Xiao Rangchen held Lou Yue tightly in his arms. After a long while, he slowly loosened his embrace and pushed himself up.
He picked up the already advanced Elephant Evolution Square beside him, slipped it onto her slender wrist, then raised his hand to take off the Thorn Buckle on his right ear, fastening it to Lou Yue's right ear.
He brushed his fingers over Lou Yue's ear, pausing lightly at the tip.
"Master, when you wake up in the future, I beg you, please look after her for me..."
Xiao Rangchen whispered to the void, his palm covering the top of Lou Yue's soft hair, stroking it slowly.
"Though she can be a bit arrogant at times, she is actually soft-hearted beneath her sharp tongue, and values affection more than anyone else. If she can reach the Divine Realm, perhaps she can bring you back to the world, so you no longer have to be trapped in this tiny space."
When Lou Yue regained consciousness, these were the very two sentences she heard.
The only thought in her mind was that she wanted to pin this overbearing Long Aotian to the ground and beat him senseless.
Thankfully, she had noticed something was off about him earlier and secretly taken precautions, so she woke up just in time. Hmph, she was going to see exactly what he was up to!
By her ear, Xiao Rangchen's hoarse voice sounded again, "Master, she is the only one I cannot rest assured about..."
Lou Yue scoffed inwardly.
Who said she was soft-hearted beneath a sharp tongue, and that she was his "only concern"? She thought he seemed perfectly capable of letting her go.
He was already starting to make his last wishes known, wasn't he.
Fine, after all, it wouldn't be long before he was thoroughly beaten flat by her, which would save him from rambling on and on then.
Lou Yue did not move an inch, maintaining the limp, unconscious look of someone who had lost all strength, not the slightest hint of abnormality showing on her face.
Xiao Rangchen was lost in his thoughts and did not notice that Lou Yue had regained her senses.
He stared at Lou Yue intently.
His fingertips could not help but trace gently over her brow bone, her nose bridge, and finally came to rest on her cool lips.
After a moment, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on her.
Light as a snowflake, the kiss held all his lingering affection and reluctance to part.
When the kiss ended, he raised his hand and pressed his palm to the life mark on her back.
The moment he finished channeling his power and pulled his hand away, his long black hair visibly faded from the roots to the tips, turning as pale as frosted snow.
The strands of hair fell against his cheek, adding a touch of heart-wrenching fragility to his cold, stern face.
Xiao Rangchen did not care at all, nor did he change his hair color back to its original inky black.
He casually threw on an outer robe, then lowered his head to dress Lou Yue with careful, light movements.
When he got to putting on her lower garments, he had just lifted her leg when something slowly slid out.
Xiao Rangchen's movements came to an abrupt halt.
The whole world seemed to freeze at that moment.
He fell silent for a second, then picked up a clean cloth to wipe her very gently. But before he could pull his hand back, more of it seeped out again.
His eyes suddenly went blank, and his Adam's apple rolled unconsciously.
After a long while, he slowly raised his hand, conjuring water vapor with his spiritual power, and leaned down to clean her thoroughly and carefully bit by bit.
It was not just Xiao Rangchen who was dazed.
Lou Yue, who was pretending to be asleep, also felt her heart tighten sharply at that instant, nearly blowing her cover.
Before she could react, a cool tingle seeped in the next moment.
Xiao Rangchen was drawing the substance out of her.
Lou Yue's mind exploded on the spot.
—Could she just kill this man right now?!
Xiao Rangchen's movements were slow, his knuckles prominent.
On the surface, Lou Yue was as calm as still water, not even the slightest flutter of her eyelashes, but in her mind, chaos reigned.
She thought fiercely, should she stir-fry Long Aotian in a spicy sauce, deep fry him, or simply roast him slowly over a fire?
While she was imagining a thousand cruel ways to torture Xiao Rangchen in her head, she suppressed the strange sensation rising in her body with all her might, clinging tightly to her act of being fast asleep.
Xiao Rangchen lightened his strength, pausing after every movement to watch her expression, afraid that even a little too much force would hurt her.
Perhaps because she was lying flat, or perhaps because there was simply too much of the fluid, the dampness would not go away for a long time. He was endlessly patient in cleaning her, his breath steady.
But gradually, the path grew smooth.
