Yu Huaiting’s fingertips stirred slightly, and the invisible barrier that had shrouded the entire Yu residence shattered instantly.
He casually patted the dust off his hands and straightened up from the talisman formation.
“No energy left.”
Yu Huaiting summarized with regret. “But the goal’s already achieved.”
Fu Songcheng rose from the redwood grand chair, unhurried. “Let’s go. Time to collect the real spoils.”
Meanwhile, at the teahouse.
Lin Feng’s eyes snapped open, his pupils contracting sharply.
The teacup before him had long gone cold; a few withered yellow tea leaves floated on the surface.
Chen Yu also snapped back to his senses at that moment, his expression extremely ugly.
“We’ve been played.” Lin Feng’s voice was cold enough to drip ice.
Chen Yu clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white.
“The real clue is in that side room! They used our actions in the illusion to spy out real information!”
Lin Feng wasted no words. “To the Yu residence!”
The side room.
Yu Huaiting kicked the wooden door open. For the first time, sunlight shone into this moldy, gloomy side room.
Fu Songcheng walked straight to the bookshelf.
At the very bottom shelf, he found that New Youth.
He reached out and pulled the book free, giving it a light shake with his fingertips.
An envelope covered in dried blood slid out from between the pages, falling into his palm.
Fu Songcheng opened the envelope and unfolded that thin sheet of letter paper. Yu Huaiting leaned in, resting against Fu Songcheng to look over his shoulder.
The handwriting on the letter was delicate and elegant, yet carried a heart-stopping despair and resolve.
It was densely covered with the crimes of the Fu family’s collusion with the warlords:
“Winter, Year 12 of the Republic: The Fu family, under the guise of a trading company, smuggled munitions into the city, causing the collapse of the southern defense line and the deaths of over several thousand civilians.”
“Spring, Year 14 of the Republic: Marshal Zhang embezzled supplies and military pay. Starvation everywhere; people traded their children to eat.”
…
“We of this generation stand empty-handed, with nothing but hot blood. I have gathered ironclad evidence here; I beg you, brother, to make it public on my behalf. Even at the cost of being ground to dust, these parasites of the nation must be exposed to the world. My life is as a blade of grass—death is no loss—but the truth must not be buried.”
Every word wept blood; every sentence was heroic and tragic.
Yu Huaiting felt like joking. “If this letter sees the light of day, the Fu family’s nine clans wouldn’t be enough to be chopped.”
Fu Songcheng calmly folded the letter paper and held it between his fingers.
“The problem now is that this letter has become the key to deciding victory.”
He turned to look at Yu Huaiting. “If I destroy this letter, then as the Fu young miss, having removed the hidden threat, I’d win. But this letter is what your old lover bought with her life.”
“If the letter’s destroyed, I’m not sure whether your mission would fail—after all, we’re still not certain we’re in the same faction.”
Hearing this, Yu Huaiting nudged Fu Songcheng, satisfied. “Brother Fu worried about me? Can’t bear to let me lose?”
“I won’t let myself lose either.”
Fu Songcheng looked at him, his gaze firm.
“Either way, we live together or die together.”
Just then, hurried footsteps came from outside the door.
Lin Feng, with Chen Yu, charged into the Yu residence and blocked the side room doorway dead.
Lin Feng’s gaze instantly locked onto the letter in Fu Songcheng’s hand.
The system’s cold mechanical voice exploded in all four minds at once:
[Final settlement stage begins.]
[Current story fragment holdings: Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting: 2 fragments (unused); Lin Feng, Chen Yu: 1 fragment (used).]
[Both teams’ current love value made public:]
[Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting: 42%]
[Lin Feng, Chen Yu: 59%]
[Final instance rule: At the end of this round, one team will inevitably lose all love value and be judged a ‘Bitter Couple’; the other team’s love value will be filled to maximum and judged a ‘Lifelong Couple.’]
Lin Feng wasted no words.
The instant the system notification’s last syllable fell, his entire body—like a leopard thoroughly enraged—exploded forward.
Immediately after, a fierce silver-white arc of blade light drove straight at Yu Huaiting.
Clang—!!
The deafening clash of metal and stone exploded in the cramped side room, the massive shockwave sending the surrounding broken wooden furniture flying.
Yu Huaiting’s greatsword was precisely horizontal before him.
The long saber struck the greatsword’s ridge with a grating screech.
