Chapter 25: From Now on, We Are Strangers
“Huh—”
In the nobles' residential area of the Latia Kingdom, in the large courtyard exclusively owned by Xiaxue, the Star Vein Demon Sword──Xiaxue scratched the messy hair on his head and slammed the door of the reception room shut, shutting out the noisy sound.
The entire courtyard was surrounded by a bustling crowd of people with various purposes, including civilians, nobles, people who came to do business, people who came purely to watch the fun, and of course, people with ulterior motives - and all of these people were given the cold shoulder by Xiaxue - the world's number one emperor-level warrior said that whoever dared to take a step forward would be attacked without any explanation.
No matter how much of a topic the Crimson Moon Priestess is now, the deterrent power of the Xiaxue is still there. Having said that, no matter how excited people are, they dare not act rashly and just surround the entire yard.
"That's really scary."
Longyun opened a small gap in the curtains and looked outside, then chuckled at everyone in the room.
"Looks like we've really become world-class celebrities, hahaha."
"That woman is the one who became famous."
Naraka rolled his eyes without giving any face, then looked around the room. Xiaxue, Yagad, Xifeng, Gu Yinyue, Longyun, Yaye, Xiaoying, Lahan—as well as Yizhi and Sumo.
As for Xiang Ying, Hei Huo and Su Jie, the former was still lying quietly in Beichen's arms, and the latter did not take human form, but turned into hooks and claws worn on Beichen's arms.
At this time, Beichen was holding Xiang Ying, his palm tightly grasping the handle of the hook, staring greedily at the people he met again. Because he stared for too long, several people coughed awkwardly.
Beichen finally came back to his senses, gave a dry laugh a bit embarrassedly, and then nodded to Su Mo.
"Sir Su Mo, your time is precious, so let's start with you." Beichen said halfway when he suddenly remembered something and said, "By the way, before that, please terminate the contract with me, Mr. Yizhi."
"don't want."
But Yizhi spoke with a righteous look on his face, and Su Mo on the side showed an amused expression as if he was watching his son playing tricks, and the corners of his mouth under the mask were crooked very subtly.
"Uh, but, after all, you signed a contract with me just to serve as a matchmaker."
There were several minutes between the signing of the contract between Yizhi and Beichen, and then between Beichen and Lingshuang. During these minutes, Yizhi used the mind communication channel to convey Su Mo's intention to contact her.
But Ling Shuang signed a contract with Beichen immediately afterwards, and the mental communication channel became unusable. Yizhi was also transferred from the position of guarding Beichen and replaced by Lahan - so Beichen finally got in touch with Su Mo through the Ghost Eye Mercenary.
"Anyway, I refuse."
Yi Yi's face was gloomy and perverse, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, as if he was asking for a beating, "I won't release you, come and bite me, bite me!" Su Mo, who was standing beside him, finally sneered and laughed, then patted the purple-haired Star Vein Seed's shoulder and explained to Bei Chen helplessly:
"Look, this guy's heart isn't with me right now, so there's no point in me bringing him back. Actually, this guy fell in love with you at first sight during your famous match. If he hadn't been yelling, I wouldn't have called him out at the party."
"Su Mo!!"
"Yes, yes, I won't say anything."
Su Mo shrugged, turned his head and stared at Beichen - and Beichen just gave a forced smile.
"Please spare me. I'm still traumatized by the words 'love at first sight'."
What happened to Ling Shuang, who fell in love with her at first sight?
Yizhi obviously understood what she meant. When he knew what Ling Shuang had done to her, if Su Mo had not forbade him, he might have secretly released Beichen, or even directly destroyed Ling Shuang's plan - although he also resented Beichen for humiliating him in public, he disdain to use such means to retaliate.
He thought for a while, then bit his finger, walked over, pulled down Beichen's collar, smeared the blood on the brand, and terminated the contract.
"Don't be too happy too soon." He looked down at Beichen with an arrogant and aggressive look. "I agree to terminate the contract, but I'm not going back to Youyu. There must be a vacant position in your Night Cavalry, right?"
Beichen glanced at Xiaoping, who nodded. He then looked at Yagard, who also nodded. He then looked at Su Mo, who also nodded.
"Alright." She laughed dryly. "You can never have too much fighting power. You're welcome to join us, Mr. Yizhi."
"Hmph! Just wait, one day I'll make you beg me to sign a contract with you!"
Beichen's expression grew serious, his pair of black eyes staring back at Yizhi without retreating: "As for the contract, I may indeed ask for your help if my combat power is insufficient in the future, but I hope you don't expect anything beyond the contract. I don't want to see another Ling Shuang. If you have other thoughts, please leave as soon as possible."
