After being reborn, the villain comes with a spoiler tag.

Chu Tong seemed completely immersed in her own world, oblivious to everything happening around her.

He slowly turned around, his gaze shifting to another direction, his eyes becoming unusually gentle, like the warm sunshine of spring, capable of melting away all ice.

"Ayu, how much longer are you going to stay there?"

As Chu Tong finished speaking, the shadow beneath the altar seemed to be blown away by an invisible wind, and a figure slowly emerged from it—it was the real Murong Yu.

Chu Tong's gaze fell on Murong Yu's injured left hand, then traveled upwards, lingering for a moment on the Vermilion Bird Seal protruding from her collar, before finally settling back on her expressionless face.

Murong Yu stood there for an unknown amount of time and witnessed countless events, yet Chu Tong could not detect a single ripple of emotion on her calm face.

She slowly walked up to Chu Tong, her gaze sweeping over Jun Yu and the corpse of the dragon-shaped creature before landing on the bronze cauldron atop the altar.

Above the pure white Vermilion Bird Sacred Flame, the fortune that had originally gathered in one place, having lost the guidance of the person in charge of the formation, quickly dissipated like quicksand, returning to the world.

Chu Tong followed Murong Yu's gaze, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

He gently raised his hand, as if drawing an invisible boundary in the air, instantly stopping the escape of that fortune.

Under Murong Yu's gaze, the scattered luck miraculously re-condensed, and then, as if time had reversed, returned one by one to the bodies of the mortals who had been deprived of their luck.

Even more astonishingly, along with the return of fortune, the lifespan that had been quietly drained from the mortals within the Vermilion Bird Gate was also replenished in their bodies.

Their faces were miraculously restored, as if time had reversed here, taking them back to how they looked when they first entered the Thousand Candles Ceremony.

Even the nobles and royalty on the Temple of Heaven, whose lives had been extinguished, began to rise and fall again under the influence of this incredible power.

Witnessing this astonishing scene of life and death being reversed, Long Yucheng was deeply shocked. He looked at Huo Yu in disbelief:

"Senior brother, is this the power of a Mahayana stage cultivator?!"

Huo Yu's eyes flickered slightly, and he slowly said:

"Even among Mahayana cultivators, very few can bring the dead back to life; this is the Vermilion Bird's life-saving divine power."

Upon hearing this, Long Yucheng's mind instantly conjured up all sorts of mysterious legends about the city he had heard since entering it. The most widely circulated of these was the Vermilion Bird Sacred Flame's ability to bring the dead back to life.

Now that he has personally witnessed the Vermilion Bird's ability to revive the dead, wouldn't all the rumors about the Vermilion Bird Sacred Flame be true?

After Jun Yu's death, Su Yixuan and Guan Fengyue, just as they had quietly left the Temple of Heaven before, returned silently to Huo Yu's side once again, witnessing the miraculous scene of the dead being reborn from the best vantage point.

Shocked, Su Yixuan's gaze swept over the red-clad man and Murong Yu gazing affectionately at each other not far away, then fell on Huo Yu and Long Yucheng embracing in front of her, finally turning her head to look at Guan Fengyue beside her. Three words simultaneously appeared in both of their eyes:

Didn't see it.

Chu Tong paid no attention to the gazes of others. After doing all this, her gaze returned to Murong Yu in front of her.

“These people’s lives are insignificant to me, but since you care, Ayu, let them live again.”

Murong Yu slowly withdrew his gaze, looking directly into Chu Tong's gentle eyes, which were as warm as ever:

"When the Vermilion Bird Seal appeared, I remembered everything."

As if to confirm her words, the vermilion mark on Murong Yu's neck flickered, like breathing.

Chu Tong's gaze fell on the mark she had personally branded thousands of years ago, a trace of sorrow appearing in her eyes:

"So, what is A-Yu's answer in this life?"

Murong Yu did not answer immediately, but remained silent, while Chu Tong smiled as if relieved.

“I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve rejected me, and I thought I had already let go. But when I saw your face stop breathing in front of me again, I knew that I still couldn’t turn a blind eye.”

Chu Tong spoke softly, her voice devoid of any sorrow, only the calm that remained after the flames had burned out:

"No matter how many times you reject me, or how many times you sacrifice for this country, I will continue to watch over you. This is our original agreement."

Murong Yu took a deep look at Chu Tong, who was so close at hand, and then turned his gaze to the area below the Temple of Heaven.

Throughout the entire area inside and outside the Vermilion Bird Gate, countless people knelt on the ground, still immersed in that fanatical and bewildering illusion, completely unaware of what was happening at the Temple of Heaven.

Chu Tong was prepared to face yet another rejection, but Murong Yu replied:

“I have done enough for this city.”

Chu Tong looked up in surprise, meeting Murong Yu's gaze, which seemed to melt away like spring snow. Her tone was calm yet firm:

"So from now on, I will stay with you until the end of my life."

Although the two were not speaking loudly, everyone else present was a cultivator with keen senses, and every word they uttered was clearly audible.

Murong Yu is a mortal, and the downside of not being able to use divine sense to transmit his voice is that any whispers he makes can be overheard, leaving him with absolutely no privacy.

Forced to swallow a mouthful of dog food (a Chinese slang term for witnessing public displays of affection), Long Yucheng endured it for a long time, but finally couldn't help but say to Huo Yu:

"Senior brother, why do I feel like we're a bit superfluous here?"

"..."

Huo Yu looked down at him and patted the fluffy dog's head.

"?"

Had he been in this four-legged walking posture for too long that his senior brother really thought of him as a dog?

Long Yucheng could no longer bear it and struggled violently in Huo Yu's arms to show his dissatisfaction.

However, before he could move much, he was once again stunned by the commotion from Murong Yu's side.

Suddenly, the Vermilion Bird Seal on Murong Yu's neck burst forth with a dazzling red light. Accompanying this light, countless powerful red rays surged out from the Vermilion Bird Seal, spreading rapidly like a tide across the entire sky above Vermilion Bird City.

The sky above Suzaku City has vanished without a trace, replaced by an endless, dazzling red ocean.

This was worlds apart from the red light that Jun Yu had painstakingly gathered by pooling the entire city's fortune.

As the red light continued to leave his body, Murong Yu's life force grew weaker and weaker, as if he would lose his life at any moment.

After the last wisp of red light completely left her body, the Vermilion Bird Seal shone brightly again, but this time, it emitted a dazzling golden light.

At the same time, countless marks identical to the Vermilion Bird Seal appeared around Chu Tong's body, shimmering with dazzling light.

As these marks appeared, the entire city seemed to sense something.

In an instant, everyone could feel an unknown aura far beyond what ordinary people could comprehend, quietly awakening beneath the city.

As this aura surged, the marks around Chu Tong became increasingly dense and the light became increasingly dazzling, eventually merging completely with that mysterious aura.

Just as Chu Tong's entire body was covered by the Vermilion Bird mark, a clear and melodious cry suddenly rang out in everyone's hearts, causing everyone's mind to tremble.

The runes surrounding Chu Tong finally dissipated into specks of golden light, and the person standing in place was no longer the tall, thin middle-aged man from before, but instead a figure in red.