Shi Mei suddenly stopped talking. His snow-white cheeks twitched slightly, as if he'd been humiliated by a slap. However, he still pursed his lips. “You really don’t leave me any face at all.”

     As he spoke, his hand touched Chu Wanning’s chin again, but Chu Wanning avoided his hand like it was a snake.

     Shi Mei narrowed his eyes. For a moment, a storm was brewing on his face, but in the end, it turned into a calm lake.

     “Let’s not talk about this anymore.” After calming down, Shi Mei’s face was still warm and gentle. “You’re just a stubborn person anyway. You wanted to kill him in the previous life, right? But in the end, you didn’t have the heart. You even put all of your broken soul into his heart before you died.”

     Shi Mei wasn’t wrong. That year, during the life and death battle in the Kunlun snow region, when Chu Wanning touched Mo Ran’s forehead with his fingertips for the last time, he actually transferred the remnants of his own fragmented soul.

     At the end of his life, his soul had been split. One piece was left in the past Mo Ran’s body, one was left in his past self, and the rest was passed to Emperor Taxian-Jun with a faint hope.

     Chu Wanning didn’t know how to break the poisonous flower’s curse at its third stage, but since the flower needed to be watered by the caster’s soul to bloom, if he passed his owl soul, maybe something would change.

     He was nothing more than a broken body. He had done everything he should do and could do. He had always been decisive in killing, and the only one he was soft-hearted about was Mo Weiyu.

     Because there was still a glimmer of hope to save him, he didn’t kill him in the end. He didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his own broken soul, only hoping to bring the Mo Ran from before back to the world.

     Even though he didn’t know if it would work at that time.

     Seemingly seeing through his inner thoughts, Shi Mei smiled. “Although you couldn’t remove the gu worm from Mo Ran’s heart, what you did can indeed disrupt his state of mind, causing him to think of both good and evil. Ultimately, he lost his mind and committed suicide like a mad demon.”

     “...”

     Chu Wanning’s expression changed slightly as he looked up.

     In fact, he had already guessed what had happened to Mo Ran based on the Emperor Taxian-Jun he met back on Mount Jiao who had no heartbeat. But when he heard the words “committed suicide,” he still felt a dull pain in his heart.

     Shi Mei looked at him and continued, “Shizun, you did it. You did protect him. His soul was reincarnated into the past. Sigh, I still don’t even know what happened. At that time, you were just a cripple. How did you ruin my plan? You… you really surprised me.”

     His eyelashes, which were as soft as cattails, drooped down. He moved closer, as if he wanted to kiss Chu Wanning.

     Chu Wanning suddenly snapped out of his daze and raised his hand as fast as lightning to choke his throat. The veins on the back of his hand bulged.

     Shi Mei’s expression didn’t change at all. He casually grabbed Chu Wanning’s wrist as if he had already expected Chu Wanning to have such a reaction.

     He laughed. “What? Does Shizun still want to ruin me a second time? A third time? Unfortunately, it’s already too late. It’s already impossible.”

     As soon as the words fell, the hissing of a snake could be heard. A golden-ringed snake slithered out of Shi Mei’s sleeve and viciously bit Chu Wanning’s arm.

     It was unknown what kind of tampering the snake had been through. With just one bite, the pain was unbearable. Chu Wanning’s hand lost its strength, and Shi Mei grabbed his wrist, then tied him to the bedpost in an even more humiliating position than before.

     “You don’t have to worry. This snake isn’t poisonous.” Shi Mei tied his hands and slowly sat up. His cold white fingertips stroked the snake’s body, and his peach blossom eyes slanted slightly. “This snake was specially raised for you. One bite, and you’ll lose all your strength. I respect Shizun, so this is all I can do.”

     Shi Mei suddenly raised his hand, and the snake slipped into his sleeve and disappeared.

     “Speaking of which, in my previous life, I had no choice but to let you accompany Mo Weiyu for so long. I was actually very unwilling.” He stood up and calmly began to take off his cloak, then his outer robe, and then…

     Chu Wanning’s expression suddenly changed to one of disgust. “Shi Mingjing!”

     Shi Mei smiled gently and walked towards Chu Wanning. “Let me tell you a secret. When you got married in the previous life, I attended the banquet as Hua Binan.”

     “!”

     “Although Emperor Taxian-Jun had his own selfish motives and covered you with red silk so that the guests couldn’t see your appearance clearly, only letting them know that he married Consort Chu, I knew it was you. So after the banquet ended that day, I didn’t leave. I went to the Red Lotus Pavilion—and then he came in.”

     Shi Mei’s eyes flashed with light.

     “At that time, although he was controlled by me, using the gu worm, he could control his thoughts and emotions. So, I couldn’t let him discover me. I hid and didn’t leave.”

