The newcomer lifted his head.
His pitch-black, shadowy eyes fully merged into the night, and his icy, possessive gaze clung to Lian Yunzhi along with the moonlight.
Lian Yunzhi had changed a lot.
The youthful innocence between his brows had completely faded, yet his appearance seemed even more striking than before. His figure was no longer soft and slender; instead, it gained a resilient allure that tempted one to climb and pluck it. He simply sat there doing nothing, yet he drew all the moonlight to himself.
Moonlight.
The moonlight was also gray, not as clean as him.
The pristine Lian Yunzhi sat on his own bed, his entire body emanating a fragrance that grew richer with maturity. That scent bewitched one’s will, devoured one’s reason, making one wish to swallow him whole into their belly.
He wanted to eat him.
Desire surged in his heart, hunger writhed in his gut. Even after standing outside for three hours, this mad obsession showed no sign of abating.
He wanted to eat him.
He wanted to start from his fingers, snap his finger joints, savor his flesh and skin, chew his bones.
He wanted to swallow him completely into his belly.
.
“Mu… Mu Cheng?”
It was only when Mu Cheng’s rough hand, stained with dust and blood, seized Lian Yunzhi’s finger that Lian Yunzhi truly understood what Fang Tianxin meant by “Mu Cheng has gone mad.”
Lian Yunzhi instinctively pulled his hand back.
But in the next instant—
Crack!
Mu Cheng snapped the joint of his index finger.
“Ugh!”
Lian Yunzhi had not endured such physical pain for a very, very long time. Cold sweat instantly beaded on his forehead, and a short grunt escaped his lips, but he dared not withdraw his hand again.
He could not beat Mu Cheng.
He had realized this from the very first glance upon seeing Mu Cheng.
So, was he just going to be slaughtered like fish on a chopping block? Was Mu Cheng planning to break him starting from his fingers, snapping every bone in his body inch by inch, then use a sword to pick out the shattered bones one by one, treating him just like he had treated Mu Kunrong?!
Lian Yunzhi’s body began to tremble.
But what could he do? Fight to the death? Explode his Golden Core? Could his self-explosion even harm a single finger of Mu Cheng’s?
Self-explosion… did it hurt?
Did it hurt more than having every bone in his body broken?
Lian Yunzhi did not want to die. He still had so many things left undone. He had not reached Nascent Soul, had not reached Soul Transformation, had not achieved Ascension. He had not taken revenge, had not stormed into the Lian Family, had not pressed his sword to his own grandfather’s neck to make him thoroughly regret forcing him today. He had not overcome his maladaptation to the outside world and truly ventured into the greater world…
Lian Yunzhi did not want to die. He was not willing to perish just like this.
Thus, even as his body unconsciously gathered spiritual power into his Golden Core, preparing for an imminent self-explosion, his lips still trembled unwillingly as they parted:
“Mu, Mu Cheng… don’t kill me, alright? You can torment me, humiliate me, bully me just like I bullied you back then, but please don’t kill me… I never wanted your life back then, did I?”
But Mu Cheng acted as if he heard nothing. He pulled up Lian Yunzhi’s finger and put it into his mouth, biting down hard—
“Ah!”
Lian Yunzhi’s finger had nearly been bitten off once before. How could he let the same person wound it a second time?! Thus, before Mu Cheng’s teeth descended, his body reacted faster than his mind. He yanked his finger back fiercely, leaped off the bed, grabbed his sword, and retreated a step!
Mu Cheng bit empty air. He slowly raised his head to look at Lian Yunzhi.
The night seemed to grow even deeper.
Lian Yunzhi’s hand gripping the sword grew slick with sweat.
A familiar, icy, viscous aura slithered over like ten thousand venomous snakes, wrapping around Lian Yunzhi’s body and sealing all his meridians, preventing him from using any spiritual power—not even a self-explosion was possible now.
Clang.
His sword slipped from his unsteady grasp and fell to the ground.
Lian Yunzhi’s entire body trembled.
He finally realized that the current Mu Cheng was “abnormal”—the most abnormal he had ever seen.
Eleven years ago, on that midnight when he had picked Mu Cheng up and brought him back to the cave mansion, Mu Cheng had also been “possessed” like this.
It was then that his finger had nearly been bitten off.
Back then, he had slapped Mu Cheng to snap him out of it.
But this time?
Mu Cheng would not give him the chance to strike again.
And even a “sane” Mu Cheng would not spare him now.
Perhaps a sane Mu Cheng would no longer want to bite off his fingers but crush his bones instead.
.
Lian Yunzhi fell into despair.
What despaired him even more was that Mu Cheng seemed to want to eat him.
He clearly saw the greedy hunger in Mu Cheng’s pitch-black, shadowy eyes, which faintly glowed red. Mu Cheng no longer seemed human; he was like a true demon beast.
Had he not really signed a Dao Companion Contract with a demon beast, turning beastly himself?
Lian Yunzhi’s mind wandered into absurd thoughts.
But his body trembled uncontrollably from overwhelming fear.
