The medicinal properties of that box of ointment were incredibly potent, and the speed at which it took effect was not slower than the real Wanyu Ointment. Just moments after Yan Feng applied it, the effects began to show almost instantly.

However, the aphrodisiacs researched by the Medical Hall were in no way comparable to the ordinary ones sold in the market. Most aphrodisiacs on the market were used to enhance bedroom pleasures, but the ointment from the Medical Hall was more often used in situations of one-sided abuse.

Thus, besides its extremely strong effects, the ointment had another function: like the Wanyu Ointment, it also stopped bleeding and healed wounds. After all, in such matters, how could there not be blood?

Thinking of this, Yan Feng felt a surge of vengeful pleasure in his heart.

Whether or not Mi Lu believed his words didn’t matter. As long as Mi Lu took that box of ointment, there would come a day when he would use it. And no matter where Mi Lu applied the ointment, the result would certainly be something Mi Lu didn’t want to see.

Heh!

A mere Foundation Establishment cultivator had the audacity to sit in the position of their sect’s master? Doesn’t he feel uncomfortable sitting on a chair that doesn’t belong to him?

Without HuLü Yan, that so-called new sect master is nothing.

Yan Feng gritted his teeth, soon tasting the metallic flavor of blood spreading in his mouth. He didn’t dare waste time, hurriedly pulling out two antidote pills from his pouch and swallowing them before closing his eyes to meditate.

The antidote he took wasn’t specifically for the ointment’s effects; it could only help delay the effects, giving him enough time to circulate his spiritual energy and expel it. The process, undoubtedly, was agonizing.

Before long, Yan Feng’s face turned flush red, and his entire body was drenched in sweat, as if he had just been pulled out of the water. But he had no regrets about doing this.

“New sect master, oh new sect master, I’ve paid such a high price to make you believe me, so you’d better make good use of that box of ointment.”

With this thought, Yan Feng felt a faint sense of expectation.

—

In another place.

Mi Lu had been sitting by HuLü Yan’s bedside for quite a while. Seeing that HuLü Yan showed no signs of waking, he simply sat there in meditation to cultivate.

The entire afternoon passed in a blur. When Mi Lu opened his eyes, the sky outside had already unknowingly turned to dusk. The barrier set up by the Medical Hall completely obscured the weather outside. Mi Lu didn’t know if the heavy snowfall outside continued; he could only see the illusion of a sunny spring day within the barrier.

He counted the days and realized that it was almost the end of the year. He hadn’t expected to be away for so long.

Whether it was before or after transmigrating into this novel, this was Mi Lu’s first time spending the New Year away from home, and also his first time spending it with people other than his family. He used to be sickly, and even when he managed to get out of bed, he never ventured far from it. Sometimes, his parents would even arrange for a medical cultivator to follow him around, never leaving his side.

Looking back, those days seemed to have been pushed deep into the recesses of his mind. Without intentionally recalling them, it was hard to remember much about them. And now that he did, it didn’t bring any special feelings—just something the plot required, after all.

He didn’t even want to return to the fake family that the author had created. His parents, friends, and everyone he knew were all fictional characters. Their lives, choices, and every word they spoke had been predetermined by the author from the very beginning. Every time he thought of this, an overwhelming sense of loneliness would engulf him.

Mi Lu walked out of the house and saw a young girl sweeping the courtyard with a broom. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Mi Lu and was so startled that she shivered. After composing herself, she quickly bowed and greeted him, “Good evening, Sect Master.”

Mi Lu asked, “Where is Yan Feng?”

The girl nervously tried to recall, then softly replied, “I don’t know where Senior Brother Yan Feng went. I haven’t seen him all afternoon.”

Mi Lu nodded in acknowledgment. The girl hesitated for a moment, then cautiously asked, “Sect Master, do you want me to go find Senior Brother Yan Feng?”

“No need, let him be,” Mi Lu waved his hand dismissively. He had only asked out of habit; there wasn’t anything urgent that required Yan Feng.

Sensing that Mi Lu didn’t intend to leave, the girl’s nervousness never eased, and her sweeping motions became more and more stiff. It was clear she was utterly terrified of Mi Lu.

As Mi Lu carefully observed her reaction, he suddenly felt a bit dazed.

Perhaps because he had been in the book for too long, everyone now felt unreal to him. But after watching for a while, he started to feel like they were indeed flesh-and-blood people, not the stiff, unnatural NPCs from a game.

He looked up at the sky and asked, “Is it still snowing outside?”

