The Emperor of Fengdu did not explain much, but Qin Shu and Pei Zhao exchanged a look and both understood his warning.
No. More precisely, this time it really was sincere advice from the bottom of his heart.
As a special kind of being who cultivated in his sleep, Qin Shu understood very well how unusual sleep and dreams could be. He grew stronger faster there, but the likelihood of danger increased too, and there was no guarantee he could be awakened easily.
Pei Zhao had plenty of experience with that already. During the incident at the paper-offering shop, he had brutally slaughtered every evil paper figure in the room, and Qin Shu had still known absolutely nothing and kept sleeping… very sweetly, at that.
So they packed tonight’s schedule full.
First, they mooched a fried late-night snack from Phoenix Village, explained the Emperor of Fengdu’s strange personality to the reliable women, then secretly asked Xu Qian to stay a few more days and keep an eye on the impulsive behavior of certain clan elders and certain men surnamed Liu.
After saying goodbye to Liu Bai Long, they picked up some high-grade gu insects from Granny A-Shu’s house before finally leaving Yun City. Yuanbao had performed well tonight and deserved an extra meal too.
Jiangcheng was Pei Zhao’s territory. On that point, the Emperor of Fengdu showed respect and said he would never barge in without an invitation… Yet just before the two were about to enter Jiangcheng, he really did chase after them like a ghost and ask Pei Zhao for the diagram of the spirit-guiding summoning formation.
He clicked his tongue in admiration while studying it. “A genius. Truly a genius. What a pity I treated you so poorly back then. There are many things I no longer have the face to mention… Ah, if the underworld had dragons, why would I ever need to worry about recruitment again?”
“You’re going to help us retrieve gods?” Pei Zhao ignored his lament completely and merely tilted his head to ask.
“Naturally. I can’t let the two of you claim every useful one. I intend to take advantage of this moment when old and new are changing places and retrieve several capable subordinates. Every one of them can go serve as an official in my underworld.”
The moment he said that, Qin Shu and Pei Zhao exchanged another quiet glance… Excellent!
If they had a genuine ruler of the underworld who already had experience with the void going into the chaos to retrieve exiled gods, his efficiency would be far higher than theirs.
Preparing for a retrieval operation was cumbersome. Nothing could go wrong, and the resources consumed were considerable.
Qin Shu considered himself very killable at the moment. Catching a few ghosts to bring home as snacks for Coalball was one thing. Faced with boundless chaos beyond the world, he had to be extremely cautious… But the Emperor of Fengdu was different.
This guy had voluntarily jumped in to imprison himself and had somehow survived until now while remaining perfectly lively. He was absurdly difficult to kill.
“I’ve decided you’re my friend.” Qin Shu’s attitude changed instantly. He extended a hand with a bright smile, seized the emperor’s cold hand, and shook it vigorously. “Feel free not to visit Jiangcheng unless you figure out how to deal with dragon-vein contamination.”
The Emperor of Fengdu froze, then actually thought about it seriously. “You could be used to handle it. Both of you could, in fact.”
“…Huh?”
“Pour the power of the Shu-region dragon veins into both of your meridians and souls. Circulate it through several cycles to draw out the extraworldly matter, then during meditation expel the remaining pure power from your bodies.”
He sighed and, as he continued, even imitated Qin Shu’s way of speaking. “It’s a stupid method. It can solve the immediate crisis, but a permanent solution is much harder. The foundations of this world are damaged and can only be restored with divine power. Unless Lady Nüwa descends and is willing to work with me, spending a hundred or perhaps several thousand years slowly patching all those deep fractures…”
“Isn’t that easy?” Qin Shu raised an eyebrow and felt around his fully armed wrist, removing two strings of beads specially supplied by Chang Liu Yi.
Pei Zhao silently cooperated. He took a small redwood table from his storage space, set it across Yuanbao’s broad back, and lit an incense burner.
Qin Shu placed the bead bracelets on the offering table. He did not dare touch the incense, instead simply shouting toward the rising smoke, “Lady Nüwa, are you free?!”
