“Mu Sui.” In the darkness, someone was calling him, and accompanying the voice came pain like bones being torn from muscles.

Mu Sui lay on the chaotic ground. He opened his eyes to see a sky shrouded in gray mist, with glowing shadows hidden in the fog. The light was divine yet tinged with some darkness and mottled spots.

Pain continued spreading through Mu Sui’s body.

He looked down to see ice spikes stabbing down from above, piercing viciously into his flesh.

The scent of blood pervaded as crimson blood flowed. After the ice spikes pierced his flesh, they didn’t immediately withdraw but scraped against his bone marrow. The “creak, creak” sounds from inside his body made one’s teeth ache and body tremble.

Mu Sui made no sound.

However, sobbing could be heard faintly from the mist. They were crying, but even as they cried, they spoke through gritted teeth:

“Kill them.”

“Kill them.”

One voice after another of bone-deep hatred, accompanied by that teeth-aching sound, drilled into his bones and flesh, stitching his body back together.

“Mu Sui. Who are you?”

In this tormenting pain, another voice broke through the mist and reached him.

Mu Sui opened his mouth, wanting to answer, but the next moment he bit his lips tightly shut.

“Mu Sui, kill them!”

“Who are you?”

“They all owe you!”

“Have you remembered who you are?”

Two voices intertwined in Mu Sui’s mind. Ice spikes hammered into his body one after another, while the other voice turned the flat ground he lay on into a swamp.

Mu Sui felt himself being struck by ice spikes while simultaneously being swallowed by the muddy ground.

“Mu Sui…”

Mud submerged his entire body. He couldn’t struggle, only despairingly let the mud bury his face bit by bit, from his chin to his eyes to his mouth and nose…

He was completely sealed in the mud.

In suffocation, despair, bone-deep cold, and severe pain, Mu Sui used his last strength to reach out his hand.

In the darkness, in the chaos, this slightly raised hand was his final plea for help.

But how could someone like him be saved…

The strength supporting his hand slowly dissipated.

His palm faced downward, and it seemed about to sink into the mud along with his body.

At the next instant, with a light “snap,” another hand grasped his palm.

Warmth spread from his fingertips to his heart.

The moment this hand grabbed his, the mud trapping him seemed purified, becoming clear water.

He was at the bottom of the water, looking up to see Meng Ruji pulling him.

She was on the water’s surface, watching him, gritting her teeth and persisting, as if using all her strength to pull him up.

Mu Sui looked at her, moved in his heart, yet with more confusion—they were strangers who’d met by chance, barely acquainted after a few days together. Why was she always so dedicated to saving him?

Using such warm hands to save a person frozen to near death.

“You’re awake, so put in some effort!” A sentence, gasped out between heavy breaths, awakened Mu Sui from confusion to reality.

Mu Sui blinked, finally seeing clearly that there was no mist around, no mud, and no clear water either.

What there was: the lawless land’s eerie night, green moonlight, the “rumbling” noise all around… and… Meng Ruji’s pained, struggling, contorted face.

“Come on, climb up yourself!”

Mu Sui instantly became alert.

He quickly observed his surroundings. For some reason, he had fallen into a deep pit!?

The ground beneath his feet was bottomlessly deep, leading to unknown places. Soil around the sides kept sliding down, stones rolling into the depths without a sound heard even after a long time.

Meng Ruji was above, one hand gripping Mu Sui’s palm, the other holding onto a nearby tree. Half her body was already suspended over the deep pit, desperately holding on with all her might.

Mu Sui’s gaze swept around. With quick eyes and hands, he kicked a falling stone into the pit wall, then stepped on the stone with one foot, flipped upward, and pulled Meng Ruji, who was half-suspended outside, to safety.

Both immediately left the large pit and stood steadily to the side.

Rocks and soil were still continuously sliding into the deep pit.

Meng Ruji pulled Mu Sui several more steps away before finally breathing a sigh of relief and releasing him.

Mu Sui looked down at his now empty hand, then inconspicuously put his hands behind his back. He looked toward the deep pit ahead and calmly asked Meng Ruji: “What happened?”

Meng Ruji turned back to glance at Mu Sui, showing an expression of being at a loss for words: “Earlier… just after sunset… I used Mo Li’s true form to go deal with Luo Yingfeng.”

At the mention of Mo Li, Mu Sui’s expression soured.

Meng Ruji raised her hand and directly pushed up Mu Sui’s drooping mouth corners:

“Don’t rush to get angry. I know Mo Li used nightmare techniques to scheme against you earlier, and I didn’t stop it in time—that was my mistake. But rest assured, he didn’t get anything out of you.”

“Nightmare technique?”

