But in the early hours, beside you, I had another dream.”

“I dreamed you died.”

Lansheng: ?

I spoke slowly.

“Lizhao caught up with us and cut off your head with one strike.”

“He beckoned to me, his hand covered in your blood, and he was still smiling.”

Lansheng looked thoughtful. “That does sound like something he would do.”

I glanced at him and continued,

“Then he seized me by the throat and forced my mouth open.”

“He shoved his bloodstained fingers into my mouth and said he wanted to check whether I had tasted that very sweet mouth of yours.”

Lansheng: …

I said, “So after I send you to Qingzhou, I will leave.”

Lansheng had told me Lizhao was very powerful.

The only person in the world who could defeat him was their junior martial sister-the High Immortal Shan Dai, who was currently in seclusion in Qingzhou.

Lansheng did not look pleased by my promise.

He only asked, “Then what about you?”

“Me?”

I shook my head honestly.

“I don’t know.”

Lansheng watched me for a long time. Then his eyes curved, and he smiled.

“Looks like we’re destined to be a pair of fugitive lovebirds, Chen Qingwu.”

A cold hand and burning lips pressed against my face at the same time.

Beneath the moonlight, the young man’s alluring face was like that of a beautiful ghost, but his voice was innocent as a child’s.

“Have you forgotten? We were the ones who were husband and wife in our past life.”

“You already tasted my mouth long ago, didn’t you?”