Before rushing through that familiar brushwood gate, Li Qiao hesitated for a fleeting moment.
He paused in uncertainty, only realizing a moment later why he had faltered. The rickety gate of Guoran Residence had never been properly repaired; it felt as though it would fall apart with the slightest force. He and Jinbao were lectured by her every single day as they went in and out.
But now, the latch on that gate was snapped. The faded, halved image of the Door God was utterly ruined, as if foretelling that everything was spiraling toward an irrevocable end, and he was powerless to stop it.
The rain seemed to slow its descent, and with it, his movements in the fray became heavy and sluggish.
The faint sound of the Qingwu Blade slicing through raindrops, combined with the scent of fear emanating from his own kind, hemmed him in. Familiar memories surged from the depths of his bones. Had it not been for this moment, he might have thought he had forgotten what it felt like to wield a blade with such reckless abandon.
His time in this courtyard had lasted a mere three months, yet it felt as though half a lifetime had passed. And yet, in the rise and fall of his blade, he had hacked that life into jagged pieces, leaving it unrecognizable—until not even a sliver of intact moonlight could be found.
The slaughter ended, but a long-dormant savagery refused to return to its iron cage.
The scent of blood permeated the air, crawling into his body with every breath. Beside it, there seemed to be something else, something invisible. At first, it was merely an itch in his nose, but soon that itch ignited, burning through his nasal cavity, his throat, and his chest. His heart hammered as if it might explode, and the blood throughout his body felt as though it were boiling. The humid air of late summer felt like the freezing winds of midwinter, sending shiver after shiver across his skin.
In his daze, the falling rain transformed into flakes of white snow. Amidst that vast expanse of white, he once again saw those bloody footprints.
He had thought that distant blizzard had long since ceased, but it turned out the hideous monster had never left his life. It had merely been lurking in his shadow, waiting for an opportunity to reveal its true form and tear his life to shreds.
And it had to happen... it had to happen right in front of her.
The woman walked toward him under her umbrella, her voice urgent as she spoke. Her dark, bright eyes gazed at him, just as they had on the night they made their pact.
When their story began, she had approached him under just such a broken umbrella, reaching out to catch him as he prepared to leave, telling him she could give him a place to stay.
*Sister, let’s go home, alright?*
Take him away. Take him away from that winter snow, away from this freezing rainy night.
But he could not utter a single word. When he opened his mouth, only suppressed, broken sounds and heavy gasps emerged.
The moment the night sky lit up, a sharp pain pierced his eyes. The rain quickened again. He finally managed to lift his head with great effort, almost able to see his own pale, terrifying face reflected in her eyes.
Qin Jiuye’s gaze pierced the curtain of rain to land on Li Qiao’s face, moving from his distorted eyes to the side. She noticed that, at some point, a speck of crimson had appeared at the corner of his eye—fragile and bewitching, like cinnabar.
She thought it was a splash of blood, but in the next instant, the red dot moved.
The tiny crimson cluster extended legs as thin as spider silk, then gently fluttered its unfolding wings. Fine red powder clung to it, drifting down and vanishing into the air instantly because it was so minuscule.
He opened his mouth as if to cry out to her for help, but it was too late.
It all happened in a heartbeat. The youth let out a low growl and, using every ounce of his strength, violently shoved her away.
Caught off guard, she flew back several paces before slamming into the ground. Her palms and elbows stung with a searing pain, but she had no time to care. Dizzily, she scrambled to her feet and looked up.
In the rain, the youth had collapsed to his knees, his entire body trembling violently. Something evil was wantonly seizing and eroding his body, intent on toying with his soul.
No one could see clearly what that terrifying thing was—except for Qin Jiuye.
Before this moment, she had envisioned this day arriving during countless dawns and dusks.
So, was this the meaning behind that "I'm sorry" from before?
Her eyes dared not leave the youth, yet her heart dared not face what was about to happen.
"Li Qiao..."
She called his name cautiously, but the response never came.
"You had better stay away from him."
Teng Hu’s voice suddenly rang out from behind her. Qin Jiuye turned to find that he had crawled out of the pharmacy at some point, leaning against the doorframe and watching her while panting for breath.
