Faced with such an outright threat, Long Yin lowered his gaze to meet Feng Qingyun’s for a moment. Then, suddenly, he bent down, closing the distance between them. He pressed his nose against Feng Qingyun’s, voice low and laughing softly:
“I’ve never been much of a gentleman… may I ask, Little Palace Master, when you say ‘There’s never too late for a gentleman to get his revenge,’ does that mean you’ll be tying this Lord up with your vines again?”
The words were shamelessly intimate, so Feng Qingyun, who had been so righteous just a moment ago, faltered. Instinctively, he tried to draw back, only to have Long Yin steal a kiss, leaving him flushed with anger and embarrassment.
“…Even bodhisattvas have wrathful tempers! So what if I use my vines?! You brought it on yourself!”
Long Yin raised a brow. “And what did this Lord ever do, so against heaven’s order, that I deserve thunderous wrath?”
Seeing him so unrepentant, Feng Qingyun glared fiercely. “…You know perfectly well what you did.”
Long Yin was just about to defend himself with a ‘I didn’t do anything’ when Feng Qingyun cut him off: “Don’t you dare change the subject! First, explain to me why you won’t let us go to the Underworld.”
And at that, Long Yin fell silent.
Feng Qingyun narrowed his eyes, asking: “…Still denying you’re hiding something?”
“Little Palace Master, perhaps you’re projecting your own guilt?” Long Yin finally broke his silence, smiling smoothly and lying as if it cost him nothing: “Wasn’t it you begging for mercy last night? Hm?”
The jab hit home. Feng Qingyun’s breath caught, and he glared furiously. “…Don’t drag me into this,” he threatened. “I confessed everything I needed to. You, on the other hand, why won’t you go to the Underworld?”
“Who says I won’t?” Long Yin slid an arm around his waist, stroking lightly. “I already gave my reasons for going to Jinlin first. But if my Little Palace Master insists on the Underworld… then I can only risk my life to accompany you.”
His sudden change in stance was too abrupt. Feng Qingyun looked at him in suspicion, lips pursed as he tested: “…If you’re so willing, then let’s set out today.”
Long Yin chuckled. “Very well. Today it is.”
He spoke with such frankness, so utterly open, nothing like the evasive secrecy Feng Qingyun showed when he himself had something to hide. That very ease made Feng Qingyun doubt himself.
Had he been mistaken?
So he grew quiet, lowering his eyes. Seeing him pursing his lips in silence, Long Yin leaned in and kissed him again. Those soft lips, already reddened and swollen from the night before, hadn’t recovered from their earlier torment. Now, even the lightest touch sent ripples of feeling spreading.
Feng Qingyun’s ears turned red. He looked up, eyes locking with Long Yin’s, unable to speak for a long while.
Long Yin arched a brow as he asked: “What are you thinking?”
“You said last night you had a way…” Feng Qingyun licked unconsciously at the spot that had just been kissed. “What exactly is that way?”
At that, Long Yin paused. Feng Qingyun grew more suspicious, narrowing his eyes. “…Don’t tell me it was just empty noise to coax me?”
“How could it be?” Long Yin said with utter conviction. “When have I ever lied to you about something so important?”
His tone was arrogant yet perfectly righteous. Feng Qingyun froze for a moment, then remembered… indeed, Long Yin never had. Even at the end of the last life, while wagering his own life, Long Yin had sworn, “See you in the next world,” and truly… they had met again.
Feng Qingyun’s heart was moved. Only after a long pause did he say, “…Then what is your way?”
Long Yin was silent for a moment, then played rogue, deliberately evasive: “A wise man has his stratagems,” he answered. “Once we’ve gathered the hearts and attended your sect’s Heavenly Gate Ceremony, all will be revealed.”
He withheld the explanation, leaving endless room for speculation.
Feng Qingyun’s expression shifted as suspicion stirred in his mind. At last, he blurted out: “…Could it be you’ve found a way to let Mu Hanyang merge with the Heavenly Dao?”