     Chu Wanning trembled in rage and disgust.

     Shi Mei sat down, and a pair of cold, slender hands slowly touched his chest. “Did you know?”

     His voice was a little hoarse, and there was a hint of greed in his eyes. His fingertips moved down, inch by inch, until they stopped on Chu Wanning’s abdomen and began to untie his waist belt.

     “That night, you were lying under him. He applied aphrodisiac on your body and fucked you until you screamed… tsk, it’s true.” Shi Mei’s eyes were red with lust. “I’ve been aching for two lifetimes.”

     Chu Wanning only felt extremely humiliated, but the merging of the memories from his two lifetimes was very draining. After being bitten by the gold-ringed snake, he didn’t have any strength left in his body, so he gritted his teeth and shouted, “Shi Mingjing, you fucking get out of here!”

     Shi Mei chuckled softly. “It’s only sleeping together. Why are you so fierce? You’ve already slept with your own disciple. Stop pretending to be reserved, okay?”

     “Get out!!”

     “Lying down to serve one disciple, or two, it’s all the same.” Shi Mei was unruffled. “I don’t mind, so why don’t you enjoy it? Maybe my skills aren’t worse than his.”

     “You give me—”

     Before he could finish his sentence, he heard a cold voice coming from the door.

     “Get out.”

     Chu Wanning suddenly raised his head as if he had been struck by lightning. He saw that the stone door had already been opened at some unknown time. A man with an unclear face was holding a black and gold saber, standing against the light outside the half-open door of the secret chamber. He looked tall and cold, his back straight.

     Shi Mei narrowed his eyes. “It’s you…? So fast?”

     The man took a heavy step forward, enveloped in a cold aura. For a moment, the lights in the room flickered, and the candlelight shone on his slim-fitting black armor, making it look chilling. At this point, he could finally see his appearance clearly.

     He had a pair of long, slender legs, which were tightly wrapped in combat boots, and a silver dragon head belt around his thin waist, along with a silver concealed weapons case. There were sharp bracers on his wrists, and he wore a pair of black dragon-scale gloves.

     Above that was a handsome face with a heroic spirit between his brows that was almost extravagant.

     It was Emperor Taxian-Jun!

     The emperor’s entire body exuded a chilling air of coldness and blood, as if he had just returned from a battlefield.

     He raised his eyes, his pale cheeks even stained with blood, and his eyes were like bayonets, staring at the two people on the bed.

     More accurately, he only glanced at Chu Wanning before his eyes pierced Shi Mingjing, shining with a cold light.

     “Get out.”

     Seeing him enter the room, Shi Mei’s face was cold at first, then he straightened and slowly sat up.

     “Did you kill all the people I asked you to kill in Guyue’ye?”

     “Not yet.” As Taxian-Jun walked towards them, he bit the edge of each of his gloves with his teeth and took them off, revealing his strong-boned hands underneath. He threw the blood-stained gloves on the table and stared at Shi Mei, then said coldly, “Be more sensible. You’re not the only one under This Venerable One’s command.”

     Shi Mei’s face didn’t look good either, and he said, “You’d better remember who you’re talking to.”

     “This Venerable One can only tell whether he’s happy or not.” Taxian-Jun said coldly, “You are on the wrong bed. Get out.”

     “Since when can you order me around?”

     Taxian-Jun said dangerously, “This Venerable One has always been like this.”

     Shi Mei seemed to be a little angry, and his eyes flashed. “...I am your master!”

     “So what? Mount Jiao belongs to This Venerable One, and the person on the bed belongs to This Venerable One.” Taxian-Jun looked down at Shi Mingjing, and there was even a hint of ridicule at the corner of his mouth. “Master, please get lost.”

     Taxian-Jun and Shi Mingjing went back and forth with each other, tit for tat, with sparks flying everywhere. Chu Wanning didn’t know what was going on, so he silently observed from the side.

     Shi Mingjing just said that Emperor Taxian-Jun was already dead, so who was this person in front of him? A chess piece? A living puppet?

     Also, what he had tried to suppress back then was clearly the gu worm on the current life’s “Mo Ran.” As for the emperor in the previous life, because he was already too deeply poisoned, he could no longer return to normal. Therefore, logically speaking, he should love Shi Mei so deeply that he couldn’t extricate himself from it. But from his tone, it seemed that Emperor Taxian-Jun didn’t care about Shi Mingjing at all.

     …And what happened to the so-called master?

     Shi Mei stared at Emperor Taxian-Jun for a while, then sneered and stood up to put on his clothes.

     What Chu Wanning didn’t know, he knew very well.

