Whether it was due to the wine or that strange fragrance, Qingmo was visibly exhausted tonight, lacking his usual energy. After returning to his room, he undressed early and climbed into bed.
Just as he closed his eyes, a knock suddenly sounded at the door.
Upon receiving permission, Suyu pushed the door open. “Since seeing that skeleton you mentioned earlier, I feel a bit scared sleeping alone.”
Who was he trying to fool? The monsters in the demon realm were far more terrifying than that thing.
Helpless, Qingmo crawled out from under the covers. He didn’t believe Suyu’s excuse at all, but he could tell the other man intended to discuss something else.
He told Hanzhao, “Hanzhao, go stand guard outside.”
“Yes.”
As Hanzhao left, Qingmo thought Suyu was here to discuss serious matters, but instead, Suyu directly removed his outer robes, looking fully prepared to stay overnight.
“What are you doing? Are you really going to sleep here?”
“Otherwise?” Suyu took off his shoes and socks, wearing only his inner layers, lifted the blanket, and squeezed right in. “I already told you I’m scared of sleeping alone.”
“Don’t crowd me!” With another person added to the spacious bed, it felt a bit cramped. Qingmo was unwilling to share his blanket, but he couldn’t beat Suyu, so he could only watch helplessly as the blanket slipped from his hands.
“Stop talking nonsense and fess up. What on earth is your purpose in arranging the Illusion Spirit Department to come here?”
He wasn’t as easily fooled as that idiot Bai Yingfei. Although Suyu put on the facade of a benevolent gentleman, he was actually full of schemes.
Suyu wore an innocent expression. “Wasn’t this your idea? You just showed your face in the city during the day, and those people targeted you at night. We can’t just sit here and wait for death. It’s time to carry out the next step of the plan.”
“Maybe I just blocked a disaster for some unlucky soul.” Qingmo rolled over to face him, propping his head up on his arm. “Just a scent alone couldn’t have affected only me. I actually think there’s something wrong with that wine.”
He had drunk quite a bit of the wine, while Suyu hadn’t touched a single drop due to taking medicine, meaning all of it had gone into his stomach.
With identities of equal standing, anyone could be targeted. Suyu lay flat on his back, staring up at the bed canopy. “You and I don’t need to draw such strict lines between us. In any case, this City Lord’s Mansion is not as peaceful as we imagined.”
“Who do you suspect?”
Suyu closed his eyes. “You already have the answer in your heart.”
That abruptly appearing High Priest of the Witch clan was a deeply suspicious figure in his own right.
“I always said not a single person in the Witch clan is any good!” Qingmo vented his anger by punching the bedding, but forgetting that someone was lying right next to him, his fist nearly landed somewhere unspeakable. Fortunately, Suyu caught his wrist just in time.
“I only heard that back then the Ghost Fiend blew up eight altars in the Witch clan. What sort of grievance lies between you?”
Furious, Qingmo snapped irritably, “Back then, that old woman Yun Hengxue kicked me when I was down and went back on her word! She clearly promised to help me save someone, yet behind my back, she burned all the corpses to ashes!”
That was the past he was least willing to bring up. When the Ghost Fiends first formed, after slaughtering the imperial palace, he returned to the mass graves, carefully collected the twenty-three corpses one by one, preserved them, and searched everywhere for a way to bring them back to life. After going through untold hardships, he heard about the Witch clan puppet arts, so he brought the corpses and begged the Witch clan elder Yun Hengxue, hoping she could fashion puppet bodies for these aggrieved souls. Who could have imagined that Yun Hengxue would initially agree so readily, only to unleash a Netherworld fire at the end and burn those twenty-three corpses down to a crisp.
Despite screaming until his throat went hoarse, he failed to put out the blaze, leaving him to watch his brothers, who had died unjustly for his sake, scatter into non-existence. Despite exhausting every ounce of his strength, he only managed to rescue a faint, weak wisp of Hanzhao’s soul.
“Because of Hanzhao?” Suyu formed a guess. No wonder he hadn’t been able to sense Hanzhao’s pulse the other day; if Hanzhao was made from a Witch puppet, that explained everything.
