Pei Xuan drew his sword and slashed a wound across his own palm, then, just as he had done before, smeared a bit of blood onto Shi Yue’s lips.
Shi Yue smacked his lips, tasting the warm, metallic tang of blood.
Even now, he still found the presence of mind to joke: “Never thought I’d get to taste human blood twice in one lifetime…“
“Shut up!” Pei Xuan’s eyes flashed with a sharp edge. “Say another word and I’ll leave you here to serve as plant fertilizer.“
shrinking his neck slightly, Shi Yue glanced at his pale face and the lips he had used to cast the spell, and wisely clamped his mouth shut.
Griping Shi Yue’s arm, Pei Xuan vanished from the spot the very next second.
The summit of Lutai Mountain.
Releasing Shi Yue, Pei Xuan slumped back against the rock face and drew in heavy, ragged breaths.
“Come here,” Pei Xuan rasped, his voice rough and hoarse.
Shi Yue shuffled over slowly. “What is it… Ah!“
Without a word of warning, Pei Xuan spun him around so his back faced him.
Gazing intently at the horrifying wound, Pei Xuan muttered a low curse: “Showing off for nothing.“
Yet his fingertips gathered demonic energy, gently stroking across Shi Yue’s bleeding back. Moments later, the injury began to miraculously knit itself back together.
Feeling the pain along his back rapidly fade away until it vanished entirely, Shi Yue twisted his head to check his shoulders, only to find his skin completely smooth and unblemished, as if the vicious laceration had merely been a figment of his imagination.
With the pain gone and his vitality restored, Shi Yue cast a grateful look toward Pei Xuan. But Pei Xuan’s complexion had turned even more paper-white; he staggered unsteadily and pitched forward.
“Pei Xuan! What about you? How are you going to detoxify yourself?“
Stepping forward quickly, Shi Yue caught him before he hit the ground.
“It’s fine… I can force it out…” Pei Xuan’s brows knotted tightly in agony.
Abruptly, Pei Xuan felt his ears grow searingly hot, tingling with a strange, itching sensation as though something was desperately trying to burst forth.
Stiffening violently, every drop of blood in his body seeming to freeze, Pei Xuan instinctively reached up to touch his own ears.
And so, amidst Pei Xuan’s panicked, flustered glare and Shi Yue’s incredulous gaze, a pair of fluffy, snow-white fox ears pricked sharply upright from his raven-black hair.
Pei Xuan thought: …Can I manage to quietly murder the only person who just saw my fox ears?
Shi Yue thought: …If I accidentally saw the little madman’s fox ears, am I going to be murdered to keep secrets?
That pair of soft, furry ears stood perked prettily amidst his dark locks, catching the sunlight in a way that revealed delicate, pale pink blood vessels tracing through their base.
Locking eyes with Shi Yue, Pei Xuan whipped around instantly, presenting him with a back radiating utter shame and fury.
Frantically, he tried to force them back down with his hands, but his internal Qi had been thrown into complete disarray by the toxic poison. No matter how hard Pei Xuan tried, the stubborn white ears refused to retract; instead, his agitation made them twitch even more violently, causing their fluffy tips to droop slightly in a manner that bore a striking resemblance to a startled little beast.
“Pfft…”
A muffled chuckle escaped from behind him—light and soft, brushing against Pei Xuan’s heart like a feather.
His face turning blazing red, Pei Xuan whirled around and snapped furiously, “You’re asking to die! Stop laughing!“
Though his words carried threats of violence, the pair of perked, blushing ears failed to back up his intimidation, instead making him look aggrieved and put-upon.
He was a grand Nine-Tailed Fox Demon! How dared this ignorant mortal laugh at him!
Reining in his amusement, Shi Yue kept his peach-blossom eyes dancing with mirth that he simply couldn’t conceal, his voice softening into a gentle cadence: “I’m not laughing…“
“I just… didn’t expect the usually harsh and arrogant Guard Pei… to have such adorable ears.“
In two lifetimes, this was the first time Shi Yue had ever laid eyes on Pei Xuan with his ears exposed.
