Saw Through the Multicolored Poison Formula at a Glance! Qian Renxue's Last Pride Shattered

The night wind swept through the abandoned manor's dark alley, stirring the faint arcs of lightning that had yet to fade and lifting the loose strands of black hair at Zhu Zhuqing's brow.

Chu Yuan stood five paces away with his hands behind his back, looking down at the black-clad girl before him with deep, tranquil black eyes. He took in the lingering hesitation in her eyes that she had yet to sever completely.

"Are you still hesitating?"

Chu Yuan spoke calmly, his cool voice especially clear in the silent alley:

"Do you still believe that only by relying on the Evil-Eyed White Tiger can the Hell Spirit Cat have a sliver of hope against your sister Zhu Zhuyun and Dai Weisi?"

Chu Yuan's words struck the last shackle deep in her soul.

Ever since Zhu Zhuqing had awakened her Nether Civet Martial Soul at six and been betrothed to Dai Mubai, the Zhu Family's patriarch and elders had drilled the same idea into her day after day: the Hell Spirit Cat clan had served as vassals to the White Tiger imperial family for generations. Without the boost from fusion with the White Tiger Martial Soul, a Hell Spirit Cat Soul Master could scarcely reach the peak in a lifetime, much less survive the brutal battle for family succession.

"What a laughable rule, and what a pitiful way to be tamed."

A mocking smile curved Chu Yuan's lips:

"It was clearly a life-or-death contest for the two of you, yet when that Dai Mubai felt the pressure from his elder brother, the first thing he did was not stay and train bitterly at your side. Instead, he fled alone to the Balak Kingdom thousands of miles away, clinging to his wretched life and leaving you to face all the family infighting and the risk of assassination."

Chu Yuan took a slow step forward, every word piercing her heart:

"Do you think that, in the years since he fled to Suotuo City, he has been enduring humiliation and hardship, lying low and biding his time? No. He has merely used escaping his fate as an excuse to squander what remained of his imperial prince's standing in this little city, sinking day and night into wine, women, and song. He dressed up cowardice and incompetence as carefree charm, and made abandoning his fiancée sound like a search for a breakthrough. That is the fine match your Zhu Family chose for you, and the so-called fate on which you have always pinned your hope of survival."

Keqing, standing to Chu Yuan's left, knitted her brows slightly, undisguised contempt showing in her amethyst eyes.

As the Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing, a firm believer that "man can conquer heaven," she could not abide such musty shackles, which bound a person's fate to a bloodline marriage and a cowardly man.

"Chu Yuan is absolutely right."

Keqing's cool voice rang out at just the right moment. "A mediocrity who lacks even the courage to face a powerful enemy and can only numb himself by bullying the weak and chasing pleasure-to pin your hopes of survival on trash like that is the greatest insult to you."

Zhu Zhuqing's face went pale.

She understood all of it, and the scene in the Rose Hotel lobby at noon today was still vivid in her mind.

But the sudden collapse of the conviction she had clung to for so long left her feeling as though she stood at the edge of a bottomless cliff, desperately in need of one last straw to break her ties with the past completely.

Chu Yuan seemed to see through her thoughts. He gently patted the small of Mona's back:

"Since the second young lady of the Zhu Family still hasn't fully seen reality, why don't you use your Hydromancy to show her what her fiancé is doing right now? While you're at it, let her see how that so-called fate of a marriage alliance would have ended if she had never met me."

Mona adjusted the broad, pointed witch's hat on her head and thrust out her full chest.

"Girl in black, watch closely. The starry sky never lies!"

As her words fell, Mona gently swept her fair, jade-white hand through the night air.

Without the need for a brass water basin as a medium, a crystal-clear azure water mirror, filled with countless streams of brilliant starlight, formed and unfurled in midair in the dark alley.

As the water rippled, Mona's Vision burst into dazzling blue light. Following the karmic connection of a token still lingering on Zhu Zhuqing, it instantly caught the star track far away at the southern end of Suotuo City.

The ripples on the water mirror's surface faded, and an incomparably clear image suddenly appeared before Zhu Zhuqing's eyes!

