The carriage was extravagantly luxurious: its wheels made of the hardest ten-thousand-year iron, its curtains of priceless moonlit gauze, countless pearls and gems inlaid on its body. Spirit Stones polished into spirit pearls dangled as strings along the edges. As the evening breeze passed, the pearl strings chimed softly, the gauze curtains swayed lightly, and the sunset glow reflected off the crimson gold canopy, blending gold and red in dazzling splendor. It did not look like an ordinary carriage at all, but like a bride’s wedding sedan.
The Lian Mansion gates were tightly shut, the Estate Protection Array activated. In the empty space before the gates stood only this carriage and two people like wooden stakes beside it—these two were his closest paternal cousins.
As soon as the two cousins saw Lian Yunzhi, color returned to their ashen faces, only to quickly turn to fear, struggle, and exhaustion. Tears flickered in their weary eyes.
Lian Yunzhi passed them by and slashed the carriage with one sword!
—Inside the carriage lay his thirteen-year-old cousin in a coma, but she was not the only one.
There were four boys and girls in total, the oldest sixteen, the youngest only seven. Without exception, they all bore some resemblance to Lian Yunzhi. Now dressed in the style of robes Lian Yunzhi liked most, with the type of hair crowns he once favored, the resemblance grew from three parts to five.
“Yunzhi…”
One cousin hesitantly stepped forward and pointed to the children, introducing them one by one: this was the cousin who had trained martial arts with them since age four, this was his daughter, Lian Yunzhi’s little niece who had just turned seven this year…
“Grandfather… Grandfather drugged them all and said… said that only if you board the carriage in their place and personally apologize to Mu Cheng will he give them the antidote.”
Lian Yunzhi gently wiped his sword and turned, walking step by step toward the Lian Mansion gates.
“Bang!”
The cousin dropped to his knees, voice trembling: “Grandfather will kill Manman; he really will kill Manman. My wife is inside the gates. If you take even one step into the Lian Mansion, she’ll be shot dead immediately—”
The other cousin also suddenly knelt and kowtowed heavily on the ground, trembling as he said the same about his child’s mother.
The setting sun cast a long shadow from Lian Yunzhi.
The glow gradually faded from the horizon.
It’s all because of you.
Lian Yunzhi thought quietly.
If you hadn’t walked into that deep alley eleven years ago, if you hadn’t brought that person home, if you hadn’t treated that person like a Demon Beast, like a Human Cauldron, like a Slave to bully and torment at will.
Then none of this would have happened today.
At least, these two youthful lads from his memories, full of unrestrained vigor, would not have to kowtow and beg their cousin, with whom they had grown up, to save their wives and daughters from their own grandfather’s hands.
Lian Yunzhi turned and walked toward the carriage.
.
The slashed-open carriage was restored by spellwork, and the four comatose children were carefully placed on soft blankets on the steps. One cousin stayed to watch the children, while the other drove the carriage, bundling Lian Yunzhi onto it to deliver him to the “Mu Mansion.”
Lian Yunzhi had never imagined a day like this would come for him.
.
The old Mu Mansion had long been flattened by Mu Cheng with a single palm. The current “Mu Mansion” was a Mobile Immortal Palace.
The cousin driving the carriage was a mortal without a Spiritual Root. The moment he saw the Immortal Palace, he froze, but he gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and knocked on the door that seemed made of colored glaze.
“Clang—”
The glazed door opened.
Lian Yunzhi heard a familiar voice: “Who are you looking for?”
Cousin: “I… I’m from the Lian Family. The Lian Family offended Mu Cheng greatly before, so we’ve specially sent me to deliver an apology gift.”
Feng Yuan’s tone was stiff: “A gift? You don’t mean the person sitting in that carriage, do you?! What do you take our Eldest Senior Brother for? He never indulges in lust for beauty! Please leave.”
Cousin: “It’s not an ordinary person; it’s… someone Mu Cheng will definitely accept upon seeing.”
Feng Yuan scoffed, walked over, and yanked open the gauze curtain: “Heh, definitely accept? Quite the boast. Let me see what kind of bea—”
Feng Yuan’s voice froze, his actions froze: “Se… Senior?”
Lian Yunzhi’s face was expressionless as he lowered his eyes, but his nails painfully dug into his flesh.
At that moment, Feng Xi walked out with a cold expression: “Eldest Senior Brother said to place him in Xiuzhu Courtyard.”
Feng Yuan was shocked: “Xiuzhu Courtyard?! That’s Eldest Senior Brother’s own—”
Feng Yuan covered his mouth, eyes widening in disbelief.
.
Lian Yunzhi sat on the bed in Xiuzhu Courtyard’s bedroom and waited for Mu Cheng for a full three hours.
He waited from dusk until deep into the night.
From anxiously stroking his sword to impassively appraising the room’s decor.
From imagining how Mu Cheng would shatter his bones and dump him in a mass grave, to fantasizing that the Beast Taming Contract might still work and he could miraculously escape.
Fine, hoping the Beast Taming Contract would activate was impossible.
He did not know what Mu Cheng had done, but Lian Yunzhi had not sensed the Beast Taming Contract’s existence for many years now—not even when he deliberately probed for it.
Perhaps Mu Cheng really had formed a Dao Companion Contract with someone, dissolving the Beast Taming Contract.
But Mu Cheng’s junior brother had just said he did not indulge in lust for beauty…
Could Mu Cheng have formed a Dao Companion Contract with a Demon Beast? After all, the Mu Cheng bound by the Beast Taming Contract with him could be considered half a Demon Beast…
Lian Yunzhi thought idly and maliciously.
“Creeeak—”
The door opened.
A pitch-black, towering figure shrouded in chilling yin energy walked in.
Lian Yunzhi’s mind went blank; all his previous delusions and thoughts vanished in an instant. His body stiffened, throat parched, fingers gripping the Long Sword tightly, producing “click-click” sounds in the silent night.
“Mu… Cheng?”
He stiffly, syllable by syllable, called out the intruder’s name.