Under the Emperor of Fengdu’s stunned gaze, a crack opened across the sky.
Divine light spilled down, soft radiance blending into the endless fireworks of the night. Lady Nüwa’s head emerged from the opening, her beautiful face like polished mutton-fat jade beneath a full moon. Her warm gaze swept over the offering table in front of Qin Shu, and the two strings of beads vanished instantly.
Only then did Lady Nüwa seem to notice the Underworld Emperor’s presence. Her acting was terrible… Actually, she did not even bother acting. She simply made a surprised sound. “Oh? You’re still alive?”
This was the most human Lady Nüwa had ever seemed.
“He says he can take responsibility for repairing the fractures, but he needs your help. Apparently only if the two of you work together can future dragon-vein contamination be contained.” Qin Shu coughed and reported the situation with perfect seriousness. “My Lady, he isn’t lying to me, is he?”
“He is correct. I have indeed worked with this scoundrel in a similar way before.” Lady Nüwa’s beautiful brows knitted together. “Child, do not associate with him too much.”
“…Ahem. Yes, my Lady.” Qin Shu immediately agreed, though thoughts churned wildly inside his head.
“This scoundrel.” “Do not associate with him too much.”
…Saying that directly in front of the Emperor of Fengdu. She truly had no intention of saving his face.
There was clearly a long-standing grudge between them! Qin Shu secretly marveled at the Emperor of Fengdu’s awkward smile and sudden silence.
A particularly reliable and capable person disliking another person who was particularly unreliable but still very capable actually made perfect sense when he thought about it.
From another angle, the complete absence of polite hypocrisy or empty face-saving gestures suggested the two truly had interacted quite a lot. Even if they did not get along, they knew each other well enough.
Lady Nüwa did not remain long. She extended one smooth, rounded hand, grabbed the Emperor of Fengdu by his outrageously expensive ceremonial crown, and with another casual swing directly flung him into the crack in the sky.
Muffled booms rolled through the heavens and mingled with the fireworks. Other than the nearby Earth God fainting from fright, basically no passerby noticed anything.
“Children, go home and celebrate New Year.”
At the same time, Lady Nüwa smiled gently and casually patted both of them on the head. “You’ve been busy for so many days and suffered quite a bit, haven’t you? The rest should be the adults’ responsibility now. How could great matters concerning all living beings be dumped onto two children? Completely improper.”
“…Okay.”
Qin Shu only had time to say that one word before the warm divine light surrounding them suddenly vanished without leaving a trace.
Yuanbao flicked its tail and continued toward Jiangcheng. The chill of the night mixed with the smell of firecrackers and rolled over them, while only the faint warmth of those gentle pats remained atop their heads.
“I just thought of something.”
After a long silence, Qin Shu said thoughtfully, “Xing Yong is on a mission with my dad, and he knows my dad’s real name… If Dad’s identity is no longer confidential within the bureau, doesn’t that mean he’s going to retire? Even if he doesn’t retire, after this mission he should at least move into a second-line role.”
“Very likely. He’s been thinking about it. He just hadn’t accomplished something he was satisfied with yet, and hadn’t found enough key evidence. Without catching the mastermind, he wouldn’t feel comfortable stepping back.”
Qin Shu stared as he listened. “Zhaozhao, exactly how often do you talk to my dad? How do you know him this well?!”
“A lot of things are difficult for him to say to you. Conveniently, I don’t talk much.” Pei Zhao smiled. “Uncle also said he wants to go overseas to find Auntie after retirement… He said she works as a human-rights lawyer and needs a top-tier bodyguard.”
“Seriously. Retire, then immediately run abroad. Doesn’t that still leave only you and me rattling around the house alone?”
Qin Shu wanted to laugh, but he had already accepted his fate of shallow family ties. Ever since Ms. Qin became professionally successful and financially independent, she had become obsessed with flying all over the world to help people who could not afford legal representation. The certificates she had earned for that purpose filled an entire large box.
