The side room’s lock was a heavy brass-and-dark-iron lock.
Yu Huaiting let out a scoffing laugh. He didn’t even strike a proper stance—just casually spun the hilt half a turn, then swung fiercely!
Bang—crack!
The lock let out a wail beneath the greatsword’s blade, splitting clean in two and crashing onto the bluestone floor.
Yu Huaiting stepped forward. His defined fingers unceremoniously grabbed the seal, and with a rip, he tore it viciously into scraps.
Having cleared the way with practiced ease, he turned sideways and made an extremely exaggerated “after you” gesture to Fu Songcheng, his brows and eyes full of unrestrained arrogance.
Fu Songcheng gripped the dagger in a reverse hold and pushed open the heavy wooden door.
Creak—
The wooden door ground against its rotting hinges, letting out a tooth-aching sound.
A thick smell—a mix of mustiness and some indescribable sweet-and-fishy odor—rushed at them, so damp it felt like it could be wrung out.
Fu Songcheng had just stepped over the threshold when Yu Huaiting squeezed in right after him.
Before the two could adjust to the side room’s darkness, a huge bang suddenly came from behind them!
That wooden door, which had just been difficult to open due to rot, slammed shut as if shoved by an invisible giant hand.
The door panel cut off the last bit of moonlight outside; the entire side room plunged into pitch darkness.
Yu Huaiting didn’t make a sound, but the instant the door shut, his tall frame quietly pressed closer to Fu Songcheng.
The distance between them was instantly closed. Through the thin fabric, Fu Songcheng could even feel the scorching body heat of the other coming from behind, and Yu Huaiting’s deliberately lowered yet still steady, powerful breathing.
“Brother Fu,” Yu Huaiting’s voice sounded in the darkness, “this atmosphere is a bit creepy. I’m afraid of the dark—you have to protect me.”
He said he was afraid, yet the hand gripping the greatsword was steady as a rock, and his body was already in a defensive posture ready to explode into violence at any moment.
Fu Songcheng was already immune to Yu Huaiting’s little tricks to seek attention from time to time.
But he didn’t mock him.
In this kind of environment, a companion’s body heat really was the best tranquilizer. Fu Songcheng turned his wrist slightly and, in the darkness, accurately caught Yu Huaiting’s free hand.
His fingertips were slightly cool as they hooked around Yu Huaiting’s warm palm, even tightening with a hint of reassurance.
Yu Huaiting’s breathing visibly paused for an instant.
He clearly hadn’t expected Fu Songcheng to respond this way. His calloused hand stiffened in Fu Songcheng’s palm for half a second, then immediately took the lead, gripping back tightly, fingers interlaced, so hard it was as if he wanted to knead Fu Songcheng’s bones into his own flesh and blood.
Hand in hand, the two groped their way forward through the thick darkness.
Clang!
Fu Songcheng’s toe suddenly kicked a hard wooden object.
An extremely piercing, dull sound exploded in the dead-silent room.
And in that very instant, Fu Songcheng felt Yu Huaiting’s warmth vanish from his palm.
The surrounding darkness instantly receded; the entire side room was bathed in red light.
“Cough—!”
A violent suffocation submerged Fu Songcheng completely like a tsunami.
He jerked his head up, his feet already off the ground. A rough hemp rope was clamped dead around his neck, the coarse fibers sinking deep into the fair flesh of his neck.
An illusion!
Almost instantly, Fu Songcheng’s calm mind reached the conclusion.
But he couldn’t control this body’s physiological reactions. His eyeballs ached and swelled from the blood congestion; the air in his lungs was squeezed out bit by bit.
Along with the suffocation came an extremely intense emotion that wasn’t his own.
Despair, grief and indignation, desolation, and a hatred deep as an abyss.
This emotion frantically eroded his reason. A shrill female voice wailed miserably in his mind: Why? Why force me like this? I won’t live anymore—even as a ghost I won’t let you off…
Tears rolled uncontrollably from his eyes—the illusion master’s grief.
Yet Fu Songcheng himself couldn’t resonate with that grief.
His nature was stubborn, carrying a venomous tit-for-tat in his very bones.
Whoever dared bully him—even if he died, he’d bite a bloody chunk of flesh from the other’s throat!
Forced? Wronged? Then kill back! Ending one’s life in such a cowardly, miserable way—he never would.
Fu Songcheng roared in his heart. His previously limp, dangling hand suddenly shot up and drew the dagger hidden in his sleeve.
A cold, clear gleam suddenly lit up in the blood-red illusion.
Clang—!
The dagger cleanly sliced through the taut hemp rope above.
Fu Songcheng crashed heavily to the ground, his knees striking the hard bluestone with a dull thud.