The calm in Xiao Rangchen's eyes shattered little by little.
He stopped, took a slight breath before continuing, yet before long, he froze once more.
Just then, his fingertip had been wrapped around.
Xiao Rangchen suddenly looked up towards Lou Yue's face.
She was still lying there quietly with her eyes closed, her features lush and beautiful, her face peaceful — except for the tip of her small, delicate ear, which had flushed a soft, rosy red.
Was it just a physical instinctive reaction, or...
Xiao Rangchen stared at her for a very long time, but in the end he could not find anything amiss on her face.
He stretched out his long arm, pulled her into his embrace, and let her head rest in the crook of his neck, lifting her abdomen slightly. His fingers moved as gently as possible, speeding up his pace.
When he was almost done cleaning her, the breath brushing against the crook of his neck grew noticeably faster.
A dark glint instantly flashed across Xiao Rangchen's eyes.
He looked down, quietly wiped Lou Yue clean, dressed her properly, and laid her back down on the stone bed.
As for Lou Yue, who was feigning unconsciousness, she secretly let out a sigh of relief in her heart.
Heaven knew how excruciatingly long that whole process had been. If she hadn't spent the whole time imagining what position to use to fry Long Aotian, she definitely would have lost control and exposed herself.
Xiao Rangchen stood by the stone bed, his white hair falling loosely, his whole aura cold and heavy.
His gaze remained fixed on Lou Yue's face, as he slowly and methodically tied his loose belt, the pad of his fingers unconsciously brushing over the fabric, as if lost in thought.
After he had tidied himself up, he bent down, swept Lou Yue up securely into his arms, and turned to step out of the stone cave.
Qinglin, who was in the adjacent cave, responded to his call and silently followed at his side.
An hour later, Xiao Rangchen carried Lou Yue to the location of the Ghostwraith leader.
On the gray stone throne, the huge creature bound by chains slowly opened its eyes, its eerie green vertical pupils glowing in the dim light.
It lowered the hand that had been supporting its forehead, and said without the slightest surprise, "Looks like you've made up your mind."
"How are you going to send her away? I want absolute, foolproof assurance," Xiao Rangchen asked in a low, calm voice.
The Ghostwraith's vertical pupils swept over his snow-white hair, and a hoarse, grating, scalp-numbing low laugh rumbled in its throat: "You have no other choice. Right now, you can no longer sustain her life."
Xiao Rangchen's tone was indifferent, "I can choose to die with her."
The Ghostwraith's eerie green light dimmed for a moment, its laughter fading away as coldness spread through the air: "Are you threatening me?"
"Not at all."
Xiao Rangchen looked down at the peacefully sleeping person in his arms, his mind completely clear.
He was simply certain that what the other party wanted was a living him.
For the Ghostwraith trapped in the Abyss of Chaos, the most urgent thing was to break free from the endless suppression of the seal.
He had long inspected the seal at the formation eye. The stronger a Ghostwraith was, the tighter its bindings. A Ghostwraith's physical form was simply incapable of breaking out of the abyss.
It had offered to trade its help for his soul, which could only mean that it wanted his body, to take it over and use it to leave the Abyss of Chaos.
"Human, do you think I cannot seize your soul by force?" the Ghostwraith's voice carried a bone-chilling oppressive force.
Xiao Rangchen said coldly, "If you could have done that, you would not have waited until now."
Sinister, dark evil aura crept up along the ground. The human and the wraith stood in silent, tense standoff, neither willing to take a single step back.
The Ghostwraith suddenly burst into a piercing, sharp cackle, slamming its palm heavily onto the stone throne. The chains wrapped around its body trembled violently, clanging loudly:
"Human, you are cunning, yet far more intelligent than my kind!"
It slowly stood up. With every inch it moved, the chains coiled around it pulled tighter, and blood-red runes instantly spread across the links of the chains.
The stone walls all around shook violently, loose stones rustling and falling, as if the entire cave was about to collapse any second.
The Ghostwraith turned its body sideways, and one giant palm pressed against the stone wall behind the throne.
A strange, eerie emerald glow gathered from all directions. The next moment, a swirling passage shimmering with that unearthly green light slowly emerged on the wall.