There was no talking her out of something like that, and Qin Shu did not intend to try. He himself did not possess that kind of super-genius academic ability. There was no reason to stop Ms. Qin from doing something she excelled at and wanted to do.
But he had another idea. “Come to think of it, if the two of them really move back home after retiring, that might be awkward too… How about this? I’ll buy them a quiet little courtyard house with a river view, somewhere near us. Then whenever they have time they can stay in Jiangcheng. It’ll be convenient for retirement visits too, and maybe Dad can get addicted to fishing and never want to move again.”
“No. If he gets addicted to fishing, he’ll travel all over the world to fish and come home even less.” Pei Zhao objected immediately.
“You’re right! Zhaozhao, how are you so smart? Then I need to sign Dad up for a university choir for seniors…”
The two muttered about future retirement plans for their parents and did not rush home. Instead, they stopped by the church on the east side of the city first.
The free communion meal was already over. Everyone had gathered around the stove to warm themselves and watch the Spring Festival Gala, while Coalball had eaten itself completely stuffed and become another full size rounder and plumper.
It lay in Father William’s arms while the priest looked terribly nervous. Qin Shu had no idea how Coalball had communicated with him, but somehow it had successfully gotten Father William to comb the fluff on its chest and belly, tidy the lines of its wings, and trim away the excess stray feathers until it once again became a perfectly round ball.
“…Ball, are you coming home tonight?”
Qin Shu suddenly began doubting his parenting skills and asked darkly.
“Ah, Mr. Qin, Mr. Pei.” Father William looked enormously relieved and hurriedly stood while holding the heavy lump. “You finally came… Ahem. Happy New Year. Did something happen?”
“Nothing, nothing. I just sent the little guy here to clear evil out of your church and catch a few ghosts. It eats ghosts. It isn’t a bad thing.” Qin Shu grabbed Coalball by its fluff, stuffed it into his arms, and kneaded it hard several times. “If you ever run into supernatural trouble you can’t solve, just look at the sky and shout ‘Coalball.’ It’ll come help you eat the ghosts.”
“So that’s what was happening…” Father William looked relieved again, and even his gaze toward Coalball became several shades more affectionate.
He felt around in his pocket and pulled out an exquisite rose necklace, obviously an exorcism artifact. Just as he tried to put it around Coalball, however, he discovered that Coalball was the classic impossible-to-hang creature. It simply had no neck.
Coalball panicked. Right there in Qin Shu’s arms, it suddenly manifested Chen Li Chi’s enormous head and nearly made Father William faint on the spot.
But he was a good man. In the end, while secretly reciting a Hail Mary, he still gritted his teeth and put the necklace on.
Qin Shu carried Coalball home in a complicated mood.
The television was still playing. The comedy skit close to midnight was mediocre, but Coalball loved it, bobbing its head along with the audience laughter.
Yes, bobbing its head. To keep wearing the necklace blessed with holy water, no matter how Qin Shu coaxed it, it stubbornly refused to put away that shriveled old-man head.
The child really had grown bold. Raised while being spoiled in someone’s pocket, taken everywhere to see the world, and then brought by the white dragon to rule like a little tyrant for a while…
No matter how strange its hobbies became, they were simply allowed to grow wild.
Qin Shu had given up. He took out his phone, snapped several more pictures of the creature, sent the entire batch to Chen Shui, then immediately muted the conversation.
He could barely look straight at Coalball, yet at the same time he felt unexpectedly emotional. He poked Coalball’s fluffy belly. “Great Shaman Chen, even if your name is gradually forgotten by future generations thousands of years from now, there will still be someone in this world… one fat bird, who remembers you forever. You didn’t die for nothing. That’s pretty good.”
Pei Zhao did not share his sentimental streak. He dug two bowls full of ice cream scoops out of the freezer and handed one to Qin Shu. “Isn’t it midnight yet?”
“Not yet, but I already prepared a little program that’ll mass-send New Year greetings exactly on the dot.” Qin Shu accepted the bowl, leaned back against the sofa, and directly switched his phone off. “Tang Rui Cheng built it. Really convenient.”
