Wu Guizhen was on his last legs. He gasped for breath every few steps and occasionally spat up blood. Whenever he coughed, it sounded as though he might cough up half his lungs. Anyone could tell that he was grievously injured and would not live much longer.
Miao Langjun could barely be bothered to spare such a man a glance. After all, even if he killed him, he would not obtain any high-quality soulfire.
Who could have known that the old man was actually a master at breaking formations?
He was well versed in the esoteric arts of divination and calculation, with knowledge spanning a wide range of fields. Aside from his pitiful lack of self-defense, there was hardly anything he did not know at least a little about.
Miao Langjun realized almost at once that if he wanted to enter Donghua City, he would have to rely on Old Man Wu.
Accordingly, he treated Old Man Wu with great attentiveness. Whenever someone saw that the old man was elderly and frail and tried to take advantage of him, Miao Langjun was the one who stepped in to teach them a lesson.
After guarding Old Man Wu all the way there, Miao Langjun got his wish: he truly entered Donghua City and obtained the soulfire he had wanted.
What surprised him was that Old Man Wu—the seemingly upright old fellow—was also collecting human souls.
Still, Donghua City was enormous, and there were plenty of wandering ghosts. With only the two of them dividing the spoils, there was more than enough to go around. Since Old Man Wu could be considered a fellow practitioner, Miao Langjun did not turn against him. Who knew whether he might run into trouble someday and need the old man’s help?
Once they had each finished what they had come to do, the two parted ways in Donghua City’s fog. Before saying goodbye, Miao Langjun asked Old Man Wu what he planned to do next.
Old Man Wu looked at him with a pair of cloudy, ancient eyes.
His gaze was strange, always carrying a mysterious, meaningful quality that made people wonder what he was thinking.
Old Man Wu said that he planned to go to Meishan City and open an inn.
…What?
Open an inn?
Miao Langjun had not expected that answer. Then again, he and Old Man Wu had only met by chance and had no real connection. What the other man wanted to do was none of his business.
So Miao Langjun put on a bright smile and exchanged a few polite words—“Sounds good, sounds good. I’ll come by and patronize the place if I get the chance”—before leaving.
The next ten-odd years passed quite comfortably for Miao Langjun. He had been blessed with an exceptionally handsome face. Back when Donghua City still existed, he had been a notorious ladies’ man, famous far and wide. Now that he had completed his training and emerged into the world, with Wenren Ying’s shadow no longer hounding him, he naturally intended to enjoy himself to the fullest.
He did not dare lay a hand on the female disciples of the great clans and noble families, so he targeted mortal women instead. He would seduce them into gathering up their valuables and eloping with him.
Then, of course, he killed them and kept their belongings.
With that handsome face of his, he had never failed in this line of work, and he was quite well-off. The hairpin he had given Wu Guanyue today was the very ornament worn by the last woman he had murdered.
But why had he come to Meishan City?
He had come looking for Old Man Wu.
Although Miao Langjun had acquired a great deal of soulfire, the Soul-Absorbing Art he practiced was only a fragment. He could not make full use of the soulfire in his possession, and after a mere ten-odd years… he was nearly out of stock.
He had no choice but to seek out Old Man Wu and see whether the old man could take him to Donghua City again.
Who could have imagined that the moment he entered the city, he would run into his former ancestor, the Blood Demon—and hear from him the terrible news that Old Man Wu was dead?
…Useless old man!
When Miao Langjun heard the news, his vision nearly went black. But even if everything before his eyes turned black, his soulfire problem still had to be solved!
Old Man Wu’s inn was still there. Its current proprietor was Old Man Wu’s granddaughter, Wu Guanyue.
Miao Langjun had already spent some time observing the inn from the outside.
And once he did, he was utterly stunned.
The air around Old Man Wu’s granddaughter was thick with the aura of soulfire!
Her three souls and seven spirits were incomplete. Ordinarily, she should have been nothing more than a helpless invalid. Yet with soulfire sustaining her, she was able to run and jump about like this, carefree as she managed her inn.
So that was why Old Man Wu had gone to Donghua City to gather soulfire all those years ago—for this granddaughter of his, whose three souls and seven spirits were incomplete?
Miao Langjun was ecstatic.
Not because of the touching bond of family between Old Man Wu and his granddaughter, of course, but because—
After searching everywhere, he had found what he needed without the slightest effort!
Soulfire. Wasn’t it right there?
As long as he could get Wu Guanyue into his hands, he would have as much of the soulfire Old Man Wu had left behind as he wanted. There would be no need to worry about running out.
There was only one problem.
Wu Guanyue was Wenren Ying’s woman.
Wenren Ying… Tsk… Wenren Ying.
Because Miao Langjun had switched to practicing the Soul-Absorbing Art and destroyed his own spiritual residence, he had avoided being hunted down by Wenren Ying. He had no personal grudge or history with the man. But of the blood-poison demonic cultivators he had known, hardly any remained. More than half of them had been cut down by that God of Slaughter.
The man’s viciousness and ruthlessness were plain to see.
Now that Miao Langjun wanted to make a move against Wu Guanyue, Wenren Ying was an obstacle he could not avoid.
…How could he get around him?
The answer was obvious—he would simply do what he had always done.
