He Dao stood back at this spot, his mind completely dazed.
Are you kidding me? Why was he sent right back here?
He Dao tried driving his incantations, attempting to control the corpse to help him conceal himself, but it wouldn’t obey him at all.
Chi Qiyan slowly opened his eyes. On He Dao’s face, several bright red palm prints still lingered, and his eyes trembled in frightened, comical shock.
Curse Beisi? He should first check if his life was even worthy of it.
Across from him, the scar-faced man was glaring furiously, and the storyteller beside him was also eyeing him with fierce hostility. He Dao clutched his abdomen; that sword strike had been too tyrannical, leaving him in so much pain that he could barely breathe even now. If he had been at his peak, dealing with these few small fries would have been as easy as pie.
Turning his head, he spotted Chi Qiyan lingering alone. If his guess wasn’t wrong, the stinky brat who had just stabbed him had been protecting this person. A plan formed instantly in his mind.
Taking advantage of Beisi’s inattention, He Dao flashed over with lightning speed, intending to grab Chi Qiyan as a hostage.
Suddenly, a huge shadow projected downward, blotting out the sky and the sun it was the “tide.”
It surged straight over from behind Chi Qiyan, a colossal monster of a tide. The corpses were completely out of He Dao’s control, and he had no time to retreat. Going by this momentum, he was going to be submerged and killed.
A loss of control he had never experienced before.
The survival instinct of a human made He Dao erupt with formidable cultivation power. He re-grasped that sword and unleashed his ultimate sword intent once more. A gigantic phantom sword pierced straight into the sky, successfully condensing in that instant, and slashed down with a heaven-shattering, earth-shattering force toward the unstoppable “tide.”
And Chi Qiyan happened to be enveloped right under the sword intent, looking incomparably frail and small. He Dao was not one to show mercy; a single sword strike to kill him outright would be fine. Who would have expected that Beisi, who seemed not to have noticed this place at all, would have anticipated it long ago, flying straight over to scoop up Chi Qiyan and dodge away from that sword.
The downward momentum could not be reversed. The seamless “tide” was forcibly chopped right down the middle by this sword, tearing into two halves like waves parting in the sea!
Looking straight through that gigantic, boundless gap was that ice bed!
He Dao reacted immediately: he had been tricked!
He had carved out an escape route for them! Drawing the snake out of its hole—how ruthless.
Chi Qiyan had used himself as bait, timing the position and moment perfectly to “kill with a borrowed knife.”
And as for why He Dao managed to materialize just then? Chi Qiyan didn’t even blink an eye when offering his explanation to Beisi: heretical paths would inevitably suffer from karmic backlash. Unexpectedly, in his expectation yet within reason, the righteous fool of a lover actually believed it.
Beisi carried Chi Qiyan and dashed at lightning speed through that giant gap. The storyteller’s brain spun at high speed, pulling the scar-faced man along to follow closely behind.
Lacking sufficient vital energy, He Dao knelt on the ground, unable to get back up, and watched helplessly as all of them escaped. That gap closed up very quickly, and amidst He Dao’s terrified gaze, the corpse tide mercilessly submerged him.
Moments later, the group of corpses drained away their vitality, collapsing lifelessly to the ground as if this riot had never happened at all.
The entire air felt excessively quiet.
Landing at the spot where the ice bed was located, the old man, who was the patriarch of the He clan, had his eyes closed and breathed as thin as gossamer. His hands rested on his abdomen, holding pieces of ice, barely hanging onto his last breath by relying on the Aiyou grass.
“He hasn’t shown himself for a long time,” the storyteller looked at the patriarch’s slightly purplish lips, a flash of complexity in his eyes as he said, “I heard previously it was because he entered Qi deviation; looking at it now, that is indeed the case. If he had taken the Aiyou grass, he would have been able to suppress the demonic Qi.”
Aiyou grass could suppress demonic Qi? But thinking closely about its properties, it was hardly surprising.
The storyteller placed his hand on the ice. The patriarch’s wrinkled hands suddenly exerted force, but they were shaken off effortlessly. Those turbid eyeballs glared at him with bitter hatred, squeezing sound from his throat: “No… impossible…”
Before he could last through a few words, he stopped breathing, his aged and withered face turning ashen gray.
“So it was meant for himself!” The scar-faced man spat at the corpse, then recalled the black box: “So the first thing they did when they got the box was to transfer the Aiyou grass inside, deliberately leaving an empty shell in the He residence just in case!”
The storyteller nodded approvingly, handed the Aiyou grass to Beisi, glanced meaningfully at Chi Qiyan, and asked, “Is this for this brother’s use? I observe that he is intelligent; why doesn’t he study spellcraft? Recently, the premier sect is holding a disciple-recruitment assembly. Bone structure cultivation after taking Aiyou grass progresses by leaps and bounds.”
Hearing this, Beisi frowned slightly. Why had the disciple-recruitment assembly been brought forward? Did something happen to the sect?
The storyteller seemed to notice what Beisi was thinking and said, “I only learned of it today, and I suspect it has an inseparable connection with the evil entity. Moreover, mortal lifespans are bitterly short…”
The unspoken words were understood by everyone present.
“Carrying Aiyou grass into the city will cause trouble; let us part ways here,” Beisi said.
The storyteller and the scar-faced man naturally had no objections. The storyteller bowed in thanks, while the scar-faced man could only move his left hand, and the two of them were about to leave when they heard, “Wait.”
Beisi took out a white porcelain bottle, plain in appearance and showing nothing out of the ordinary. He handed the bottle to the scar-faced man and simply said, “For healing.”