Yizhi's expression became uglier and uglier as Beichen spoke. In the end, he glared at her with a ferocious look of hatred, took a few steps back to the door, and then slammed it and walked out.
"Hey, why are you doing this?" Su Mo shook his head. "That guy isn't bad, though he's a bit spoiled. You already have so many people around you, so one more won't matter, right?"
Beichen glanced at him coldly: "You have done ten wrong things, does that justify you doing the eleventh wrong thing?"
"Oh? You think they're 'mistakes'?"
"No, the fault is mine."
Beichen lowered his eyes and whispered. ――She shouldn't have been so close to these people with such a prestigious title. This incident caused so many people to suffer, and a large part of her responsibility was to provoke them and fail to protect them.
Then she shook her head to stop her sadness and looked up.
"Let's not talk about these, Your Excellency Su Mo. The question that bothers me the most has not been answered yet."
"Please go ahead."
"Why are you helping me? If you've decided to help me, why did you assist Ling Shuang in making these plans? Without your help, he would never have succeeded."
"It seems that even though you can activate Pandora's Box, you still haven't realized my identity."
Su Mo seemed a little disappointed and tilted his head.
"I'll leave the answer to that up to you. If you can figure out my identity, then you'll have a chance of success if you go against me."
“…”
Seeing Beichen lost in thought, Su Mo chuckled.
"There's still plenty of time. Things are finally getting interesting, so there's no need to rush. At least I'm still on your side."
"Yes." Beichen smiled bitterly. "No matter what, it was you who rescued Yinyue, Xifeng and the others. It was also you who saved Heihuo, Sujie, and the Duke... I must thank you very much for all this."
"You're welcome. After all, it was me who caused you to lose something irreparable."
“…”
Beichen bit his lower lip and lowered his head, while at the same time countless hostile gazes were cast at Su Mo, causing him to chuckle meaninglessly again.
"It seems that I am not welcome here, so I will take my leave first. If you need anything to contact me, you can go through Yizhi."
As he spoke, he nodded to everyone in the room, bowed gracefully without being servile or arrogant, and then left with the door open.
The room suddenly became quiet, as if there were too many things to say but they didn't know how to start. After a few minutes of silence, Beichen finally couldn't help herself. But just as she was about to say something, she heard the chaotic shouts of the guards outside the door:
"Wait, this is His Highness Xiaxue's reception room, we can't—Wow!"
After a series of crackling noises, the door was kicked open with a bang. Glenshe walked in swaggeringly with the little Shiba Inu "ball of fur" perched above his head, holding an ice-colored spear, and then kicked the door shut again.
Then Mad Dog threw the spear roughly to the ground, making a crisp clanging sound.
Everyone in the room's faces changed at the same time when they saw the spear, and almost everyone exuded a murderous aura that seemed to distort the air - especially Hei Huo and Su Jie. Beichen clearly felt them shaking his arms violently, and then an extremely cold breath came from them.
"what is going on."
Mad Dog spoke in a cold voice - the day before the incident, he found Lahan, who had the scent of Beichen on him, through the fur ball, and then contacted Beichen through Lahan. So after the Lingshuang incident failed, Mad Dog, who was ambushing in the underground base, caught them red-handed - although he had two top-grade offensive magic wands with him, Glen She was a top-level speed fighter. Before he could launch the poison mist and light column attacks, the two magic wands knocked him unconscious. Lingshuang could not withstand a few moves from him, and was finally severely beaten back to her original form.
But although he helped Beichen, Kuang Gou, who didn't know the whole story and didn't know Beichen's true identity, was very confused at this time - because the news of the incident had already spread to every street and alley in the capital, and talking about the Red Moon Priestess had almost the same priority as eating, drinking, defecating and urinating, and he, Yashu Tuling's brother and lifelong enemy, was like a Martian who only found out at the last minute. This made him very angry, so after hearing the news that the Priestess was taken away by Xiaxue, he immediately picked up Lingshuang and kicked open the door of the reception room in Xiaxue's residence.
Unfortunately, although Glenshe had a lot of questions, no one answered him - after all, no one wanted to open Beichen's scars.
He angrily kicked Ling Shuang on the ground, then took out a bottle of Star Spirit Ore solution and poured it on her.
"If they don't tell, you tell!"
After absorbing the Star Spirit Ore solution, Ling Shuang seemed to have regained some consciousness, and then in a burst of blue light, he turned back to his original form. After looking around at the looks of the people around him, he laughed sinisterly and self-deprecatingly.
"Let me tell you? Are you sure? In front of them?"
