The Secret of the Stern

Immortal Radiance had seeped out together with the mist from the ancient-style buildings at the stern.

Yet, blocked by walls over thirty meters high, only the densely layered rooftops of those ancient buildings could be seen. Red Gold Glazed Tile formed the roofs, and Flowing Light Divine Wood the beams. There were pavilions, halls, ancient towers...

Between the towering walls, like city ramparts, and the Nine-Story Ship Tower lay an open deck area a hundred meters wide.

Xie Jin no longer had his former arrogance or swagger. Sitting on the first stone step before the Bronze Cast Gate, a Steel Pipe in hand, he kept casting frightened glances toward the Ship Tower passage.

He had become a bird startled by the mere twang of a bowstring, seeing snakes in the shadow of every cup.

There were dozens of stone steps behind him.

At the top of the steps stood the Bronze Cast Gate leading through the walls. The gate was about ten meters tall, grand and imposing. The left door bore a relief of Myriad Homes' Lanterns, while the right depicted a starry expanse like the Yellow Springs River, from some unknown corner of the universe.

"Doctor Qi, how are things now?"

When he saw Qi Shanshan emerge from the passage, Xie Jin seemed to have seized a lifeline. His spirits lifted slightly, and he hurried over to ask nervously.

Qi Shanshan brought good news. "Don't worry. Li Weiyi and the people from Laboratory 705 have both suffered heavy losses. For the moment, no one has spare attention to deal with you."

"That's great!"

Xie Jin's mind began racing. "Let's make a plan. You poison their food, and I'll launch a sneak attack. We'll take care of that blood-soaked thug Li Weiyi, along with the people from Laboratory 705."

"Good. That was exactly what I had in mind."

Qi Shanshan took out a bag of food and handed it over. "You haven't eaten all day, have you? You look like you're starving so badly you can barely stand. It's gone a little cold, but make do for now."

Xie Jin truly had been starving until his chest nearly clung to his back. As he wolfed it down, he said through a mouthful of food, "Li Weiyi must have swallowed a Sarira. That's why he became so powerful. But no matter how strong he is, he's still flesh and blood. Poison, deadly poison, can definitely kill him... Then... ah... you... the food you gave me..."

A twisting pain erupted in Xie Jin's abdomen, as though his stomach were full of blades. He could not straighten his body at all and stared at Qi Shanshan in disbelief.

Qi Shanshan took three steps back, hands in her pockets, her eyes indifferent. "You said it yourself. Poison the food. Deadly poison, concocted with Black Flood Dragon Corpse Blood."

"Bitch! We lost so badly... it must have been because of you. You and that pretty boy were in league all along... Pfft..."

Xie Jin charged at Qi Shanshan, but after only three steps, he collapsed to the ground.

His body convulsed as bloody foam spilled from his mouth.

Before the naked eye, his skin began to blacken and rot.

Qi Shanshan walked over and lightly kicked Xie Jin. Only after confirming he was thoroughly dead did she mutter to herself with contempt, "You were only half right. I wasn't in league with him before. I really was helping you. But now..."

Her alliance with Xie Tianshu and the others had been the only path to survival she could see at the time.

But she had never thought much of Xie Tianshu and the others' character or abilities.

Especially after learning what had happened to Liu Ying, she was even more thankful that Li Weiyi, such a perfect partner, had appeared. He had strength when strength was needed, looks when looks were needed, and loyalty when loyalty was needed. He was sharp-minded and decisive, able to sympathize with the weak yet utterly merciless toward his enemies.

She did not want to be merely Li Weiyi's partner.

She wanted to remove the word "partner."

But she also knew she had missed the best chance to win Li Weiyi over. If she could have foreseen this day back then, she would have snatched that bowl of Fish Soup from Cai Yutong's hands no matter what.

No longer immersing herself in regret, Qi Shanshan dragged Xie Jin's corpse toward the ship's rail.

As long as she cleaned up the traces here and kept Li Weiyi from noticing anything suspicious, she would sever all ties to her past. In the future, she would have plenty of ways to win him over.

No matter how outstanding he was, he was still only a hot-blooded young man.

"Xie Jin probably never dreamed that the most terrifying person on this ship wasn't me, but you."

Qi Shanshan had only just dragged Xie Jin's corpse with great difficulty to the rail when Li Weiyi's voice sounded beside her. No matter how composed she was, she was badly frightened.

Yet, in the brief moment she rose and smoothed the disheveled hair from her face, she had already thought of a response. Calmly, she asked, "How long have you been here?"

"Since Xie Jin fell."

Li Weiyi's voice was calm. He stood at the Ship Tower passage, tall and upright.

