She was clearly a scheming spy, yet she wore such an innocent, bewildered expression—how could it not stir a violent urge to destroy? And so his finger, following his own will, came to those soft lips he could not forget.

In the past, he had indeed lacked patience—he was a brutal predator. Especially when enduring pain, his patience would often drop sharply. Yet Ji Wushu had to admit that he was different toward this little spy. Even he himself felt that such tolerance and patience were unlike him.

It was like a piece of utterly barren land—clearly desolate and parched—yet a small flower sprout that should not exist had fallen upon it. He had been careless, and should have casually pinched it off, yet for some reason he had allowed her to grow.

And so she bloomed, occupying just a tiny bit of space, yet becoming the only bright color in that wasteland.

When the owner who had been careless and only occasionally glanced at her gradually began to think that perhaps it was not bad for her to bloom there—she was preparing to disappear.

So it turned out that she too despised the land’s barrenness, feared the boundless thirst, could not endure the cracked earth. Like all delicate flowers, filled with disdain, she left that infertile land.

But in the end, she was different from other flowers. That land, careless and without expectation, had nevertheless—for the first time in thousands of years—kindly raised a flower.

After all, she was only a little spy, merely a small pawn of the Tianji Sect. Her approach, her closeness, had been nothing more than calculated intent.

The finger resting on her lips moved slightly, shifting to her pale forehead. His gaze was thin and cold.

A surging divine sense invaded her sea of consciousness, brimming with malice as it sought to examine the little spy’s past. He had lost patience already, eager to see what task her sect had assigned her.

But the ghostly, pallid youth frowned after reading through everything. The more he looked, the stranger his expression became—until he lowered his head and saw Shu Tiantian, whimpering softly from the cold.

The first thing he saw was a foolish child missing one of the three hun and six po souls¹ Three hun and six po souls: In traditional Chinese belief, a person possesses three spiritual souls (hun) and six corporeal souls (po). The hun are associated with consciousness and spirit, while the po are linked to the body and instincts. Losing one po is often believed to cause dullness or mental impairment.. The one soul locked within the body and lost—that was the present little spy.

He began watching from her childhood. He had expected to see a calculating little spy, carefully trained to be deeply scheming. After all, in a thousand years the Tianji Sect had found only this one body of Heavenly Yin—how could they not carefully educate her for the sect’s use? In a sense, she was a trap the Tianji Sect had deliberately raised and prepared for him.

But… that body missing a soul spent every day refining pills, refining pills, refining pills. And the soul trapped within the body spent every day counting money, counting money, counting money.

He quickly realized that when the soul and body separated, they had each retained one obsession: first, to treat illness and save people; second, to collect consultation fees.

So every time the body treated someone for free, that soul would quietly tally another entry. Watching the sect treat this little medical cultivator like a healing puppet, taking advantage of her missing soul to do whatever they pleased and treat her like a fool, Ji Wushu actually felt a surge of violent anger.

After all, she had been raised for him—the Heavenly Yin body meant specifically to deal with him. Seeing that she was easy to deceive, they did not even give her consultation fees. A perfectly good spy, reduced to poverty, forced to eat only fasting pills to fill her stomach every day.

His eyes darkened. Though he did not take the Tianji Sect seriously, the thought of them treating the spy they meant to send to his side like this made him sneer coldly.

Were they looking down on him?

When he saw that the little spy had finally cultivated a sea of consciousness, he followed the flow and took a look inside.

They say the sea of consciousness reflects a person’s character, each appearing differently.

The first thing he saw was not birds singing and flowers blooming, but the account ledger that soul had meticulously recorded—accumulating millions of spirit stones—hung in the most conspicuous place within the sea of consciousness.

Ji Wushu: …..

Of course, Shu Tiantian’s more than ten years of foolish living were not entirely pitiable—she had often given the sect’s elders quite a bit of frustration.

It was not as though her sect had never taught her what a spy ought to do. But that body, missing a soul, was simply a fool.

