The entire world was boiling, churning, leaping, and going mad.

Everything before his eyes was distorted and blood red. He could see nothing clearly, hear nothing, only the body in his arms felt so real and soft.

“Xin Mei…” He held her tightly, as if she would vanish the next moment. “I… I’m somewhat…”

He felt somewhat wrong, he himself noticed it, yet he couldn’t find his rationality as quickly as usual, couldn’t calm down. His blood raced frantically, and he couldn’t even tell whether what the bloody scent stirred up was surging lust or overwhelming killing intent.

He just held her like this, over and over, his hands stroking her hair, her back.

Looking down at her face, she was staring with wide eyes from surprise, her pupils distinct in black and white, her cheeks delicate and soft, her beautiful eyebrow shape and thick lashes—

He loved this face, this person. Just seeing her brought incomparable joy from the deepest part of his heart.

His fingertips slid down along her cheek. Her neck was slender and white. He couldn’t help but lower his head to kiss it. He wanted her, wanted to keep kissing her like this, wanted… to let her beautiful life end right here against his chest.

Her neck was so fragile, it would snap with just a light squeeze. These shoulders were also too delicate, unable to bear any heavy burden. Her hands soft and delicate, she probably couldn’t even hold a knife. Even though her strength was somewhat greater than ordinary people… but she, she would sooner or later become his weakness. The entire Imperial Tomb would become a fatal condition for harming him. The more he loved, the more fatal it became.

Weak ordinary people and little demons couldn’t bear the love of a war ghost. A perfect war ghost had no weaknesses whatsoever, whether external or internal.

The water-soaked inner garment was stripped away, and her snow-white body blossomed in his arms.

How beautiful.

Lu Qianqiao penetrated her deeply, his lust soaring. Something inside his body seemed to be burning. He grabbed her hair, forcing her to tilt her head back, facing him directly. He had to watch her. Probably because he had never been this rough before, Xin Mei’s expression showed considerable dissatisfaction. She reached back to grab his hair, pulling him down low, forehead pressed against forehead, their breaths mingling.

No matter how beautiful, she would still become his weakness. Since she lived for him, then she should also die for him.

His fingertips slowly searched around her neck, and if he just gripped like this and twisted lightly, she would die at her most beautiful moment.

One hand seized her throat.

Something seemed… somewhat wrong! Xin Mei’s vision kept going black from being choked, yet both her hands were pinned above her head, unable to break free no matter how she struggled. She struggled to open her eyes, trying to see his face clearly. One of his eyes was red as boiling blood, while the other was pitch black as ink, cold and merciless, looking down at her from above.

“Lu, Lu Qianqiao…” She called to him with difficulty.

As if hearing her call, he slowly lowered his body, parted his lips slightly, and gave her a kiss.

Xin Mei opened her mouth and bit. Her mouth was the only part of her body that could move, and this bite was solid and real. His whole body shuddered as if awakening from a dream. After a long pause, he suddenly raised his hand to wipe his lips, his fingertip catching a small trace of blood. Looking again at Xin Mei whom he had pushed down by the pool’s edge, she was coughing breathlessly, her face flushed bright red.

The small bloody taste between his lips stimulated him. Lu Qianqiao’s expression suddenly changed. He abruptly stood up and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Hey! Hey hey…”

Xin Mei coughed as if dying on one hand, while wanting to cry on the other. Doing this sort of thing halfway through, how, how could he just run away?!

After hastily tidying up and returning to the bedroom, Lu Qianqiao was not there. The clothes scattered at the door were also gone. She searched everywhere in the Imperial Tomb with wet hair. If she remembered correctly, just now his eyes… had they changed? One eye had turned black? He had also choked her neck. Could he be transforming again? But… the transformation tribulation should have passed already!

Xin Mei ran all the way near the Spirit Path and suddenly heard Si Lan’s voice: “General, what’s wrong with your eyes?”

She hurried around those stone people and horses, and indeed saw Lu Qianqiao wearing a cloak, slowly walking forward in the snow. That back view… actually seemed somewhat desolate.

Si Lan asked twice, but he didn’t answer a single word, only slowly walking forward. He quickly caught up: “Is the General going out? I’ll go bring Lie Yunhua.”

“Get away.” Lu Qianqiao suddenly spoke, his voice icy cold.

Si Lan had served him for ten years and had never been treated with such cold words before. For a moment, he was actually stunned.

“Get away.”

Accompanying the second icy cold words was a sharp sound of cutting through air. The black long whip danced up like a specter, striking heavily against his chest. Si Lan didn’t even grunt before spraying blood and flying backward, rolling on the ground with his life or death uncertain.

“Lu Qianqiao!”

Xin Mei called out in shock. He actually killed Si Lan?!

The long whip trembled slightly in his hand. Lu Qianqiao suddenly turned around. His eyes that once were both red with light showing through had now become one black and one red, incomparably strange.

His voice also seemed to tremble slightly: “Don’t come over. Go back.”

Killing intent that couldn’t be suppressed, different from all previous times. If he looked even one more time, he would use the long whip to grind everyone in the Imperial Tomb into powder, just like erasing all weaknesses, showing no mercy.

Xin Mei shrank behind a stone person, poked out her head and yelled at him: “Are, are you going crazy again?!”

With a “boom,” the long whip struck the stone person, instantly grinding off that huge stone head. Xin Mei jumped up like a rabbit, turned and hid behind a stone horse, still shaken.

“…Go back.”

The long whip once again rolled up the stone horse’s head, fiercely smashing it on the ground. Xin Mei reacted especially quickly, rolling away with a whoosh, switching to another stone horse to continue hiding. This time after waiting a long while, no long whip came to chop off heads. She cautiously peeked out with lingering fear, but only saw the Spirit Path covered with scattered snow, two tragic stone person and stone horse heads smashed into several large pits. That unfamiliar and desolate figure from before had disappeared.

