Chu'he saw the wounds on Ninth's body. Her outstretched hand wanted to touch him, yet hesitated at the sight of the injuries on his face, afraid to let her fingers land.
But Ninth caught her hand and carefully pressed it against his cheek. His damp, crimson eyes curved gently, so intoxicated by her warmth that he forgot the pain entirely.
Chu'he remembered the first time she had seen him—white hair stained with blood, robes filthy and torn, a blend of cruelty and innocence. No matter how severe his injuries, he would only ever roughly patch himself up with his own gu insects.
He had never known a normal life, yet he would return covered in even more blood just to steal a few steamed buns to fill her stomach.
Later, they left Miaojiang. He began wearing clean clothes, adorned with more and more gemstone-studded jewelry, and developed a bad habit—his sweet tooth rivaled that of a three-year-old child.
Those beast-like days of surviving on raw flesh and blood should have been long gone. Yet after merely waking from a nap, she found the once neatly groomed young man had reverted to his former self.
A surge of fury suddenly rose in Chu'he’s heart. She pushed herself out of Ninth’s embrace and, with inexplicable boldness, rushed forward and shoved the dazed figure to the ground with all her strength.
"Who gave you the right to hurt my person?"
Chu'he was usually timid, but now she was seething with rage, forgetting all danger as she brandished a stone from the ground, ready to strike. Before she could, an arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back into a familiar embrace.
The stone slipped from her fingers. She turned her head. "Ninth?"
The young man leaned down, nuzzling her cheek, brushing the dust from her fingers before interlacing them with his own. His chin rested on her shoulder as he held her tightly from behind, a soft laugh escaping him.
"Chu'he, don’t dirty your hands."
The man on the ground had already lost all will to fight—a spent force with little life left.
"Ha." Chi Yan slowly pushed himself up with twisted hands, his laughter bitter and mocking.
Perhaps he should no longer go by the name "Chi Yan," but he stubbornly clung to it. If he wasn’t Chi Yan, then who else could he be?
That tiny puppet?
Or the golden-eyed silkworm lurking within it?
Or perhaps the monstrous, human-shaped abomination formed after devouring and merging with countless flesh and blood?
Chu'he tightened her grip on Ninth’s hand, glaring at the wretched figure on the ground without an ounce of pity. "If I’m not mistaken, every leader of the Witchcraft and Gu Sorcery Sect has been you. What vile methods have you used to live this long? And the tradition of each Miaojiang heir fighting their own kin—was that all part of your twisted scheme?"
She remembered Seventh, whom she had met once, and the slaughter in the cavern of the drug-fed warriors—the bodies falling one after another in a sea of blood.
She also remembered the moment Ninth’s form lost all semblance of humanity, morphing into a massive, indescribable horror with thirteen ruby-like eyes.
He should have been like everyone else—whole, alive, human.
Not shattered by someone’s malice, forced to kill one version of himself after another.
The fury in Chu'he’s heart swelled, stinging her eyes until they reddened. "You admit you threw a newborn Ninth into the gu pool. You tried to strip away his emotions, turn him into a hollow puppet—what were you planning to do with his body?"
Her breathing grew ragged, her body tense with rage and heartache for the one she loved.
Ninth held her tighter, turning her trembling form toward him and enveloping her completely. His palm gently soothed her rigid back as he murmured, "Don’t be angry, Chu'he. I’m fine now."
Her fingers clenched his robes, knuckles whitening from the force.
Chi Yan, despite sensing his impending doom and the collapse of his century-long ambitions, still managed to laugh—a sound bordering on madness.
"Haven’t you already guessed? Once his emotions were extinguished and his mind lost, his body would have been mine to claim." Chi Yan staggered to his feet, his bones creaking like brittle twigs.
Though she had suspected as much, hearing the confirmation made Chu'he lift her head from Ninth’s chest. "You monster!"
Chi Yan saw no reason for her outrage.
The reproduction of insects was for survival, fundamentally different from human bonds built on emotion and kinship.
If his purpose for bearing children was to prolong his own life, then what did their sacrifice matter?
His bones had grown fragile, cracking at the slightest movement. His skin was fissured like parched earth, the blackened gaps resembling bottomless chasms.
This body had long reached its limit.
Originally, Chi Yan’s final desire should have perished in battle, allowing him to seize his vessel.
Over the centuries, he had lost count of how many bodies he had taken, yet his plans had never failed—until now.
He had built the undying city of Yunhuang, seeking the secrets of immortality, all to stave off decay.
He had even experimented on Chongyang, another white-haired anomaly, but nothing yielded lasting results.
In the end, only the bodies of his bloodline could sustain him.
So with each new child, he would cast them into the gu pool. The frenzied insects would devour their flesh, and only those who overcame the swarm, reforging their bodies within, were strong enough to be his vessels.
In a way, this child who crawled from the same bloodied pit was of his own essence.
Two tigers cannot share one mountain—their instincts would drive them to crave each other’s power, ensuring one’s rise and the other’s fall.
Thus, he established the sect’s rule: only those who abandoned all emotions could become the strongest Gu King and inherit the title of leader.
Until a child’s emotions were fully severed, he would avoid meeting them.
No one questioned the sect’s traditions—after all, who would suspect that every leader was the same man? And what kind of "father" would harm his own "son"?
For a hundred years, his schemes went unchallenged. But this generation brought an unforeseen variable.
Chu'he’s arrival disrupted everything.
Ninth’s final desire never faded. Instead, he fought his way out of Miaojiang with her, journeying from the borderlands to the Central Plains. As "Ninth," Chi Yan began developing emotions he should never have possessed, growing more and more human.
Because of this, he incited the chaos in Yangcheng and planted a demon in Ninth's heart, all to turn Ninth back into that mindless killing machine devoid of emotion.
Yet once again, his calculations fell short.
Chu'he—an ordinary woman who knew neither martial arts nor the Miaojiang arts of gu sorcery—somehow managed to dissolve the demon in Ninth's heart effortlessly, in a way no one else could fathom.
Chi Yan couldn't help but mock himself inwardly. Time and again, he was always one step behind when it mattered most.
