Hu Liena furrowed her brows. "Why?"
"There's something wrong with yellow springs dew." Xiao Yun looked at her and spoke each word distinctly. "You think it improves your physique, and yes, the short-term effects are obvious. But it's actually formed from the condensed resentment and baleful energy deep beneath the City of Slaughter. Drinking it without purifying it first will gradually corrode your mind. At first, it only makes you irritable and combative. Then your mind starts drifting, your memories grow hazy, and in the end..."
He paused, his gaze settling on her scarlet eyes.
"You'll lose all sense of self and become a puppet, just like those Slaughter Guards. You'll be trapped in the City of Slaughter forever, forever under the King of Slaughter's control."
Hu Liena's expression changed.
She recalled her condition lately.
Inexplicable fits of rage, occasional lapses of awareness, and moments when she had to think for ages just to remember what she had done a moment earlier.
She had always blamed the City of Slaughter's environment. It had never occurred to her that yellow springs dew was the problem.
"Is what you're saying... true?" Her voice sounded strained.
"I have no reason to lie to you," Xiao Yun said calmly. "Think back. Has it been getting harder to concentrate lately? Do you often feel as though there's a cloud of bloody mist in your head that you can't clear away?"
Hu Liena did not answer, but her silence said it all.
Her fingers tightened slightly around her sleeve as fear at what might have happened surged through her.
If Xiao Yun had not warned her and she had kept drinking it, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
By then, completing Spirit Hall's mission would have been out of the question. Even she herself would have