Mu Sui realized that the voice he’d heard in his dream was Mo Li.

He wanted to extract information from him, to know whether he’d remembered his identity…

Mu Sui’s expression darkened as he asked Meng Ruji: “Where’s the nightmare demon?”

“Half an hour ago, I knew where he was. Now, I don’t.”

Mu Sui frowned.

Meng Ruji gestured, demonstrating for him. She pointed at the deep pit: “Just now, you were lying there. I was standing here, using my fingers to control techniques, directing Mo Li to deal with Luo Yingfeng.”

Mu Sui raised an eyebrow slightly, looking at Meng Ruji’s fingertips.

“I was sensing the trajectory of my spiritual energy. I had just used the stone to pierce Luo Yingfeng’s chest and stolen his three gold pieces, and was about to bring the stone back. Suddenly, you stood up.”

“I did?” Mu Sui was very surprised.

“Yes.” Meng Ruji pointed to her neck, her voice and demeanor already calm as if telling someone else’s story. “You said you were going to kill me.”

Mu Sui looked at the red marks on Meng Ruji’s neck:

“…”

“You strangled me for a while. Seeing you weren’t lucid, I figured you were under Mo Li’s nightmare technique and sleepwalking, so I wanted to wake you up.” Meng Ruji spoke flatly, emanating a sense of having given up on life. “Just as I was about to act, a rabbit suddenly sprang up from the ground.”

“…Rabbit?”

“Yes, rabbit.”

Mu Sui fell speechless.

Meng Ruji also remained silent, as if even she found it absurdly illogical when recounting these events.

After a pause, she continued: “The rabbit bit me.” Meng Ruji extended her hand for Mu Sui to see.

Mu Sui indeed saw two bloody holes bitten into the side of her palm—marks from rabbit front teeth.

Seeing this, Mu Sui began rubbing his forehead.

Meng Ruji continued her account:

“Then I flung the rabbit away and slapped you hard across the face.” Meng Ruji touched Mu Sui’s face.

Mu Sui did feel some pain.

“You were knocked to the ground by my slap, became quiet, and stopped moving. Then that rabbit burrowed underground beside you. I thought it had run away.” Meng Ruji pointed to the large pit on the ground. “I didn’t expect it to be digging a hole. It wanted to use this pit to take you away.”

Mu Sui turned to look at the large pit again.

Large and deep, pitch black, with sand and stones continuously falling in, no sound heard even after a long time.

“I don’t know if this rabbit wanted to save you or kill you.” Meng Ruji smiled without humor, pulling at her lips and speaking sarcastically. “Amazing, our little Sui. Some rabbit spirit from who knows where even wanted to sacrifice its life to save you. Just don’t know if it was sacrificing its own life or little Sui’s.”

“Little Sui” took a deep breath:

“So…”

“So I’m saying, don’t be so eager to get angry at Mo Li.” Meng Ruji said. “I was controlling him and had just seriously injured Luo Yingfeng and stolen money when you pinned me down. My technique was cut off, and the spiritual power controlling Mo Li was also severed. I don’t know if Mo Li’s life was cut short this time, but the three gold pieces I was about to obtain are gone.”

Meng Ruji stared at Mu Sui and smiled lightly: “You two each screwed the other once—consider it even. Just next time, could you not drag me into it?”

Don’t drag her into it!

And her money!

She and the money were both innocent!

After hearing this account, Mu Sui looked at the indignant Meng Ruji, but his gaze involuntarily fell on her palm that had been bitten by the rabbit.

He remembered how Meng Ruji had looked pulling him up just now.

The injury on her hand must have made the bleeding so severe because of her actions just then.

“Why?” Mu Sui heard himself ask.

This time, he couldn’t distinguish for a moment whether it was his subconscious as a life-sustaining object making him speak, or his subconscious as Mu Sui seeking the truth…

“Why did you pull me up?”

Hearing this, Meng Ruji laughed in anger:

“Then let me push you back down. The pit’s still there—you still have time to go with your rabbit… huh…”

Meng Ruji’s words suddenly changed tone. She gasped in shock, not for any other reason, but because of where she and Mu Sui were standing!

Suddenly!

Also became empty…

Another deep pit appeared.

Grass, trees, and soil, along with the caught-off-guard Meng Ruji and Mu Sui, who became calm again after initial shock, all fell together into the pitch-black abyss.

Meng Ruji only knew that in the final moment of falling, she grabbed Mu Sui’s arm, while Mu Sui pulled Meng Ruji into his embrace.

Chests close together, tightly pressed against each other, not a trace of the abyss’s cold wind blew between them.

Whose rabbit is so good at digging holes?