The night breeze stirred gently, the crimson clouds swaying softly.
By the window, on the long couch, someone had given up completely: "Ah, yes, yes, yes."
He’d thrown in the towel—but not entirely.
He raised his left hand cautiously, holding it up in front of him like a shield—if she dared to be rude to him, this “stand-in,” he would throw her off a thousand-foot cliff without hesitation.
He hadn’t forgotten that this girl had once, while sleepwalking, gotten hands-on with him—kissing, hugging, crying, rubbing against him, even begging him to eat her.
Now, she was getting exactly what she wished for. Who knew what other shocking things she might do next?
He stared at her, highly alert.
After a while, he noticed a faint blush slowly blooming on her pale cheeks.
Soon, her ears turned red as well.
She let out a soft “oh,” then turned around, strolling away leisurely, returning to the bed, climbing up and lying down properly—neatly and obediently.
Gone? She actually left? Just like that?
He: “……”
Suddenly, he fixed his gaze on her, noticing how she folded her hands neatly over her lower abdomen, lying perfectly still.
As proper as she could be.
Not moving an inch.
He waited a long time, seeing that she had no intention of getting up again to bother him, and finally relaxed, narrowing his dark eyes with a smirk as he leaned back against the window frame, arms crossed: “You’re lucky.”
He lifted his head, watching the moon drifting among the red shadows of the trees for a while, slowly succumbing to boredom.
He stood up, moved quietly, and appeared by the bedside.
The bed was made of bronze. After she had jabbed him in the waist in his mind, she lay down like a wandering spirit, not even bothering to arrange the bedding. Now, sleepwalking, she wouldn’t remember the bedding at all.
He tapped the bronze bed with his fingertips.
Hard as a rock, cold to the touch. How could she not get sore lying on it?
His gaze fell dangerously on her, lingering slightly at her neck. That slender neck—he had broken it countless times in his dreams of fleeting life and illusions.
Above that was her mouth.
That mouth was soft, like two plump petals—one gentle pinch or bite and it would break.
The blood tasted sweet.
He stared at her, his bones itching, a dark fire surging deep within his body.
Behind him, a massive shadow began to rise, blotting out the red clouds outside the window, inching forward thread by thread, tendril by tendril, crawling along the bronze bed toward her.
Entering… consuming… tearing her apart!
A thousand voices clamored in his mind, the crimson marks hidden beneath his disguise trembled with excitement, almost bleeding through.
He suddenly raised his hand and pressed hard against the corners of his eyes.
A tearing pain struck him violently, as if ten thousand struggling, roaring beasts clawed madly at his skull, the savage agony and piercing noise threatening to drive him insane.
His eyeballs squeezed shut tightly, trembling slightly in their widened sockets.
Blood trickled from his ears.
The chilling, murderous energy and deadly aura roared and surged wildly within his body.
Die… die… die!
Too far from the Great Seal on the Divine Mountain, he was gravely wounded and weak, barely able to suppress the “thing” lurking inside him.
The overwhelming pain and chaos battered his faltering mind.
Suddenly, he sensed a presence—strong and unmistakable.
Fierce, brave, like a tiny girl wielding a massive sword; though faint, it charged forward recklessly and without restraint.
He leaned in slightly, inhaling.
The soul-shredding pain still lingered, but his heart quickly calmed.
His gaze sharpened with determination as he silently chanted a spell.
In an instant, the nearly uncontrollable wild and violent energy inside him was completely suppressed. The black shadows like claws trailing behind him shrank inch by inch, retreating back into their seal.
He slowly released the hand pressing against his eyes, lifted his head, and looked toward Luo Luo, who had just wandered near the gates of the underworld.
A hint of surprise flickered in his eyes.
Before, he had only felt that her aura was familiar, never imagining it held such a strange effect—helping him find calm.
He lowered his gaze, staring at her, increasingly appreciating her worth.
Luo Luo frowned, restless in her sleep.
She clutched her left wrist tightly with her right hand; the soul mark stung painfully, and her heart ached.
Her soul blood hadn’t dispersed for a long time.
She struggled anxiously in her dream but couldn’t wake up.
“Li Zhaoye... Li Zhaoye...”
He rubbed his brows in frustration. The pain faded, and a wave of lethargy washed over him—he didn’t even have the energy to argue with her.
So, he generously leaned toward her and gently patted the back of her hand.
“Li Zhaoye has come to see you,” he said casually.
Luo Luo, still struggling fiercely in her nightmare, suddenly froze as if struck by a pressure point.
After a moment, a delicate flush bloomed slowly along her neck and cheek where his breath had brushed.
He stared at the faint color and blinked.
A little while later, she drifted back into deep sleep, and the flower-petal-like rosy glow gradually faded.
