Watch by day and night, yet one's "household thief" is hardest to guard against (5k)

The bronze candlesticks in the Snake Ancestor Temple flickered in the dim light, and the serpentine reliefs meandered in the light and shadow, making the broken golden wings extending from Yu Wanyue's shoulder blades appear fragmented.

Her hands were clamped and she was suspended in mid-air, with only her toes barely touching the ground.

Yu Xiaoran was tied to a corner, her wound from Ji Lingruo's stab was still bleeding, but she still cursed in a hoarse voice:

"Yu Wanyue, say something! You always act all high and mighty in front of me! Now that you're locked up in this snake pit, what are you pretending to be so high and mighty for?"

Yu Wanyue remained indifferent as always, only raising her eyes to look at the winding scars on her wrist. Her golden wings folded into a tattered fan, and her once proud tail feathers were now covered with volcanic ash, like phoenix feathers that had been knocked off by a rainstorm.

She didn't want to pay any attention to the holy son's clamor. During the night she was locked up here, all she could think about was the image of the boy sheathing his sword in front of her, except when she was in a daze.

She was used to the law of the jungle among the Demon Race, but she never imagined there could be someone so foolish. His reason for not eliminating her completely was utterly untenable, because keeping her alive would definitely be a threat, so she simply couldn't understand why he stopped.

"They're keeping us alive just to squeeze the biggest profits out of us before we die!" Seeing her Yu Xiaoran grew even more agitated, her nails scraping the stone floor with a harsh sound. "You weren't actually swayed by his nonsense about not eliminating the threat completely, were you?! Don't be fucking stupid!"

His tone still sounded hysterical, but with an added hint of barely suppressed anxiety, as if he were genuinely afraid of losing something extremely important.

"If you don't want to harm Jinpeng's interests, then bite your tongue and commit suicide." Yu Wanyue finally spoke, her voice as soft as the lingering mist at the crater of a volcano.

Upon hearing this, Yu Xiaoran was stunned, but his expression instantly became even more distorted. He stared at the noble Fairy Zhe Yu with a fierce and greedy gaze:

"You really want me dead? Let me tell you! From the moment you, you lowly bastard, entered the main family, your Demon Core, your cultivation, and even your very being, have all belonged to me! I am the one you can never escape for the rest of your life!"

"I know you look down on me, you've always looked down on me! Even when I was at my most successful, you never gave me a second glance, but what can you do? You are my father's chosen fiancée! Can you disobey? You can't!"

"Just like you couldn't disobey my order to come to the snake clan with me! I went to great lengths to understand you, only to find out that you could smile before you met me, and that you had made quite a few friends, right? It's a pity they're all dead, leaving only this old snake! How about it? Forced into this situation with your former friends, are you happy? I'm certainly very happy, hahaha!"

"I just want to disgust you! The gloating look in your eyes when you saw me critically injured and on the verge of death is something I'll remember for the rest of my life! But do you think I wanted to become like this? It's all your fault! If you hadn't used cultivation as an excuse to get my father to forbid me from touching you, if you hadn't never given me a second glance no matter how hard I tried, if it weren't for all the things you did, would I have gone on a life of debauchery and self-destruction to deliberately annoy you!"

"So later, seeing your increasingly disgusted look made me secretly very happy. You clearly despise me so much, yet you can't get rid of me. Do you feel like you were born at the wrong time, extremely wronged but helpless, and hate me from the bottom of your heart? It doesn't matter, the more you hate me, the more happy I am!"

"I'm going to hold you tight like this forever! Now it's all right, we're going to die together! Husbands and wives shouldn't ask to live together, but to die together! That way, I can haunt you in the next life too, and I'll make sure you never have a good time! You'll never be able to escape my revenge!"

"After all, we're husband and wife... Husband and wife should be together for all eternity... Hahaha!"

The bronze candlelight in the Serpent Ancestor Temple flickered violently amidst Yu Xiaoran laughter, the dappled light and shadow brushing past his blood-stained lips, like venomous snakes crawling up his distorted face.

He looked up at the giant serpent relief coiled around the dome, a low, beast-like growl escaping his throat, "Look—even the serpents in this dilapidated temple are laughing at you!"

Yu Wanyue's drooping eyelashes trembled slightly.

She had never seen Yu Xiaoran like this before— the Golden Peng Clan's Holy Son had always used his noble appearance to conceal the baseness in his bones, but now he was like a demon whose disguise had been torn off, splashing his rotten insides all over her.