“Hanzhao is the only one left.” Qingmo lowered his gaze despondently, unable to stop himself from glancing toward the doorway, as if through a wooden door he could see that familiar figure.
Not knowing how to offer comfort, Suyu cautiously and restrainedly gave his head a couple of light pats, comforting him like a child. “The Illusion Spirit Department will send people tomorrow, and I’ll handle the rest. You’re tired too, get some sleep.”
“Mmh.”
Qingmo turned over, not yet recovered from the sea of fire in his memories, and surprisingly didn’t mind Suyu’s overly familiar intimacy.
In his dream, he touched that big white cat once more.
This time he didn’t hold back, directly pouncing forward to scoop it into a full embrace, rubbing his cheeks against its fur and inhaling deeply a few times. Such beautiful fluff was rare in reality, and the texture was exceptionally wonderful. It would be a crime not to pet it.
In his dream, Qingmo held the cat’s face and kissed it to his heart’s content, thoroughly tormenting Suyu who was sharing the bed with him.
In the middle of the night, being suddenly kissed by the person he loved, while being hugged tightly with limbs intertwined without any restraint and fondled all over, any normal man would have some reaction.
The formidable self-restraint Suyu had cultivated over a thousand years vanished into thin air in an instant, and certain parts of him stood at attention.
On the other side, completely oblivious, Qingmo leaned in for another kiss.
After much effort, Suyu managed to pry him away. With a burning hot face, he got up, poured himself a cup of cold tea, and gulped it down, which finally helped him clear his head a bit.
Hidden under the pillow were the spices A Shi had prepared. Knowing that Qingmo had been plagued by nightmares lately, Suyu turned into his true form every night to enter his dreams and help dispel them. But Qingmo, a late-stage severe fluff-lover, fell in love with the cat the moment he saw it, and had actually learned how to forcibly drag it into his dreams to kiss it.
With Hanzhao keeping watch outside, Suyu didn’t dare make any loud noises. Standing by the bed and looking at Qingmo’s carefree sleeping expression while his embarrassment had yet to fade, Suyu let out a helpless sigh.
Normally, without the effect of that fragrance, Qingmo wouldn’t sleep so completely defenseless. He muttered dreamily in his sleep, “Mmh, little hairball, don’t run.”
Out of sheer annoyance and acting like a three-year-old child, Suyu slumped over the edge of the bed, discarding all the dignity of a Demon Lord, and whispered a correction right next to his ear, “It is not a little hairball, it is Rice Cake!”
Qingmo didn’t wake up, returning to peace. After a brief moment, he suddenly slapped Suyu right across the face with his hand, sleep-talking once again, “Sugar Cake, be a good boy.”
That made him even angrier.
He was cutting off all of Sugar Cake’s snacks the moment he got home!
Sleeping far away at home, Sugar Cake suddenly sneezed, woke up in a daze, and then laid back down to sleep, completely unaware of what unprovoked disaster he had just incurred.
Early in the morning, calculating that Qingmo was about to wake up, Hanzhao brought a basin of well water to the courtyard to wait on him.
A faint floral fragrance filled the air, and a bright red petal suddenly fell into the clear water.
Footsteps sounded nearby. He turned his head vigilantly to see Yue Zhiqiang dressed in robes as red as the petal, smiling brightly. “Young Master Hanzhao.”
Qingmo was awakened by the voices chatting outside the room. He let out a soft whine, stretched lazily, stepped barefoot onto the floor in a relaxed manner, and peered out the window.
Establishing an outpost was no minor matter, and with Suyu pressing urgently, the Illusion Spirit Department had dispatched a team overnight. The leader of the group was standing right outside the building, reporting the situation to Suyu.
“Qingmo, you’re awake?” Suyu noticed him.
Qingmo nodded, fixing his eyes on the person beside Suyu as if trying to drill a hole through him.
The latter looked somewhat uncomfortable, forced a dry laugh, and saluted. “Subordinate Jiang Hong greets Ghost Fiend Lord.”
“Oh.” Qingmo tilted his head thoughtfully. “Have I seen you somewhere before? You look a bit like the person who sells sugar paintings in the imperial city.”
