“Has this happened before?!” Yun Ruoyan asked, stupefied.

“It happened during the trial as well.” Lin Qingchen had all but forgotten about that strange occurrence. 

Suddenly, Whitey dashed out of the pond, bringing a torrential amount of water out with it. The only reason that the two of them weren’t soaking wet was because Yun Ruoyan had reacted in time, pulling Lin Qingchen back as far as they could get.

“Whitey!” Lin Qingchen called out. Whitey was floating on the surface of the water, and the two eyes on his large, bulbous head had turned a bright red as they stared at Lin Qingchen.

More precisely, they were staring at the snake ring on Lin Qingchen’s hand! The stare was so terrifying that even Whitey, who had always appeared docile and cute, now seemed like a malicious beast who would rush at them at any moment.

“Qingchen, does Whitey still obey your commands?” In general, magical beasts would obey and be unable to harm their masters at all times. However, Whitey seemed to be on the verge of going out of control. It opened its maw wide, revealing its sharp teeth and forked, blood-red tongue.

“I’m not sure either. Whitey has been behaving strangely since yesterday, and now it seems like it can’t hear my commands!”

“Try using the snake ring!” Before Lin Qingchen had formed a blood pact with Whitey, she had always controlled it with her ring.

Lin Qingchen nodded, pointed the ring at Whitey, and imbued the ring with a little of her mental energy. As soon as she did so, however, she felt overcome by a wave of dizziness. Her legs turned to jelly, and she stumbled onto the ground with a pained yelp.

Yun Ruoyan grabbed her. “Are you alright?”

“That pair of eyes! They appeared in my mind!” Lin Qingchen clutched her head in pain. “The pupils became blood-red, as if they’re about to start dripping blood at any moment. Sister Ruoyan, I feel so dizzy…!”

Lin Qingchen lost her consciousness and slumped to the ground. In order to stop Whitey from rampaging, Yun Ruoyan immediately pulled the snake ring off Lin Qingchen’s finger and onto her own. The moment she did so, Whitey rushed at Yun Ruoyan, its maw opened wide.

Lin Qingchen was lying on the ground, helpless and paralyzed. To avoid harming her, Yun Ruoyan had to lure Whitey away.

Zhuo Lin’er heard the commotion and quickly rushed out of the bamboo forest to investigate. When she saw Whitey chasing Yun Ruoyan, she couldn’t process what was going on. Whitey had always been obedient, so why had it suddenly seemed to go crazy?

“Lin’er, take Qingchen away!”

Zhuo Lin’er blinked, hurriedly ran to Lin Qingchen, and dragged her into her cottage. Then, she went to summon help.

Unexpectedly, Whitey was far more troublesome of an opponent than Yun Ruoyan had anticipated. It was able to shoot out beams of water from its mouth with such penetrating power that it could even break rock. 

Whitey might really injure someone if it keeps rampaging, so I have to restrain it somehow!

After dodging a few blows, Yun Ruoyan finally found an opportunity to point the snake ring at Whitey and inject her own mental energy into the ring. The pair of blood-red eyes appeared in Yun Ruoyan’s mind. A sudden surge of dizziness almost overwhelmed her, but Yun Ruoyan closed her eyes and focused her mental energy to defend against it. 

The blood-red pair of eyes actually dimmed when faced with Yun Ruoyan’s gaze, and the dizziness quickly subsided. When she opened her eyes again, however, they had turned an unusual blood-red.

When Whitey saw Yun Ruoyan’s blood-red gaze, its body jolted in shock. Yun Ruoyan stared at the serpent unblinkingly as she stepped forward. Her aura felt dark and dreary, as if Yun Ruoyan had become a different person entirely.

Whitey had slithered out of its pond in pursuit of her, but now it was backing into it once more.

“Kill it! Quick, kill it!” A strange voice began to reverberate within Yun Ruoyan’s head.

“Why?”

“Because the silver dragons and demonic dragons have always been natural enemies of each other, so you have to kill it!”

“What silver dragons? What demonic dragons? What in the world are you talking about?”

“You’ll understand eventually—just kill it now! Kill it now! Kill it now!” The deep, resonant voice repeated those three words again and again as though it were an incantation. The dizziness that Yun Ruoyan had shrugged off earlier now came back stronger than before as the chorus of “Kill it now!” reached a crescendo.

“N—No, no! No, I won’t! Who are you? Why should I listen to you?” Yun Ruoyan valiantly tried to struggle against the mental domination, but her resolve was quickly wavering.

Back in the Slaughtering King’s manor, Su Bei handed the first elder’s missive, which had just arrived, to Li Mo. It mentioned that Rong Tianling and Li Qianyue had arrived at Kongming Academy, but Rong Tianling had left almost immediately. Li Qianyue remained, and he would likely carry out his plan in the near future.

