Having dealt with Zhu Jiajun and personally executed Zhu Yan, Shi Lan declined Liu Hanchi's offer to stay and boarded a passenger ship bound for Southeast Asia.
Inside the cabin, Shi Lan opened the brocade box that Liu Hanchi had insisted on giving her before her departure, and a lifelike peony immediately came into view.
Shi Lan picked up the pink crystal and squinted at it in the sunlight for a while.
Suddenly, a thought flashed through her mind, and the scene of her sneaking into the warlord's study at night appeared before her eyes, with Liu Hanchi's figure and that muscular black shadow slowly overlapping.
After a long while, Shi Lan pursed her lips, a mischievous smile quietly appearing in her eyes.
The next time I returned to the space was a hundred days after the passing of the Shi family patriarch. The space was still filled with smoke, and the tall and upright figure remained motionless, like a pine tree that had stood for a long time.
Shi Lan's heart stirred, and for some reason, a strange soreness welled up inside her, which puzzled her greatly.
“You did well this time,” Haoze turned around, his eyes, like the darkest black gemstones, gleaming.
Shi Lan grinned, dispelling the strange feeling, and took a few steps forward. "As long as she's satisfied, otherwise I'll feel like I've taken advantage of her."
As she spoke, she opened her hand, and a piece of emerald green stone the size of a peach pit moved twice in her palm before drifting away to the side.
"This is what you deserve. Compared to her demands, the compensation she paid was far too little," Haoze said calmly, glancing at Shi Tou without expression.
Shi Lan gave a half-smile, feeling a little embarrassed. Actually, the original owner's demands were just a bit excessive. Besides, it didn't take her much effort to bring down the Zhu family army, it was just...
Seeing Haoze's indifferent expression, Shi Lan pursed her lips and swallowed back the words that were about to come out.
Haoze seemed to sense the unspoken meaning in her words. His dark eyes flickered, and as if he had thought of something, his sharply defined lips curled up slightly, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
Shi Lan was stunned, her eyes blinked unconsciously, and when she looked over again, she saw that Haoze still had a stern face, like a snow lotus that had been frozen on a snow-capped peak for many years, cold and aloof.
Shi Lan turned her head away embarrassedly, thinking she must be seeing things.
"Should we rest, or continue the mission?"
Shi Lan turned to look at the stone platform not far away. There were only a few scattered stones on it. Compared to the large stones that Ming Xiao had shown her before, she didn't know how many more tasks she would have to complete.
"Let's do a mission."
Mingxiao nodded, and with a wave of his long sleeves, a vortex appeared out of thin air.
Shi Lan felt as if her body was spinning like a top, being swept up by the wind.
Haoze stared at the vortex, his clenched fingers pausing for a moment. After a long while, he pursed his lips, as if making up his mind, and stepped into it.
Outside the barrier, Mingxiao's expression changed drastically. He rushed in from the outside, trying to stop them, but he was a moment too late. The vortex closed at an extremely fast speed, and by the time he reached them, it had already vanished into thin air.
In the world below, Shi Lan groggily opened her eyes and found herself leaning against a cold stone wall. A blindingly bright white light flickered back and forth, and several men and women were gathered by the stone door a few steps away, whispering about something.
Shi Lan leaned against the stone wall, trying to get up, but unexpectedly her head suddenly started throbbing with pain.
Shi Lan subconsciously stretched her head and touched her head, immediately feeling a sticky dampness in her palm.
This is...blood?
Shi Lan frowned slightly, pressed one hand to her head and supported herself with the other hand as she stood up.
The slight noise startled the group who were studying the stone gate. The lights flickered, and a girl, backlit, walked over from the crowd.
"Shi Lan, are you alright?"
The girl's voice suddenly ignited a surge of anger in Shi Lan's chest.
Shi Lan frowned and said calmly, "It's alright. Do you have any bandages? My head is bleeding."
The girl shook her head. "No," she said, turning to the crowd behind her and asking, "Does anyone have bandages?"
“I have a handkerchief here, but it’s not very clean,” an elderly man with a slightly hunched back stepped out of the crowd. As he spoke, he pulled a handkerchief containing something from his bag, while holding the dark, grimy object in his other hand.
Shi Lan stared at his other hand, stunned for a few seconds, before realizing that it seemed to be the hoof of some animal.
"No need, my wound isn't big, I reckon it'll stop bleeding on its own soon," Shi Lan said with a forced smile, declining the old man's offer.
The old man smiled broadly, put away his handkerchief, and turned back to continue studying the stone door.
The girl took a step forward, seemingly wanting to go over as well, but then hesitated and glanced at Shi Lan.
"Go ahead, I'll lean back for a bit longer. Come and call me when you have the results," Shi Lan said understandingly, and sat back down in her original spot.
Hearing Shi Lan say this, the girl immediately became much happier. "Okay, then you can take a nap. They'll probably need to study it for a while longer."
Shi Lan nodded, closed her eyes, and her breathing became long and deep.
The girl turned and went back into the crowd, unaware of Shi Lan's half-closed eyes in the dim light.
The crowd began whispering amongst themselves again. Shi Lan closed her eyes, focusing on absorbing the angry memories that filled this body.
The original owner, Shi Lan, was able to see things that others couldn't see from birth. When she was a child and couldn't speak, it was fine. But when she got a little older and could speak, she would happily tell her family who she saw or who came to see her. However, her family was horrified when they heard her words because the people she was talking about were all deceased.
Her family initially thought she was possessed by an evil spirit and sought out Taoist priests to exorcise it, but to no avail. As time went on, the original owner's father became impatient, and the original owner's mother worried that her husband would dislike her because of the original owner's strangeness.
One day, she took the original owner to the city, and after wandering around for a while, she abandoned her and slipped back home.
At that time, the original owner had just been able to speak fluently, and when people discovered that she couldn't explain where her home was at all.
There was no other way, so the original owner was sent to a welfare home that took in children. There were many children in the welfare home, and the original owner was so young that she was always bullied by the other children. Although she was naive, she knew that she was different from before, and her personality became timid and cowardly as a result.
The children in the orphanage believed in the survival of the fittest, and life there was extremely cruel. To get enough to eat each day, they had to compete with the other children for food. The original owner was too small to compete, but fortunately, a girl a few years older than her was always very kind to her. The original owner relied on the girl's saved buns or pancakes to get by each day.
More than a decade passed like this. When the original owner was in sixth grade, the girl who had taken care of her went on to university.
Because the orphanage did not provide tuition for university, the girl worked odd jobs outside to earn her own tuition and even tried to squeeze out some money to buy the original owner chocolates and juices that she herself would not be willing to eat.
When the original owner was in high school, the girl had already graduated and entered a well-known company. Although it was just an internship and the salary was not much, the girl still worked hard to save money so as to help the original owner save tuition fees.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
