***
Wenren Ying froze for a moment, an expression of distraction—rare for him—appearing on his face.
His gaze shifted, and a complicated look surfaced in his eyes, mingling surprise, guilt, and… vulnerability.
If Wu Guanyue had seen that expression, she would have been instantly captivated. She would have felt sorry for him while finding him utterly delectable.
What a pity… the only person here was Bai Yunsheng, that miserable fool…
Bai Yunsheng furrowed his brows. He had suddenly realized that Wenren Ying was his senior brother from the same sect. Didn’t that mean he had loudly declared, right in front of his fellow disciple, that he was going to dig up dirt on their master and offer it as a sacrifice…?
As for why he had already been staring at the letter for quite some time, yet only now realized how bad the situation was—that was because it had simply taken him this long to process it…
Er… all right.
Wenren Ying pulled himself free from his thoughts, only to see Bai Yunsheng staring at him as though he were facing a formidable enemy.
Wenren Ying: “……”
That fellow’s thoughts were far too easy to read. He practically didn’t need to think about them at all… With the sort of spoiled idiot produced by a great clan, even if you gave him another hundred years, he still wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Wenren Ying couldn’t be bothered with him. He merely said, “I’m going out for a while.”
After two hundred years… he was going to see his master again.
Wenren Ying lifted his foot and walked out of the inn.
Bai Yunsheng’s expression shifted unpredictably. At one moment he was frowning deeply; the next, he was breathing a sigh of relief. No one could say what was going through his mind.
Meanwhile, Wu Guanyue was still in her hospital room.
She had actually discovered that even if she stayed in the game without logging out, she wouldn’t feel tired.
That was perfectly normal, of course. When she put on the gaming helmet, her soul was actually entering another world. Whether she was managing her business or resting there, she wasn’t neglecting anything in the real world. How could she feel exhausted?
Still, she couldn’t remain in the immortal world forever without coming back… She wasn’t completely alone in this world, after all.
Today was a family member’s birthday, so she had gone to the birthday gathering in her wheelchair.
The gathering went quite well. There were no awkward or melodramatic scenes, but Wu Guanyue couldn’t say she had enjoyed herself very much… She had been distracted the entire time, thinking only about getting back to the inn as quickly as possible and seeing her Brother Ying!
Oh, dear…
After all, he was her first love!
Fortunately, no one noticed that her mind was elsewhere. After dinner, she used not feeling well as an excuse and had the driver take her back to the sanatorium. The moment she returned to her bed, she eagerly put on the gaming helmet—
Her vision gradually darkened, and she seemed to enter a strange, empty void. It wasn’t pure black, but rather an ethereal color reminiscent of the universe.
When she had first started playing the game, Wu Guanyue had naturally assumed this was merely the loading screen… But now that she knew she was actually traveling between two worlds, the sight struck her as rather subtle.
Then the game’s login screen appeared before her. After she clicked “Continue Game,” she opened her eyes again inside her own inn.
The blue cotton bed curtains were still in front of her, dotted with little white flowers that looked like scattered stars.
Full of energy, Wu Guanyue sprang up and charged outside—
“Brother Ying～～～ I’m back!!!”
Her voice was so coquettish that every bystander who heard it would have gotten at least two pounds of goosebumps.
Bai Yunsheng was one such bystander. He watched with a complicated expression as Wu Guanyue bounded around like a cat with terrifying destructive power, turning the entire inn upside down while making strange noises nonstop.
“Brother Ying～～ Brother Ying～～～”
Those were the strange noises in question.
Bai Yunsheng: “……”
That self-destructive urge to be a nuisance began stirring within Bai Yunsheng once more…
He cleared his throat and gave a mocking snort. “Stop shouting. Even if you scream your throat raw, he still won’t be able to hear you.”
Wu Guanyue’s frantic movements came to an abrupt halt.
Slowly—very slowly—she turned around and stared at Bai Yunsheng.
