Xie Lin’s fingertips pinched into his palm.
Lin Miaomiao hovered in mid-air, black mist twisting like venomous snakes around her slender neck, making the heart-devouring lotus blooming in her left eye look all the more demonic.
When she tilted her head and smiled lightly, the curve of the canine teeth showing was identical to Xie Lin’s.
“Brother is so cruel.”
Borrowing her mouth, Xie Qingyu spat out a cloyingly sweet complaint: “Clearly, you even took a whipping for me when we were little~”
Xie Lin’s blood froze instantly.
He really had protected a girl in the Netherworld Palace’s punishment hall back when he was seven, but that face in his memory… was completely blurry!
“Don’t be bewitched.”
Xiao Jin’s sword sheath pressed against the small of his back: “The heart-devouring lotus alters memories.”
On the opposite bank, Li Hanxing raised a hand in signal, and dozens of Netherworld Palace cultivators formed hand seals simultaneously.
The black mist turned into chains that tore through the void, the ends of the chains actually equipped with fangs like living creatures!
“Clang!”
The Frost Flower Sword and Xie Lin’s dagger slashed out at the same time, but the severed chains instantly regenerated.
Xiao Jin suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, and those golden threads he had suppressed within his meridians began to stir restlessly once more.
Xie Lin sidestepped to block in front of him, the red light of the heart-devouring lotus flaring wildly: “You go first.”
“Can’t go.”
Wiping away the blood from the corner of his mouth, Xiao Jin used his sword tip to flick up the lotus phantom formed by the pool of golden threads on the ground.
“They’re here for this.”
As if to corroborate his words, Li Hanxing suddenly violently burst forth!
His black robes swept across the river surface like a night owl, his five fingers forming claws straight for Xiao Jin’s heart: “The Palace Master wants his golden lotus bones!”
Spinning around, Xie Lin delivered a flying kick, the hidden blade at his boot tip slicing open Li Hanxing’s wrist, only to see that instead of blood, what crawled out from the other’s wound were heart-devouring lotus vines formed of black mist!
“Doesn’t the Young Master understand yet?”
Smiling bizarrely, Li Hanxing retreated: “Your heart’s blood can foster lotus seeds because you yourself are—”
“Shut up!”
Controlling Lin Miaomiao, Xie Qingyu pounced through the air, striking Li Hanxing back with a single palm.
“Brother is mine!”
Amidst the chaos, Xie Lin was suddenly dragged into the reed thicket by Xiao Jin.
The instant the damp, cold soil pressed against his back, lips reeking of blood pressed down upon his.
“Mm!”
Eyes widening, Xie Lin watched in shock as Xiao Jin actually kissed him in full view of everyone!
This kiss was so fierce it lacked a shred of tenderness. Xiao Jin bit open the tip of his tongue to sweep away the fresh blood, while simultaneously transferring a cold, icy bead into his mouth.
Xie Lin’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and the moment he swallowed it, his entire body’s meridians felt as though they had been frozen in ice.
It was a seed of the heart-devouring lotus!
“You…”
Just as Xie Lin was about to flare up, he suddenly noticed golden patterns emerging on his palm.
Whispering against his earlobe, Xiao Jin murmured: “Use my spiritual power.”
The instant the reeds were split apart by the fierce wind, Xie Lin instinctively threw a palm strike.
Golden spiritual power surged forth like a mad tide, actually blasting the pouncing Lin Miaomiao away several yards!
“How is that possible?!”
Flabbergasted, Li Hanxing stared, “How can he catalyze the golden lotus…”
Xie Qingyu’s voice suddenly turned sharp: “Quickly seize the body! They’ve formed a symbiotic pact!”
Before Xie Lin could recover from his shock, he was scooped up by the waist by Xiao Jin.
With wind whistling by his ears, they rushed into the dense forest downriver, the black mist behind them clinging like maggots on a corpse, pursuing relentlessly.
“What is a symbiotic pact?”
Jarred violently as they moved, Xie Lin grabbed Xiao Jin by the collar: “Are you plotting against me again?”
Leaping onto an ancient tree, Xiao Jin pinned him against the trunk: “A restriction placed during dual cultivation.”
Tearing open his collar to expose his chest.
The same golden patterns matching Xie Lin’s palm surfaced there: “You can use my spiritual power, but every time you use it…”
The tree bark suddenly burst apart!
A black arrow pierced through Xiao Jin’s shoulder, the bloody arrowhead stopping a mere half-inch from Xie Lin’s throat.
“It accelerates the backlash.”
Groaning, Xiao Jin snapped the shaft of the arrow: “Do you believe me now?”
Gritting his teeth, Xie Lin yanked out the arrowhead, his tongue tasting an abnormal, sweet-and-salty iron taste in the other’s blood—
It was the fragrance of the golden lotus!
