Don't mess with that Miao boy, he's sickly and perverted.

Wu Li remained silent for a long time before the heavy sense of loss gradually dissipated.

He nodded, buried his face in her arms, and said in a low, husky voice with a hint of lightness, "It's alright."

Are you afraid of the dark?

Oh--

It's right to like it.

His thoughts were drawn into distant memories, and he paused slightly.

When he was very young, he was captured by the high priest and forced to feed those Gu worms.

Sometimes they were thrown into dark, sunless snake pits, sometimes locked in wooden boxes teeming with tomb bats, but the most terrifying of all was the deep pool, which was bottomless and contained all sorts of things.

Endless darkness accompanied him, swallowing his pained yet numb expression. It was as if as long as he couldn't see what was gnawing at him, he wouldn't feel the pain anymore.

He told himself that it would be better to stay in the darkness forever, to never see anything again.

The only saving grace was that the high priest seemed to like his face; the poisonous creatures could gnaw on any part of his body, but spared his face.

"My child, your face is just like your mother's... She was the most beautiful girl in the witchcraft clan." The high priest often sighed like this, his tone seemingly filled with regret and resentment.

he does not want.

He doesn't want to be like her.

That woman not only gave him this cursed bloodline, but also this beautiful appearance.

As he grew older, he learned to keep his face clean and wear neat clothes. He wondered if he would stop being seen as an oddball if he braided his hair and wore silver jewelry like everyone else?

After he shed his disheveled appearance and began to show his youthful looks, some people's gazes towards him changed.

He still remembers the fleeting filth in that gaze.

That kind of desire that both scorned him like livestock and yearned to possess and defile him.

He was only twelve years old then... and they actually tried to force him to take off his clothes so they could have sex with him.

Therefore, he used the evil magic of witchcraft for the first time.

I watched their eyeballs roll out, their terrified screams as beautiful as the melodious chirping of birds.

It's all their fault...

He originally intended to hide it.

If the high priest discovers that he is skilled in evil arts, that his ability to cast Gu poison far surpasses that of the rest of the clan, and that he has raised five poisonous creatures that recognize their master, he will surely be imprisoned in the Gu Cave forever.

However, after the high priest questioned the entire tribe, he seemed to have become suspicious of him and pinned him to the rock wall. Naturally, he refused to admit it.

So the high priest lit a torch, making him watch helplessly as his body was devoured again and again, only to grow back again and again, in an endless cycle... until finally only a tattered skeleton remained, which fell into the abyss.

The high priest's suspicions finally dissipated.

As his mouth and nose were filled with the icy water of the pool, and a strong feeling of suffocation pierced his lungs, he smiled silently.

The feeling of being on the verge of death is so blissful. How wonderful it would be to die like this.

No one knows that for a wild ghost accustomed to dwelling in the gutter, the abyss is its true refuge.

He lay quietly at the bottom of the pool, like a ghost.

Knowing that he wouldn't die, he still had no intention of floating up.

Just lie here like this.

"Wu Li—"

An urgent voice came from a great distance, across the murky waters of the pool...

Unfamiliar, yet familiar.

He tried to make out his features, but all he could see was endless darkness.

Perhaps the power of the Gu poison within his body was triggered, his heterochromatic eyes suddenly broke through the darkness, and he could clearly see everything in the darkness. In the depths of the pool, a blurry figure was swimming towards the bottom of the pool.

"Lili...Lili!"

The muffled sound of water in my ears suddenly disappeared.

The anxious calls were right next to my ears, not illusory or distant, as real as the warmth covering my body.

Wu Li blinked in confusion.

"Why are you shivering like this? Are you cold?" Chai Xiaomi rubbed his hands and hugged him tighter. She noticed that the boy's teeth were chattering slightly, like a person wearing thin clothes walking barefoot in the snow and ice, unable to stop shivering.

It's so cold...

He slowly closed his eyes, carefully feeling the warm, sun-like aura emanating from the girl, seeping little by little into his already withered and decaying body.

He never felt that the deep pool was cold, nor did he feel that the falling snow was cold.

But now, as he nestled in the warm embrace, he belatedly realized that the bone-chilling cold had lingered in his heart all along, spanning several years, and finally seeped out from the depths of his soul.

*

"What are cotton balls?"

The boy's back was slightly curled up, his face buried in her arms, and his voice was soft and muffled, as if it came from behind a thick wall, or like fine, broken raindrops falling into Chai Xiaomi's ears.

She paused for a moment, then realized he was referring to the metaphor she had used as a joke after biting him and pressing her cheek against his.

"Cotton balls are made of cotton and can be used to stop bleeding," she explained patiently. She paused before saying "injection" and immediately changed her words, "If you accidentally prick your hand while doing needlework, you just need to press a cotton ball on it for a while, and the bleeding will stop immediately."

After explaining, she was a little curious as to why Wu Li would ask such irrelevant questions at this time.

She could almost predict that Wu Li's next words would be sarcastic.

Let her guess what he'll say.

such as--

"Is your brain filled with such useless thoughts? It's just a little blood, why are you making such a fuss?"

Or perhaps—

"As expected, it's a stupid and pointless idea that an idiot came up with."

These all fit Wu Li's style.

However, in the still, tranquil night...

She heard a clear, cool voice ask softly, unusually cautious, as if the object were a fragile item that would shatter at the slightest touch, "Then... could I have another cotton ball?"

Chai Xiaomi was stunned.

Wu Li tonight is exceptionally different.

Gone was his usual aloofness that kept people at arm's length; even his sharp tongue had vanished.

He didn't say it explicitly, but she knew he wasn't talking about cotton.

It was actually the "cotton ball" she had previously disguised with her face.

"So, patient, where are you bleeding from a wound? This 'cotton ball' is ready to serve you at any time." The girl's voice was clear and gentle, yet extremely powerful, each word striking his heart.

Wu Li grasped her wrist, gently pressing that soft hand against his chest. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly as he whispered, "It seems like I'm bleeding here."

Chai Xiaomi quietly felt the trembling, lonely heartbeat beneath her palm.

"it is good."

Her eyelashes fluttered slightly as she leaned down and pressed her soft cheek against his, "To stop the bleeding."

The boy's heartbeat, penetrating through her thin clothes, pressed tightly against her cheek.

Unbeknownst to me, the beating became more and more rapid, each beat seeming to break free from the restraints in my chest and leap out recklessly.

Chai Xiaomi felt her cheeks gradually warming up, and her heartbeat seemed to be quietly getting faster.

She was about to raise her hand to touch her heart.

Suddenly, his arm tightened.

She was pulled by a force to the inner corner of the bed, and then the blankets were pulled over her head, covering her completely.

Wu Li's brief warning rang out: "Don't make a sound."

Jiang Zhiyu had previously instructed her that she must not respond no matter who called her name.

Through the thick quilt, Chai Xiaomi's heart gradually tightened, and she could vaguely hear those eerie yet familiar sounds from the previous night resurfacing.

It's here...