At Song Zang’s forceful insistence, Yin Chen obediently equipped himself from head to toe.
He stepped into heavy leather boots and put on a thick black coat tanned from old goatskin, its hem reaching his ankles. Then he donned a bird-beak mask meant to isolate “poisonous air,” wrapping his entire body securely.
He picked up a machete, weighed it in one hand, then hung it on one side of the black coat. Glass bottles filled with holy water and bizarre medicinal liquids knocked against one another with ominous crystalline clinks.
“Bro, you look exactly like one of those plague doctors I always see in games. Cool as hell,” Xu Wei Ran said enviously.
Song Zang sneered. “He looks like a long black tree trunk.”
Xu Wei Ran: …
He did not dare say another word. Yin Chen, meanwhile, quietly curved his lips and spoke gently. “Don’t be angry. I’ll be back soon.”
Aside from Sister Pudu, who insisted on accompanying him, Yin Chen refused everyone else’s help. Leading the docile horse pulling the carriage, he turned and headed toward the rear courtyard.
Only after the two people and horse disappeared entirely did Xu Wei Ran slowly release his breath. “Song, don’t scare me to death. You talk to him like that and you’re not afraid he’ll kill you?”
“I learned this vicious mouth from Yin Chen.” Song Zang smiled ambiguously. “If you’re not mean to him, he’ll be mean to you. Last night he even called me a mama’s boy.”
Xu Wei Ran dared respond even less. He rubbed the cowhide whip at his waist for a little extra sense of security. Opening the East Wing door, he said as they walked, “…Can you two live alone on your own planet? I’m scared that one day you’ll genuinely start fighting and blow up Earth.”
“Relax. Even if he has no sense of proportion, I still do.”
They returned to the third floor together. Xu Wei Ran took his whip and went to look for the crazy old man, while Song Zang selected a pretty white shirt from Yin Chen’s wardrobe, quickly changed, and tidied his unruly hair.
He did not need to care about appearances while pretending to be a patient inside the asylum. Yin Chen did not care anyway. But today, Song Zang still needed to meet the captain of the Fran Knights as the sole heir.
No matter what, he should at least look somewhat respectable.
By the time knocking sounded, Song Zang was already seated properly behind the desk, practicing simple sketches of flame-wrapped roses.
Even without his armor, the knight captain remained enormously built. Muscles bulged beneath his tunic, and explosive power filled his entire body.
Before coming to see Song Zang, he seemed to have bathed. The suffocating smell of sweat had disappeared, leaving only the faint scent of honey-locust soap.
Elio’s Note: Zaojiao (皂角), the pods of the Chinese honey locust, were traditionally used as a natural cleanser. So the scent here is basically old-fashioned plant-based soap.
The false smile in Song Zang’s eyes immediately became a little more genuine. It was a matter of attitude. Clearly, the knight captain at least respected this young master whose inheritance had been seized by his stepmother.
“What is your name?”
“Litt. Young Master, this is your token.” Captain Litt spoke respectfully and offered a brown leather pouch with both hands.
Song Zang raised a brow and opened it. There were two objects inside.
A solid silver command token and a purple gemstone ring of exceptionally pure color.
Captain Litt dropped to one knee and shouted with his head lowered, “Display the token, and you may mobilize the knights to fight for you. Wear the ring, and your most loyal family retainers will be honored to give their lives for you!”
Understood. The command token functioned like a tiger tally. Anyone could use it, but one should not expect the knights to throw away their lives for whoever happened to hold it. The ring, however, symbolized the Fran family’s identity and represented the true master to whom the knights had sworn allegiance.
Elio’s Note: A tiger tally (虎符) was an ancient Chinese military credential, traditionally split into matching halves and used to authenticate orders to mobilize troops. Song Zang is using it as an analogy for how the Fran command token works.
Song Zang thoughtfully played with the clear, cold gemstone and softly asked without emotion, “What is your relationship with Lady Medisa?”
“…Her lover.”
“Remarkably honest. I believe you.” Song Zang curved his lips. “You have fifteen minutes to rest. Then assemble everyone. I have several small tasks for you.”
Song Zang’s orders were simple.
Seal the city. People could enter but not leave, including Nar Town, which depended upon Carlisle for survival.