The chains on his wrists clanged loudly with his violent movements, but they couldn't drown out his heart-wrenching Curse: "In my next life, I want to be a fire ant under your bed, gnawing at your ankles every day; I want to become the mold in your dressing mirror, watching your disheveled state every night..."

"That's enough..."

Her voice was colder than chains, yet a tremor crept in at the end.

A boiling, molten disgust burned in her throat, but when she looked at the madman, she tasted a bitterness amidst the surging hatred—she should have admitted long ago that the magnificent gilded cage she had painstakingly cultivated for a hundred years to enter was actually a filthy quagmire.

"Not enough! It will never be enough!"

Yu Xiaoran suddenly sprang up, the veins on her neck bulging like a spider web, and golden-red blood mist spurted from her shoulder blade pierced by the iron chain.

He was like a leashed, hungry dog that had never seen such beautiful flesh before. He disregarded his shackles and was determined to bite into her.

Yu Wanyue Golden Peng Holy Son, but now she felt fear because of this mad dog that could never touch her.

She never imagined she would one day be afraid of him. She even began to doubt whether, as he said, things had really come to this point because of her own fault.

If she had been more accepting of her fate, if she had been more at peace with herself when she witnessed those sordid deeds, if she hadn't been so naive and self-deceiving, believing everything was just Dao Path experience, wouldn't everything have been completely different?

Squeak--

The heavy palace doors suddenly swung open, and crimson sunlight poured in, illuminating the dark ancestral hall.

You Su's figure, backlit by the light, cast a long shadow on the blue bricks, while behind him Granny Liu's snake-headed cane struck the ground with a sound like a death knell.

Yu Xiaoran's curses stopped abruptly, only to see Yu Wanyue staring blankly at the boy who blended into the world.

He immediately straightened his neck, as if unwilling to show any fear in front of the girl and the boy, and even though he was covered in blood, he still said in a hard voice:

"Kill us if you want, don't pretend to spare our lives! We, the Golden Peng Clan— "

"You jest, Holy Son." You Su interrupted him, his gaze sweeping over Yu Xiaoran's trembling fingertips and landing on Yu Wanyue's drooping golden wings. "I spared her life, not yours."

He approached Yu Wanyue amidst Yu Xiaoran's tirade of curses, and saw that her eyelashes cast butterfly-like shadows beneath her eyes, the edges of her tattered golden feathers still glistening with undried blood and toxins, like a golden bird that had fallen to the ground.

Yu Wanyue looked up and met his clear, cold gaze. The young man's fingertips hovered above her wrist pulse, as if hesitating whether to check for the injury, but he withdrew them.

"Can Elder Wanyue's golden wings still spread?" he asked.

Yu Wanyue's throat tightened, not understanding the meaning behind the boy's question. The shattered golden feathers unconsciously gathered together, and the question she had pondered a thousand times was finally asked again:

"Why... why don't you kill me?"

"Didn't the elders accept your reasoning last night?"

Upon closer inspection, the boy's face still showed some pallor from the backlash of his sword intent, yet he always wore a faint smile.

For some reason, Yu Wanyue unconsciously avoided eye contact with this young man, responding with silence.

"Because Elder Yu and Elder Liu were old acquaintances, and Elder Liu told me not to kill you."

His voice accompanied the resounding slam of the door shut, the Yu Wanyue did not feel that the ancestral hall had become dark again.

Granny Liu stood behind the boy, gave her a very complicated look, and then stopped looking at her, turning her gaze to the boy's back.

This friend from her youth has aged, but her youthful beauty is still evident. Now an elder of her clan, she willingly stands behind the young man, a clear sign of her approval.

Yu Wanyue could guess that You Su, as an unknown factor, probably played a crucial role in the snake clan's escape from annihilation. Moreover, You Su disregarded the risk of self-harm to obey her and forcibly withdraw his sword intent. It was only natural that Junior Sister Liu would feel grateful to this junior human.

However, she could also see that You Su's decision to hold back was only partly due to consideration for Junior Sister Liu's feelings. Otherwise, it would have been Junior Sister Liu alone who came to question her, not You Su leading the group. This meant that sparing her life was the young man's own decision.

"That's not all." Yu Wanyue's gaze suddenly hardened.

This time, it was You Su who was stunned. He shook his head with a wry smile and sighed, "I guess it's out of pity for you."