He curled his smiling eyes wickedly and leaned in closer.
“Li Zhaoye has come to see you again.”
This time, his lips nearly brushed her ear.
The pale shell of her ear twitched for a moment, then flushed scarlet in an instant.
He laughed so hard he doubled over, slapping his knee.
Once her ear and face had returned to their usual pale color, he grinned mischievously and leaned in again.
“Li Zhaoye has come to see you again and again!”
“Li Zhaoye has come to see you again and again and again!”
“Pfft! Hahaha!”
After playing this teasing game for half the night, a sudden epiphany hit him.
“Wait a minute, what the hell am I, a stand-in, doing having so much fun here?”
He flared up in frustration, grabbed her hand marked with the soul imprint, and pulled it close.
Squinting, he sniffed dangerously deep into her bone and blood scent, then bit down hard.
Just then, Luo Luo woke up.
Their eyes met, and his thin lips and teeth grazed her skin.
Luo Luo was stunned, frozen in place.
He reacted quickly, glaring at her, “How come you can’t wake up?”
Luo Luo asked cautiously, “What’s wrong?”
He shamelessly blurted, “With the way you sleep, you wouldn’t even notice if someone cut you in your dream—there’s something going on outside.”
Still holding her wrist, he dragged her up without hesitation and strode outside.
Luo Luo was so startled by his sudden pull that she forgot to question why he had to bite her hand to wake her up.
Stepping out of the courtyard, the night breeze carried a faint scent of copper, rushing toward him like a full embrace.
To his surprise, there really was something going on outside.
Luo Luo exclaimed, “You’re amazing! You can hear what’s happening outside even through the silent formation.”
She truly couldn’t hear a thing.
He smiled faintly, “Not bad.”
The incident spot was separated from them by two sky corridors. The courtyard there was brightly lit, the formation fully activated, as bright as daytime.
The law enforcement team came and went, while a small crowd had gathered outside, drawn by curiosity.
Luo Luo’s wrist was suddenly grabbed tightly, and he pulled her down with him in a leap.
“Whoosh—”
The night wind lifted their robes as her heart swung wildly in her chest.
With a thud, they landed just outside the crime scene.
He casually tapped a bystander watching the commotion and asked, “What’s going on?”
This bystander was clearly a gossip enthusiast and, without even turning his head, excitedly shared, “You know the law enforcement team, right? That guy in charge, very pretentious—Yue Wugou, the eldest son of the Tiandao Sect’s leader, whose wife died last month. Well, another woman was found dead in his bed!”
“Tell me more.”
The gossip eagerly continued, “They say the cause of death was the same as his late wife’s—killed from the mouth first. Of course, it’s possible it happened simultaneously from the mouth and elsewhere? Anyway, the body was found without any clothes on, lying on the bed with legs spread apart, mouth open, mouth open, mouth open…”
Luo Luo didn’t catch all the details because a pair of large hands suddenly covered her ears.
The whole world was reduced to the pounding of her own heartbeat.
Thump! Thump-thump!
Her mind began to wander: I can even read forbidden books, so why can’t I listen to this? It’s just a...
He removed his hands from her ears, grabbed the back of her head, and turned her face toward him.
Leaning down, he stared at her with an expression of helplessness. “Adding new material? Don’t even think about it.”
Luo Luo: “...”
In any case, on the eve of the Qingyun Conference’s official opening, the head of the law enforcement team responsible for maintaining order—the eldest son of the Tiandao Sect leader, Yue Wugou—was found with a woman dead on his bed.
Her identity was still unknown, and the cause of death was under investigation.
This was an extremely ugly situation. Two senior elders of the Tiandao Sect had rushed over immediately, their faces dark with displeasure.
The crowd suddenly fell silent.
Out stepped Yue Wugou, dressed in white, his face expressionless.
Someone hidden in the crowd shouted, “Yue Wugou! Didn’t they already catch the murderer who killed your wife? Now there’s another dead person! Could it be that you did all this yourself?”
The crowd buzzed with whispers.
Luo Luo quietly called the handsome young man aside a few steps, lowering her voice to tell him, “I once met someone in the Underworld who said Yue Wugou was innocent of killing his wife.”
Someone else shouted, “Is it appropriate for a suspect to be the head of the law enforcement team?”
Yue Wugou’s figure flickered and vanished on the spot.
In the blink of an eye, he seized the two who had shouted from the crowd and tossed them to the law enforcement team with a thud.
“Interrogate them thoroughly. I want answers by the hour of the Rabbit.”
His voice was as cold as the moonlight, his tone peculiar, with almost no inflection between words.
The law enforcement disciples all bowed their heads in unison. “Yes!”
The crowd erupted in uproar.
