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Okay, I accidentally lied. There's actually another chapter after this. While editing, I decided to split the final chapter because it was a little long… So, yeah, it's not over quite yet!

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Another few memories later, showing things like Liu Qingge's qi deviation, a strange, incomprehensible conversation with Shang Qinghua, and a handful of lessons Luo Binghe himself also remembered, he came to another door that resisted his entry. This one barely gave at all when he pressed against it, and he had to use considerable force to wrench it open.

He shoved it open and immediately wished he hadn't.

"Luo Binghe, don't be rash!"

"Too late!"

His own memories of this event weren't perfectly clear, thanks to the corruption of Xin Mo, but he could remember the worst part of it with absolute clarity. This was when his Shizun died, not to return for years. This was the beginning of Luo Binghe's despair that he had once feared would never end.

He didn't want to witness this event again. He couldn't.

But he felt frozen, unable to search for the entrance to another memory, and therefore continued to witness this one play out.

Luo Binghe watched in horror as his younger self unsheathed Xin Mo, the demonic qi billowing out from it. Liu Qingge tried to attack him with Cheng Luan but failed, at which point Shen Qingqiu unsheathed his own Xiu Ya.

"Come here, Luo Binghe. Today we must come to a resolution."

"Resolution? How can this be resolved? Shizun, at this point, do you really think what's between us can be settled cleanly?"

His younger self continued to rant on about the injustices he'd faced in his life, his resentment fueled by Xin Mo.

"Or let the person I wholeheartedly adored lie to me, abandon me, betray me, and shove me down into a place worse than purgatory with his own two hands?! Shizun, look at what I've become! Am I strong enough?!"

Luo Binghe tensed as he knew what was coming. He was going to watch his Shizun die again.

Except that didn't happen.

Instead, his Shizun's body flickered, and suddenly, instead of Shen Qingqiu standing with a sword raised against the younger Luo Binghe, there was a young boy kneeling on the ground.

"Am I?" the young boy spat, glaring up at Luo Binghe.

However, the figure standing above him was no longer Luo Binghe, either. Instead, it was a young man Luo Binghe didn't recognize. And then he wasn't standing over him, but rather, holding him down.

Whoever this man was, Luo Binghe was going to hunt him down in the real world and murder him. As painfully as he could. The only thing stopping him from doing it now was that, despite his rage, he remembered that any damage he caused here would only end up hurting his husband.

"To think that the time I spent teaching you over the years, everything you've learned, couldn't compare to a jianghu scam artist's crooked little tricks."

"They're not tricks! I want to train to become an immortal master!"

"A piece of trash like you? You barely even count as human! You're less than human! And after all my family has done for you, you think you can just leave? I own you!"

'Nobody owns me. Not anymore. I won't be owned. Ever. Again."

Suddenly, the younger boy had a sword in his hands.

"Still quite a temper you have. Your bones itching for another beating?"

"Stay away!"

Luo Binghe, despite knowing he couldn't change whatever had happened here, dashed forward to protect the boy, who he had by now realized was his Shizun as a child.

The sword stabbed into the older boy's stomach before Luo Binghe even made it to his side.

The young Shen Qingqiu wrenched the sword out and stared in horror at what he'd done, yet there also seemed to be some degree of satisfaction that came with the act.

'You'll never touch me again. Never beat me again. You deserve to die.'

Then, a young woman ran into the room, screeching:

"A-Luo! A-Luo!"

For a moment, Luo Binghe thought it was Ning Yingying, but instead, he was met with a slightly familiar face that belonged to someone else. Her form shifted, this time making her older than she had been, and as the shift settled, Luo Binghe realized that he did, in fact, know exactly who she was- Qiu Haitang. A fire grew from nowhere, melting her face and the room around them.

"You'll pay for this, Shen Jiu! I'll make you pay for what you did to my brother and my family!"

Again, the scene changed, as it seemed like things were getting out of control of any sort of sequence. Now, the sword was back in the young man's stomach, but it was replaced by yet another figure. Instead, they were now in a forest, and the man impaled by the sword was Yue Qingyuan.

"It's such a shame that you didn't kill him sooner. A few years earlier, and things would have been different, but the best age for cultivation is already behind you," someone else's voice came from Yue Qingyuan's mouth. "Furthermore, due to the abuse you suffered under him, there's been some damage to your natural bases."

Yue Qingyuan sighed.

"And look at you now. All you are is some petty, scum of a murderer masquerading as a distinguished peak lord. I was right to leave you in that house."

Shen Qingqiu returned to being an adult, a scandalized expression crossing his features.

"It's all your fault, Qi-ge! If you hadn't gotten involved, none of this would have happened! Qiu Jianluo would have never laid his hands on me!"

"You always blame everyone else for your sins. No wonder you turned out the way you did."