She was overwhelmed by the horrific scene before her. Seeing Teng Hu felt like finally finding someone she could speak to about all of this, and she began to speak haltingly.
"It... it shouldn't be like this. Something must have gone wrong..."
But she had barely started before her voice cut off.
Her gaze fell upon his disheveled clothes and his slashed sleeve, finally landing on the ground a few paces from his feet.
In the damp mud, something bright shimmered with a golden light in the darkness—it was the sachet she had briefly glimpsed at the shipyard that day.
No, it wasn't a sachet. It was a cage fashioned from gold wire, a cage used by poisoners to keep venomous insects.
In the sudden struggle just now, the cage had somehow escaped its master's control, falling and breaking in two. Its contents were nowhere to be seen.
Teng Hu, the White Ghost Umbrella, possessed such superb poisoning skills; why would he use a mere sachet that could be so easily seen through?
Qin Jiuye finally realized what that speck of red on Li Qiao’s face had been.
It was a Black Midge covered in red medicinal powder.
This was a tiny insect that naturally sought out warmth and would fly toward the human body. A Black Midge with medicinal powder on its wings was the most inconspicuous assassin in the world, capable of delivering poison to a target silently—far harder to guard against than the toxic needles of the Compassionate Garment.
She did not yet know what that red powder was, but thinking back to the scene at Xuanyu Shoal and the probing at the shipyard, combined with the current situation, she could almost be certain: it was something that could force someone infected with the "Secret Formula" to reveal their true form and rapidly enter a symptomatic state. Only a tiny inhalation was needed for it to take effect.
Zuo Ci had indeed achieved some results years ago. However, his disciple had no intention of sharing those results; he only wanted to turn them into another tool for his unscrupulous schemes.
A tangle of complex emotions surged in her heart. Qin Jiuye, consumed by a mix of grief and fury, lunged at Teng Hu like a madwoman, grabbing his collar and demanding, "What did you do to him?! Where is the antidote? The antidote..."
"What did I do to him? If that thing wasn't inside him, would he be in this state now?!" Teng Hu wiped the rain from his face, his taut expression entirely unafraid of her furious gaze. "No matter how well you hide him, it will come out sooner or later. You should thank me for letting you see the reality sooner today..."
Qin Jiuye’s hands went limp, letting Teng Hu fall back into the muddy water.
She was out of her mind to even ask him. If there were a so-called "antidote," why would they have worked day and night at that shipyard?
She had exhausted every effort to keep the youth away from Teng Hu, yet she hadn't expected fate to play such a cruel joke, bringing them together at this moment. Destiny was not a simple matter of "good" or "bad"; it was knowing something was going to happen yet being unable to avoid it. It was like standing against the wind for a long time, only for a grain of dust to suddenly fall into one's eye.
She regretted it so much.
She regretted not hiding him better earlier; she regretted not being more careful along the way; she regretted not trying harder at the shipyard to reach the shore of truth... she regretted that just now, across the heavy rain, she hadn't rushed forward regardless of everything to pull him into her arms.
And now, she might have lost that embrace forever.
"Qin Jiuye, blood! You're bleeding!"
Her heart drummed like a war-god's beat; the rain was a cacophony. Teng Hu’s voice drifted into her ears, sounding both far and near. Qin Jiuye looked down belatedly, only then realizing that her hands were drenched in blood from her fall.
The scent of fresh blood overpowered the smell of the corpses being washed by the rain. It was as if a red thread had been pulled through the dark rainy night, leading the youth-turned-monster toward his prey. Before she could react to how it happened, her back hit the ground, and her head slammed hard against the earth.
Her vision went black, her ears rang, and even breathing became difficult. Qin Jiuye opened her eyes to find the youth pinning her down, his right hand gripping her wrist like an iron vise. A chilling, guttural rattling sound emerged from deep within his throat.
Rain dripped from the tips of his hair onto her face. The bitter water blurred her vision, and her voice carried a hint of a sob.
"Li Qiao! It's me! Open your eyes and look clearly, it's me..."
The youth did not respond, only slowly rolling his eyes.
