Tian Lie tilted his head and said quietly, "Feeding me with rare and precious herbs and the abundance of spiritual energy caused me to turn into a child. Becoming smaller is actually a process of advancing in rank."

As he finished speaking, his gaze swept around the surroundings: "Is this a new—" plane? Suddenly, a thought struck him, and Tian Lie's voice abruptly stopped. He wagged his tail, shrank back to his smaller size, and hopped onto Wu Yue's shoulder, remaining silent.

The little green flower in my pocket felt inexplicably jealous; it was no longer its owner's only little darling.

Look, that shoulder is no longer its throne.

"Lu Shu, you and Tian Lie go back first."

Wu Yue grabbed Tian Lie by the back of his collar and threw him into Lu Shu's arms, saying, "I have something to do."

Yan Chiyu extinguished the yellow talisman in his hand, and in the blink of an eye, the three of them disappeared from Lu Shu's sight.

Lu Shu, now a stay-at-home dad again: "???"

So, who really values ​​romance over friendship?

...

...

The spatial distortion lasted only a few breaths, vanishing in an instant. Wu Yue looked up and saw Long Jingyuan sitting in front of Yan Chiyu's French windows, listening to a storyteller. The sunlight was warm, falling on his fingers, so beautiful it seemed unreal.

Two unfamiliar figures entered the hall. Long Jingyuan turned his head slowly, while touching the guide cane beside him: "Ayu? Wuyue?"

"Long time no see." Looking at Long Jingyuan now, he hasn't changed much.

Originally a spirit of the capital, born of the capital, he became like the capital itself. He shared life and death, prosperity and decline.

"Longlong, there's something I need your help with."

Yan Chiyu pushed Song Suian in front of him, "We need to see his memories."

“This is not an ordinary ghost…” Long Jingyuan’s perception was exceptional.

Song Sui'an pushed Yan Chiyu's hand away, her gaze dark and uneasy: "Uncle Yan, no."

"Bai Wuchang showed me the records, but I don't think it should be you." Back then, when Madam Song had a difficult childbirth, it was he who sent her medicine. Song Suian lived with him for a while after birth, and being soft-hearted, he was still considered "uncle." He wouldn't abandon her no matter what.

"If you want me to help you, let me understand what happened first." For the sake of her little niece, Wu Yue thought she should help her out, but before that, she didn't want the records of the underworld to become her only standard for judging Song Suian.

Song Suian struggled for a moment, his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, and after a long while, he finally nodded.

"Uncle Yan, I'm sorry for letting you see my wretched state." He closed his eyes with a bitter smile.

A warm feeling fell upon my head.

His voice was gentle and soothing, carrying a subtle sense of comfort: "Take a nap."

-

Fifteen years later, in the eighteenth level of hell.

"Playing dead? Do you even know where you are?!"

The ugly, short man waved a red-hot branding iron around, his expression always conveying the misfortune of his entire family, making him someone others would despise.

A tall, thin man holding a whip, who looked like a bamboo pole wrapped in human skin, slapped the short, stocky man on the head and cursed with a forced smile, "You damned wretched wretch, you're already dead in the deepest hell, what are you pretending to be? You're completely dead!"

"You think you know so much? You talk too much! When I was being executed in hell, your grandpa wasn't even born yet! Don't think I'm afraid of you just because you're tall! It's all your fault, stop pretending, I'll teach you to play dead! I'll teach you to play dead!" The ugly-faced, short, stout man cursed incessantly, the branding iron in his hand already stuck into the body of the person in front of him, and he did it more than once.

"Ugh..."

The man's body was completely devoid of any healthy flesh, covered in blood. His tongue had been pulled from his throat, and all twenty toes on his limbs had been severed.

The wounds left by swords, spears, halberds, and halberds, as well as by branding and frostbite, are countless and horrifying.

Besides the two wounds, every two inches you can see the eerie white bones—the bones are charred and white, the charred ones are rotten flesh that has been scalded, and the white ones are another piece of rotten flesh that has been boiled until it foams.