Scales

"Ah!!!"

With a scream, the bathing tub exploded, water splashing everywhere, and Xiao Fan's vision went black!

When he came to again, he was standing stark naked in his room, with splintered fragments of the bathing tub strewn haphazardly across the floor...

"Second Young Master! Second Young Master, what happened?!" Aunt Zhang and the maid Xiao Cui cried out from outside.

The dark clouds beyond the window remained, and the glowing white sky was still intact. Everything was as usual!

He looked again at the system's illusory text:

[Calamity Poison Value: 43/100]

This was the Calamity Poison Value from after today's incident at the city gate. 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 Young Master! He isn't answering the door!"

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

"Mother, Aunt Zhang, move aside. I'll break it down!"

The whole household quickly gathered before the door, descending into utter chaos...

Only then did Xiao Fan remember that he was not wearing clothes, and the household was full of women. If his older sister broke in, would that not be instant social death?!

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

Xiao Jinlan already had her leg raised, ready to kick the door, but she abruptly stopped. "You're really all right?"

"What could possibly be wrong with me? Everyone, disperse... Stop crowding around my door." Xiao Fan hurriedly circulated his qi, evaporating the moisture from his body as he searched everywhere for clothes.

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

At that moment, his mother's imagination suddenly ran wild. "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 you all—"

Before he could finish, his mother had already imagined the entire story of her precious son dying tragically at a villain's hands. "It must be that... My son is in danger! Lan'er, break the door!"

Bang!!!

Everyone charged inside and found the room in complete disarray. The bathing tub had shattered, and water had splashed everywhere...

Then they looked at the bedraggled Xiao Fan. His clothes were in disarray, and he had even put his trousers 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 shouted helplessly, furious to death.

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

After everyone left, Xiao Fan angrily shut the door and let out a long breath. "Looks like the bath was too comfortable. I accidentally fell asleep and had a nightm—"

Before he could finish the word, 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 instant he touched it, crack!

It shattered...

The glowing white jade pendant, perfectly fine just moments ago, had crumbled into scraps.

"Could something have happened to Ji Xuanyuan?!"

Xiao Fan hurriedly put his trousers on properly, threw on an outer robe, and prepared to leave.

But just as he reached the door, he stopped. "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 it even cut at his hand...

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

"Whew... Calm down... calm down... My family cannot find out about this, or Mother will worry herself sick."

Xiao Fan sat down at the bedside and took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down.

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

[Calamity Poison Value: 43/100]

First of all, the Calamity Poison Value shown by the system should be correct... I do not feel any sign of the transcendent spiritual resonance in my body losing control because of Calamity Poison.

To be precise, aside from the golden scale on his chest, everything else about his body was perfectly normal.

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

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

Before he even exerted any force, a tearing pain came from where the scale was embedded backward.

The pain of an inverse scale... was truly invigorating.

It seemed this scale was not merely growing on the surface of his skin, but was embedded within his flesh and blood.

Xiao Fan decisively gave up on pulling out the scale. Leaving aside how agonizing it was, who knew whether pulling it out would bring some unforeseen consequence?

"I'll leave this scale alone for now. I'll deal with it after I figure out what happened."

He looked again at the shattered bathing tub on the floor... He should have shattered it with his qi. There was no problem there.

That meant the biggest problem at present was the glowing white jade pendant Ji Xuanyuan had given him.

First, he could rule out the possibility that Ji Xuanyuan had intended to harm him through the jade pendant. After all, having spent two months together, he had come to understand this innocent prince somewhat.

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

Most likely, because Xiao Fan had once used this jade pendant to save him, Ji Xuanyuan trusted him and simply let him keep it.

"The most crucial question is, was this jade pendant harming me... or... protecting me?"

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

Recalling that nightmare-like experience from earlier, he still felt lingering fear and goosebumps even now...

That moon resembling an eye should have been the true culprit behind all the strange changes.

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

The intensity was different, but the feeling was similar—the difference between mildly spicy and extra spicy...

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

Combined with the ancient legends surrounding Night Erosion and the vanished moon, the connection behind this was all but certain.

"Then here comes the question. Encountering Night Erosion at Golden Glow Mountain could be chalked up to my bad luck, but how could I still encounter it after returning to the capital?"

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

He nervously bit his thumb as bead-sized drops of sweat continuously seeped from his forehead.

"Could it be that when I encountered that calamity at Golden Glow Mountain, it was not because I was unlucky enough to run into Night Erosion... but because Night Erosion came looking for me?!"

At that thought, the air around him suddenly seemed much colder...

"Damn... no way... I'm only a Ninth-Rank Martial Artist! Heavens, you don't have to target me like this, do you?!"

Slap, slap, slap...

Xiao Fan slapped his cheeks. "Not thinking about it, 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 vast sacrificial platform, pure white flames burned fiercely.

Below the platform, a group of Sacred Fire Sect followers in crimson robes pressed their palms together toward the platform in prayer.

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

The next instant, a white-robed elder with the bearing of an immortal appeared within the circle, stirring up gusts of wind.

The newcomer was Qi Ziyue, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Celestial Observation, a third-rank Spirit Void Realm demigod of the art path!

"Fire Seed Sacred Land, may I ask why the Deputy Director has paid us a late-night visit?"

The speaker was a long-bearded elder dressed in crimson robes, except both his beard and hair were a fiery red.

This man was Chi Yu, the chief guardian of the Sacred Fire Sect's main altar. His transcendent path was unknown, and so was his rank...