The cold wall of the entryway seeped through Su Wanqing's thin silk loungewear, but it was nowhere near as piercing as the soul-freezing terror in her heart. She slumped against it, her body trembling uncontrollably. Half of the face mask that had peeled off hung comically from her face, exposing one side of her deathly pale, bloodless features. Her dark jade eyes, once filled with sharpness and detachment, were now hollow and unfocused, as though all their light had been drained away, leaving behind only the bewildered ruins of a shattered understanding. They remained fixed on Ling Ye's battered cloth bag, which looked as though it might fall apart at any moment.
Inside... was a monster capable of destroying the world! The thought coiled around her heart like a cold venomous snake.
Ling Ye finally turned around leisurely, as if he had only just remembered that there was a terrified homeowner behind him. He glanced at Su Wanqing's paper-white face, then lowered his head to look at his own dripping-wet hemp robe and equally soaked ragged cloth bag. Finally, his gaze swept toward the torrential rain outside, still roaring as though the Milky Way had been overturned.
A silent sigh arose in his heart. On the first day of retirement, all I want is to find somewhere dry to lie down. How is that harder than finding a quiet reef in the Chaos Sea?
"Hey." Ling Ye's voice carried the lazy roughness of someone who had just woken up. It was not loud, yet it pierced through the deathly silence of the entryway like a needle, forcibly dragging Su Wanqing's scattered, terrified gaze back to his utterly ordinary face. "So... am I still allowed in?" He paused, then naturally glanced past Su Wanqing at the thick, incredibly soft-looking pure-white wool carpet in the luxurious foyer behind her. He added, in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested his demands were modest, "Or a towel would work too. My clothes are wet. They're kind of... sticky."
"Sticky..."
Su Wanqing's lips moved with difficulty, producing a dry syllable. Her mind was a complete mess: fear, absurdity, an instinctive craving for that strange tea fragrance, and this man's utterly incomprehensible "request"... All those emotions had been stirred together like paint in an overturned bucket. She instinctively wanted to refuse. She wanted to scream at him to get away, as far from her and this house as possible! Yet deep within her body, every cell was frantically yearning for that domineering yet nourishing aura from moments ago. That longing even overwhelmed the terror buried deep in her soul.
Her gaze involuntarily turned toward the opening in Ling Ye's cloth bag, trembling with a pleading quality even she could not understand. Inside was the unremarkable, crack-covered, dark Purple Clay Teapot.
Following her gaze, Ling Ye lowered his head, as if only now remembering that he had such a thing in his bag. He casually extended two fingers into the opening, moving as lightly as though he were pulling out a crumpled tissue.
"Oh, thirsty?" he said, sounding as though he were talking to himself, or perhaps responding to Su Wanqing's silent plea. His fingers hooked around the edge of the rough lid, and he applied a little force.
"Pop."
The faint sound was almost drowned out by the rain as the lid was lifted a crack.
This time, there was no violent eruption of that overwhelming, world-filling fragrance. Instead, a more restrained, richer tea fragrance, as warm and mellow as though it held the essence of countless eras, quietly streamed out through the gap like a trickling brook.
The fragrance was no longer domineering, but it was deeper. It carried a warmth that embraced all things, a vitality that nourished everything, and a clarity that washed away the dust of the soul. Without a sound, it spread through the entryway, quietly dispersing and smoothing away the suffocating pressure and terror left behind by the two horrifying objects, like snow melting beneath a spring breeze.
Su Wanqing felt a warm current rush in through her nostrils and instantly spread through her limbs and bones. Her body, stiff and cold from extreme fear and the damp chill, seemed to be immersed in a spring of life. Every pore released a sigh of comfort. Her exhaustion vanished, and her chaotic thoughts were washed clean by a clear spring, becoming clearer and calmer than ever before. The longing that came from the deepest part of her life was completely satisfied by the mellow tea fragrance, even bringing her a blissful, otherworldly comfort.
The scream about to burst from her throat was forcibly blocked by the warm current and transformed into a long, satisfied, trembling exhalation. Her body relaxed involuntarily. Though she still leaned against the wall, her tense muscles had softened, and the fear in her eyes had been replaced by immense comfort and a trace of bewilderment.
"..." She looked at Ling Ye and opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The image of this man and his ragged cloth bag had become even more contradictory and mysterious in her mind. On one hand, it contained terrifying weapons capable of destroying the world; on the other, he could casually produce celestial wine and divine nectar capable of healing the soul... The enormous contrast had completely robbed her of her ability to judge.
Ling Ye paid no attention to her thoughts. He casually pinched the tiny lid of the Purple Clay Teapot between two fingers and shook it, seemingly feeling the temperature of the tea inside. Then he raised his eyes, letting his gaze fall once more on Su Wanqing's deathly pale face, and his brow moved almost imperceptibly.
