Shen Mo’s eyes snapped open wide. He turned his head in disbelief.
Chao’er, who had been lying near the giant rock moments ago, seemingly on her last breath, had somehow stood up.
No, that wasn’t standing.
She was hovering about a foot off the ground, her long hair whipping wildly without any wind, her entire body enveloped in a thick, almost tangible, pitch-black demonic qi.
Her eyes glowed with a purple light as she stared coldly at the Corpse Puppet’s claw, which was only three inches from Shen Mo’s heart but could advance no further.
For the first time, an expression appeared on the puppet’s withered face—
Fear.
Inside Chao’er, the Demon Pill that had formed from her fusion with the demoness—a power she had forcefully suppressed at the peak of the Golden Core Stage, even disguising it as Foundation Establishment fluctuations—emitted a sound of unbearable strain as it cracked!
Crack!
Inside the shattered Golden Core, the phantom of a miniature infant suddenly appeared. It bore a seventy to eighty percent resemblance to Chao’er but was shrouded in faint black mist, its eyes tightly closed.
She raised her hand.
Her five fingers were slender, yet they contained the power to rend the heavens.
She gently clenched her fist forward.
CRACK—!
A crisp sound rang out.
The Palace-robed Female Corpse’s claw, along with its entire arm, was instantly crushed into dust.
The black corpse blood and shattered bones didn’t even have a chance to scatter before they were devoured and annihilated by the demonic qi.
The Palace-robed Female Corpse let out a silent shriek.
It wanted to retreat, to flee, but its body was pinned in place by a terrifying, superior pressure that originated from the soul level.
Even the roiling corpse qi and resentment surrounding it solidified.
“Filthy… doll.”
Chao’er—or rather, the existence now controlling this body—tilted her head. The corner of her mouth lifted into a bizarre smile that mingled innocence with cruelty.
Her other hand gently rose, making a grasping motion toward the Palace-robed Female Corpse.
Squelch!
The female corpse’s incredibly hard body, which could withstand flying swords, suddenly collapsed and contracted inward as if squeezed by an invisible giant hand, like a rotten tomato.
The next moment, a horrifying scene unfolded.
Chao’er opened her mouth. It was not a human mouth, but a chasm that split open to her ears.
A terrifying suction force erupted. The black qi and resentment coiling around the zombie, even the Origin Infant Essence, were all sucked into Chao’er’s stomach like a whale drinking water!
Chao’er let out a small burp, two unnatural flushes appearing on her cheeks.
“This is really, really bad…”
She wasn’t happy about the surge in power.
Instead, she said with annoyance, “I… I originally wanted to keep pretending for a while longer.”
She stomped her foot, the surging demonic qi instantly turning the rock beneath her to powder.
Her tone was full of the grievance of a little girl who had lost her candy, but the words she spoke sent chills down the spine:
“I worked so hard to suppress my cultivation, wanting to be a good, obedient little disciple who only knew how to act spoiled. That way, Master’s Husband would cook for me, mend my clothes, and even hold me to sleep at night…”
“It’s all this stinky zombie’s fault!”
Chao’er suddenly turned her head. “Master’s Husband, do you know? To stay by your side, I have to spend enormous effort disguising demonic qi as spiritual qi. It’s so hard… really, really hard…”
Seeing the lingering terror in Shen Mo’s eyes, a flicker of hurt passed through the depths of her own.
The demonic qi around her receded.
Her vertical pupils returned to black eyes.
She patted the dust off her hands as if nothing had happened, reverting to that innocent, naive appearance, even more clingy than before.
She quickly walked up to Shen Mo and, ignoring the dust on him, threw herself into his arms.
She rubbed her cheek against his chest, her voice soft enough to drip water:
“Master’s Husband~ Was Chao’er amazing just now? Did I scare you?”
Shen Mo’s body was stiff, his hands hovering in mid-air, unsure whether to lower them.
“Does Master’s Husband not like Chao’er like this?”
Chao’er looked up, her eyes instantly reddening.
She looked at him with a pitiful expression. “But if I didn’t do that, Chao’er couldn’t have protected Master’s Husband.”