"Pitiful? The victor is king, the loser is a bandit, what's there to pity?!" Yu Wanyue bit her lower lip. Despite being trapped, her pride naturally prevented her from accepting such a statement.

You Su looked at the Fairy who was hanging high above, but her eyes showed no awe as one would expect when looking up to someone. Instead, they showed a hint of pity that made Yu Wanyue feel uneasy.

"Actually, I'm quite pitiful too..." he laughed. "Fate always goes against the life we want to live. We try our best to break free from the control of fate, but when we're about to fight to the death, we're defeated by uncontrollable factors. We fight our whole lives, but in the end, we don't even have the chance to show fate how strong our fists are. Isn't that pitiful?"

Yu Wanyue's damaged golden wings suddenly trembled slightly, and a few golden feathers fell to the ground. She looked up at the boy and saw her reflection in the eyes of the rumored blind man—a deep, penetrating understanding, as if they had shared the same moonlight on countless nights.

You Su suddenly took a half step closer, her voice even lower, "The look in your eyes when you looked at me was one of relief, as if you were expecting me to stab you with that sword. So I'm not going to help you find relief. For someone like you who has already been defeated by fate and resigned to it, death is not punishment; living is."

Yu Wanyue suddenly wanted to laugh, but it tugged at the wound on her lips.

She recalled every poison pill she had been forced to swallow over the years, the shackles hidden within the Demon Core when she circulated her energy yesterday, and the madness that flickered in Yu Xiaoran's eyes when the Golden Peng Guards collapsed last night. It turned out that there really was someone in this world who could see the weariness hidden beneath her mask.

"Is this why you sheathed your sword?" Her voice was no longer cold, but it trembled without her even realizing it.

You Su did not deny it. "The cruelest thing about fate is not giving you a dead end, but letting you see the light, only to extinguish the candle when you reach out. I have relit the light for you, so Elder Wan Yue, do you want to grab fate by the tail and get up to bite it again? Of course, if you no longer have the courage, for Elder Liu's sake, I will give you a quick death."

A sneer came from the corner of the Yu Xiaoran, the chains dragging on the ground with a grating sound, "Hypocritical! You think that after saving this bastard, you'll use sweet words to make her grateful to you? Her Demon Core..."

"Shut up."

Yu Xiaoran's laughter stopped abruptly as an invisible Sword Qi slashed open her throat, drawing blood.

Yu Wanyue's eyelashes trembled violently. She saw the purplish-red patterns peeking out from You Su's cuffs—despite You Su's cold and ruthless words, this human boy was actually using his own injuries to give her a chance to be reborn.

Why do you think I'd believe you?

"It's fine if you don't believe me," You Su, taking a half step back. "But at least you still have a choice."

The boy turned to look at Granny Liu behind him, "For the past three days, I've been hiding in the home that Elder Liu meticulously prepared. She's been secretly working to save the snake clan, and to avoid being exposed, I haven't gone home at all. But I know you came looking for her, but she wasn't there."

Upon hearing this, even Granny Liu's pupils widened as she stared in disbelief at the frozen Golden-Winged Fairy.

"I don't know why you came to see Elder Liu. Perhaps it was to catch up in private, perhaps to advise her to protect herself, or perhaps it was for some other purpose. But you should be glad that you secretly came to see her; that's the most important reason I didn't kill you. So, Elder Wanyue, I'll ask you one last time—"

The young man used the Ink Pine Sword to lift her chin, "If I give you a sword to cut through your shackles, would you dare to cleave this fate?"

A century of struggle, like ice cracking, is suddenly pierced by a ray of light into the abyss.

Yu Wanyue looked into the boy's eyes through the lightning—there was no pity, no scheming, only a karmic fire that burned away all destiny.

She recalled that winter night a hundred years ago at the Golden Peng Main Family mansion, when she was bestowed a marriage certificate upon her arrival. The red silk fluttered before the charcoal fire, much like the ink-black threads curling on the young man's sword tassel now. Back then, kneeling on the cold blue bricks, watching the clan leader's laughing departing figure, wasn't her own eyes filled with that same fire?

Yu Xiaoran suddenly let out a sharp laugh, clutching her bleeding neck like a trapped beast whose sore spot had been touched. "Yu Wanyue! Are you crazy! Don't be stupid! He just wants to use you against the Golden Peng Clan! You think a lowly bastard like you can find freedom in this wretched Snake Clan! Don't dream, how could someone like him possibly..."

