ATAVID CH36

Cui Mingjin squatted down, gently lifted the little one into his arms, and softened his voice: “Don’t worry, in a few days we’ll go see your mother.”

Hearing that, Cui Nian obediently buried his head in his father’s neck and nuzzled.

Cui Mingjin carried him back into the room. The night wind squeezed in through the half‑open window, and the candle flame swayed gently.

Cui Nian, perched on Cui Mingjin’s shoulder, opened his big round eyes and suddenly asked, “Father, why is that brother’s soul unlike ours? Ours are red, but his isn’t.”

“Father doesn’t know, either,” Cui Mingjin answered. He set him down on the bed, wiped his small feet clean with his sleeve, then looked up at him. “Promise Father, if those brothers want to play with you, you mustn’t pay them any mind, okay?”

A hint of hesitation flickered in Cui Nian’s eyes. He wrinkled his little face and pouted, “But that brother smells nice. Nian‑nian likes him.”

“If you talk to those brothers,” Cui Mingjin pinched his cheek, his tone still warm, “you’ll be taken away by them, and then you’ll never see Father or Mother again.”

“No!” As soon as Cui Nian heard that, he threw himself forward and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck, his round eyes brimming with tears. “Nian‑nian likes Father and Mother the most.”

“Then will Nian‑nian do as Father asked and not talk to those brothers?” Cui Mingjin patted his back.

Cui Nian pouted, “Mm.”

Cui Mingjin’s brows and eyes softened into a gentle curve. “Nian‑nian is so good.”

The little one in his arms soon grew drowsy, murmuring faintly in his sleep, “Father, the three of us… we’ll stay together forever, right?”

Cui Mingjin answered softly, “Father, Mother, and Nian‑nian will always be together.”

Only after Cui Nian had slipped into deep sleep did Cui Mingjin rise again.

The room was dim, lit by candlelight that flickered, half sinking his face into shadow and half bathing it in candle‑gold, shifting between light and dark.

After a long while, he picked up the green paper lantern and turned toward the study.

Inside, it was very quiet. A few old ink paintings hung on the wall, their brushwork slightly yellowed, and the air carried a faint fragrance of books mingled with a barely noticeable, lake‑like dampness that felt chilling.

Cui Mingjin stood in the center of the room, half‑lowering his eyes, motionless for a long time.

As the candlelight dimmed further, he finally lifted a hand and placed it on a small blue‑and‑white porcelain bottle on the bookshelf, then turned it lightly.

“Rumble—”

With a low mechanical thud, the bookshelf slid aside, revealing a black, gaping entrance to a basement.

Stone steps descended into a darkness so thick it seemed unbreakable.

The air was damp.

Cold.

And tangled with the rotten, fetid stench of something long deprived of daylight.

The light from the green paper lantern barely reached a few steps down; beyond that, there was only a blackness that swallowed everything.

Cui Mingjin walked down step by step, his shoes echoing with hollow, monotonous sounds on the cold stone floor.

With every step, the chill around him deepened, as if countless eyes were silently watching him from the dark.

He did not stop.

At the bottom of the steps lay a fairly narrow stone chamber.

In the center of the room lay a woman. Her hair was extremely long—thick, black, and dense, spreading across the entire floor like a dark tide that drowned every stone slab.

Half of her face was covered by a silver mask carved with intricate patterns; the one eye left exposed had a faintly upward‑tilted outer corner. The other half of her face was fair as snow, her lips crimson like fresh blood.

If one ignored the human‑skin lantern she had tossed aside, the whole scene still managed a kind of grotesque beauty.

Seeing Cui Mingjin, the woman blinked in surprise. Her thick black hair seemed to come alive, quickly surging over and completely hiding the human‑skin lantern beneath it.

The steps were streaked with traces of lake water, damp and winding, stretching all the way to the center of the chamber.

Cui Mingjin sighed. “Shuangyi, you went out again tonight.”

Yun Shuangyi blinked, her tone apologetic, like a child who had done something wrong. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Cui Mingjin smiled indulgently. He continued walking down, and with every step his hair coiled back a little, as if instinctively making way for him.

Cui Mingjin set the lantern down and reached out his hand.

Shuangyi tilted her head up obediently and softly rubbed her cheek against his palm. The gesture was intimate and clingy, tinged with childish dependency.

Cui Mingjin chuckled softly, raised a hand to stroke her long hair, his voice tender to the point of melting. “It’s alright, Shuangyi.”

He murmured, “I know, you were just hungry.”

Shuangyi opened her eyes like a small animal, hazy and misty. “Mingjin, I’m hungry.”

Cui Mingjin made a soft sound, his expression softening. “That’s fine. This time it’s not your fault. Go ahead.”

She blinked, long lashes lifting. Gazing at him, she suddenly said, “But I’ll miss you.”

After a pause, she whispered, “I’ll miss you, Nian‑nian, I’ll miss you both so much…”

“Shuangyi, do you want to leave?” Cui Mingjin did not answer that.

Hearing the question, Shuangyi instinctively looked toward the faint light at the top of the steps and hesitated a moment before replying, “She wants to.”

Cui Mingjin softly asked, “Do you want to?”

“We do,” she said, then reached out, pulled him into an embrace, and gently patted his back the way he often did to comfort her. “Mingjin, what have you been making this time that’s so new?”

Leaning against her shoulder, Cui Mingjin gave a muffled reply. “Something new.”

After the words left his mouth, Shuangyi let him go.

Her movements were nothing like a normal person’s. She braced her limbs against the cold stone wall, fingers curled like hooks, and lightly locked them into the cracks.