Wu Guanyue: “……”
Bai Yunsheng: “……”
Wu Guanyue: “…………”
Bai Yunsheng: “…………”
Wu Guanyue suddenly muttered to herself, “Oh dear… It’s been so long since I pulled someone’s pants down. I’m getting a little itchy to do it again…”
Bai Yunsheng: “………………”
Bai Yunsheng immediately behaved himself. “I’m sorry! I’ll never say things like that again! Senior Brother Wenren just went out to see our master. He told me to let you know that he’ll be back later.”
Just look at that—he was already calling him Senior Brother Wenren. Clearly, the threat of having his pants pulled down was remarkably effective.
Wu Guanyue, however, paid no attention to such trivial matters.
Brother Ying… had gone out…
He had gone to see his master… Hmm…
Wu Guanyue naturally knew who Brother Ying’s master was. She was merely a little puzzled. After not seeing each other for two hundred years, why had they suddenly decided to meet now?
Well, it didn’t matter. She had nothing else to do at the moment, so she would simply wait for him to return.
Wu Guanyue leaned over the counter, resting her chin in both hands as she stared blankly into space.
***
She waited until midnight.
The moonlight was dim that night. Although it was a full moon, dark clouds obscured most of it, allowing only wisps of hazy, mistlike light to slip through. Even the flagstone pavement of Qihua Road was difficult to make out.
Yet a lantern still hung outside the inn.
Its warm yellow glow illuminated the road in front of the entrance, and the main hall inside the inn remained lit as well. Wu Guanyue sat in the hall, staring distractedly toward the doorway.
Bai Yunsheng had, of course, left long ago… What kind of person was he? How could he possibly wait around with a crazy woman for a crazy man? Once the crazy man returned, the two of them would go back to their room together, sweet and happy. What would he stay for? Was he waiting to eavesdrop on them?
Thus, at that moment, Wu Guanyue was the only person in the main hall.
She didn’t want to log out of the game, nor did she want to return to her own room and sleep alone… Hmm, ever since she had helped Brother Ying dispel the aphrodisiac that day, she actually hadn’t slept alone even once.
That was also one of the reasons she didn’t want to log out of the game. The feeling of resting her head on Brother Ying’s arm was simply wonderful…
At the thought, Wu Guanyue’s cheeks quietly flushed a little deeper.
Brother Ying… Why was he taking so long?
What could he possibly have to talk about with his master? How had it taken so long…?
It was true that they hadn’t seen each other for two hundred years, so perhaps they really did have a lot to discuss. But Brother Ying didn’t actually have that close a relationship with his master, did he?
Wu Guanyue had a vague sense that Wenren Ying’s feelings toward his master consisted only of gratitude and respect. Their paths were different, after all. As the saying went, those who followed different paths could not work together. That was why Brother Ying had left the Xuantian Sect.
Perhaps it was because Wenren Ying really was an exceptionally reliable person that Wu Guanyue didn’t overthink his failure to come home in the middle of the night. She simply continued waiting for him just as she was.
And at that very moment, Wenren Ying had already fallen victim to Perfected Renhua’s cruel machinations!
Carrying a sense of guilt toward his master, along with something akin to the apprehension of one returning to his hometown after a long absence, Wenren Ying went to the place specified in the letter to meet him. On the way there, he had even thought: After all these years… he should have gone to visit his master sooner.
Now, his master had to summon him before he would appear… Perhaps he truly had been far too unfilial.
And then he saw Perfected Renhua.
Perfected Renhua was far older than Wenren Ying remembered… He should not have aged so much.
The sight of him made Wenren Ying’s heart ache. He swept aside the hem of his robe and dropped to his knees, his voice hoarse as he said, “M-Master…”
Perfected Renhua merely let out a cold snort and said sarcastically, “How kind of you to still be willing to call me your master.”
