“Jiu’er.” Mu Mu watched the girl approach him. The look in this girl’s eyes was clearly wrong. Was she still under someone’s control?

Feng Jiu’er reached out and tugged at the corner of his robe.

Mu Mu lowered his eyes to her face. Her complexion had gone pale — yet over that pallor, a delicate blush had risen.

Shy and timid in equal measure. The sight of it made something stir in his throat, his thoughts beginning to wander against his will.

After breathing the floral scent in the room earlier, stepping outside and back had cleared his head considerably.

Now it was the dead of night. A man and a woman, alone. And her expression was like that…

“Jiu’er, come back to yourself. Look clearly at who is standing before you!”

He pressed his voice deliberately lower, cold and even. Whether to wake Feng Jiu’er from her trance, or to wake his own heart from the edge it was leaning toward, he could not say.

“Jiu’er, I am Mu Mu!”

“Mu Mu…” Jiu’er murmured the name softly and lifted her eyes to him.

Just as Mu Mu thought she might gradually come back to her senses, the girl suddenly curved her eyes into a smile and threw her arms around him. “I like you!”

Mu Mu’s heart lurched. His entire body went rigid in an instant.

Something was wrong with her. She was clearly not herself. And yet she was actively holding him, telling him she liked him…

No. It was because she wasn’t herself. It was the Heartless Gu at work.

And yet just now she had clearly called him Mu Mu. She had not mistaken him for the Ninth Prince.

But she had the Gu placed upon her. That was why she was acting like this…

And yet she… was holding him…

Mu Mu’s consciousness seemed to fracture in two. One half called for cool reason — restrain yourself. Don’t touch her.

The other half urged him on, again and again, pushing, encouraging — pull her in close…

“Mu Mu, Mu Mu…” Feng Jiu’er, as tractable as she had ever been, buried herself against his chest the moment her arms found him, her eyes and the corners of her lips full of smiling warmth.

“Mu Mu, Mu Mu…”

Her slender body pressed close against him. Every soft call of his name struck directly into the deepest place within him.

Mu Mu’s large hand came to rest on her shoulder. He wanted to hold her — and did not dare.

“Jiu’er, I am Mu Mu. Not the person you like. Come to your senses. Stop… doing this.”

That last shallow sigh seemed to rise from the deepest part of his throat — hoarse, and full of feeling.

“Mu Mu…” Jiu’er murmured on, her mind drifting in a haze, yet a voice inside her kept whispering without cease: she liked Mu Mu, she liked Mu Mu…

Finally, she tightened her arms around his lean and firm body and laughed softly. “I like Mu Mu! I want to be with Mu Mu!”

He felt his world change entirely in that moment.

The longing buried deepest within him surged without warning.

Passion found its opening — and once a dam breaks, there is no taking it back.

He had not intended it. Perhaps the drug in his body had not fully faded. Perhaps his mind had simply been clouded. Perhaps it was because… the feeling had run too deep…

The light curtain fell.

Behind it, two shadows tangled together.

The faint sounds of stirred emotion — even the many-years-cold Night Rakshasa, standing outside the door, felt a sudden unrest take hold of her heart.

“Palace Master, why don’t we return to rest first?” Elder Shi had followed at her side for many years, dedicating himself entirely to the affairs of the Night Underworld Palace. The matters of men and women — it was not that he held no desire for them. He had simply set those things aside for too many years.

Now two young people were entangled in this very room not far away. To claim there was not a single stir of longing in his heart — that would be a lie.

At the very least, there was still some remnant of bashfulness in him.

Night Rakshasa said nothing. She turned and walked away.

Elder Shi hurried after her, putting distance between himself and that atmosphere that had become far too charged.

It seemed the deed was done. The Palace Master could finally set her mind at rest.

“Ninth Imperial Uncle…”

Every shred of heat, every trace of warmth — all of it came to an abrupt halt with that one murmur: “Ninth Imperial Uncle.”

Mu Mu looked down at the girl lying soft and still beneath him. In that moment, it felt as though a gust of icy, biting cold had scoured straight across the sharpest point of his heart.

What was he doing? He had actually taken advantage of her while her mind was unguarded, nearly…

As the two who had been outside retreated further into the distance, the shadow clouding Feng Jiu’er’s eyes gradually dispersed. Clarity slowly returned to her gaze.

What had she been doing? Just now, she had nearly… with the Ninth Imperial Uncle… No! The man before her was not the Ninth Imperial Uncle at all!

In an instant, her eyes went cold. She shoved her palm outward.

The Bone-Softening Powder had lost more than half its effect by now. That palm landed squarely against Mu Mu’s chest, and a thread of blood slipped at once from the corner of his lips.

Under ordinary circumstances, Feng Jiu’er would have ached at the sight of that. But now — when she herself had nearly been… how could she afford to feel ache?

“Shameless!” Jiu’er’s heart burned with bitter pain. A slap came swinging across.

The crack of it rang out. He did not dodge, not even slightly. He only looked at her in silence.

Feng Jiu’er flipped herself off the bed in one motion and snatched her outer robe from wherever it had fallen, pulling it on.

Mu Mu made no move to stop her. He only watched as she finished dressing, stepped down from the bed, and walked swiftly toward the door.

Just as her fingertips were about to touch the door, his low, hoarse voice rose from behind her. “If you walk out there now, you could be put under their control at any moment. Staying here is the safest choice.”

Jiu’er halted mid-step. She turned and looked at him. Whatever affection had existed between them in the past was gone entirely. What remained now was only wariness and hatred.

“What have you all done to me?” The events of just now were still with her, and the memory of it was that she herself had gone to him willingly.

But that had absolutely not been her intent. She did not know why she had done such a thing at the time — yet she knew with perfect clarity that her consciousness had been under someone’s control.

Mu Mu sat at the edge of the bed, his robes disheveled, the imprint of Jiu’er’s palm still visible on his chest. The blood at the corner of his lips had not yet faded, and a faint trail of red still edged downward.

Yet he only looked at her. Not a trace of resentment. His gaze, though quiet, still held a small, lingering thread of warmth.

“The two of them have just left. They cannot have gone far. If you go out there now and Elder Shi notices you, he can control your consciousness at any moment, force you to do things you have no wish to do — just as he did a moment ago.”

The memory of everything that had just happened nearly pulled Feng Jiu’er into despair.

If there was still a chance she might fight her way free by force — but if even her consciousness could be taken from her, how would she ever escape?

What frightened her most now was the thought of what she might do, while under that control, that she would regret for the rest of her life. Just like what had nearly happened a moment ago…

She pressed her palm tight and looked at Mu Mu. She could not have said whether what she felt was hatred or something else entirely. Perhaps, also, despair.

Worry over her own circumstances. And toward him… despair.

That look in her eyes drove a sharp stab of pain through Mu Mu’s heart until even breathing was difficult.

In the end, they had still arrived at this point. The trust that had been lost — there was no taking it back now.