Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Yun Jianyue silently shoveled food into her mouth. As soon as Zhang Qixi finished speaking, she hurriedly took a sip of water to wash it down.

Zhang Qixi thoughtfully pulled out a napkin and handed it to Yun Jianyue, but Si Wuming was even faster.

True to her principle of never turning down either gender, Yun Jianyue decisively accepted both napkins.

After a moment’s hesitation, Chen You also pulled out a napkin and offered it to her. “They both gave you one. Would it be weird if I didn’t?”

“Nice.” Yun Jianyue accepted his napkin too, treating everyone equally, then asked Zhang Qixi, “What made you think Yu Lu had encountered a ghost in the first place?”

“Didn’t I just explain? I know a little about this kind of thing, so I suggested it,” Zhang Qixi said. “Then she went to see Granny Chang, and after that, she lost her mind. No matter how you look at it, this couldn’t have been ordinary bad luck.”

“I see.” Yun Jianyue nodded thoughtfully.

“How is the investigation going? Is there any chance Lulu will recover?” Zhang Qixi asked anxiously.

Yun Jianyue shook her head. “No one can promise she’ll get better. All we can do is try our best.”

By the time Yun Jianyue and the others left the restaurant after dinner, night had completely fallen.

Luci County might have been small, but it was brimming with holiday spirit.

Christmas trees stood outside shops along the street, storefronts were covered in Christmas decals, and people dressed as Santa Claus wandered through the crowds.

Zhang Qixi couldn’t help growing melancholy. “Christmas was always Lulu’s favorite holiday.”

“All right, we still have things to do, so we’ll leave you here.” Ignoring Zhang Qixi’s sadness, Yun Jianyue gave her a cheery wave and left with Chen You and the others.

As soon as they got into the car, Chen You eagerly asked Yun Jianyue, “What did you manage to find out from Zhang Qixi?”

Yun Jianyue looked puzzled. “You heard everything she said, didn’t you?”

“Huh? I thought you might’ve picked up on something the rest of us missed.” Chen You scratched his head.

“Tomorrow, have someone check whether Zhang Qixi really has a second uncle who used to be a Daoist priest, and whether a member of Xuanmen visited him for drinks a few years ago,” Yun Jianyue said.

Chen You finally caught on for once. “You think Zhang Qixi was lying? But what does that have to do with Yu Lu?”

Yun Jianyue patiently explained, “The fact that it has nothing to do with Yu Lu is exactly what makes it suspicious. When an ordinary person tries to recall every detail of how something happened, there’s no way they can recount it that smoothly without stopping to think. I suspect she may have fabricated those details in advance and was simply waiting for someone to ask.”

Of course, there was another possibility: Zhang Qixi might simply be an exceptionally articulate person.

The case was still shrouded in uncertainty, so it was better to be thorough.

“Where are we going now? It’s only eight,” Chen You asked.

“We’re getting off work, obviously! What, are we supposed to go looking for the missing Granny Chang right now? If something really happened to her, she’d already be long dead.” Yun Jianyue sounded completely justified.

If Granny Chang really had been taken by a powerful evil entity, the past few days would have been enough time for her to die eight hundred times over.

Chen You thought Yun Jianyue had a point and drove them to the guesthouse that had been arranged for them.

Since it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to enter a woman’s room, Chen You only escorted Yun Jianyue to her door and let her go in alone.

He then went to see Si Wuming to his room, but Si Wuming had no intention of letting Chen You inside. He merely said thank you before swiftly shutting the door.

Once inside, Yun Jianyue inserted the guesthouse keycard. The pitch-black room instantly lit up.

A handsome man in black robes sat on the bed. He seemed to have been waiting for her for a long time. As the lights came on, he slowly turned his head toward her.

“What took you so long?” Mo Chen asked with a hint of resentment, sounding like a neglected husband who had wandered in from the wrong show.

Yun Jianyue’s hand went straight into her backpack. Before she could pull out her chainsaw, Mo Chen flashed in front of her and clamped a large hand firmly around her arm.

“How many more times are you planning to chop me up?” Mo Chen’s expression darkened. No one had ever treated him with such disdain before.

“Sorry. Seeing you triggered a reflex.” Yun Jianyue slowly withdrew her hand from her backpack, then walked to the nightstand and changed her shoes as though he weren’t even there.

Mo Chen simply watched her in silence.

Lu Changxue, however, couldn’t keep quiet inside the jade pendant and began shrieking, “Why is he here again?! He hasn’t actually fallen for you, has he? Why is he everywhere you go?!”

Mo Chen dug a finger into his ear, looking faintly disgusted. “I can hear you too.”

Lu Changxue fell silent. Damn it. Just end the world already.

“Too?” Yun Jianyue immediately caught his choice of words. “Have you been spying on Si Wuming and me?”

“I wouldn’t call it spying. The Red Thread of Fate told me.” Mo Chen gave his wrist a shake.

