Young Miss

Lu Feng's face turned abnormally pale. His legs began to ache and go numb, leaving him barely able to stand. His eyes could no longer make out his surroundings, and everything became utterly blurred.

Lu Feng took an arrow from the Kirin Ring and dragged its sharp arrowhead across his thigh.

The pain cleared Lu Feng's mind somewhat. A flash of purple light suddenly passed through his eyes, and in his daze, he was shocked to discover that he was no longer within the sacrificial platform. In its place stretched a sea of flames, sparks scattering everywhere as the sounds of slaughter rang without end.

When he came back to his senses, Lu Feng realized he was standing precisely where he had emerged from the Teleportation Array in Exquisite Valley. And the distant sea of fire and sounds of killing...

It was Worryfree Village!

Lu Feng's heart filled with intense unease and fear as he raced toward Worryfree Village. Even though he pushed his movement technique to its fastest speed, he still felt far too slow. The worry and ominous feeling in his heart continued to grow.

"Brother Huo Gen..."

"Huo Yu, Aunt Bai Ji..."

"Grandpa Mu Tong, Uncle Valerian, Aunt Weeping Fig, Hibiscus..."

Worryfree Village was now littered with corpses. Flames filled the sky, and not a single villager had escaped disaster.

Like a madman, Lu Feng lunged toward Huo Gen's corpse lying in the distance. He fell to his knees beside it, his eyes bloodshot and his expression filled with grief and rage. He cried out name after name, but no one answered, and no one could ever speak again.

His chest suddenly ached terribly. Lu Feng lowered his head, clutching his chest in agony, when an arrow silently shot from behind him. It entered through his back and pierced out through his chest, completely spearing through his heart. Even the hand pressing against his chest was punctured with a bloody hole.

Lu Feng let out a muffled cry. Before he could turn around, he collapsed.

Azure Dragon Town, Jiang Manor.

It was a remote little town in the eastern region of Profound Heaven Continent, separated from the Teleportation Array's landing site in Exquisite Valley by only one mountain peak. Jiang Manor was one of the foremost wealthy households in Azure Dragon Town.

At that moment, inside an inconspicuous side room in the rear courtyard of Jiang Manor.

"Young Miss, what kind of person did you bring back? He's been unconscious for a full day and night," a woman said worriedly.

The woman was simply and cleanly dressed, looking like the girl next door and carrying a gentle, graceful air. The person she was questioning was Jiang Manor's Young Miss, Jiang Ruoyun.

Jiang Ruoyun stood to one side in a plain, long dress. Her beautiful hair fell naturally over her shoulders, and her clear eyes blinked like autumn waters. She had a delicate little nose and smooth skin like creamy snow. She looked like an innocent girl of seventeen or eighteen, yet possessed a wonderfully enchanting figure.

Jiang Ruoyun let out a sweet laugh and pointed at the man lying motionless on the bed. "What are you afraid of? The Contract Spirit Array has already been set. If he dares to act recklessly after waking up, I can kill him with the lift of a finger."

Jiang Ruoyun spoke playfully, her voice as lively and adorable as an oriole in spring. There was a trace of willful arrogance in her words, giving her a clever sort of beauty.

The man lying on the warm bed in the young lady's chamber was none other than Lu Feng. At that moment, he looked very peaceful, quiet as a sleeping baby.

Jiang Ruoyun stared blankly at the unconscious Lu Feng. Three days ago, while out training, she had encountered Lu Feng covered in wounds and brought him back to treat him. Yet she knew nothing at all about his origins or character. To be safe, she had no choice but to secretly set up the Contract Spirit Array in case something went wrong.

"Hm?" The maid beside Jiang Ruoyun gave a surprised cry, then smiled. "Young Miss, you're staring at him like that... could it be you've taken a fancy to him?"

At those words, a blush flashed across Jiang Ruoyun's delicate face, vanishing in an instant. Then she smiled. "Xiao Rou, you're getting bolder and bolder. You actually dare to tease me now."

After saying that, Jiang Ruoyun recalled how she had indeed been staring blankly at Lu Feng just now, and she could not help feeling a little embarrassed.

"Young Miss, look! He seems to be waking up," Xiao Rou exclaimed softly.

Jiang Ruoyun looked toward Lu Feng. His brows were faintly furrowed, his fingertips trembled, and he slowly opened his eyes.

Lu Feng's first reaction upon waking was not to the unfamiliar surroundings, but to the waves of fragrance drifting beneath his nose. It was as refreshing and pleasant as a pure lotus after rain.

Only then did he notice the two women beside him and the unfamiliar room.

Lu Feng checked himself. His Tail Ring and Kirin Ring were still there, but his original clothes had been replaced. Looking at the two women, he was just about to ask—

Seeing this, Jiang Ruoyun seemed to guess what he was thinking and said coquettishly, "The servants took them off and washed them for you. Otherwise, with your body covered in blood and filth, I would never have let you lie on my bed."

"Covered in blood?" Lu Feng caught the key point in Jiang Ruoyun's words. Recalling everything before he had blacked out, why had he suddenly appeared in Worryfree Village when he had clearly been trapped on the sacrificial platform? Why was he alive and here now when an arrow had clearly pierced through his heart?

Wait, there was no arrow wound on his chest?

There was no pain from the arrowhead cutting his leg either. What was going on?

Lu Feng turned onto his side and asked doubtfully, "Did you save me?"

