After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

"Zhou Ran".

Lin Qingxue's soft voice came from the bone fragment.

"I am here."

"Don't come in."

Zhou Ran lowered his eyelids, his gaze falling on the rough bone fragment in his hand.

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the bone fragment.

Lin Qingxue then spoke:

"She's waiting for you."

Xu Youning, standing nearby, twitched her skin and let out a short, nasal sound.

"Did you hear me?"

Xu Youning's illusory figure moved closer to the bone fragment, her voice extremely steady.

"If you dare to come, I will turn her sea of ​​consciousness into a cage and imprison your nascent soul."

"If you back down, I will dismantle her fate piece by piece."

Before he could finish speaking, Fatty Wang swung his thick arm, his fist swirling with air currents, and punched Xu Youning's shadowy figure in the face.

The fist bone pierced through the afterimage.

The shadow figure's features were smashed apart, but after a few breaths, the white robe and paper-thin face were pieced back together.

"Laugh at your grandpa!"

Fatty Wang pulled back his fist and started cursing.

Xu Youning didn't even turn her head; her eyes were fixed on the bone fragment in Zhou Ran's hand.

"Zhou Ran, you usually love to do good deeds and save people."

"Come."

"Let me see if you can save this body that is destined to be controlled by the Moon Emperor."

Zhou Ran raised his wrist and pressed the half of the Dharma Eye Origin directly onto the bone fragment.

A halo of blue, white, and black light flowed along the texture of the bone fragments, slowly seeping into them.

The female figure on the right stood still, her faceless head slightly turned towards Zhou Ran.

"Entering a dream will cause the White Bone Pen's power to loosen," the female shadow on the right warned.

"Then you have high hopes for it."

Zhou Ran left those words behind.

"If anything goes wrong, I'll come back and settle the score with you."

The woman in the right-hand shadow answered without any change in tone:

I tried my best.

Zhou Ran twitched his lips and teased:

"That's really bad luck."

After saying this, the eyes of his Nascent Soul within his dantian opened.

A wisp of purple-gold divine thought was separated from the Nascent Soul's Heavenly Spirit.

This divine thought followed the pathway opened up by the origin of half a Dharma Eye.

It traversed the barrier between the two realms, crossed the illusory realm barrier, entered the array eye of Jiangcheng Manor, and rushed straight into the depths of Lin Qingxue's sea of ​​consciousness.

Inside the basement.

The silver eye pattern on the white silk covering Lin Qingxue's eyes stopped struggling.

She raised her chin and spoke into the void before her: "You still came."

Zhou Ran's tone echoed in her mind.

"If I don't come, who will stand up for you?"

When Zhou Ran's feet touched the ground, there was no light source in Jiangcheng in his field of vision.

The streetlights stand tall along the roadside. Inside the lampshades are not light bulbs, but tightly closed eyeballs.

The tall buildings on both sides have no glass windows; their exterior walls are covered with a dense array of slits.

The entire city was completely silent; there was no roar of engines, and no sign of human life.

Only the river water flowing beneath the bridge, crashing against the bridge piers, produced a dry, rough, frictional sound.

Zhou Ran stood on the asphalt road surface of the cross-river bridge.

In the middle of the bridge, Lin Qingxue stood with her back to him.

Her eyes were still covered by white silk. The white silk was clean and there was no trace of the silver eye pattern.

She held a broken array pattern in her palm; the light at the edges of the pattern had faded, and it had lost all its sharpness and vigor.

"Lin Qingxue," Zhou Ran said.

She turned around.

"You shouldn't have come in."

Zhou Ran took a step and stopped beside her.

"You mentioned that earlier."

"You still didn't listen."

"I'm used to it," Zhou Ran replied.

Lin Qingxue's facial muscles twitched slightly, revealing a hint of the vitality a living person should have.

On the other side of the bridge, a figure in white robes walked slowly across the bridge.

The person who arrived was Xu Youning.

She held a bronze ruler in her hand, its surface perfectly smooth.

Within this sea of ​​consciousness, she needed no disguise.

He wore a pure white Taoist robe, his hair was tied in a Taoist bun, and his expression was devoid of any warmth.

He exuded not a trace of the everyday life of ordinary people.

"Zhou Ran," Xu Youning said, "you can preserve her physical appearance, but you can't protect her destiny."

Zhou Ran's gaze swept over.

"Do people from Penglai like to start with nonsense?"

Xu Youning showed no sign of annoyance.

"Lin Qingxue is the vessel for the return of the Moon Emperor's soul."

"The moon shines upon my body."

"Lin Qingxue is the soul."

"Xu Youwei is the eye."

"You will act as the key."

"No one can change this arrangement."

Zhou Ran chimed in, "Your senior and junior brothers used to say the same thing all the time."

Xu Youning asked, "What became of them?"

Not even a speck of ash was left.

Xu Youning nodded in agreement.

I'm not going to waste my breath arguing with you.

She flipped her wrist, and the bronze ruler pointed straight ahead.

The city of Jiangcheng, shrouded in darkness, began to stir.

The thick asphalt bridge surface emitted a teeth-grinding tearing sound, cracking open into bottomless ravines on both sides.

Scenes emerged from the bottom of the crack.

Lin Qingxue sat alone in the basement, her white silk stained with crimson blood.

Yue Zhao was trapped in solid ice, and tears streamed down her face.

Zhou Ran stepped into the heart of the Heavenly Corpse, but was half a step too late.

Jiangcheng Bridge defied gravity and hung suspended in mid-air, causing pedestrians and vehicles to tumble and fall, with cries for help erupting everywhere.

Xu Youwei's body was nailed to the altar, and her blood flowed into the eye sockets of the celestial corpse through the bronze grooves.

All the images rushed towards Lin Qingxue.

Xu Youning spoke in a flat tone.

"Look more closely."

"It is because you have been slow to return that Jiangcheng has fallen into the void."

"It is because you wandered away that Yue Zhao has been asleep for thirty thousand years."

"It is precisely because you resist fate that Zhou Ran has risked his life several times."

"If you return to your proper places soon, all the living beings in this city and all the cultivators will be able to survive."

Lin Qingxue hunched her shoulders and bent her knuckles inward.

Zhou Ran remained inactive.

This place is the Sea of ​​Consciousness.

The stronger a person's obsession, the smoother Xu Youning wielded the bronze ruler.

He stared at the churning images, the temperature in his pupils gradually dropping.

Xu Youning specifically targets people's most vulnerable and vulnerable points.

Every time, it hits the nail on the head.

Lin Qingxue's chin was lowered.

The white silk covered her eyebrows and eyes, but it couldn't hide her bloodless lips.

Xu Youning continued to press: "You are afraid of the dark."

You are afraid of becoming a burden to others.

"You are more afraid that Zhou Ran will lose his life because of you one day."

All of the above are your deepest fears.

Zhou Ran cupped his five fingers around the hilt of the knife.

Lin Qingxue reached out first and wrapped her five fingers around his wrist.

"Need not."

Zhou Ran turned his head to look at her.

Lin Qingxue's fingertips were extremely cold, and the touch exuded a chill.

Her pronunciation, however, became steady and reliable.

"Some of what she just said was correct."

Xu Youning's eyelid twitched.

Lin Qingxue said, "I was born afraid of the dark."

"Ever since I lost my sight, I have been unable to even tell where I am whenever I wake up."

"I am equally afraid of being a burden to you."

She gripped Zhou Ran's forearm tightly with her five fingers.

"But what I fear most is someone taking it upon themselves to write down my fate."

On the long street of the dark Jiangcheng, the lampshade of one of the streetlights suddenly cracked.