When elders spoke to her, it was as though there was a straight passage through her head—words went in one ear and out the other. To put it simply: if you asked whether she understood, she would reply, “My name isn’t Ma Dongmei²Ma Dongmei: A humorous reference from the Chinese comedy film Goodbye Mr. Loser (夏洛特烦恼), where a character repeatedly misunderstands a question and responds irrelevantly with “My name isn’t Ma Dongmei,” symbolizing someone who completely misses the point of what was said..”

You asked east, she answered west. Several elders responsible for training her had nearly developed heart demons from sheer anger.

And yet that body truly was foolish—no one could blame a child missing a soul.

Gradually, the Tianji Sect gave up on teaching her professional spy skills. After all, in a thousand years there had been only one Heavenly Yin body—she might be foolish, but they could not possibly discard her.

The youth, seeing the little spy’s foolishness, naturally shifted his attention to the soul trapped within the sea of consciousness—after all, that soul was the one that truly possessed clear awareness.

What if the sect had taught her, and the body did not know—but that soul did?

Filled with malice, he prepared to listen to her inner thoughts. He probed into her sea of consciousness and heard nothing but her mind full of “aba aba aba.”

?

Being trapped inside the body for over ten years, unable to do anything, was a painful thing. But in her wandering-soul state, Shu Tiantian was very good at entertaining herself. Not only did she often make idiotic “aba aba” sounds to keep herself from going mad, sometimes she would even sing “Little Donkey” to enrich her recreational life.

Most outrageous of all, that soul thought she was very clever. While thinking her body was a fool, she was also brooding over accounts, and her entire memory was filled with the clacking sounds of an abacus.

In truth, she was not much smarter than the body either. She only focused on refining pills and medical cultivation. Because she often spaced out, she had failed to notice anything wrong about the sect’s attitude toward her.

And this was a spy?

Tianji Sect, heh.

At this moment, the long-haired youth lowered his eyes to look at the little pitiful thing curled into a ball, so cold she wanted to rub against him. This time he did not immobilize her. Stingily, he gave her one finger to hold. The half-conscious little girl did not mind in the least; holding the finger made her very happy.

He frowned and continued looking, until he turned to the events after she arrived at the Void Abyss.

Fortunately, after that soul returned to the body, perhaps two negatives made a positive, and her intelligence suddenly improved greatly. Before that, whether it was the soul or the body, both were mentally incomplete. Only after combining did they count as a normal person—finally possessing some of her current cleverness.

But still a bit foolish—this silly little spy truly did not know she was a spy, and was even eagerly waiting for her shizun to come take her back. The long-haired youth let out a sneer. Take her back?

The people of the Tianji Sect probably wished that after she formed a contract with him, she would perish together with him.

Right now Chixiao was likely busy with the Nine Yin Profound Baleful Energy Formation, who would care about the little spy’s life or death?

He was impatient to see her thinking about that so-called shizun. He swept past it hastily, until time fast-forwarded to last night. Only then did he grow somewhat interested.

He wanted to see what the little spy was thinking when she saw his true form. Since she did not know the sect’s plan, why approach him?

Right—she was a medical cultivator. Though his true form was covered in blood marks, so much so that even he did not wish to look at it, it was a body full of treasures. What alchemist would not be tempted by dragon blood and dragon scales?

Filled with malice, he went to listen to her inner voice. Her thoughts bubbled up one after another like little bubbles.

Her inner voice said—

“—Wah, so handsome!”

The cold killing intent froze. Ji Wushu almost thought he had misheard. It took him quite a while to confirm that he had not grown hard of hearing from old age.

In truth, Ji Wushu’s original body was indeed majestic. With eyes closed, it was exquisite like a creation of the gods; when it opened its eyes and came alive, it was like a slumbering asura awakening—terrifying, filled with dreadful deathly aura. Though fearsome, its appearance truly made it impossible to look away; it could be praised a thousand times over.

