After she finished speaking, she gently rubbed her nose against his.
It was as if it carried a trace of gentle coaxing and seduction.
Like a soft feather brushing across the tip of his heart, fleeting in a flash.
Wu Li hastily turned his head away. A tingling sensation exploded in the depths of his heart, spreading like wildfire, burning so hot that subtle shivers rippled through his limbs and bones. His rationality was on the verge of shattering.
It was like this again...
Just like the kiss that had landed on his Adam's apple moments ago, light as a dragonfly skimming the water.
Just a touch, and then she would pull away.
It was just like how her repeated declarations of liking him were always mixed with words like dislike and hate.
She seemed like a composed angler sitting on the bank, while he was the hooked fish.
Even the bait was something he had offered up with his own hands.
He knew that by taking the bait and leaving the water, he would surely die.
But he stubbornly bit it anyway.
What kind of good thing would willingly take the bait?
He was nothing more than a foul bug bred in the gutter, unable to bear the light, only fit to do things hidden in the dark.
"The Plantain Demon told you about the Twin Love Gu, didn't it?"
He suddenly spoke, his voice deep and heavy.
This kind of ancient forbidden Gu was something Ouyang Rui might not find even after scouring through ancient texts, yet a great demon that had lived for thousands of years knew of it. He somewhat regretted letting it die so painlessly.
What was laughable was that the great demon had confessed the matter of the love Gu, yet hadn't told her the most important secret.
This was the inherent vice of demons.
Deliberately keeping her in the dark, just like how criminals would always cover for each other when their own interests weren't touched, holding a spectator's attitude, watching a clean soul sink into the mire, absolutely never reaching out a hand to help.
And he was just as despicable as a demon.
Chai Xiaomi never doubted Wu Li's intelligence; it only took him a moment to guess where she got her information.
Looking at his reaction, that Plantain Demon was indeed right.
Chai Xiaomi nodded. "That's right, it told me."
"Then it truly is rotten to the core, leaving out the most important thing and not telling you."
Wu Li suddenly smiled.
His gaze was like spider silk, wrapping around her inch by inch.
He raised his hand, grasped her right wrist that was hooked behind his neck, and slowly pulled it down.
His palm pressed against her delicate, seemingly boneless wrist, and beneath his fingertips, her pulse was gently beating.
Chai Xiaomi froze, subconsciously looking at her own wrist. The venomous scorpion tattoo looked even more bewitching in the hazy steam. "The most important thing? What is it?"
She saw his eyes locked tightly onto that tattoo, the corners of his lips curling up bit by bit.
As if he were admiring a satisfying masterpiece.
"You still haven't noticed."
He laughed softly, suddenly lowering his head, his tongue gently licking away the residual water droplets on the venomous scorpion tattoo.
Looking exactly like a loyal puppy licking its beloved master.
The warm, wet sensation made Chai Xiaomi shudder all over, but her body felt as if it had been immobilized by a pressure point, suddenly unable to move.
"Lili... what, what did you do? Why can't I move?"
The pool water was warm, but she felt that heat rush straight to the top of her head, burning the roots of her ears.
The water murmured, intertwining with the soft clinking of the silver ornaments in his hair.
The young man suddenly lifted her up. As he tilted his head back, the tassels of the silver fish earring dangling from his left ear swept across his shoulder line.
In the next second, he leaned in and slightly tilted his head.
He caught the small white jade bead on her earlobe in his mouth.
Biting it between his teeth, gently grinding it.
His slightly cool lips brushed past her ear in a barely-there caress, inciting a wave of fine shivers.
"Let me tell you," his muffled whisper slipped past her ear and drilled into her heart, carrying a scorching breath, "You... have long since been planted with my Gu."
Chai Xiaomi's mind went blank for a moment.
In an instant, as if waking from a dream, she thought of something.
...
"This is the most vicious kind of love Gu. It can make two completely unrelated people love each other madly. The Gu caster first plants the Gu in one person, then lets that person's blood enter the other's mouth. From then on, the two will love each other desperately, inseparable until death."
The Plantain Demon's words suddenly swirled in her mind.
That paranoid and unwilling bite inside the sedan chair, the fresh blood seeping between their lips and teeth, which he slowly and methodically sucked away, not even sparing what flowed into her mouth.
"Saying time and again that you like me... it's just... empty words."
The young man's bitter and gloomy tone seemed to echo in her ears again.
Her thoughts drifted for quite a while, and it seemed all the words and events linked together.
The venomous scorpion tattoo stung again, just like when its color deepened under the fireworks that night.
So that means...
This tattoo was the mark.
That night, he had planted the Twin Love Gu in her and drank her blood.
Planting the Gu in himself at the same time!
Chai Xiaomi abruptly snapped back to reality.
A drop of cold water suddenly fell onto her collarbone, slowly trickling down the delicate curve of her bone into her cleavage.
That drop of water...
Was it pool water?
No.
It didn't seem to be.
She clearly heard the young man's suppressed and broken breathing.
His chin was pressed tightly against her jaw.
The white jade bead held between his teeth was almost bitten to the point of a faint cracking sound.
Wu Li's entire body was trembling slightly, as if he were using all his strength to restrain something.
Chai Xiaomi saw thick black malevolent energy begin to surge continuously from his body, entangling and swallowing the ethereal white mist around the hot spring.
In just a moment, the swirling white smoke completely dissipated, and the entire surface of the pool was heavily shrouded by a dense and eerie black energy.
"Lili?"
She called him softly.
As soon as her voice fell, the arms wrapped around her waist suddenly tightened. The force was astonishingly strong, as if wanting to forcibly embed her into his very flesh and blood.
Caught off guard, Chai Xiaomi's throat constricted from the squeeze, and breathing instantly became difficult.
"Lili, don't, don't squeeze so hard... I can barely breathe..." she voiced out urgently, but those arms didn't loosen at all; instead, they tightened even more. "Ah..."
Her chest ached from being crushed, and a soft, low groan spilled from her lips uncontrollably.
Hearing this weak and delicate moan, Wu Li was on the verge of breaking down.
"What should I do?"
His unbearably husky voice carried a trace of trembling, his moist and hot breath pouring against her soft earlobe.
The damp heat wrapped in desperate infatuation seeped into her skin little by little.
"I really want, really want to eat you up... to let your body be raised inside me like a Gu worm."
"That way you wouldn't run around, and we could be together forever, forever."
His lips lightly brushed her ear.
His voice was as light as sleep talking, yet as heavy as a curse:
"Mimi... can I eat you?"
The surrounding malevolent energy grew thicker and thicker, almost condensing into a tangible black fog.
Youtiao had probably crashed long ago from the fright of that monster earlier, not even popping up to give a warning about such a dangerous mutation at this moment.
Chai Xiaomi knew he wasn't joking.
With her vision obscured by the heavy black energy, breathing with difficulty through the suffocation of his tightening arms, she suddenly understood.
That cold tear that had fallen on her collarbone just now.
It was the unrequited attachment of a young man, a lowly growing delusion with nowhere to be placed.
It was the thorns growing in the dark from a barren and gloomy soul that had never tasted the flavor of love.
He found it difficult to get close to others, using a sharp tongue as his only shield, and awkwardly saying the exact opposite of what he meant even when trying to be kind.
Contradictory, aloof, and covered in thorns.
So, Lili.
What you need is a lover who refuses to be pushed away.
"Alright," she replied from within his suffocating embrace, her voice as light as a breeze brushing over flower petals. "But I know a much tastier way. Let go of me first so I can teach you, okay?"