More than twenty meters separated them.

"So you just stood there watching? Watching me drag a corpse like a penguin, clumsy and struggling?" Qi Shanshan spoke in a coquettish, aggrieved tone, as if she had no awareness of Li Weiyi's anger at that moment, nor could she see the disappointment and pain on his face.

Li Weiyi frowned, with no intention of flirting with her.

This was not something a few playful words could brush aside.

He walked into this deck area shrouded in Immortal Radiance. Four more expedition members' corpses lay on the ground, along with various chemical apparatuses and medicines.

In a corner lay the massive corpse of the bear-like creature. The wound on its abdomen had decayed, giving off a pungent stench.

It had clearly died from severe injuries on the day it fell onto the Bronze Ship.

It was the Yellow Dragon Sword!

A wound carved by the Yellow Dragon Sword could not heal even on a Transcendent creature. Instead, it would rot faster.

The four expedition members' corpses had each met a different gruesome end.

Some had skin that burst apart, leaving only flesh and bone. Some had scales growing over half their bodies while the other halves rotted away. Some had antennae sprouting from their heads, but their skulls had shattered.

Li Weiyi said, "So the four expedition members said to have vanished without return after exploring the stern were actually used by you as live test subjects! You spread that rumor, then deliberately smeared the bear-like creature's blood around the Ship Tower, all to frighten people so that no expedition member would dare come here."

"That day, beside the Ship Tower, you must have been afraid that Gao Huan and I would come to the stern and uncover your secret. That was why you drove us away, wasn't it?"

"Xie Tianshu dared drink Flood Dragon Blood because you had already obtained definite experimental results here."

"The reason everyone fainted after breakfast was also because you supplied Kong Fan with the drugs."

Li Weiyi stared straight into Qi Shanshan's eyes. "You're terrifying. You hid it so well. There wasn't a single flaw in your lies. You nearly fooled even me!"

Qi Shanshan's eyes reddened. She looked incomparably wronged, her voice choked with sobs. "I... I had no choice. You saw what happened to Liu Ying. If I didn't take the initiative to do something, the person jumping down today would have been me. Only someone with value could live, could have a voice and status."

Li Weiyi said, "Doctor Qi, how many people died because of you? If you hadn't supplied them with drugs, they might not have succeeded."

Tears streamed from Qi Shanshan's eyes. "I'm not you. I don't have your powerful strength. I can't control my own fate. I could only choose compromise. When Xie Jin held a knife to my neck, I either died or helped him. Tell me, what was I supposed to choose?"

Li Weiyi no longer knew whether he should believe her.

Qi Shanshan had helped him more than once. She had saved him.

But she was too clever, too good at lying, and too good at weaving stories.

Every expression and every sentence of hers seemed to burst forth in emotional agitation, but they must all have been carefully thought through. Even Xie Tianshu, Kong Fan, and the others were likely no more than her chess pieces.

Because she certainly had a way to kill them, just as she had killed Xie Jin.

"You saved me. This time, I won't kill you. But someone will surely hold you accountable for what you've done." Li Weiyi made it very clear: he simply would not kill her this once.

Qi Shanshan's gaze was sorrowful. "Did I only save you once?"

At that moment, Li Weiyi deeply understood that one must never owe debts of gratitude.

With tears shimmering in her eyes, Qi Shanshan continued, "Yes, I deserve to die. But I saved Yutong. I saved you. Even when everyone in the world says I deserve death, the two of you have absolutely no right to speak that word. Go tell them now, and they'll immediately kill me. My end will be just like those two security team members thrown into the Sea of Souls."

"You won't kill me, yet I'll die because of you."

Li Weiyi could choose not to pursue other people's lives and deaths to the bitter end. After all, he was not some righteous judge.

But Qi Shanshan had more or less played a part in his senior brother becoming what he was now.

Li Weiyi said, "You still have a use, so I can give you one chance. Help me heal my senior brother, then let him decide how to deal with you."

"But if my senior brother cannot survive this ordeal, if anything happens to him, everyone will pay with their lives. Even Heaven itself will get no leniency!"

Li Weiyi carefully searched Qi Shanshan from head to toe. Once he was sure she had nothing dangerous on her, he asked, "Where is Senior Sister Cai?"

Qi Shanshan had never imagined that Li Weiyi, usually so sunny, kind, and modest before her, could have such terrifying eyes when he mentioned his senior brother. The chill seemed capable of piercing into her bones.

Only at that moment did she truly understand how terrifying it was to offend Li Weiyi on a matter of principle.

Had she not done two or three things right before, she would certainly already be dead.