"Cold has entered your body, and your spirit is unstable." His voice remained indifferent, as though he were stating an objective fact. His gaze lingered on her face for a moment, as if it could see through her skin and into something deeper. "Tsk. The foundation of mortals in this generation is a little thin." His tone held a hint of barely perceptible disdain.
Before Su Wanqing could react to what he meant, Ling Ye casually waved the hand holding the cloth bag toward her, as lightly as if he were dusting something off.
There was no light, no sound, and no sign of any energy fluctuation.
Yet the instant he waved his hand, an extremely faint but indescribably pure warm current, mixed with that mellow tea fragrance, seemed to be precisely pushed forward by an invisible hand. It instantly crossed the few steps between them and silently sank into the center of Su Wanqing's brow!
"Mm!"
Su Wanqing felt an indescribably warm force surge into her mind, like the winter sun instantly dispelling all darkness and cold. The throbbing pain in her temples from the excessive fright eased at once. The lingering sensation of terror, as though her soul had been torn apart, receded like a tide, leaving behind only a warm comfort and a feeling of... wholeness she had never experienced before. She could even clearly "feel" a certain invisible "energy" within her body becoming gentle and fluid under the guidance of the warm current.
She instinctively raised a hand to cover her forehead, feeling that strange warmth as disbelief and shock filled her eyes. What kind of technique was this...?!
Ling Ye, however, looked as though he had merely brushed away an annoying fly. After finishing, his gaze returned to the half-open door and the pouring rain outside, as if seriously considering whether it would be easier to go in and wait for the rain to stop or simply find an eave to squat beneath.
At that moment, high above the city, above the thick rain clouds.
A high-resolution military satellite belonging to a top-secret department, codenamed "Sky Eye-7," was quietly adjusting its orbit and focus. Its powerful synthetic-aperture radar and infrared/spectral composite sensor array ignored the obstruction of the clouds and torrential rain. Like the cold eye of God, it precisely locked onto the brightly lit villa halfway up Yunqi Mountain below—Su Wanqing's home.
The satellite's powerful scanning beam pierced through the rain and silently enveloped the villa grounds. The villa's structure, heat-source distribution, and even the Ancient Orchid in the courtyard, which was blooming abnormally and emitting life radiation far beyond anything reasonable, were clearly captured, magnified, and analyzed as streams of data.
However, when the scanning beam touched the villa's entryway—
"Bzzzt—!!!"
A shrill alarm instantly rang out in the satellite ground control center! On every monitoring screen, the data streams representing the entryway abruptly turned into wildly flickering snowstorms of scrambled code!
"Report! High-intensity unknown energy-field interference has appeared in the target area! Optical imaging has failed! Infrared imaging has failed! Radar echo distortion rate: 99.8%! Energy reading... reading..." The technician in charge of monitoring stared at the energy curve, which was flickering wildly before shooting straight to the instrument's design limit and then overloading and fusing. His voice warped from extreme shock. "Unable to read! It exceeds the detection limit! Repeat! It exceeds the detection limit! Source of interference... suspected to be one of the two humanoid targets in the entryway! Precise lock-on impossible!"
The control center fell deathly silent, leaving only the shrill alarms and the heavy breathing of the personnel. On the satellite image, the small area representing the villa's entryway had become a bottomless black hole that devoured every detection signal.
The satellite commander's face turned ashen. He snatched up an encrypted communicator and rasped, "'Dragon Abyss' Command! This is 'Sky Eye'! The target's energy-field intensity is abnormal! Preliminary assessment... assessment indicates 'Planetary-level'! Repeat! Planetary-level energy reading! Source of interference unknown! Requesting further instructions!"
There was silence on the other end for several seconds before an even colder, more solemn voice came through. "Continue monitoring! Maintain the highest alert level! 'Dragon Tooth' has departed! Until the contact assessment is complete, no one is to approach within three kilometers of the target area! Absolutely no active probing of any kind! That is a direct order!"
"Understood!" The satellite commander's voice was dry, and cold sweat seeped across his forehead. He stared fixedly at the black void on the screen, representing the unknown and the terrifying, while his heart pounded wildly.
Planetary-level... This was no longer some foreign object... This was a walking humanoid disaster!
And in the entryway of the villa on Yunqi Mountain.
Ling Ye seemed to sense something and slightly raised his head. His gaze appeared to pierce through the heavy roof and layers of rain clouds before glancing at the "little toy" in the cold orbit above. He curled his lips, showing a hint of irritation at being disturbed.
"Tsk. Noisy."
Before you continue