     —In his previous life, when Mo Ran committed suicide, he suddenly lost his claws and fangs. He then refined Mo Ran’s corpse, using the remnant soul consciousness in his body to turn him into a living corpse. This living corpse was very similar to a Zhenlong chess piece. He was willing to listen to his orders and retained all his consciousness from when he was alive.

     He didn’t know what went wrong. Maybe it was because he had suffered too much in his life, or maybe it was because he had gone through too many changes, and his body was already broken. In short, this living-dead Taxian-Jun had a very inconsistent understanding of Shi Mei in his heart.

     One moment, he thought Shi Mei was still alive, and in the next moment, he thought Shi Mei was dead. Sometimes, he even temporarily forgot who Shi Mei was.

     As a result, even if he looked at Hua Binan face-to-face, Taxian-Jun wouldn’t recognize that this was Shi Mei but simply thought that this was his “master.”

     And he wasn’t very willing to listen to his master.

     “There’s really nothing you can do about it.”

     Shi Mei walked forward and poked Taxian-Jun on the forehead. “Soul dispersal!”

     With the sharp shout, Taxian-Jun froze, and his originally sharp eyes suddenly became distant and lost focus in an instant.

     “You’re obviously my puppet, but you’re becoming more and more disobedient, always disagreeing with me and even trying to retaliate against me.” Shi Mei patted his cold face. “But forget it. I don’t blame you. You’re not a complete ‘person’ to begin with.”

     Taxian-Jun: “...”

     “Just bear with it for a while,” Shi Mei said. “In a few days, I’ll get the thing and reforge you, and you’ll be obedient.”

     After he said this, his control over Taxian-Jun reached its limit. This swift recovery made Shi Mei’s face even more gloomy. He didn’t expect that in such a short time, Taxian-Jun’s eyes would regain their former brilliance and become even more resolute than before.

     This cold and oppressive gaze focused on Shi Mei. Taxian-Jun paused for a moment, narrowed his eyes, then scrunched his nose, looking like a cheetah waiting for its prey. “Huh? Why haven’t you left yet?” As he spoke, his slender fingers gripped the hilt of his blade, Bu’gui.

     “Are you standing there as a target for This Venerable One?”

     Shi Mei didn’t want to say anything more to him, or rather, it could be said that Taxian-Jun’s hostility was so profound that even though he was the “master,” Shi Mingjing knew that he couldn’t tighten the reins around his neck.

     If this Lord of Darkness were to really go mad, it would be terrifying.

     After he left, Taxian-Jun stared at Chu Wanning on the bed for a while, with a strange and subtle expression. It was as if he was doing his best to restrain himself but also couldn’t help but long for something.

     Finally, he sat down, reached out his hand, and held Chu Wanning’s waist.

     “I…”

     After a pause, he didn’t know how to continue, so he pursed his lips and changed his words.

     “You…”

     Chu Wanning looked at him for a long time, but after their gazes met for a long time, he still didn’t say anything. Then he blinked slowly.

     “Ahem, This Venerable One has something important to tell you.”

     “Go ahead.”

     Taxian-Jun hesitated for a moment, then said decisively, “Actually, it’s not that important, so I won’t say it anymore.”

     “...”

     After a while, he spoke with a more determined tone, “It doesn’t matter whether it’s important or not. Since you want to know so much, there’s no harm in telling you.”

     Chu Wanning: “...”

     “Actually, This Venerable One wanted to say…” Taxian-Jun took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then said in a very stiff tone, “This Venerable One wanted to say that, after so many years, it seems that… I do miss you a little bit…”

     He quickly added, “But I don’t think too much about it—just a little.”

     He only said these two sentences, and his handsome but pale face immediately showed an expression of extreme regret.

     Chu Wanning stared at him blankly. With two lifetimes of souls and memories intertwined, he didn’t even know what kind of mentality he should have to face this man.

     But Taxian-Jun didn’t give him much time to think.

     He seemed a little irritated, so he simply untied the ropes around Chu Wanning’s hands and pulled the person over. He placed a large hand on the back of Chu Wanning’s head, guiding and caressing it, then kissed him, impatiently and lingeringly.

     Taxian-Jun’s lips were icy cold, but his desire was fiery.

     In this impulsive and anxious kiss, the memories of the past overlapped.

     Chu Wanning was kissed by him. The two of them, two broken and missing souls, separated by two lifetimes, finally kissed and entwined together again.

     While he was being held in Taxian-Jun’s arms and kissed closely, Chu Wanning seemed to think of many things yet nothing at all, unable to gather his thoughts.

     But in the end, he knew that his eyes were moist.

     Whether it was right or wrong, good or evil, everything was difficult to define, and everything was no longer clear.

     But when he kissed the man who no longer had any warmth, he knew.

     Taxian-Jun didn’t lie to him.

     Mo Ran didn’t lie to him.

     He really missed him.