Scales

"Ahhh!!!"

With a scream, the bathtub exploded, water spraying everywhere, and Xiao Fan's vision went black!

When he came to again, he was standing stark naked in his own room. Splintered chunks of the bathtub lay scattered haphazardly across the floor...

"Second Son! Second Son, what's wrong?!" Aunt Zhang and the maid Xiao Cui cried out from outside.

The black clouds beyond the window remained, and the luminous white canopy of the sky was still perfectly intact. Everything was as usual!

He looked again at the system's illusory text:

[Bane Poison Value: 43/100]

This was the Bane Poison value after the disturbance at the city gate today. It had not increased...

Xiao Fan was dumbfounded. He muttered, "What the... Just now... was that an illusion? Or... a nightmare?"

"Oh dear! Madam, come quickly! Something seems to have happened to Second Son! He won't answer no matter how we call!"

"Fan'er! What's wrong?! Don't scare your mother! Lan'er, hurry and break down the door!"

"Mother, Aunt Zhang, step aside. I'll break the door!"

Before long, the whole household had gathered outside the door, thrown into utter chaos...

Only then did Xiao Fan remember that he was not wearing any clothes. And everyone in the household was female—if his older sister kicked the door in, wouldn't he die of embarrassment on the spot?!

"Big Sis, stop! I'm bathing, and you're breaking down the door?!"

Xiao Jinlan had already raised her leg and was about to kick the door when she abruptly stopped. "Are you really all right?"

"What could possibly be wrong with me? Everyone, disperse... Don't crowd around outside my room." Xiao Fan hurriedly circulated his qi to steam the moisture off his body as he searched everywhere for clothes.

"If you're fine, why did you suddenly scream so loudly?" Xiao Jinlan was skeptical.

At that moment, his mother suddenly imagined the worst. "Could it be that a thief broke into the house... and took Fan'er hostage?!"

Xiao Fan was speechless. "No, I'm really fine. Don't—"

Before he could finish, his mother had already conjured up the entire scenario of her precious son dying tragically at the hands of a villain. "That must be it... My son is in danger! Lan'er, break the door!"

Crash!!!

Everyone charged inside and found the room in utter disarray. The bathtub had shattered, and water was splashed everywhere...

Then they looked at the bedraggled Xiao Fan. His clothes were in disarray, and he had even put his pants on backward.

"Get out!!!"

Ye Shu looked at the fragments on the floor, then at her son. "You're really all right?"

"Everyone out!" Xiao Fan was furious, yet helpless as he shouted.

"Oh, oh, oh... It's good that you're fine, good that you're fine. Hahaha... Honestly, you scared me to death."

Once everyone had left, Xiao Fan angrily shut the door and let out a long breath. "Looks like the bath was too comfortable. I must've accidentally fallen asleep and had a dream—"

Before he could finish the word "nightmare," he froze on the spot, staring blankly at the cracked, blackened life jade on the table!

"No way..."

He carefully picked up the jade pendant, but the moment he touched it—crack!

It shattered...

The originally flawless, luminous white jade pendant had crumbled into pieces just like that.

"Could something have happened to Ji Xuanyuan?!"

Xiao Fan hurriedly put his pants on properly, threw on an outer robe, and was about to head out.

But the moment he reached the door, he stopped again. "No... It's not that something happened to him... I'm afraid something happened to me!"

Trembling, he reached out and touched the left side of his chest. It felt hard, and even a little sharp against his hand...

He pulled open his collar. At the spot over his heart on the left side of his chest, a palm-sized golden scale had grown!

"Whew... Calm down... calm down... The family can't find out about this, or Mom will worry herself sick."

Xiao Fan sat down beside the bed, taking several deep breaths to steady himself.

He focused his thoughts and looked at the illusory text before him:

[Bane Poison Value: 43/100]

First of all, the Bane Poison value displayed by the system should be correct... I don't feel any sign of the Bane Poison within my transcendent spiritual essence going out of control.