Wenren Ying remained kneeling where he was, his back seeming to stiffen beneath the rebuke.
Since Perfected Renhua was known as “Renhua,” he naturally maintained a dignified appearance in public. Two hundred years ago, when Wenren Ying had defied convention and destroyed his own spiritual palace, he had never spoken to him in such a tone—for he had always prided himself on his status.
But now, the prolonged torment of karmic sin, combined with death looming before him, had made him paranoid and irritable, causing him to lose all sense of propriety. Even when facing Wenren Ying, a tool he had long since decided how to use, he could not help but lash out with cutting words.
In truth, this was simply human nature. Those struggling through the mud and those standing high above in the clouds were fundamentally the same. The reason the powerful could remain calm and aloof was not because of their bloodlines, nor because of their refinement… It was merely because nothing had yet struck them where it hurt.
Wenren Ying remained kneeling, silent.
Clearly, although he felt guilty, he did not believe that he had been wrong in what he had done back then. Thus, his back remained straight, just as it had when he knelt before the entrance to the grotto-heaven of the Xuantian Sect and voluntarily requested to leave the sect.
Perfected Renhua stared coldly at his eldest disciple… Then, remembering that he was the last scion of Donghua, a profound hatred once more welled up within him.
Hatred… Yes, hatred.
Wenren Ying had never abandoned his quest for vengeance. He had never forgotten the Blood Moon of Donghua. And the Heavenly Dao had never forgotten the Blood Moon of Donghua, nor had it forgotten to punish him.
At this moment, Wenren Ying’s appearance actually overlapped with that of the ethereal yet omnipresent “Heavenly Dao.”
What was the Heavenly Dao?
The Heavenly Dao was not the dao of one person, nor was it the dao of aristocratic clans or sects. The Heavenly Dao was the collective will of all people in this world. When the desires of all those hearts converged, they became a rule that no one could resist—and that rule became the Heavenly Dao.
In the past, Perfected Renhua had never taken the things people revered seriously. He had always believed himself clever enough to hold all rules in contempt.
But… but now, when he had truly done something wrong—something intolerable to Heaven and Earth—he finally understood the might of Heaven, Earth, and the human heart.
When Wenren Ying knelt before him in silent determination, Perfected Renhua suddenly felt an inexplicable fury flare up within him.
—If I can’t resist the Heavenly Dao, can’t I at least deal with you?!
Perfected Renhua let out a cold laugh, and his hand moved as swiftly as lightning. Though he was burdened by karmic sin and had little time left to live, he was still a half-step Nascent Soul cultivator, an earthbound immortal. Even if Wenren Ying had been on full guard, he would not have lasted a single move beneath his hand… Let alone now, when he was completely unprepared!
In the blink of an eye, Wenren Ying was restrained by Perfected Renhua’s soul-seizing technique!
That was right—the soul-seizing technique!
Every major sect possessed arts for searching the soul. Such techniques could allow the caster to learn everything about the target in an instant. Thus, whenever a great cultivator wished to learn something, it was exceedingly easy for them to do so.
But the soul-seizing technique was an evil art. At its core, it involved using a type of parasite produced in the Miao borderlands, forcing it into a person’s soul… Then, quite naturally, the victim would become dazed and lose all independent thought, reduced to a puppet on strings who knew only how to carry out orders.
Perfected Renhua considered himself long since abandoned by the righteous path, and so he had cultivated quite a few evil arts. The soul-seizing technique was one of them.
—The instant he restrained Wenren Ying, he had also searched his soul. The people and events that had left the deepest impressions on Wenren Ying’s life had all been laid bare before his eyes.
Little Yue…
Little Yue…
Little Yue…
So the feelings between these two ran this deep.
Still, that was a good thing for him, because it meant Wu Guanyue would be off her guard.
Perfected Renhua looked down at Wenren Ying from above and said coldly, “Go. Capture Wu Guanyue and bring her here.”
None
