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

"They're all inside."

Her voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.

"The scan records, the coordinates of the hidden markers, and the preconditions for the second use of the Bone Pen—not a single byte is missing."

Xiao Rou put the golden Gu back into the Gu box.

The worm circled once inside the box, then its six new wings nestled against the shell, and it lay down obediently.

"Sister Lin, the Emperor said that you can tell him these things in person when he returns."

Lin Qingxue smiled with her eyes closed.

He meant "face to face".

The woman's voice trailed off, a mixture of helplessness and heartache.

"He blocked the way back, cut off all the power supply to the passage, and even blocked his own orders. Then he said to me 'face to face'."

Xiao Rou opened her mouth, unsure how to respond.

"He's always been like this."

Lin Qingxue opened her eyes, and the silver in her pupils had almost disappeared, revealing her natural dark brown irises underneath.

"He demolished the road one day, and then had someone remember every single stone on it the next."

They were swift and efficient when dismantling, yet meticulous in their notes, leaving no stone unturned.

She paused.

"I have a little bit of the essence of Dharma left. Not enough to open channels, not enough to transmit information, just enough to do one thing."

Xiao Rou listened attentively.

"Every day I move a piece of data into that gray line on his wrist."

They follow the path of cause and effect, not the path of return, so the Emperor's name-erasing flag cannot capture them.

At a rate of one entry per day, it will take approximately 120 days to complete the decryption key for the entire set of hidden symbols.

One hundred and twenty days.

Four months.

"The complete original data is engraved inside the Gu shell; we can use it as soon as we take it back."

Lin Qingxue's finger lightly traced a faint silver mark on the ground.

"But what I moved into the gray lines is a safety net. In case the Gu shell malfunctions, the keys in the gray lines can still piece together 70% of the information."

She had considered all possible paths.

Main road, backup road, detour road.

For seven days, he lay beside the Emperor-level Dark Nail, suppressing his own power while calculating—not how long he could hold out, but how many pathways there were to deliver the data to him.

Xiao Rou fastened the Gu box, tucked it into her waistband, and stood up.

"Sister Lin, let me help you up. Sister Chen is waiting upstairs; you need to recover first."

Lin Qingxue shook her head.

"The Imperial Court's purge team is on its way."

Xiao Rou's body tensed up.

"The Dharma Eye swept across the causal disturbances in the direction of Blue Star."

Lin Qingxue's voice was as calm as if she were reading a report, but the silver mark left by her fingertips trembled slightly on the ground.

"They'll arrive within three days. The cleanup team targets prohibited items and legal documents; I'm one of them."

Xiao Rou gripped the strap of the Gu box tightly.

The Bloodthirsty Ancestral Blood Pill given to him was still stuck to his chest, hard and burning hot.

"Take the Gu shell with you."

Lin Qingxue raised her head and looked towards the entrance of the passage.

"When is Yuelu going back?"

"The Emperor said that a second opening will be arranged within three days."

"There's still time."

Lin Qingxue's voice twitched.

"I was no longer at the White Pagoda when the cleaning team arrived."

I still have a few old friends in the cultivation world of Jiangcheng; hiding them won't be difficult."

Xiao Rou stared at her for several breaths.

When this woman said "it's not hard to hide it," her tone was exactly the same as when Zhou Ran said "wait."

It's described casually, but it carries a heavy weight underneath.

With less than half of his original essence remaining, his arms covered in Emperor-level corrosion patterns, and at least four or five meridians broken—running away in this state is not much different from making someone who has lost more than half their blood run a marathon.

Xiao Rou squatted back down and stuffed the bottle of spirit liquid into Lin Qingxue's hand.

"Sister Lin, the Emperor didn't just send me to retrieve the data."

She bit her lower lip.

"He also asked me to ask you something."

She made that up.

Zhou Ran didn't let her ask.

But Xiao Rou gleaned something from the pauses in the writing on the inner wall of the Gu shell, and even more from the brief hesitation Zhou Ran showed when he withdrew his finger before leaving.

She was the weakest person under the Emperor's command, but not the slowest.

Lin Qingxue looked at her and waited.

Xiaorou didn't make up any problems.

She replaced the question mark in her heart with another person's question mark.

"Is that gray line on his wrist still twitching?"

Lin Qingxue's fingers gripped the edge of the base, her knuckles protruding.

After holding on for about two breaths, he relaxed completely, as if the last string had snapped.

His shoulders slumped, his head rested on the black iron wall of the base, he glanced at Xiao Rou, then at the ceiling, and finally rested his head on his hands.

Dark gold corrosion patterns covered the forearm.

The silvery luster remaining on his fingers had not yet completely faded, and blisters had formed on his fingertips from recording data.

Whether he jumps or not, he knows the answer.

Lin Qingxue's voice dropped halfway.

"If he didn't know, he wouldn't have sent you to me."

Xiao Rou didn't ask any more questions.

She stood up, bent down slightly, and walked towards the entrance of the passage.

After taking five steps, Lin Qingxue's voice came from behind.

It's very light.

It was even lighter than the lingering buzz of magic power on the third underground level; one had to strain their ears to catch every word.

"Ask him for me—if the gray line is still jumping, don't let it break."

Xiao Rou paused for a moment.

"No matter how much of a burden he's carrying over there—as long as the gray line jumps, I'll move in every day."

The footsteps resumed, ascending upwards and fading into the distance.

Lin Qingxue was the only one left on the third underground floor.

She raised her right hand, and in the gaps between the dark gold corrosion patterns, there was an almost invisible thin line on the inside of her wrist.

Dark gray.

The frequency of the pulse is synchronized with the heartbeat.

The remnant veins that flowed from the other side of the barrier between the two worlds were as thin as spider silk.

It's exactly the same as his gray stripes.

Lin Qingxue pressed her wrist to her lips, her breath hot against the gray line.

The gray line jumped.

After a short while, things returned to normal.

She gripped that wrist, leaned against the black iron base, and closed her eyes.