Long Yin: “…”
At those words, a flicker of visible disgust flashed across Long Yin’s face, but he smoothed it away quickly, voice even as he denied: “…No. He’s not worthy.”
The words themselves were odd, yet Long Yin offered no further explanation.
Feng Qingyun stared hard at him, then suddenly thought of something, shock flashing in his eyes.
“…Don’t tell me…” he mumbled, “you’re an immortal from some upper realm?!”
Long Yin: “…”
In the end, he could only counter that with a dry laugh, asking: “Do I look so wicked, so beyond redemption, that you’d take me for one of those selfish immortals who burn bridges behind him? Am I, in my Little Palace Master’s eyes, destined to ascend only to become another rotten fruit that fails the Dao?”
But Feng Qingyun was unmoved, pressing his reasoning even further: “Of course, you’re not the type to seize the world and destroy it. You must be of that other kind, the ones who ascended from this realm, who rose with the intent to uphold the true Dao. That’s why you reacted the way you did in the fox territory, and that’s why Tong Tianpei knew you too had been reborn…”
It was such a convincing argument that even Feng Qingyun almost believed it himself. But Long Yin chuckled, unable to help it. “How come I never realized my Little Rose had such an imagination?” he asked.
Feng Qingyun didn’t answer.
With no other choice, Long Yin sighed. “Even if you believe I’m an immortal, then how would you explain that illusory realm? What power in this world could bind an immortal like that for thousands of years?”
That, indeed, was unanswerable. And since it couldn’t be answered, it could only unravel Feng Qingyun’s theory. He frowned, glaring at him, then lashed out with a sharp kick.
“You bastard…” Feng Qingyun retorted. “Then at least tell me what your so-called way really is!”
Long Yin laughed softly, lowering his head to kiss the corners of Feng Qingyun’s eyes, made sharper from anger.
“All my strength originates from that illusory realm,” he answered. “Many times, I myself could not be certain, but even about rebirth, at the time, I didn’t know what the solution would be. Only vaguely did I sense that sacrifice might be a way. As for now, what I know is simply this: besides sacrifice, there is another solution. But what exactly it is, we’ll only know once the four hearts are gathered.”
Long Yin paused, gaze fixed unwaveringly on Feng Qingyun before he continued: “But what this Lord can promise is that, apart from Mu Hanyang, no one else will die for this.”
Most people, when they lie, tend to tell more lies, using more words to pad the falsehood with unrelated details, thereby diluting it.
And Feng Qingyun was exactly that kind of person.
Last night, in order to coax someone, he had wasted endless effort, spinning a whole elaborate story out of his entire lifetime’s literary talent. The result, however, was poor. Because the story was too long, he gave himself away, and in the end, he had been punished all through the night.
Now, measuring others by himself, he found Long Yin’s answer neither absolute nor overlong, but reasonable and concise. So he actually believed it, and for the time being, he set his suspicions aside.
But that didn’t mean he forgot to add a warning: “Don’t forget the backlash! If you dare lie, just you wait!”
Long Yin laughed at that, leaning in as if to kiss him once more, only to be pushed away by a palm over his face. He chuckled: “And how does the Little Palace Master plan to make this Lord ‘just wait’?”
Without waiting for Feng Qingyun to reply, he even offered choices of his own: “Will it be like last night, strangling this Lord with vines? Or drowning me in nectar? Or perhaps using flower stamens to…”
“…Shut up!” Feng Qingyun, mortified and furious, clapped a hand over his mouth, asking in rage: “How dare you even mention last night?! Taking advantage of my guilt, you!”
With Feng Qingyun’s thin skin, he absolutely could not describe Long Yin’s outrageous behavior in detail. His ears burned red as he glared at him, finally grinding out a last warning through clenched teeth: “From now on, without my permission, you… You bastard, you’re not allowed to reveal your true form!”
But as the chief culprit, Long Yin only arched a brow, replying: “But I didn’t stay that way for long, didn’t I? When you were crying and begging me, didn’t I change back? To the point of near humiliation, no dignity left for a dragon God, what more are you dissatisfied with, my Little Rose?”
