Huo Jieqi spoke as if recounting the most ordinary matter. “You hooked your tongue around mine and gripped my wrist—that hardly seemed like someone with no feelings. Am I just a toy for you to use and toss aside?”
Luo Li’s fair cheeks flushed crimson in an instant. His small hands flailed, unsure where to settle.
“That was because… because…”
His mind went blank. Huo Jieqi suddenly seized his hand. “Because of the drug, right?”
Luo Li nodded in a daze. “Yes.”
Before this man had revealed his true identity, he’d worn the same face—but it had felt entirely different. Back then, those deep-set eyes and sharp outer corners bore no fine lines, his nose wasn’t quite so prominent, and his build hadn’t loomed so tall and intimidating.
The “Huo Cheng” of that time had been merely a handsome young man. But “Huo Jieqi” was a fully mature man through and through.
The bearing of a family head shone from him in full force. Every word he spoke was calm and measured, yet it filled one with such dread that they dared not even lift their head.
And… there was one crucial reason more. A reason Luo Li couldn’t bring himself to voice.
That reason, perhaps, lay at the root of his resistance to Huo Jieqi—and the inexplicable pull that always drew him closer despite himself.
Huo Jieqi watched Luo Li in silence. “I see. So you believe it was the drug.”
He averted his eyes and released Luo Li’s hand. Without a word, he leaned down and pressed his lips to the boy’s.
This man carried an air of icy austerity, yet his body heat ran scorchingly high, infusing the kiss with a searing intensity that could burn any onlooker.
The paper effigies stood mute nearby. In the chill gloom of the Huo Mansion, Huo Jieqi alone radiated warmth like a living furnace—the sole source of reassuring human vitality for Luo Li.
From the paper effigies’ perspective, they saw only the boy’s slender fingers tightening on the table corner, his pale earlobes first tinged pink, then deepening to scarlet.
Huo Jieqi cradled his cheeks. At first, Luo Li tried to pull away, but soon the kiss sapped his resistance. His neck went limp, his soft cheeks nestling into the man’s palm like a petulant little creature seeking affection.
Huo Jieqi kissed with cool composure from start to finish, while Luo Li trembled violently, his balance failing until he tumbled into the man’s arms.
A large hand steadied the boy’s waist. He could have kept going, but he stopped.
Huo Jieqi drew back from Luo Li’s lips and watched the glistening thread of saliva stretch between their tongues before snapping. Even the boy’s small, pointed teeth gleamed with moisture.
His teeth were sharp enough to bite, yet during the forceful kiss, he hadn’t dared. Instead, he’d obediently tucked them away, allowing the intruding tongue to delve even deeper.
…Surprisingly well-behaved.
Huo Jieqi reckoned the kiss hadn’t lasted long—barely a taste. Yet Luo Li was flushed all over. In the instant of release, he even tilted his chin up instinctively.
As if craving more.
Huo Jieqi’s thumb pressed against his lips—a gesture of restraint.
He repeated himself. “Because of the drug?”
Luo Li froze, only then realizing what his body had sought.
H-How could he have wanted more kisses?
How could he possibly crave continuing?
What was wrong with him…?
A surge of shame and pride overwhelmed him. Luo Li whipped his head aside, fighting back tears as he shoved at Huo Jieqi’s chest.
But the man didn’t budge an inch. His hot breath ghosted over Luo Li’s ear.
“If it wasn’t the drug, then at least… you like me a little, don’t you?”
“I don’t!”
Luo Li denied it instantly. “Y-Your kissing technique is awful, and you barely did it long enough. You’re old too—way worse than… than your son!”
He’d blurted it all out in a huff, robbing the words of any real weight.
But invoking the “son” still made Huo Jieqi’s expression stiffen for a moment. Clearly, his age was a sore spot.
Luo Li pressed his advantage. “You just… bully kids like me. You couldn’t land a proper wife, so you’re forcing me instead. I’m not falling for it.”
“Are you a kid?”
Huo Jieqi wiped the moisture from his own lips. “Don’t you have that Ghost Hand as your fine son? If anything, you’d make a single mother.”
He showed no sign of anger. Instead, he gazed down at Luo Li, who sat twisting his fingers on the table—torn between stubbornness and conflict. After the boy had grumbled his defenses at length, Huo Jieqi drew close once more and let out a chuckle.
“I could kiss you again.”
“So you can compare properly. What do you say?”
~~~
By now, dozens of paper effigies in all manner of forms had gathered in the grand hall of the Huo Mansion.
Chu Jing shoved the door open, and a wave of long-sealed rot assaulted him. The once opulent mansion seemed to have crumbled into decay overnight, transformed into a veritable tomb of the living dead.
He’d nearly taken a blade to the shoulder but had subdued that paper effigy and claimed the key.
The moment he entered the hall through the back door, Bern forced him to halt.
“Don’t charge in like that. Everything inside is probably hostile.”
Chu Jing cursed under his breath and shrank back into the corner for the time being.
Just ahead and off to the side sat two paper effigies resembling elderly folk.
Chu Jing gasped in horror. “Aren’t those the Huo Family’s long-dead old man and his wife?”
They ought to have been Huo Jieqi’s grandparents, buried years ago.
Yet here they stood as paper effigies—an act of utter madness.