“Come on! I’ve wanted to hack you to death since the first time I saw you.”
Yu Huaiting raised an eyebrow and surged power into his wrist.
He knocked Lin Feng’s long saber aside.
Lin Feng used the force to flip through the air, his blade slashing at Yu Huaiting’s lower body.
Yet Yu Huaiting handled it with ease.
Though the greatsword was slower than a saber, in his hands it seemed to have a life of its own—every block landed with perfect precision, dull impacts ringing without end.
One fast, one heavy—for a time they fought to a standstill, blades and shadows slicing the entire side room to pieces.
But this was no duel between gentlemen.
Just as Lin Feng’s blade momentum was deflected by Yu Huaiting once more, Fu Songcheng, at the side, moved.
He’d just been trying to store the letter in his system backpack, but it had failed—he could only tuck the letter inside his coat and throw himself back into the fight.
Fu Songcheng held his dagger and stabbed at Lin Feng from behind. Lin Feng hurriedly dodged and turned; Fu Songcheng’s blade grazed his arm.
Bang!
Yu Huaiting seized the moment—a strike with the flat of his blade, slamming viciously into Lin Feng’s flank.
Lin Feng let out a muffled grunt and was sent flying back, crashing heavily against the dust-covered wall.
Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting coordinated flawlessly—one controlling, one attacking—and within seconds presented a one-sided suppression.
“Have you forgotten something?”
Chen Yu, who’d been standing at the door with no presence at all, voluntarily manifested.
On his originally delicate face now crawled eerie black patterns, his pupils entirely black without a trace of white.
“This is where the Lin young miss died, after all.”
Chen Yu’s voice seemed to carry some soul-piercing magic.
As his words fell, the temperature in the side room plummeted to freezing.
The moldy, gloomy room began to distort. Thick, viscous dark red blood seeped from the walls, and countless miserable wails rose from beneath the floor.
The resentment of those thousands of civilians and starved dead mentioned in the letter—killed by the munitions smuggling and embezzled grain—seemed to be thoroughly awakened by Chen Yu in this moment.
Under Chen Yu’s control, this vast resentment transformed into countless pitch-black chains of grievance, lunging frantically at Fu Songcheng from all directions like venomous snakes.
“Watch out!”
Yu Huaiting frowned and blocked with his greatsword.
Yet the stirred resentment was too heavy. The black chains lashed against the greatsword, numbing Yu Huaiting’s hands.
Yu Huaiting swung his greatsword to sever several approaching chains, but the chains seemed endless—cut one, and two more grew.
Ghost qi ravaged the room.
A wisp of black qi grazed Yu Huaiting’s arm, instantly tearing open a gash deep enough to show bone; Fu Songcheng’s cheek was also cut by the fierce yin wind, seeping bright red beads of blood.
The two together shared damage—and doubled it.
And Lin Feng got a moment to catch his breath.
Chen Yu was like the master of this ghost domain.
Just then, the cold mechanical voice exploded in Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting’s minds at once:
[Warning: Lethal threat detected.]
[The players currently hold two unused story fragments. Mortgage love value in exchange for an assault opportunity?]
Yu Huaiting swung his sword and looked at Fu Songcheng.
Fu Songcheng looked back at him. The instant their eyes met, they both knew each other’s answer.
No.
Even summoning an illusion formation drained Yu Huaiting’s essence—let alone what Chen Yu was doing.
Staring at Chen Yu’s soul body, Fu Songcheng reasoned: he couldn’t be without cost, stirring up the Lin young miss’s death resentment.
In fact, Chen Yu’s system panel was currently issuing warnings.
[Soul body being corroded…]
[Negative status increasing! Love value dropping!]
Yu Huaiting had violently cleared over twenty instances; slaughter and combat were long carved into his very bones.
Whether a burst of power or a war of attrition, he was the very best.
Lin Feng was already injured to begin with. Facing Yu Huaiting’s desperate, mad-dog fighting style—one that only grew more excited the longer he fought—he gradually felt overwhelmed.
His long saber’s blocks began to deform, the web of his hand split open, blood sliding down the hilt.
Fu Songcheng wasn’t idle either. He threw himself fully into blocking the chains’ attacks, doing his utmost to create openings for Yu Huaiting.
As long as they dragged it out until Chen Yu ran out of strength, they were sure to win!
Leave a Reply