Three thousand years ago, when he first descended into the world, what praise had the Dragon God not heard? Countless mortals’ faith and reverence, hundreds of towering Dragon God temples…

But now this dragon was covered in scars, its dragon horns nearly broken, even its scales sparse. Terrifying, yes. As for small creatures, if they did not turn and run at once, he could at least stop a child’s nighttime crying with his ugliness. So much so that the youth did not even wish to look at his own true form.

As for being handsome… even those sycophants of the past, when facing this majestic ancient dragon, would praise its might and solemnity—who would dare comment on whether it was handsome or not?

Yet the little spy was saying in her heart: so handsome so handsome!!

The little spy said: it rubbed against me, wuwuwu, the dragon is so cute!

The little spy also said: I really want to raise a dragon QAQ

“Sweet talk.”

The ghostly youth recalled his current true form and only felt that the little spy was too improper. Having thus bestowed a reprimand, he finally became slightly more generous. He handed over a second finger for the frozen silly little spy to hold, and magnanimously patted the little spy’s dog head.

Continue listening.

“I have no money, and my medical skills have no way to save him. I’m worried and afraid of dying, but can I really just ignore that dragon?”

She struggled like this.

The youth frowned. Save him? It was one thing that the little spy did not know what she had come to do—but she not only wanted to raise him, she even wanted to treat his illness?

He paused slightly and continued looking.

Others had told her the source of the miasma, yet she firmly believed in her own judgment. She even bought a large pile of hemostatic medicine for external wounds, utterly unafraid of being tainted by the ominous aura on the dragon’s body.

She said, “In my hometown, dragons are auspicious.”

She happily thought, “I can secretly raise him!”

And so she followed the traces of the Scarlet Flame flowers and found that cold pool.

It was not because her Heavenly Yin body had flared up, forcing her to do so, nor was it due to ulterior motives.

She came running to find him, filled with worry and guilt, because she truly liked that dragon.

Although he was a dragon abandoned by others, a dragon on the verge of death, she said in her heart that she wanted to secretly raise him.

Perhaps at first the youth had been puzzled as to why she wanted to save him, but then he heard her muttering those words silently.

When the little medical cultivator turned to leave, she thought of relieving the world with a hanging gourd, of acting and refraining from acting, and thought that she could not stand by and watch someone die without helping.

In truth, he had only given her a bit of warmth from the Scarlet Flame fire, and she already felt guilty in her heart.

Her dao heart was actually to relieve the world with a hanging gourd.

His smile faded. Staring at the little medical cultivator, he asked her, “Do you know that you are an abandoned pawn?”

Relieving the world with a hanging gourd, heh.

Then do you know… that you are an abandoned pawn of this world?

Little medical cultivator, or rather, little sacrifice.

But at this moment, the little spy was muddled in her heart. In her mind there was only: so cold, I really want to hug the dragon, hugging it won’t be cold anymore.

When the little spy said this in her mind, the youth who had not withdrawn his divine sense heard it. Finally, he extended his hand. The restriction was lifted. The little spy, losing control, fell—but dropped into an embrace.

He passed his arm beneath the bend of her legs and lifted her horizontally. She subconsciously wanted to rub against him. The dragon horns on the ghostly youth’s forehead, not yet retracted, twitched—but in the end, he did not stop her.

Footnotes

• 1
  Three hun and six po souls: In traditional Chinese belief, a person possesses three spiritual souls (hun) and six corporeal souls (po). The hun are associated with consciousness and spirit, while the po are linked to the body and instincts. Losing one po is often believed to cause dullness or mental impairment.
• 2
  Ma Dongmei: A humorous reference from the Chinese comedy film Goodbye Mr. Loser (夏洛特烦恼), where a character repeatedly misunderstands a question and responds irrelevantly with “My name isn’t Ma Dongmei,” symbolizing someone who completely misses the point of what was said.