Jiang Ruoyun glanced at Lu Feng, took out a clean set of clothes, and handed them to him. "Who are you? Why did you appear alone beneath that barren mountain, covered in wounds from head to toe?"

"Barren mountain?" Lu Feng was startled. His last memory had clearly stopped at Worryfree Village. How had it become a barren mountain?

"It's beneath that mountain peak outside Azure Dragon Town. The miasma there is so thick. What were you doing there?" Jiang Ruoyun looked at Lu Feng in utter confusion.

"What mountain peak? What miasma? Wasn't that Worryfree Village?" Lu Feng looked bewildered. If not for Jiang Ruoyun's serious expression, which did not seem feigned at all, he would truly have thought she was playing a trick on him.

Now it was Jiang Ruoyun's turn to be surprised. She unconsciously backed away two steps and cried out with some fear, "Are you a human or a ghost? Worryfree Village disappeared hundreds of years ago."

"Hundreds of years ago? What is going on?" Jiang Ruoyun's words gave Lu Feng a fright. He secretly pondered for a long while before asking, "What year is it now?"

Jiang Ruoyun looked Lu Feng over strangely before answering, "The Profound Heaven Calendar, Year 9979 of the Seven Calamities."

"The time is right. Then where did things go wrong?" Turbulent waves rose in Lu Feng's heart. If Worryfree Village truly belonged to hundreds of years ago, as Jiang Ruoyun said, then how could he...

"A village from hundreds of years ago? How would a little girl like you know?" Lu Feng looked at Jiang Ruoyun skeptically.

"Little? I had my coming-of-age ceremony last month," Jiang Ruoyun said unhappily. When she mentioned the coming-of-age ceremony, a trace of displeasure appeared between her brows.

"Worryfree Village is a famous ghost village within a hundred miles of here. Everyone knows about it. Legend says that hundreds of years ago, Worryfree Village vanished overnight. The villagers all turned to ashes and scattered like smoke, and not long afterward, the village became shrouded in miasma. No living person dared approach it." Jiang Ruoyun told him everything she knew.

Seeing Jiang Ruoyun speak with increasing conviction, as though recounting history itself, Lu Feng suddenly began to doubt whether the past few months had truly existed.

Huo Gen, Huo Niu, Huo Yu, and the others had all been so real. Why, then, were they people who had existed hundreds of years ago?

Lu Feng could not make sense of it no matter how hard he thought. He secretly resolved that he had to go there again and clear up the doubts in his heart.

Xiao Rou, standing to one side, watched Lu Feng keep asking question after question and said unhappily, "You're really rude. Young Miss saved you, yet you haven't even said thank you."

"My apologies. I was negligent," Lu Feng said awkwardly, offering his thanks.

A smile curled across Jiang Ruoyun's lips. Looking at the somewhat dazed Lu Feng, she teased, "Aren't you going to ask where you are now, or who we are?"

Lu Feng smiled awkwardly again, then followed her lead. "May I ask where this is, and who you two are?"

As Lu Feng looked at the woman before him, he found that she seemed somewhat different from others. While speaking with her, he felt no unfamiliarity at all. Their conversation flowed naturally, and deep within his heart, he even vaguely felt an instinctive desire to protect her.

Jiang Ruoyun said calmly, "This is Jiang Manor in Azure Dragon Town. My name is Jiang Ruoyun, and this is Xiao Rou."

Lu Feng watched Jiang Ruoyun blink her bright, watery eyes at him, unable to tell what she was looking at.

Jiang Ruoyun looked at Lu Feng with a half-smile. "Can't you feel that there's some connection between us?"

Hearing that, Lu Feng instantly thought of something. He immediately sensed his own condition, and before long, he discovered something unusual.

Within his life soul sea, there was now the silhouette of another person. That figure was unmistakably the woman before him. Moreover, Lu Feng discovered a bewitching red mark in the center of his life soul's forehead. Looking closely, he found that it was a crudely scrawled character: "Yun."

"Contract Spirit Array?"

Those four words surfaced in Lu Feng's mind. This change left him speechless. Looking at Jiang Ruoyun, he could not tell whether his feelings were good or ill. No wonder the urge to protect her had arisen within him.

Jiang Ruoyun wore a "kind" smile. "Look, I'm just a weak woman who has only recently come of age. Who knows whether you're a bad person? I had the Contract Spirit Array carved on you for my own safety. You can understand that, right? So you can't blame me."

As she spoke, Jiang Ruoyun actually puffed out her little cheeks, looking as though she were the one who had been wronged. This left Lu Feng somewhat helpless.

And from her words, Lu Feng also confirmed the fact that a Contract Spirit Array had indeed been placed on him.

The Contract Spirit Array was an invisible restraint used to link two or more people together. The contract array on Lu Feng was a type of one-way contract. Major clans and powers often used it to bring untrusted disciples or slaves under their control. Once the Contract Spirit Array was formed, the life of the contracted person would be controlled by another.

To set up a Contract Spirit Array, one first needed to inscribe the contract formation in the outside world. It could be carved by oneself or by someone else; this did not affect the formation's use. The person forming the actual contract only needed to place their own essence blood into the Contract Spirit Array, then use the formation to merge it into another person's life soul.

And at that moment, the bewitching red mark on Lu Feng's life soul forehead was clearly Jiang Ruoyun's essence blood. In other words, Lu Feng's life was now in Jiang Ruoyun's hands. So long as she wished it, with but a single thought, she could shatter Lu Feng's life soul and extinguish his soul and body.