The radiance of immortal light seeped out from that ancient structure at the stern of the ship, mingling with the drifting mist. However, a courtyard wall more than ten zhang high blocked the view so that all one could see was the tops of those ancient buildings, arranged like scales.
Their roofs were covered with vermilion-gold glazed tiles and their beams were made of luminous divine wood. There were pavilions, temples, ancient pagodas… The towering courtyard wall, standing like a city wall, separated from the nine-story ship tower by a wide open deck of about a hundred meters.
Xie Jin no longer carried the arrogance and unruliness he once had. Now he sat on the first stone step of the copper-cast main gate, a steel pipe in hand, nervously glancing at the passage leading up the ship tower. He looked like a startled bird, jumpy and easily frightened.
Behind him stretched the stone steps, numbering several dozen in all. At the top of these steps was the copper-cast main gate that led into the courtyard wall, standing about three zhang tall in a grand and imposing manner.
The left door bore a bas-relief of countless lights from ten thousand households, while on the right door there was a depiction resembling a river flowing with the stars of the underworld, as if drawn from some far corner of the universe.
“Doctor Qi, what’s the situation now?”
Seeing Qi Shanshan come out of the passage, Xie Jin grabbed at what he thought was a life-saving straw. His spirit lifted slightly as he hurried forward and anxiously asked. Qi Shanshan brought good news.
“Don’t worry. Li Weiyi and the people from Laboratory 705 have both suffered heavy losses. For now, no one has the strength to deal with you.”
“That’s great!”
Xie Jin’s mind began to race.
“Let’s plan this out. You poison the food, and I’ll launch a covert attack. Together we’ll deal with that bloodthirsty murderer Li Weiyi and the folks from Laboratory 705.” “Good, I had the same idea.”
Qi Shanshan took out a bag of food and handed it over.
“You haven’t eaten all day, and you look so weak that you can hardly stand the cold. Have a bite first.”
Xie Jin was indeed so ravenous that his lean frame nearly collapsed. While wolfing it down, he mumbled, “Li Weiyi must have ingested the sacred relic, that’s how he became so formidable. But no matter how strong he is, he’s still made of flesh and blood.
With poison – a deadly poison – we can definitely kill him… When the time comes… Ah… you… the food you gave me…”
A spasm wracked Xie Jin’s stomach, as if it were filled with razor-sharp blades. He could no longer sit upright, and he stared at Qi Shanshan in disbelief. Taking three steps back, Qi Shanshan slipped her hands into her pockets.
Her gaze was cool as she replied, “You said to poison the food—deadly poison made with poison mixed from Black Flood Dragon Corpse Blood.”
“Bitch! We’re going to lose so miserably… It’s all because of you. You and that pretty boy were working together… puh…”
Xie Jin charged toward Qi Shanshan, but after only three steps he collapsed. He convulsed and spat blood from his mouth. It was clear to see that his skin was darkening and starting to rot.
Qi Shanshan walked over and gave him a light kick—only after confirming he was dead did she disdainfully mutter to herself, “You only got half of it right. I wasn’t in league with him before. I was truly helping you.
Now…”
When Qi Shanshan allied with Xie Tianshu and the others, it was the only viable choice she saw for survival at that time. Yet she never respected the character or abilities of Xie Tianshu and the others. Especially after learning about Liu Ying’s fate, she grew even more grateful for Li Weiyi’s perfect cooperation.
He not only had power and presence, but also maintained loyalty, quick wit, and resolve—compassion for the weak while showing no mercy to enemies. She didn’t want to simply be Li Weiyi’s partner. She wanted to remove the “cooperation” part altogether.
However, she also knew that she had missed the best opportunity to take Li Weiyi down; if she had foreseen today, she would have snatched that fish soup from Cai Yutong with all her might. No longer wallowing in regret, Qi Shanshan dragged Xie Jin’s corpse toward the side of the ship.
As long as she cleaned up the traces here and didn’t let Li Weiyi notice anything amiss, she would completely sever ties with her past. In the future, she would find a way to deal with him. No matter how outstanding he was—a still impetuous young fellow with barely restrained bloodiness.
“Xie Jin probably never dreamed that on this ship, the most terrifying person isn’t me, but you.”
Just as she managed to drag Xie Jin’s body to the ship’s edge, Li Weiyi’s voice rang in her ears. Despite her usually calm demeanor, Qi Shanshan was startled. Yet in the short time as she stood up and brushed her disheveled hair, she quickly formulated a response and asked coolly, “How long has it been?”
“Since Xie Jin fell.”
Li Weiyi’s tone was calm as he stood there on the ship tower’s passage, his figure upright and heroic. The two stood some twenty meters apart.
