Peering and Eeriness

"Zhuqing, I will treat you well, protect you, cherish you, and never let you suffer even the slightest harm... forever." Mu Qian said with a firm gaze, tenderly smoothing the hair that had been ruffled by the wind.

"Mm~" Zhu Zhuqing murmured in response; this was something she had never doubted.

Mu Qian had not expected Zhu Zhuqing to be so understanding.

Did she not want to know about his past?

Of course she did, but she simply didn't care. No matter what kind of history Mu Qian had, it didn't matter to her.

All she cared about was Mu Qian himself.

However...

Sigh, I originally wanted to tell Zhuqing about the Snow Maiden, but forget it. I'll find another opportunity later. For now... let nature take its course. Mu Qian shook his head bitterly.

Whether it was the Snow Maiden or Zhu Zhuqing, as long as it was someone he cared about, they were his reverse scale. He would risk his life... to protect them.

Passersby on the street were drawn to this dreamlike scene, some stopping to watch, others filled with envy.

Mu Qian and his companion didn't care at all; in their eyes, at this moment, there was only each other...

"Hm?"

Suddenly, Mu Qian let out a startled sound and looked up sharply toward the top of the clock tower ahead.

He had just sensed a prying gaze...

Beneath the clock tower on the other side, a golden silhouette let out a soft sigh of relief.

Separated by over a thousand meters, she had almost been discovered by him...

"How could there be no one?" Mu Qian said, his expression uncertain.

That gaze was different from the surrounding pedestrians; it carried a hint of scrutiny and assessment, mixed with a touch of struggle and unwillingness.

Mu Qian hadn't believed a person's gaze could be so complex before, but his spiritual power, which had transformed to the extreme after merging with the Amethyst Imperial Epiphyllum, told him that it truly existed, and it had been there just a moment ago.

"What's wrong?" Zhu Zhuqing noticed Mu Qian's anomaly and looked up to ask.

Mu Qian pondered blankly for a moment, then shook his head: "It's nothing. Zhuqing, let's go to the hotel from before and see if there are any vacant rooms left."

Zhu Zhuqing naturally wouldn't object; at this moment, she was immersed in a feeling of intense happiness.

Mu Qian had accepted her confession, and from now on, she was no longer someone without support.

Although Mu Qian had been her reliance before, without things being settled, she had always felt anxious and insecure.

After today, the inner depths of Zhu Zhuqing's heart had finally found that stable sanctuary.

The two naturally interlaced their fingers. Although the street ahead was the same, it felt much brighter than it had just moments ago.

The huge full moon in the sky was now merely their backdrop.

"Ah! Run! The monster is killing people!"

When Mu Qian and Zhu Zhuqing arrived near the central hotel in Martial Soul City, the crowd ahead suddenly became agitated.

"A-Mu... what's going on up ahead?" Zhu Zhuqing looked puzzled.

"A-Mu" was Mu Qian's nickname from his previous life; he felt it sounded more intimate, so he had intentionally let Zhu Zhuqing call him that.

Mu Qian did not answer. His spiritual power rippled slightly, spreading forward like ocean waves, passing through the panicked crowd without obstruction.

By the bright moonlight, Mu Qian quickly found the source of the chaos—the "monster" the people were talking about.

It was a man with an ordinary appearance. Judging by his clothing, he seemed to be a commoner within Martial Soul City.

But at this moment, the man seemed to have lost his mind, crazily biting the pedestrians around him.

The teeth in his mouth were bent outward in an unnatural way, like sharp blades. Saliva mixed with blood flowed incessantly, and a strong aura of death radiated from his body.

Even more eerie was that his eyes had turned completely pitch black, with not a trace of white to be found.

"Zhuqing, be careful, something is wrong." Mu Qian warned, shielding Zhu Zhuqing behind him.

"This is... what happened to that person?" As the crowd fled, Zhu Zhuqing also saw the scene ahead.

"I don't know. Looking at these pedestrians, that person must have suddenly mutated within the crowd; otherwise, the people wouldn't be so densely packed."

Mu Qian's furrowed brows deepened, his gaze filled with a faint gravity.

"Moreover, this aura... it feels somewhat familiar..."

He thought of the scene he had witnessed over a year ago, just after he had left the Far North, outside Guja City on the border of Star Luo.

Although the man's state was completely different from back then, the aura on his body was exactly the same as that strange energy that had appeared so suddenly!

There was no mistake. That incident was so shocking that even after a year, it remained vivid in his mind; Mu Qian couldn't have misidentified it!

And with the improvement of his spiritual power, Mu Qian's perception was much more intuitive.

It wasn't a simple evil attribute, but rather, a strange phenomenon that gathered all negative auras!

It was chillingly bizarre. Just recalling that scene made his whole body feel cold.

"Why?" A strong question surfaced in Mu Qian's heart.

He could not understand where this aura came from, or why it had to claim the lives of these commoners.

It had been a year, and in that time, he had never seen anything like what happened outside Guja City, so much so that these questions had almost faded from his memory.

Yet, what he witnessed today awakened these questions buried deep within his heart.

Not far away, those who had been bitten quickly exhibited almost the same symptoms, spreading with the terrifying speed of a zombie virus.

Mu Qian dared not continue to stand by and watch, otherwise, there was no guarantee that Martial Soul City, the number one city on the continent, would not suffer the same tragic fate as Guja City.

Even if this place possessed a significant number of powerful soul masters, the losses among the commoners would be extremely heavy by the time the trouble was finally resolved.

A cyan-gold sacred light radiated from Mu Qian's body, rapidly spreading in all directions.

Although he could not figure out the nature of that strange energy, nor what the trigger was, that did not prevent him from being able to solve the problem at hand.

The origin power of the Yinglong Martial Soul possessed the ability to restrain all strange and evil things; as they were enveloped by the cyan-gold light, those frenzied, mutated citizens quickly calmed down.

The madness in their expressions began to fade rapidly, and their eerie eyes gradually returned to normal, with the whites of their eyes reappearing.

It was just a pity that their twisted and deformed teeth seemed to be a permanent fixture, unable to return to their original state.

Mu Qian shook his head; this was not something he could decide.

"Let's go, Zhuqing. With something like this happening, people from Martial Soul Hall will come to handle it."

Fortunately, it was discovered in time, and the situation had not yet reached an irreversible point; if it had truly blown up, Mu Qian would not have had the ability to resolve it.

They were no longer needed here; it was better to head to the hotel and see if there were any vacant rooms...

Five days later.

It was another morning where he was woken up by the stuffiness; Mu Qian wiped the sweat from his forehead, got out of bed cautiously, and tucked the blanket in for the sleeping Zhuqing.

Ever since the two of them confirmed their relationship, Zhuqing had become increasingly clingy, refusing to fall asleep every night unless Mu Qian was holding her.

During this time, Mu Qian had not done anything indescribable, intending to wait until the girl grew up.