NOVPUB"Why do you seek Sun Lingxi?"
Long Yushen stepped forward, face composed, voice noble.
Su Xiaobai paused, water dripped from his hands like blood. He slowly turned his head, and frowned.
'Should I kill them all and go alone?'
Less noise. Less whining.
"None of your concern."
He stood, grabbed the glaive he'd laid beside him — Long Yushen's glaive — and made to leave.
But—
CLANG!
Long Yushen stepped forward and kicked the shaft upward, flipping it into his own hand.
Their eyes locked.
"It is my concern," Long Yushen said calmly. "If your goal is vengeance upon the Sun Dynasty—allow me to kill her. That's all I ask. My life will be yours in return."
Su Xiaobai blinked, expression blank. 𝚗o𝚟pub.𝚌𝚘𝚖
Then, he turned and walked forward. Slammed his shoulder into Long Yushen's chest, sending the taller man a step back.
Didn't answer.
Didn't nod.
Didn't care.
Long Yushen stood there, stunned.
"Why are you so arrogant?!" he shouted behind. "If you kill her, the Sun Dynasty will not stop! You'll need allies! We can shield you! Join our Azure Dragon Clan—we too have bled from their—!"
BOOM!
A sharp gust of wind hit.
Beibei, the thunder crane, spun in the air and drop-kicked Long Yushen across the clearing.
"UGHH—!"
Long Yushen flew like a projectile—crashing through two tree trunks, embedding into the earth with a splatter of blood.
Far away, Ranran looked up from washing her hands.
She blinked, and saw a Yushen-shaped crater smoking across the clearing.
She shook her head.
"You can't reason with that madman." Her voice was low, calm, like commenting on the weather.
She didn't know what Long Yushen said.
Didn't need to.
She herself had been backhanded for something she still didn't understand.
She lifted her clothes slightly, revealing the bruised mark near her abdomen, a dark red blooming over her pale skin.
She winced, cleaned it quietly, she froze it with her ice mist.
Her lips quivered, a whisper so faint it might've only brushed the wind.
Or maybe not.
"Did you just curse me...?"
The voice came from behind.
Su Yiran froze—literally.
She turned slowly, hand still near the wound she had just been freezing, the cloth half-lowered, her expression pale.
Su Xiaobai stood behind her.
No sound, no warning, just there.
As if the shadows obeyed him.
His lips curled into a slow, amused smile.
He looked down at her—not with affection, but with calculated mischief.
The type of look that said, I know you're hiding something.
"Pretending to be cold, but your heartbeat's racing," he murmured. "Cute."
In truth, he hadn't struck her randomly before. Back at the river, during the crocodile chaos, his Draconic Eyes had glimpsed something.
A thin veil of foreign Qi over her face.
A disguise.
Not a burn mark, not scars.
A mask.
And if there was one thing Su Xiaobai despised more than arrogant sect brats…
It was being lied to.
Especially by someone traveling under Ouyang Xue's name.
He didn't attack immediately.
He watched, listened, and waited.
But now?
Now, the time for games was over.
Su Yiran's back tensed, her lips pressed tightly together.
She was calculating, she had one escape card, a bloodline ability, If she used it now, she could vanish—maybe.
But…
Doing so would expose everything.
"I asked," Su Xiaobai said again, "Did you just curse me, girl?"
He stepped closer.
She stepped back.
But he was taller.
Her head only reached his chest.
His presence stood like a storm.
And those eyes…
Those golden slit-pupiled eyes stared down, dissecting her like prey already caught in his jaws.
She said nothing.
But her eyes gave her away.
Anxious, and cautious.
Like a lone fox staring at a dragon.
And Su Xiaobai?
He changed his mind, not in a good way. In a worse one. He crouched, and efore she could react, his hand reached out—rip!
The edge of her robe tore, revealing the lower part of her abdomen.
"?!"
Her mouth opened in shock, but no sound escaped.
"Don't move." His voice was suddenly commanding.
She tried to pull away.
But he grabbed her waist, firm, unhesitating, his palm rested against her skin, soft, cold, like snow under moonlight.
Too soft for someone pretending to be ruined.
"So this is the wound I gave you?" He said it not like a question, but like he was admiring a painting he made by accident.
The wound had been frozen by her own ice, but the ice had turned red.
Cracked, and bleeding again.
He stared at it.
No lust in his gaze.
Just interest.
"Why cover it with ice if you could've healed it?" he asked softly, almost conversational. "Or maybe… you're just used to hiding things."