“Yes, Sect Master,” the girl put away her broom and nervously said, “It’s still snowing heavily. Based on past experience, it’ll probably continue snowing until after the New Year.”

Mi Lu stayed silent for a long while, then turned and walked back. He didn’t head to HuLü Yan’s room but instead returned to his own quarters.

—

Yan Feng struggled greatly to expel about half of the effects of the drug from his body. Stumbling back into his room, drenched in sweat, he collapsed onto the bed. When the sky outside turned completely dark, he had to grit his teeth and force himself to get up from bed.

Changing into a set of black clothes, he quietly made his way into the bamboo forest behind HuLü Yan’s room, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to leap out of his chest.

The Medical Hall was eerily silent at night, with no sound of people. After finishing their work, everyone else hid in their rooms, afraid of accidentally seeing something they shouldn’t and losing their lives. Only Yan Feng was still creeping forward cautiously. Every step felt like it was landing on his heart, unstable, as if he might stumble and fall at any moment.

He swallowed nervously, feeling cold sweat slowly soaking his palm, making the surface of the smoke tube in his hand slick and slippery. The tube looked like a small calligraphy brush, but thinner and shorter, easily concealed in his sleeve. Inside, it held his self-made poisonous smoke.

The poisonous smoke was colorless and odorless. Once released into the air, it would affect all living beings within a one-mile radius. This single tube of poison was more than enough to deal with HuLü Yan.

Yan Feng reached the eaves of HuLü Yan’s room, sneaking around to the window. He wet his fingertip with saliva and poked a small hole in the paper window. In moments like this, he couldn’t help but think back to his past interactions with HuLü Yan.

He had known HuLü Yan since he was young. He still remembered how, after his father died, leaving only him and his mother, his mother risked her life to hide HuLü Yan and his mother, who were being hunted.

HuLü Yan’s mother was a beautiful young woman, though frail and unable to do heavy work. But with her good looks, she managed to find a job cleaning the back courtyard of the rice shop. The pay wasn’t much, but it was enough to support them both.

However, their good fortune didn’t last long. The lecherous owner of the rice shop took a liking to HuLü Yan’s mother, constantly finding ways to grope her, and even nearly forced himself on her in the back courtyard one time. The shopkeeper’s wife caught them and flew into a rage, ordering HuLü Yan’s mother to be kicked out.

After that, their luck ran out. HuLü Yan’s mother tried all kinds of jobs—washing clothes, cooking, odd jobs—but was always beaten and driven away for various reasons. Her beauty seemed to become her greatest flaw, and over time, that flaw grew, until eventually, she became completely tainted, inside and out.

She went to the most famous brothel in Drunken City, where she became the top courtesan. As long as someone offered enough money, they could spend the night with her. From that point on, her personality changed drastically, swinging between clarity and madness. HuLü Yan’s once lively and cheerful nature gradually turned silent and withdrawn. He grew thinner by the day, but the bruises covering his body never faded.

During those years, Yan Feng was HuLü Yan’s only friend. Together, they committed countless petty crimes just to fill their stomachs.

Later, Yan Feng discovered the secret of HuLü Yan’s body. It started when HuLü Yan was hiding in a cupboard during one of his mother’s “encounters” and was discovered by a customer. That customer, a local official with power and influence, was furious and vented all his anger on HuLü Yan’s mother.

By the time HuLü Yan and Yan Feng rushed back, HuLü Yan’s mother had been whipped nearly to death by the official. The brothel owner, thinking she wouldn’t survive, didn’t want to waste any precious elixirs on her and ordered two servants to wrap her in a blanket, intending to find a place to bury her.

HuLü Yan chased the servants away and, in front of Yan Feng, bit into his own wrist, feeding his blood to his mother.

What happened next was almost miraculous. HuLü Yan’s mother, who had been on the brink of death, began to recover, and within two days, all her injuries had healed. This was all predestined.

From the moment HuLü Yan was born, everything he was meant to experience had been laid out by fate. If anyone was to blame, it was his own lineage. In a world with so many families, he just had to be born into the HuLü family. Maybe blame his mother too. She knew what kind of constitution she had and the dangers her child would face, yet she gave birth to HuLü Yan anyway.

But none of this was Yan Feng’s fault. If it weren’t him, it would have been someone else—Zhang Feng, Li Feng, Wang Feng.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. By the time Yan Feng collected his thoughts, he had already placed the end of the smoke tube into the hole in the window.

“Goodbye, HuLü Yan,” he whispered in his heart.

“Thank you for sparing my life two years ago, but as for tonight, don’t blame me. Maybe you should have died on that night you were hunted down over a decade ago.”

