Xiaoxiao threw out a Soul-Stabilizing Talisman, but it couldn’t fix Princess Yongning’s form.

Seeing the talisman had lost its effect, Cui Xiaoxiao simply grabbed a yellow talisman paper, folded it several times, then quickly cut out paper figure shapes from the folded paper block. She dipped her fingers in fresh blood and scattered them. In an instant, countless paper figures followed the gale Xiaoxiao raised, flying like paper butterflies to stick on the frantically running Princess Yongning’s back.

Xiaoxiao cast her magic power again, using the paper figures to lift Princess Yongning into mid-air.

However, Princess Yongning’s strength was too great. The paper figures only delayed her briefly—they seemed unable to hold her much longer.

Just then, Wei Jie flew over and grabbed Yongning’s wrist.

As he was about to press her sleep acupoint, Yongning suddenly struck back at Wei Jie’s throat.

Her attack angle was extremely cunning and sharp, her long nails even scratching Wei Jie’s neck.

When Wei Jie grappled with her, facing her fierce storm-like attacks, he was faintly unable to cope.

Cui Xiaoxiao had never seen Wei Jie so embarrassed and struggling in single combat. You must know that Wei Jie had now formed a golden core—though his divine essence was shattered, he was still a great power in the advanced stage!

Yu Ling’er was also stunned, murmuring: “The princess’s skills are so formidable? Has she been pretending to be weak all along?”

Xiaoxiao carefully watched Princess Yongning’s graceful and handsome form, suddenly feeling that the princess’s entire temperament seemed to have changed. She looked… graceful and handsome, with grand, sweeping moves, lacking feminine softness but gaining masculine vigor.

Because Wei Jie had lost his heart blood, though he was taking pills refined by Tang Youshu, he shouldn’t use his vital energy. Suddenly encountering such a tough opponent as Princess Yongning would inevitably strain his vital energy, so his current battle was somewhat constrained, unable to fully display his abilities.

Thinking this, Xiaoxiao leaped up to fight alongside Wei Jie against this crazed princess.

Having just formed her golden core, her body was much lighter than before. When she flew up, her arms covered in golden scales waved as if growing golden wings, dazzling observers.

Princess Yongning watched Xiaoxiao rushing toward her without panic, only wearing a faint smile as she looked at Xiaoxiao with apparent appreciation.

However, even with the master and disciple of the Talismonger Sect working together, they still couldn’t gain the upper hand.

Only when fighting did Xiaoxiao discover this person was unfathomably deep—the strength displayed was merely the tip of the iceberg. When facing the two of them, her moves became increasingly fierce and dense, completely unlike the relaxed elegance of toying with two ignorant children.

In this extremely unbalanced fight, Xiaoxiao felt Princess Yongning seemed to have changed appearance… not facial features or looks, but her entire bearing carried jade-like gentle refinement, and her movements looked more and more like a graceful gentleman.

Just then, Princess Yongning spoke: “I don’t wish to stay long and want to go back to see father. Why do you keep trying to detain me?”

Her voice was still Princess Yongning’s voice, but upon hearing it, it was like sweet spring water flowing, inexplicably calming one’s mood…

This unique vocal quality that entered the ears—she seemed to have experienced it from someone before…

As thoughts flowed, she suddenly stopped her attack and called out to Princess Yongning: “Though there are no flowers here, I see an old friend again. How are you, Young Master?”

Hearing Xiaoxiao say this, Princess Yongning raised her eyebrows, looked at Xiaoxiao again with appreciation, and also stopped attacking. Like a gentleman, she clasped her hands behind her back and smiled: “Miss Cui has good eyesight to recognize me at once. Your abilities are considerable—even the Underworld’s Yellow Springs couldn’t trap you. I previously underestimated you, Miss.”

At this moment, Princess Yongning’s body was indeed possessed by someone else.

