ATAVID CH35

“You’ve come,” Cui Mingjin sighed softly.

Jiang Qunyu couldn’t be sure if it was just his imagination, but he caught a subtle, almost imperceptible trace of lightness in Cui Mingjin’s voice.

“Jiang Qunyu,” Wei Xun suddenly spoke up, “he’s dangerous.”

Jiang Qunyu nodded in complete agreement. “I know.”

“If you go over, you might die.”

Jiang Qunyu tightened his grip on the Soul-Devouring Sword. He tilted his head to look at Wei Xun, raising his eyebrows in a half-truthful, playful manner. “It’s fine. I won’t die.”

With that, he lifted his foot and stepped right into the courtyard.

Instinctively, Wei Xun reached out to grasp his hand, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Cui Mingjin.

— ‘What makes you think I’d need it?’

— ‘Coincidentally, I don’t need it either.’

The words he had once spoken felt like shackles, ringing out in Wei Xun’s mind at the most inopportune moment, immobilizing his actions.

The voice from the depths of his heart echoed once more: “Let him be. If he wants to go die, let him. Once he feels the pain, he’ll learn to be afraid.”

Wei Xun narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched the receding backs of Jiang Qunyu and Wen Xingyao. He uttered two words barely above a whisper: “Shut up.”

The voice fell silent.

Pressing his lips together into a thin line, he ultimately retracted his hand that hung frozen in midair. With a cold expression, he followed them inside without a word.

It was a dead-silent night, draped in total darkness.

Only the solitary green paper lantern in Cui Mingjin’s hand swayed gently in the wind.

A sudden flicker of lantern light cast its glow on figures standing along both sides of the courtyard.

They stared with pitch-black, hollow eyes, their gazes aligned in unison toward Jiang Qunyu.

Jiang Qunyu let out a cold sneer. He walked over to a stone bench outside the main hall and sat down, crossing his long legs in a unhurried posture. Twirling the tassel on the Soul-Devouring Sword between his fingertips, he looked up with a smile. “City Lord Cui, it’s so late. Why aren’t you asleep?”

The moment Wen Xingyao saw Cui Mingjin, his soul nearly flew out of his body in fright. He didn’t dare sit down at all, wishing he could hide entirely behind Jiang Qunyu’s back.

Hearing Jiang Qunyu’s words, his jaw dropped in disbelief as he whispered, “…Jiang Qunyu, I think we’re the guests here.”

Jiang Qunyu gave a insincere smile. “Shut up.”

Wen Xingyao felt wronged. “Oh!”

Cui Mingjin chuckled. “Why aren’t you two young gentlemen asleep either?”

“Can’t sleep,” Jiang Qunyu lied without blinking an eye. “So I came out to admire the moon, and somehow ended up walking over here.”

Cui Mingjin sighed. “Me too.”

He carried the lantern and walked over at a slow pace, his tone casual as if they were merely making small talk. “If you two don’t mind, why don’t we admire it together?”

Jiang Qunyu: “…”

Wen Xingyao: “…”

How should one put it? One dared to make up complete nonsense, and the other dared to go along with it as if it were fact.

Not a single person present believed a word of this drivel.

Still, it was for the best. Playing along with fake pleasantries made it much easier to pry for information.

Jiang Qunyu said with forced cheerfulness, “City Lord Cui, please sit.”

Cui Mingjin placed the green paper lantern on the stone table. The eerie, pale green glow spread outward—though faint, it exuded an indescribable strangeness.

He lightly lifted the hem of his robe and sat down composedly.

For a moment, silence settled over the courtyard.

Cui Mingjin spoke first. His gaze rested gently on Jiang Qunyu with a subtle smile. “Young master’s disposition is truly worlds apart from Young Master Wei’s.”

Jiang Qunyu’s movements paused slightly.

“The child beside him can see you; he is well aware of our existence.” Wei Xun, who had been standing silently off to the side, suddenly opened his thin lips, his voice cold and indifferent. “I told you before, he isn’t easy to deal with.”

For reasons unknown, Wei Xun didn’t want Jiang Qunyu to know about his late-night conversation with Cui Mingjin, much less mention the trade regarding the Bitter-Crossing Gu.

Jiang Qunyu had suffered a total blackout from drinking and was completely clueless about what had transpired earlier.

Assuming Cui Mingjin was deliberately testing him, he replied casually, “Is that so? He does have quite a temper and doesn’t like talking to others. If you have anything to say, just say it to me.”

