It was him!

Dressed all in white, styled like a young scholar, his face refined and handsome as a lotus blossom, always wearing that dazzling smile — call him a scholar, and he’d have maybe thirty percent scholarly air about him and a full seventy percent roguish mischief!

It was him — Baili Weisheng!

Of all people, it was him!

Ziqing had imagined this moment countless times, yet never once had she imagined it would be him coming to save her.

This wretched scholar?

He stood right there before her, still wearing that same smile, still just as incorrigible as ever.

His smile really was quite lovely, his star-bright eyes urging her on as he said, “Little Qingqing, I thought it over, and decided to come bring you home after all.”

“Little Qingqing, I thought it over, and decided to come bring you home after all.”

Baili Weisheng looked at Ziqing, who had gone completely blank with shock, and laughed cheerfully.

Yes — he had thought it over. He still hadn’t quite figured out why, or what right he had to say it, but the words had already left his mouth.

He’d originally intended to find the seal in the Poison Beast World and either guard it forever or seal it shut for good, so that no one would ever find it, so that no one could ever enter the Poison Beast World.

Whether Han Ziqing had already turned into a human gu or not, so long as she — someone immune to all poisons through negative polarity — couldn’t get out, then he, immune to all poisons through positive polarity, would remain safe forever! Even if the Gu Nanny exposed the secret of his origins to the whole world, he’d still be safe.

He could even have gone into the Poison Beast World, just as he was doing now, walked right up, and stabbed Han Ziqing dead with a single blade.

Of everyone who’d chased their way in, none of them could match his speed at finding Han Ziqing first in a world this vast.

Only he could manage it — after all, he was a positive-polarity human gu!

And yet, for reasons even he couldn’t explain, he had done nothing at all!

He’d thought it over and over, and in the end there had only been one thought in his mind — so he’d simply said it with a smile: “Little Qingqing, I’ve come to take you home.”

I’ve come to take you home!?

No matter how treacherous this world might be, no matter how filthy the hearts of men, there would always be that one person who could brush aside all the tangled chaos with effortless calm and bring you home before nightfall.

His smile was clean, and his hands were just as clean as his smile — untouched by even a speck of dust, even amid the mortal world’s grime.

At Ziqing’s most desperate moment, was there any phrase in this world more reassuring than that one? Was there any phrase that could warm a heart on the verge of freezing over?

Watching Baili Weisheng smile with such easy, breezy calm, and then glancing behind him at the Four Great Poison Beasts, unharmed, and the Silly Bear, still just as foolish as ever, Ziqing couldn’t help but clap a hand over her mouth!

She sobbed uncontrollably, sniffling desperately, not daring to speak for fear that the moment she opened her mouth she would burst into tears!

But she didn’t realize her tears had already spilled over — two clear streaks trickling slowly down from the corners of her eyes. In that moment, she looked just like a lost child who had finally found her way home. Within moments her eyes blurred with tears, and she simply stared at Baili Weisheng, dumbstruck, unable to say a word!

Seeing this, a pang of tenderness swept through Baili Weisheng, an ache like a knife cutting into him. Without thinking, he stepped forward — still smiling — and pulled Ziqing into his arms.

He hadn’t even registered what he was doing; all he knew was that his heart ached as though sliced by a blade, and no amount of soothing or scratching could ease it — it simply hurt, hurt in a way that left him utterly powerless, hurt so much that all he wanted was to hold this woman tightly.

For the first time in his life, he felt something like this. He held Ziqing close, leaning his head against her shoulder, and only after a long, long while did it dawn on him — so… so he did have a heart after all, he really could feel this kind of ache!

Ziqing made no sound, simply letting him hold her, her tears refusing to stop, as though every tear she’d suppressed her whole life were finally pouring out all at once.

It was only much later, when Baili Weisheng noticed his robe had grown damp, that he snapped out of that strange, aching sensation and realized Ziqing was still crying.

He let out a helpless laugh. “Silly girl, what are you crying for? Keep this up and you’ll cry your eyes blind.”

At those words, Ziqing finally snapped out of the tangled mess of joy, sorrow, panic, fear, and relief all churning inside her. She touched her own face — wet, ice-cold — and only then realized, forgive her, that she’d been crying.

Seeing Ziqing quietly wiping at the corners of her eyes, Baili Weisheng immediately fell silent, holding himself so still he nearly stopped breathing, terrified that if he made a sound, this woman would start crying again.

Ziqing wiped away her tears and sniffled, trying to calm herself — but how could she possibly calm down?

The moment she opened her mouth, it came out as both accusation and a shout, though without any real malice. “You wretched scholar, just who exactly are you! Lie to me again and I’ll kill you!”

At that, Baili Weisheng finally felt he was seeing the old Han Ziqing again!

He chuckled, teasing, “Little Qingqing, when you cry you really do look… like a pear blossom in the rain, so pitifully lovely!”

“Are you going to tell me or not!” Ziqing said coldly.

Even with Ziqing being so fierce, Baili Weisheng never truly sensed real anger from her. He leaned in closer, grinning mischievously, and said, “Hey, I mean it — come home with me and meet the family.”

“So you’re not going to tell me.” Ziqing’s voice finally turned grave.

Seeing her tear-streaked little face darken so ominously, Baili Weisheng suddenly realized this girl was fully capable of crying at him again, and quickly said, “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!”

Ziqing said nothing, simply waiting.

Baili Weisheng sat down cross-legged, patting the spot beside him for Ziqing to sit.

“Truth is, I don’t even know where I came from, or who my parents were. I was an orphan from birth, and later I was taken in by someone called the Gu Nanny…”

From orphan to the Gu Nanny’s adopted son; from human gu to regaining his sanity and fleeing to the Poison Den of Nanzhao; from learning she was someone immune to all poisons through negative polarity, to starting to use them — even guiding them toward clues about the lone island; from evading the Gu Nanny’s pursuit to actively seeking out the Three Ancient Scrolls to open the seal.

All of this, so many years of it — even without him saying so, Ziqing already knew just how much danger and hardship it must have involved. And yet here he was, using that same careless, offhand tone, as though reminiscing were just another joke, laughing his way through the whole simple retelling.

Even something as significant as stealing the scrolls, raising the gu insects, and opening the seal — he summed it all up in a single sentence: “I stole the method for opening the seal from the Gu Nanny, and it took me a few months to get it open.”

But as Ziqing listened, her small face grew more and more solemn.

She had always known Baili Weisheng’s background was no simple matter, that it must be tied to the lone island somehow — but never in her wildest guesses had she imagined that Baili Weisheng was, in fact, the positive-polarity gu!

The very thing that could neutralize her!

“Why did you come to save me?” Ziqing asked seriously.

Why, indeed?

Even Baili Weisheng himself hadn’t quite figured it out. He said with a chuckle, “You’re not a human gu, so it’s not like there’s any neutralizing business between the two of us anyway!”

“For nearly two years, how could you have been certain I wasn’t a human gu?” Ziqing shot back.

That single question demolished Baili Weisheng’s reasoning entirely, leaving him genuinely flustered for a moment — though the awkwardness flickered across his face and vanished just as quickly, replaced once more by his usual smile. “Even if you had turned into a human gu, you’d still have to come home with me and meet my parents. You damaged my body — as the ancients said, one’s body and hair are gifts from one’s parents, so…”

Ziqing felt a sudden wave of déjà vu, as though she’d been transported back to the moment she and Baili Weisheng had first met. But that flicker of illusion lasted only an instant before she snapped back to herself, cutting him off coldly. “You wretched scholar, if you don’t tell me the truth this instant, I’ll kill you!”