“Mm.” Pei Zhao took a large spoonful and squeezed into Qin Shu’s arms.
Qin Shu pulled over a blanket and covered both of them. “What? Is there something you want to wait until after midnight to do?”
“You like waiting until midnight every New Year’s Eve and listening to the countdown,” Pei Zhao said lazily. “We’ll wait first.”
Qin Shu stole a bite from Pei Zhao’s spoon, then immediately asked with great seriousness, “Mm-hm. And after we hear it? I can’t sleep tonight, so are you going to give me something to do?”
Pei Zhao turned his head and locked those golden eyes on him. “Do you think I brought two bowls of ice cream because I was hungry?”
“No.” Qin Shu finally laughed. “Why are you in such a hurry? We’re already using ice cream now? There’s a long future ahead. Aren’t you saving anything for later?”
“If you want something more elaborate, there are plenty of methods. This is only the most basic…”
“Oh? Then give me an example of something more elaborate. Teacher Pei, whatever else you want to do, I’m willing to learn.”
“When the Underworld Emperor rebuilds the underworld…” Pei Zhao paused and lowered his voice. “Have him leave one prison cell for us. The biggest one. We can go down and play there when we have time.”
“…That’s a little too perverted, Pei Zhao!”
“Qin Shu, I’m sitting on your lap.”
“…”
Pei Zhao turned around and sat facing him instead, his knees quietly bracketing Qin Shu’s waist. He shifted a little closer, pressing the soft sofa back into a deeper indentation, then lowered his head and kissed Qin Shu lightly between the brows. He murmured, “You’re really no better than me.”
“Mm.”
Qin Shu fell silent for a moment and naturally rubbed his head against Pei Zhao’s chest.
He especially liked it when Pei Zhao kissed him like this, because this was how Pei Zhao had kissed him the very first time of his own accord… even if it had only been on the forehead, even if Pei Zhao had been an idiot at the time and apparently had no idea how serious the consequences might be if he casually sat in someone else’s lap and kissed them.
Sometimes Pei Zhao really was an idiot!
Qin Shu perked up and once again emphasized into his chest, “Play is play, but you have to understand, Zhaozhao, I’ve never believed what I did to you back then was right. Especially pulling off your reverse scale whenever I felt like it. That was truly awful of me…”
“Don’t ruin the mood.” Pei Zhao picked up the cold metal spoon from the bowl and poked Qin Shu’s face with it. “Do I look like I’m short of reverse scales? If you had scales, I’d want to eat them like potato chips too.”
“Hiss, cold, cold, cold! That’s not fair. You don’t even feel the cold.” Qin Shu abruptly realized what was happening. “Teacher Pei, you set me up!”
Pei Zhao scooped up another bite of soft ice cream and ate it, looking almost amused. “I never said you couldn’t retaliate.”
Persistent provocation would always receive an answer. Qin Shu nodded thoughtfully, hooked an arm beneath Pei Zhao’s legs, lifted him one-handed, picked up his own bowl with the other, and strode upstairs.
“Yuanbao!”
He did not need to say another word. Yuanbao opened its mouth, grabbed Coalball by the fluff, and dragged the fat little ball, still completely absorbed in television, straight out into the courtyard, startling Great General during its patrol.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
Qin Shu stopped midway up the stairs, pushed open the stairwell window, and looked down. Great General had actually flown onto a tree branch and was crowing proudly toward the fireworks bursting across the night sky.
“…Isn’t she a girl? Why is that crow so perfect?”
Qin Shu stared. Before Pei Zhao could answer, Great General tipped its head back again and gave three even louder calls.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
At the same time, thunderous firecrackers erupted from the riverside. Firecrackers throughout the neighborhood followed, and for a moment the world outside the window shone almost as bright as day.
Qin Shu froze, then laughed. He closed the window again, barely blocking a fraction of the noise, and quickened his steps upstairs.