Shen Qingqiu was now staring at a duplicate of himself, the sword still stabbed deeply into the flesh.

"So what?! You think you're better than me?! You didn't live through any of it! All you did was step into a situation you knew nothing about! Who are you to judge me when you hated me as much as anyone else did?!"

Luo Binghe was quickly coming to understand just why his husband had been so confused. It wasn't just the confusing scenery of before- it was clear that his memories were completely jumbled!

"But why did you have to take it out on him?! Don't you understand how differently things could have turned out if you hadn't let your envy turn you into the people you hate?!"

"As if I would have ever allowed any of that! The things you do with my body disgust me!"

"And you disgust yourself, so what's the difference?!"

The Shen Qingqiu holding the sword removed it from where it was and raised it high into the air, clearly preparing to slice his duplicate's head off.

"Shizun, stop!" Luo Binghe couldn't help calling out.

Unexpectedly, Shen Qingqiu whipped toward him.

"You stay out of this!"

The sword came down.

And now, they were at the edge of the Abyss.

There were still two Shen Qingqiu's, one standing in front of a young Luo Binghe and the other being held down by an older one. The younger Luo Binghe was crying, while the other had a maliciously gleeful glint in his eyes.

[Warning! The critical quest 'The Endless Abyss and Endless Hatred, a Sky Filled with Crystal Frost and Tears of Blood' has officially begun! If it is not successfully completed, 20,000 protagonist satisfaction points will be deducted!]

A strange-sounding voice boomed cryptically.

"Shizun, this disciple can explain!"

"When did you start?"

As the events of the Immortal Alliance Conference began to play out once more, the older version of him began to talk to the other Shen Qingqiu.

"Somehow I keep getting the feeling… that something about you is different. Are you really Shen Qingqiu?"

"Is that so? You wicked disciple, you managed to hide this from me for so long!"

The young Luo Binghe knelt. The older one gripped his Shizun's arm.

"Get up!"

"But Shizun, you said before that just as people can be good or bad, demons can be good or evil! That in this world, there is no one… intolerable to the heavens."

"You are no simple demon! That mark on your forehead is a mark of sin!"

"Shizun, do you really want to kill me?"

'I don't. But you won't die. This is all necessary for you to stand above the masses in the future.'

"I don't want to kill you. It's only, what that man said wasn't wrong. The Human Realm is no longer a place for you. You ought to return to the place you belong."

While his attention was on the other pair, Luo Binghe heard an agonized scream. Turning back, he realized with a cold horror that the older version of him had ripped Shen Qingqiu's arm off.

The scream dissolved into a hysterical laugh.

"Why don't you just get it over with already? You know how this goes. No matter what, Shen Qingqiu will always shove Luo Binghe into the Abyss."

The other Shen Qingqiu turned toward him with a glare.

"Shut up! At least I wasn't trying to kill him!"

The laughing continued as one of Shen Qingqiu's legs was ripped off as well. The other one ignored this, turning back to Luo Binghe instead.

"Will you go down yourself, or must I force you?"

Shen Qingqiu stabbed him in the chest, but he looked surprised that he'd done it.

He stabbed the sword into the ground and approached the boy, pulling him into his arms as if he was hugging him.

But after the moment was over, he pulled back and pushed Luo Binghe to ground. Finally, he lifted his leg to deliver a hard kick.

And Luo Binghe fell into the Abyss. Luo Binghe also ripped off another one of Shen Qingqiu's legs and also watched it all happen.

His own breathing was faster than it should be, having not expected to have to face so much of his own traumas today. It was clear, though, that much of this was wrong. Details were wrong or merged or altered, and though that was the nature of memory, Luo Binghe could tell that for it to happen to this degree was problematic.

"Shizun!" he called out, knowing that at least one of the two could hear them.

They both turned toward him, one crying silent tears and the other continuing that disturbing laugh.

"Shizun, please let me help you!"

He had to reach him. He needed to fix this.

The crying one sank to the ground.

"I'm sorry, Binghe. I'm sorry! This is all my fault…"

Meanwhile, the laughing one lost his final limb, though it didn't seem to register as pain anymore.

"Ah, look, you shoved him into the Abyss, and this is still how things turned out," he taunted. "You worked so hard to avoid this, but in the end, you know that this is your fate. Go ahead and be me, but you know Shen Qingqiu's fate! You know it will happen in your world too one day!"

His words grew quieter the longer he spoke, the laughter eventually trailing off as his eyes grew dull.

Shen Qingqiu was dead. He was also crying, sobs broken by desperate gasps for air.

The other Luo Binghe turned his attention toward the sound of crying and got up, intentions to do the same again clear in his expression.

Luo Binghe ran as quickly as he could toward his Shizun and grabbed him, trying to keep him safe from the other him.

Their inertia propelled the both of them down into the Abyss.

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