Chapter 3

Chapter 3

At the bottom of the Soul-Locking Well, the wind cut across my face like a knife.

I stared at the black patterns on Dong Linyuan’s chest, remaining silent for a long time.

He was calmer than I was, raising a hand to toss me a jade slip.

“See for yourself.”

Inside the jade slip was a fragment of memory.

The image was blurred, but I could still recognize that night in the Black Abyss Secret Realm. Yin Zhixiao stood outside the altar, forming seals with his hands inside his sleeves. The runes around the altar were the exact same black patterns currently crawling over my heart and Dong Linyuan’s.

My fingertips grew cold, inch by inch.

“You were nearby at the time?” I asked.

“Yes,” Dong Linyuan’s voice was low and raspy. “I originally intended to resolve this thing before telling you. But before I could find a way, something happened in Falling Star City.”

“You’d better think carefully before you mention Falling Star City.”

He looked at me, and for the first time, there wasn’t a hint of mockery in his eyes.

“I was there, that much is true. But the person who killed your brother wasn’t me.”

My hand tightened around my sword hilt.

Dong Linyuan didn’t flinch. He simply spread a yellowed ancient scroll out before me.

There were only eight words written on it.

Establish a Dao Companion Pact to reverse life-devouring.

I laughed out of pure frustration. “You called me here in the middle of the night just so I would marry you?”

“What else?” He looked up. “Wait for death together?”

I said coldly, “You think I’ll believe you?”

“You don’t have to.” He paused, pressing a hand against the black patterns over his heart. His face instantly paled. “But tomorrow night at the hour of the Rat, the Life-Devouring Seal will backlash for the first time. It will consume me first, then you. This is the moment Yin Zhixiao has been waiting for.”

I understood clearly.

He didn’t care who won or lost between Dong Linyuan and me.

What he wanted was two refined Dao Bones to die together at the exact hour he had calculated.

Silence stretched for a long time at the bottom of the well.

Dong Linyuan suddenly spoke in a low voice, “Yun Xingye, I have never asked you for anything.”

“Consider this my one request. Survive first, then decide whether or not you want to hate me.”

I looked up at him.

A sliver of pale, wretched moonlight fell into the well, casting his brow in sharp relief. He had always been proud; even when nailed to the Evil-Slaying Platform, he had never bowed his head. Yet now, he spoke those words-“my one request”-with incredible softness.

The string in my heart that had been pulled taut for five years felt as if someone had just plucked it.

“How do we do it?” I asked.

Dong Linyuan seemed to have already guessed that I would agree. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “We’ll start with a Half Pact. We’ll only use the Heart Lamp to sustain our lives. No oaths, so it won’t be a true marriage. Once you’ve investigated the old case, you can decide whether you want to take the final step with me.”

I sneered. “How considerate of you.”

“I have no choice,” he said slowly. “I’m afraid if you agree too quickly now, you’ll just want to kill me again later.”

I nearly crushed my sword hilt.

Half an hour later, he and I knelt side-by-side before the old altar at the bottom of the well, lighting a green lamp with blood from our palms.

The moment the flame flickered to life, I heard our heartbeats overlap.

Dong Linyuan’s hand covered the back of mine as he whispered the final incantation.

“From this day forward: shared breath, shared pain, shared life.”

As the words fell, the black patterns temporarily receded by half an inch.

I jerked my hand back, but a strange warmth suddenly bloomed in my chest.

Dong Linyuan looked at the tips of my reddened ears and suddenly laughed.

“Chief Yun, this isn’t the first time you’ve touched someone’s hand, is it?”

I raised my foot to kick him.

But before I could, the sound of footsteps suddenly echoed from above the mouth of the well.

Someone was looking for us.