After Rebirth, I Married the Great Demon King-Chapter 480: Trouble Arises

Cheng Lie finished his call with Yun Shifei, asking her to come downstairs, then started heading upstairs himself.

The hotel had a vintage aesthetic. The staircase was wide, and the floor was carpeted everywhere, giving a soft, warm feel as he stepped on it.

He reached the third floor, where the accommodations were, but did not see Yun Shifei anywhere.

Thinking she might not have come out yet, he made another call to her.

But this time, the call went unanswered for a long time.

The smile on Cheng Lie’s lips gradually vanished, replaced by a cold tension gathering at his brow.

Under normal circumstances, Yun Shifei would never leave his call unanswered for this long.

Unless something had happened to her.

Unable to get through to Yun Shifei, Cheng Lie ended the call and glanced at the tracker on his phone.

The location showed the farthest corner of the hotel.

Cheng Lie hurried over, but when he arrived, no one was there—just a phone and a necklace left discarded on the ground.

Yun Shifei, groggy and dazed when taken, wanted to resist but simply had no strength to fight back.

When she regained consciousness, she found herself in a dimly lit space.

The surroundings were pitch black, devoid of anything, illuminated only by a few burning candles.

"You’re awake?" A deep voice sounded from ahead.

Yun Shifei focused her gaze and saw a man sitting in the corner, staring at her.

His face flickered in the candlelight, haunting and almost spectral.

It was none other than Mu Chengzhu!

But why was he here?

Since her return, she hadn’t seen Mu Chengzhu and thought he might leave her alone.

She didn’t expect him to be building up for something bigger.

He’d silently kidnapped her.

Mu Chengzhu noticed the wary and frightened look in Yun Shifei’s eyes but acted as though he hadn’t seen it, saying to her, "Shifei, let’s go back to the past, shall we?"

The flickering candlelight danced in his deep gaze, like a seductively enchanting demon.

But he couldn’t charm her. Her tragic past life was still etched vividly in her memory. This time, no matter what, she couldn’t repeat the same mistakes.

Yun Shifei tensed up.

She just couldn’t comprehend how Mu Chengzhu had managed to pull this off.

Ever since the kidnapping incident with Wen Lin, Cheng Lie had assigned people to protect her.

So she had felt safe going out, but who could’ve guessed—Cheng Lie was just downstairs, and in the scant distance between the floors, an accident had already occurred.

Mu Chengzhu, by some coincidence or deliberate plan, had seized this narrow window. If they were outside—no way he could’ve taken her.

But in the hotel? That was another matter entirely. In a place this vast, they had all assumed it was secure. Even she had believed it. Who’d have thought something would go wrong right here?

Seeing Yun Shifei stay silent, Mu Chengzhu stepped closer and reached out to touch her cheek. "Shifei... The things I did in our past life—I know they were wrong. Believe me, I was forced into it. Do you understand? In fact, our past life... We were just characters in a book. Yun Sisi was the protagonist, so we were all orbiting around her. The way I treated you—it wasn’t even under my control."

"What are you talking about?" Yun Shifei couldn’t resist and responded to Mu Chengzhu.

She looked at him in stunned disbelief, shaken by his words and feeling as though her world had been irreversibly upended.

She had suspected it before—why had she felt so drawn to Mu Chengzhu in her past life? Back then, she wondered if she had been under some kind of manipulation.

Now, Mu Chengzhu was telling her they had been characters in a book.

Things finally started to make sense. All those inexplicable actions, that tragic ending—it was all just buildup to highlight the protagonist.

That must be what it was.

The realization left Yun Shifei with an unavoidable sense of sorrow.

Still, she had this life—a chance to carve out a happiness of her own making.

"Shifei, I’m not lying to you. Yun Sisi told me herself. She said that if I followed her, things might return to their proper course. But I didn’t want that." Mu Chengzhu spoke softly. "I don’t like her at all. And the way I treated you in our past life—I truly regret it."

He was actually apologizing for pushing her off a tall building.

On a rational level, if things were truly as Mu Chengzhu said, she supposed she should forgive him.

But the current Mu Chengzhu made her feel anything but forgiving.

No matter what had forced him in their past life, what about this one? How had he treated her now?

She had rejected him clearly on multiple occasions, yet he still refused to leave her alone.

Yun Shifei genuinely thought her tendency to show mercy was her weakest flaw.

The last time, she had deliberately destroyed his reputation, and Cheng Lie had secretly sabotaged Mu Chengzhu’s company. Even now, he hadn’t managed to recover, yet he still had the audacity to meddle in her affairs.

She did not see this as love—just a bitter frustration born of getting something in a past life that now seemed out of reach in this one.

Yun Shifei thought for a moment, then said to Mu Chengzhu, "Do you really think you’ve wronged me?"

Mu Chengzhu nodded, his typically refined and handsome face showing traces of guilt.

"You must know how much I loved you in our past life, don’t you?"

"Yes," Yun Shifei replied.

Mu Chengzhu couldn’t help but recall how good Yun Shifei had been to him once.

It was nothing like now. Back then, she had practically wanted to lay bare her heart for him to see.

"But think about how you treated me. It wasn’t just crushing my heart—you schemed against me for the Yun Family’s assets and pushed me off a building." Yun Shifei’s voice carried a hint of a sob as she continued, "From that height, do you know what it’s like to fall? It feels instant, but in that instant, to me, it felt like an eternity."

"The wind was fierce. When I hit the ground, I shattered—completely torn apart."

Tears welled up in Yun Shifei’s eyes as she stared at Mu Chengzhu and went on, "You must have gone downstairs to see my corpse at the time, didn’t you? Wasn’t it awful? In the mortuary, they couldn’t even piece me back together into a whole body."

Her words transported Mu Chengzhu back to that harrowing scene.

He closed his eyes briefly—indeed, as the man closest to Yun Shifei in their past life, her funeral had been arranged solely by him. After her death, how could he not have seen her body?

It had been... unspeakably broken...

"I’m sorry."

Yun Shifei could sense the immense guilt swelling within Mu Chengzhu. He couldn’t even bring himself to meet her gaze now.

This was exactly what she wanted—to magnify his regret until it consumed him.

"In our past life, you lived for Yun Sisi, while I lived for you. Whether influenced by the story or not, that was the reality."

Mu Chengzhu murmured in agreement.

"After my death, you were finally free to be with Yun Sisi openly, weren’t you? And you took everything that had once been mine."