He clutched his neck, coughing violently, greedily drawing air into his lungs—yet his gaze was sharp enough to kill.
But before he could catch his breath, the scene around him distorted again.
Several thick black shadows peeled off the walls and lunged over like incorporeal phantoms, pinning Fu Songcheng’s limbs dead against the moldy wall.
“Let go!”
Fu Songcheng struggled violently. His strength was enormous—he actually kicked one of the shadows back half a step.
But there were too many shadows. They seemed to feel no pain as they suppressed Fu Songcheng’s movements.
Just then, a figure slowly walked out of the blood mist.
It was Old Master Yu.
Unlike the kind face he’d shown the Yu Young Master and Young Madam, he was no longer amiable. His face was grim as he held a pitch-black porcelain bowl filled with some unknown viscous liquid, advancing on Fu Songcheng step by step.
“For the sake of the Lin and Yu families, you’d best go obediently.”
Old Master Yu’s voice was like sandpaper scraping glass—extremely grating.
Fu Songcheng desperately turned his head aside, trying to dodge.
But a hand, icy to the bone, forcibly gripped his chin with enough force to nearly crush his jawbone.
Old Master Yu shoved the bowl of liquid brutally against Fu Songcheng’s lips, the foul stench rushing straight into his nostrils.
The cold, bitter liquid was forced down his throat.
Fu Songcheng clenched his teeth hard, wanting to spit it out, but the liquid seemed to have a life of its own, sliding down his esophagus.
Just as Fu Songcheng thought he was about to be judged dead in the illusion, the nauseating bitterness in his throat suddenly changed.
It became a sweetness carrying a faint, fresh herbal fragrance.
“Fu Songcheng! Wake up!”
A roar, anxious to the point of cracking, exploded by his ear, scattering all the gloom.
Fu Songcheng snapped his eyes open, his vision rapidly focusing.
The blood-red illusion was gone.
He was leaning against a broad, warm embrace.
Yu Huaiting was kneeling on one knee on the dust-covered floor, one arm holding him tightly, the other holding an emptied system recovery potion bottle pressed against his lips.
The side room was still dim, but Yu Huaiting had just used a system lighting item—a soft halo of light floated above them.
Just now in the illusion, Fu Songcheng had been gripped by the chin and force-fed medicine; in reality, it was Yu Huaiting who’d discovered that after kicking over the stool, Fu Songcheng had suddenly frozen stiff, then collapsed pale-faced. In desperation, Yu Huaiting had gripped his chin and forced a bottle of high-grade recovery potion down his throat.
The two sensations had overlapped strangely in that moment.
Cough cough…
Fu Songcheng turned his head aside, coughing out the potion that had choked his windpipe.
Yu Huaiting immediately tossed the empty bottle. “Fu Songcheng, how do you feel? What happened just now?”
He usually called him “Brother Fu” all sticky-like—only when he was truly panicked and desperate did he call him by his full name.
“I’m fine.” Fu Songcheng’s voice was still a little hoarse, but his tone had regained its calm. “It should have been triggered when I kicked over the stool just now—it activated an illusion.”
He leaned against Yu Huaiting’s embrace, not in a hurry to get up, but narrowed his eyes slightly, recalling everything he’d just experienced.
“A woman died in this side room.”
Yu Huaiting’s brows knitted tightly. He didn’t interrupt, only quietly adjusted his posture to let Fu Songcheng lean more comfortably.
“She was set up to look like a hanging—struggled down from it. Old Master Yu forced some kind of poison down her throat. That should be how she died.”
As Fu Songcheng’s words faded, a soft ding sounded.
Both their system panels popped up at the same time, the system notification sounding especially eerie in the empty side room.
[System Notification: Congratulations, Yu residence faction players Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting, on obtaining a story fragment!]
Following that was a special pop-up that made both of them pause slightly:
[New Faction Confrontation Mechanic Unlocked: Illusion Assault!]
[Rules Explanation: In the following faction confrontation, players may choose to mortgage a random proportion of the ‘love value’ between them as a foundation to construct and strengthen an exclusive illusion, launching an attack on the opposing faction (Chen Yu, Lin Feng).]
[If the assault succeeds, the instance is cleared.]
[If the assault fails: the mortgaged ‘love value’ is zeroed out!]
[Please note: once love value is zeroed out, the instance cannot be cleared.]
Fu Songcheng used the support to stand up from Yu Huaiting’s embrace. Though his neck still throbbed faintly, his back remained ramrod straight.
He straightened his collar, rumpled from the struggle, his cool gaze sweeping over the system panel floating in midair.
In Fu Songcheng’s dictionary, there had never been the word “lose out.”
Since Chen Yu and Lin Feng had schemed against them with items before, they had to pay the price.
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