"One last question." Yu Wanyue's blood-stained golden wings suddenly unfurled behind her, like a bird about to take flight. "Are the rumors about you true?"

You Su was taken aback for a moment, never expecting that even now, the Fairy's last question would concern him.

Given these circumstances, should we really judge our choices based on whether he is good or bad?

You Su found the Fairy's ridiculous persistence somewhat endearingly foolish, and raised an eyebrow at the equally astonished Granny Liu:

What does Elder Liu think?

Granny Liu looked at the young man's handsome features, paused for a moment, then frowned and said firmly to Yu Wanyue:

"Young Master You is not a good person, but he is definitely not a bad person, much less Evil Demon."

You Su twitched his lips without realizing it. He probably knew that the biggest reason why Elder Liu didn't consider him a good person was because he had abducted two young ladies from the snake clan at the same time.

Upon hearing this, Yu Wanyue closed her eyes, then suddenly opened them again, her voice clear and bright, a sound she hadn't heard in years:

That's enough.

Yu Xiaoran's curses suddenly changed tone, carrying a chilling coldness. "Yu Wanyue! You dare... Don't... Don't believe him! You and I are of the same race, believe me! I can save you!"

But at this moment, Yu Wanyue could no longer hear his voice:

What do you want me to do?

"Reports of the Six Great Demon Clans hunting the Golden Peng Clan have already spread to the Eastern Seas." The young man gazed at the snake-shaped totem on the stone wall, the candlelight casting a golden edge on his profile. "Therefore, the Six Great Demon Clans need a witness... who can prove their actions are justified. You, knowing the Golden Peng Clan's many dealings, are the best candidate. And my snake clan also doesn't want to be subject to excessive speculation, so we also need a witness."

You Su's ultimate goal was to convince the Six Great Demon Clans that the Golden Peng Clan's ambitions against the Snake clan were entirely their own fault, and to make the Snake clan the victim of "forced counterattack" in the upcoming battle for the sacred mountain.

"Is that all?" Yu Wanyue Golden Peng Clan, so she could naturally guess that.

Upon hearing this, You Su smiled in surprise, "It seems Elder Wan Yue has a grand plan. Let me guess?"

Yu Wanyue agreed.

"The Golden Peng Clan is a great and powerful clan. Its main branch resides in the Divine Mountain, while its various branches live in the ancestral lands and are under the control of the main branch. Elder Wanyue entered the main branch of the Divine Mountain full of hope, but she never expected that it would be so different from the place of honor she had imagined. Her years of struggle and hard work were not just for herself. Now that the Six Great Demon Clans have attacked the main branch, this is your golden opportunity."

Yu Wanyue's face brightened; she didn't deny the boy's words, but instead offered another reason:

"What the Six Great Demon Clans want is the Golden Peng Clan's resources on the sacred mountain; the Golden Roc ancestral land, this meager piece of meat, is nothing to them. However, they will certainly be wary of retaliation from the Golden Roc ancestral land, and I will protect them. The actions of the Golden Peng Main Family have nothing to do with the ancestral land; they are innocent. In return, I will also help you eliminate the ancestral land's hatred towards the snake clan."

"Yu Wanyue! Do you even know what you're saying?!" Yu Xiaoran's curses exploded in the Serpent Ancestor Hall, seemingly shattering the bronze candlesticks on the dome. "Yu Wanyue! You ungrateful wretch! The Peng Clan gave you cultivation and status, yet you harbored treacherous intentions, colluding with outsiders to turn against your own clan! You're nothing but a despicable traitor—!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the golden wings on her back began to tremble uncontrollably, and golden-red blood beads seeped from every feather. Yu Wanyue's face turned pale instantly, and she tried to cover the Demon Core in her lower abdomen but could not.

"See that!" Yu Xiaoran laughed maniacally, blood splattering from the corner of his mouth. "You were born a dog of the Golden Peng Clan, and you'll die a ghost of the Golden Peng Clan! What freedom, what destiny? You couldn't even protect your own Demon Core!"

Yu Wanyue clenched her fists tightly, her dark green robes soaked with cold sweat.

She ignored Yu Xiaoran's revenge, instead looking down at You Su, her eyes gleaming with a broken light beneath her bloodstained eyelashes, yet her voice remained unusually calm:

"Young Master You, shouldn't you... be a little wary of this 'traitor within our own ranks'?"

Hehehe