The possessing person was none other than Young Master Ye Yi, whom she had met once in the magnolia grove.

This person was truly unfathomable, actually able to possess Princess Yongning’s body and control her to fight others.

Wei Jie held the Heaven’s Punishment Sword horizontally before him, looking at Yongning with an investigative expression: “Why does Your Excellency go to such lengths?”

Princess Yongning, or rather the Young Master Ye possessing her, said indifferently: “Princess Yongning has a marriage contract with me, but on our wedding day, she was abducted by thieves. I must think of ways to bring her home.”

According to current marriage customs, when betrothal contracts were made, a lock of hair was gifted into the marriage document to represent the bond of marriage.

Ye Yi was using exactly this lock of the princess’s hair to bind her soul while possessing her body.

Hearing Ye Yi’s words, Xiaoxiao called out: “Are you taking her home, or sending her to the underworld?”

It was still two hours before the River of Forgetfulness’s water would rise again.

Princess Yongning had overheard the conversation between Ye Yi and that fake King of Changshan. This Young Master Ye wanted to exchange someone from the Underworld, which required using Princess Yongning’s living soul in exchange!

Young Master Ye smiled gently: “Miss Cui, I’m not as utterly evil as you imagine. This hasty action isn’t by my choice. If I said I knew nothing beforehand, would you believe me?”

Tang Youshu, hearing this, nodded in agreement: “This soul marriage technique not only requires someone with specific birth dates but also needs the person being exchanged to have no interest in life, bound by regret—someone who has severed earthly attachments can exchange back a complete living soul. But ask in this world, where are there such conveniently despairing people? So the seven souls and six spirits exchanged incompletely—just a defective person, better not to exchange at all!”

That Ye Yi glanced at Tang Youshu, apparently not expecting this young scholar to be so well-versed in the ancient evil art of “soul marriage.”

However, he smiled faintly and continued Tang Youshu’s words: “This young master speaks correctly—a defective person… better not to exchange. I must take the princess home now. You all need not see us off.”

His words carried a magnetic tone that made listeners’ ears tingle and their minds feel much calmer. Xiaoxiao found herself involuntarily nodding and saying softly: “You may go…”

Unfortunately, just as she finished speaking, her waist was suddenly grabbed tightly, and she involuntarily leaned into a broad chest.

Xiaoxiao turned to look and found Wei Jie glaring at her fiercely with slightly darkened eyes.

Ah? Xiaoxiao was startled awake by his sword-like glare.

Only then did she realize she had unknowingly been controlled by Young Master Ye’s gentle words, as if hypnotized, agreeing with his suggestions.

This situation was exactly like drinking tea in the flower grove.

Though there was no spider lily fragrance now, she was still affected, proving it wasn’t the flower scent but this person’s words that carried soul-hypnotizing magic.

What was his background to be able to control human hearts with just his voice?

Unfortunately, such arts were exactly the forte of the succubus clan. Though this person’s voice was powerful, it was ineffective against succubi skilled in enchanting with song.

Wei Jie suddenly bit his lip, transferring a mouthful of succubus blood to Xiaoxiao’s cherry lips, then wiped the corner of Xiaoxiao’s mouth and said coldly to the person opposite: “Besides manipulating women’s hearts, does Your Excellency have any other abilities?”

Ye Yi laughed again: “I can control human hearts regardless of gender. However, Your Excellency has mixed succubus blood and a heart that seems particularly hard and cold—I cannot control you.”

Wei Jie snorted coldly. When this fellow was speaking earlier, everyone except him had been listening to him in fascination. It seemed his words were true—he indeed had this ability.

Young Master Ye Yi looked at Wei Jie meaningfully: “I never thought you and I would meet again under such circumstances… I underestimated you, not expecting you to have the ultimate move of overturning heaven and earth, reversing time.”

These words revealed he knew about Wei Jie’s secret arrangement of Tang Youshu as a hidden chess piece to reverse time.