Glenn She frowned, as if having a bad premonition: "What's going on?"
"Ha ha ha ha!!"
Ling Shuang didn't seem to feel any fear at all about being surrounded by enemies. Instead, she laughed wildly.
"Okay, so what? I used a self-torture trick to beat all of these idiots half to a pulp, and then when Xiaochen came to rescue them, I secretly plotted against her—in front of this bunch of losers—in front of them? I slept with her!! Hahahaha, don't you guys love her to death? No one would have thought that her first time was with me—woo!"
Before the villain could finish his triumphant confession, Glenshe had already swung a punch, sending him flying backwards. He collided with the wall, splashing a golden foam of blood before sliding down. Meanwhile, the rest of the group, their eyes reddened and weapons drawn, their murderous aura stirring the air with a faint buzzing sound.
"Hahahahaha? You want to kill me, right?" The expression of the young man with short ice-colored hair no longer showed his original beauty. Seeing the people surrounding him with murderous intent, he laughed even more wildly.
"Kill her!! Even if you kill her, it won't change the fact that I slept with her! You will forever carry this stain with you in regret and self-blame!! Hahahahaha, kill me, kill me!!"
"You little coward, are you done yet?"
Unable to bear it any longer, Yaye raised his sickle, raised it high up, and swung it towards his neck! !
"Yaye, stop it."
“──!!”
Yaye barely put away the sickle at the last moment, then looked at the person who spoke with some surprise - Beichen.
"Yaye taught me so much, how come I have forgotten it now?"
Beichen walked to Yaye, shook Yaye's arm coquettishly, and then leaned his forehead on Yaye's shoulder.
Yaye rubbed her hair with a heavy look of heartache, while Ling Shuang, who was lying in the corner, heard her voice and suddenly looked up at her - but unfortunately, she didn't even look at him from beginning to end.
The opposite of love is indifference.
Her hatred could bring him a perverse sense of pleasure and painful happiness, but her disregard was as effective as a lingchi blade, cutting into his heart again and again.
"Yaye, after all, he didn't kill any of us, so let's just forget about killing him."
Hearing Beichen say this, Ling Shuang instantly revealed an ecstatic smile, but after a few seconds, the smile froze and then slowly shattered.
Because she said:
"The most important thing now is to terminate the contract between me and him."
"Yeah." Yaye responded in a low voice, "I have the corpse of the possessed Moon Envoy in my storage space. I can get some blood for you. Can you get the Moon Poison?"
"No," Beichen's voice sounded a little tired. "Given my physical condition, the possibility is almost zero, but as long as he's still alive, signing him again is possible. I want a more direct approach."
"oh?"
Beichen raised his head and said, "Yaye, if the weapon falls into darkness, does the master have to die? Does it really need such a large amount of blood?"
Ling Shuang's face turned pale in an instant, and he tried to get up from the ground hysterically, screaming: "Xiao Chen, you want me to fall into darkness!? No, you can't do this!! If I fall into darkness────if I fall into darkness!!"
Wouldn't that mean I'd irrevocably lose the last connection with her?
But Beichen ignored his screams, and before long he was knocked back to the corner by a powerful punch from Yagard, a close-range explosive bomb from Xifeng, and a heavy kick from Gu Yinyue.
Yaye raised an eyebrow and laughed in agreement.
"Good idea! The Darkness of a weapon varies from person to person. The deeper the weapon's feelings for its master, the less blood it needs to be Darkened. It doesn't necessarily require the master's death to cause Darkness. For you and him... 500 grams should be enough."
"Okay. Yaye is very familiar with the ritual of falling into darkness, so I'll leave it to you."
As she spoke, she picked up the Black Disaster's claw and cut her left wrist.
"Wait!" Black Disaster, who had been silent the entire time, couldn't help but speak in a hoarse voice, "Is this really not a threat to Beichen's life and safety?"
"Don't worry." Yaye softened his voice to comfort Hei Huo, "I will stop if there is any danger. Trust me."
"Um."
Black Disaster uttered a low sound in reply, and then fell silent.
Beichen looked at the twins on her wrists, endless regret and pain flashing in her eyes. She almost couldn't bear the urge to cast a vicious look at Ling Shuang over there - but in the end she held back.
"Xiaochen,...don't be like this....just look at me!"
Ling Shuang finally began to get scared and retreat, with blood bubbles spurting out of her mouth and growling anxiously.
"Yaye, let's start."
"good."
"Xiaochen—you can't! Stop! I can't fall into darkness—the contract between us can't—!"
But no matter how Ling Shuang struggled, Beichen still cut his arm, and let the blood, under Yaye's control, gather into a medium-sized blood ball in the air.