Li Mo penned a letter to have the first elder proceed with the plan, and Su Bei left with the letter. Suddenly, pain pricked his finger—a signal from the 

qilin

 beads that Yun Ruoyan was in danger. Li Mo immediately flew to the Lin manor, where she was presently located.

Yun Ruoyan’s eyes were so red that it seemed blood would drip out at any moment. Her mental fortifications had been reduced to rubble, and her body flew toward Whitey, still lying on the surface of its pond. It was unmoving, paralyzed by the same mysterious power that had taken control of Yun Ruoyan.

Yun Ruoyan pulled out her dagger and raised it toward Whitey’s head. Just as the dagger was about to land, an ear-splitting shriek rang out from her side. “Sister Ruoyan, no, stop! Don’t kill Whitey!” Lin Qingchen clutched the doorframe of her cottage weakly as she begged, “Whitey’s my contracted beast… Sister Ruoyan, please don’t kill it!”

Lin Qingchen’s voice broke the mental conditioning on Yun Ruoyan for a moment, and she struggled to stop. 

“What are you hesitating for? Kill it! It’s a silver dragon, a natural enemy of our kind! Kill it, kill it!” the deep, crafty voice echoed in Yun Ruoyan’s mind once more.

“No, I can’t! Whitey’s contracted with Qingchen. I can’t kill it, I can’t!” Yun Ruoyan’s resistance prompted an agonizing headache and overwhelming dizziness. In front of her eyes, she seemed to see countless pairs of red eyes, somehow familiar to her as though she had seen them before.

But where? She couldn’t remember.

“Who are you?” Yun Ruoyan pounded on her head. “Get out of my head! Qiuqiu? Qiuqiu, where are you?” She loudly called out for Qiuqiu, but its presence seemed to have vanished entirely.

Lin Qingchen was stunned by Yun Ruoyan’s antics. She had never seen her cousin so crazed, but she was currently too weak to help her. However, she was almost certain that this madness had been caused by the snake ring that Yun Ruoyan was currently wearing.

Zhuo Lin’er rushed back to the bamboo garden with Zhuo Yifeng and Lin Zainan behind her.

“Grandfather, Brother Zhuo, there’s something wrong with the ring on Ruoyan’s finger! You have to remove it!” 

Lin Zainan and Zhuo Yifeng moved toward Yun Ruoyan, prepared to restrain her in order to remove the ring. However, the crazed Yun Ruoyan was so skilled that neither man could get close to her. If not for the sliver of Yun Ruoyan’s consciousness that still remained in control of her body, both her grandfather and Zhuo Yifeng would likely have been hurt badly. 

Just as everyone was at a loss, Li Mo descended from the skies. When he saw Yun Ruoyan’s crazed expression, he frowned and rushed forward. Yun Ruoyan noticed him as well, but she couldn’t stop herself from attacking him.

As her sharp dagger thrust toward Li Mo, he leaned to the side and grabbed her by the wrist. With his other hand, he touched her forehead with a finger. A skein of mental energy entered Yun Ruoyan’s mind through the contact, and Li Mo was able to see the blood-red eyes that had taken control of Yun Ruoyan’s mind.

“What manner of demon are you? How dare you hurt my disciple!”

Those eyes locked in on Li Mo’s body with fury, then puzzlement. “You have the diluted bloodline of a silver dragon… What kind of mongrel are you?”

“Who I am, you have no right to even ask!” Li Mo could sense an unusual power behind this pair of eyes, a power whose origin he couldn’t identify. Rather than risk revealing more information about himself, he retracted his mental energy and struck an acupuncture point in Yun Ruoyan’s abdomen, temporarily sealing her spiritual energy.

Yun Ruoyan fell limply into his arms, losing consciousness once more. Beneath her, Li Mo activated his sword aura.

“Where are you bringing her?!” Zhuo Yifeng frowned, yelling out at Li Mo.

“What does it matter to you?” 

“Put her down!” Zhuo Yifeng wanted to walk up to him, but Zhuo Lin’er caught him and pulled him back.

Li Mo turned to Lin Zainan. “Elder Lin, Yan’er’s body’s not well at the moment. I’m going to bring her back to my manor to give her a thorough examination.” Li Mo’s words were a statement, not a question: Lin Zainan knew of the close relationship between him and his granddaughter, and he naturally wouldn’t object.

“Thank you, Your Highness. There’s something wrong with the snake ring on Ruoyan’s finger, so please be mindful of it.”

Li Mo nodded, soaring off with Yun Ruoyan in his hands.

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