To think he could look so different…
Slowing his drawl deliberately, Shi Yue took a step forward while keeping his gaze locked on those twitching ears.
Keeping his lips pressed tight, Pei Xuan stared at Shi Yue through his slanted, phoenix-like eyes. Fully aware of what the fellow intended to do, for reasons unknown, he didn’t step back.
While maintaining an outwardly calm demeanor, the white-knuckled grip of his clenched fists betrayed his true state of mind.
Sure enough, seeing that he didn’t dodge, Shi Yue reached out tentatively and lightly brushed the fluffy tip of one ear with his fingertips.
He hadn’t expected them to be so soft. The delicate fur grazed his fingertips with a warm, cloud-like lightness.
Startled awake as if from a dream by the touch, Pei Xuan snapped out of it, abruptly taking two steps back, grabbing Shi Yue’s hand, and squeezing it with a dark, inscrutable expression: “Do you think I look like I’m in a very pleasant mood right now?“
Splendid. He was officially the first person in history to dare touch a demon’s ears.
How do I silently and painlessly murder someone who has both seen and touched my ears?
Poison? A sword through the heart? Or letting him bleed out slowly?
Though his internal monologue was viciously murderous, Pei Xuan had to grudgingly admit to himself that the sensation of having his ear tip touched just now hadn’t felt half bad…
Gazing at him with eyes brimming with smiles, Shi Yue remarked, “It really suits you.”
Pei Xuan was profoundly grateful that his tail hadn’t popped out as well; otherwise, he might genuinely have been driven to gouge Shi Yue’s eyes out.
Struggling hard to retract his ears, Pei Xuan found his efforts thwarted by the toxin, which threw his internal energy into chaos and prevented him from suppressing his demon form.
“Alright, alright. I’ve already seen them, and there’s no one else around anyway. Just wait until the poison clears a bit before you try taking them back in.”
Perhaps finding this fuzzy-eared version of Pei Xuan excessively endearing and full of contrast, Shi Yue’s voice turned so impossibly gentle it could practically wring water.
Being a hopeless sucker for good looks, Shi Yue figured that even if Pei Xuan chose to strangle him right now, he probably wouldn’t even muster the energy to get mad.
Shooting him one final, venomous glare, Pei Xuan seated himself cross-legged with his back to Shi Yue, closing his eyes to meditate and force the toxin out so he could finally make those accursed ears disappear.
Settling down right where he was, Shi Yue propped his chin in his hand and watched him meditate.
Before long, a heavy wave of exhaustion crept over him. The grueling march coupled with the recent battle had drained Shi Yue completely dry.
Yawning and wrapping his arms around his knees, he drifted gradually off to sleep.
When he woke up, it was because he was being rudely patted awake.
Without a shred of courtesy, Pei Xuan used the back of his hand to slap lightly against Shi Yue’s cheek. “Hey, pig, wake up.”
“Stop hitting me, stop hitting me…” Shi Yue mumbled drowsily, his voice thick and hoarse.
Rubbing his eyes, Shi Yue stared blankly at Pei Xuan for a moment before letting out a profound sigh of regret.
“Sigh…”
Letting out a cold snort, Pei Xuan looked entirely unlike the flustered, embarrassed creature of the previous day, having fully reverted to his signature sharp-tongued mode: “What? Disappointed that you don’t get to look at my ears anymore?”
Giving a sincere nod, Shi Yue couldn’t resist thinking to himself: Pei Xuan with ears was so much cuter. Now he’s back to being a little madman…
The earless, uncute, little-madman Pei Xuan mercilessly pinched Shi Yue’s cheek, forcing him to look up. “If you ever dare breathe a word of this to anyone else… otherwise I’ll—”
Lifting his chin with an expression of absolute indifference, Shi Yue interrupted impatiently, “Otherwise you’ll murder me. You’ve said that a hundred times. I know, I know.”
Threats of that caliber were water off a duck’s back to Shi Yue by now, especially since the little madman had never actually harmed him in earnest, leaving him entirely devoid of fear.
Stunned by the soft, pliable sensation beneath his fingertips, Pei Xuan froze.
