Gao Yang was young and strong, and it was the first time he'd ever been confronted with such open seduction.
He took a step back, dodging the serpent‑woman's teasing touch. "What kind of favor?"
Her gaze lingered on his flushed cheeks, lips parting in a hungry smile. "Elder Sister only wants a taste of your blood."
No sooner had she spoken than the rear mountain echoed with eerie laughter. "Hahaha, brothers, we'd like a taste too!"
The serpent‑woman snapped her head around, baring her fangs. "Get out!" she hissed.
A cold wind swept through the trees, and the lurking wraiths fled without a sound.
Gao Yang asked evenly, "And what will you give me in return?"
The serpent‑woman pressed her supple body against his, voice lilting with false innocence. "Anything you desire."
Gao Yang exhaled, speechless. "Speak like a human."
Her shoulders slumped in mock disappointment. "How dull. Fine—at a critical moment, I'll help you once. How's that?"
"And why should I trust you?"
Her charming smile curved into a sly grin. "A gamble, then."
Gao Yang considered for a long moment, then nodded. "Deal."
To spirits like her, his blood was a supreme tonic; to him, it merely hastened recovery. As long as the Immortal Pill remained within his body, his blood would always regenerate. It was, in every way, a profitable trade.
He extended his arm, palm up, and drew a shallow cut.
The serpent‑woman's eyes gleamed. She seized his wrist and began to lick gently at the wound.
The sensation made Gao Yang's skin crawl. For all her monstrous nature, she was strangely gentle—like a tamed pet pretending obedience.
When the wound finally closed, she released him reluctantly, eyes still burning with hunger.
"That's all," Gao Yang said, pulling back his hand.
A blush spread across her pale cheeks. She tilted his chin with one delicate finger, a trace of perfume lingering in the air. "Then, little brother, until we meet again."
With a flick of her tail, she vanished into the darkness. Immediately, the surrounding wraiths began to stir, their covetous gazes raking over Gao Yang.
He turned his back on them and walked away, unhurried. None dared move.
When he returned to his quarters, a familiar figure was waiting at his door.
Gao Yang bowed. "Third Senior Brother."
Liu Sheng nodded once. "Inside. We need to talk."
Gao Yang opened the door and gestured for him to enter.
"I'll speak, you listen," Liu Sheng said quietly. "No replies."
Gao Yang nodded.
"I already know you possess the Natural Yin Body," Liu Sheng continued. "Our master likely told you that I do as well."
Another nod.
"Do you know how a Natural Yin Body is formed?"
Gao Yang hesitated, then nodded again.
A faint smile touched Liu Sheng's lips. "Did they tell you it happens because one has died once, then returned to life?"
Gao Yang blinked, startled—wasn't that the truth?
"If you had truly read the notes I gave you," Liu Sheng said, pointing to Gao Yang's brow, "you wouldn't look so surprised. I combed through every record in Azure Mountain Sect and found nothing—no mention of Natural Yin Bodies in the past thousand years. Only one record exists… from ten years ago. Me."
He paused, then said something that shattered Gao Yang's understanding of himself. "From the moment you entered the sect, I knew—we are the same kind."
Gao Yang's pupils trembled, his expression barely contained.
Hands clasped behind his back, Liu Sheng began to pace, his hollow eyes fixed somewhere beyond sight. "I was once a scholar," he said softly. "One day, while reading beneath a willow tree, I heard someone moaning. I followed the sound to an old well… and heard a voice from below. It spoke in a tongue I couldn't understand, but I could feel its pain."
Gao Yang's breathing grew heavy.
"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Liu Sheng asked.
Gao Yang gave no reply. He couldn't. He didn't know whether Liu Sheng was testing him or telling the truth.
"I lost consciousness soon after," Liu Sheng went on. "When I woke, the world was no longer the same. My village crawled with spirits; the books I read were filled with twisted script; the faces of those I knew had become grotesque masks. And I realized… many of them were not human at all."
Gao Yang could relate. He'd once sensed the same from the whiskered village chief who turned out to be a Rat Spirit.
"I lived in fear every day," Liu Sheng said. "Pretending to be normal, hiding what I was. Then the Immortal Mistress came. She said I had talent and took me away. She gave me a Foundation Pill—but inside it, I saw countless eggs, some already hatching, biting one another. I thought it a hallucination caused by illness. She told me that once I built my foundation, I would see the world's true form, that I would be cured. So I took it."
His voice dropped. "After I succeeded, I realized I had become a monster. Something inside me was alive, whispering, trying to seize my thoughts and replace me. I saw a worm crawl out of my eye—it had my face. It told me it was me."
He touched the scars across his empty sockets. "So I dug out my eyes."
"I thought that would end it. But it didn't. I could still hear the voice speaking from within."
Every word resonated with Gao Yang—he, too, had gouged out his eyes once. But he'd survived because of the Immortal Pill; when his body mended, even his sight returned.
If Liu Sheng were lying, he wouldn't know these details. There was only one explanation: Liu Sheng had also climbed out of that well.
The difference was that Liu Sheng still believed he belonged to this world.
Gao Yang, however, remained lost—unsure what he truly was.
The blind man's empty sockets turned toward him as he tapped a finger to his temple. "I told everything to the Immortal Mistress. She cut open my skull and pulled out a worm. She said that was the thing trying to control my mind."
Gao Yang wanted to ask—did it cure you?—but he couldn't speak. The Immortal Mistress would hear.
Liu Sheng gave a bitter smile. "You think it ended there, don't you?"
Gao Yang shuddered despite himself, eyes flicking to the ring of scars around his brother's head.
"No," Liu Sheng whispered. "The voice remains. I thought it came from the worm—but it didn't. It's deeper. It's in my soul."
He drew a slow breath. "You'll find my notes say the same: We are vessels chosen by something else. We believe ascension means shedding the mortal shell, becoming immortal. But the truth is—when that moment comes, we die for real."
Only now did Gao Yang understand what those words meant.