Mei Man lowered her head, deciding not to look at him anymore. She merely scratched at the fine strands of hair over her forehead.
The rustle of fabric sounded beside her ears. Her face remained impassive, but her heart pounded relentlessly. What exactly was this man planning to do? Surely he didn’t really intend to treat her like a servant and leave her to handle chores such as washing clothes and cooking. If that was the case, then he could forget about cultivating immortality—she would really have to make a move.
Suddenly, she caught the heavy scent of blood.
Mei Man froze.
Qiu Yingling’s voice came at that moment. “Take a good look at this mark.”
Mei Man raised her head.
At some point, Qiu Yingling had turned around, his back facing her.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. His clothes had slipped halfway down his arms, revealing a tightly muscled back and a narrow waist.
But the back and waist that should have been smooth were now covered in claw marks of all sizes. The most serious wounds were even deep enough to expose bone.
Those injuries had probably been caused when he removed the dragon bone. But so many days had passed—how had they still not healed?
Mei Man was somewhat surprised. Yet what astonished her most was not the wounds, but the blood-colored markings covering his back.
Fine lines, red enough to verge on black, wound recklessly across his skin, forming the shape of a blood lotus.
With every breath he took, the tips of the lotus petals near his shoulder blades trembled faintly. It looked almost as though the blood lotus were alive, swaying in the breeze.
The stem beneath the lotus lay exactly along his spine, as if it were a living thing that had broken through his vertebrae and spread upward.
Mei Man stared in a daze at that strange yet bewitching blood lotus. It was like a whirlpool, drawing people endlessly inward. Before she realized it, she had become intoxicated by the sight.
“Have you gotten a clear look?” Qiu Yingling asked suddenly.
Mei Man came to herself at once and lifted her eyes to meet his.
His eyelids drooped halfway, his gaze as gentle as water.
Perhaps it was because of the blood lotus, but Mei Man could not shake the feeling that his eyes were silently luring her in. For some inexplicable reason, she truly felt that he might have been transformed from a fox.
Mei Man hesitated, then nodded.
Although the mark looked bizarre, it was ultimately just a lotus. It was not difficult to remember.
“Do you remember what the blood markings look like?” he asked again.
Mei Man nodded once more.
Qiu Yingling then pulled his clothes back on. He explained, “This is a demonic pattern formed when demonic qi enters the body. That demonic qi is more troublesome than I expected. Most of it has probably already penetrated deep into my sea of consciousness. It won’t be easy to drive out.”
No wonder his injuries had not healed. So he still had not managed to purge the demonic qi.
Mei Man felt a little schadenfreude, but she still put on a worried expression. “Then what should we do? If there’s no way to deal with it, won’t it only grow more serious?”
To her surprise, Qiu Yingling looked at her with a beaming smile. “Manman, you’ve always hoped the King of Hell would come for me. Aren’t you secretly laughing inside now that it might actually happen?”
Mei Man fell silent and lowered her head to stare at a crack in the floor.
Qiu Yingling was already accustomed to her trick of pretending not to hear. He also knew all too well how sensitive she was, as though her chest held countless soldiers of the mind, battling and clashing day and night without rest.
He let out a faint sigh. “Right now, I need you to help me draw out this demonic qi.”
Mei Man abruptly lifted her head and pointed at herself in disbelief. “Me?”
“Precisely.” He smiled. “You’re the only person I can trust now.”
Mei Man thought to herself, Are your younger siblings dead or something? You don’t trust them, but you trust an outsider like me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll take the opportunity to sabotage you?
Yet Qiu Yingling seemed to trust her completely. He said, “These two golden bells are Soul-Seizing Bells. The one in your hand is the primary bell, while mine is the secondary bell. In a moment, we’ll ring them at the same time. Then you’ll silently recite a few lines of the incantation, and your soul will leave your body and enter my sea of consciousness.”
Mei Man was stunned.
Even though she was not a cultivator, she knew that the sea of consciousness was practically as important as one’s life. The slightest mishap could cause a cultivator’s cultivation to plummet, leave them dazed and senseless, or even cost them their life.
That was why techniques such as soul-searching, or barging into someone else’s sea of consciousness without permission, were grave crimes punishable by being branded a heretic cultivator.
Take what had happened that day, for example. If the elder from the Disciplinary Hall had truly searched her soul for Chai Qun’s sake, the people from the Immortal Alliance would already have taken him away and severely punished him.