“Is that so?” Sweat broke out on Jiang Hong’s back as he secretly cast a pleading look toward Suyu.
“Yes, you do.” Qingmo narrowed his eyes.
“That day you were only focused on your sugar painting, how could you possibly remember what the vendor looked like?” Suyu changed the subject, seamlessly blocking Jiang Hong from view as he reached through the window to ruffle Qingmo’s hair.
Having just woken up, Qingmo’s hair was already messy like a bird’s nest, and getting it ruffled further made him feel too groggy to argue. He loudly called for Hanzhao to come over.
Yet after waiting for a while, Hanzhao’s figure was nowhere to be seen.
Suyu remarked, “I happened to bump into him stepping outside just now, and he hasn’t returned yet.”
Qingmo deflated in frustration. “Where on earth has this fellow run off to? I wanted him to comb my hair.”
He had been spoiled by Hanzhao into a state of semi-disability. Though he wasn’t completely helpless, sometimes he was lazier than imaginable.
“I’ll do it.” Suyu turned and stepped into the room, feeling that he bore some responsibility for the bird’s nest on Qingmo’s head and should help out.
Jiang Hong had only heard rumors that his Lord had a soft spot for the Ghost Fiend, but he never expected it had reached the point where his Lord would go serve him just because of a single word, as this was supposed to be a task for a servant.
With his jaw dropping in shock, Jiang Hong watched Suyu pick up the jade comb, and then cast an unfriendly look his way, smiling without warmth. “You remember everything you were told to do? Or do you have nothing else to do?”
“Yes, I have work! This subordinate takes his leave!”
Jiang Hong fled in panic. As a pillar of strength within the Illusion Spirit Department, he deeply understood just how unapproachable this seemingly gentle superior of his truly could be.
“He looks awfully busy. Is the work pressure in the Illusion Spirit Department even greater than the Lingyao Palace?” Qingmo put on his shoes and was pressed down to sit before a bronze mirror, his head twisting around restlessly.
“Compared to your Smoke and Cloud Pavilion, it’s certainly not light.” Suyu carefully unraveled the bird’s nest one strand at a time. Instead of reaching for the usual hair crown, his hand shifted direction and pulled a hairpin from his sleeve.
Qingmo usually wore his hair in a high ponytail, but Suyu changed up the style entirely, gathering his hair into a neat bun and securing it with the hairpin.
The mirror reflected a stunning visage. Compared to yesterday, it carried a bit less rebellious sharpness and a bit more serene tranquility.
It looked more and more like the image in his memories. Suyu lost himself in a trance.
“Who are you looking at?” The sudden question shattered his illusion.
That kind of lingering, affectionate gaze was definitely not the look one should cast toward a colleague.
“I…” Suyu’s brain spun rapidly, searching for an excuse to brush it off.
Instead, Qingmo teased, “You must be thinking of your beloved.”
His guess was spot on.
With no other choice, Suyu asked, “How did you know?”
Without answering, Qingmo reached behind his head to touch the hair bun. “With craftsmanship like yours, your trips to the South Wind Pavilion weren’t in vain.”
“I really didn’t…” No matter how Suyu explained, he couldn’t wash away those wild days of his youth.
“I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Qingmo wore an expression that said he understood everything, posing in front of the mirror and narcissistically cupping his cheeks. “But my face is so striking that even skin-painting masters wouldn’t have the skill to replicate it.”
Suyu: “?”
Perhaps his brain had been scorched by that fire in the Witch clan. He looked smart enough, yet when it came to romantic matters, he was unbelievably dense. All his previous worries had been completely unfounded.
Qingmo was still under the impression that Suyu was troubled by his beloved’s supposedly ugly appearance, so he pulled him in and offered earnest, well-meaning advice, telling him that looks didn’t matter and inner beauty was what truly counted.
Then what was the point of that narcissistic mirror-gazing just now?
After washing up and finishing their grooming, Hanzhao finally returned. Qingmo looked through the window and saw his figure standing out in the courtyard, yet lingering hesitantly without coming inside.
Filled with doubt, Qingmo opened the door, only to see Hanzhao holding a bright red flower with a somewhat unnatural expression.
“Lord…”