Wei Jie narrowed his eyes, staring at him coldly: “Your Excellency appears distinguished and extraordinary, definitely not mortal. Why assist tyranny and help a treacherous king steal others’ destiny and opportunities?”

Ye Yi looked at Wei Jie, still gentle and refined, but the words from his smiling lips were like poison-tipped thorns: “Because you… don’t deserve to live in this world, yet like an unkillable cockroach, you stubbornly refuse to leave!”

Tang Youshu and Yu Ling’er, still immersed in his gentle scholarly demeanor, hadn’t recovered their senses. Hearing this, they nodded approvingly.

Xiaoxiao was held tightly around the waist by Wei Jie. Having just absorbed succubus blood, her consciousness was clear.

Hearing this, Xiaoxiao’s heart chilled. She finally fully awakened from Ye Yi’s hypnotic words.

But seeing Tang Youshu and the others’ condition, she could guess she had been similarly hypnotized by his words, fascinated beyond help—no wonder Wei Jie had glared at her so fiercely.

This Ye Yi… not only knew the secret that worldly affairs had been reversed through time, going back two hundred years, but also harbored endless hatred toward Wei Jie.

What irreconcilable enmity did he have with Wei Jie?

Thinking this, Xiaoxiao said coldly: “Princess Yongning doesn’t wish to return. Please withdraw from her body!”

Ye Yi looked up at the sky, seeming to calculate the time with his fingers, then smiled warmly: “Naturally, that’s possible. She wasn’t a suitable candidate anyway. Someone with an endless attachment to the human world cannot be a suitable vessel for soul exchange… See, her father has already arrived. I can retire successfully…”

Indeed, a group of official soldiers’ carriages and horses came rushing from a distance. The silk-covered carriage was exactly what the King of Changshan usually used.

Beside the carriage was a well-dressed young man on horseback with decent features.

Both Xiaoxiao and Yu Ling’er had seen this young man before—he was exactly the Young Master Ye Yi who had invited them to drink in the magnolia grove!

However, the man now swaying unsteadily on horseback showed the slack appearance of someone drained by wine and women, completely lacking the gentle young master’s refinement.

When this convoy of guards came charging, Princess Yongning suddenly went limp and collapsed to the ground. When she got up again, her face was full of confusion and terror: “Xiaoxiao… someone just possessed my body!”

Though Yongning couldn’t control her body when possessed, she had felt another person speaking within her body.

Now the princess had broken free from the spiritual restraint and finally recovered her senses. She quickly called out to Xiaoxiao, afraid another evil spirit might possess her.

Just then, the official soldiers’ carriages and horses arrived. The leading Young Master Ye Yi looked at Princess Yongning, still wearing red clothes, with raised eyebrows and asked the palace guards beside him: “She… is Princess Yongning?”

A guard beside him quickly said, “Reporting to Young Master, she is indeed Princess Yongning, your fiancée.”

That Ye Yi looked sideways at Princess Yongning’s disheveled appearance, then at the two men Wei Jie and Tang Youshu beside her, and said to the carriage behind him with extreme disgust: “A woman about to marry, yet abducted by bandits overnight—how can her chastity remain? King of Changshan, you insist I come to receive her. Are you using the King of Changshan’s power to oppress our marquis house, making me collect damaged goods?”

Such arrogant and rude words left Xiaoxiao and Yu Ling’er looking at each other, hardly believing their eyes and ears.

Though this dissolute young man on horseback had unchanged features, he no longer possessed the refined, otherworldly bearing of the gentle young master under the magnolia branches—like a piece of finest jade suddenly losing its luster and becoming a stone from a cesspit!

Xiaoxiao understood: it seemed this Young Master Ye Yi, like Princess Yongning earlier, had been a vessel for someone else’s soul.

The young master they saw under the magnolia trees wasn’t this person at all.