Then the blood ball slowly floated towards Ling Shuang.
Ling Shuang shook his head desperately and retreated with his limbs shaking, but there was a wall behind him and Xifeng, Yagad and Gu Yinyue surrounding him on both sides. There was nowhere to retreat. He could only watch the blood ball slowly approaching with a look of horror.
"I won't drink—I won't drink!! Xiaochen, you can't do this. If you hate me, just kill me—you can't let me fall into darkness!! I'd rather die than sever our connection—I don't want that!!"
Beichen finally turned around slowly and met his eyes.
Seeing Beichen finally willing to look at him, Lingshuang's face lit up with joy: "Xiaochen, listen to me──"
However, Beichen simply placed his hand on his collarbone with an expressionless face - the location of his contract mark.
Then she said:
"I command you, Lingshuang, to drink all the blood."
“Ugh—Ahhh!!”
Ling Shuang's expression was distorted to the extreme. Although she was extremely reluctant, her body still slowly moved towards the blood ball. This was her first time using the brand to give him an order. Was she actually trying to get rid of him forever?!
Then, he opened his mouth with a confused look under the effect of the brand, letting the blood from the blood ball flow into his mouth. His face became shiny and sticky without him knowing when, as if blood, tears and snot were mixed together and flowed all over his face. He looked so embarrassed and ridiculous, and so miserable and pathetic.
“Ah ...
Finally, he was surrounded by a large red light with a heart-wrenching scream.
Beichen still looked at her expressionlessly, with no ripples in his eyes, only a hint of sinister pleasure, and the grief suppressed in his heart with nowhere to vent, which inevitably flashed when he heard the scream.
The red light slowly faded, and where Ling Shuang had stood, stood a young man with white hair and red eyes. His once light-colored clothing had turned black, his once short, icy hair had grown waist-length, and his once beautiful amber pupils were now a blood-red.
If someone didn't know him, they might think his appearance had an uncanny beauty and praise it.
However, Beichen only felt a sense of emptiness and heart-wrenching sadness in his heart, along with a sense of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
Maybe it was because she lost too much blood, but when she lowered her head, she staggered a little, and was then supported by Yaye.
Seeing her eyes, Yaye knew that she was probably recalling something bad, so he patted her cheek roughly:
"What? I did something so important, and you can't even say thank you?! Did I allow you to be so rude?"
Beichen was stunned, then suddenly slapped his cheeks with both hands.
Then she regained her bright expression and nodded vigorously to Yaye:
"Well, thank you! Yaye! Now I can finally sign a contract with Xifeng and Heihuo Sujie again with a clean slate!!"
"That's right!"
Yaye laughed, patted her on the back, and sent her towards the west wind.
"Go sign a contract with Gemini Zephyr."
After saying that, he turned around and glanced at Ling Shuang, who was still standing there in a trance.
"Why don't you just get out of here? Saving your life is a blessing. To be honest, we in the Fallen Dark Army don't want compatriots like you."
“…”
Ling Shuang looked dejected. She opened her mouth but couldn't say anything. She just looked up and stared at Beichen's back. She was signing a contract with the two men, who looked a little depressed. She was patting their shoulders and joking with them with a fake cheerful expression and tone.
In her eyes, he no longer existed at all.
"I see—is this your method of revenge?"
He smiled bitterly.
She didn't kill him, but it wasn't out of pity. She wanted him to live without any chance of interacting with her again. She wanted him to see her happy, but she would never see him in her eyes again - she knew he loved her, and she also knew he longed for her attention, whether it was love or hate, so she used the most deadly means.
It turns out... this girl who always shows some understanding and consideration towards everyone can also use such cruel means.
It turned out that it wasn't that she couldn't think of a vicious plan, she just didn't want to think of it or use it.
And now, have I completely forced out this side of her?
"roll!!"
Seeing that he was hesitant to move, Yagard roared, walked up to him, grabbed his collar and pulled him towards the door. He stumbled and was pushed to the door, but in the end, he still grabbed the door railing and shouted to Beichen in a miserable voice.
"Xiaochen──now that you've gotten your revenge, are you satisfied? Look at me!!"
"Well, next is the contract with Zephyr—"
However, she seemed to have completely blocked out Ling Shuang's screams. She took Xifeng's hand, and with Xifeng showing a hint of heartache on his face, she signed a contract with him with a bright look.
The last glimmer of light in Ling Shuang's eyes dimmed. He stopped resisting and let Yagard push him out. Then he slammed the door with great force as if to keep some plague out.
They finally became strangers.
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