Qi Shanshan led Li Weiyi toward the second floor of the Nine-Story Ship Tower. "No one dares come up here. It's very safe. I hid her here, so this turmoil wouldn't reach her."

The passage on the second floor of the Ship Tower was still filled with stone figurines.

After passing through the stone figurines, they finally saw Cai Yutong lying on the ground.

"I only drugged her unconscious. She should be fine... Huh, why hasn't she woken up after so long?" Qi Shanshan realized something was wrong.

"Senior Sister... Senior Sister Cai..."

Li Weiyi crouched down to inspect Cai Yutong's condition.

"So hot!"

The instant his hand touched Cai Yutong's forehead, Li Weiyi jumped in fright.

Her body temperature was terrifyingly scorching, nothing like a human being's temperature.

"Let me see."

After feeling the heat on Cai Yutong's face, Qi Shanshan immediately began removing her clothes, but then seemed to recall something and glanced at Li Weiyi beside her.

Li Weiyi turned around.

But he roused the scorching current in the sole of his right foot and gathered it in his ears.

After lifting her clothes, Qi Shanshan saw vast numbers of Golden Meridian Lines under the skin around Cai Yutong's chest. They seemed to grow from her heart and spread throughout her body, flowing with golden radiance like wisps of flaming thread.

"Didn't you say the human body could withstand Golden Crow Blood diluted to one-tenth concentration? Why has such a terrible mutation suddenly happened?" Qi Shanshan stared at the unconscious Cai Yutong, seemingly speaking to herself, her tone full of confusion.

"Senior Sister drank Golden Crow Blood?" By the time Li Weiyi turned back, Cai Yutong's clothes had already been covered again.

Qi Shanshan nodded. "She believed that after diluting the Golden Crow Blood, the human body could withstand it, so she used herself as an experiment. But her body temperature has already exceeded sixty degrees, and it's still rising rapidly."

Thinking of something, Qi Shanshan immediately took out the Cross Pendant and placed it around Cai Yutong's neck.

This Immortal Object, the Cross Pendant, had originally been obtained first by Cai Yutong.

After Qi Shanshan drugged Cai Yutong unconscious, she had taken it from her.

She felt that the Cross Pendant might be able to suppress Golden Crow Blood's destructive power, because when Cai Yutong wore it, no changes like the ones before her eyes had occurred.

Just as the dragon-like mutation required wearing the Dragon Pattern Ring.

After the Cross Pendant was removed, the power of Golden Crow Blood had been released, and so it began threatening Cai Yutong's life.

Fortunately, the Golden Crow Blood had been diluted, so its release was slow. Otherwise, by the time she and Li Weiyi arrived, Cai Yutong might already have burned into a pile of ash.

After the Cross Pendant was put on, Cai Yutong's temperature instead rose even faster.

Moments later, she was entirely engulfed in golden firelight.

Li Weiyi and Qi Shanshan did not dare approach and retreated far away.

"How strange! These golden flames aren't low in temperature, yet her body is completely unharmed."

The golden flames were dazzling, but Li Weiyi could see that Cai Yutong's body within them remained whole and undamaged. It was utterly inconceivable.

After all, she was merely a mortal of flesh and blood.

Whoosh!

The golden flames suddenly flared. Amid grains of sparks, the phantom of a pair of resplendent wings several meters long appeared, as wondrous as a caterpillar breaking from its cocoon to become a butterfly.

The two retreated even farther, holding their breath.

The flames burned for about a quarter of an hour before showing signs of dispersing.

The light was no longer so blinding. Cai Yutong's body lying on the ground gradually emerged, while a layer of Mortal Shell over her surface cracked and peeled away, revealing skin inside that was dazzlingly white.

"You... should you perhaps go downstairs first?" Qi Shanshan asked cautiously.

Li Weiyi naturally saw that something was amiss. Though Cai Yutong had not turned to ash, the fabric of her clothes had become ash.

Thinking Qi Shanshan probably would not harm Cai Yutong, Li Weiyi went down the stairway and returned to the first-floor deck area. The image of Cai Yutong feeding him Fish Soup surfaced in his mind. His heart warmed, though he also worried in secret.

Not long after.

The quiet voices of the two women drifted down from the second floor of the Ship Tower, with Qi Shanshan explaining something.

Li Weiyi's heart relaxed, and the corners of his mouth lifted unconsciously.

But he did not go up into the Ship Tower, quietly waiting below.

Once his mood relaxed, his gaze suddenly fell upon the Bronze Cast Gate, ten meters high, beyond the dozens of stone steps in the distance. Curiosity stirred within him, and he walked over.