NTR Villain: All the Heroines Belong to Me!

The air inside the Celestial Assembly Hall was thicker than incense.

Banners hung from the walls — white and gold silk stitched with the symbol of the Heavenly Synthesis Ceremony: two overlapping circles, one black, one silver, with a golden lotus blooming at their intersection.

It was a ceremony reserved only for dual cultivation bonds of national importance.

Sacred.

Binding.

Eternal.

And Hei Long had just named his partner.

Leng Qingxue.

The Announcement Echoed Like a Bell

Not shouted.

Not celebrated.

Simply spoken.

"I choose her."

And that was enough.

The Empress gave her blessing with a single nod.

The high elders stood.

The cultivator nobility bowed.

And across the city, rumors detonated.

The Reactions Came Immediately

Zhao Yuran locked herself in her alchemy tower.

No flames. No incense.

Just silence.

She stared at the forbidden scroll Hei Long once rejected. The one marked "Void Meridian Refinement: Path of the Undying Furnace."

Her reflection in the cauldron looked more like a ghost than a girl.

"He said no one should follow this path," she whispered.

Then she opened it.

"But I'm not no one."

Mu Yexin vanished from the Mirage Pavilion.

Left only a single note behind:

"Not finished.Not broken.Watch the mirror."

No one saw her for days.

But illusion birds began appearing across the city.

Each one sang Qingxue's name.

But in a mocking tone.

Xue Lian did not rage.

Did not vanish.

She sat beneath the moon tree in the garden she always returned to.

And polished her sword.

Not because it needed it.

But because rage expressed itself in different ways.

A servant approached.

"Lady Lian… are you all right?"

She didn't look up.

"I was never in the running," she said calmly. "That's what they don't understand."

Then she stood.

"And now that I know that…"

"…I can finally stop waiting."

Meanwhile – Hei Long and Qingxue

The ceremony preparations had already begun.

They stood together in the Whispering Shrine — where dual cultivation robes were fitted and engraved with symbolic seals.

Qingxue wore hers like armor.

Hei Long adjusted the collar for her.

She didn't flinch.

Didn't speak.

Until he said quietly:

"You didn't win because of the duel."

She turned to him. "Then why?"

"Because when the others reached for me…"

"You reached for the blade."

Qingxue didn't smile.

But her fingers brushed his.

Only briefly.

Before she pulled away again.

That Night – A Fractured Silence

Zhao Yuran burned through half the scroll. Her spiritual veins darkened, screaming at her. She didn't stop.

Mu Yexin walked through a crowded street in disguise. Every face she passed turned into his. She didn't blink.

Xue Lian boarded a skyship bound for the Eastern Wastes — on a mission she didn't ask for, chasing a target no one believed still existed.

All of them silent.

All of them spiraling.

And none of them letting go.

Later – Hei Long's Private Quarters

Qingxue stood by the window.

Watching the night.

Hei Long approached, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder.

She didn't move.

"I know this isn't the end," she said.

"It never is," he replied.

"You're going to lose them," she added.

He was silent for a while.

Then said, without emotion:

"They were never mine to begin with."

In the Shadows of the Capital

A woman with crimson eyes opened a coffin beneath the city.

Inside lay a heart wrapped in black thread.

She touched it gently.

And whispered:

"He's beginning to bind."

"We must unmake it… before it's too late."

Midnight

The letter arrived in silence.

It did not knock.

It did not flash.

It simply appeared — folded on his desk, sealed in obsidian wax marked with a phoenix crest carved in reverse.

Hei Long stared at it.

Unblinking.

Because the Black Phoenix sigil hadn't been used since the Fall of the Thirteenth Sect — an event wiped from records and minds alike.

He broke the seal.

The parchment inside held only nine words.

"She's awake. The true one. And she remembers you."

He Didn't Speak

Didn't move.

Just… stood.

Until the shadows behind him coiled tighter.

Qingxue entered without sound, her eyes immediately narrowing at the open seal.

"That's not an imperial mark," she said.

"No."

"Who sent it?"

He looked down at the paper.

Then folded it once.

Twice.

Then burned it with a flick of his finger.

"Someone who shouldn't exist," he said.

Elsewhere — The Shattered Asylum

Deep beneath the capital, hidden behind thirty layers of spiritual suppression and twelve psychic locks, a woman sat upright in her stone bed for the first time in six years.

Her hair was long and matted. Her eyes glowed with soft crimson. Her hands, though thin, flexed with an elegance that frightened the guards watching from behind enchanted glass.

She whispered a name.

Not hers.

Not the Empress's.

Not even the gods'.

She whispered: "Hei Long."

And the lights in the ward flickered.

Three Days Later — Imperial Archives

Hei Long stood before a sealed vault.

The Head Archivist bowed, hands shaking.

"We buried her memory, Commander," he said. "You ordered it."

"I know," Hei Long replied.

"And if she's awake now, it means—"

"It means something I ended," Hei Long said slowly, "wasn't actually over."

The vault opened.

Hei Long stepped inside.

And found a portrait.

It had no name.

But the girl in the painting was smiling at him.

And her eyes were just starting to glow red.

Meanwhile — Zhao Yuran

She stopped her alchemy.

Because for the first time in weeks, she felt something foreign moving through the city's leyline network.

An energy unlike any she'd felt before.

Old.

Personal.

Familiar.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

And whispered:

"…she's not dead?"

Mu Yexin — On the Rooftop

She saw the black birds.

Illusions by default.

But these weren't hers.

They circled the temple spires at dusk — slow, watching, waiting.

And every time she blinked, she could swear she saw a woman standing among them.

Watching her back.

Xue Lian — On the Wastes

The moment the Black Phoenix woke, her own blade cracked.

Hairline.

Quiet.

But real.

And as she held it, wind howling around her, she whispered:

"She's awake…"

And her voice shook.

"…and she remembers."

That Night — Hei Long's Private Garden

He stood at the koi pond, still as stone.

Qingxue sat on the edge, quiet.

"You're preparing for something," she said.

"I'm remembering something," he replied.

"And her?"

"She was before all of you," he said, tone level. "Before even I was finished becoming me."

"Do you love her?"

He didn't answer.

But in the water, his reflection blinked red.

In the Sky Above the Capital

Black wings tore open the clouds.

The phoenix returned.

Not in flame.

But in shadow.

And somewhere beneath the surface of the world, a single soul began reweaving its name into fate.