“What?!” The Noble Consort flew into a rage after hearing this. “You, a mere physician, actually dared to collude with a demon, deceiving your superiors and hiding the truth to commit such acts? You have utterly betrayed my trust!”
Cui Kechang shrunk back into his spot, his eyes darting left and right as he contemplated charging straight out of the hall to escape. Unexpectedly, his body stiffened. Feng Hanyu had already grabbed him by the back of his neck with one hand, casting a faint, cold sneer at him.
The Noble Consort’s attendants immediately bound him up and took him away to await his sentence.
Feng Hanyu walked slowly over to the demon dragon, sizing it up coldly from above.
The demon dragon’s eyeballs were as large as two goose eggs. After exchanging looks with Feng Hanyu, its eyelids silently drooped.
With a squelch, Feng Hanyu’s gaze turned icy as she thrust her hand like a blade straight into the area just below the demon dragon’s neck. She groped around inside tentatively until she extracted a blood drenched object.
“The Candle Dragon Bone. It really is this.”
“Flesh on white bones, returning to youth,” Feng Hanyu scrutinized the object in her hand at a leisurely pace, a soft snort escaping her throat. “It seems it was this that gave you the misguided idea that you possessed capabilities beyond your station.”
“This…” Seeing her hands covered in blood, Yi Qinglan quickly brought over a copper basin filled with clear water to wash them clean for her. The bone in her hand was as white and flawless as jade, radiating a gentle, lustrous glow. Yi Qinglan couldn’t help but examine it closely. “Is this the magical artifact the demon dragon used to alter people’s appearances?”
As the Candle Dragon Bone was drawn out, a sudden mutation occurred in the demon dragon’s body. Its originally massive form deflated like a punctured water skin, slowly shrinking down until it turned into a long, thin green snake, hardly any bigger than the true forms revealed by the Taoists earlier.
“So this is your true form.” Feng Hanyu mocked with a smile. “A mere snake demon dares to occupy the Crystal Palace and arrogantly call itself a dragon?”
The moment the magic treasure was removed, not only did the snake demon reveal its true form, but the nearby guests also suddenly noticed rapid changes occurring within their own bodies.
Among the guests, there were a scattered few who had previous connections with Cui Kechang and had quietly patronized his clinic. At this moment, they discovered that their faces were like dried, dehydrated eggs, instantly changing from smooth and plump to incredibly saggy and wrinkled.
“How could this happen?” “My face, my face!” “No!”
Watching the commotion before her, Yi Qinglan felt a twinge of pity in her heart. But thinking about birth, old age, sickness, and death, she knew it was only natural. Although one could temporarily return to youth using heterodox means, without a supply of fresh blood and with the demon dragon defeated, it could no longer be maintained.
Such harmful and unprincipled dealings should have been stopped long ago.
Suddenly, a figure flashed beside her, and someone ran out. Yi Qinglan looked up, only realizing belatedly that the woman who had just run out covering her face was actually Lu’e!
“Woohoo…” Lu’e covered her face and ran all the way to a hidden path down the mountain. Crouching by the lake, she slowly opened the hands covering her face and looked at her own reflection in the water.
A sallow complexion that looked like malnutrition, sparse hair, thin eyebrows, asymmetrical eyes, and a half-crooked, sagging mouth, she was the very definition of an ugly woman.
Pitter-patter. Tears dripped down onto the water’s surface like a string of pearls, blurring that hideous face.
“Lu’e!” Yi Qinglan’s voice echoed from a distance behind her.
“Don’t come over!” Lu’e shouted.
“Alright, I won’t come over.” Yi Qinglan stopped ten meters behind her. “Gain and loss are common occurrences in life. You… must absolutely not do anything foolish.”
“I…” Lu’e was originally crying miserably, but hearing this, she found herself caught between tears and laughter. So Miss Yi thought she was going to jump into the lake?
“Thank you, Miss Yi. I didn’t mean to do anything foolish.” After a long while, she wiped away her tears and reluctantly turned around. “Miss Yi, you are a true hero. You were actually able to subdue such a demon dragon. To tell you the truth, I truly admire you.”
Yi Qinglan remained silent, feeling even worse inside.
“Actually… as long as I could be happy for even one day, I would be completely willing. Ever since my mother passed away, I have never, never had…” Speaking up to this point, Lu’e couldn’t hold back her tears again. She hurriedly turned around and wailed silently toward the sky.
“Lu’e,” Yi Qinglan felt deep heartache watching her and took a few steps forward. “Appearances are given by heaven, but you have many other merits. What you lose in the morning, you can make up for in the evening. Look on the bright side, isn’t life full of open paths everywhere?”
