Fools

In the long silence, Huai Shi stared eye to eye with the skeleton happily soaking in the poison pool. Neither seemed to understand why the other was being so strange, and they faced each other wordlessly.

Huai Shi finally coughed dryly, breaking the silence as he tentatively asked:

"...Hey, why did you go down there without saying anything?"

"Huh?"

The skeleton froze for a moment, as though it had finally understood something. It looked utterly incredulous.

"You're so stingy, Agou!"

It widened its hollow eye sockets and accused him in total wounded indignation. "I've treated you to so much, and you can't even bear to let me drink this little bit!"

Huai Shi nearly spat blood. His head began to ache.

Were they even talking about the same damn thing?

He felt completely miserable.

"Aren't you afraid it's poisonous?"

"Poisonous? What's poisonous about it? Such good wine." The skeleton looked at the pool it was soaking in, unable to understand what Huai Shi meant. It lowered its head and took another two huge gulps. "Doesn't it taste perfectly authentic?"

In the silence, Huai Shi said nothing.

He simply stared at it in dumbfounded disbelief.

He watched the wine leak through the gap beneath its jaw, as though it had undergone some miraculous refinement, emerging in threads of faint gold.

Like formaldehyde meeting bamboo charcoal, the Essence of Hell hidden within the Divine Wine slowly contracted. Stirred by the skeleton, it adhered to its frame, causing faint bluish patterns to emerge across the once-pure white bones and making it seem increasingly alive.

Huai Shi's eye twitched. He felt as though it had gone from being a corpse that had been dead for a long time to... something fresher?

"Wow, Agou! Look!"

The skeleton raised a hand and touched its skull, shouting