Baili Xiaosheng’s martial skill wasn’t as strong as Guxi’s, but tracking and finding people was a skill she’d honed since childhood—even her own master hadn’t always noticed when she was tailing him!
The moon hung bright overhead. In a large mansion, the lights blazed in the main hall. Baili Xiaosheng perched on the rooftop, and faintly overheard Guxi discussing something with several men and women—not business matters at all, but a territorial dispute among martial world factions.
Well, well, don’t tell me he’s mixed up in the underworld too? Baili Xiaosheng suddenly felt she’d truly found the right man to help rebuild the Poison Den—if the Poison Den itself wasn’t part of the underworld, what faction in the whole realm could even be called that?
Delighted, she carefully tried to pry loose a roof tile to get a better look, but that very motion was what gave her away!
And the one who discovered her was none other than Guxi himself!
“Who’s there!”
At the sharp shout, Guxi had already leapt up onto the roof, and at the same time, the two men and two women from inside followed close behind, quickly surrounding Baili Xiaosheng from all sides.
But the moment Guxi caught sight of Baili Xiaosheng, he was utterly dumbfounded. “You?”
What left him truly disbelieving wasn’t just that Baili Xiaosheng had somehow appeared here—it was that she’d been tailing him this whole time, and he hadn’t even noticed!
“Guxi, you know this little girl?” a one-eyed man asked coldly.
Guxi nodded, and was about to send Baili Xiaosheng away when the one-eyed man suddenly lunged forward.
“Don’t hurt her!” Guxi shouted urgently.
The one-eyed man, apparently mishearing “her” and thinking it referred to himself, drew his blade and slashed at Baili Xiaosheng while sneering coldly, “Guxi, you know the rules of the martial world well enough. If she’s learned what happened here tonight, she deserves to die!”
But before his blade could even fall, his hand suddenly went numb, unable to grip the hilt any longer, and with a clatter, the blade dropped onto the rooftop.
“My hand! You… you… you brat, hand over the antidote!” The one-eyed man, it turned out, had some awareness after all, immediately recognizing that Baili Xiaosheng had poisoned him.
Baili Xiaosheng couldn’t be bothered with him, tossing the antidote to Guxi and saying, “I was just passing through. I didn’t hear anything. Don’t worry about it!”
With that, she turned to leave—she’d grown up in the underworld herself and understood these rules well enough, not wanting to cause Guxi trouble by damaging his reputation.
But just then, an alluring woman burst into laughter. “Guxi, don’t tell us this little girl is your sweetheart!”
At these words, Baili Xiaosheng froze in her tracks, her mind going momentarily blank.
Sweetheart?
What on earth was going on here?
Yet, to her utter surprise, Guxi actually confirmed it, and did so with complete, unhurried composure. “Yes. My woman. The mistress of the Nanzhao Poison Den.”
At these words, not just Baili Xiaosheng, but the two men and two women were all equally stunned.
“A woman? Ha, this ugly thing counts as a woman? Guxi, are you joking with us!” The alluring woman laughed, but the jealousy and disdain in her eyes were impossible to hide.
Baili Xiaosheng slowly turned around. If she remembered correctly, this wasn’t the first time this group had called her “little girl”—but of course, what interested her far more were those three words, “ugly thing”!
She’d been called ugly plenty of times before, but never quite like this!
“Then what exactly counts as a woman?” Baili Xiaosheng’s voice suddenly turned dark and sinister, an aura of terrifying, icy malice radiating from her entire being.
Seeing this, the alluring woman was startled. “You… are you really the mistress of the Poison Den?”
“I’m asking you—what exactly counts as a woman?” Baili Xiaosheng asked again.
The alluring woman found herself momentarily speechless, turning to Guxi, clearly pleading for help. Though the Nanzhao Poison Den had been destroyed, people in the martial world still feared it to this day.
“Not answering?” Baili Xiaosheng arched an eyebrow, sneering coldly—there was nothing of a “little girl” about her now; she looked every bit a demoness.
