When Li Mo released his hold on Yun Moxiao, he took a long breath. His face had gone white, and sweat was beading on his forehead. Yun Ruoyan didn’t know what had happened between the two men, but Yun Moxiao looked to be on the losing end. Yun Ruoyan couldn’t help but commiserate with him.

“Li Mo, what have you done?” Yun Ruoyan turned to him angrily.

“Ruoyan, Xiao’er,” Yun Lan’s stentorian voice came from outside the yard. “How can you treat the Slaughtering King so impolitely? Kneel!”

Peony, Xi Lan, and the other servants belatedly knelt down and greeted the Slaughtering King.

Yun Moxiao followed suit. “Yun Moxiao greets the Slaughtering King. I apologize for my disrespect earlier, Your Highness.”

Under Yun Lan’s fierce gaze, even Yun Ruoyan knelt down.

“Please forgive me for not welcoming you earlier, Your Highness.” Finally, even Yun Lan stepped forward and bowed to Li Mo.

However, Li Mo didn’t even spare a single glance for him. His hand still hanging in mid-air, he reached out once more to Yun Ruoyan. “Yan’er, get over here.”

She raised her head to look at Li Mo, not understanding what nonsense the man was thinking of now.

“Ruoyan, aren’t you going to head over? Do it quickly!” Yun Lan commanded.

Yun Ruoyan frowned as she walked to Li Mo’s front. He held her hand tightly as he murmured to her, “Yan’er, don’t forget what you just promised me.”

Yun Ruoyan hesitated. What had she promised? 

Oh, that. 

Not dining with a man alone, not interacting intimately with another man… 

Yun Ruoyan’s brows furrowed even more tightly. When she’d promised this, she hadn’t expected Li Mo would try to enforce it so seriously. That was her own brother!

Yun Ruoyan wanted to protest, but Li Mo didn’t give her an opportunity to do so.

“Official Yun.” Li Mo turned to Yun Lan, whose head was still bowed. “I still have some affairs to take care of, so I won’t intrude on your hospitality any further.”

“Of course, Your Highness!” Yun Lan replied immediately.

His posture remained frozen until Yun Ruoyan finally said, “Father, the Slaughtering King’s gone.”

Yun Lan raised his head to see a streak of green rushing in the direction of the Slaughtering King’s manor.

“Father, you need to hurry to court as well,” Yun Moxiao reminded him.

Yun Lan nodded and turned to leave, but not before gazing deeply at his daughter. He had never seen Li Mo so interested in a woman, and his suspicions that Li Mo’s feelings were fake had to be unfounded.

Yun Lan sighed. Not for nothing was Yun Ruoyan the daughter of Lin Yuemei, able to attract someone like the Slaughtering King even without her mother’s captivating looks!

“Brother, are you alright?”

“Ruoyan, where were you last night?” 

The siblings gazed at each other.

“I’m alright. The Slaughtering King didn’t hurt me.”

“Qingchen told me that you left with Pei Ziao last night. How did you end up returning home with the Slaughtering King?”

Yun Ruoyan had Peony and Xiao Lan prepare breakfast before starting to discuss matters with her brother as they headed back into her rooms.

“The Slaughtering King really promised to marry you as his consort?” Yun Moxiao stood still in shock.

Yun Ruoyan turned quizzically to him and nodded.

“Didn’t you say that he was just doing you a favor?” Yun Moxiao’s expression was fierce.

“They’re just empty words, surely. It’s not definite that he’ll actually marry me when I’m of age.” Yun Ruoyan smiled. “I’m not even an adult yet, so if he truly were to marry me, that’d happen at least two years into the future.”

But Yun Ruoyan didn’t feel as carefree as she portrayed. She really couldn’t understand Li Mo’s thoughts, and she really didn’t like having an uncertain element like him in her life.

However, Li Mo wasn’t her largest problem at the moment, so she could temporarily put him on hold.

On the other hand, particularly complex feelings were flitting through Yun Moxiao’s mind. He’d heard quite a number of tales about Li Mo since joining the army, and had mentally equated Li Mo to a distinguished personage somewhat like his master.

But when he saw him in person for the first time, he was struck by how young Li Mo really was—barely older than he! Suspicious of Li Mo’s true cultivation, he subconsciously probed at the man’s aura with his spiritual energy. He thought his own cultivation rather accomplished for his age, but in front of Li Mo, he was as helpless as a child.

Yun Moxiao felt the same way as Yun Ruoyan did: how did an individual so strong as Li Mo become interested in his own sister?

It wasn’t that Yun Moxiao found Yun Ruoyan lacking to be the Slaughtering King’s consort, but rather that the Slaughtering King was so far removed from their existences that he didn’t know how their social circles had intersected. This whole marriage proposal seemed so unexpected, so unrealistic.

During their breakfast, Yun Ruoyan suddenly remembered that Yun Moxiao had recognized the owner of the scented sachet as Li Luo, and had even chased after her.

“Did you end up finding the owner of the sachet?”