To be precise, aside from the golden scale on my chest, everything else about me is perfectly normal.

"If I pull this scale off... then, rounding things up, wouldn't that mean everything is normal?"

With that thought, he was about to give it a try... Pain! Pain! Pain!

Before he had even exerted any force, a tearing pain came from where the scale had embedded itself in reverse.

The pain of a reverse scale... was truly exquisite.

It seemed this scale had not merely grown on the surface of his skin, but had embedded itself deep into his flesh.

Xiao Fan decisively gave up on trying to pull out the scales. Leaving aside the fact that it hurt like hell, who knew whether pulling them out would bring about some unforeseen consequences.

"Forget the scales for now. I'll deal with them once I figure out what's going on."

Then he looked at the shattered bathing tub on the floor... He must have blasted it apart with his aura. Nothing wrong there.

That made the white jade pendant Ji Xuanyuan had given him the most suspicious thing at the moment.

First of all, he could rule out the possibility that Ji Xuanyuan had intended to harm him through the pendant. After living together for two months, he had come to understand this naïve prince somewhat.

Ji Xuanyuan should have had no motive to do such a thing, nor any need to go through all these twists and turns to harm someone.

Most likely, it was simply because Xiao Fan had once used this jade pendant to save him. Out of trust, he had let Xiao Fan keep it.

"The biggest question is, is this jade pendant harming me... or... protecting me?"

Xiao Fan shifted his line of thought and felt that analyzing it from the angle of protection seemed more reasonable.

Thinking back to that nightmare-like experience, even now it still left him shaken to the core, his hair standing on end...

That moon that looked like an eye was probably the true culprit behind all the abnormalities.

"That feeling back then... it was like... the Night Erosion at Golden Glow Mountain! Or rather, Night Erosion ProMAX!"

The intensity was different, but the sensation was similar—the difference between mildly spicy and mouth-searing spicy...

From this, it was not hard to infer that if everything just now had not been a nightmare, then it was very likely some phenomenon that shared the same origin as Night Erosion.

Coupled with the ancient legends concerning Night Erosion, the vanished moon, and the like, the connection behind all this was as good as certain.

"Then here's the question. Running into Night Erosion at Golden Glow Mountain was one thing—I could chalk it up to my bad luck. But how could I run into it again after returning to the capital?"

Xiao Fan quickly thought of the most terrifying part of the whole matter.

He nervously bit his thumb as bead-sized drops of sweat kept seeping from his forehead.

"Is there a possibility that, after encountering that calamity at Golden Glow Mountain, it wasn't because I was unlucky enough to run into Night Erosion... but because Night Erosion came looking for me?!"

The moment that thought arose, the air around him seemed to turn much colder...

"Fuck... it can't be that bad, can it... I'm only a ninth-rank martial artist! Heavens, you wouldn't target me like this, would you?!"

Slap, slap, slap...

Xiao Fan slapped his cheeks. "I'm not thinking about it anymore, not thinking about it... If I keep thinking like this, I'll go insane."

Southern District of the capital, Sacred Fire Altar.

At the center of the broad sacrificial platform, pure white flames burned fiercely.

Below the platform, a crowd of Sacred Fire Sect disciples clad in crimson robes stood with palms pressed together, praying for blessings toward the altar.

Suddenly, a ring of purple light lit up on the ground, forming an array out of thin air!

The next instant, an elderly man in white robes with the bearing of an immortal flashed into view within the circle, stirring gusts of wind.

The newcomer was none other than Qi Ziyue, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Celestial Observation, a third-rank Spirit Void Realm demigod of the Dao arts!

"Fire Seed Sacred Land wonders what brings Deputy Director Qi here so late at night?"

The speaker was an elderly man with a long beard, dressed in crimson robes. Yet both his beard and hair were a fiery red.

This man was Chi Yu, Chief Protector of the Sacred Fire Sect's main altar. Transcendent path unknown, rank unknown...