“I wasn’t talking about you! I… I… I misspoke, I misspoke, I had eyes but failed to recognize greatness! Please, be the bigger person and spare me!” the alluring woman pleaded repeatedly.
Having wandered the martial world for so long, one didn’t need to raise a hand—every word, every gesture, every smile could reveal a person’s true strength and confidence.
This woman was already begging for mercy—unfortunately, she’d run into Baili Xiaosheng, someone who never let a grudge go unanswered.
Baili Xiaosheng said nothing more, walking toward her with a cold smile, and the woman, terrified, immediately hid behind Guxi, grabbing his waist with both hands. Guxi was about to step aside, when suddenly, the woman’s hands began to rot away entirely.
“Ahh… ahh… ahh…”
The woman screamed sharply, not even caring about her rotting hands, turning and running for her life without a second thought.
The other three watching nearby felt a chill run down their spines.
Just moments ago, when Guxi had called this girl his woman, they’d all privately scoffed, not believing it for a second.
But now, they all believed it completely!
A girl this formidable, this ruthless—who else in the world could possibly be a match for Guxi, if not her?
Guxi, this seemingly gentle man, turned out to be quite the ruthless character himself—it was just that, compared to Baili Xiaosheng’s blatant fierceness, his own ruthlessness carried a certain elegant restraint.
Watching the alluring woman flee into the distance, he let out a soft sigh, casually tossing the antidote to the one-eyed man from earlier, saying flatly, “Go kill her. It’s not good to leave witnesses.”
The one-eyed man froze for a moment, then hurriedly picked up the antidote and swallowed it, quickly setting off in pursuit.
Baili Xiaosheng had assumed Guxi would scold her for this, but never expected this kind of reaction from him instead. What an interesting fellow, really.
The remaining man and woman, wisely staying out of it, quickly invited Baili Xiaosheng inside. After some conversation, Baili Xiaosheng learned that Guxi really had come here on business—except the business in question involved dealings in murder and plunder within the martial world.
As for why he’d silenced the alluring woman, it wasn’t to avenge Baili Xiaosheng at all—it was purely because he didn’t want word getting out that he’d broken the martial world’s rules, which would ruin his standing and credibility there.
Baili Xiaosheng had little interest in the martial world’s affairs, and as she listened on, she eventually curled up nearby and fell asleep, not even noticing when the one-eyed man returned.
When Baili Xiaosheng woke up, she found herself lying on a guest bed, with a fragrant breakfast laid out on a table not far away.
Baili Xiaosheng was somewhat startled. At Prince Yao’s manor, sleeping soundly without any guard up was understandable enough—after all, not just anyone could get into Prince Yao’s manor!
But last night, in that kind of environment, she’d still managed to sleep completely unguarded and unaware—wasn’t that… wasn’t that placing far too much trust in Guxi!
Baili Xiaosheng found herself genuinely startled by her own behavior. After eating a few bites of breakfast, she headed out and found Guxi already waiting for her in the carriage. But unlike before, this time he’d lifted the carriage curtain, his gaze fixed inside—clearly, he was looking at Shiliang.
Throughout this journey, Shiliang had been hidden in the carriage the entire time, traveling along with them.
“What’s so interesting about looking at a corpse,” Baili Xiaosheng asked casually as she approached.
Guxi avoided the question. “Ready to go?”
Baili Xiaosheng was puzzled, but didn’t press further, hopping into the carriage. “Let’s go!”
Along the way, Baili Xiaosheng had wanted several times to properly ask Shiliang some questions, wanted to ask whether that lie he’d told the night before—”my woman”—had been too much of an exaggeration. But in the end, she never quite worked up the nerve to ask. Throughout this journey from north to south, Baili Xiaosheng had witnessed plenty of Guxi’s capabilities, and suddenly felt as though she’d stumbled upon a hidden treasure. With Guxi around, she was confident the Poison Den would be rebuilt in no time at all…