Those light brown eyes, once so full of shifting emotions, had changed. At a glance, only two massive, pitch-black pupils remained. Unlike his previous state of muddled confusion, those eyes now held no emotion whatsoever—only instinct and desire. They were the eyes of a beast; hunger had consumed the soul within his body, replaced by an infinitely proliferating madness.
He pinned her to the ground with the force used to execute prey. That left hand, which she had held countless times, ruthlessly tore open her collar as he leaned down.
A sharp pain flared in her neck as the youth’s teeth sank into her skin without hesitation.
The moment the blood surged, Qin Jiuye felt her head grow heavy. A chill began to spread from her neck throughout her entire body.
The pain caused tears to flow uncontrollably, and her fingertips trembled.
In the chaos, the instinctive fear of death made her squeeze a needle into her hand with all her might. But she couldn't bring herself to strike.
She saw the new wounds on his body, left from his struggle with the assassins of the World’s Greatest Manor. Because they were soaked in rain, they were still bleeding.
She thought of the moment he had stood before her with the Qingwu Blade, the way he had fought those people with everything he had, and every moment he had appeared by her side whenever she called him...
*Whish.*
A slender, purple-glowing soft cord whistled through the air, heading straight for the youth’s spine.
At the other end of the cord, Teng Hu tightened his grip. The iron needles on the cord, like raised scorpion tails, sank deep into the flesh, wrenching the youth off the woman.
A man who specialized in hidden weapons lacked the strength of a true martial artist. This move took almost all of Teng Hu’s strength. He stared fixedly at the frenzied youth, not daring to loosen his grip for a second as the cord creaked under the tension.
"A martial artist is indeed different; he looks much more spirited than the ones before."
Perhaps the pain allowed his body to regain reason, perhaps the anesthetic on the iron needles took effect, or perhaps the woman’s blood entering his throat had quenched the dryness in his body—the blood-soaked man blinked, and clarity finally returned to his eyes.
Li Qiao’s gaze wavered and trembled with his breath, moving from the blood-mixed mud to the woman’s body on the ground, finally stopping on her face, which was stained with blood and grime.
He had just struggled to crawl out of one hell, only to step into another in the blink of an eye.
Something was being washed from his mouth by the rain. He raised a hand to wipe it, then stared blankly at his hands, which were a vivid crimson.
It was her blood.
The blood that had flowed after he had personally torn her apart.
Before the age of sixteen, this was a color he saw almost every day. But now, he almost didn't recognize it. A voice deep in his heart screamed desperately, wanting to deny it all.
In the next moment, the woman in the mud propped herself up and looked at him, extending a thin arm as if to comfort him.
"I'm fine... come here..."
The blood-stained youth let out a pained wail and stumbled backward.
The onset of that strange illness was eroding his body, but the physical discomfort was not even a fraction of the agony in his heart. It felt as though his heart were being pierced by ten thousand iron hooks, pulling in every direction, reminding him that the heart of flesh and blood he had just grown was heading toward destruction once again because of his actions.
Why was she always like this? Steadfastly coming to find him, steadfastly believing in him, steadfastly comforting him with a bloodied hand. If she had scolded him, screamed and run away from him, or struck him in anger or hatred, he wouldn't have felt this miserable.
But she wanted him to come to her.
No, he couldn't. He absolutely couldn't...
A flash of blade light erupted. The soft cord was severed by the Qingwu Blade and fell limply. The brushwood gate of Guoran Residence creaked and swayed in the rainy night, but the youth’s figure was no longer in the courtyard.
Nothing that had happened before caused Qin Jiuye as much panic as this scene. She found a surge of strength from somewhere and scrambled up, leaving the shouting Teng Hu behind as she rushed out of the courtyard at the fastest speed of her life.
There was only one voice in her heart.
She couldn't let him leave.
A powerful premonition told her: once she let him leave, he would never come back.
The wound on her neck burned. Blood loss made her vision begin to blur, but she continued to stagger forward along the muddy path.
Leaving Guoran Residence, there were two paths out of the village—one to the right, one to the left.
The youth, his mind clouded by the illness, had gone left by instinct. The woman chasing after him immediately made the same choice.