In the next instant, her entire body pressed against the wall and rose like a lithe cat, nimble yet eerie. Her long hair streamed down like an ink waterfall; the sight was gorgeously vivid, but the speed of her movement was horrifyingly fast.

In no time, the sound of her movement faded.

Her figure vanished from the chamber.

From Cui Mingjin’s place, Wen Xingyao’s legs were still weak.

He leaned against the wall, staggering back toward Jiang Qunyu with three steps for every shake, face ashen and lips trembling. “Jiang Qunyu, were those things just now even human?”

“Not sure,” Jiang Qunyu shook his head.

If he had to say they weren’t human, then when he fought them, those things had still breathed and bled. Even the most lifelike human puppets could not be built to that level of realism.

“Even if we don’t know what they are, Cui Mingjin must have used some forbidden technique or cultivated some sort of demonic path,” Jiang Qunyu said as he pushed the door open. He decided he would sleep first; the rest could wait until tomorrow.

Wen Xingyao stood at the doorway, pitifully looking at him. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Hmm?” Jiang Qunyu blinked.

Walking in last, Wei Xun’s gaze was grim and sinister, fixed on Wen Xingyao as if wishing he would just disappear.

Regardless of that, Wen Xingyao went on, miserably, “This young master’ll just sleep on the floor. This young master’s just too scared; I can’t sleep alone.”

“That’s not necessary,” Jiang Qunyu shrugged. Before, during training camps, all newcomers had to cram into tight rooms—sometimes seven or eight people in one. He suggested, “If you really insist, we can all sleep on the bed. One side for each of us.”

Hearing that, Wen Xingyao shook his head like a rattle, then quickly spread the blanket he had brought onto the floor and closed his eyes. “This is perfect!”

Watching how swiftly he set himself up, Jiang Qunyu figured this was probably what he had had in mind when he’d knocked earlier that night.

He didn’t bother with it, tossed his blood‑speckled green robe aside, cast a few dust‑cleansing spells on both Wen Xingyao and himself, and then lay down and slept.

The room grew quiet again.

Jiang Qunyu was almost asleep when he felt as if he had forgotten something.

As he drifted off, he suddenly opened his eyes and found himself staring into Wei Xun’s deep, shadowed gaze.

Wei Xun stood by the bed, his whole figure gloomy, looking like a ghost.

Moonlight seeped in through the window, falling coldly on him and casting a ghastly tint over his entire body. He stood there, eyes lowered, silently staring at Jiang Qunyu in the bed.

The moment Jiang Qunyu opened his eyes, Wei Xun’s face hardened, his voice icy. “Jiang Qunyu, do you just say ‘let’s sleep together’ to anyone?”

Jiang Qunyu’s mood turned complicated. He scratched his head, realizing he had forgotten that Wei Xun was there.

And this person’s state had been off ever since earlier tonight.

“It’s not like that,” Jiang Qunyu said, not wanting to argue at midnight and then not be able to sleep. “Wen Xingyao is a friend, isn’t he?”

“Friend?” A faint bewilderment flickered across Wei Xun’s face. He blinked once before asking, “Then what are we? Are we also friends?”

Jiang Qunyu fell into an unusually long silence.

After a while, he shook his head, grinning. “I’m your inner demon.”

Wei Xun said nothing, but the dark voice in his heart rose again: Right, he’s not your inner demon? You’re the one unilaterally pretending he’s a friend. Why does his list of friends need to be so long, when yours is only him?

He stared fixedly into Jiang Qunyu’s eyes and declared without doubt, “No. You are not my inner demon.”

Jiang Qunyu froze.

He remembered earlier Wei Xun had coldly declared he was his inner demon, and now he was saying he wasn’t. Jiang Qunyu thought his temperament really was as changeable as the weather, acting on whims.

Who knew whether he’d call him his inner demon again tomorrow.

So he didn’t take it seriously and just wanted to cut it short, then go on sleeping. He waved a hand and yawned, “Alright, whatever you say, you say.”

At that, Wei Xun’s face grew even colder.

He stared at Jiang Qunyu for a while, gaze heavy.

Jiang Qunyu watched as he suddenly leapt up to the beam, leaned against the pillar with one leg half‑bent, and closed his eyes. The posture looked hideously uncomfortable.

Jiang Qunyu didn’t bother with him.

At least this way, he had the whole bed to himself, so he flopped to the middle, spread out his arms and legs, and quickly fell back asleep.

The next morning, Jiang Qunyu divided the drawings Wei Xun had made the night before into two sets and handed one to Wen Xingyao. “No point asking Cui Mingjin; he wouldn’t tell us anything useful anyway. Might as well we go look for ourselves. See if there’s any common pattern among these people.”

Wen Xingyao moved his lips. “Won’t we get murdered to silence then?”

“We probably won’t,” Jiang Qunyu reassured him.

“Why?” Wen Xingyao asked.

“Because killing people to silence them usually happens on a night with no moon and howling wind,” Jiang Qunyu replied flatly.

Wen Xingyao: “…Fine.”

He thought about it and felt that sounded sort of logical. Then he thought again and felt something was off somewhere. But in the end, he gritted his teeth, clutched an inked portrait in his hand, and walked out, looking back every three steps.

Jiang Qunyu turned, about to say something to Wei Xun.

But Wei Xun, expressionless, simply walked past him and headed straight for the door.

Jiang Qunyu: “…?”

He almost laughed at how annoyed he was, then took a step forward and chased after him.

Wei Xun suddenly spoke, tone calm. “Ever since you entered the Transformation Realm, our distance limit has disappeared. You don’t need to stick with me.”

“Huh?” Jiang Qunyu froze, then ground his teeth. “Then why didn’t you say that earlier?”

He’d reached that realm last year, hadn’t he?