Once Baili Xiaosheng and Guxi had walked far enough away, the two black-clad figures finally emerged from the grass. Clad entirely in black, their complexions were seven shades paler than an ordinary person’s, their lips utterly bloodless—anyone could tell at a glance they weren’t human.

The two of them hurried eagerly toward Qin Chu’s body, searching thoroughly—but found nothing at all.

“Boss, that woman must have taken all the Five Elements Blood. Let’s go after them!” the shorter one said earnestly.

“What’s the rush? The monk can run, but the temple can’t. As long as we know where she lives, why worry about finding her? With our Grand Protector on our side, there’s no one in this world we can’t deal with!” said the taller one, called Boss, equally serious.

“But the Grand Protector still needs another year before he truly wakes. What if they drink the Five Elements Blood before then?” the shorter one asked, panicking, his expression exaggerated.

The two of them belonged to the Xijing bloodline clan, both blood soldiers under the command of the clan’s Guardian. Several months earlier, the clan had dispatched a good number of soldiers, scattered across every region of Nanzhao, all searching specifically for the whereabouts of the Five Elements Blood.

At present, none of the clan’s four Grand Protectors had fully awoken—they could only wake for brief moments—but they were able to issue commands to their soldiers through spiritual sense. And these two had just received an order transmitted through the Left Envoy’s spiritual sense.

The Five Elements Blood—what Baili Xiaosheng called the undying blood—had appeared in this world!

The Left Envoy had sensed it: the Five Elements Blood was somewhere in Nanzhao!

The taller one smacked the shorter one hard on the forehead. “Idiot! They’re not our kind—they wouldn’t drink blood!”

The shorter one nodded thoughtfully, glancing toward the lake, then asked, “Boss, should we go down and feel around in the water too?”

“Can you swim?” the taller one asked, eyeing him with disdain.

The shorter one shook his head. “No.”

“Then what are you going down there for!” the taller one snapped, delivering another sharp knock to his head.

Rubbing his smooth, bald forehead, the shorter one suddenly seemed to realize something was off. “Boss, wait, that’s not right—that woman already has some in hand. Why aren’t we going after her first? It’s not like the Five Elements Blood is that plentiful!”

The taller one’s eyes lit up in realization, and he smacked the shorter one’s head again, even harder. “Why didn’t you say that sooner!”

Two absolute idiots!

And so, the two idiots flickered into motion and caught up with Baili Xiaosheng.

Though these two weren’t exactly quick-witted, their martial skill was nothing to scoff at. The greatest advantage members of the bloodline clan had over other races was speed—coming and going without a trace.

As the saying goes: in matters of martial skill, nothing beats sheer speed.

Never mind their intelligence—judging purely by their speed alone, these two were unquestionably masters among masters.

So it was that they quickly, silently, caught up to Baili Xiaosheng and Guxi, and followed them the entire way to Duku’s back mountain without being noticed once.

Once there, the two hid themselves in the underbrush again.

“Boss, are you sure this is really okay?”

“We’re not doing it on purpose—it’s them, going at it wild in the open instead of finding a room.”

“Boss, that woman there is really shy, you know.”

“Which woman isn’t shy?”

“That man… he’s really something. So forceful!”

“Looked like a proper gentleman. Who would’ve guessed… heh, guess we misjudged him.”

…

Beneath a large tree, Guxi and Baili Xiaosheng were lost in a passionate kiss, Baili Xiaosheng pressed entirely against the trunk. Guxi was, indeed… rather forceful about it.

Having held her so long, he found he simply couldn’t stop wanting to kiss her—he just wanted to.

After a good while, Baili Xiaosheng was nearly melting into his arms before he finally allowed himself to let her go, looking down at her flushed, delicate face—even the scars on her cheeks seemed somehow beautiful in that moment.

Unable to resist, he leaned down again and pressed a gentle kiss to each of her scars.

Only then did Baili Xiaosheng panic. She instinctively pushed him away, glaring at him with furrowed brows. “That’s enough!”

Well, she certainly hadn’t expected Guxi to kiss her so suddenly—hadn’t he been so gentle the whole way back? Could it be that this man was something of a wolf underneath it all?

Guxi said nothing, the corners of his mouth curling into a beautiful arc as he drew her toward the house.

The moment they stepped inside, Baili Xiaosheng eagerly reached into her sleeve for the small porcelain vial and was about to open it when Guxi snatched it away. “Change your clothes first.”

With that, he turned and walked out, even pulling the door shut behind her. He sat down just outside the door, not opening the vial—unaware that, not far away, two pairs of blood-red eyes were fixed intently on what he held in his hand.

“Boss, grab it!”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“What if we’re exposed? Before the Left Envoy wakes, no one can risk revealing themselves!”

“Then we grab the item, kill him, and there’s no exposure to worry about!”

“Huh…”

The taller one turned to look at him in disbelief. “Kid, since when did you get so clever?”

Just as the two of them were about to make their move, the door creaked open—Baili Xiaosheng emerged, freshly changed.

“Boss, do we have to kill her too?”

“Obviously!”

“But Boss, the Guardian said the Left Envoy hates it most when men bully women. The Guardian also said that if the Left Envoy ever catches a man bullying a woman, he kills them on sight, no exceptions.”

…

While the two blood soldiers were locked in an agonizing moral dilemma, Baili Xiaosheng had already opened the vial.

“It’s empty!” she cried out in shock. The vial held only the faint scent of the undying blood—inside, it was completely hollow, not a single drop remaining.

At that, the two blood soldiers, caught in their moral struggle, snapped their heads around in unison.

“Boss, perfect, now we don’t have to agonize over it!”

Smack!

Another sharp knock to the head.

“That damned Qin Chu—if I’d known, I’d have kept him alive and interrogated him properly!” Baili Xiaosheng fumed.

Guxi, however, kept his composure, examining the vial closely. Judging by its shape and the patterns etched on its surface, it had clearly come from the Nangong royal palace—and was, moreover, an item for the emperor’s own personal use.

“You said Qin Chu was a guard in Consort Qin’s palace?” Guxi asked seriously.

Baili Xiaosheng nodded, sniffing gently at the vial. “He said he’d gotten a bottle of undying blood. Could it be… this is the original bottle? Just that the undying blood itself has been transferred elsewhere?”

Otherwise, why would an empty vial carry such a strong scent—strong enough to fool even her poison insects?

The mouth of the vial was too narrow to see inside; all she knew was that it was empty.

Guxi hesitated for a moment, then took the vial and cracked it open carefully. Sure enough, just as Baili Xiaosheng had guessed, it was indeed the original vessel—inside, the once-white porcelain walls were coated with a faint reddish tint, still slightly damp. A tiny trace of blood had seeped into the porcelain itself.

“This vial has been in use for about ten years,” Guxi observed, his experience allowing him to judge such things.

“That’s strange!” Baili Xiaosheng said, startled. Could it be that Qin Chu had stolen this from Consort Qin’s own palace?

“Someone collected this item—it’s very possible that someone was Consort Qin,” Guxi said, having arrived at the same thought.

“Ten years ago, the Nanzhao royal house fell. Why would Consort Qin have kept something like this? And even if she had it, it’s a precious treasure—bringing it out could have won over the entire Poison Clan! Unless Consort Qin didn’t know it was the undying blood at all. But if she didn’t know how precious it was, why would she have hidden this vial of blood in the first place?” Baili Xiaosheng couldn’t make sense of it.

A single empty vial had opened up an endless tangle of mysteries.