Hearing the condition Baili Weisheng proposed, the Gu-nanny didn’t rush to fight him. Instead, oddly intrigued, she sat down and asked, “Little beast, how do you know about the Poison Beast World? Did you read it in the scriptures?”
“Heard it from you talking in your sleep,” Baili Weisheng said, leaning against the windowsill with lazy insolence.
The Gu-nanny snapped furiously, “Don’t spout nonsense! Tell me, what else do you know?”
“Plenty. Just don’t know how to fish someone out of the Poison Beast World once the human Gu is fully cultivated. Tch… should’ve read more back then,” Baili Weisheng sighed with unusual seriousness.
Suspicion flickered in the Gu-nanny’s eyes as she probed further, “So you’re saying you know Han Ziqing is one of your own people?”
“Well, obviously. Just hurry up and tell me how to get in and fish someone out of the Poison Beast World, otherwise…”
Baili Weisheng looked lazy and relaxed on the surface, but he had little patience left.
The Gu-nanny immediately understood the situation better—she hadn’t expected this little beast to know so much, but thankfully, he didn’t know the human Gu cultivation had failed!
“Oh? You want to fish her out? If she comes out, you’ll become quite the ‘hot commodity,’ won’t you.” The Gu-nanny deliberately stressed the phrase “hot commodity.”
Once a human Gu was successfully cultivated, Baili Weisheng, being the only one capable of suppressing a human Gu, would naturally become the object everyone fought over. Of course, to properly suppress a human Gu, his current “half-finished” state wouldn’t be enough—he’d need to continue being cultivated into a full yang-type human Gu!
“Whether it’s fishing someone out or locking someone away, none of your business. Hand over your three scrolls of scripture, or else…”
Baili Weisheng was serious this time—his usual playful, insolent tone suddenly turned cold and dark.
The Gu-nanny immediately leapt to her feet, smashing several porcelain vials at once. If she agreed to Baili Weisheng’s terms, all her efforts would be wasted—there was no way she’d agree!
Minhan Mude’er was covering for her outside, buying her at least some time. This time, she was going all in!
But unexpectedly, as the porcelain vials shattered and poisonous gas began spreading through the air, a sudden dragon of flame surged out from all around, and in an instant the entire room burst into roaring fire!
The scripture pavilion was built entirely of wood—the fire spread even faster than the poison gas. Baili Weisheng had planned this all along; fire could suppress poison gas, which was exactly why he’d chosen to start the blaze inside the room!
Watching the flames closing in from every direction, even overhead, the Gu-nanny stood dumbstruck, crying out, “You little brat, have you lost all care for your own life!”
The fire surrounded them completely, tongues of flame constantly bursting forth—this little brat was clearly determined to die together with her!
But while the Gu-nanny panicked and raged, Baili Weisheng still wore his same insolent grin, utterly cavalier. “Old crone, I’ve got no intention of dying with you!”
With that, golden scales began slowly emerging at his temples, gleaming gold, looking all the more noble and dazzling amid the flames.
The Gu-nanny stared, dumbstruck. “You… how could you possibly…”
Baili Weisheng kept his usual insolent grin throughout. His ears gradually stretched longer, finally transforming into two palm-sized golden fins. Still smiling, he closed his eyes, and amid the raging fire, his long black hair, bound up high, suddenly whipped free and turned entirely gold. At the same moment, his white robes were torn apart by the power surging up from within him.
The Gu-nanny watched, transfixed, but before she could even make sense of it, she realized the little beast before her had transformed into an entirely different person.
His upper body bare, finely muscled and captivating, every line sharply defined, his powerful arms dotted with scattered golden scales. Before long, those scattered points began spreading across his entire body, forming a suit of golden scale armor, while below, his legs had somehow become a long fish tail, layer upon layer of scales shimmering, noble and dazzling!
He hung suspended in midair, sensuously handsome, wickedly beautiful, so noble that he inspired awe.
He was a mer-person—a member of the Jiao royal bloodline, a Golden Jiao!
No fire, however fierce, could burn away his golden scales!
How could this be!
The Gu-nanny shook her head over and over, stumbling backward, nearly touching the flames behind her before she snapped back to her senses, crying out, “You… how could you possibly be a mer-person! This is impossible! Who exactly are your parents!”
This was something the Gu-nanny had never known—she had always believed Gu-boy was an orphan of the Isolated Island.
She’d believed him to be a descendant of Isolated Island survivors who’d taken on false identities and lived in hiding after the Nanzhao massacre and expulsion—she’d never known he was a mer-person!
If he was a mer-person, then at least one of his parents had to be a mer-person too.
But how could a member of the Jiao clan possibly have married into the Isolated Island’s remnant people? And a Golden Jiao at that—royalty among the mer-people!
After all, the Golden Jiao bloodline had ceased to exist even before the Isolated Island’s destruction.
The Golden Jiao lineage had its bloodline severed in the ancient wars of Nanzhao long ago—otherwise, the current Jiao clan chieftain of Nanzhao would certainly be a Golden Jiao, not a Black Jiao.
“Gu-boy, you lied to me, you’ve been lying to me this whole time!” The Gu-nanny was both furious and shocked—how could she possibly accept that the child she’d raised for so many years was actually a mer-person, and she’d never known a thing about it!
“Didn’t you lie to me too?” Baili Weisheng’s face darkened, uninterested in further exchange. “You have two choices—either tell me the secret of entering the Poison Beast World, or die here!”
“You!” The Gu-nanny pushed down her panic. “If I die, you’ll never learn the secret of the Poison Beast World!”
“If you die, no one will ever know who I really am.” Baili Weisheng sneered—yet the moment the words left his mouth, he himself paused slightly, faintly startled.
In truth, he had countless other ways to extricate himself from danger!
He didn’t necessarily need to find the entrance to the Poison Beast World, didn’t necessarily need to go stop Han Ziqing—all he needed to do was burn the Gu-nanny to death.
So why had he chosen instead to search for the entrance to the Poison Beast World?
Did he truly want to destroy the entrance, sealing the human Gu inside forever? Or did some part of him actually want to save her?
In this moment, Baili Weisheng found himself distracted. He never usually thought this seriously about such things, yet right now, he couldn’t help himself, genuinely wrestling with it.
He even found the Gu-nanny’s earlier words echoing in his ears—who his parents were, that at least one of them had to be Golden Jiao, yet the Golden Jiao bloodline had died out so long ago!
As a child, he had once asked who his parents were. Later, once he was cultivated into a Gu, he’d stopped caring who they were at all.
An inexplicable panic rose in Baili Weisheng, strange emotions, strange thoughts surging endlessly through his mind.
He stared darkly at the Gu-nanny, but he had already lost focus entirely.
The Gu-nanny, however, noticed—this fellow’s mind hadn’t merely recovered, but it seemed his full range of emotions had returned significantly too!
Yet the Gu-nanny had no time to spare for that. She quietly drew out more poison, and taking advantage of Baili Weisheng’s distraction, flung it suddenly onto his body! In an instant, sparks erupted where the poison scorched his scale armor!
Baili Weisheng grunted in pain, and immediately lunged straight at the Gu-nanny. “You’re asking to die!”