Safely return all innocent civilians forcibly abducted into Carlisle Cathedral to their homes.
Detain every member of the Church’s knight order and their relatives, then cooperate with a black-robed witch to search for Hunter Opali’s exact whereabouts. The witch was naturally Lan Yu Heng. Her convenient husband remained missing.
These actions looked almost identical to rebellion, but they still had Bishop Levis in their hands.
As long as they sent the Pope a message in Levis’s name, exaggerated the severity of the situation, and linked the Church’s knights and murdered monks to Satanic heretics, no one could criticize them.
After all, Carlisle Cathedral really had been set on fire, and the culprit genuinely was a powerful witch.
“You truly deserve to be Madam’s proudest son.”
Captain Litt struck his right fist against his chest. His attitude toward the orders was extremely respectful, but that final sentence made Song Zang’s mood somewhat complicated.
How much exactly did these people love Medisa? Even a succubus could not produce charm this exaggerated, could it?
Fortunately, Medisa was currently wholeheartedly treating him as her biological child. Otherwise, completing his personal mission might require fighting a suicidal resistance force, slaughtering every love-addled knight while also remaining alert for “avengers” lurking in the shadows… What a nuisance.
Song Zang silently put on the ring and examined the ornate patterns over the command token, especially the conspicuous cross at its center.
At their core, knights served a monarch while still believing in God. Their ideology remained inseparably entangled with religion. Compared with pampered priests, these men who bled on battlefields might even possess stronger faith. A belief system and spiritual foundation were exactly what allowed people to willingly sacrifice themselves for collective interests.
That was a small detail extremely worth exploiting.
“Hiss… hm?”
Just as he sank into thought, an unusual sting suddenly came from his left index finger. Song Zang lowered his gaze and saw several beads of blood slowly roll from the skin beneath the ring.
By coincidence, they dripped directly onto the solid silver command token.
Click…
The drops of blood seemed to trigger some mechanism. Immediately afterward, faint gears began turning inside the thick metal token.
Song Zang threw it onto the edge of the desk without hesitation, removed the ring, and washed the wound with alcohol.
The punctures on his pale finger were distributed remarkably evenly. The spacing between each bleeding point was identical, forming a perfect ring. They had clearly been produced by some tiny mechanism inside the ring.
While waiting to see how the token would finish “transforming,” Song Zang picked up a quill and used it to turn the ring over from a distance. The inner platinum band was smooth and fairly thin, with almost nowhere a concealed weapon could possibly hide.
A needle hidden beneath the gemstone would at least have made sense, but even after Song Zang forcibly pried off the jewel, he still found nothing.
…Then the gemstone stabbed him again and covered his hand in blood.
Mystery solved. Magic.
Song Zang silently reset the purple gemstone into its mount, threaded a thin cord through the ring, and hung it around his neck.
Click, click…
Just then, the cross at the center of the command token quietly rose upright, revealing a narrow rectangular compartment beneath it.
Song Zang stared at it for a moment and suddenly sensed something wrong.
It was an inverted cross!
Song Zang immediately became interested. He flipped the token upside down and shook it. Nothing. He smeared a few more drops of blood over it. Still nothing.
So he snapped off the cross entirely and discovered that the internal construction was somewhat complicated, but he still found what he wanted.
A brass key was wedged between intricate gears and densely packed tiny white crystals. Whenever Song Zang’s blood touched them, the crystal surfaces gave off faint light and activated the gears.
“You alchemists really do have some interesting tricks.”
Song Zang thoughtfully ripped out the key, then forcefully shoved the cross back into place.
The teeth of the brass key looked extremely ordinary, with two raised sections and two depressions. If this were merely the key to some normal treasury, Song Zang would not even need a craftsman. He could reproduce an identical copy himself.
That being the case, the key had to possess some other unusual property. Otherwise, there would be no reason to conceal it so carefully inside the command token and require the blood of a special lineage to expose it.
Combined with the way gemstones transmitted energy between themselves… obviously, whatever lock this key opened had to involve inexplicable magic as well.
Forget it. He would keep it for now and ask Lan Yu Heng after she returned.
Song Zang hid the key, picked up a monocular telescope, and leaned beside the window.