The dark night, the rain, the departing wanderer, and the apothecary shopkeeper following close behind—everything seemed to be repeating itself, even the sound of their footsteps in the rain overlapping.
Only this time, she was destined never to catch up to him.
Qin Jiuye fell on that muddy path, her knees striking the ground painfully. She struggled to get up, but her vision darkened in waves, and she could no longer see the way forward.
She stumbled and crawled along until someone seemed to be approaching from ahead, dismounting and splashing through the rain to reach her side.
She wanted to shout: *Don't worry about me, go after Li Qiao.* But her lips were numb, and her voice was no louder than a mosquito's buzz.
In the curtain of rain, everything melted and flowed away.
She could not take another step. She pitched forward into the person's arms and lost consciousness completely.
***
Not long after the great elm tree at the village entrance snapped, the muddy road in Dingweng Village, nearly trampled to ruin by livestock, was flooded again.
But this time was different. The rain seemed as though it would never stop, and the sunny, vibrant days of a few days ago felt as if they had never existed.
There was no sign of sunlight anywhere. Though it was still some time before sunset, the lamps inside the house had already been lit.
The young master of a wealthy family didn't know the price of lamp oil, nor did he know to save it for the homeowner; he dared to light the lamps while doing nothing at all.
The woman lying on the bed sighed inwardly.
She had been awake for a while. The wound on her neck burned like fire, but it wasn't exceptionally severe; it was just the blood loss that made her weak. She lay on the bed, unwilling to move, and simply kept her eyes closed, pretending to still be in a deep sleep.
But the figure guarding the bedside refused to leave, staying there from high noon until sunset.
This wouldn't do.
The Jade-Severing Lord shouldn't be like this, and the Governor even less so.
Qin Jiuye opened her eyes and extended a finger, gently touching the scabbard of the person beside the bed.
The Jitian Sword trembled. Its master snapped awake instantly, leaning down urgently. His bloodshot eyes gazed at her without blinking, before he belatedly realized the distance was inappropriate and backed away slightly.
"How are you? Does it still hurt?"
She raised a hand to touch her neck and shook her head. She opened her mouth, and after a long moment, a raspy voice emerged.
"The village..."
"Don't worry. I've stationed men outside the village. Di Mo's people won't dare come again."
With him there, she was naturally at ease.
The reason she brought up the village was that she truly didn't want to discuss other topics. However, she had barely started before he ended it with brief, forceful authority.
What was meant to come would eventually arrive.
Qin Jiuye took a deep breath, lowering her eyelashes to hide the emotions in her heart.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't stop him." She paused, a weak smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "If I had known, I really should have listened to you—either used double chains to lock him up or simply never left the estate..."
Her voice grew quieter as she spoke. Despite the horrific ordeal she had endured, the first thing she did upon waking was apologize.
Apologize for that youth.
The hand hidden in his sleeve clenched tightly, nearly drawing blood. Qiu Ling stood in silence for a moment before taking out the broken insect cage and placing it on the table.
"Teng Hu used a trick. He must have set his sights on Li Qiao back at the shipyard; he originally intended to use him for experiments. Last night's events were an accident, and it isn't your fault that things ended up this way..."
"I know." The woman's face was still pale, but her words were clear as she analyzed her previous mistakes with an almost detached air. "I noticed something back at the shores of Lixin Lake, but I didn't think of this layer. That unknown powder is extremely dangerous for those infected with the 'Secret Formula.' You should take precautions early, Governor. Zuo Ci's research from back then might have yielded even more. Where is Teng Hu? I want to ask him clearly..."
The woman used her bandaged hand to prop herself up, gritting her teeth as she turned to get out of bed. The wound on her wrist immediately began to seep blood.
The young Governor finally lost his patience, stepping forward to firmly press her back onto the bed.
Was it truly Teng Hu she was looking for?
She clearly knew why he had left, why he didn't dare come back. She knew, she knew everything... so why did she still want to search for someone who refused to return?
The woman on the bed struggled pointlessly a couple of times, only succeeding in kicking over the water basin at the foot of the bed.
