Playing Qi Lin to Death!

At the Cloud-Watching Tower.

The lights shone brightly, and the place was bustling with excitement.

Inside a luxurious private room.

"Come, let's all drink to welcome Lianxi and wash away the dust of her journey."

Handsome young scholars and elegant beauties raised their cups, their faces wreathed in smiles.

After three rounds of wine.

Xiao Chiyan spotted a young boy in white standing outside the door and called out, "Xiao Xuanxing, come in for a moment."

Xiao Xuanxing had a clean, fresh look and eyes like stars. One glance was enough to tell he was a child his parents had carefully sculpted.

"Greetings, elder brothers and sisters."

After entering, Xiao Xuanxing first bowed to everyone at the table, then waited beside Xiao Chiyan and called out, "Brother Yan, what are your orders?"

Xiao Chiyan had drunk quite a bit, and his handsome face was slightly flushed. He took Xiao Xuanxing by the arm. "Go tell the others, especially those at One Yang Pavilion, to leave that evil man's grandson alone."

"Brother Yan, have you decided to keep him all to yourself?" Xiao Xuanxing asked.

"That's not keeping him to myself. I'm afraid you won't play with him well enough to get the right results," Xiao Chiyan lectured.

"Understood." Xiao Xuanxing nodded. "That evil man killed our Xiao Clan's young master and branch master, yet his descendant still dared to enter the Divine Strategy Manor. If we don't play with him to our hearts' content, none of the Xiao Clan disciples in the manor will have any face left."

"Exactly. I'm truly afraid someone will kill him with a single stroke. That would be a terrible waste." Though Xiao Chiyan was somewhat drunk, his gaze remained sinister and cold.

"It sounds like you must have a clever way to play with him, Brother Yan?" Xiao Xuanxing's eyes brightened slightly.

"Don't ask so many questions. Get lost and spread the word." Xiao Chiyan gave him a pat on the backside. "You're just a little brat from the Three Stars Pavilion, but you're pretty solid!"

The elder brothers and sisters at the table all smiled.

Xiao Xuanxing wasn't angry either. He left with a smile, without stealing the spotlight.

"Lan Qian, how about I introduce my brother Xuanxing to you?"

Xiao Chiyan kept the conversation going as he spoke to a woman in a blue glazed-silk dress.

The woman was both innocent and alluring. Her eyes seemed able to speak, yet held back what they wanted to say.

"Brother Yan, you're teasing Qian'er again." Lan Qian held a dragon-patterned wine cup between her delicate fingers and sighed. "His own younger brother was beheaded, and his family is holding a funeral."

"His family's holding a funeral, and you still came to the banquet?" Xiao Chiyan said merrily.

Lan Qian glanced out of the corner of her beautiful eyes at the woman in a white dress seated beside Xiao Chiyan. In a plaintive voice, she said, "I just wanted to see for myself how devastatingly beautiful this fairy-like woman Brother Yan spoke of really was."

"She's prettier than you, isn't she?" Xiao Chiyan said with a smile.

Lan Qian froze for a moment. As she gently set down her dragon-patterned wine cup, her fingers trembled, but she soon gave a soft laugh. "Naturally. Miss Su has a God-Inherited Bloodline and was born with divine blood in her veins. Now that she's come to the Divine Capital, perhaps she'll soon be summoned by the Nation-Protecting Divine Church."

"My father is already working on it." As Xiao Chiyan spoke, he placed his hand on the back of Su Lianxi's chair, no more than an inch from her delicate shoulder. Looking at the profile of the beauty in white, he said, his voice tinged with fire, "With a lovely face like Lianxi's, it's plain to see she's suited to be a divine maiden of the Nation-Protecting Divine Church."

Su Lianxi smiled faintly at his words. She neither responded nor feigned modesty.

That "aloofness" and "confidence" left Xiao Chiyan momentarily dazed.

Damn it, she's a master at stringing men along!

Seeing this, Lan Qian had already cursed Su Lianxi to death ten thousand times in her heart.

Just then, a young man in a golden brocade robe seated on Xiao Chiyan's other side suddenly spoke. He carried himself with an air of nobility. "Brother Xiao, could you tell everyone how you plan to play with him at noon tomorrow?"

"Huangfu Yu, I'd have forgotten if you hadn't brought it up. Your Universal Salvation Chamber of Commerce had a Green Jade Hall wiped out in Mystic City too. For businessmen like you, isn't a loss like that like having your flesh cut off?" Xiao Chiyan looked over as he toyed with a strand of Su Lianxi's hair.

"You jest, Brother Xiao," Huangfu Yu said.

"I'm not jesting." Xiao Chiyan raised a brow. "Aren't you planning to vent a little too?"

Huangfu Yu smiled. "After the city is slaughtered, reselling the locals' corpses can make up for the loss of the Green Jade Hall."

"Damn!" Xiao Chiyan was speechless. "With so many people refining visceral pills these days, you'll make a killing, won't you?"