He had never engaged in such casual physical contact with anyone else; in the past, whenever Shi Yue accidentally brushed against him, he would stiffen up in awkward discomfort—so why on earth had he just taken the initiative to pinch the fellow’s face?!
With a dark expression, Pei Xuan jerked his hand back as if jolted by a live wire, glared at Shi Yue as though eyeing someone completely unhinged, let out a cold snort, and scrambled to his feet to stand as far away as possible, treating him like a plague victim.
Shi Yue: “?”
Who stepped on his tail this time?
Dusting the dirt off his trousers, Shi Yue stood up and strolled over to where Pei Xuan stood.
By now the morning sun had broken fully through the clouds, bathing the entire mountain in a sacred, golden glow that completely banished yesterday’s terrifying atmosphere.
Standing side by side at the cliff’s edge, Shi Yue and Pei Xuan looked down upon the tranquil forest below.
Nobody would ever guess that such a seemingly peaceful woodland could harbor horrors so vicious.
Thinking of the thirty personal guards, a wave of sadness washed over Shi Yue.
The guard commander Mo San had been scheduled to send a routine report back to the marquis’s estate every few days, and today happened to be the designated day for communication.
Shi Yue worried that if no report reached them on time today, his father and elder brother back home would be consumed by worry.
Noticing Shi Yue’s brows knitting together into a deep, troubled ravine, Pei Xuan asked, “Who are you trying to drown with your eyebrows?”
Gazing toward the horizon, Shi Yue spoke with a voice heavy with anxiety, “I wonder if my father received our message. If not, he must be frantic with worry about us.”
Watching him in silent contemplation for a moment, Pei Xuan whistled sharply, summoning a sleek, raven-black feather crow that dropped silently from the sky.
Shi Yue reined in his thoughts. In his past life, the little madman had risen steadily to power; seeing him command intelligence assets like this for the first time was quite an eye-opener.
Tearing a strip of cloth from his own robe and picking up a dark pebble from the ground, Shi Yue scribbled several bold characters onto the fabric: Safe, do not worry.
Accepting the cloth strip, Pei Xuan tied it securely around the crow’s claw and murmured a silent command using his demonic arts.
With a vigorous flutter of its wings, the raven soared back up into the sky and vanished into the distance.
“What kind of bird is that?”
“A bird that’s attained sentience.”
“…”
Suddenly, Shi Yue found himself deeply desiring to become a demon.
Watching the crow shrink into a tiny dot on the horizon, Shi Yue mused, “You demons live for a very long time, don’t you? Unlike humans, who have to go through birth, aging, illness, and death in just a few decades.”
Pei Xuan replied, “What’s the benefit of living a long time when everyone around you eventually dies?”
Abruptly, Shi Yue’s thoughts drifted back to the Pei Xuan of his past life, wondering what kind of ending awaited him down that road.
Marriage, children, boundless wealth, and an untroubled life, no doubt.
Rumble…
Pei Xuan glanced toward the source of the noise. Raising an eyebrow, Shi Yue challenged, “What are you looking at? I haven’t eaten anything all day; am I not even allowed to let my stomach rumble?”
“…”
Every single line etched across Pei Xuan’s handsome face spelled out two words: Tiresome.
Yet he obediently turned around and headed off to hunt.
Watching Pei Xuan’s tall, slender silhouette recede into the distance, Shi Yue couldn’t help a fond smile tugging at his lips.
The little madman truly was all bark and no bite.
Within the span of a tea-scented break, Pei Xuan returned carrying two plump wild pheasants, while his fingertips pinched a cluster of vibrant, ruby-red wild berries.
Moving with practiced, effortless dexterity, Pei Xuan cleaned the game and conjured a burst of magical flame to ignite a campfire.
As the flickering flames licked against the meat, a savory, mouth-watering aroma drifted into the air.
Moving closer, Shi Yue seated himself right beside him. “Did you often hunt in the wild like this in the past?”
“More or less,” Pei Xuan replied, turning the roasting rabbit over to crisp the other side. “When you’re starving with nothing to eat, you learn to catch your own meals.”