No, maybe you should never have been born into this world in the first place.

Yan Feng took a deep breath in the cold night air, about to open the tube’s cover, when he suddenly heard a cough nearby. The sound was so close that it startled him into a shiver, and the smoke tube slipped from his hand.

With a soft clatter, it fell to the ground at his feet.

His nerves completely frayed, panic etched across his face. He hadn’t even bent down to pick it up when he saw a white figure rounding the corner from under the eaves.

It was Mi Lu, dressed in white.

He held a lantern in his hand, the dim yellow light casting a soft glow on his fair face. His expression was a bit tense, but when he saw that it was Yan Feng outside the window, he seemed to relax slightly, as if relieved.

Yan Feng, guilty as a thief, immediately straightened up and stammered, “S-Sect Master, what are you doing out here so late?”

Mi Lu didn’t answer his question, instead asking, “What are you doing out here so late?”

Yan Feng’s palms were soaked with sweat, and he clenched them tightly to keep from trembling. He feared Mi Lu would grow suspicious, so he desperately tried to control his facial expressions. Yet the more he tried, the worse it got. Even without seeing his own face, he could imagine how unnatural it must look right now.

“I-I came to check on HuLü Yan,” Yan Feng stammered, trying to explain, “He’s been unconscious for so long, and I don’t know when he’ll wake up.”

Mi Lu stared at him intently. “You didn’t check on him during the day but decided to come at night? And you’re poking a hole in the window to check on him? How well can you see like that?”

Yan Feng: “…”

While Yan Feng was momentarily stunned, Mi Lu’s sharp eyes noticed the smoke tube that Yan Feng had kicked into the corner. Mi Lu walked over, bent down, and picked it up.

At that moment, Yan Feng froze like a wooden plank. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, and he watched helplessly as Mi Lu inspected the smoke tube. For a moment, Yan Feng even forgot how to breathe.

Luckily for him, Mi Lu didn’t seem to recognize the purpose of the smoke tube. He couldn’t even figure out how to open it, so he simply turned and asked, “What is this?”

Yan Feng played dumb. “I’ve never seen that thing before, Sect Master.”

Mi Lu asked, “It didn’t just fall off you?”

Yan Feng quickly shook his head. “No, it didn’t.”

“Oh?” Mi Lu nodded, then casually slipped the smoke tube into his storage pouch.

Yan Feng was dumbstruck. He had thought Mi Lu would at least ask someone else about the tube, and then he could explain privately and retrieve it later. But Mi Lu just outright kept it for himself!

Was this new sect master a beggar in a past life? Why does he pocket everything he finds?

Doesn’t an entire warehouse of medicinal supplies satisfy his hunger?

Seeing Yan Feng’s devastated expression, which looked just like the one he had in the warehouse earlier, Mi Lu pretended to be concerned and took a step closer. “Are you okay? You don’t look well.”

Yan Feng quickly stepped back. “I-I’m fine.”

“Good.” Mi Lu smiled gently. “It’s getting late. You should go rest. You can check on HuLü Yan tomorrow during the day.”

Yan Feng painfully nodded, hunched over, and scurried away like his feet were greased.

After Yan Feng disappeared, Mi Lu pulled out the smoke tube from his storage pouch.

He wasn’t a fool. Though he didn’t know what the tube was for, it was clear it wasn’t something harmless for him or HuLü Yan. If he hadn’t caught Yan Feng in time, there’s no telling what Yan Feng might have done.

For a brief moment, Mi Lu had considered dealing with Yan Feng right then and there. Although his cultivation was a bit lower than Yan Feng’s, he had managed to gather plenty of resources from Ming De Yi and the others, and taking care of Yan Feng wouldn’t have been a problem.

But after hesitating, he decided against it. HuLü Yan had his reasons for keeping Yan Feng alive. When HuLü Yan wakes up, he can decide for himself whether to keep or dispose of Yan Feng.

Mi Lu turned and went into HuLü Yan’s room, placing the lantern on the table before sitting by HuLü Yan’s bed, examining the smoke tube in his hands.

Perhaps it was because he had been tinkering with the Medical Hall’s items a lot lately, but he quickly figured out the tube’s function and even found the switch. If he wasn’t mistaken, the tube contained some kind of poison, and Yan Feng had planned to release it into HuLü Yan’s room earlier.

Mi Lu flipped the tube over in his hands, a strange curiosity growing within him. Just how potent was the poison inside, to make Yan Feng think it would be enough to kill HuLü Yan? Would the poison be strong enough to silently kill both him and HuLü Yan if he released it now?