“Why are you speaking of these grand principles to me?” Lu’e stamped her foot. “You have never experienced the feeling of flying to the clouds one moment and plunging into the dirt the next.”
Yi Qinglan was momentarily at a loss for words, forced to offer a strained consolation. “Think about Madam Ruan. She likes you so much. If you have any difficulties, she will definitely help you. We will all help you!”
“Her?” Lu’e let out a soft laugh. It was only after a long pause that her voice echoed eerily. “That day, didn’t you ask me what happened inside the clinic? I said I just took a nap and knew nothing else. Right now, I remember everything completely.”
“What?” Yi Qinglan looked up.
After another long silence, Lu’e spoke up as if it were incredibly difficult. “That day, I was brought into the inner part of the clinic. The doctor asked me a few questions, my age, my family relatives and I answered each one truthfully, saying that my mother had passed away from illness and that I had no relatives in Duliang City. At that time, I only felt those questions were utterly redundant. Looking back now, I finally understand. It turns out they were deliberately selecting orphaned girls to traffic them under the table.”
“Later, they brought me to a place. Involuntarily, I stood upon a high stage and began to sing and dance. Afterwards, I was… chosen by a buyer, and then I came to the pool where the demon dragon resided.”
“The demon dragon drank the fresh blood in the pool and spat out dragon saliva, which granted the ability to reconstruct muscle and bone. A fan painted with a human face was suspended over the pool water, reflecting its image in the water. We walked beneath the fan one by one, submerging our faces into the pool water. When we came out again, we had changed into the appearance on the fan.”
“When I woke up again, I was already in Madam Ruan’s manor. She said,” Lu’e choked up for a moment, then continued, “she said she was an old acquaintance of my mother’s and that she would take care of me. Just like that… I believed her.”
“She truly deceived me so bitterly! I was even naive enough to think that she genuinely liked me, unable to believe how such a fated affinity could exist. Who would have thought that she was actually the buyer who chose me back then and reshaped my appearance?!”
She burst into tears again. “I can never, never go back… between me and her…”
“What kind of words are those!” A slightly anxious voice came from behind. It turned out Madam Ruan noticed Lu’e was missing and had hurriedly chased after her.
Seeing her approach, Lu’e became even more agitated. She immediately turned her back to her, pointing toward the lake surface. “Take one more step, and I will jump down!”
Yi Qinglan kept her eyes on her footsteps, staying on guard to rescue her the instant she jumped.
“Why must you torture yourself like this?” Madam Ruan did not dare to step forward any further.
Seeing that Lu’e didn’t intend to jump immediately, Madam Ruan pleaded in a warm, soft tone, “Isn’t it just that you aren’t as good looking anymore? Another day, I will invite several highly skilled physicians to nurse your body back to health. Once your health improves, your appearance will naturally be restored.”
Lu’e sneered, “You are so wealthy. The silver you spent on me is enough to raise several more beauties. Why must you bother?”
This was the first time Lu’e had ever talked back to her like this. Hearing this, Madam Ruan’s voice couldn’t help but raise by three octaves. “You’ve grown bold, speaking such angry words to me? Follow me back quickly!”
Lu’e turned around. It was also the first time Madam Ruan had seen her original appearance up close, and she couldn’t help but freeze, sizing her up for a few moments. Staring straight back into her gaze, Lu’e sneered, “Whether they are angry words or not, I know clearly myself. You, on the other hand, ought to think about whether what you said to me were deceitful lies.”
“Am I really such a superficial person in your heart?” Madam Ruan said anxiously. “Fine, it was my fault to buy people at the mirror market back then. I wronged you. But during all these days, have you truly not felt a single shred of sincerity from me? Rather than suspecting my feelings for you here, why don’t you come back with me and let me slowly prove it to you?”
“Prove it? To give you another chance to hurt me?” Lu’e said through her pain. “You might have had a few points of sincerity toward me, but I originally had nothing to do with you! I will slowly save up the money you spent to buy me and pay you back. After that, I will return to my hometown and never come here again.”
“How is this a matter of money?” Madam Ruan frowned and took two steps forward. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me, and it doesn’t matter if you won’t follow me. In short, you are not allowed to torture yourself anymore!”
“Then leave! I don’t want to hear you speak anymore!”
“Then leave together with me…”
Yi Qinglan listened from the side for a long time. Seeing that although the two were locked in a dispute, Lu’e no longer had the intention of throwing herself into the lake, she silently departed, leaving the matter for the two of them to resolve themselves.
She walked to the other side of the lakeside mountain, tore off her shark person mask, and looked at her reflection in the shallow water.
