Love is cruel

Ren Zu fails to revive Verdant Great Sun and is swept back into Luo Po Valley, and his daughter Desolate Ancient Moon wants to save him. Entering the Door of Life and Death takes courage Gu and faith Gu, still with him. Unable to enter herself, she turns to cognition Gu for guidance. Cognition Gu names two paths. One is to enter space cave and reach him directly, saving only his soul. The other is to climb Cheng Bai mountain and win a wish from its one success Gu among countless failure Gu, returning him to life outright. She knows of space cave but cannot find it, and only the mountain can truly revive him, so she climbs. ^{ch. 435}

Her climb wakes love Gu, and angry at being disturbed, it gives life to a stone. The stone rises as a rockman, studded with gold, silver, copper, and iron, and falls for her on sight. He blocks her path, declares his love, and she asks coldly what that even is. He offers his iron, copper, silver, and gold as firmness, obstinacy, dignity, and self-confidence, and she refuses each, saying she must save her father. Stripped of his metals he looks small, weak, and almost comic. ^{ch. 435}

Begging to know how to win her love, he kneels until she hits on a trick and asks for his real heart. He opens his chest, and she takes the offered heart and keeps it. Even a heart, she tells him, cannot buy her love. Panicked, he calls her heartless and begs for the heart back, warning he will die without it. She keeps the heart and watches him die anyway. He cries out, asking why she kills him after so much love. She answers calmly, and with pity, that she never meant to kill him, only that he blocked her path to success. ^{ch. 435}