From that angle, he could faintly see the isolated gray-brick cottage in the rear courtyard where Joseph had been placed.
It had originally housed gardeners and craftsmen temporarily, but since it was deep winter and the gardeners were idle at home, the lonely cottage was perfect for quarantine.
Yin Chen did not explain what he intended to do. He moved astonishingly quickly. One sweep of the blade, and both Joseph’s legs were severed at the knees.
There were ulcerated lesions on the back of Joseph’s right hand too. Yin Chen heard a faint “no…” when he prepared to cut, but he did not stop.
Joseph did not scream from pain, nor did he show any normal human instinct to preserve his life.
He lay stiffly on the bed like bones awaiting burial, a dense odor of death rising from somewhere deep inside his body.
Yin Chen had enough experience to recognize the smell. That only made him even less willing to show mercy.
“Sister, open the glass jars,” he said calmly.
Sister Pudu’s lips were deathly pale. She obeyed mechanically, like an empty walking corpse.
The blood-soaked limbs were successfully sealed inside jars of holy water. Sister Pudu clutched her cross and knelt nearby, murmuring scripture passages related to health and safety.
Yin Chen did not understand her abnormal behavior. Without removing his gloves, he continued examining Joseph’s emaciated body.
Several tiny insects wriggled out along his fingertips and crawled deep into Joseph’s mouth, nostrils, and ears. Before long, they obediently emerged again.
They had clearly enjoyed their meal. Each one was now round and plump, curling quietly in Yin Chen’s palm as though overfed and preparing to enter the adult stage.
“He isn’t only suffering from an infectious disease. He also has severe symptoms of insanity.” Yin Chen calmly delivered his diagnosis, then lightly pressed Joseph’s chest and abdomen. “Talk. What do you feel when I touch you like this?”
“…Pain.”
Joseph’s lips moved, releasing a breathy sound of extreme weakness.
“If you can still feel pain, I can save you. The tissue hasn’t completely died.” Yin Chen raised his blade. “I’m cutting open your abdomen now. Endure it.”
Joseph did not respond again. His deadened gaze remained fixed on Sister Pudu, following her constantly as though he could not bear to close his eyes.
Yin Chen frowned at her. “He cares deeply about you. Say something nice to give him motivation. I don’t want him dying halfway through the operation.”
“Okay.”
Sister Pudu walked heavily to the bedside and gently held his dry, skeletal hand, completely disregarding the risk of infection or the faint smell of death surrounding him.
“Joseph, I failed you. Back then, when Mother mentioned an arranged marriage, I thought she was trying to sell me to those disgusting men again. I was terrified. I knew nothing… I didn’t know you genuinely loved me. So I fled. I fled into the Church seeking shelter, utterly disillusioned, and swore to serve only God for the rest of my life.
“I never expected you to keep following behind me, working as an unremarkable little carpenter and secretly protecting me again and again. I actually knew long ago. When I was maliciously framed and punished by being forced to kneel before God with broken glass beneath my knees, you emptied your savings and found a witch to buy bandages and healing herbs for me. When my clothes and bedding were thrown down a well and soaked through, you secretly gave me your own bedding in the middle of a blizzard, then suffered such a terrible fever yourself…
“You even stole one of my dresses and hid it beneath your pillow so you could secretly smell me every night, didn’t you? Oh, Joseph. When you were young, you were a pervert, a lecher, a peeping tom, a stalker… You have so many sins God could never forgive. Of course I fell in love with you. How could I possibly not?
“The herbs you bought were actually fake. They did absolutely nothing. My calves are still covered in ugly scars. But your sincerity and obsession were more real than gold. How could I not know? Later, I… I became pregnant. I was too ashamed to look for you again, but you made such a beautiful cradle and building blocks for me. You even bought that ridiculously expensive goat’s milk and cried like a coward while wishing me happiness!
“Joseph, I’m a wicked, sinful demon who kills people without blinking. Why did you give me everything and then leave for some distant place in poverty? Why didn’t you demand the same payment from me? Why didn’t you force me to give you love in return?! Are you stupid? You son of a bitch. I don’t deserve you, and I shouldn’t love you, but I’ve searched for you for so long. Don’t you dare run away from me a second time.