“So you just stood there watching? Watching me awkwardly and laboriously drag a corpse like a clumsy penguin?”
Qi Shanshan teased in a coy, resentful tone, seemingly unaware of the anger, disappointment, and sorrow in Li Weiyi’s eyes at that moment. Li Weiyi frowned. He wasn’t in the mood to exchange playful banter.
This wasn’t something a few witty remarks could defuse. Stepping into the deck area bathed in immortal radiance, he saw four corpses of scientific expedition team members sprawled on the ground, along with various chemical devices and medicines. In one corner lay the massive corpse of a bear-like creature with its abdomen injured and rotting, exuding a foul stench.
It was obvious that when it fell from the bronze ship, it had died from severe injuries. It was caused by the Yellow Dragon Sword! The wound inflicted by the Yellow Dragon Sword couldn’t self-heal, even for a transcendent creature.
Instead, the wound would only accelerate its decay. Each of the four expedition team members had met a tragic fate. One had skin bursting open, leaving nothing but blood, flesh, and bone; another had half its body covered in scales while the other half rotted away; yet another grew tentacles from its head even as its skull was shattered.
Li Weiyi said, “So, the legends about the four expedition members who went to investigate the stern and never returned were actually used by you for live experiments! You released that news, and by deliberately placing the bear-like creature’s blood near the ship tower, you intended to frighten everyone so that no more expedition members would dare to come here.”
“That day, by the ship tower, you must have been so scared that when Gao Huan and I arrived to uncover your secret at the stern, you forced us back, right?”
“You only dared to drink the Flood Dragon’s blood because you already had concrete experimental results from this side!”
“You provided the drugs for Kong Fan, and that’s why everyone fainted after breakfast.”
Li Weiyi fixed his intense gaze on Qi Shanshan.
“You’re so frightening. You disguised yourself so perfectly that when you lied, there wasn’t a single flaw. I almost let you deceive me!”
Qi Shanshan’s eyes filled with red tears, and she cried in a choked, pitiful voice, “I… I had no choice. You saw what happened to Liu Ying.
If I didn’t act proactively, it would have been me who jumped today. Only one person was truly valuable – she could survive and hold the power of words and status.” Li Weiyi said, “Doctor Qi, so many people have died because of you.
Without the medicines you provided, they might never have succeeded.” Tears streaming down her face, Qi Shanshan replied, “I’m not you. I don’t have the same power as you do.
I couldn’t control my own fate; I could only choose to compromise. When Xie Jin held that knife to my neck, I had no choice but to either die or help him. Tell me, how was I supposed to choose?”
At this point, Li Weiyi no longer knew whether to believe her. Qi Shanshan had helped him more than once; she had saved him. But she was too clever, too skilled at lying and weaving stories.
Every expression, every word she spoke—though they seemed full of emotion—were calculated and thoughtful. In fact, Xie Tianshu and Kong Fan, among others, were likely just her pawns. Because she had ways, like what she did to kill Xie Jin, to take care of them too.
“You saved me before, so this time I won’t kill you. But someone will hold you responsible for what you did,” Li Weiyi stated clearly, though this time he spared her life.
Qi Shanshan looked at him with mournful eyes, “Do I only get credit for saving you once?” In that moment, Li Weiyi deeply realized that one cannot afford to owe someone in matters of the heart. Qi Shanshan’s tears fell as she continued, “Yes, I deserve to die, but I saved Yu Tong and you.
Even if the whole world says I should die, none of you have the right to speak that word. Now, if you go and tell them, they’ll immediately kill me—the same fate as those two security team members thrown into the Soul Sea.”
“You won’t kill me, but I’m the one who will die because of you.”
For others’ lives and deaths, Li Weiyi could let go; after all, he was not a righteous judge. But for his senior brother to end up like this, Qi Shanshan was in some part responsible. Li Weiyi said, “You still have use to me right now, so I’ll give you a chance.
Help me cure our senior brother, and then let him decide what to do with you.”
“But if our senior brother can’t overcome this crisis and ends up in trouble, then everyone will pay with their lives. Even the heavens won’t spare us!”
Li Weiyi carefully searched Qi Shanshan’s entire body to ensure she wasn’t hiding any dangerous contraband, then asked, “Where is Sister Cai?” Qi Shanshan never expected that the once sunny, kind, and humble Li Weiyi would, when mentioning senior brother, have such a terrifying gaze—cold enough to chill her to the bone.
At that moment, she truly felt just how dangerous it was to offend Li Weiyi on matters of principle. Had she not done those two or three things correctly before, she would surely already be dead. Qi Shanshan then led Li Weiyi to the second level of the nine-story ship tower.