The two elders were dressed in lavish formal attire, seated primly in the center with rigidly solemn expressions.
The remaining servants wore archaic styles too. One glance might fool you into thinking you’d slipped back thirty-odd years.
A chill crawled over Chu Jing and Bern. At that moment, every paper effigy lifted its head in unison, staring toward the direction of the main doors.
A tall, upright figure strode in first: Huo Jieqi. He turned and extended his arm behind him.
A familiar petite silhouette entered timidly from the doorway. Silver-white hair cascaded over a long red satin robe. Small hands hesitated before lightly grasping Huo Jieqi’s arm and linking with it.
“Little Waste…!”
Chu Jing whispered in shock. Something was terribly off. Their spoiled, disobedient, mule-stubborn Little Waste—who loathed being told what to do—was meekly clinging to that old bastard’s arm without a hint of protest!
And that outfit—what the hell? He looked just like a bride on her wedding day.
Luo Li approached the two paper effigies, hesitating, unsure what to do.
Should he kneel? Kowtow?
“No need to kneel.”
Huo Jieqi ruffled his long hair. “Just call them Grandpa and Grandma.”
Luo Li looked up. The pair bent forward, beaming at him with crinkled smiles.
Were it not for their eerily pallid paper faces, the expressions might have passed for kindly.
“…Grandpa. Grandma.”
Huo Jieqi said, “This is Lili. You’ve met him before, you two.”
Chu Jing itched to blast every last one of those paper freaks to bits. Naturally, the first bullet would go to Huo Jieqi.
Him, worthy of marrying Luo Li? Just a pile of filthy money—and pushing past thirty already. Give it a couple more years, and wrinkles would crease that face. Old cow gnawing tender grass—what a joke!
Seeing that hand resting on Luo Li’s waist only turned Chu Jing’s stomach further.
The paper effigy elder even spoke. “How old are you, lad? What a beauty. Good eye, Qi’er.”
Luo Li stared at the bloodless, gaping hole that served as its “mouth,” every hair on his body standing on end. It took him ages to reply. “I’m… nineteen.”
The Paper Effigy Elder nodded in satisfaction. “A good bit younger than Qi’er. But don’t hold his age against him. Older men know how to cherish. Our Qi’er’s as steady and gentle as they come—you’ll want for nothing after marrying over.”
What bullshit.
Chu Jing fumed inwardly. Huo Jieqi, gentle? Back when he’d seized turf at the docks and spilled blood, he’d outdone any street thug…
This was bald-faced lies, plain as day!
Moreover, something felt wrong.
Every Huo Family head should know about the Mountain God. So why hadn’t this old coot recognized Luo Li?
Bern murmured suddenly, “These paper effigies… none of them seem to have spirits possessing them.”
From his position, there were no kill prompts visible. That meant the paper figures in the main hall were just ordinary NPCs—not “Huo family members” possessed by lingering spirits.
Had Huo Cheng’s speculation been off the mark?
Without any undead, though, they couldn’t form an array. They couldn’t suppress the Mountain God’s power.
So what was the point of Huo Jieqi arranging all these paper figures?
The two paper figures studied Luo Li intently, looking immensely pleased.
“Qi’er, you’ve long passed the age for starting a family. You can decide such an important matter for yourself.”
“A-gong and A-ma only hope you’ll settle this long-held wish. After that, you needn’t keep it weighing on your mind any longer.”
Huo Jieqi gripped Luo Li’s hand tightly. “That’s only natural.”
At those words, Bern shot Chu Jing a meaningful glance. “Did you catch that?”
Chu Jing gave a heavy nod.
Huo Jieqi’s long-held wish… Could it be to marry off the Mountain God?
“If Huo Jieqi never died, there’d be no talk of inheritance in the first place. So when the clearance method mentions ‘the one who claims the inheritance can break the curse,’ that inheritance must mean something else entirely.”
Bern murmured this as he drew a handgun from his coat pocket. “…Say we kill Huo Jieqi right now. As his spouse, wouldn’t the Mountain God then become his ‘inheritance’?”
In other words, they might have been barking up the wrong tree from the very beginning.
The real way to clear this instance was to kill Huo Jieqi and rescue Luo Li.
Bern leveled the gun at Huo Jieqi. But in the instant before he pulled the trigger, something crashed into the main hall.
More precisely, it was stopped just outside.
…Ghost Hand.
Somehow, Ghost Hand had slipped in through the back door Chu Jing and the others had left ajar. It had clearly been ready to charge straight inside. But the moment it spotted Luo Li and Huo Jieqi clasping hands, it froze in place.
He simply stood there, dumbstruck, staring at the pair in the distance.
It was right then that the Paper Effigy Elder spoke up. “…Any thoughts on having kids, Lili?”
Luo Li didn’t know what to say. He glanced instinctively at Huo Jieqi, who curved his lips in a faint smile, as if to say it didn’t matter either way.
Luo Li lowered his eyes and mumbled offhandedly, “Mm… yeah, I suppose.”
Ghost Hand’s burly frame shuddered visibly. Every muscle in his body went rigid.
Watching the scene unfold, Chu Jing couldn’t help but form a startling theory.
This evil spirit… Was it jealous, having overheard Luo Li talking about kids with someone else?