“…I did not cry and beg!” Feng Qingyun’s shame turned to rage. He wanted to slap him then and there, answering: “Don’t you dare slander me!”
But Long Yin drew out a long, prolonged “Ohhh…”
“So when you wept, saying you’d never dare hide anything from me again, begging your Lord Dragon to forgive you, that doesn’t count as crying and begging?” Not yet finished, he even twisted the knife further, persisting: “Ah, right, the exact words were even more pitiful. Something like: ‘even if you don’t forgive me, just change back a little, I really can’t take it, my flowers will spoil…’”
“Long Yin!”
At last, Feng Qingyun snapped. He pulled out his sword in fury, utterly ignoring all sense of marital affection, and truly wanted to cut that shameless dragon into silence.
Long Yin dodged once, still laughing. But then he stopped dodging altogether, relying on Feng Qingyun’s reluctance to really harm him, and simply stood there, brazenly waiting for the strike.
At the very last instant, when the Linshuang Sword nearly grazed his hair, Feng Qingyun saw him making no move to avoid it. As expected, he forcibly stopped, blade frozen before Long Yin’s face.
Feng Qingyun’s teeth ground together in rage. The shameless dragon, instead of fearing, even had the gall to tease: “Why stop, Little Palace Master?”
Furious, Feng Qingyun sheathed the sword, grabbed his collar, and shoved him onto the bed for a different kind of punishment.
Thanks to that scoundrel, however, the hidden guilt in Feng Qingyun’s heart, guilt for keeping secrets and fear for the road ahead, was completely blown away.
As if none of it had ever happened, his heart was steadied, like he had swallowed a calming pill.
But the anger and embarrassment were real.
Pressed on the bed with eyes burning like fire, Feng Qingyun glared so fiercely that Long Yin no longer dared laugh. Though the blood deed was quiet for now, it didn’t mean things were over. The backlash could strike at any moment, and Long Yin could only be utterly obedient.
After leaving the Mirror Palace, if Feng Qingyun said to go to the Underworld, then the Underworld it is. Long Yin didn’t dare object in the slightest, lest he provoke him and, once backlash struck, be dealt with in earnest.
After all, no matter what, Feng Qingyun’s true form was that of a Blood Rose.
If he truly wished to torment Long Yin, he didn’t need much. Simply bind him with vines, strip him, lure him with temptation, letting him see but not touch, and that alone would be torture enough.
That alone would break Long Yin. No other trick would be needed.
With a guilty conscience, Long Yin imagined all of it, and so he behaved himself, with his tail between his legs.
But in truth, all of that was nothing but his own filthy imagination.
For in Feng Qingyun’s character, it wouldn’t even occur to him that such methods of torment existed. If not for the blood deed’s backlash, then that very morning, before leaving the Mirror Palace, he might as well have struck him directly in revenge for last night’s bullying.
Fortunately, Feng Qingyun was truly a gentleman. He could never stoop to such indecent tricks in bed.
Therefore, that morning, they truly left the Mirror Palace.
But since they were set on heading straight to the Underworld, there was a problem: if it wasn’t a Ghost Festival, the Ghost Gate would not open. Forcing it open would be like declaring war, making themselves enemies of the realm.
And if they caused such a commotion, there would be no chance that Baihu’s heart would be simply handed over to them.
In the past, every time they set out for the Underworld, they always ended up getting delayed by the closed gate. Then, some other task would arise, they’d attend to it, and when they turned back, the gate’s opening would have already passed.
This time, though, Feng Qingyun was determined not to repeat the mistake. No matter what, he would grit his teeth and wait for the Ghost Gate to open.
Long Yin didn’t argue. Too many words might spark suspicion, and with backlash looming, he dared not risk it.
His little rose was gentle to others, but to him, he received only thunderous wrath.
Still, for all his complaints, every time Feng Qingyun turned that wrathful gaze on him, Long Yin still savored it as a kind of special favor.