How could he dare entrust such a thing to an ordinary person like her? She did not even know what demonic qi looked like, let alone how to draw it out.
Mei Man immediately felt as though a great mountain had been placed on her back, heavy and oppressive. But she did not want him to see that she was frightened, so she said, “Although Qiu Heyang is in seclusion, it’s not as if he can’t come out. And there’s also Qiu Yanxue. She’s in the immortal residence too—”
“If those two came…” Qiu Yingling smiled, as though he were merely making a joke. “They might take the opportunity to kill me.”
—How could that be possible?!
Those words sprang into Mei Man’s mind.
The three siblings had always been close since childhood. How could they possibly kill him?
It was absurd!
His claim was so preposterous that she began to suspect this task truly carried a risk to her life. That must have been why he had sought her out.
She tried again. “What about the puppet?”
“Also untrustworthy.”
This was too absurd. Far too absurd!
The puppet had been made and controlled by him personally. In other words, did he not even trust himself, yet trusted her instead?
Mei Man’s suspicions deepened. She even began glancing toward the door, ready to flee at any moment.
Unexpectedly, Qiu Yingling said, “Manman, what are you suspicious of now? I simply need someone who cannot use spiritual arts to help me.”
Mei Man froze, then turned her gaze back to him.
He wore his usual beaming smile, and there was nothing unusual about his expression.
Perhaps because she had now found a method of cultivation, hearing him say that he needed an ordinary mortal who could not use spiritual arts did not anger her as it had before. Instead, she felt much calmer.
Her suspicions had eased somewhat, but she still remained on guard. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “What if my soul can’t return?”
“The sea of consciousness naturally repels outsiders,” Qiu Yingling said. “You won’t be able to remain there for long.”
That made sense.
Mei Man began to feel a little eager. She was curious about what it would feel like for her soul to leave her body, and she also wanted to know what a cultivator’s sea of consciousness looked like.
“What incantation do I recite?” she asked.
Qiu Yingling taught her the incantation. Once she had memorized it, he set up protective arrays around the study and then took her into the room within it.
The two of them sat cross-legged on opposite sides of the bed and rang the golden bells.
Clink—
Clink—
Clink—
After the third ring, Mei Man’s head drooped. A strange sensation followed close behind.
She felt as though she had become a leaf caught in a whirlpool, spinning rapidly in circles. At the same time, she sensed a powerful force pulling her inward.
When she opened her eyes again, she was inside Qiu Yingling’s sea of consciousness.
Mei Man looked around. Before her stretched a vast expanse of water, so broad that its edges were nowhere to be seen.
She was standing in a small boat, which drifted aimlessly in the wind.
She remembered what Qiu Yingling had told her before they rang the golden bells:
“Once you enter my sea of consciousness, I’ll use spiritual power to form a small boat. There will be a transparent bottle on board. The boat will carry you wherever the current takes you. All you need to do is find a black lotus in the water that resembles the blood markings on my back. Then touch one of its petals with the mouth of the bottle, and the demonic qi will be drawn inside.”
Mei Man found the bottle he had mentioned at the stern of the boat. She bent down and peered into the still water.
It looked clear, yet something was hidden within it.
Bubbles—one after another, translucent and half-transparent.
Qiu Yingling had told her beforehand that these bubbles were fragments of his memories and that she should pay them no mind.
She had nodded so vigorously while listening to him that her head nearly fell off, but she had never seen anything so strange before. How could she possibly resist taking a look?
Mei Man leaned over the side of the boat, wishing she could stare straight through each and every bubble.
The nearest bubble reflected Qiu Yingling’s face.
He was much younger than he was now—just over ten, perhaps.
Though he was still so young, he was already pretending to be mature. His hands were clasped behind his back in a very proper pose, the corners of his eyes lifted as he maintained a smiling curve.
It was strange.
By then, she had already gone to the Qiu residence. She had always thought him sly and impossible to read, and he was forever playing little tricks. She had been as afraid of him as if he were a ghost.
But looking at him now, the false smile on his face was obvious, and his emotions still showed plainly.
Was it because she had grown up too?
Mei Man lay sprawled along the side of the boat, her face buried in the crook of her arm, leaving only her gloomy eyes and brows exposed as she stared at the Qiu Yingling beneath the water.
