Zhao Xu left after relaying the message, leaving Yun Ruoyan and Zhuo Yifeng alone in the oasis.

Yun Ruoyan’s pallor slowly faded, but she remained unconscious. In his anxiety, despite not finding any external injuries on her body, he retrieved a spiritual pill from his storage pouch and tried to feed it to her.

However, Yun Ruoyan’s brows were furrowed and her lips tightly pursed, and it was very difficult for Zhuo Yifeng to feed her the pill. He could only pry her jaws open and force the pill into her mouth. Then, however, he began to worry that the pill was so large it might block her airway.

After thinking momentarily, he lifted Yun Ruoyan up, settled her against his lap, then pried open her jaw and finally fed Yun Ruoyan the pill. The entire process had left Zhuo Yifeng sweating all over, and it felt even more exhausting than fighting a battle.

Zhuo Yifeng let out a deep breath and turned to Yun Ruoyan, still lying in his lap. Her current appearance was bedraggled and far from her usual beauty: her long, black hair was matted with mud and seaweed, and a large clump of it covered half her face up.

Beneath her hair was what looked like rotten flesh, which needed to be treated immediately. Zhuo Yifeng carefully set Yun Ruoyan’s body on the ground before fetching some water from the lake, tearing some cloth off his shirt, and then wiping down Yun Ruoyan’s face.

When Zhuo Yifeng moved the clump of hair from Yun Ruoyan’s face to reveal the dark red flesh underneath, he frowned. He recalled that this was the location of the wound on Yun Ruoyan’s birthmark. Back in the imperial expedition, he had seen how pus leaked out of the wound, and Yun Ruoyan’s appearance back then had been particularly… striking.

After the imperial expedition, Yun Ruoyan’s appearance had changed dramatically. She became as beautiful as an immortal, especially after she hid her birthmark behind a gauze patch. After getting used to her current appearance, he had all but forgotten her birthmark. 

Why hasn’t it healed even after so long? Don’t the Lin and Yun families have any medicine for treating this wound? 

Beset by these thoughts, Zhuo Yifeng cleaned up the wound on Yun Ruoyan’s face. However, what he then observed was even more shocking.

What looked to be rotten flesh actually appeared to be a disguise. As Zhuo Yifeng wiped at the wound, the “rotten flesh” on Yun Ruoyan’s face was wiped off entirely, revealing pale white flesh. Zhuo Yifeng opened his eyes wide as he stared at Yun Ruoyan’s true appearance.

Her cheeks were pure white and spotless, her long brows dark, her forehead still slightly furrowed, and her eyes tightly shut, as if she were having a rather unpleasant nightmare. On her red, tightly pursed lips were marks that he left when trying to force-feed her a spiritual pill.

When he looked at the marks on Yun Ruoyan’s lips, Zhuo Yifeng’s heart suddenly thumped wildly, and he hurriedly averted his gaze.

Just then, Yun Ruoyan let out a groan of distress as she slowly opened her eyes, finally waking up.

“You’re awake!”

Yun Ruoyan tried to sit up, but the back of her neck was aching severely. “What happened to me?”

Zhuo Yifeng pulled her up before telling her how she had lost control underwater.

“Sorry, your neck must hurt…” Zhuo Yifeng continued apologetically. “I probably used too much strength.”

“Where are Qingchen and Qingxue?” Only then did Yun Ruoyan notice that the Lin sisters were missing.

“They were caught.” Zhuo Yifeng frowned. “Rong Yueshan killed Zhao Ming and blamed his death on you, so the team from the Chen kingdom took them away as hostages.”

“Was Zhao Ming the guy who was killed by Rong Yueshan underwater?”

Because Yun Ruoyan had been underwater for the entire time, she didn’t know what had happened ashore, nor the two teams that had come searching for the spoils.

Zhuo Yifeng then briefly recounted what had happened on shore after Yun Ruoyan fell into the lake with the eight-legged evil spirit.

“No wonder Rong Yueshan killed that Zhao Ming so readily. She was planning to blame his death on me all along, then use the Chen kingdom team to strike against me!”

Zhuo Yifeng wasn’t too familiar with the enmity between Yun Ruoyan and the Rong family, and he had found it quite strange that Rong Yueshan would try so hard to deal with Yun Ruoyan.

After a short discussion, they decided to accede to the other team’s request: recovering the Lin sisters safely was of paramount importance.

“I’ll dredge Zhao Ming’s corpse up from the lakebed,” Yun Ruoyan said, standing up and preparing to dive into the lake once more.

“No, don’t go!” Zhuo Yifeng hurriedly stopped her. “There’s something strange going on underwater. I could hear some sort of noise emanating from the bottom of the lake, where you were headed.”

“Did you hear that baleful lament too?” Yun Ruoyan asked suddenly. “Then, did you also see the dragons at the bottom of the lake?”

“Yes! Hmm…? No.” Zhuo Yifeng nodded to the first question but shook his head to the second. “I only heard the noise, but didn’t see any illusions. However, the noise affected you considerably, but it had no impact on me. Let me head back into the lake instead of you.”