Yun Moxiao recounted his own experiences in the duelling arena.

“You helped Li Luo rescue a beastkin?” Yun Ruoyan sounded a little doubtful after hearing Yun Moxiao’s words.

Li Luo was a servant in the Slaughtering King’s manor. To have her save the beastkin was undoubtedly a command from the Slaughtering King himself. But Li Mo was famed for slaughtering tens of thousands of beastkin by his own hands, so why on earth would he rescue a beastkin?

She couldn’t help but be reminded of the beastkin and demons in the forest of dead souls who had addressed him as the Beast King. Although Li Mo didn’t admit to being beastkin royalty, he was definitely connected to the beastkin.

Li Mo, who in the world are you?

Just as Yun Ruoyan was mulling things over, Yun Moxiao suddenly asked, “You recognize her?” Yun Moxiao hadn’t told Yun Ruoyan the woman’s name, but Yun Ruoyan had said it out loud.

“Right, she’s Li Luo, a servant in the Slaughtering King’s manor. I’ve seen her before,” Yun Ruoyan replied.

“She’s from the Slaughtering King’s manor?” Yun Moxiao was surprised once again.

Yun Ruoyan told her brother that she could bring him to the Slaughtering King’s manor if he wanted to see Li Luo.

Knowing that Li Luo was certainly busy trying to help treat her senior brother’s wounds, and that his visit would only be a disruption at the moment, he shook his head and stated his plans to see her sometime in the future.

After breakfast, Yun Moxiao returned to his own residence while Yun Ruoyan continued her daily training. She was very close to breaking through to eighth-rank, and she was eagerly anticipating the day when she became an eighth-rank blademaster.

At that time, she could start training in swordflight herself. Once she managed to ‘become one with her sword,’ she would be able to soar into the skies like Li Mo and Yun Moxiao.

That dream of independence and breaking free from her shackles propelled her forward in her training. She meditated all the way until the evening, once again filling up her spiritual vortex completely and transmuting a large quantity of fire-attuned spiritual energy.

After that training, Yun Ruoyan had Xi Lan prepare her a few dishes, after which she rested for a little. Li Mo had promised her to take her out shopping in the underground market come nighttime, and she had to preserve her strength.

By that time, Li Mo had returned to his manor and found that Li Luo had been successful in her attempt to rescue her senior brother. However, he was gravely injured and had lost an arm.

In a guest room of the manor, Duan Tianyun was sleeping comatose on a bed. Li Luo had taken care of him the entire night, and was so exhausted that she was slumping by his bedside.

Li Luo awoke to the sound of footsteps. As she roused herself, she found that it was already midmorning. Thinking that the footsteps behind her belonged to a servant sending tonic over, she muttered, “Leave the tonic by the table. I’ll feed him myself later.”

“He’s quite grievously injured,” Li Mo commented, seeing Duan Tianyun’s pale, bloodless face.

When Li Luo heard Li Mo’s voice, she immediately stood up and bowed.

Li Mo nodded before handing her a hardwood box. “This is a high-grade spiritual pill, particularly effective for external injuries.”

Li Luo hesitated for a moment before taking the box gratefully, her voice quavering. “On behalf of my senior brother, I thank you for your grace, Your Highness.”

“Do you blame me?”

“I don’t dare, Your Highness.”

Li Mo nodded before departing. 

Li Luo really was a little upset with her master; if not for his sudden decision to head toward the auction hall, perhaps Duan Tianyun could have been extracted without harm. And if Li Mo hadn’t left her so suddenly while they were heading into the underground arena, the manager surely wouldn’t dare to be so arrogant, and neither would Duan Tianyun have received such serious injuries.

But what right had she to complain?

After all, she was just a slave that Li Mo had purchased. Instead of complaining, she should have been grateful that Li Mo had even acceded to her request in the first place, then taken out a high-grade spiritual pill to help him recover.

She thought back to her own auction in the Yue kingdom a little more than a year ago.

She was caged in steel mesh, wearing only the skimpiest of underclothes, as disgusting men surrounded her cage all around her. They drooled lasciviously at her nude body, critiqued her with their filthy tongues, and whispered how they would torture her after their purchase.

There were a surprising number of bidders for her, not just because of her beauty but also because of a pervasive rumor that beastkin women were particularly suited as a source of 

yang 

energy for male cultivators.

She had heard of the terrible aftereffects of ending up as such a source, and was ready to send both herself and her would-be master to their deaths.

In the end, there were just two men bidding. 

Li Luo raised her eyes to see a pale young master with a powdered face and slicked-back hair, ostensibly dripping with wealth, facing off against a dark-robed man with inky hair veiling his face. And no matter how much the pampered young master bid, the dark-robed man would always bid a hundred taels more.

In the end, spurned by his competitor’s relentlessness, the pampered young master pulled out a bow and arrow, intending to shoot Li Luo dead. “If I can’t get her, then no one else will!”

Li Luo faced that steel-tipped arrow with a grim smile, as if she would soon be free from this blighted land.

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