Hearing an auspicious chicken crow during the New Year countdown… This year’s luck should be pretty good.
“Happy New Year.” Pei Zhao looped his arms around Qin Shu’s neck, his amber-gold gaze diffusing through the dim bedroom. “Remember. Don’t sleep tonight.”
“Happy New Year.” Qin Shu lowered his voice, braced one knee against the edge of the bed, and leaned down. “Mm. I remember. I’ll work very hard… very, very hard.”
The empty porcelain bowl fell onto the soft carpet and rolled away with a dull sound. Ice cream warmed by body heat trickled between their fingers.
Qin Shu’s all-night effort began by turning Pei Zhao into a strawberry cake.
＊
His luck that night really was very good. And the Emperor of Fengdu’s warning had indeed been neither a careless joke nor empty nonsense.
Xiao Zhu’s curse erupted in the early hours of the new year.
It was slightly counterintuitive. The moment yin and yang exchanged places, when purple qi rose from the east, was usually the strange hour when people were most likely to encounter ghosts. Yet it had also landed on the first day of the lunar year. Unsurprisingly, Qin Shu knew there was no chance he would escape untouched.
Inside the other half of the remnant soul he had refined were thousands of compressed packages of memories. The instant they activated, they nearly exploded all at once. Qin Shu was not exaggerating when he thought his brain almost exploded with them.
What he had seen yesterday from Lord Zhaoyuan’s perspective had been only a tiny fraction. Added to that now were the blood-soaked slaughterhouse of his first life after he was born, his battles against gods, and the bone-deep memories of his second life awakening from purgatory, being swallowed by the void, merging with it, followed by endless wandering and dormancy…
When suffering expanded to the absolute limit, every sensation turned into a cold numbness. The long-lasting phantom pain embedded in his body was one thing. But emotions sealed away for thousands of years erupting all at once were not so easy to control.
And sudden loss of personal rationality came with every cultivator’s most inseparable little companion: the inner demon, infinitely less controllable than schizophrenia.
As an auspicious chicken raised by gods, Great General was exceptionally sensitive to this sort of evil presence.
At the critical instant, Great General did not hesitate. It crowed, smashed through the window, and beat its brilliant, iridescent wings around the bedroom, viciously pecking Qin Shu on the head.
It got carried away and, while it was at it, turned and pecked Pei Zhao several times too.
Most, most, most awkwardly of all, while Great General was diligently driving away evil, Qin Shu and Pei Zhao were still in a state where separating from each other was… not particularly convenient. Mm.
Of course, that unbearable embarrassment was exactly what saved Qin Shu’s life.
The memories erupting through his mind were too immense and complicated. His vision was complete chaos. He could barely distinguish falsehood from reality.
At this exact moment, there was only one thing so uniquely absurd that Qin Shu could not possibly confuse it with anything else: Great General, the auspicious chicken gifted by the Five Manifestation Gods of Wealth, had inexplicably smashed through the window before dawn and forcibly become part of their play… and its pecks hurt. A lot.
Qin Shu was usually extremely popular with small animals. Across three lifetimes, he had almost never been attacked. Even the most arrogant goose gang at school treated him rather well.
Getting his head pecked by a chicken was a first since the creation of heaven and earth.
“Hahahaha…”
So he laughed, burying his face in Pei Zhao’s arms and using that familiar coolness to soothe the violent phantom pain clinging to his skin. The breath squeezed from his chest was nearly inaudible and terribly hoarse.
Qin Shu himself thought the sound was fine. To Great General, however, it apparently sounded like another provocation from an evil spirit.
The creature began pecking even harder, squawking loudly as it did. The calls gradually turned into a very suspicious chain of clucks.
…
Crack!
A plump, perfectly round egg dropped from the sky and splattered across Qin Shu’s head.
Great General was considerate enough to angle its rear while laying the airborne egg, avoiding getting any of it on Pei Zhao.
“You really have no manners, young lady. Hiss…”
Thick egg white and yolk slid down the back of Qin Shu’s neck, carrying a subtly unpleasant warmth. Against his overloaded senses, it felt like a piece of lava only beginning to melt.