When Yun Ruoyan recalled how the voice had enticed her into the lake, she began to feel somewhat fearful, as though a mysterious force was slowly approaching her.

Zhuo Yifeng stood up. When Yun Ruoyan didn’t raise any objections, he began walking toward the pool.

“Wait!” Yun Ruoyan called him back from behind. “The lake’s surprisingly deep, and you can’t get to the bottom just by holding your breath.” Yun Ruoyan also stood up, walked to Zhuo Yifeng’s side, and handed him the serpent-core necklace on her neck. “This is a serpent’s core. If you hold it in your mouth, it can let you breathe naturally underwater for two to four hours. After heading into the lake, come back up immediately after finding Zhao Ming’s corpse.”

Zhuo Yifeng glanced at the translucent, snowy-white core in his hand and blushed as soon as he thought of Yun Ruoyan putting the core into her mouth.

“Alright, I understand.” He lowered his head, not daring to look at Yun Ruoyan, and dove into the pool.

Yun Ruoyan stood on shore as she looked at the surface of the lake, her brain continuously reminding her of the black dragons that had appeared by the fiery blaze underwater. Because of her concerns, Yun Ruoyan didn’t notice Zhuo Yifeng’s rather unusual behavior. She stood in front of the lake quietly for a long time, until her stomach’s grumbling finally broke her out of her stupor.

Not wanting to go hunting, Yun Ruoyan decided to catch a few fish to eat. She walked to the side of the lake, bent down, and stared into the water.

An unblemished face stared back at her, and Yun Ruoyan couldn’t help touching her right cheek. The smooth, satiny skin told her that the birthmark on her cheek had indeed been removed. 

No wonder Zhuo Yifeng was looking at me strangely, 

Yun Ruoyan thought, vexed.

Her fake birthmark had some protection against water, but she had stayed underwater for almost six hours altogether. Even iron would rust after prolonged exposure to water, let alone some regular ointment. 

Oh well, at least Zhuo Yifeng’s hardly going to spread the word to others. 

Yun Ruoyan easily accepted the fact that her secret was out.

Back underwater, Zhuo Yifeng dove rapidly toward the direction where he remembered seeing Zhao Ming’s corpse sink. In the faint light deep in the depths, he quickly discovered the eight-legged evil spirit’s carcass. Coincidentally, Zhao Ming’s body lay directly on top of it.

Without any hesitation, Zhuo Yifeng swam back up to the surface with Zhao Ming’s corpse, panted and caught his breath, then headed ashore. He left Zhao Ming’s corpse in a dry place before taking out the serpent-core necklace that Yun Ruoyan had given him and holding it in his hands.

“Wow, that was fast!” Yun Ruoyan’s voice came from afar, and Zhuo Yifeng walked toward her. She took the necklace that Zhuo Yifeng gingerly handed to her and hung it carelessly on her neck. “I already caught and gutted two fish, and was just waiting for you to roast them.”

Zhuo Yifeng must have been tired out after repeatedly diving into the lake, and Yun Ruoyan was embarrassed that she couldn’t help any further. However, she knew nothing about cooking, and she couldn’t even distinguish when the fish was cooked. As a result, she had no choice but to trouble Zhuo Yifeng.

“Here.” Zhuo Yifeng handed the larger of the two fish back to Yun Ruoyan after he had finished roasting it, and Yun Ruoyan began eating immediately.

Once some of her hunger had abated, she slowed down and looked toward Zhuo Yifeng, who was roasting the other fish seriously. “I didn’t hide it from you guys intentionally.”

Zhuo Yifeng stilled, not looking at Yun Ruoyan. “It’s alright.”

When Yun Ruoyan saw Zhuo Yifeng’s expression, she was certain that the revelation had hurt the relationship between them. Back in the imperial territory, Zhuo Yifeng had told Yun Ruoyan that he was a beastkin almost as soon as he met her, and was clearly very trusting of her.

After that, he had risked his own life a few times to save hers, and they began to treat each other like trustworthy companions. As a result, it was only to be expected that Zhuo Yifeng would get mad at her for hiding her appearance.

“You might not know about my family’s situation,” Yun Ruoyan explained. “If I show off my true appearance, it’s very likely that my father will take advantage of my looks and try to marry me off to royalty.”

“It’s really alright,” Zhuo Yifeng emphasized seriously, turning to Yun Ruoyan this time. “I understand why you did it. Your appearance is really… really… very beautiful.”

Even after racking his brains, Zhuo Yifeng could think of no better adjective to describe Yun Ruoyan’s beauty.

“Haha, is that so?” Yun Ruoyan replied, somewhat bitterly. “I’ve been so used to my birthmark since my childhood that it feels like a regular part of me now.”

Suddenly, Yun Ruoyan smelled something amiss. 

“Ah, your fish is charred!” she yelled out, pointing at the fish that Zhuo Yifeng was currently roasting.

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