The expression on Cui Mingjin’s face stiffened slightly.

He thought to himself that the youth before him was far harder to deal with than the other one.

The last time he met Wei Xun, he had waited until after asking Cui Nian, specifically choosing the moment after this youth was drunk before making his approach. Logically speaking, it was impossible for Jiang Qunyu to know about their conversation, let alone that he already knew the two of them shared a single body.

Yet at this moment, hearing him mention Wei Xun, there wasn’t a trace of surprise in his eyes.

Or could it be… Wei Xun had already told him about the Bitter-Crossing Gu?

Had he guessed wrong?

That Wei Xun went through such great lengths to keep a strand of resentment-formed ghost by his side, yet truly refused to bear even a fraction of the pain for him?

Cui Mingjin didn’t think so.

His voice remained gentle. “How should I address you, Young Master?”

“Jiang Qunyu.”

Cui Mingjin nodded. “Young Master Jiang.”

Jiang Qunyu had no intention of wasting time with pleasantries. He abruptly shifted the topic, casually sighing, “City Lord Cui’s craftsmanship is truly extraordinary. Are all these in the courtyard human puppets?”

He stood up and walked over to one of the “human puppets,” lightly tapping his finger against its stiff shoulder.

“If not for their lack of breathing, I would have almost mistaken them for living, breathing people.”

“Young Master Jiang jests,” Cui Mingjin said softly. “They are merely unrefined, trivial tricks. If Young Master Jiang is willing to stay a few more days in Mirror Lake City, I’m sure you could learn as well.”

“Oh?” Jiang Qunyu smiled. “Then to make them move, does it require spiritual energy to drive them?”

“Naturally, it does.”

Cui Mingjin said meaningfully, “Young Master Jiang, would you like to see it with your own eyes?”

Jiang Qunyu was slightly surprised. “Is that allowed?”

“It is allowed,” Cui Mingjin sighed, his tone turning eerie. “It’s just that once they gain consciousness, they will no longer be under my control.”

The moment those words left his mouth, a strange sense of foreboding rose in Jiang Qunyu’s heart.

“Jiang Qunyu!”

Wen Xingyao’s alarmed cry suddenly burst out from behind him.

Before Jiang Qunyu could react, he felt a sudden chill around his waist. A silver light as fine as a firefly flashed by, and a long, pale hand firmly wrapped around his waist, pulling him back with swift and decisive force.

“Soul-Devouring Sword.”

A young man’s ice-cold voice sounded right against his ear. The Soul-Devouring Sword resting on the stone table hummed vibrantly before dropping directly into Wei Xun’s hand.

A beam of sword light like freezing ice slashed across the dark night, forcefully blocking a black shadow that lunged straight at them.

That thing could no longer be called human. Yet to call it a dead object like a puppet was far from accurate either.

Under the bright moonlight, their hair was growing frantically—thick, black, and tightly tangled together. Like a rising tide, it densely covered the entire bluestone floor.

Faint black veins crawled across their corpse-pale, rigid faces. Their pupils were cloudy and hollow without a single glint of life, looking utterly horrific.

Jiang Qunyu blinked slowly.

His heart, which had been calm and still, only now began to beat wildly after the fact, striking harder with every pulse. It felt as though a few frightened rabbits were thrashing inside his chest, making his eardrums throb.

“Let go,” Jiang Qunyu patted Wei Xun’s hand.

“Jiang Qunyu.” Upon hearing this, the aura surrounding Wei Xun instantly plummeted to freezing temperatures.

With a deadpan face, Jiang Qunyu said helplessly, “I’m going to be strangled to death by you.”

Wei Xun stiffened for a moment before finally letting go.

Only then did Jiang Qunyu look up, staring across the distance at Cui Mingjin standing not far away.

The gentle smile still hung on the corners of Cui Mingjin’s lips, but his gaze wasn’t fixed on Jiang Qunyu.

Instead, he was looking directly at the person beside him—

Wei Xun.

With a cold expression, Jiang Qunyu nudged Wei Xun. “Wei Xun, he seems to be looking at you.”

Wei Xun’s eyes fell on Cui Mingjin’s face.

The smile on that weather-beaten face remained unchanged. His lips parted slightly: See? I knew you would choose this.

Jiang Qunyu couldn’t make sense of it.

Wei Xun, however, understood instantly, the hostility in his heart surging violently.