“Once you’re cured, you’re going straight back into your old room. I’m going to have an affair with you every single day. Don’t tell me you don’t want me!”
By the end, her choked confession had transformed into a helpless, heart-rending threat. Tears appeared in Joseph’s eyes, and he seemed a little more alive. Whether from emotion… or because he was in unbearable pain, no one knew.
Yin Chen did not possess that much patience. Halfway through the nun’s confession, he had already sliced Joseph’s abdomen open with brutal precision.
A section of intestine was rotten. Half the liver had decayed. The left kidney and left lung were also nearly beyond saving. Yin Chen showed no mercy, cutting all of them out and dropping them into jars of holy water.
Even genuine plague should not have reduced someone to this miserable condition. Yin Chen suspected Joseph had experienced something far worse or offended an unimaginably evil existence.
Black-red diseased blood gurgled through the white bedding, and Joseph’s breathing grew increasingly weak.
He silently cried and struggled to move his fingers in response to Sister Pudu’s voice. “Maria…”
“I’m here. I’m here.”
“Your real name is actually Maria?” Yin Chen interrupted in surprise.
“I abandoned that name long ago, Lord Capet. Apart from those closest to me, no one else knows…”
“Fine. Move aside. I need to apply medicine and stitch him up.”
Yin Chen removed a glass bottle from his waist. The thick, eerie black-red medicine inside resembled something alive. When exposed to the air, it briefly coagulated, then began bubbling while releasing waves of foul odor.
It came from a healing recipe Lan Yu Heng had obtained for him, identical to the medicine applied to Lydia after her child had been cut out of her abdomen.
Yin Chen was reproducing Witch Gina’s method for preserving life. After stitching Joseph’s abdominal cavity closed, he gripped Joseph’s jaw and forcibly poured an entire bowl of dark-green frog soup down his throat.
Joseph clearly had not expected it to taste so terrible. He even managed to cough twice.
“Excellent. You have enough strength to cough, so you’ve begun recovering. Sleep early tonight. No food. Tomorrow I’ll put your kidney back.”
Yin Chen casually gave several instructions and did not linger. He left Sister Pudu to care for Joseph and, conveniently, gave the two of them space to conduct their romance.
After leaving the cottage, he immediately opened the Points Shop, sprayed himself from head to toe with disinfecting alcohol, then turned toward another empty cottage. A washroom there already contained a tub of hot water and replacement clothing.
The priest Li Ming had escorted over was currently holding a blessing Mass for the knight order. He was probably another victim of the cathedral fire, because his throat had been damaged by smoke and his trembling voice carried tears.
Lan Yu Heng had spared him, meaning his crimes were not severe enough to deserve death. But he certainly was not a good man either.
Yin Chen closed his eyes and soaked in the bath. While listening to the priest’s mangled Mass prayers, he inadvertently remembered what Sister Pudu had said.
She had called Joseph a pervert, a lecher, and a stalker because he secretly followed her and stole her clothes…
Yin Chen compared Joseph’s behavior with his own. He also secretly followed Song Zang, stole Song Zang’s clothes, stole high-definition close-up photographs of Song Zang, and even wanted to steal Song Zang’s snacks and desserts. Even the horrible ones. He still wanted to eat them.
Mystery solved. He was also a perverted lecher.
But he and Song Zang would never engage in that kind of self-sacrificing pure romance. Whatever Yin Chen wanted, he would exhaust every method available until he obtained it.
Unless… the desire itself suddenly changed.
For example, he almost never wanted to chop Song Zang to death anymore.
Right now, he simply wanted to touch Song Zang’s hand.
Yin Chen immediately accelerated his washing. Once he confirmed that no bacteria or viruses could possibly remain on him, he turned around and burned all the clothing he had removed.
When he finally returned to the room, he discovered Song Zang attempting something terrifying.
Yes. Song Zang was actually painting Lady Medisa’s private seal.
Song Zang learned quickly. Whenever he had free time lately, he practiced drawing. His creativity remained limited, but he could reproduce existing objects reasonably well.
His brush moved slowly, outlining the black-and-red snake-tailed monster, carefully tracing the mist patterns and the crimson feathers of the phoenix.
“Do you have a death wish?” Yin Chen did not stop him, but his tone was extremely displeased.
