Zanxing replied: “Fifty True and Bizarre Horror Legends of Duzhou.”

Everyone: “…”

Mendong said angrily, “Don’t tell ghost stories here!”

Zanxing shrugged: “The atmosphere is so good, I thought you all wanted to hear it.”

Mendong was about to say more when Gu Baiying interrupted him. He took the treasure map and walked to the cave entrance to look into the distance. The wind and snow were too heavy, and there were no stars tonight, so he couldn’t tell the direction. He said, “Everyone rest well tonight. I’ll keep watch. We’ll set out early tomorrow morning.”

“How about I take turns with you, Master Uncle?” Mu Cengxiao spoke up. “That way we can conserve energy.”

Gu Baiying thought briefly: “That’s fine.”

And so it was decided.

Zanxing hadn’t cultivated since childhood, so her foundation wasn’t as good as Meng Ying and the others, and her stamina couldn’t compare to Mu Cengxiao and Tian Fangfang either. She contentedly found a spot not too close or far from the fire pile to sit down and rest. Perhaps she was too tired from descending the cliff during the day—she fell asleep moments after sitting down while holding Mimi.

Zanxing had a dream.

In the dream, she was holding Mimi and going to Yueqin’s hall. Today was Meng Ying’s birthday, and Tian Fangfang and the others were all there. Zanxing ate and made merry with them. While drinking and revelry, she dozed off, when suddenly she heard someone screaming in her ear. Opening her eyes, she saw blood flying across the room, with everyone lying in pools of blood. And the Panhua Stick in her hand still had warm scarlet blood remaining on it. Someone’s voice came from far to near, shouting noisily: “Mo Sha, it’s Mo Sha! Kill that Mo Sha!”

She turned around in panic, only to discover she was surrounded by disciples, led by none other than Gu Baiying. He pointed his Embroidered Bone Spear at Zanxing’s throat, looking at her with disgust, his gaze as cold as a stranger’s, saying word by word: “Demon Clan.”

Demon Clan!

Zanxing jolted awake from the dream.

Her chest still seemed to hold the shock from moments before. She gasped several times before realizing that everything just now was only a dream.

A young man’s voice came from beside her: “Having a nightmare?”

Zanxing looked up.

The fire made crackling sounds, and the people around had each leaned against the stone walls to sleep. Mimi had curled into a ball at her feet, while Gu Baiying sat by the fire pile, his expression calm.

His voice was also indifferent, seemingly carrying a hint of impatient concern, completely different from the ice-cold disgust in the dream.

So it was a dream.

Fortunately, it was only a dream.

She scooted closer to the fire, trying to use the warmth to dispel some of the cold and shock brought by the nightmare. Gu Baiying glanced at her: “Cold?”

Zanxing didn’t speak.

This dream wasn’t a good omen.

Perhaps it was thinking by day and dreaming by night—she had just finished reading that book “The Demon Queen’s Account: On My Wedding Night, I Discovered My Husband’s Illegitimate Son,” and she had already had such nightmares countless times.

That miscellaneous book full of typos, of unknown authenticity, recorded this absurd gossip from the Demon Queen’s perspective. It said that the Demon Queen Bujiang, on the day of her marriage to the Demon Lord Gui Diao Tang, discovered that the Demon Lord already had an illegitimate son. This illegitimate son’s mother was from the human race, which meant this illegitimate son was half-demon.

The Demon Lord Gui Diao Tang was a bloodline supremacist who viewed this illegitimate son as a shameful stain left in the world, so he ruthlessly eliminated him.

The story ended there. Or rather, the plot related to the illegitimate son ended there. The rest was hundreds of thousands of words of arranged-marriage-to-love between the Demon Lord Gui Diao Tang and the Demon Queen Bujiang.

Zanxing didn’t know if what was written in the book was true or false, but if it was true, there was a high probability she was that unlucky illegitimate son.

Otherwise, how could one explain why “Miss Yang,” living in Yue City, would have a chest full of forbidden books from the Demon Realm? And how could one explain why in the Xumi Jiezi Map, that quite powerful Mo Sha would kneel and bow upon seeing her?

Unless she had deep connections with the Demon Realm.

As for how that illegitimate son, who should have died, escaped death and survived disaster, it was nothing more than a protagonist’s halo. Because she had taken the Xiaoyuan Pearl and stolen Mu Cengxiao’s opportunity, rewriting the Heavenly Dao, the Heavenly Dao saw that she could no longer be just a small cannon fodder, so it simply changed methods to punish her. In some sense, Zanxing was still the protagonist, just turned into a villain.

Zanxing stared blankly at the firelight. The next moment, a cloak was thrown over her head, covering her entire person.

“What dream did you have to make your face look so awful?” Gu Baiying added firewood to the fire while asking matter-of-factly.

The coral-red cloak was trimmed with a circle of fluffy white fur, looking both beautiful and warm. Zanxing asked: “Master Uncle… why do you carry a cloak with you?”

“Don’t know. Mendong stuffed it in.”

“Oh.” Zanxing pulled the cloak tighter, thought for a while, then walked over to sit beside Gu Baiying.