Rustling noises came from deep within the dense forest as more black shadows closed in.
Xiao Jin suddenly ripped open the front of Xie Lin’s clothes, biting heavily onto the heart-devouring lotus imprint on his chest!
“You!”
Inhaling sharply from the pain, Xie Lin watched as Xiao Jin dipped his fingers into their mixed blood and drew bizarre runes over the golden lotus on his own chest.
The instant the blood rune was completed, heaven and earth abruptly fell silent.
The presence of all pursuers vanished, and even the chirping of insects and calls of birds faded into nothingness.
Xie Lin could only hear their intermingling breaths, and the accelerating heartbeat within his chest.
“Temporarily blocked the tracking.”
Leaning against his shoulder while panting, Xiao Jin said: “But there’s only…”
“An incense stick’s worth of time.”
Taking up the sentence, Xie Lin suddenly realized this was a memory from Xiao Jin’s spiritual platform.
Gripping the other’s wrist fiercely, he demanded: “Why can I read your thoughts?”
Lowering his gaze to look at him, Xiao Jin’s eyelashes cast fine, fragmented shadows under the moonlight: “The second stage of the symbiotic pact spiritual consciousness blending.”
This distance was far too dangerous.
Xie Lin could count the golden threads in Xiao Jin’s pupils, smell the crisp cedar scent mixed with blood in his breath, and even feel…
“You’re hard.” Xie Lin sneered.
At a time of life and death like this, Xiao Jin was actually getting aroused!
“A sequela of spiritual power running wild.”
Maintaining a completely straight face, Xiao Jin nevertheless slipped his hand into Xie Lin’s waistband: “Dual cultivation can stabilize the condition.”
Xie Lin’s breath hitched: “You…”
His protest was swallowed up.
This kiss was much gentler than before. Holding his lower lip, Xiao Jin gently rubbed against it, his tongue probing past the barrier with cautious, tentative probing.
Driven by a ghostly impulse, Xie Lin parted his lips and was immediately conquered, city and land alike.
A long time later.
Amidst the afterglow, Xiao Jin gently kissed his sweat-dampened temple: “The shielding is about to fail.”
Only then did Xie Lin notice that an extra circle of golden patterns had appeared around the heart-devouring lotus on his chest, resembling a meticulously decorated shackle.
Sneering, he pushed Xiao Jin away: “Did you calculate this from the start?”
“It was a gamble.”
Tying his sash, Xiao Jin said: “A gamble that you can’t bear to let me die.”
The sound of the void being rent came from afar as pursuers closed in.
Abruptly, Xiao Jin shoved the Frost Flower Sword into Xie Lin’s hands: “Thirty miles north is Evernight City; you can only pass through the barrier holding my sword.”
Clutching the sword hilt tightly, Xie Lin asked: “And you?”
“Draw them away.”
“Remember, no matter what you see, don’t look back.”
Before his voice finished falling, Xiao Jin had already leaped out of the tree canopy.
Golden light rose like the early morning sun, illuminating half the night sky!
“The golden lotus host is here!” Li Hanxing’s scream pierced the long night.
Gritting his teeth, Xie Lin dashed northward, the golden patterns on his palm burning like a red-hot iron.
After running a hundred yards, a heaven-shaking explosion suddenly sounded from behind.
He slammed on the brakes abruptly.
The symbiotic pact transmitted a tearing pain; Xiao Jin’s spiritual power was rapidly depleting!
Reason told him to keep running, but his body turned around a step first.
And then he beheld a hellish scene.
Suspended beneath the blood moon, Lin Miaomiao had dozens of heart-devouring lotus vines extending from her chest, nailing Xiao Jin in mid-air.
Even more terrifying was…
A section of a golden lotus stem was plunged straight into Xiao Jin’s chest, frantically devouring his flesh and blood!
“Caught you.”
Borrowing Lin Miaomiao’s mouth, Xie Qingyu smiled lightly: “Brother would really come back after all~”
Xie Lin’s field of vision instantly dyed red.
The heart-devouring lotus grew wildly inside his cavity, its roots piercing through every single meridian.
Hearing not the crisp cracking of his own deforming bones, he only saw the Frost Flower Sword fly into his hand automatically, the blade lighting up with an unprecedented, scarlet radiance.
“Boom!”
Sword qi swept across a ten-mile radius, and all the heart-devouring lotus vines snapped in response.
Catching the falling Xiao Jin, Xie Lin’s touch was met with a sticky slickness.
That body was terrifyingly light, as if its flesh and blood had already been devoured to the bone.
“The symbiotic pact… third stage…”
Xiao Jin’s blood-stained fingers caressed his cheek: “Now you can… completely use my power…”