Tang Lici gazed at the lamplight with hazy eyes. He remembered Liu Yan’s female companions from years past – Zhang Yueqiao, Sister Lee, A’Lang, Chen Qinghe, and others. Most had maintained intimate yet distant relationships with Liu Yan, yet all got along well with him. That was Liu Yan’s charm – women only hoped to have his company but dared not expect to possess him, because his beauty was unimaginable.

He also dimly remembered his own lovers and female companions – Se Lin, Bi Jia, Yili Shabai, and others. How many there had been, even he couldn’t count clearly. Back then, except for Fu Zhumei, everyone’s life was as chaotic as scattered straw.

Arrogant, indulgent, decadent, lost in sensual pleasures.

That was something no one could understand, right? In this world, abstinence was morality, yet his life had always been only indulgence in pleasures – money, power, fame, women, fine carriages, good wine, perfume, fine horses, gold, jewels…

Why, when drunk, did he feel so filthy, stained with strange colors? No matter how he smiled at his reflection, he couldn’t find the slightest feeling, like a painted-skin demon.

He smiled faintly. His head was splitting with pain. The feeling of indulgence was truly wonderful – no need to act nonchalant before anyone, no need to think of past or future, no need to deliberately be good or bad. Only pity there was no one to accompany him.

Accompanying him… was a terrifying thing. He admitted he would torment people to death. When he lost control, he didn’t know restraint, and he never considered consequences.

Many people wanted to accompany him.

Few dared to accompany him.

None truly and sincerely accompanied him.

Everyone left him.

Because he was just a painted-skin demon.

With a muffled “thud,” he knew he had bumped into something. His eyelids closed – he was too lazy to think about what it was and fell into deep sleep.

In Jihe Valley.

The medicine room’s furnace burned day and night. No one knew what Liu Yan was doing inside. Tang Lici had stored many medicinal herbs in the manor, including strangely-shaped fruits and branches. Liu Yan used these things to work in the medicine room, sometimes producing black smoke, sometimes green smoke, occasionally with explosive sounds.

These past days, Yu Tuan’er was unusually happy. Sometimes she caught pine chickens in the forest, sometimes went fishing by the stream alone. One day it snowed heavily, and she built snowmen by herself, having great fun. Sometimes she found strange things in the snow-covered forest and brought them all back to show Liu Yan.

She was happy like a child, as if wanting to experience all the things she’d never played with in her lifetime. Every morning she could be seen grooming herself before the mirror, choosing her favorite clothes from Jihe Manor, applying makeup, and dressing beautifully before coming out to see people. Because of her vitality and mood, she seemed to have suddenly become much more beautiful. The entire manor was filled with innocent romance all day, like spring itself.

A’Shui stayed with Fengfeng, rarely going out. Fengfeng was beginning to crawl, and she used watching the child as an excuse to shut herself in her room. Since that night’s conversation with Liu Yan, she avoided both Liu Yan and Yu Tuan’er, only occasionally speaking a few words with Fang Pingzhai. She appeared the same as always, cooking three meals on schedule, but everyone knew the A’Shui of old wouldn’t be so reclusive.

Perhaps she had always been reclusive, only she herself hadn’t discovered that she could be reclusive so naturally, completely able to pretend she had never existed in the world, not speaking to anyone, living quietly with Fengfeng alone.

Liu Yan shut himself in the medicine room, barely leaving for almost a month. Every day he would prepare a bowl of medicinal soup for Yu Tuan’er to drink. Yu Tuan’er happily drank it daily, then went off to play on her own after finishing.

Everything seemed very peaceful.

Fang Pingzhai’s drum learning was gradually showing results. With his intelligence and talent, he had spontaneously created many variations and was having interesting fun. A’Shui shut her door to visitors, Liu Yan buried himself in medicine-making and saw no one, Yu Tuan’er ran wildly all over the mountain. He was content with the peace and freedom, shouting a few operatic lines to the valley and beating his large drum.

The scents of various medicines filled his nostrils. Liu Yan looked at the bottles and jars of medicine on the table. He had extracted many types of inhibitors, but to test the antidote, he would first need to poison Yu Tuan’er. Should he make her take the Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pill? He held a small fox in his left hand and the pill in his right, hesitating to put the Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pill into the little fox’s mouth.

Winter foxes had particularly thick fur. This little fox had a short body and short legs, but had accumulated quite a bit of fat in its belly. Its little black eyes rolled around. Liu Yan remained rigid for a long while, then released the fox. Looking at those eyes always made him think of certain people. Humans wanted to save their own lives by first experimenting with a fox’s life. This fox hadn’t done anything wrong – if it died by his hand, wouldn’t that be very pitiful?

Although to him, this fox had been dead for over a thousand years, holding it alive in his hands at this moment, he still couldn’t bring himself to act.

The little fox ran away in a flash without looking back. Even as an animal, it had sensed the malicious atmosphere just now. In the future, upon smelling human scent, it would never dare approach again, would it?

He looked at that pill for a long time, then gently placed it into today’s medicinal soup. If it were A’Li, he wouldn’t care about that fox’s life at all, but he had always loved small animals. From a very young age, he’d wanted to raise a dog, but back then he lived in the Tang household. He feared that dog would die by A’Li’s hand, so he never raised one.

That little fox just now was very much like a little dog.

“Hey, time to eat.” Yu Tuan’er poked her head through the doorway with a smile. “The weather’s improved, and there are bamboo shoots on the mountain. I dug up two. Sister A’Shui made bamboo shoot chicken soup – it’s very delicious.” She didn’t expect Liu Yan to answer. Seeing medicinal soup on the table, she picked it up and brought it to her lips. Over this past month, she’d grown accustomed to drinking it.

Liu Yan watched her coldly.

She brought the medicine bowl to her lips, saw Liu Yan’s expression, was startled, and stopped without drinking. “What’s wrong? Can’t I drink it?” She felt that look was like him saying “If you drink it, I’ll kill you” – fierce as anything.

Liu Yan still didn’t speak.

She stuck her tongue out at him and obediently put the bowl down. “If it’s not this bowl, you could say something. Just glaring and glaring – if I don’t look at you, how would I know not to drink it? Weirdo!”

“It’s poisonous,” he said coldly.

Yu Tuan’er smiled brilliantly. “I know. Every bowl is poisonous, even the bowl you prepared for me to drink today is poisonous.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asked faintly.

“Sometimes afraid, sometimes not,” she said. “What’s wrong? I promised to test medicine for you – I won’t regret it.”

“Really not afraid?” he asked again.

She was stunned and didn’t answer for a moment.

He looked at her faintly, as if seeing right through her. “Starting today, you don’t need to drink anymore. The medicine testing is complete. You don’t need to be so scared that you run all over the mountain, keeping busy with random things all day. You’re not poisoned – you can live for a long time yet.”

Her eyes lit up at once. “Testing is complete? Did you figure it out? Was I useful?”

“Useful,” he said faintly. “You were very useful.”

Yu Tuan’er was overjoyed and lifted him from his chair in a hug. “That’s wonderful! And I didn’t die either! Let’s go, let’s go eat bamboo shoot chicken soup.”

“Put me down!” He struggled to get down from her arms. “You go first. I’ll come after I tidy up.”

“I’ll serve you rice – come eat quickly!” She bounced away. No need to guess – she was going to tell A’Shui and Fang Pingzhai the good news.

Her thoughts were easy to guess – in fact, no guessing was needed. You could see right through her just by looking.

Even someone like him, who couldn’t read people at all, could see her completely.

Liu Yan sighed softly, picked up that bowl of medicinal soup, and drank it himself.