"A modest profit, a modest profit," Huangfu Yu said.

Xiao Chiyan clapped him hard on the shoulder, finally feeling things were fair.

Then he recalled Huangfu Yu's earlier question and said coldly, "You asked how I'd play with him? Simple. One drop of demon blood."

Everyone at the table drew a sharp breath.

"Once demon blood enters the marrow, even dying is difficult." Lan Qian's delicate voice trembled slightly.

"They say the pain almost rivals an acute attack of the Five Decays," Huangfu Yu said.

Xiao Chiyan sneered, his hand drawing ever closer to Su Lianxi's delicate shoulder. It was just about to land on it.

Suddenly!

Xiao Chiyan's entire body shuddered!

"Ugh..."

His eyes widened as he slumped in his chair, his fingers shaking violently.

"Brother Yan?" Lan Qian froze, then stood up and asked with concern, "Did you drink too much?"

"Hot!"

Xiao Chiyan's throat bulged as he strained to force out that single word.

Pfft!

The moment he finished speaking, he abruptly coughed up a mouthful of blood. It sprayed across the banquet table, and every dish caught fire.

Bang!

All the handsome young men and women at the table sprang to their feet and backed away several steps, staring fixedly at Xiao Chiyan with violently trembling eyes.

Su Lianxi also stood up without a change in expression and silently drew her hair from Xiao Chiyan's hand.

"What are you doing?"

Xiao Chiyan's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as he glared at them. "Why are you looking at me like that? I'm just feeling a little unwell. Take me to the medical building... pfft!"

As soon as he spoke, he braced himself against the edge of the table and vomited a stream of fire mixed with wine and meat. It fell to the floor and burned straight through it.

"This fucking wine is scalding!"

Xiao Chiyan roared, the pain bringing him to the verge of tears.

The next instant, he saw the hand he had braced against the table.

His arm had turned charred black, as though flaming venomous dragons were burrowing through it. His skin had cracked, and his hand was covered in blood blisters.

"An... an illusion..."

Xiao Chiyan's eyes went completely round. Struggling to breathe, he looked down again and saw that the skin beneath his robes was charred black and covered in lines of blazing fire. There wasn't a patch of healthy flesh to be seen anywhere on his body.

"What... what's happening to me..."

On the verge of tears, he stared blankly at Lan Qian, Huangfu Yu, and the others, who had already retreated outside the door.

"Brother Xiao, it's the Five Decays of the Heavenly Dao. An acute attack of Fire Burning Disease."

Huangfu Yu's voice trembled as he spoke, his throat quivering with every word.

This disease had far too great an impact on anyone's life.

In short, no matter how many Ice Mystic Pills one had, contracting it would ruin half one's prospects.

"Impossible!!"

Xiao Chiyan pounded the table and roared, "I take an Ice Mystic Pill every day to prevent it! Fire Burning Disease can't get anywhere near me. Impossible!"

"Brother Xiao." Huangfu Yu's Adam's apple bobbed. "Take a pill, quickly. If you miss the window, you'll die."

At those words, Xiao Chiyan collapsed to the floor.

He pulled the jade table down with him. The fine dishes spilled across the floor, and fires burned everywhere.

"I didn't bring any!"

Xiao Chiyan's blood-red hair also caught fire, making him look like a flame demon from hell. He was hideously fearsome, his face already burned into that of an evil spirit.

"Give me Ice Mystic Pills! Boo-hoo..."

Sobbing and howling, he crawled toward the others.

Buzz!

The people who had been flattering Xiao Chiyan moments ago shrieked in fright and hurriedly ran back, as though they had seen the god of plague.

"Don't come over here!"

"I have some. Here!"

"Take it!"

Several people tossed jade bottles in front of Xiao Chiyan as though throwing food to a dog.

Like a starving ghost, Xiao Chiyan seized the bottles with trembling hands and desperately stuffed Ice Mystic Pills into his mouth.

Thud!

He was soon encased in ice and passed out.

"Huangfu Yu, hurry and notify the Law Enforcement Hall. We have to get him out of the Divine Strategy Manor quickly, or he'll leave the source of the disease behind!" Lan Qian gripped Huangfu Yu's hand, her face white with anxiety. "I just clinked cups with him. I won't catch it, will I? I'm scared... I even did that with him last year! I'm done for! I'm done for!"

Hearing that, Huangfu Yu hurriedly pulled his hand free. His face darkened as he said, "What did you say? I've treated you so well, yet you're this shameless."

"No, I misspoke!"

Lan Qian wept, utterly distraught.

"Get lost!"

Huangfu Yu departed in a cloud of dust.

The entire Cloud-Watching Tower descended into chaos in an instant. The splendidly dressed Divine Strategy Manor students all rushed outside in panic.

"Before the Five Decays of the Heavenly Dao, all beings are equal."

After speaking those words, Su Lianxi, too, vanished into the darkness.