It was a seedy pleasure-house tavern in southern Suotuo City, ablaze with lights and thick with the scent of powder and perfume.

Inside a lavish, disordered private room, broken wine jars littered the floor. Bare-chested, blond-haired Dai Mubai, his eyes bearing their sinister double pupils, sprawled on a couch with a heavily made-up, half-undressed courtesan tucked under each arm.

"Damn it... what rotten luck at the Rose Hotel today! Once I break through to Soul Ancestor, Soul King, sooner or later I'll tear that pair of dogs from today into ten thousand pieces! Come, drink with Young Master Dai! Whoever serves me well tonight can have all these Gold Soul Coins!"

Dai Mubai showed not the slightest sign of being spurred to do better by his shame. Instead, he had sunk even deeper into wine and a woman's embrace, venting the frustration and Evil Fire in his heart. His large hands roamed freely over the two courtesans, his expression wanton and numb.

Watching the revolting scene in the water mirror, Zhu Zhuqing felt a surge of nausea, as though rivers and seas were churning in her stomach!

While she had been fighting in blood, this man who kept claiming to bear the pressures of the imperial family was drinking and making merry with prostitutes from a pleasure house in his arms!

Mona gave a slight turn of her fingers, and the image in the water mirror shattered and reassembled into countless dim star tracks intertwined with one another.

She pointed to a faint, shadowy star line that had originally belonged to Zhu Zhuqing but was tightly entwined and suppressed by the phantom of a white tiger. In a grave, sympathetic tone, she explained:

"Do you see? This was the course your fate would have taken before you met us. The stars show that if you swallowed your disgust, compromised, and pushed that man, you two could indeed have barely mastered that Martial Soul Fusion Skill. But what would it have cost?"

Mona looked straight into the pale-faced Zhu Zhuqing's eyes, her mint-green gaze steady as she spoke word by word:

"On your original path, the light of your life star was almost completely devoured by the White Tiger's star track. That means you would have spent your entire life reduced to his vassal and shadow. When he suffered setbacks, you would have had to bear the pressure for him. When he fought enemies, you would have had to exhaust your own source to help him display his might. You would even have had to endure his filthy past, living your whole life in the cage of an imperial marriage alliance, never truly able to have a name or life of your own! That is the fate you've struggled so hard to hold on to!"

With a motion from Mona, the star-fate water mirror in midair dissolved into countless glittering motes and scattered on the night wind.

Silence returned to the dark alley.

Zhu Zhuqing stared blankly at the empty space where the water mirror had vanished, as though she had undergone a baptism that stripped away her old self and gave her new bones.

That was right...

Even if she did not die at the hands of Dai Weisi and Zhu Zhuyun, what difference was there between death and enduring humiliation and hardship to help a man who disgusted her rise to a high position, only to spend her whole life as "the White Tiger's appendage"?

The Star Luo Zhu Family's rules? The fate of an imperial marriage alliance? The shackles of a Martial Soul Fusion Skill?

To hell with the family's damned fate!

She slowly raised her right hand, slipped it inside her collar, and pulled hard!

She yanked out a mutton-fat white jade tiger-claw pendant tied to a red cord.

Zhu Zhuqing lowered her head and looked at the white jade tiger claw in her palm, the one that had once weighed on her until she could scarcely breathe. Her fingers suddenly clenched!

The hard, smooth mutton-fat white jade pendant cracked in her palm, crushed into a pinch of stone powder!

Zhu Zhuqing opened her hand and let the night wind scatter the powder between her fingers.

Having done all this, she took a deep breath, straightened her damaged black collar, and then solemnly dropped to one knee once more!

"The second young lady of the Star Luo Zhu Family is dead. Dai Mubai's fiancée is no more."

The girl's crisp, decisive voice rang through the dark, deep alley:

"If you had not intervened today, I would already be nothing but bones in this alley. If you and these two ladies had not opened my eyes, even if I had clung to life, I would have been no more than a puppet in a cage. From this day forth, Zhu Zhuqing's life belongs to you, my lord! Wherever your sword points, my claws shall strike. Even if my body is smashed to pieces, I shall never waver in my loyalty!"