It was not as though he had never seduced married women before. He was so practiced at it that the whole thing had become second nature. Once he had lured Wu Guanyue into eloping with him, everything else would fall neatly into place.
This happened to align perfectly with the Blood Demon Ancestor’s own plans.
The Blood Demon Ancestor had been ordered to investigate the Ah-O-E Inn and was already considering how to break apart this dangerously destructive couple. Meeting Miao Langjun in Meishan City was truly a case of birds of a feather flocking together.
Besides, Miao Langjun was quite confident in himself.
When it came to women, he had no reason to be modest.
He did not believe he could lose in the field where he excelled most.
Thus, when the Blood Demon Ancestor warned him, Miao Langjun not only ignored it but even teased and needled him repeatedly.
The Blood Demon Ancestor: “……”
Seeing how lightly Miao Langjun took Wu Guanyue, the Blood Demon Ancestor had no choice but to issue him a serious warning.
“Don’t underestimate her just because she’s a young girl. That little girl is vicious through and through! Even I have been defeated by her. You’re still wet behind the ears—don’t wait until you suffer badly before coming here crying to me.”
Miao Langjun laughed. “Well, well. Who would have thought that our venerable ancestor could actually fight his virtuous wife to a standstill?”
The Blood Demon Ancestor: “……”
The Blood Demon Ancestor felt insulted yet again.
Lately, he felt that he had been insulted far too often.
Still, he and Miao Langjun were merely temporary partners in crime. He was only using the other man to achieve his own goals. Once Miao Langjun had thoroughly made a mess of this pair of lovers, he could take advantage of the chaos to investigate the inn properly. Wouldn’t that solve everything?
So whether Miao Langjun listened to his advice or not, he did not care.
The Blood Demon Ancestor’s spiritual soul rolled eyes he did not actually possess, gave a leisurely, contemptuous snort, and ignored Miao Langjun.
As for Miao Langjun, he straightened his hair, brushed the dust from his robe, and went downstairs to look for Wu Guanyue.
Wu Guanyue was stir-frying at high heat in the kitchen, muttering to herself as she worked, “Would Brother Ying be better off eating something light and not too greasy…?”
Bai Yunsheng: “…………”
Bai Yunsheng was exasperated. “...Hey, could you please have a little self-respect? Wenren Ying has been hot and cold with you, and you’re still cooking for him!”
The Young Master heard this from outside the door. Before he could react, the Blood Demon Ancestor suddenly popped out again, hopping mad.
“Foolish child! What nonsense are you spouting! Wu Guanyue and Wenren Ying share a deep bond, their love is steadfast and unbreakable. How could they possibly be hot and cold with each other?!”
The Young Master: “…………”
The Young Master: “...Hey, hey, Old Ancestor, your attitude is really strange.”
...Hadn’t this wretched couple caused him no end of misery? Now that a rift had appeared between them, why did he sound so displeased?
The Blood Demon Ancestor: “…………”
The Blood Demon Ancestor had no way to explain himself.
After all, he had once been a plaything between Wu Guanyue and Wenren Ying... How was he supposed to put this? If the two of them truly shared an unbreakable bond, then he could at least say that he had lost because of it. But if they had merely been putting on an act and fooling around, then what did that make his gruesome death?!
Was he simply unlucky?!
Such a delicate state of mind was truly not something he could explain to outsiders.
As for the Young Master, he naturally sneered inwardly, holding the Blood Demon, this bumpkin of a devil, in utter contempt.
Anyone who had never had contact with the opposite sex was prone to a particular problem: they tended to imagine the other person in extreme terms—not purely innocent, then purely wicked.
At first, such people always harbored saintly, goddess-like fantasies about the opposite sex. But once those self-imposed fantasies shattered, they would immediately plunge into the opposite extreme, deciding that the other sex was unimaginably evil. They would then fill with deep prejudice and hatred toward them.
In reality, whether man or woman, they were all merely ordinary people.
The same was true of matters of the heart.
There were plenty of men and women in this world who changed their affections... Otherwise, how had the Young Master managed to steal away all those partners from their relationships?
For the two of them to have a crack in their relationship was, of course, nothing but good news for the Young Master.
Thus, the Young Master immediately pushed open the door and walked in.
Wu Guanyue and Bai Yunsheng both turned around and stared at him expressionlessly.
The Young Master remained perfectly calm. He cupped one hand in the other toward Wu Guanyue and said, “Shopkeeper, since you run an inn here, you must meet all sorts of people and hear all sorts of things. I’d like to ask you about someone. Do you know whether Old Master Wu is still living in the city?”
Whenever people dealt with one another, they inevitably needed some pretext. Without one, it would be far too obvious that they harbored ulterior motives.
The Young Master understood this principle very well, of course.
As it happened, he had Old Man Wu ready-made as a pretext... Once Wu Guanyue heard that he was an old acquaintance of her grandfather’s, wouldn’t that immediately bring them closer?
The Young Master’s plan was a beautiful one.
Who could have known that, upon hearing this, Wu Guanyue would not react in the slightest?
Not only did she show no reaction, she answered with complete naturalness, “Who’s that? I don’t know him. Bai Yunsheng, do you?”
The Young Master: “…………”
The Young Master: “…………?”
No