As she spoke, her fingers lightly traced Shen Mo’s neck. The icy touch of her fingertips raised goosebumps on his skin.
She stopped at the tooth mark Qin Shuying had left, a flash of intense jealousy passing through her eyes.
But it was gone in an instant, too fast to catch.
“Master’s Husband, Chao’er seems to have eaten something bad just now. My heart feels all hot…”
Chao’er leaned close to Shen Mo’s ear.
Her tongue lightly licked over the tooth mark, as if savoring a delicacy, or as if covering another’s mark with her own scent.
“Master’s Husband, help Chao’er, okay?”
Shen Mo felt as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.
In that flash of insight, the fragmented clues connected in his mind, forming a cold and horrifying chain.
It wasn’t luck.
There had never been any luck.
The Demon Abyss, a place of certain death, a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival.
How could Chao’er, who fell into it, have returned safely just by “hitting something soft” and “hiding in a crevice”?
Even if she was severely injured, even if she was weak, that overly intact soul, that overly normal reaction… thinking back now, it was eerie everywhere.
Qin Shuying’s vigilance had never been unfounded.
The power to casually crush a Corpse Puppet before him, the seamless, almost schizophrenic switching of auras, the lingering, inhuman coldness and malevolence deep in her eyes… all coldly proclaimed one fact—
His Chao’er, perhaps the moment she fell into the Demon Abyss, was already gone.
At the very least, she was no longer entirely herself.
Grief washed over him.
A sense of being utterly deceived, of having even past warmth tainted, surged like an ice spike, piercing his heart, even overwhelming the fear of the unknown.
He took a sudden step forward.
Ignoring the suffocating pressure of demonic qi still lingering in the air.
Ignoring his own teetering body.
He stared fixedly at that face that belonged to Chao’er.
“Who—are—you?” Each word was spat out through gritted teeth, tinged with bloody foam.
Chao’er was taken aback.
“Master’s Husband? I am Chao’er. Look, my appearance, my memories, my feelings for you… none of it has changed. No, it’s become clearer, more certain.”
She took a step forward, disregarding his resistance, and threw herself into his arms.
This time, Shen Mo did not catch her.
He stood rigidly, his hands still hovering.
Chao’er paid no mind. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
She rubbed her cheek against his chest, greedily inhaling his scent.
That warm, soft scent that made one want to devour him whole was utterly intoxicating.
Chao’er looked up, standing on her tiptoes until her gaze was level with Shen Mo’s.
“Your disciple said, once your disciple returned from the Secret Realm, your disciple would be grown up.”
Her gaze was infatuated and fanatical, carrying a sense of—
Possession, desire.
And an aggressiveness that chilled his spine.
“Your disciple is now… already grown up.”
“Grown up enough… to crush all the filthy things that want to hurt Master’s Husband, grown up enough… to hide Master’s Husband away where no one can find him, grown up enough… to truly become Master’s Husband’s Matriarch.”
“You are not Chao’er. My Chao’er would never look at me like that.” Shen Mo’s heart ached with grief. “My Chao’er—the light in her eyes when she looked at me was bright, pure, not like this.”
She suddenly smiled.
That smile was exactly the same as before.
Her eyes curved, carrying a hint of girlish charm.
But the darkness in those eyes made the smile utterly bizarre.
“Master’s Husband,” she looked at him with infatuation, her gaze sliding from his brows and eyes to his nose, from his nose to his lips, inch by inch, as if tracing a painting, “I’ve always looked at you this way. You just refused to acknowledge it.”
“Ever since I was twelve, the first time you combed my hair, I looked at you like this.”
“Back then, you asked me if it hurt. You said when my hair was tangled, I had to comb it slowly, couldn’t pull hard—no one had ever treated me like that before.”
Shen Mo opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Later, I grew up.”
“I knew I shouldn’t look at you that way, but I couldn’t control it. Every time I saw you, I wanted to look a little longer. Every time you smiled at me, I’d be happy all day. Every time you praised me, I’d be so happy I couldn’t sleep.”
She raised her hand, caressing his face.
The movement was gentle and lingering, yet it made every hair on Shen Mo’s body stand on end.
He instinctively wanted to step back, but his body was immobilized, unable to move.
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