Tang Lici gazed dazedly at the lamplight. He remembered Liu Yan's female companions from back then—Zhang Yueqiao, Sister Lee, A Lang, Chen Qinghe, and so on. Most of them maintained an ambiguous distance from Liu Yan, yet they all got along well with him. That was Liu Yan's charm—women only hoped for his company but never dared to dream of possessing him, for his beauty was beyond belief. He also vaguely recalled his own lovers and female companions—Selin, Bijia, Elizabeth, and many more. He couldn't even count how many there had been. Back then, apart from Fu Zhumei, everyone's lives were as chaotic as a bundle of straw.
Arrogance, indulgence, decadence, a whirlwind of pleasures.
Who could possibly understand that? In this world, abstinence was morality, yet his life had always been about unrestrained indulgence—money, power, fame, women, luxury cars, fine wine, perfume, thoroughbred horses, gold, jewels...
Why was it that when drunk, he felt so filthy, stained with bizarre hues? No matter how he smiled at his reflection, he couldn't find even a trace of feeling, like a demon wearing a painted skin.
He smiled faintly, his head splitting with pain. The feeling of abandon was wonderful—no need to pretend nonchalance in front of anyone, no need to think of the past or future, no need to deliberately act good or bad. The only pity was that no one was there to accompany him.
Accompanying him... was a terrifying thing. He admitted he could torment someone to death. When he lost control, he didn’t know restraint, and he never cared about consequences.
Many wanted to accompany him.
Few dared to.
None did so with genuine sincerity.
Everyone left him in the end.
Because he was, after all, a demon wearing a painted skin.
With a dull thud , he knew he had bumped into something. His eyelids drooped shut, too lazy to expend the effort to think, and he sank into deep slumber.
In Chicken Coop Valley, the furnace in the Elixir Chamber burned day after day. No one knew what Liu Yan was concocting inside. Tang Lici had stored many medicinal herbs in the manor, along with strange-looking fruits and branches. Liu Yan tinkered with these in the chamber, sometimes producing black smoke, sometimes green, and occasionally even explosions.
These past few days, Yu Tuan'er had been unusually cheerful. One moment she was catching pheasants in the woods, the next she was fishing by the stream. One day, heavy snow fell, and she happily built a snowman by herself. Whenever she found something odd in the snow-laden forest, she would bring it back for Liu Yan to see.
She was as happy as a child, as if determined to experience every joy she had missed in life. Every morning, she would sit before the mirror, carefully applying makeup, choosing her favorite clothes from Chicken Coop Mountain Manor, and only emerging once she was beautifully dressed. Her vitality and mood made her suddenly appear much more beautiful, filling the manor with an innocent, romantic atmosphere, as if it were perpetually spring.
A Shui, with Feng Feng in tow, rarely went out. Now that Feng Feng had begun to crawl, she used the excuse of watching over the child to shut herself in her room. Since that night’s conversation with Liu Yan, she had avoided both him and Yu Tuan'er, speaking only occasionally with Fang Pingzhai. On the surface, she remained the same as always, preparing three meals a day on schedule. But everyone knew the A Shui of the past was never this reclusive.
Perhaps she had always been reclusive—she just hadn’t realized it until now. She could withdraw so naturally, as if she had never existed in this world, speaking to no one, living silently with Feng Feng.Liu Yan shut himself in the elixir chamber, barely stepping outside for nearly a month. Every day, he would prepare a bowl of medicinal soup for Yu Tuan'er to drink. She would happily gulp it down each time before going off to play on her own.
Everything appeared calm on the surface.
Fang Pingzhai was gradually mastering the art of drumming. With his sharp intellect, he had devised many variations of his own and was thoroughly enjoying himself. A Shui kept to herself behind closed doors, while Liu Yan buried himself in concocting antidotes and also avoided company. With Yu Tuan'er running wild across the mountains, Fang Pingzhai was content with the peace and freedom, belting out tunes to the valley and beating his large drum.
The scent of various medicines filled the air. Liu Yan stared at the bottles and jars of drugs on the table. He had extracted many types of inhibitors, but to test the antidote, he first needed to poison Yu Tuan'er. Should he make her take the Ape-Demon Nine Heart Pill? Holding a small fox in his left hand and the pill in his right, he hesitated to force the pill into the fox's mouth.
Winter foxes had especially thick fur. This little fox had a short body, stubby legs, and a belly plump with fat, its dark eyes darting about. Liu Yan stiffened for a long moment before finally releasing the fox. Looking into its eyes always reminded him of certain people. Humans, in their quest to save themselves, would first experiment with the lives of foxes. What had this fox done wrong? If it died by his hand, wouldn't that be pitiful?
Though to him, this fox had already been dead for over a thousand years, holding it alive in his hands now made it impossible for him to go through with it.
The little fox darted away without a backward glance. Even an animal could sense the malice in the air earlier. From now on, it would likely avoid the scent of humans altogether.
He stared at the pill for a long time before gently placing it into today's medicinal soup. If it were A-Li, she wouldn't have cared about the fox's life at all. But he had always loved small animals. Since childhood, he had longed to keep a dog, but back then, living with the Tang family, he feared the dog might die at A-Li's hands, so he never did.
That little fox had looked very much like a puppy.
"Hey, time to eat," Yu Tuan'er chirped, poking her head through the doorway with a bright smile. "The weather's cleared up. I dug up some bamboo shoots on the mountain, and A Shui made bamboo shoot chicken soup. It's delicious!" She didn't expect Liu Yan to respond. Spotting the bowl of medicinal soup on the table, she picked it up and brought it to her lips—she had grown accustomed to drinking it over the past month.
Liu Yan watched her coldly.
As she raised the bowl to her mouth, she noticed his gaze and paused, startled. "What? Can't I drink this?" His expression seemed to say, "If you drink that, I'll kill you," so fierce it startled her.
Liu Yan remained silent.
She stuck her tongue out at him and obediently set the bowl down. "If it's not this one, you could've just said so. Glaring like that—how would I know not to drink it unless I looked at you? Weirdo!"
"It's poisoned," he said icily.
Yu Tuan'er beamed. "I know. Every bowl is poisoned. Even the one you prepared for me today is poisoned."
"Aren't you afraid?" he asked flatly.
"Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not," she replied. "What's wrong? I promised to test the medicine for you. I won't go back on my word."
"Really not afraid?" he pressed.
She froze, momentarily at a loss for words.He looked at her indifferently, as if seeing right through her. "Starting today, you don’t need to drink it anymore. The medicine trials are over. You don’t have to be so afraid that you run all over the mountains, keeping yourself busy with pointless things. You’re not poisoned—you can live a long time yet."
Her eyes lit up instantly. "It’s over? Then did you figure it out? Am I useful?"
"Useful," he said flatly. "You’re very useful."
Yu Tuan'er was overjoyed. She scooped him up from the chair in one swift motion. "That’s wonderful! And I’m not dead either! Come on, come on, let’s go eat bamboo shoot chicken soup!"
"Put me down!" He struggled free from her arms and landed on his feet. "You go ahead. I’ll pack up my things and join you."
"I’ll serve you rice—hurry up and come eat!" She bounced away, and without even guessing, he knew she was off to share the good news with A Shui and Fang Pingzhai.
Her thoughts were easy to guess—no, they didn’t even need guessing. Just a glance was enough to see right through her.
Even someone like him, who was utterly incapable of reading people, could see her clearly.
Liu Yan sighed softly, picked up the bowl of medicinal broth, and drank it himself.
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