"Hiss..."
Lin Shisan's fingers clenched sharply around the shovel. Splinters from the handle pierced his palm, but he felt nothing.
He slowly turned around. Sunlight filtered through the branches and leaves of the old, crooked willow, falling on Zi Yuner's face.
Her deep-purple eye was unchanged, but her dark-red eye had opened fully. Its vertical pupil narrowed to a slit, a dark, blood-colored glow churning in its depths. There was no hint of a joke. She was serious.
Gai Jiuyou.
"What did you say? Say that again?"
Lin Shisan thrust the shovel into the ground, rushed up to Zi Yuner in a few long strides, and seized her collar.
Zi Yuner-or rather, Gai Jiuyou-swayed under his tug, but her lips spread into a grin.
That smile on Zi Yuner's delicate face was indescribably eerie, like a flower crawling with venomous snakes.
"I said the little girl is only asleep. She isn't completely dead. But if you really bury her underground, she will be."
Lin Shisan's breathing stopped abruptly.
His fingers trembled around her collar, his knuckles white. The valley was utterly silent. Even the few fine-scaled fish stopped swishing their tails, and the pool lay motionless. Wind poured through the valley entrance, making the old wind chimes beneath the eaves ring once before falling silent again.
"You..." Lin Shisan's throat tightened. Only after a long while did he squeeze out a few words. "You're saying Senior Sister Mu can still live?"
Gai Jiuyou gave a cold laugh.
The laughter rolled out of Zi Yuner's throat, carrying the weathered weight of countless trials, like a crack opening in ice frozen for eternity.
"You dark-skinned boy, have you forgotten who I am?" Gai Jiuyou's dark-red vertical pupil contracted slightly as she stared into Lin Shisan's eyes, speaking each word distinctly. "I am