Once the thought took root, it became impossible to suppress. Like a spark of fire, it quickly spread, igniting the entire field.

He stared blankly at the smoke tube in his hand.

If he released the poison now, would it free him?

He would be free.

And HuLü Yan would be free too.

Even though he knew the thought was naive and unrealistic—after all, if it were that easy, he wouldn’t have fought so hard to pull HuLü Yan back from the brink in the formation. Still, the morbid idea grew like vines, quickly covering his rationality.

At this moment, only one thought filled his mind—

Should I try it?

Just once!

Even if it failed, he could always start over. But before the chance to restart came, he would have to endure those long, robotic years of following the plot. And he didn’t even know if he would retain his free will in the next go-round.

The flickering candlelight cast dancing shadows on Mi Lu’s face, making his expression hard to read. He sat in silence for a long time, until impulsiveness finally overpowered reason. Almost unconsciously, he moved his finger towards the switch on the tube.

Just as his fingertip was about to touch the switch, a gust of wind suddenly swept past his ear. The movement was so swift that it sliced through the air like a sharp blade.

In the next instant, his wrist was tightly grabbed.

Caught off guard, Mi Lu shuddered, and the smoke tube slipped from his grasp, rolling under the bed.

Silence filled the room.

Mi Lu froze in place, not daring to move. It wasn’t until a hoarse voice broke the stillness that he snapped out of his trance.

“What are you doing?”

Mi Lu turned his head to find HuLü Yan, now awake, staring at him with those deep, hollow eyes.

HuLü Yan’s long black hair was spread out across the pillow. In contrast, his face was deathly pale, with no color except for his eyebrows and eyes. Even his lips were dry and white. Despite his frail appearance, HuLü Yan’s grip was strong, causing Mi Lu’s hand to tremble in mid-air.

After a moment, HuLü Yan asked again, “What were you just doing?”

Mi Lu, knowing HuLü Yan must have sensed something, bit his lip and decided to tell the truth. “I was inspecting something Yan Feng dropped.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” Mi Lu paused before adding, “It might be some kind of poison.”

“Were you trying to poison me?”

Mi Lu hadn’t expected HuLü Yan to ask so directly. He was quiet for a moment, then suddenly smiled. “No. I was going to die with you.”

Before the words had fully left his mouth, the grip on his wrist tightened even more.

HuLü Yan’s face remained emotionless, as if Mi Lu had said something trivial. Yet Mi Lu could feel the storm brewing in HuLü Yan’s chest.

HuLü Yan wasn’t as calm as he appeared. Beneath the surface, a tempest was raging.

“I won’t die, and neither will you.” HuLü Yan’s tone was firm, as if he were making some sort of promise to Mi Lu, though the promise itself seemed rather absurd.

Mi Lu wasn’t moved. He asked HuLü Yan, “Don’t you think this world is terrible?”

HuLü Yan replied, “I’ve never thought otherwise.”

“Then why do you still want to live?” Mi Lu looked at him. “Maybe death would be a release.”

HuLü Yan fell silent.

After a moment, Mi Lu smiled softly. “See? You can’t answer.”

Mi Lu had no intention of continuing the conversation on this topic. Since his attempt had failed, he decided to let it go.

He shifted his wrist, intending to ask HuLü Yan to release him, but before he could speak, HuLü Yan said, “I wasn’t born to seek death.”

Mi Lu paused.

“No matter how terrible this world is, it has nothing to do with me. As long as I have consciousness, I will live.” HuLü Yan’s lips curled into a slight, mocking smile. “Death is easy. The hard part is surviving.”

HuLü Yan released Mi Lu’s wrist, then reached up to brush a strand of Mi Lu’s hair from his face.

In recent days, HuLü Yan had been having the same dream over and over. He dreamt of blue skies and white clouds, of green grasslands, and of the cool breeze blowing against his skin. But what he dreamed of most was a figure sitting on the grass, smiling at him, beckoning him over.

The person’s face was blurred by the light, only their messy black hair and pale robes were visible.

But HuLü Yan knew it was Mi Lu.

He had tried countless times to see Mi Lu’s face clearly, only to have his eyes stung by the blinding light each time.

His fingers moved slowly, brushing over Mi Lu’s lips, his nose, his eyes, before finally resting on his cheek. He could feel Mi Lu’s rapid breathing, warm air escaping from his lips and gathering in HuLü Yan’s palm, tickling like feathers.

The thought had long taken root, but at this moment, it reached its peak.

This face beneath his palm.

What does it truly look like?