So Xiaoxiao tested him: “Young Master Ye, we meet again…”

Only then did Young Master Ye notice by firelight that there was such a delicate and pretty young lady here!

What kind of land and water had nurtured such an absolutely beautiful woman?

Skin white as snow, phoenix eyes and pert nose, especially that red mole beneath her eye—truly soul-stirring!

This Young Master Ye was originally a lecher. Seeing Xiaoxiao’s incomparable beauty, he couldn’t look away, only saying lecherously: “You’ve seen me? I don’t remember. Could it be you and I met in dreams?”

Xiaoxiao also narrowed her eyes, looking at him investigatively and guiding: “You truly don’t remember—three days ago, we drank tea together!”

Ye Yi blinked: “Three days ago? I was battling three beauties at the pleasure house and got dead drunk… only sobered up yesterday! Oh, are you the top courtesan there? How come I never called for you? Or did I already battle you when I was drunk?”

This young master now spoke nothing but obscenities, truly unbearable!

A servant who had been following him laughingly reminded: “My young master, you forgot—didn’t you leave the pleasure house then? And quite spiritedly took us on a suburban romantic adventure to meet this young lady!”

Ye Yi stared blankly, apparently unable to remember how he had spent those days.

Xiaoxiao heard this and laughed coldly, understanding: it seemed this Young Master Ye Yi was easier to possess. In his confusion, he was completely unaware that someone had stolen several days of his time.

That mysterious person had used Ye Yi’s drunken state to occupy his body, then deceived her and Yu Ling’er into the Underworld in the magnolia grove.

Who was this mysterious person? Why could he occupy others’ bodies yet not easily show his true face?

Princess Yongning couldn’t bear listening anymore. She pointed at the man on horseback in disbelief: “You… are Ye Yi?”

Ye Yi nodded arrogantly.

This exploded the princess’s temper. She turned to Yu Ling’er: “What thing deserves to be called gentle as jade? Someone like this is what you call supreme quality?”

Princess Yongning had originally held no hope for this marquis’ house fiancée.

But after hearing Xiaoxiao and Yu Ling’er describe Ye Yi’s incomparable temperament with fascination, Princess Yongning had developed some expectations.

Perhaps her fiancé truly was as outstanding as they described, and his deception might have some unspeakable difficulties.

After seeing such a vulgar creature full of wine and lust, her previously raised hopes were brutally shattered, making her even more desperate!

No wonder Princess Yongning cried out regardless of propriety.

This immediately angered Young Master Ye Yi.

Though Princess Yongning’s appearance wasn’t bad, compared to the young lady beside her, she seemed inferior.

Plus, she had previously insisted on returning the betrothal gifts, making the Marquis’ house lose face. Ye Yi had long been angry with this pampered princess—shameless woman! Not even entered his house yet, already putting on airs!

Thinking of the King of Changshan urging him to receive her and marry this damaged goods who had been captured by bandits on the spot to preserve the palace’s reputation and face, Ye Yi became even angrier: this woman’s clothes were disheveled—who knew how many times she’d been handled in the bandits’ den!

He felt he had dirt on the palace, so he spoke even more rudely to the princess who had lost her honor: “You were abducted to a bandits’ den and defiled, losing face for both houses! Fallen flower, withered willow! You dare look down on me? Someone like you should find a crooked tree and hang yourself!”

Saying this, he turned and shouted to the King of Changshan’s carriage: “King of Changshan, I think since the princess looks down on people so much, let’s dissolve the marriage contract!”

Princess Yongning had been pampered by her father since childhood—when had she ever heard such crude abuse?

Thinking that the fake father had arranged for her to marry such thoroughly rotten goods, Princess Yongning was furious. She rushed straight to the carriage and pulled open the curtain.

When the curtain opened, a subtle fragrance hit her face, and that figure wrapped in layers of gauze still sat righteously in the carriage.

Yongning glared at this despicable person impersonating her father, her heart gradually burning with rage.