What… what on earth was going on?

She slowly crawled out, staring at the footprints in the snow for a while. She wanted to chase after him, but thinking of that terrifying long whip, she hesitated. If he went crazy like last time at Jiaping Pass, at least there were stones to throw. But this time, his killing intent was directed at them, both calm and surging.

Although she didn’t know what the reason was…

If she rashly chased after him, something would happen that both of them would regret.

After thinking for a long time, Xin Mei finally turned around, walked to Si Lan’s side and bent down to look—good good, that whip strike wasn’t too heavy. He probably had several broken ribs and had fainted.

She grabbed Si Lan with one hand, turned and ran, while stretching her throat to shout loudly: “Mister Zhao! Sister Honglian! Tao Guoguo! Come quickly! Si Lan is dying!”

Lu Qianqiao just suddenly disappeared like this. Countless rumors and gossip flourished among the demons. The most common saying was: Mister Zhao’s “Resentful Couple Made in Heaven” had angered the General. He recalled that previously his own wife indeed had something unclear going on with the fox immortal and that useless immortal, and discovered that his loyal subordinate Si Lan had become his wife’s kept man. In his rage, he beat him half to death and left in anger.

Mister Zhao couldn’t help but shed tears, beating his chest and stamping his feet regretting writing such an unlucky play script.

Now speaking of that day at White Head Mountain, the new snow hadn’t melted yet. By evening it began to rain again. In the courtyard of Meishan Residence, the spirit ghosts had built a snowman that was poked with many small holes by raindrops.

Lord Meishan drank wine while recalling the tofu Meishan that Xin Mei had made, unable to help shedding tears.

As the wine went to his head, he racked his brains searching through romantic poems he had once read, wanting to recite something to express his depression. After thinking and thinking, he only came up with one line “Regret not meeting before marriage,” which was completely inappropriate. The two of them actually met before marriage. But alas, they passed by each other. Poor cannon fodder fate, only tears fill the lapel.

He wiped his face with his sleeve and pulled out a gleaming golden box from a drawer. Opening it, inside was a box of mooncakes that Xin Mei had sent over during the Moon Festival. Each mooncake had been packed by him in a small crystal box, convenient for him to hug this one, then nuzzle that one while drinking wine.

The spirit ghosts took advantage of the rain not being too heavy yet to sweep away the accumulated snow in the courtyard, lest it freeze in the morning and make walking difficult. Seeing Lord Meishan leaning against the window reciting poetry while crying drunkenly, everyone very tacitly avoided that window opening, no one paying him any attention. Last time a spirit ghost kindly consoled him with a few words, and as a result was dragged to talk about Xin Mei for an entire afternoon, unable to shake him off no matter what. Since then no one consoled him anymore.

“I bet he’ll ramble on for one hour today.” Spirit Ghost A slapped down two copper coins.

“I bet two hours.”

“Three hours.”

…

When the last spirit ghost called out “ten hours,” a horse’s neigh suddenly came from overhead. A completely fiery red steed descended from the sky, landing right in front of the window Lord Meishan was leaning on, disdainfully blowing air at his face.

Lord Meishan jolted, his drunkenness instantly sobering. With tears streaming down his face, he looked at the expressionless man on horseback and said in a trembling voice: “Gen, General… you you you’ve come to visit, my humble dwelling, that, brings light to a humble dwelling…”

Lu Qianqiao took out a letter from his chest and handed it to him, saying flatly: “Look this up for me. The payment is ten jars of Wine to Honor Gods and Respect Heaven.”

Although he very much wanted to ask why Xin Mei hadn’t come, he’d better just swallow his broken teeth with blood… Facing Lu Qianqiao’s face that was ten thousand times colder than usual, he didn’t dare say a single word. He immediately opened the envelope and glanced through it quickly. It was asking him to investigate exactly how the powerful minister Lu Jingran who had dominated Qiong Kingdom twenty years ago had died.

Speaking of which, this person… he seemed to have died quite suddenly. At that time, the old Emperor of Qiong Kingdom was aged and suspicious, very dissatisfied with this minister’s high position and great power. However, before he could take action, he died. After his death, the old Emperor took the opportunity to confiscate his property, killing those who should be killed, seizing what should be seized, and the Lu family disappeared. It wasn’t until the new Emperor Rongzheng ascended the throne that his name was cleared.

And this Lu Jingran, if he remembered correctly, seemed to be the War Ghost General’s father?

Lord Meishan looked at him doubtfully, suddenly meeting his ice-cold eyes, one red and one black. His fragile little heart immediately sank.

“I’ll investigate, I’ll investigate, right away… right away!”

He called out the little crow with tears streaming, turned his back and gave instructions in the smallest voice: “Be good, this time you must not fly toward the War Ghost clan. Those war ghosts are extremely fierce. If they’re a bit heavy-handed, your little life will be gone.”

The little crow flew away disdainfully. This time the investigation was very quick. In just over half a day it flew back and dropped a paper ball beside Lord Meishan’s hand.

He quickly shrunk his head and neck, smiling ingratiatingly, and respectfully presented the paper ball to Lu Qianqiao’s hands.

On the paper ball was only one line of scrawled characters:

【Qiong Kingdom, Imperial Year 32: The War Ghost Li clan had a daughter named Chaoyang, age twenty-five, who achieved the body of a perfect war ghost rarely seen in a hundred years, and slaughtered her husband’s family’s entire household of one hundred and thirty-seven people. This matter was rarely seen and extremely strange.】