To await the Gate’s opening without distraction, Feng Qingyun rejected Long Yin’s suggestion of “returning to the Demon Palace and coming back later.” Instead, he dragged him directly to the border of the Underworld, a city named Fengdu.
That was the place closest to the Ghost Gate, the very border between the Human Realm and the land of the Yellow Springs.
As for the so-called Righteous Path, it was also a part of the Human Realm, since it was divided into the Mortal World, where ordinary people lived, and the Righteous Path, where cultivators gathered.
“Righteous Path” at first was just a term born of numbers, as humans were the most populous, holding the greatest voice. So the places most occupied by human cultivators were dubbed as the “Righteous Path.”
But as time passed, words repeated became real. The moral codes spoken of so often gradually shaped their cultivation, until “Righteous Path” became righteous in truth.
For example, even Mu Hanyang, shameless as he was, at least maintained appearances in line with the word “righteous.”
Though his heart might not match his deeds, his deeds were still within the bounds of most righteous cultivators.
Over time, other races, even other realms, adopted the term.
Thus, the border between the Righteous Path and the Underworlds became Fengdu, also called the Ghost City.
Here gathered all manner of cultivators traveling to the Yellow Springs, whether for training or for business: humans, demons, fiends. Even some members of the Huangquan Clan, who had left on errands and returned when the Gate was closed, were stranded there.
And as a result, the place was the most mixed in all three realms. People of every kind gathered, and among them, the Huangquan folk were the strangest.
Normally, outside of their own realm, one would never see them. Yet here, there were many.
Different from the human souls that ordinary people regarded as ghosts, the Huangquan Clan was born immortal. Living right next to the Yellow Springs in the Underworld, they did not need to experience life and death, but transcended reincarnation from the moment of birth.
But the price of that was that the Huangquan Clan was born without the three souls and six spirits. After death, there was naturally no way for them to reincarnate, so to do that, they needed to cultivate.
At Foundation-Building to strengthen their fragile bodies, at Golden Core to build a shelter for it, and finally, at Nascent Soul to truly give birth to a soul of their own. Only then, upon death, could they enter the cycle of reincarnation.
Otherwise, for the ordinary Huangquan Clan folks, death was the end. Dissolution into nothingness between heaven and earth, no next life, no karma.
Thus, the common folk of the Yellow Springs rarely left their realm, afraid of accidentally dissipating into nothingness.
That race, born amidst deathly energy yet given eternal life at birth, was paradoxically all the more fearful of losing it.
So, because of Fengdu’s special nature, and with things different now from before, as strange immortals were possibly watching from everywhere, Feng Qingyun and Long Yin could no longer go openly wherever they pleased. They could only disguise themselves slightly, masking their auras and covering their faces before entering Fengdu to wait for the Ghost Gate to open.
Though Fengdu was called the Ghost City, it wasn’t as eerie as Feng Qingyun had imagined.
Aside from the absence of the sun since it was drenched in everlasting night all year long, it was little different from the Mortal World.
As he had when entering that little demonic realm before, Feng Qingyun veiled his face and entered the gates together with Long Yin. But unlike that time, the city required no entrance fee. So long as one stated a reasonable purpose and possessed cultivation at Qi Condensation or above, they could enter freely. With such a low threshold, the result was crowds upon crowds, teeming with people beyond counting.
Hardly had the two of them explained their fabricated purpose when they were swept forward in the crush of people. Because of the earlier reasons, they could not use conspicuous spells, lest the scattered fallen immortals in the crowd take notice.
Thus, Feng Qingyun was carried forward several steps. When he turned back, he realized Long Yin was gone, swallowed somewhere by the crowd.
Startled, he immediately lifted his gaze, searching for the man. But instead of finding him, his lingering pause got him shoved again, dragged by the impatient crowd toward one direction.
At last, he managed to steady himself, only to hear a voice snapping beside his ear: “Are you buying or not?”
Feng Qingyun started. Turning, he saw that at some point he had been pushed to a stall. Behind him stretched a long line of people, clearly all waiting to buy whatever was being sold there.