“No one dares to come up here; it’s safe. I’ve hidden her here so that this turmoil doesn’t affect her.”
Along the passage on the second level of the ship tower, there were still rows of stone figurines. Passing by these stone statues, they eventually saw Cai Yutong lying on the ground.
“She was only drugged by me; it’s nothing serious… Hey, why hasn’t she woken up after so long?”
Qi Shanshan suddenly realized something was wrong.
“Sister… Cai, Sister Cai…”
Li Weiyi knelt down to check on Cai Yutong’s condition.
“It’s so hot!”
As soon as his hand touched Cai Yutong’s forehead, Li Weiyi was startled. Her body radiated an almost unbearably scorching heat, completely unlike a normal human’s body temperature.
“Let me see.”
After gauging the heat on Cai Yutong’s face, Qi Shanshan immediately removed her clothes. But then, recalling something, she glanced toward Li Weiyi. Li Weiyi turned around, and then the scorching heat gathered from the sole of his right foot converged by his ears.
When Qi Shanshan lifted Cai Yutong’s garment, she saw that beneath the skin at her chest, there were many golden streaks, as if they had grown out of her heart and extended throughout her body—flowing strands of flame-like golden light.
“Didn't you say that a tenth concentration of Golden Crow Blood was something a human body could withstand? Why is such a calamity suddenly happening?”
Qi Shanshan said to the unconscious Cai Yutong, almost to herself, her tone filled with confusion.
“Did Sister drink the Golden Crow Blood?”
Li Weiyi asked as he turned around, noticing that Cai Yutong’s clothes had been put back on. Qi Shanshan nodded.
“She believed that if she diluted the Golden Crow Blood, the human body could handle it, so she used herself as an experiment. But now her body temperature has exceeded sixty degrees Celsius, and it’s rising rapidly.”
Realizing what was happening, Qi Shanshan immediately took out a cross-shaped pendant and hung it around Cai Yutong’s neck. This immortal relic was the first one Cai Yutong had ever obtained. It was Qi Shanshan who had taken it from her after drugging her.
She believed that the cross pendant might be able to suppress the destructive power of the Golden Crow Blood because when Cai Yutong wore it, she didn’t exhibit what she did now. Just like the aberration of a pseudo-flooded creature required wearing the Dragon Pattern Ring.
After she took away the cross pendant, the Golden Crow Blood’s power was unleashed and began to threaten Cai Yutong’s life. Fortunately, the blood had been diluted, and its release was slow. Otherwise, by the time Li Weiyi and I arrived here, Cai Yutong might have been reduced to nothing but ashes. …
After the cross pendant was put on, the temperature of Cai Yutong’s body continued to climb even faster. A short while later, she was completely enveloped in golden flames. Li Weiyi and Qi Shanshan dared not approach and retreated to a safe distance.
“It’s so eerie! The temperature of these golden flames is high, yet her body remains completely intact.”
Though the golden flames were dazzling and scorching, Li Weiyi could see that within the flames, Cai Yutong’s body maintained an unbroken outline without damage, which was utterly baffling—after all, she was merely a mortal of flesh and blood.
“Whoa!”
Suddenly, the golden flames burst in a resounding flare. Within the midst of countless sparks, a pair of magnificent, several-meter-long wing-like silhouettes appeared, as if a caterpillar were breaking out of its chrysalis and transforming into a butterfly. The two of them retreated even further, holding their breath and focusing their energy.
The flames burned for about fifteen minutes before gradually subsiding. The brilliance of the light began to fade, and the body of Cai Yutong, lying on the ground, was slowly revealed. The outer mortal shell had cracked and peeled away, revealing dazzlingly white flesh beneath.
“You… wouldn’t it be better to come down now?”
Qi Shanshan said cautiously. Li Weiyi immediately sensed that something was amiss. Though Cai Yutong had not turned to ashes, the fabric of her clothes had turned to dust.
Convinced that Qi Shanshan meant no harm to Cai Yutong, Li Weiyi descended the steps and returned to the first deck. In his mind, the image of Cai Yutong feeding him fish soup warmed him, yet anxiety also gnawed at his heart.
Before long, he heard low voices from the second level of the ship tower—two women speaking in hushed tones about something. Li Weiyi’s heart lightened, and a slight smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. Still, he did not go up to the tower; instead, he quietly waited below.
Once he felt more at ease, his eyes suddenly caught sight of the three-zhang-tall copper-cast main gate rising above the several dozen stone steps in the distance. Curious, he walked over to take a closer look.
(The End of This Chapter)