The scar-faced man was surprised. He hurriedly took it, thumped his chest with his left hand, and said boldly, “Thank you! If there’s anywhere I can be of use to you in the future, I will definitely help!”
Both he and the storyteller thought this was just ordinary healing medicine. Neither of them expected that when they returned and the scar-faced man used it, his right hand would actually regenerate, as good as new. Only then did they realize that the pill this person casually pulled out was the priceless Bone-Molding Pill, capable of regrowing severed limbs as if reborn. Of course, all of that is a story for another day.
This piece of ice was millennium-old frost ice, chillingly bone-piercing to a fierce degree that made it difficult to melt under any high temperature. Beisi’s hands were frozen bright red, which Chi Qiyan immediately noticed. Ached with deep tenderness, he said, “Let me carry it. My hands are very cold, I won’t feel any pain.”
Besides, seeing that the patriarch had simply held it directly in his hands, he figured it could suppress demonic Qi. Since he happened to have evil Qi in his body, it could suppress that too at any rate, it would be much easier than Beisi holding it.
Beisi, however, smiled and shook his head, saying gently, “Since ancient times, husband and wife share weal and woe, but I can hardly perceive your coldness. Bearing hardships together like this now can also be considered sharing the bitter, can it not?”
Chi Qiyan wanted to say it was nothing of the sort; he was already accustomed to bone-chilling cold. How could something he was used to be considered suffering?
Yet looking at Beisi’s “finding joy in hardship” appearance, he said no more, feeling a little bit happy bubbling up inside his heart instead.
In front of Beisi, Chi Qiyan’s expressions were always very easy to read, his eyes faintly sparkling cute to a fatal degree.
After putting out the fire and confirming that the embers had vanished, the four of them parted ways.
Coming right out of the graveyard, the wrinkles on their clothes were distinct, stained with dirt, ash, and blood looking thoroughly filthy.
From the He residence all the way here, Beisi had heard the sound of a stream. Following the road in his memory, he indeed caught sight of a crystal-clear stream, its waters crashing against pebbles and making a tinkling sound.
The night breeze beside the stream drifted over, refreshing and cool.
“Let’s do it here.” Chi Qiyan signaled Beisi to hand the Aiyou grass to him.
Aiyou grass made rare appearances in the world, and ancient texts recorded very little about it. What kind of conditions might arise when taking it, no one could be certain.
“I’ll stand guard.” Beisi masked the worry in his eyes, only hoping that eating the Aiyou grass wouldn’t cause too much suffering.
Chi Qiyan discovered that Beisi was showing a rare bout of low spirits. Face-to-face, he gently rested his head against Beisi’s shoulder, his thin lips almost brushing the other’s ear, and exhaled a breath that flushed Beisi’s ear red before he murmured, “After finishing it, we can just happen to…”
Beisi’s eyelashes fluttered rapidly, staring deeply at Chi Qiyan.
Damn it.
Chi Qiyan immediately averted his gaze from those captivating eyes, pulling out the ice-blue flower from the Aiyou grass.
The moment the flower touched the air even slightly, it withered ever so slightly.
Chi Qiyan didn’t hesitate any longer, sat down on the smooth, flat boulder, shoved it into his mouth, and swallowed it down. Beisi sat down right after, channeling his cultivation technique to help Chi Qiyan absorb it fully and rapidly as soon as possible.
That freezing sensation spread downward all the way from his mouth, sliding through his entire body like soaking into a cold pool, chilling him to the bone, with ice crystals seeming to form deep within the marrow of his bones.
Chi Qiyan could endure this pain until it entered his Dantian.
It wasn’t ice; it was burning—raw, searing heat.
The reason he disguised himself as a mortal was partly because Beisi had mistaken him for a mortal when they first met, and partly because his evil Qi was dark red and impossible to conceal. Once he used his power in front of people, he would be exposed without a doubt.
His chest burned fiercely, the evil Qi in his internal organs acting like fuel, burning brighter and more fiercely. The blood throughout his entire body melted like magma, exploding and boiling, writhing as if trying to burst through his skin and emerge.
The evil Qi within his body was being squeezed to the extreme, and all his meridian pathways were shattered and reconstructed.
Chi Qiyan suddenly opened his eyes. Tyrannical factors were continuously expanding—he felt such a strong urge to kill…
The reflection on the water surface clearly mirrored his current appearance: his light brown eyes were gone, replaced instead by a pair of vibrant, dazzling red eyes, as beautiful, mysterious, and soul-stirring as a dragon’s most precious ruby.
His true face was revealed, seductively stunning. A petal-like mark was dotted between his brows, his eye sockets slightly deep, fine brow bones connected to a high-bridge nose, full lips stained with a natural rosy red, gathering all the beauty of the world not a single flaw to be found.
The beautiful fox-like eyes of the beauty in the water widened slightly, looking like a beauty irritated in anger.
Chi Qiyan saw his entire appearance reflected through the water: streaks of white hair were mixed among his black locks, and they were still continuously multiplying.
His heart beat violently, and his body burned incessantly. He felt as though he was truly going to be burned to ashes, coupled with the shock of his current appearance, causing him to tremble involuntarily.
“What’s wrong?” Beisi was meditating with his eyes closed, which allowed him to shut out external disturbances and better and faster channel Chi Qiyan’s vital energy, but the slight tremor felt by his hands resting on Chi Qiyan’s slender back made him panic.
Seeing through the water that Beisi’s eyelashes were fluttering, he was clearly about to open his eyes.
“Don’t!” Chi Qiyan blurted out immediately, his tone hurried and urgent, unlike his usual self.
Chi Qiyan was far too terrified of Beisi opening his eyes. How could he let Beisi see him looking like this right now?