And that burning sensation, which should have existed only inside Qin Shu’s perception, somehow spread into the real world. He genuinely believed it was scorching hot, his attention locking completely onto the strange sensation… and so the egg really did become unbearably hot.
The bedsheet caught fire, taking the messily piled pillows with it.
And the pillowcases had all sorts of things stuffed inside: triangular yellow talismans they had mooched from Daoist Master Xu, little silver holy medals bought for fun from Father William, even several phoenix feathers they had only brought back from Phoenix Village the night before.
Every one of them was good for warding evil, gathering blessings, and calming the mind during cultivation. In the blink of an eye, all of it caught fire.
Pei Zhao could have extinguished the flames with a single spell, but he did not.
He gently held Qin Shu, pressing Qin Shu’s burning head more firmly against himself. The two sat silently inside the sea of flames while the complicated fire spread and climbed, tongues of flame rising until they wrapped them both completely. Neither spoke.
Qin Shu trusted his judgment.
His stiff, increasingly uncontrollable limbs gradually regained sensation beneath the intense heat. At the same time, every bone in his body began to ache faintly.
It was a dull ache from the inside out, born of something grinding itself into alignment. It could not be stopped and could not be soothed.
Growing pains.
He realized he was becoming larger. The beast horn on his forehead began swelling first. His black wings spread uncontrollably, sweeping everything from every surface in the bedroom and even wrapping Great General, which was still trying to exorcise him, inside thick, dense black feathers.
“Qin Shu, sit up. Look at me.”
Only then did Pei Zhao finally speak. His voice was not loud, but it was steady and clear, like a lighthouse shrouded in cold mist during a storm at sea.
Qin Shu used all his strength to sit a little straighter and reluctantly raised his head.
He naturally did not want to move away from the only cool place in a room where he felt on the verge of burning to death. But when his gaze met Pei Zhao’s… he saw the eyes of a shen dragon.
This was no longer a ghost domain stranded inside a crack in time. No longer a past buried by history. No longer a long memory.
Qin Shu saw the living shen dragon directly in front of him.
Not only that. He could clearly see the shen dragon’s soul, immense vitality and death qi flowing together, all compressed into the skin-shell that carried that soul…
In the surging flames, the clothes the two had thrown at the foot of the bed had long since caught fire. Qin Shu therefore discovered something else: Pei Zhao’s sleepwear was paper funeral clothing, exquisitely made enough that a living person could wear it outside.
Yin and yang intertwined. Life and death could no longer be separated.
An unprecedented sense of “knowing” rushed over him. The world seemed to flip upside down once again.
“Zhaozhao, how did you…”
Qin Shu stopped halfway through. His mind had abruptly cleared. He suddenly remembered Shaman Abu lying in that blood-red coffin, and the strange divination Abu had performed for the future while still alive.
Was he living? Was he dead? Neither? Where lay the boundary?
“The contamination coming from the void is excess vitality.”
Qin Shu murmured in sudden understanding. “But people living in our world can’t withstand it. It’s like overdosing on a tonic, or an ordinary person being force-fed spiritual energy until their body explodes…”
“Mm. Only by undergoing one true death is there a chance of continuing to survive and maintaining balance among the powers inside the body,” Pei Zhao picked up softly. “That method carries risks too. If the spirit dies before the body does, the result becomes a mass of mindless flesh. Flooded by runaway vitality, it reproduces and mutates wildly until it becomes an unsightly aberration. A walking corpse.”
“Because even these foreign powers have to obey this world’s balance of yin and yang. Otherwise, in the end, heaven and earth themselves reject them.” Qin Shu continued almost without hesitation. “The world is riddled with fractures. There are too many things heaven and earth cannot tolerate, and the cost of clearing them all would be unimaginable… That is why another Severing of Heaven and Earth, the omens of a chaotic age, and a renewed struggle over fortune could all become possible.”