His entire body was deathly pale, like an undecayed corpse that had been buried underground for thousands of years without ever seeing sunlight.
The bright Red Thread of Fate swayed gently around his wrist, impossible to miss.

After spending the entire day traveling, Yun Jianyue felt grimy all over. She took off her coat, grabbed her pajamas, and headed into the bathroom. “I’m taking a shower first. Wait here.”

Lu Changxue muttered under her breath, “With how powerful he is, he could probably still watch you shower even if you closed the door.”

Mo Chen was speechless. He wanted to destroy this female ghost. He was the mighty Evil God. Why would he stoop to peeping on a human woman in the shower?

“That’s fine. If he wants, we can shower together.” Yun Jianyue was shameless, and therefore invincible.

As soon as she said that, Mo Chen’s expression darkened even further. He shot her a baleful glare, as if condemning her for her lack of modesty, then vanished from the room.

Yun Jianyue turned on the shower. When the warm water poured over her, she let out a contented sigh. “Who knew the Evil God was so innocent? Next time, I won’t need to hack at him with a chainsaw. I can just gross him out.”

“I told you, I can hear you!”

Mo Chen’s furious voice rang directly inside her mind.

“You can talk to me in my head?!” It was Yun Jianyue’s first time experiencing anything like this, and she found it incredibly novel.

Then an evil grin spread across her face as she began giving Mo Chen a detailed commentary. “I’m lathering up now. I’ve rubbed the foam all over my hands, and next I’m going to…”

“Shut up!”

Mo Chen sounded like an innocent maiden whose virtue had just been violated, furious and mortified in equal measure.

Ignoring him completely, Yun Jianyue continued, “Now I’m washing my body. Wow, my boobs are pretty big.”

“Have you no shame?!”

After hurling that insult, Mo Chen’s voice vanished from her mind altogether.

It wasn’t until Yun Jianyue had finished showering, changed into her pajamas, and started drying her hair that Mo Chen reappeared in the room, his face dark as thunder.

“Don’t you have anything you want to ask me?” Mo Chen ground out through clenched teeth. Why was this human woman so infuriating? He should have killed her when he’d had the chance!

“Sure I do,” Yun Jianyue replied.

Mo Chen finally felt a little better. “About that strand of hair…”

“Why aren’t you trying to kill me anymore?”

Mo Chen stared at her in disbelief.

“Aren’t you curious why my hair was in that medium’s house?” Mo Chen desperately wanted to strangle Yun Jianyue, but he couldn’t.

Yun Jianyue nodded. “Of course I am, but I’m more curious about this. Your attitude toward me has changed way too much between the first time we met, the second time, and now. Don’t tell me you weren’t interested in me at first, but fell hopelessly in love with me the second time around?”

Otherwise, why had he tried to kill her when they first met, spared her on Chongguang Mountain, and now showed no intention of killing her at all?

She might be an ordinary yet confident woman, but she wasn’t confident enough to believe she could win the heart of a thousand-year-old, heartless Evil God.

Mo Chen’s temple throbbed. This woman really knew how to zero in on the heart of the matter.

“Is there some unavoidable reason you can’t kill me?” Yun Jianyue asked.

Mo Chen remained silent. Silence was his only answer tonight.

His reaction was enough for Yun Jianyue to piece together the truth. “Don’t tell me the Red Thread of Fate has bound our lives together, so you can’t kill me?”

“Yes, that must be it. It would also explain why, when Si Wuming tried to sever the Red Thread of Fate, you said even you couldn’t break it and stopped him from doing so.” After finishing her analysis, Yun Jianyue couldn’t resist giving herself a thumbs-up.

She was a genius!

Mo Chen sneered. “Since you’re so clever, why don’t you guess how my hair ended up with that medium?”

“You obviously didn’t leave it there yourself. If you know something else, then spit it out. Why are you dragging your feet? Man up!” Yun Jianyue gave Mo Chen a contemptuous look.

Now that her life was no longer in danger, she could provoke him as much as she pleased. If he had the nerve, Mo Chen could take her down with him.

Mo Chen clenched his molars so hard they nearly cracked. When had a human ever dared to berate him like this?

Humans who dared disrespect him were denied even the chance to enter the cycle of reincarnation. Yet Yun Jianyue…

“Beg me, and I’ll tell you.” Mo Chen tried to reclaim the upper hand.

Yun Jianyue promptly flopped onto the bed, turned off the lights, and pulled the blanket over herself. “Good night.”

“Yun Jianyue!”

“Are you saying my name because you want to sleep with me, Hubby?” Yun Jianyue patted the empty half of the bed beside her. “Come on.”

A deathly silence descended upon the room. Inside the jade pendant, Lu Changxue didn’t even dare breathe.

As a ghost, she could clearly sense the oppressive aura rolling off Mo Chen.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the mattress to Yun Jianyue’s right sank slightly.

The Evil God had actually lain down beside her! Lu Changxue screamed internally. She desperately wanted to flee, but there was nowhere she could go. Could someone please tell her what in the world was happening right now?
“You seriously want to sleep with me?” Yun Jianyue hadn’t expected Mo Chen to actually climb into bed. Wasn’t he supposed to be some pure and innocent Evil God?

