In the back garden of Prince Chen’s Manor, within a dim and damp cellar, a tall man was firmly bound by iron chains at his four limbs.
Through the moonlight filtering inside, one could clearly see a face as demonically handsome as a succubus; even the most skilled painter could not have created such a perfect visage.
The man’s face was covered in blood, yet the sight was not so much gruesome as it was imbued with a sense of fatal, seductive beauty.
Suddenly, the man bound by the chains erupted with a roar like a trapped beast. The hoarse, angry cry pierced the stillness of the night, sounding incredibly eerie.
He struggled in agony, trying to break free from the chains, his limbs twisting at bizarre, unnatural angles.
With blood-red eyes devoid of all reason and his strangely contorted posture, he looked entirely like a monster.
“Madam, Madam, you cannot enter! The area ahead is a restricted zone of the manor. Without the Prince’s command, no one is allowed inside!”
“Madam, your subordinate knows today is the great day of your marriage to the Prince, and the Prince should be with you. However, the Prince has been struck by a sudden, violent illness and truly cannot see you!”
A man dressed as a guard was anxiously blocking the path of a woman wearing a set of bridal robes and a phoenix coronet.
She was exquisitely beautiful, with bright eyes, white teeth, and skin like snow. Her beauty was different from ordinary charms—it was highly aggressive, yet carried a strange sense of holiness.
It was as if having any improper thoughts about her was a sin in itself.
This person was none other than Wen Ling, the Princess who had bowed and married the Prince earlier that day.
She was the eldest daughter of the Wen family, belonging to the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. Because of a difficult birth, she had been dim-witted since childhood; rumors said her intellect and behavior were no different from a six-year-old child’s.
At this moment, however, she was completely different from what the rumors claimed.
Searching for the Prince from the bridal chamber all the way to the back garden, she ignored the Prince’s personal guard’s attempts to stop her and strode inward.
Seeing that verbal persuasion was ineffective, the personal guard drew the saber from his waist as Wen Ling was about to step into the courtyard. He held it across her path and threatened in a low voice, “Madam, please do not make things difficult for your subordinate. The back garden is a restricted area. If you take one more step, your subordinate will have no choice but to be impolite!”
Only then did Wen Ling look at him.
Her gaze was somewhat ethereal, as if she were looking through him at something inside the courtyard. Though she had the voice of a young girl, it carried an inexplicable aura of authority.
“Move aside. The entire courtyard is filled with Resentful Qi reaching the heavens. If I go in now, he can still be saved. Half a quarter-hour later, he will go mad forever, beyond all help.”
The personal guard was stunned. “What… what Resentful Qi? Madam, please do not invent such non-existent reasons just to go in and find the Prince…”
Wen Ling truly had no patience or time to explain things to make an ordinary Muggle believe her.
She lightly flicked her finger against the guard’s forehead. In an instant, the guard felt as though his soul had been flicked out of his body.
He saw his own standing body, and for a fleeting moment, he even saw his long-dead ancestors.
By the time he regained his senses and his spirit returned to its place, he turned just in time to see Wen Ling’s red silhouette leaping into the cellar.
He wanted to give chase, only to find that his body could not move at all.
After Wen Ling jumped into the cellar, she discovered the source of the heaven-soaring Resentful Qi.
It was actually Gu Chenran, Prince Chen, who was firmly locked in iron chains.
Gu Chenran was the master of the manor; no one else would dare lock him up like this.
Recalling the rumors in the capital about Prince Chen often suffering from sudden bouts of madness, it seemed he knew what he was like when the episodes hit. Thus, he had deliberately prepared such a place, locking himself inside whenever he felt a premonition of an impending attack to prevent himself from causing a catastrophe after losing his mind.
In the eyes of ordinary people, Gu Chenran was suffering from a fit of madness, but in Wen Ling’s eyes, the man bound by chains presented a different scene.
Within his chest was a cluster of pulsing, violet-black mist, like a black heart; it was indeed struggling to seize the position of his original heart.
It was this cluster of mist that radiated ominous energy, continuously attracting the surrounding Yin Energy and all forms of negative energy.
Hundreds of Resentful Ghosts gathered around him, all drawn by this violet-black mist.
But these hundreds of Resentful Ghosts were not the main point. The main point was a two-meter-tall, blood-red Malevolent Spirit that had completely coiled itself around Gu Chenran.
This giant Malevolent Spirit was tightly strangling his neck with one hand while baring its bloody maw to gnaw at his head.
The giant Malevolent Spirit was stripping away Gu Chenran’s will, attempting to seize his body.
At this moment, he was not only in pain but also experiencing the agonizing memories the Malevolent Spirit had endured while it was alive.
No wonder Gu Chenran had turned into such a terrifying and distorted state. If not for his firm will and the fact that he had chained himself up, even if he hadn’t lost his life, his body likely would have been snatched away by the Malevolent Spirit long ago.
Wen Ling did not hesitate.
As the former last Word Spirit of another world, exorcising demons and defending the Dao was her instinct.
She bit her fingertip and drew a complex Talisman in the air in one smooth motion. The blood-red Talisman turned gold, floating mid-air.
Her hands moved rapidly in Hand Seal Casting. Her red bridal robes and her waterfall-like long hair fluttered without wind. Coupled with her exquisitely beautiful face, she looked as holy as a goddess.
A Binding Seal half a meter in diameter slowly appeared before her, shining with a dazzling golden light.
“Break!”
Wen Ling softly uttered a single word, and the Talisman and Binding Seal struck toward Gu Chenran’s body.
“AAAHHH—!”
Gu Chenran and the Malevolent Spirit both let out a piercing scream. The dual sounds overlapped and drifted out of the cellar, sounding exceptionally terrifying to those outside.
The arrogant Malevolent Spirit that had been tightly coiled around Gu Chenran was instantly blasted away, forced out of his body.
It was unwilling; it had been so close, just one step away from success!
It tried to coil around Gu Chenran again, but the golden Talisman and Binding Seal protected him, preventing the spirit from advancing an inch.
The black mist in Gu Chenran’s chest also began to calm down under the suppression of the golden seal.
The Malevolent Spirit glared viciously at Wen Ling, the culprit who had arrived to ruin everything, and lunged toward her with claws and fangs bared.
Wen Ling simply stood her ground. The moment the Malevolent Spirit pounced, golden light erupted from her body.
The Malevolent Spirit let out a painful wail as if scorched. It gave her and Gu Chenran one last glare, and no matter how unwilling it was, it finally departed.
Gu Chenran regained a sliver of consciousness the moment the seal struck him.
He looked up and saw Wen Ling standing before him with her dark hair and red robes, her entire being radiating a holy light.
She truly seemed like a goddess sent by the heavens to save him at his moment of greatest agony.
Gu Chenran’s chained hand struggled to reach out toward Wen Ling, as if trying to grasp onto something…
Wen Ling tilted her head slightly, looking at the impossibly handsome man before her.
His hair was soaked with sweat, sticking messily to his cheeks. His exquisite face, paired with his wet, dark eyes, made him look very much like… a wounded puppy?
Wen Ling didn’t know what he was trying to do by reaching out. After a moment’s thought, she tentatively reached out and grasped his hand in return.
In the next second, Wen Ling felt a wave of dizziness from overdrawing her Spiritual Power. Her vision went black, and she lost consciousness, falling into the arms of the man bound by chains.