The wooden basin flipped, half the water splashing out while the rest swirled inside. The pharmacy boy dozing outside the door was startled awake, peeking through the curtain but not daring to enter the room.
After a long while, Qiu Ling finally loosened his grip slightly.
Even with unquenchable pain and frustration in his heart, he ultimately couldn't bear to hurt her. Instead, he clenched his own hand into a fist. After a moment of calm, he spoke.
"Teng Hu has left. He likely went after Li Qiao. He took Ye Fuzi with him when he left. He left behind the notes he made while concocting the poison triggers at the shipyard, and he said... he's sorry for making you suffer for nothing."
Teng Hu might discuss pharmacology or toxicology with her, but he would never apologize. That last sentence was one Qiu Ling had added himself.
*I'm sorry.* He had said he would protect her, yet when she was attacked, he still hadn't been by her side.
He had sworn not to become like his father, yet fate seemed to be pushing him step by step onto the same path.
He hoped she would take his words to heart, but the woman before him only murmured to herself.
"He hasn't been infected for long. Last night was only the second onset. Although the intervals between onsets will get shorter and shorter, he should be able to hold on for a while longer; he won't become a man-wounding monster immediately. You can have someone draft a notice to be posted along the main roads and villages around Jiugao City, telling the nearby villagers to be careful at night and keep their doors and windows locked..."
"Qin Jiuye."
Qiu Ling’s voice suddenly cut her off.
He knelt down, leaning against her bed, and gently placed his hand over the back of hers, patting it softly as if comforting a child.
This was the most intimate gesture he had ever initiated since they met.
But at this moment, Qin Jiuye felt nothing. Even the wounds on her body seemed to have gone numb.
She blinked and looked at him, a trace of confusion and helplessness deep in her eyes, like a traveler who had missed a turn asking her only companion where they were supposed to go from here.
He gazed at her steadily for a long time before speaking softly.
"Don't investigate this matter anymore, alright? I didn't consider things thoroughly at the start. Even if you came to find me, I shouldn't have agreed, by any right or reason. I just..."
He had just been walking alone for too long, and it was too exhausting. When someone asked if they could walk the same path, his weary heart had compromised.
Qin Jiuye didn't speak for a moment, quietly studying the face looking back at her.
In the past, she had always felt that the two Qiu brothers were so different in appearance and temperament that she hadn't even considered Xu Qiuchi might be a member of the Qiu family, let alone that the "person of destiny" from back then was someone else entirely.
Actually, looking closely now, they were sixty or seventy percent similar. It was just that the trials of the battlefield and internal suppression had caused the features of the man before her to shift toward a deep, solemn gravity, shedding the tenderness unique to the Jiugao region.
In truth, he lived just as arduously as she did. Stripped of his title as Governor and the halo of the Jade-Severing Lord, he was like a prisoner in Magistrate Fan’s dungeon, neither knowing how much longer he had to endure in this hopeless darkness nor if there would be true liberation after the dark.
She couldn't bear for him to continue suffering, yet she was powerless to help.
But even if they were helpless to aid each other in their respective plights, she could still offer her understanding and comfort.
Finally, Qin Jiuye nodded. She then laboriously raised her other hand to cover his hand that was comforting her.
"It's alright, San-lang. Whatever you want me to do, I will do. After all, in my current state, even if I wanted to, I probably couldn't help you much and might even cause trouble. When I get better, if you still need me, just come find me."
Her own heart was clearly bleeding, yet she could still smile and comfort him.
Qiu Ling could hardly look at that face any longer. He lowered his head, slowly and with difficulty placing her hand back into the bedding. He spent a long time tucking her in, as if guarding a dying candle in a gale. When he spoke, his voice was soft, carrying a cautious tremble.
"Alright, I promise you. We'll wait until you've recovered from your injuries before we say anything else, okay?"
Everything clearly hadn't ended, yet everything had already settled.
Qin Jiuye knew he wasn't truly asking her. But she nodded anyway, then heavily closed her eyes.
The figure by the bed lingered for a while longer. She didn't move an inch, listening to the sound of footsteps leaving the bedside, walking out of the room, crossing the courtyard, until they vanished completely into the silence.
***
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