He immediately added, eyes shining, “But ‘evil things’ can never be completely killed. There will always be strange exceptions capable of using every possible method to hide from Heaven’s Dao and escape elimination until they cause catastrophic consequences… Xiao Zhu was like that. Zuo Zhe too. Left unchecked, Dragon Mother would have become an unstoppable catalyst as well. There must be more things hiding in the dark that we haven’t found. History is a cycle.”
Pei Zhao did not interrupt. After listening in silence, he smiled. “You understand quite well.”
“Hmph. I understand now.” Qin Shu proudly pinched his still-stiff cheek into a smile. “Good. You and I can count as half the same kind now. I haven’t dated you nearly enough yet, so the chaotic age can stay away. I have no intention of letting history enter its next cycle this quickly.”
Pei Zhao tilted his head slightly. “If you don’t want the chaotic age to come, does that mean it simply won’t?”
“Yes. Heaven’s Dao is blind and half-deaf right now, and it still hasn’t fully recovered the strength consumed in previous eras. In that case, we are its eyes now.” Qin Shu raised an eyebrow. “Whatever it can’t see for the moment, I’ll find a way to see.”
“Self-centered bastard.”
“Did you secretly say that about me before?”
“…”
Qin Shu laughed, clearly taking pride in the accusation, and deliberately pinched Pei Zhao’s suddenly stiff cheek. “Mm. So you definitely cursed me more than once, and with more than one sentence. Say a few more tonight. Maybe I’ll like hearing them? We agreed, didn’t we? In this life you get to be the bad one. Be meaner to me.”
“…”
Pei Zhao was quiet for a moment, then squeezed out of Qin Shu’s arms, moved freely through the sea of fire, picked up Great General, and tossed it out the window. Then he raised a hand, cast a spell, and created a temporary pane of light-blocking glass. Smooth and effortless.
He turned his head. His pale face reflected in the illusory surface, flushing pink under the firelight. “Qin Shu, you burned all my clothes away. You should at least let me curse you a little more.”
“You still haven’t learned. You should say it like this…” Qin Shu hauled him back onto the bed. His unretracted black wings abruptly closed and wrapped Pei Zhao completely beneath the feathers.
Inside that absolute, airtight darkness, Qin Shu’s crimson eyes lit like lanterns, flooding with seductive red light and completely unconcealed desire as they fixed unblinkingly on Pei Zhao’s face.
“Qin Shu, give me money.” Qin Shu spoke slowly in a low, deep voice. “Give me all your bank-card passwords. Give me your flesh and blood so I can taste them. Turn your soul into a chilled dessert for me. Also, the little monster I keep has to behave. No reproducing all over the place. Keep that thing of yours under contr—”
“Qin Shu!”
Pei Zhao’s breath caught, and he hurriedly interrupted, face red.
But even though he truly could not bear to listen anymore, he remained trapped in this darkness with nowhere to go, wrapped tightly in an aura that did not belong to him.
This darkness had been created by Qin Shu himself. True darkness. Pei Zhao had not experienced such a narrow field of vision in a very long time. He could not even see his own hands. He could only follow those two crimson lanterns, lean forward, and deliberately bite Qin Shu’s lip. Hard.
“…Qin Shu, I’m starting to regret putting you back together. I can’t take this. Why are you so awful now?” he complained softly, though his breathing had long since become unstable. Blood dampened his voice until the complaint sounded more like a murmured term of endearment.
“Hiss. As expected of the smartest dragon in our family. One sentence and the damage is already this high…”
Qin Shu gave an exaggeratedly wounded response without being hindered by the darkness at all. Slowly, he took Pei Zhao’s hand and pressed it against his chest, refusing to let him pull away. He asked quietly, “Doctor Pei, feel this. Am I heartbroken?”
He was in no hurry for Pei Zhao to give an accurate diagnosis, because Qin Shu actually had plenty of self-awareness.
There were many places on him that still needed Doctor Pei’s diagnosis tonight… He was sick everywhere. One night would never be enough to cure him.
There was plenty of time ahead.