“I was waiting for you, so I never finished it.” Song Zang calmly set down the brush and tossed Yin Chen a towel he had prepared in advance. “Dry your hair. Steam is still coming off your head.”
“That’s water vapor.”
“I know. I knew you’d wash your hair and bathe before coming back.”
Song Zang curved his lips and quickly finished the heraldic reproduction in front of him. Unfortunately, the lifelike painting produced no supernatural changes for the time being.
Song Zang did not obsess over it. He turned and told Yin Chen about the strange ring and command token.
Yin Chen listened seriously. While drying his hair, he wrapped one arm around Song Zang’s waist and pulled him onto his lap.
After hearing everything, Yin Chen mocked, “No wonder God is doing so badly. This enormous religious empire barely has a single major faction whose power actually comes from faith in Him. Everyone has their own rebellious secret weapon.”
“But this key genuinely looks ordinary. It’s a standard type used throughout this world. I tried it on your bedside cabinet and it actually opened the lock… Should I ask Lady Medisa? Maybe she knows what it is.”
“She’s currently trying to find you a future wife and you still call her that affectionately?” Yin Chen muttered resentfully. Then he abruptly paused and frowned. “Try using the key on my desk drawer.”
Song Zang froze, then suddenly understood. He hurriedly pulled out the key and inserted it into the lock.
Click.
“It opened. Let me try this one on the right… That opened too!” Song Zang exclaimed.
Yin Chen took the key and examined it thoughtfully. “The internal mechanisms of these two locks are completely different. This is a □□.”
Elio’s Note: The □□ is already missing in the Chinese raw, so I’ve left the gap exactly as it appears instead of inventing what kind of key the author originally named.
Song Zang agreed and immediately shoved the key into Yin Chen’s hand. “Then it will definitely become useful later. You keep it. I’ll feel safer.”
“You trust me that much?” Yin Chen smiled ambiguously. “I’m a perverted lecher.”
Song Zang: …
“What terrible thing did you do to suddenly develop that opinion of yourself?” Song Zang narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“I realized some of my behavior overlaps heavily with Sister Pudu’s man.”
“Huh?”
“It means I’m a pervert. You wouldn’t understand. Forget it. Keep the key yourself. It’s tied to your bloodline. I can’t use it. It won’t open anything for me.”
Yin Chen demonstrated. Sure enough, the moment the key entered his hand, it became nothing but an ordinary piece of brass. It would not even fit into the lock.
“All right.” Song Zang reclaimed it but could not stop studying Yin Chen suspiciously.
Yin Chen’s wet hair hung over his forehead, softening his usually cold brows. A faint body-wash fragrance lingered around him, making him look far gentler and more harmless than usual.
Without his undisguised aggression, he really did resemble an extraordinarily handsome man with a dark, damp, perverted heart.
Song Zang lightly bit his lip and could not resist reaching for Yin Chen’s abs.
“…Hm?”
“I’m bullying a pervert. It’s more exciting this way.” Song Zang pinched him, feeling the muscles instantly tense beneath his hand. He sighed softly. “If only you could stay pregnant forever. Then you’d always be this sensitive.”
These outrageous words received Yin Chen’s enthusiastic approval. His lips curved as he rubbed Song Zang’s waist. “Fine. In the next instance, I’ll steal another ghost baby and force it to live inside me. It won’t dare refuse.”
“Such a pervert. Stop talking. The baby can hear everything.” Song Zang pretended to be shy while increasing the pressure of his hand.
“He’s sensible. He won’t care.”
The two were becoming increasingly absorbed in exchanging their perverted feelings when an inconvenient voice suddenly came through the window.
“What baby? Who has a baby?”
Lady Medisa stood outside the window with blue hair and an excited expression. Apparently, she had inexplicably died yet again.
Song Zang’s expression transformed instantly. Looking obedient and innocent, he pointed toward Yin Chen’s stomach. “He has a baby.”
“…Yours?” Medisa’s gaze became even more fervent.
Song Zang froze. Feeling Yin Chen’s suddenly razor-sharp, threatening stare, he immediately answered, “That’s right. Mine.
“Mother, can I have only this one wife? He can give birth. A male wife is still a wife.”