Chapter 373: I Lied [PART 1]
The Empress sat in her castle within Li Yao’s spiritual sea, reading a book.
As she continued reading, her eye kept twitching in annoyance. This went on for several more minutes before she couldn’t handle it anymore.
[How long are you going to do this for? Did you forget the original mission?] she asked angrily.
In the outside world, Li Yao was now on top.
As she moved, she wondered how long it had been. She couldn’t tell anymore, but there was one thing she could tell for sure, something was reacting within her whenever she did this with her husband.
She wondered what it could possibly be. She was sure it wasn’t cultivation since they didn’t have any dual cultivation method.
As she was thinking about this, the Empress’s words appeared in both their heads.
"Ah, I was enjoying it too much I forgot," she said.
[...]
"Ahem, let’s do it," Xiang Yu said, bringing his hands forward.
Li Yao reached for his hands and their fingers interlocked. They both closed their eyes and activated their fate domains.
Li Yao and Xiang Yu suddenly found themselves in a different location.
It was a world made entirely of two colors, red and white, splitting at the middle with one color on one side and the other on the other side. Li Yao stood on the edge of the white world, while Xiang Yu stood opposite her on the edge of the red world.
"Wife," he called out, reaching out to her.
"Husband," she said, extending her hand to meet his.
But as their hands were about to meet, they were stopped by a thin invisible barrier.
They both looked at the barrier in shock, then tried again, but it was blocked. After a few attempts, they began using their powers, their fists covered in energy clashing into the barrier, but still nothing happened.
"That’s strange. What do we do now?" Xiang Yu wondered, backing away from the barrier.
Li Yao, on the other hand, was just cursing as she kept hurling all sorts of attacks toward the barrier. "Dammit, how dare such a small thing separate me from my husband!" She flew to the sky, entering her limit break form.
"First sword!" she roared as she made her attack.
Xiang Yu sighed as he watched her hit the barrier without any results. He thought to himself that maybe there was another way, like a mechanism or puzzle. Seeing Li Yao was getting more and more worked up, he chose to ask the Empress.
"Wife, please calm down. I have a way," he said, waving her down.
...
After some time, Xiang Yu was finally able to get Li Yao’s attention. After getting her to calm down, they sat in a meditative posture opposite each other, Li Yao returning to her base form.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"According to the Empress, in order to tie our fates together, we need to open ourselves to each other," Xiang Yu said.
"What does that even mean?" Li Yao asked.
Xiang Yu shook his head. This was way too vague. The closest meaning he could think of about opening up to each other was talking about themselves and knowing each other more. But between them, what did they not know about each other?
As he thought about this, he suddenly paused.
"Ah, I see," he said.
"Did you get it?" Li Yao asked in excitement, noting his expression.
"Yeah, somewhat..." he said.
"What is it? Quick, tell me, tell me!" she said enthusiastically.
"I think the concept behind this place is that you can’t love each other if you don’t completely know each other," he said. "How about this, begin by telling me your deepest secret and I’ll do the same."
She was nodding her head as she listened to him speak, but at the final sentence, she paused. She then wore a horrified expression.
"Umm, maybe you’re seeing it wrong. Are you sure that’s the test? Why don’t we try a different method instead?" she said, not meeting his gaze.
"No, this is the only way I can think of at the moment. We can just try it and if it fails, we can look for another," Xiang Yu said.
"Ah, I think I have an idea! Maybe it means we should open our hearts and show each other our insides."
Xiang Yu nodded, though he felt the wording was a little strange.
"Like with a knife," she said as she pulled out her sword, bringing it closer to her chest.
"Wait, no, stop! That’s not the test," Xiang Yu screamed out, barely managing to stop her before she could open up herself.
He then shook his head. He had thought that his secret was quite deep, but why was his wife so nervous? What secret could she possibly have?
"What is your deepest secret?" Xiang Yu asked, looking directly at her.
"Umm... well..." she stammered.
"It’s okay, you can tell me," Xiang Yu said, but she just looked to the side.
Xiang Yu sighed. He then smiled. "This is the test. If you are not willing to tell me your deepest secret, it means you aren’t allowing me in. That goes for me too," he said. "And if you tell your secret and I’m unable to accept you, then that means I’m not allowing you in. This is also the same the other way around."
"So, will you tell me your secret? As your husband, I want to know everything about you - your good sides, your dark sides, I want to know it all. When we got married, I promised to accept all of you, so let me," he said. "Open the door, take my hand. It doesn’t matter what you say, I’ll still be your husband."
Li Yao blushed. "Okay," she said.
"I want to ***** and ***** husband then ***** and ***** until *****...{THE FOLLOWING TEXT HAS BEEN OMITTED FOR GRAPHIC CONTENT}"
Xiang Yu had a confident expression when she began, but as she continued, his expression slowly wavered. He had expected it to be bad seeing how defensive she was about it, but it was much, much worse than what he had expected - not to mention it kept getting worse as she went on.
Inside the spiritual sea, the Empress shed a tear. "I’m sorry, ancestors. I was reckless in choosing a successor and doomed the human empire."