The young man’s body stiffened slightly, only staring at the flames coldly: “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Zanxing placed her hands over the fire to warm them. The warmth from her palms gradually spread throughout her body. She felt somewhat warmer and suddenly spoke: “Master Uncle, what kind of person do you think I am?”

Gu Baiying was suspicious: “What do you mean?”

“In other words,” Zanxing pointed to her face, “Do you think I’m special?”

The firewood burned quietly, emitting warm red light. The woman’s face was close at hand, overlapping with that face from a summer night by the lotus pond.

He suddenly turned his head away, his expression somewhat flustered, saying urgently: “Narcissist, what’s special about you?”

“Right, I look very ordinary.” Zanxing sighed: “Tell me, if someone like me were discovered one day to have a tragic background, an extremely evil heritage, an unavoidable hardship—what do you think the ending would be? For example,” she opened her hand that was hovering over the flames, as if trying to grasp something, half-joking and half-serious: “If one day our identities are opposed, but I haven’t done anything to wrong you, would you make a move against me?”

The flames reflected in her eyes, blurring those always-smiling pupils with confusion.

She was very seriously asking the question.

In the cave, only Mimi’s snoring echoed, blown into a hazy background by the swirling wind and snow.

After a while, someone’s voice sounded.

“Stop dreaming,” Gu Baiying snorted. “I think you should read fewer of those miscellaneous idle books from the library. What tragic background could someone like you have? Besides, you’re a person of the Taiyan Sect, you’re my martial niece. Even if you stood against all the people in the world, that’s still an unchangeable fact.”

“Your position is my position,” he said.

His eyes were a beautiful light tea color, normally very bright, and at night by the fire, they were like amber gems, brilliant as treasures.

The usually proud and arrogant person, on this particular night, actually had such gentle eyes.

Zanxing felt her heart being gently struck by something, a ray of light slipping through the crack.

The next moment, Gu Baiying hurriedly turned his head away, adding: “It’s also Taiyan Sect’s position.”

Zanxing: “…”

Fine, at a time like this, it wasn’t a good moment for romance. Moreover, Gu Baiying had the four words “Refusing Romance” written on his face and remembered in his heart.

There was a thin layer of white snow on the ground. Zanxing casually picked up a dead branch and wrote a few characters in the snow.

Gu Baiying glanced and saw “Yang Zanxing” written there, the characters crooked as dog scratches, and couldn’t help but laugh mockingly: “So ugly.”

Zanxing didn’t care and continued writing. This time, she wrote “Gu Baiying.”

Gu Baiying was stunned.

“Yang Zanxing” and “Gu Baiying” were lined up side by side. Ugly as they were, inexplicably, they looked quite harmonious.

Zanxing drew a circle, enclosing both names together.

Gu Baiying’s fingertips curled slightly, and he spoke dryly: “What do you mean by this?”

“Didn’t you say our positions are aligned?” Zanxing threw down the dead branch, looking very satisfied with her handiwork: “These two names are here, and no one is allowed to erase them. They’ll serve as proof. If you ever refuse to acknowledge this someday, there’s still black writing on white snow as evidence.”

“Childish.” Gu Baiying, hearing this, was dismissive: “When the wind blows, the snow will bury the characters. Where would you find evidence?”

“So,” Zanxing stared into his eyes, solemnly patting his shoulder: “The promise must not only remain in the snow, but more importantly, remain in the heart. Master Uncle, you must keep my words in your heart.”

The place touched by her finger gradually became burning hot. Even hotter was her gaze, containing eager anticipation, as if this promise she was making with him at this moment was the most important thing in her entire life.

Gu Baiying said uncomfortably: “…I know.”

Zanxing withdrew her hand with satisfaction, yawned, and pulled the cloak tighter around herself: “I’m a bit tired. You continue keeping watch, I’ll sleep a bit more.”

She leaned back against the stone wall, closed her eyes, and soon her breathing became even. She fell asleep quickly.

The fire continued burning. The young man stared at the names in the snow in a daze, not knowing what he was thinking.

A gust of north wind rushed in from outside, carrying snow particles that charged toward the fire, scattering a small part of the names on the ground. He suddenly awakened, instinctively reaching out to protect the snowy ground in front of him. Suddenly realizing what he was doing, his movement froze abruptly.

Snow continued falling, and in the cave, each person had their sweet dreams.

He stared down at the snowy ground for a moment, finally extending his hand, forming a wind-shielding incantation, and carefully covering it over those two names. Then he lowered his head and smiled helplessly.

Zanxing was awakened by noise.

The clamorous sounds from her ear made it hard to ignore. She drowsily opened her eyes and heard Tian Fangfang’s delighted shout: “That must be the Sacred Tree! It’s so bright, it’s the Sacred Tree. Who would have thought that after wearing out iron shoes in fruitless searching, we’d find it without any effort—it was so easy for us to find!”

“The Sacred Tree?” Zanxing sat up with a start and saw Tian Fangfang and the others gathered at the cave entrance, looking down at something.

“Junior sister, you’re awake?” Tian Fangfang turned around, saw Zanxing, and hurriedly called: “Come quickly and look, we found the Sacred Tree!”