Yue Wugou was clearly a suspect, yet he openly arrested those who questioned him.
“Disperse.”
The crowd was driven away from the scene.
*
Gossip spread like wildfire. By dawn, when the elite participants of the Qingyun Conference gathered in the dojo, all anyone could talk about was the gruesome bedchamber murder from the previous night.
The Tiandao Sect promised to get to the bottom of it and give the entire world an explanation.
The schedule of the Qingyun Conference was not delayed.
Today, the top one hundred would be selected from nearly a thousand contestants.
Each preliminary round took a different form. This time, the Tiandao Sect had pulled out all the stops, cordoning off a forbidden zone within the Yin Domain and throwing all the participants inside. Their scores would be based on the number of monsters they killed and their performance under pressure.
Only those who made it into the top one hundred could truly claim to have participated in the Qingyun Conference, rather than just showing up to make up the numbers.
One moment, everyone was whispering about the Yue Wugou case; the next, their vision blurred, and the sky suddenly turned a dark teal, the bronze Jianmu tree fading to a lifeless gray.
In the blink of an eye, thick fog enveloped the surroundings. From far and near, countless monstrous howls echoed.
The entire dojo had been pre-set with an array formation, transforming it into a massive entrance to the Yin Domain!
This cordoned forbidden area was a replica of the Jianmu Tree.
The black mist was dense, limiting visibility to less than twenty yards. The terrain of Jianmu was complex—celestial corridors, hanging ladders, adjacent levels—monsters could spring out from anywhere.
After a brief moment of confusion, streaks of light tore through the fog, darting off in all directions.
If you wanted to make the top one hundred, you couldn’t afford to be slow.
In an instant, the whole world was filled with the sounds of battle—thanks to the terrain, monsters lurked above, below, left, right, front, and back; nowhere was safe.
The feeling was truly bone-chilling.
“Clang!”
The thick fog was briefly dispelled.
A divine light streaked across the southeastern corner of the dojo, and a rain of monster blood drizzled down.
“The Taiyi Sword! It’s Senior Brother!” the disciples of the Tai Xuan Sect exclaimed in delight.
Xu Junlan glanced over and saw Chen Xuanyi wielding his sword in one hand, while his other arm wrapped around Gu Meng’s waist as they soared and flipped through the air like a pair of butterflies dancing among flowers.
Wherever they passed, the monsters in the mist screamed in agony.
He wasn’t just protecting himself—instead, he often handed off weakened monsters to Gu Meng to finish off.
In this Qingyun competition arena, it was as if they were on a romantic spring outing.
Dashing and carefree, utterly flamboyant. He would suddenly accelerate or change direction, making Gu Meng giggle endlessly.
Seeing the Qingyun badges on their bodies flicker with countless scoring lights, a chorus of envy and admiration rose around them.
“If I had that skill, I’d bring a beautiful girl to slay monsters too—wouldn’t that be a dream?”
“Why bother training your life away when you can just find a good man? Tch!”
“Big shots, take it easy! Leave some monsters for the rest of us!”
Xu Junlan stood there, staring blankly at that graceful figure, motionless.
Xu Junzhu nudged Xu Junlan with her elbow. “This isn’t the time for you to get tangled up in love affairs.”
“It’s not that…” Xu Junlan shook her head dazedly. “I just feel like… I’m starting not to like him anymore.”
Her little sister’s love-struck brain was still treatable? Xu Junzhu felt like she wanted to immediately bow before some Bodhisattva statue on the spot.
Her gaze shifted to the other side, where Luo Luo and her hired pretty boy stand at the edge of the dojo.
Luo Luo frowned deeply. "How could such a blunder happen!"
The dojo wasn’t just filled with contestants; there were also plenty of onlookers from near and far, just here to watch the excitement.
And now, all of them had been transported here together.
There was no time to think—saving people came first.
She and the pretty boy split up, striking down the demons that lunged out of the mist while guiding the panicked civilians to safety, steering them toward the secure area in the center of the dojo.
The two of them worked in perfect harmony—one fought, the other rescued.
Whenever Luo Luo grabbed someone, the pretty boy would immediately clean up the mess.
He didn’t wield any weapons, fighting bare-handed with cold arrogance and deadly precision, like a top-tier hunter.
Xu Junlan stared, momentarily stunned. "I think... I might be starting to like him."
Xu Junzhu felt as if the world was spinning.
She swung her sword and knocked her sister on the head with the hilt. "Snap out of it! The one you like isn’t even a man!"
Xu Junlan panicked. "Sister, don’t say nonsense..."
Xu Junzhu snapped angrily, "You only like Luo Luo’s man!"
Xu Junlan: "..."
That actually makes a lot of sense!
