TSFLIP Chapter 648

The Heart-Calming Chant was ultimately a Daoist spell, which didn’t have much effect on demons, but it did offer some relief. In the quiet room, only her faint chanting could be heard—and it continued past midnight.

The pain in Naihe’s body gradually faded, and the tension between his brows began to ease. Fengguang opened her eyes and softly asked, “Are you feeling any better?”

“Mm…”

She let out a breath of relief and tried to pull her hand away from his, but he held on tightly. She looked up at him, puzzled.

After a moment, Naihe asked, “Why did you help me?”

“Because… because you helped me too. Didn’t you take me in out of kindness?”

She wasn’t wrong, but her answer didn’t satisfy him. He tightened his grip on her hand and asked again, “Aren’t you curious about me… about who I am?”

“I figured… you probably wouldn’t want to talk about it.”
Those who suffer divine punishment are usually half-bloods—offspring of two different realms. In the Three Realms, no one respects anyone else, but half-bloods are scorned by all of them. At least that’s how it is among demons and devils, who value pure bloodlines. So most half-bloods have had hard childhoods, and that’s also why they rarely speak of their origins.

Fengguang might seem carefree on the outside, but in truth, she was quite perceptive.

Naihe finally said, “I was abandoned as an infant at Naihe Bridge. My father was a demon. My mother… was a god.”

She stared at him in shock. “A god?”

“Yes. Which means… my punishment is even worse.” His voice was calm—there was no resentment, no bitterness. “Three of my five senses are gone. At night, I become something not quite human, not quite demon. And once every seven days… I suffer a pain that feels like my heart is being devoured.”

Fengguang’s chest tightened. “That kind of punishment… it’s just not fair.”

“Punishment has never been about fairness,” Naihe replied quietly—and then said something even more shocking. “Do you know why Meng Po is so determined to match us together? It’s because, aside from you… everything living that comes in physical contact with me is reduced to dust. Even ghosts.”

“What… did you say?” For a second, she thought she must’ve misheard him. She had never read of such a punishment in any book, nor had her master ever mentioned it.

Naihe’s vertical green pupils were still and unreadable, like the bottom of an ancient well. It was as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him.
“To live in solitude forever… that is my true punishment.”

A long, long time ago, he had been born from his mother’s womb, and she died soon after giving birth to him. His father couldn’t accept what kind of child he was, so he abandoned him at the edge of Naihe Bridge in the underworld. From the moment he opened his eyes, Naihe remembered everything. He figured his father had probably wanted him to reincarnate—but in the end, the man couldn’t bring himself to do it. He just left him there, alone, to be consumed by the ghostly energy.

It was Meng Po who found him. Just as she reached to pick him up, he accidentally touched a ghostly butterfly. In an instant, the butterfly turned to dust and scattered into the air. But Meng Po still took him in. As long as no skin-to-skin contact was made, it was safe.

Naihe thought back to those years long past—when he was a baby, lying among the red blossoms of the other shore. Looking at Fengguang’s stunned face, he suddenly let out a low chuckle.
“Do I remind you of the man you once loved?”

Five hundred years ago, Naihe had recognized it instantly—Yun Ji was also someone suffering divine punishment.

Fengguang didn’t know how to respond.

Then she heard him say, “I’m not Yun Ji. And I won’t treat you the way he did. So… I won’t allow you to think of him when you look at me.”

“I—” She didn’t even finish her sentence before the hand gripping her wrist yanked her forward. She stumbled into his chest, and at the same time, he tilted her chin up forcefully—then his lips came crashing down onto hers in a fierce, consuming kiss.