“City Lord Cui, what is the meaning of this?” Jiang Qunyu was almost angered to the point of laughing.

Cui Mingjin let out a faint sigh. “Young Master Jiang, didn’t I say so just now? Once they move, they are no longer under my control.”

Move?

A cold sneer tugged at the corner of Jiang Qunyu’s lips. “Didn’t City Lord Cui say just now that it was once they gained consciousness? When did it become moving?”

“Is that so?” The night wind blew past, gently fluttering the hem of Cui Mingjin’s robe. His voice was low and deep. “Perhaps Young Master Jiang misremembered.”

Suppressing the anger rising in his chest, Jiang Qunyu said coldly, “Since they are beyond the City Lord’s control, I assume you won’t mind if I destroy them all?”

“Be my guest,” Cui Mingjin said.

Hearing this, Jiang Qunyu didn’t hold back any longer. He was already unaccustomed to using Soul-Devouring Sword, so he simply coated fallen leaves and pebbles with demonic energy, sending them flying toward those dozen monstrous, freakish entities.

Seeing that Jiang Qunyu still handled the situation with relative ease, Wei Xun refrained from intervening further.

He casually tossed Soul-Devouring Sword aside, stepped across the blood-stained bluestone floor, and walked toward Cui Mingjin step by step.

Cui Mingjin couldn’t see Wei Xun. Naturally, he couldn’t see that Wei Xun’s eyes were filled with black veins, nor could he see the demonic energy surging violently around him.

In the next second, an invisible hand choked his neck in a vice-like grip.

An intense sensation of suffocation instantly swept over his entire body. Veins bulged on Cui Mingjin’s neck, his face flushed deep red, and his feet were lifted slightly off the ground.

Yet, everything was within his expectations.

How wonderful.

He let out a raspy laugh. The thin air and the crushing pressure against his throat made his voice sound hoarse and eerie.

There was clearly no one standing before him, yet he stared unblinkingly at the empty space ahead. He rasped, sounding completely victorious: “I told you… you would… come back… to find me… sooner or later…”

A surge of murderous intent exploded in Wei Xun’s eyes.

Wen Xingyao had long been terrified to the point of playing dead on the ground. Hearing this voice now, he snapped his eyes open. Seeing Cui Mingjin’s feet dangling slightly in midair, he was scared out of his wits on the spot. With a pale face, he shouted, “Jiang Qunyu! Why is this old fogey about to die?!”

Hearing the shout, Jiang Qunyu turned his head.

Blood was splattered across the bluestone floor. His face and hands remained clean, with only a few drops of scarlet staining his clothes.

Seeing that Cui Mingjin was about to be choked to death by Wei Xun, Jiang Qunyu walked over and nudged Wei Xun’s foot. “He’s probably the only one who knows the truth about what’s going on in this city. Don’t kill him yet.”

Wei Xun paused his movement, finally releasing his grip.

Cui Mingjin collapsed heavily to the ground. Fresh air surged madly into his chest as he slumped on the floor, coughing violently.

Jiang Qunyu looked down at him expressionlessly.

After coughing for a long while, Cui Mingjin suddenly broke into a low, echoing laugh, his voice sounding haunting. “Gentlemen, please return. Dawn is breaking.”

Wen Xingyao, who had just scrambled up from the ground, immediately said in anxiety, “He hasn’t explained anything yet!”

Jiang Qunyu fell silent for a moment, then shook his head softly. “He won’t say anything. Let’s go.”

With that, he recalled Soul-Devouring Sword back into his consciousness, turned around, and walked outward.

Wen Xingyao stole a lingering, fearful glance at the things on the ground before quickly hurrying after Jiang Qunyu.

Behind them, Cui Mingjin watched their departing figures and stood up. Expressionlessly, he brushed off the dust and wrinkles from his clothes, all traces of a smile vanishing from his eyes.

It wasn’t until a sliver of white broke through the dark sky that he picked up the green paper lantern once more, turning to walk into the deep, quiet corridor.

Wind swept through the long hallway, causing the lantern under the eaves to sway gently.

He stopped in front of a door.

Inside the room, Cui Nian seemed to have heard his footsteps.

Climbing down from the bed, the child opened the door groggily, rubbing his eyes as he threw himself into Cui Mingjin’s arms, acting spoiled: “Dad, I miss Mom so much. I want Mom to make me a lantern.”