Bugs were gnawing painfully at Lin Qiyou’s heart.
She wanted to escape. She wanted to be despicable, like a true exploiter, feeling no guilt toward Qingmu and treating him purely as a tool.
She denied her feelings for Qingmu, or rather, she believed those emotions were false, merely the result of the spirit veins.
So she desperately hoped time would prove that she wouldn’t feel pain—that those feelings were all an illusion.
She just wanted to avoid the pain, nothing more.
If she could forget, if it was all fake, then she wouldn’t suffer from guilt toward Qingmu anymore, right?
But it was a lie!
She hated it!
It lied to her!
Why did it still hurt?
Why did she have to like Qingmu? Why were these feelings really because of the spirit veins, and not false?
Her emotions defeated Lin Qiyou. She could no longer support herself, collapsing to the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees, burying her face and sobbing.
She was done for.
She really liked Qingmu—there was no way to forget him.
She was sinking back into self-recrimination again.
What should she do?
She didn’t want this.
“Wuwuwu, help me…”
She cried so hard she could barely breathe.
Suddenly, footsteps approached. Lin Qiyou quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeve and looked up to see a familiar face.
It was Qin Shuang, Qingmu’s former “Dao Companion.”
Qin Shuang saw Lin Qiyou’s tear-streaked face and sighed softly.
She knew some things already, and even if she didn’t know for sure, she could guess—like why Lin Qiyou had chosen to enter seclusion.
“What are you doing here?” Lin Qiyou asked.
“Nothing, just a letter for you,” Qin Shuang said with sadness and helplessness in her voice. She pulled a letter from her sleeve and said, “This… I found it while rummaging through Qingmu’s old residence.”
She placed the letter on Lin Qiyou’s lap and turned to leave without another word.
“Old residence…”
Hearing those words made Lin Qiyou’s heart contract sharply, and tears burst out again like a broken dam.
Trembling, she opened the letter, but there were so many tears she could barely see. It took her a long time just to make out the first character.
This letter wasn’t really a letter—it was probably never meant to be read by anyone else.
The handwriting was shaky, splattered with bloodstains, and on the entire page were only two words, repeated all over: “Save me.”
Lin Qiyou’s eyes widened. The air seemed sucked out of her lungs. Her expression lost control; her emotions shattered. She hugged the letter close, repeatedly whispering, “I like you, like you, like you, I like you… wuwu…
Why did these things have to be said in secret? Back then, I begged you so much and you never dared to say it, only dared to write it on paper?
I didn’t know, I didn’t know I was always eating you up. I never wanted to do that. I like you. I like you so much it hurts. I’ve liked you since I was a kid. I’ve always cared about you, you know that.
Wuaaahhh!”
Lin Qiyou felt as if her childhood self was crawling out from her own mouth, so much pain that it screamed and wailed.
So where was Qingmu now?
She couldn’t bear it anymore. All she wanted now was to find Qingmu.
Lin Qiyou took the crumpled letter she had twisted in her hands and, with tears still falling, headed to Qingmu’s old residence.
But this place was no longer where Qingmu lived. It was now occupied by a male disciple she didn’t know at all.
After asking a few questions, she left in a daze.
Like a walking corpse, she hid in the shadows of the sect. Suddenly, a thought struck her.
During a previous spirit vein transplantation, she had seen the physicians had a diary. She tried to look at it then, but the physicians immediately stopped her.
Physicians, yes! Physicians!
Relying on her memory, she spent several days tracking down the two physicians who had performed her spirit vein transplantation.
She came with killing intent thanks to her cultivation level, but when the physicians saw her, they all sighed as if they knew why she had come, then handed over the transplantation diary.
Lin Qiyou was a little surprised, but the physicians said, “As expected, your feelings for him are not caused by the spirit veins.”
Opening the diary, Lin Qiyou was stunned by its contents.
It detailed nearly twelve years of records, showing that Qingmu had undergone fourteen spirit vein excavations.
The records were very detailed, even including illustrations that showed which part of Qingmu was excavated each time, along with pain levels.
However, the pain levels recorded were from Lin Qiyou’s perspective—Qingmu had to endure twice as much pain.
Lin Qiyou’s face darkened as she finished reading the transplantation diary, then asked the physicians some questions.
In the end, after much hesitation, she simply burned down the physicians’ clinic to the ground.
She didn’t know what else to do.
The mastermind behind everything was probably her own father, head of the Lin family.
But was she really going to shirk all responsibility?
Did she have none herself?
Did she not deserve to die?
Was she really going to blame the physicians who were just paid to do their job?
In the end, the greatest beneficiary of all this was probably herself.
Filled with chaotic thoughts, Lin Qiyou made her way to a hill where a solitary grave mound stood.
The grave seemed to have no tombstone, but a tombstone had already smashed into Lin Qiyou’s heart.
“Qingmu…”
Lin Qiyou took out her silver bell and shook it in front of Qingmu’s grave, but there was no response.
He was dead… Qingmu was dead, so the silver bell didn’t respond?
Lin Qiyou knelt before the grave and cried for a long, long time, rambling incoherently.
Then she suddenly noticed something strange.
Behind Qingmu’s grave was a hole, like some animal had dug it out…
She stood still for a moment, then, as if possessed, began digging up Qingmu’s grave. When she opened the sealed coffin, she screamed.
Inside, Qingmu’s flesh and skin were gone, only bare white bones remained, and some small bones had been crushed.
The coffin had been sealed for a year. Qingmu was a cultivator—there was no way he would rot so fast!
What had eaten Qingmu?
“What’s going on?”
Lin Qiyou whispered through her tears.
She never imagined that Qingmu had been devoured by her while alive, but after death, something else had eaten him too.
“Where is Qingmu’s flesh! Where is Qingmu’s flesh!”
“You shameless bitch! You murderous wretch!”
“I’m going to kill you! How dare you eat him! Die! Die!”
She cursed at something, but she was also cursing herself.
That thing devoured Qingmu’s flesh and blood, and she had devoured Qingmu’s spirit veins and life.
No matter how you looked at it, she was the more despicable one.
Too hateful!
Lin Qiyou stood inside the grave, guarding Qingmu’s remains, cursing for a long, long time, crying for a long, long time.
Only when her throat went hoarse and she was nearly gagging from talking did she lower her head and muster the courage to examine Qingmu’s bones.
“Huh?”
She reached into one corner of the coffin and pinched a strand of hair.
The hair was white… fox fur.