In a bubble farther down, Qiu Yingling appeared to have been injured. His body was wrapped in quite a few bandages, yet he sat cross-legged atop a roof. One hand propped up his smiling cheek while the other tossed a stone into the air. His crescent-shaped eyes were fixed on a certain direction.
She followed his gaze and saw herself kneeling before the great parasol tree, kowtowing to it while muttering something under her breath.
She naturally couldn’t hear what she was saying, but judging by the shape of her lips, she could make out the words “fox spirit.”
“…”
No wonder he was always tormenting her. He had seen her.
He was always saying she was narrow-minded, but clearly his own heart wasn’t all that broad either.
She gave a disdainful little “tsk” and was just about to pull herself back onto the boat when she caught sight of that Qiu Yingling rubbing his eyes.
She immediately leaned back over the side, staring at him as though she had seen a ghost.
He tossed the stone aside and rubbed his eyes again. A smile still hung on his slightly childish face, but the corners of his mouth had begun to droop stiffly.
He looked as though he was about to cry.
Had she actually cursed Qiu Yingling to tears back then?!
Mei Man suddenly lifted her brows, as if she had finally achieved a long-delayed victory.
She had never seen him like this before and truly wanted to watch a little longer. Unfortunately, the boat had already drifted away, and the teary-eyed Qiu Yingling had shrunk into a black speck no bigger than an ant.
Mei Man soon encountered the first lotus flower, red to the point of turning black.
It appeared to float upon the surface of the water, but its stem plunged deep into the depths. There was no way to tell how long its roots were.
Drawing out the demonic aura was much simpler than she had expected.
The instant the mouth of the bottle touched the lotus petals, the flower transformed into a stream of black vapor and flowed into the bottle.
The water inside darkened.
Mei Man gave the bottle a shake and continued searching for more lotus flowers.
By the time she found the seventh black lotus, the bottle was nearly full.
She was wondering what to do when she suddenly felt her body grow unnaturally heavy. The next moment, she plunged downward.
After a dizzying whirl, she woke up.
Mei Man blinked sluggishly. A heavy sound of breathing reached her ears.
She turned her head and saw Qiu Yingling slumped weakly against the wall. He was clutching the side of his neck and looked terribly uncomfortable. His face was deathly pale, and even his lips resembled a faded wild rose at the end of summer.
The muscles in his face spasmed uncontrollably, but he quickly concealed it and tilted his eyes toward her with a smile.
“Manman, you’ve acted with remarkable speed. In less than fifteen minutes, you’ve already filled the exorcism bottle.”
Mei Man thought that if his boat hadn’t drifted so slowly, she could have finished even faster. On the surface, however, she merely put on an indifferent expression and said, “It was all right.”
Qiu Yingling let out a strained, pained breath. Even his lashes trembled.
Mei Man had no idea what he was panting for. He was huffing and puffing like a bellows, but there was nothing else she could do to help. She was just about to ask whether they could take the golden bell now when he said, “The demonic aura hasn’t been completely cleared, but it is indeed… rather taxing.”
“There’s still more?”
“Mm. We’ll have to continue next time. I’ll need two days to recover.”
Qiu Yingling suddenly frowned. His eyes seemed to seep with blood, tinting his originally black irises a faint red. His pupils elongated into narrow slits.
Yet in the blink of an eye, they returned to normal.
The tiny change still startled Mei Man. “Your eyes—what happened?”
Qiu Yingling spoke in broken breaths. “It’s nothing. It’s the dragon demon’s aura. Whenever I purge the demonic aura, it instead seeps into my spiritual veins, causing some of my demonic features to show.”
Mei Man noticed that he had been clutching his neck the entire time and made a guess. “Then your neck couldn’t possibly be—”
“Manman, why are you looking at me like that?” Qiu Yingling said with a smile. “Come here. Sit a little closer.”
Mei Man grew wary. “What for?”
But Qiu Yingling said nothing more. His eyes narrowed halfway, and the only sound in the room was his faintly trembling breath.
His breathing was low and urgent, now light and now heavy, slightly hoarse, with an occasional soft moan woven into it. It scraped against her ears like hot grains of sand.
Mei Man clenched her teeth, looking at him as though he were a shameless fox spirit.
This lecherous bastard. Wasn’t he in pain? Then why was he panting like that?
