Indeed, he couldn’t speak, as if struck by a silencing spell.
Yin Changli guessed that something had happened to his main body—something serious.
A consciousness separated from its body was like a flower fallen from a branch; it would wither quickly.
At the same time, it would be affected by the main body’s condition.
Thinking was now quite laborious for him, like someone drowsy and half-asleep.
When Xiang Haikui thought he had dead-fish eyes, it wasn’t intentional—he was genuinely sluggish. Seeing her testing him, he had played along to tease her.
A little laughter, a little joy, to gradually revive his stiff mind, so he could better convey important matters.
What exactly had his main body suffered recently? He wanted to ask, but couldn’t—if he asked, he wouldn’t be able to resist giving instructions.
Ah, he felt sorry for himself.
“Senior?” Xiang Haikui saw him put away his smile, even his naturally upturned mouth corners drooping, making her feel uneasy, not knowing what he planned next.
She tugged her arm, breaking free of his grip, and tiptoed backward. “Let’s quickly get to business. As you know, my comprehension is poor, so I need some time to process.”
Yin Changli didn’t respond, pressing his fingertip to his lips and shaking his head at her.
What was this, a game of charades?
Any other time might be fine, but Xiang Haikui’s mood was terrible now.
“Fine, speak when you’re ready.” She crouched down, one hand supporting her chin, the other drawing circles on the sea surface.
The seawater was sticky like clay, quite interesting.
Just as she finished drawing five rings, a silver-white boot stepped on them, trampling her masterpiece to nothing.
Yin Changli lifted a corner of his robe, slightly bending his left knee to crouch in front of her.
His thick hair spread on the ground, a few strands falling onto Xiang Haikui’s fingers. She tried to withdraw her hand, but unexpectedly, her wrist was grabbed again.
Yin Changli turned her slightly withered small hand over, palm facing up.
She instinctively curled her hand, but he smoothed it out.
Most sword cultivators had calluses on their hands. Even if they could remove them with potions, they kept them as badges of honor.
Xiang Haikui had them too, even before she began practicing sword cultivation.
Besides calluses, there were also many scars of varying depths.
Xiang Haikui frowned slightly but didn’t struggle. The last time someone had held her palm to look at it was a year ago, when she’d paid ten yuan for a fortune-telling under a bridge.
Yin Changli used his fingertip to write on her palm, as if dipping in magma for ink, very clearly: “What’s wrong?”
Her palm tickled as if brushed by a feather. Xiang Haikui thought she should be the one asking that—why had he suddenly switched to writing in the middle of their conversation?
“Nothing much, just suddenly feeling extremely tired and somewhat irritable.”
She had been holding her breath all this time, and today she finally let it out.
Yin Changli slowly wrote: “I know you’re tired, but you have no right to claim fatigue. Do you know why?”
Xiang Haikui pressed her lips together, and after a while answered: “Because I haven’t outrun fate yet.”
Yin Changli shook his head.
Xiang Haikui was confused: “Then why?”
Yin Changli wrote: “Look at the sea surface.”
Xiang Haikui lowered her head to look at her feet. The sea surface reflected her bun hairstyle and her face, thinned to the shape of a melon seed.
Yin Changli: “Can you see now?”
Xiang Haikui looked for a long time, completely baffled.
Yin Changli wrote: “Look at yourself—already plain in appearance, and when you wearily claim exhaustion, you become quite ugly.”
Xiang Haikui: …
Damn!
Just as expected, no ivory from a dog’s mouth!
The corners of Yin Changli’s lips curled upward with a silent smile reaching his eyes as he rubbed the flower bud on top of her head. For some reason, he couldn’t control his eyes, constantly wanting to glance at her hair.
Go away!
It was like petting an animal. Xiang Haikui irritably shook her head, shaking him off.
“Alright, let’s talk business.” Yin Changli, still smiling, continued writing on her palm. “Taking care of me is the first task. The second is that this jade slip isn’t an ordinary message slip—it stores many recordings of duels I watched when bored. You can come in and observe when you have nothing to do.”
With a wave of his sleeve, the sea surface suddenly surged with waves that solidified into scenes and figures—a group of spell cultivators engaged in a brawl.
Whoosh!
On the other side, seawater rose like a water dragon toward the sky, condensing into a steep mountain peak where two sword cultivators were competing with sword intent.
Splash!
Except for the area beneath their feet, water waves were exploding everywhere. The vast ocean inside the jade slip had now become a giant tactical sandbox.
She was extremely excited. Battles recorded by the boss would certainly be spectacular.
Except…
Among these images were also crabs fighting shrimp, cats chasing mice, and water drops wearing through stone. It was clear he had been bored when recording these.
“The third matter.”
Xiang Haikui was engrossed in watching her surroundings until Yin Changli placed a night-luminous pearl in her other hand, finally bringing her back to attention.
Yin Changli wrote: “My main body can self-repair, but it takes too long. Absorbing power from other demonic creatures can accelerate my recovery.”
“But I don’t consume just any demonic energy. When you encounter a demon you want to kill, test it with this spiritual pearl. If the pearl glows, it can serve as medicine for me.”
Xiang Haikui hurriedly agreed: “Understood.”
Speaking of which, what did she like most about the boss?
He would force her to do things, but never force her to act against her conscience.
For instance, if he were instructing Little Bai instead, he would surely say: “Take this pearl, and kill every demon that makes it glow.”
Yin Changli: “Also, these three arrows—keep them safe.”