With Xiaoxiao and the others behind her and Wei Jie having reported to the crown prince, Princess Yongning wasn’t afraid of this fake anymore. She shouted at the man with his face wrapped in gauze: “I already know you’re an impostor! Today I’ll expose your true face and prevent you from impersonating my father and ruining me!”

After speaking, she suddenly reached out to tear the bandages from the fake king’s body.

The King of Changshan’s guards naturally tried to stop her, but Wei Jie and Cui Xiaoxiao also flew over to repel those guards.

When Princess Yongning pulled out the fake king, Ye Yi, beside them, screamed in alarm: “Hey! You woman is truly mad! Attacking your father! No wonder the king told me before that if you wouldn’t be obedient and marry me, he wouldn’t want you as a daughter anymore and would poison you mute, and sell you to a brothel!”

These words enraged Princess Yongning. With the annoying subtle fragrance still in her nostrils, she felt a great fire rising straight from her heart, wrapping around her and generating unprecedented malevolent energy—let this bastard fake father and this disgusting fiancé all die!

Thinking this, she extended her arm to grab the fake Changshan’s collar, reaching to tear the gauze from his face.

Before killing this villain, she had to see who was impersonating him! If he wouldn’t say where her father was, she’d skin him alive inch by inch!

That fake king had been motionless and wooden, but when he got too close to Princess Yongning, his body suddenly shook uncontrollably, and he began vomiting loudly.

This scared Yongning into letting go and dodging, then angrily jumping up and down, shouting about chopping him alive.

Xiaoxiao watched all this. Seeing the furious Princess Yongning grab a guard’s sword and chop toward the King of Changshan’s head, she quickly waved her hand, creating a water flow to wrap around Princess Yongning’s wrist, seizing and throwing away the sword.

“Princess, you are of noble birth—your hands must not be stained with blood!”

Princess Yongning’s hair was now disheveled, her eyes full of bloodshot veins as she roared fiercely: “This villain impersonates my father and wants to ruin me by selling me to a brothel! If I don’t kill him, I swear I’m not human!”

After speaking, the princess suddenly grabbed the sword from Xiaoxiao’s hand.

A pampered noble lady now seemed possessed by a night demon, unhesitatingly gripping the sword tightly and thrusting it straight into the fake king’s chest.

The moment the sword entered, blood gushed out. Xiaoxiao was also startled and quickly leaped up to support the King of Changshan while pressing his neck.

This fake king, pierced through the heart, gradually weakened in pulse. When Xiaoxiao laid him on the ground, he convulsed a few times, then lay motionless and rigid.

With this sword thrust, Princess Yongning seemed to have lost all her strength, collapsing to her knees as if severely ill, breaking out in cold sweat.

Xiaoxiao hesitated briefly, then reached out to unwrap the cloth wound around the King of Changshan’s face.

When the cloth was unwrapped layer by layer, revealing the person’s true face, she saw smooth skin everywhere—a well-maintained middle-aged man with no burn scars.

Xiaoxiao had thought the bandages would reveal Lord Can’s face, but never expected to see a middle-aged stranger staring wide-eyed, dying with eyes that wouldn’t close.

Princess Yongning stared blankly at the dead king. Suddenly her pupils dilated, and she shouted with trembling lips: “Father!”

Then she threw herself straight onto the rigid, dead king.

Xiaoxiao quickly pulled Princess Yongning away, pressing her face against her shoulder and asking urgently: “What… what’s happening?”

Princess Yongning’s body shook constantly as she sobbed: “He… he is my father! I… killed my father with my own hands? How can this be? It’s all you! Saying the King of Changshan was fake!”

Yongning pushed Xiaoxiao away hard while speaking, again kneeling tearfully beside the corpse, shakily examining the dead body’s profile and neck.

Yes, it truly was her father. The black mole she’d seen since childhood was there—it couldn’t be wrong.