The man who had spoken, glaring at him with impatience, looked to be a tiger-demon cultivator. But when he caught sight of the eyes showing beyond Feng Qingyun’s veil, he froze instantly, as if struck by a binding spell, staring in a daze.
Feng Qingyun ignored him. Lowering his gaze, he saw that the stallkeeper was an old crone with graying hair. Beforeher were set glass bottles filled with some kind of medicinal brew.
The liquid within was brownish with a faint blue sheen, of unknown origin.
Feng Qingyun hesitated, then asked, “Old Madam, pardon the disturbance, may I ask, what is it you are selling?”
At once, the crowd behind him grew restless, shouting: “You don’t even know Mengpo Soup?! If you’re not buying, then get lost!”
…Mengpo Soup?
Feng Qingyun blinked. The crowd seemed ready to scold further, but the tiger-demon cultivator from before snapped at them instead, raging: “Shut your mouths!”
He was apparently a local ruffian in Fengdu, for his word made the rest fall silent at once.
Feng Qingyun’s heart stirred. “May I ask,” he started, “what effects does this soup have?”
The old crone didn’t even lift her eyelids as she answered plain and simple: “Drink, and all past memories are forgotten. You will be as ignorant as a newborn babe.”
At this, Feng Qingyun’s heart jolted violently, as if seized by an unseen hand. He blurted out, “Does it work on cultivators as well?”
“Of course. From mortals to those in the Golden Core stage, all are affected. Only, the stronger the cultivation, the weaker and shorter the effect.” Her words were steady, like someone who had sold that brew for ten thousand years. “A mortal drinks a single drop, and their entire lifetime of memories is gone. A Golden Core cultivator drinks a whole bottle, and at most, the effect lasts for a single night.”
“The higher the cultivation, the shorter and shallower the effect.”
Feng Qingyun’s heart pounded as he picked up a bottle. “Dare I ask, Old Madam… how do you know it works even for those in the Golden Core stage?”
At this, the tiger-demon cultivator beside him interjected: “Fellow Cultivator, have you never been to Fengdu before?”
Feng Qingyun admitted, “Indeed, I have not. May I ask for your guidance?”
The man, warmed by such courtesy, was quick to explain: “This Mengpo Soup is a delicacy always present at the banquets hosted by the Mistress of the Underworld and her Lords. A single cup brings a night of revelry, the past forgotten.”
That, Feng Qingyun truly did not know.
“To drink it? But… a brew that erases the past, why would Golden Core cultivators favor it?”
The tiger-demon cultivator waved a hand. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Those mighty ones have lived far too long. To forget everything for even a short time, that is a form of rest.”
With Feng Qingyun’s few hundred years of life, he could not begin to fathom what ancient beings of countless years might be seeking.
But the Ghost Gate would not open for three more days… And one bottle could only make a Golden Core cultivator forget for a single night…
Lowering his gaze to the bottle in his hand, Feng Qingyun’s eyes gleamed.
The old crone raised her lids at last.
“Will the honored guest be purchasing a bottle?”
Feng Qingyun asked at once, “How much is a bottle?”
“One supreme-grade spirit stone per bottle. No other stones accepted,” she answered flatly.
The tiger-demon cultivator, thinking Feng Qingyun had no such stone, was just reaching for his own to curry favor, when Feng Qingyun calmly produced three supreme-grade stones.
“Then please, Old Madam, I’ll take three bottles.”
The moment those three stones appeared, the entire street fell silent.
Everyone stared, stunned by such wealth. The tiger-demon froze in place as he lifted his gaze, incredulous, toward Feng Qingyun. Only the old crone remained calm. Taking the stones, she examined them, then wordlessly handed over three bottles.
At last, the tiger-demon found his voice, stammering: “Th-this Mengpo Soup, a single bottle lasts half a year. May I ask… what purpose could you have for three bottles?”
Feng Qingyun accepted them without turning back.
“They’re for my husband,” he answered. “One bottle is too little, I fear it won’t be enough to knock him down.”
(LOL, RIP Long Yin :))))
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