"This passage links to your Human Realm. My kind spent a thousand years to carve it open two hundred years ago. The ridiculous thing is, right after we finished it, we found that all the Ghostwraiths sealed in the Chaotic Abyss Realm are branded by the great formation, so they cannot leave this place at all."
"Over these two hundred years, only a portion of the Ghostwraiths' corrosive aura has been able to seep through."
It turned its gaze to Xiao Rangchen, a cruel, sneering grin stretching across its face. "The Human Realm must have already received my grand gift."
Xiao Rangchen's gaze was fixed intently on the two-man-wide swirling vortex. "This still doesn't prove that she can pass through safely and reach the Human Realm."
The Ghostwraith huffed heavily. "Human, don't be insatiable."
Xiao Rangchen's tone left no room for argument. "I said, I need absolute certainty."
The Ghostwraith immediately narrowed its emerald vertical pupils, its menacing, sinister gaze locking onto him as violent, raging aura roiled around its body.
Xiao Rangchen did not waver in the slightest.
The Ghostwraith shifted its sight, glancing at Qinglin beside him. "This is your contracted beast? Send it through."
It knew that a human's contracted beast shared a deep bond with its master. Whether the beast returned safely would prove the passage worked, and with the contracted beast gone, it would be even easier to seize Xiao Rangchen's body later.
Qinglin let out a whimper right away, its voice ringing in Xiao Rangchen's mind: [Brother, I want to stay! I want to fight alongside you!]
Xiao Rangchen fell silent.
If the Ghostwraith leader dared to let Qinglin, who shared a bond with him, go through the passage, it must be utterly confident that the path was safe. Right now, Qinglin could instantly retreat into the contracted beast mark on his body whenever its life was in danger, so even if the passage was unsafe, Qinglin would not be in any real peril.
Xiao Rangchen glanced sideways. "Qinglin."
"Woof woof woof!" [Brother! I want to stay!]
Xiao Rangchen only spoke two words. "Go through."
"Woof woof!" [I don't want to leave!!]
Xiao Rangchen spoke sharply. "Be good."
Qinglin whimpered softly. [Brother...]
Xiao Rangchen softened his tone a little. "Be a good boy. You go back first."
Qinglin stared at Xiao Rangchen for a long time, its eyes glistening with unshed tears. When it saw his expression did not change, it began walking toward the vortex, glancing back at him again and again with every step.
Xiao Rangchen watched it quietly the entire time.
Qinglin steeled its heart, turned around, and darted straight into the swirling passage.
Xiao Rangchen kept sensing Qinglin's position and safety the whole time. The Chaotic Abyss Realm blocked their ability to send voice transmissions to each other, but the contracted beast mark let him feel that Qinglin was unharmed, and confirm that it had truly arrived back in the Human Realm.
The Ghostwraith judged that enough time had passed, and let out a mocking snort, its tone laced with playful oppression. "Human, now it's time for you to show your sincerity."
Xiao Rangchen tore his gaze away from the vortex, and looked back at it coldly.
The Ghostwraith pulled its cracked, purplish lips into a grin. "First, I will seal your spiritual meridians."
If it sealed his spiritual meridians first, it could seize his body effortlessly, and it had its own methods to undo the seal on the meridians once it took over.
"Let her leave first."
"Seal your meridians first." The Ghostwraith's tone was unyielding.
The human and the wraith refused to budge an inch.
After a moment of silence, the Ghostwraith finally could not hold back its fury. "Human, stop deluding yourself into resisting! Once I seal your spiritual meridians, I guarantee she will leave safely. She is of no use to me at all!"
"Let me go to the entrance of the passage. Once you finish sealing my meridians, you will send her through immediately."
The Ghostwraith pondered for a split second, then waved its hand, the chains on its body clinking loudly. "I'll allow it."
Xiao Rangchen held Lou Yue in his arms and walked over step by step, stopping right beside the swirling vortex, facing the Ghostwraith.
The Ghostwraith looked at the prey that was now within arm's reach, and its sinister grin deepened in its eyes.
It stretched out its hand, reaching for Xiao Rangchen's forehead.
The very moment its hand was about to make contact, a surging tide of spiritual power suddenly gathered right beneath it, slamming into its body with a speed faster than lightning.
At the exact same time, the Symbolic Orb on Lou Yue's wrist transformed into a long sword, stabbing out straight toward the Ghostwraith!