Su Yiran's chest rose and fell slowly.
Calm on the surface, but her heartbeat told the truth, she was afraid... Not of pain, not of death, but of him.
This man, radiated something darker than killing intent.
It wasn't bloodlust.
It was uncertainty.
Her feet wanted to move, but her legs refused. His presence was suffocating—like standing in a room where the walls whispered your secrets.
Swoosh! A shift in the air.
The jade beads wrapped around Su Xiaobai's wrist suddenly rippled, reshaping mid-motion—
Two dark daggers.
They curved like crescent moons—sharp, elegant, dripping faint black mist.
And they appeared just as he crouched beside her, eyes still pretending to check her wound.
Then, he looked into her eyes.
"Take these."
"Can you kill those two by yourself?"
Her brain short-circuited.
"…kill?"
She blinked, surely she misheard him.
But then he tilted his chin, toward the river. Toward the Ming Twins, huddled innocently across the stream, sorting through herbs and food. Still smiling, still unaware.
Her heart dropped.
He meant it.
"Kill them."
Two words.
Delivered with such nonchalance, he may as well have asked her to boil tea.
"...!"
She tried to back away—instinct overriding shock.
But it was too late.
The daggers liquefied.
They turned into a dark fluid mid-air, like living ink, and coiled around her wrist — Click! They hardened into a sleek black bracelet, glowing faintly with pulsing crimson veins.
"Fifteen minutes," Su Xiaobai said, standing. "If they're still breathing by then…"
He looked at her wrist.
"That thing will bleed you dry. Slowly."
He didn't raise his voice, didn't smile either, just stated it like a physician explaining a diagnosis.
Then—Whoosh!
He left.
Just turned and walked toward the trees, not in a rush, because he didn't care if she failed.
In fact, he might've preferred it.
Su Yiran stood there, stunned.
Silent.
Why… her?
Why not Zhou Ping?
Why not one of the others?
She turned slowly.
Eyes drifting toward the other side of the river, the twins were still laughing softly.
Still unaware.
Two orphans.
Barely older than disciples. Her fingers twitched, brows creased into a frown.
She gritted her teeth.
Far above, Su Xiaobai perched on a thick branch, one leg swinging lazily.
He picked a wild peach, bit into it.
Immediately spat it out.
Poisonous.
He wiped his mouth.
"Let's see it," Su Xiaobai muttered, reclining atop the branch as if it were a throne. "Who are you really...?"
The poisonous peach he bit earlier still left bitterness in his mouth, but it was her he was tasting now.
Her motives...
Sponsored by an S-ranked Guardian. Masked, slipping through a battlefield like dew on a blade.
Was she theirs?
A spy? A shadow?
Su Xiaobai didn't need to ask. He needed to see her hands stained.
And what better test of loyalty than to command betrayal?
"Kill the Ming twins. If you do... you are not theirs. At least, not anymore."
That was the rule.
Simple, absolute, and final.
Down below, Su Yiran stood motionless.
Fingers trembling faintly at her sides, the bracelet shook softly around her wrist, reminding her: fifteen minutes… or die.
But the sword in her hand wasn't his.
It was hers.
A cold, gleaming arc of silver steel etched with frost runes, quiet like her breathing.
She walked forward.
Silent.
The Ming sisters were crouched by the riverbank, gathering dried herbs into pouches, giggling quietly about something meaningless — something beautifully mundane.
One of them, Ming Xue, looked up first.
"Sister—?" she said, blinking as Su Yiran approached.
She didn't finish, the sword whispered instead.
Swoosh!
A clean, merciless slice.
Her head slipped from her shoulders with no resistance, the body slumping gently like falling asleep.
Ming Kai turned in horror, spiritual energy flaring too late, her hands shook.
"W-Wait! She didn't mean to—"
"Forgive me," Su Yiran whispered, voice hollow, "... if there is another life, may it not be this one."
SLASH!
The second head fell, eyes still wet.
Her body spasmed once—then lay still, forehead pressed into the earth like bowing one last time.
Blood pooled around their bodies.
Still warm.
Still human.
Su Yiran stood over them, sword lowered, breath uneven, she hadn't used the dagger from Su Xiaobai. She hadn't tried to resist. She had simply… done it.
Her fingers were pale. Her gaze blank. Her soul cracked in a way no one would ever see.
In her ears, their last words echoed, faint and fading.
Sister…?
But she doesn't even remember helping them.
Above, Su Xiaobai whsitled, "Three minutes!" he said excited. "Didn't even need to threaten twice."