Three spiritual arrows transformed into three jade hairpins, inserted diagonally into her bun.
Yin Changli wrote: “When you encounter an unsolvable problem, just pull out an arrow at random, carve your question on the arrowhead, and shoot it.”
Xiang Haikui was puzzled: “Shoot it anywhere?”
Yin Changli nodded slightly: “Don’t worry, when they fly out, no one will see them. The three arrows’ destinations are three Mountain-Sea Tribe powerhouses who were imprisoned at the same time as your master.”
Xiang Haikui was shocked. Her vocabulary was somewhat limited; she wasn’t quite sure what “powerhouse” meant, but now it seemed to mean “big shot.”
Yin Changli was both amused and exasperated: “Don’t get too excited. If they were truly useful, they wouldn’t have been imprisoned. They’re not much better than your master, whose head can make echoes for five thousand years with a single shout. They might give you some bad advice…”
Xiang Haikui: … “Then why should I contact them? To sabotage myself?”
Yin Changli: “Don’t be too disdainful. At least it gives you another option. Make do with what you have.”
Alright, having something was better than nothing. Mentioning her master made Xiang Haikui miss him: “Senior, do you have an arrow that can contact my master?”
Yin Changli shook his head and wrote: “The restrictions in the Myriad Bones Cave are the strongest among all the sealed grounds. My spiritual arrows cannot penetrate them.”
Xiang Haikui hung her head, somewhat disappointed.
Yin Changli wrote: “But Little Bai knows the way there. When my main body recovers about thirty percent and can control the palace, Little Bai can take you there.”
Xiang Haikui perked up again!
“Now, for the last matter I need to entrust to you, also the most important.”
Yin Changli’s expression gradually became serious, and Xiang Haikui grew serious along with him.
“Please tell me.”
“During this period, you must drive away all women who try to approach me.”
Xiang Haikui shuddered, thinking: you’re currently a holy monk, no woman wants to approach you—it’s you who’s constantly trying to seduce me!
She wanted to tell him, but he wouldn’t let her speak.
Yin Changli: “Normally, even after losing my memory, my tastes shouldn’t change, but…”
Han Qi had used his divided body to strike him, and the curse he cast would likely preserve his emotional acupoint while sealing the other spiritual acupoints.
Otherwise, even without memories, it wouldn’t be easy to make him romantically inclined.
Xiang Haikui began to understand—it was an intelligence-reducing attack.
Yin Changli corrected: “It’s not intelligence that’s reduced, but rational thinking.”
Xiang Haikui carefully tried to comprehend. The boss meant that spiritual beings were an interweaving of emotion and rationality. His enemy had sealed his rational thinking, leaving only his emotional thinking.
Moreover, some rationality remained at first, but over time, it would be increasingly suppressed by emotion.
The puppy boss was already frightening enough; would he become even more terrifying later?
Xiang Haikui could already imagine a not-too-distant future where the boss would be shedding tears while burying flowers.
“This matter deserves special attention,” he emphasized.
“Escaping from Xiang Tianqing is one thing, but will other women also affect you?” Xiang Haikui wanted to know this, as it determined how much effort she should put into this task. “Or do you simply dislike having women… humiliate you?”
Yin Changli lowered his eyes in thought, his finger tapping rhythmically on her palm.
Xiang Haikui didn’t interrupt him. With his brain’s processing speed, the time it took her to say another sentence might be enough for him to circle the Earth.
“The former Underworld Lord created a weapon.”
Fiery red characters appeared again on her palm. Xiang Haikui watched intently, afraid to miss a single word. “This weapon is like a firework—once lit, it will shoot up with a bang and blast a hole in the upper realm.”
Xiang Haikui’s eyes grew wider and wider. Was this real?
It sounded false.
But she sensed that the boss was merely using a metaphor.
“But the weapon wasn’t completed. The Emperor Lord of the upper realm discovered it, and the former Underworld Lord was also nearing the end of his lifespan, so he passed the weapon to me to continue its completion.”
“Now, the weapon is fully forged, but the time isn’t right. We must wait… Do you understand? The upper realm has gone to great lengths to capture me because they want to learn the weapon’s whereabouts from me and destroy it prematurely.”
Since this was a major secret, Xiang Haikui didn’t believe he would just reveal it like this, though the meaning was probably similar. She cautiously nodded.
Yin Changli smiled and wrote again: “All my relatives died in war, and because of my surrender, I was branded with the Mountain-Sea lowborn mark. The Mountain-Sea Tribe has long since removed me from their records. After the death of my only friend in this life, I am completely alone, with no weakness to be exploited…”
That’s why they devised countless schemes, intending to create a “hero succumbs to beauty” weakness for him.
Xiang Tianqing was Han Qi’s first choice, but she wasn’t the only option.
After this, they would certainly try to activate other romantic possibilities.
“I understand. I won’t let any woman approach you in the future.” Xiang Haikui swallowed. “But Senior, that…”
Yin Changli blinked, as if saying: “Hmm?”
Xiang Haikui whispered very softly: “Keeping women away isn’t difficult, but I’m also a woman. We’re together day and night, what if…”
Yin Changli was momentarily stunned, as if he had never considered this problem: “You’re overthinking things.”
Xiang Haikui: WTF?
This was too damaging to her self-esteem! Her heart surged with wicked thoughts. She was tempted to follow Tian Kuang’s instigation and take advantage of the puppy boss’s affections, then see how this CEO bastard would cry when he regained clarity!