Mo Chen gave a cold snort. “Scared?”

Yun Jianyue flashed him a wicked smile, rolled over, and pinned him beneath her. Her legs clamped tightly around the Evil God’s lean waist as she lowered her head toward him.

Their lips drew closer and closer until less than one centimeter remained between them.

Yun Jianyue couldn’t feel Mo Chen’s breath or heartbeat, but Mo Chen could feel hers.

“You won’t kiss me,” Mo Chen said with absolute certainty.

A human’s heartbeat sped up when they kissed someone, and their breathing changed as well.

But Yun Jianyue’s hadn’t changed in the slightest. She was only trying to scare him.

His words backed her into a corner.

She really had only intended to scare Mo Chen, but now that he’d said that, backing down would make her look like a coward.

But if she actually kissed him, she’d be the one losing out! She was still a virgin!

Click.

The lights in the room suddenly came on.

At the same moment, Si Wuming’s cool, displeased voice rang out. “What are you two doing?”

Lu Changxue’s mouth moved faster than her brain. “Holy shit, a love triangle?”

The moment the words left her mouth, Lu Changxue realized what she’d said. She hurriedly covered her mouth, retreated into the jade pendant, and played dead.

Yun Jianyue’s heart jolted. For some inexplicable reason, she felt the mortification of an adulterer caught in the act and hurriedly rolled off Mo Chen.

“He seduced me.” Fully embracing her scumbag nature, Yun Jianyue shifted the blame without so much as batting an eye. “He snuck into my room in the middle of the night to seduce me. I mean, come on. What’s the point of being that handsome if women aren’t supposed to sleep with him? I merely made the same mistake any woman in the world would make!”

Mo Chen’s fists clenched.

Si Wuming, however, took her words seriously. He frowned and fixed Mo Chen with an icy glare. “Shameless.”

“Who are you calling shameless?!” Mo Chen flew into a rage. He had lost count of how many times he had gotten angry. All he knew was that before meeting Yun Jianyue, he had never gotten angry at all!

With all the solemn conviction of someone swearing a Party oath, Yun Jianyue decisively pointed at Mo Chen. “You! You shameless Evil God with no respect for male virtue.”

Evil God’s Power surged around Mo Chen. He found himself wondering whether he should simply destroy them all along with himself.

“It seems I can’t allow you to live.”

Si Wuming drew his Tang saber, but Yun Jianyue darted forward and pressed down on his hand. “Don’t. What if I die too when you kill him?”

All she knew right now was that Mo Chen would die if she died. She had no idea whether his death would kill her as well.

Mo Chen forced the words through gritted teeth. “You have that much faith that he can kill me?”

In this human woman’s mind, Si Wuming was actually stronger than him?

“Is that really the point?” Yun Jianyue asked, baffled. Was something wrong with this Evil God’s brain? Such a shame. He was so handsome, yet he was an idiot!

Si Wuming frowned. “The Red Thread of Fate created a life link between you?”

Talking to intelligent people really did save time. Yun Jianyue nodded. Si Wuming silently sheathed his saber, though the look he gave Mo Chen still brimmed with murderous intent.

“What? Do you want to share a life link with her too?” Mo Chen sneered.

Yun Jianyue scratched her head. “So the three of us are supposed to live happily ever after together?”

Lu Changxue couldn’t resist running her mouth again. “Just two dicks? That’s nothing.”

The room instantly fell deathly silent.

“Darling, you’ll save me, right?”

Feeling two waves of murderous intent lock onto her, Lu Changxue spoke in a trembling, pleading voice.

Yun Jianyue smiled without warmth. “Having your soul scattered into oblivion is the only ending waiting for you.”

“Sob.”

The atmosphere had become unbearably awkward, so Yun Jianyue promptly changed the subject. “What’s going on with your hair? Why does Yu Lu have your aura on her? Were one of her three ethereal souls and one of her seven corporeal souls sacrificed to you?”

Now that they had finally gotten down to business, Mo Chen temporarily spared Lu Changxue’s miserable life. “The hair you cut from my head was stolen by someone. I don’t know who. Yu Lu was indeed sacrificed to me, but I never received those pieces of her soul.”

That was precisely why Mo Chen had come to a tiny place like Luci County.

How could he possibly tolerate someone using him?

Yun Jianyue couldn’t help thinking of what had happened with the Twin God. She had clearly been intended as a sacrifice to the Twin God, yet somehow, she had ended up being sacrificed to Mo Chen instead.

Could the two incidents be connected?

Clearly, Mo Chen had thought of the same thing.

“Over the past few years, I’ve kept receiving inexplicable sacrifices, even though I left no medium in the human world through which anyone could reach me,” Mo Chen said.

Yun Jianyue herself had been one of those inexplicable sacrifices.

“So someone behind the scenes is targeting you? And that same person is the one who arranged our marriage?”