Lu’e’s feelings were something she could inexplicably empathize with.
A person one deeply trusted is suddenly discovered one day to be an accomplice in the very machinery of one’s own miserable fate.
Perhaps the hurdle in one’s heart is the hardest one to cross.
On the other side, above the main hall of the Taoist temple, the snake demon within the binding of the Vajra Net appeared to lie submissively on the ground. However, beneath its body, it had secretly used venom to corrode a large gap in the net.
The main hall was thrown into chaos due to the sudden mutation just now, and unexpectedly, no one noticed the snake demon’s anomaly.
The Noble Consort clung tightly to Feng Hanyu’s shoulder, asking endless questions about Yi Qinglan’s background and abilities, while also talking about conducting a thorough investigation and liquidation of the Red Dust Clinic’s properties. This caused Feng Hanyu extreme impatience, making it impossible to shake her off for the time being.
Turning her head, she caught a glimpse of the snake demon still properly inside the net, having made no movement all this time.
But it had been still for far too long.
Feng Hanyu felt a slight anomaly. Looking up, she unexpectedly caught sight of a faint green shadow slipping out through the crack of the door without anyone noticing.
It turned out that the snake demon left behind in the net was merely an incarnation it had conjured up; its true body had already fled while no one was paying attention.
Leaving the Noble Consort behind, Feng Hanyu pursued it without the slightest hesitation.
The snake demon presumably possessed a fair amount of cultivation, its slithering speed was extremely fast, and combined with its slender body, it was highly adept at hiding. Chasing all the way into a forest on the mountain, Feng Hanyu flung out a long blade shimmering with a dark shadow. Hurling it forward, the tip of the blade pinned the snake demon directly to the ground.
The snake demon struggled a few times. Knowing this was an exceptionally formidable weapon, it went limp on the ground and stopped moving.
“It is a dead end after all. Why waste this effort?” Feng Hanyu walked over slowly.
Seeing Feng Hanyu’s expressionless face as she cast a cold gaze down from above, the snake demon knew a great catastrophe was imminent. It lost no time in softening its stance to beg, “Your Excellency is a noble member of the Demon Clan, surely you wouldn’t lower yourself to the level of those cultivators! I beg you to stay your hand and show mercy!”
“Oh? You can tell?” Feng Hanyu smiled, though her expression was incredibly fierce. “Since you know, do you still think I can leave you alive?”
“Your Excellency,” the snake demon broke out into a cold sweat. Seeing Feng Hanyu raise her blade to chop down, intending to sever its thin body into two segments with a single blow, it hurriedly cried out, “Regarding that Candle Dragon Bone, this lowly one still has one more matter to report!”
“Speak.” The tip of the blade hung precariously right between the snake demon’s brows.
Opening its eyes, the snake demon discovered it wasn’t dead yet. It became slightly energized again, saying obsequiously, “Does Your Excellency know how the Candle Dragon Bone came to be?”
Feng Hanyu glared at it. “You dare to keep me in suspense?”
“I wouldn’t dare, I wouldn’t dare,” the snake demon hurriedly continued. “Legend has it that this Candle Dragon Bone was originally a piece of bone from the divine beast, the Candle Dragon. It was accidentally obtained by a human cultivator, who polished and refined it, which caused its miraculous effects to gradually manifest. As long as… heh heh, as long as there is a corresponding supply of materials, it can reshape one’s appearance and grant eternal youth. A hundred years ago, I secretly stole it from a certain immortal sect’s treasury, and only then did this treasure fall into my hands.”
“Nonsense. The tricks you and that man named Cui used to keep blood slaves to reap massive profits are things this seat has long since known.” Feng Hanyu advanced the tip of her blade by an inch, looking thoroughly impatient.
“May Your Excellency judge clearly!” The snake demon flicked its tongue. “Because that Cui Kechang once saved me, he ordered me to serve him for fifty years to repay the favor of saving my life. I agreed, thinking that with a free supply of fresh blood, perhaps if I drank enough, I might one day transform into a true dragon… Therefore, I willingly submitted to the lake to generate profits for him. But when the time limit was up, his greed did not die. His appetite grew larger and larger, and he even imprisoned me here!” The snake demon wore a weeping face, “I am a victim too!”
This snake demon spoke nothing but nonsense, contradicting itself constantly. Feng Hanyu lost her patience, her blade flashing with a chilling light.
Scared out of its wits, the snake demon hurriedly closed its eyes and screamed at the top of its lungs, “The Candle Dragon Bone has another use! It can bring the dead back to life!”
What? Feng Hanyu’s eyes trembled, and she involuntarily tightened her grip on the hilt of her blade.