Er Sheng had never left the village before, and she never knew the world outside would be so… desolate.

Just like how her village looked when she woke up this morning.

Chen Ru saw her dazed expression and thought she must be shocked by what she’d seen today. He tried to comfort her: “Don’t be surprised. They say the corpse poison has spread here, so every household is nervous and keeping their doors closed day and night. But with me and Master-Aunt Ji Ling protecting you, nothing will happen.”

Er Sheng asked: “What is corpse poison?”

“It’s like a disease. After infection, you turn into a jiangshi…” Chen Ru’s footsteps faltered, his expression suddenly becoming serious. “Like that one.” A person with rotting skin was slowly walking toward them on the road ahead, just like those Er Sheng had seen this morning. She unconsciously moved closer to Chang Yuan, even though he could only walk with support now.

Ji Ling sent out a flash of white light from her hand. The jiangshi froze, then fell motionless to the ground.

As the group continued walking, passing by the jiangshi’s body, Er Sheng couldn’t help but look back. She thought that this person must have been just like her before—just an ordinary person. Chen Ru glanced at Er Sheng, inwardly sneering at her womanly softness, and explained: “This disease spreads too quickly. Anyone who gets bitten inevitably becomes infected. There’s no cure—they can only be killed. Many villages have already been purged.”

Er Sheng didn’t dare ask who had purged the villages, but she felt the place where the jiangshi’s brain matter remained on her face burning intensely.

Would she become a jiangshi too? Would she also be killed…

When the four reached the inn, Ji Ling said: “Some people in town have already been infected. I’ll go check around. Chen Ru, stay here and get them settled.”

Chen Ru protested: “Master-Aunt, I want to go too! There are other disciples at the inn, they can handle things here.” Ji Ling gave him a cold glance. Chen Ru’s outstretched neck quietly retracted. “Fine.”

Chen Ru arranged for Er Sheng to stay with the other female disciples. He had planned to have Chang Yuan stay with the male disciples, but when he helped Chang Yuan into the room, the others refused to stay there. Chen Ru understood their unspoken difficulties and thoughtfully gave Chang Yuan a small room to himself.

The girls staying with Er Sheng were kind-hearted. Seeing Er Sheng’s disheveled state, they brought water for her to bathe and lent her their clothes to wear.

Never having received such good treatment before, Er Sheng was deeply moved several times over.

After Er Sheng cleaned up and sat down to ask about their backgrounds, they told her that everyone staying at the inn was a disciple of Wufang Immortal Mountain. With the spread of corpse poison, the Wufang Sect Leader had sent cultivators down the mountain to control the epidemic. They were all following their masters for practical training.

“Training?” Er Sheng asked curiously. “Why stay at an inn?”

The girls looked at each other for a moment before one round-faced girl said somewhat frustratedly: “They say it’s training… but whenever there’s any dangerous situation, our masters are afraid something will happen to us and mostly leave us in safer places.”

“Like this morning, when they heard something happened in the northern village, Master-Aunt Ji Ling had us stay in town while she led the masters to deal with the corpses.”

The girls became gloomy discussing this topic. Er Sheng didn’t know how to comfort them, and thinking of the tragic scene in her village made her mood even heavier.

At lunch, Er Sheng stared at the bowl of sticky white rice placed before her for a long time. The girl beside her added some dishes to Er Sheng’s bowl: “You’re so thin, eat more.”

Er Sheng’s face suddenly turned red, and she stammered for a while before saying: “I… I don’t have money.”

Most children sent to cultivate at Wufang Immortal Mountain came from wealthy backgrounds and had never experienced hardship. Hearing Er Sheng say this, they all laughed: “It’s just one meal, no need to pay. Just eat as you like.”

Only then did Er Sheng pick up her bowl and take a small bite. As the fragrant, soft rice spread in her mouth, Er Sheng couldn’t help but start wolfing it down hungrily. After two bowls, she added a third. Her eyes swept across the room during the meal, but she didn’t see Chang Yuan. The rice caught in her throat as she thought: Oh no, I’m enjoying comfort while forgetting about my bedridden husband.

“I’m full.” Er Sheng put down her chopsticks and looked across the table at Chen Ru, who seemed to have the most authority among the young disciples. She naturally asked his opinion: “Can I take this bowl of rice upstairs?”

“For that person who can’t walk? His meal has already been sent up.”

Er Sheng gratefully nodded to Chen Ru: “Thank you, young immortal, but I should handle such things from now on. After all, he is my husband—it’s not good to always trouble others.”

Like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, the group of youngsters suddenly fell silent.

“Hus… husband?” Chen Ru asked in disbelief. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be fourteen after July. Well, I’ll go up to take care of him now.” With that, she hurriedly ran upstairs, leaving the young disciples endlessly amazed.

Er Sheng called out to Chang Yuan and pushed open the door. At that moment, Chang Yuan had just finished adjusting his internal energy. Seeing Er Sheng enter, his first question was surprising: “Were you able to eat?”

Er Sheng was stunned for a moment, only then remembering she had told him she would starve to death without her front tooth. She scratched her head and said somewhat worriedly: “I… I could eat. The immortals told me losing a front tooth won’t cause starvation—I just need to find something hard like bone to replace it later.” But where would she find something hard like bone? Should she use a stone?

Chang Yuan nodded, mentally noting her words.

Er Sheng entered the room and saw food still on the table. She thought the person who delivered it wasn’t considerate—Chang Yuan couldn’t walk, and the table was so far from the bed, how could he eat? She didn’t know that just entering this room had already taken quite a toll on the inn’s servant…

“I’ll feed you.”

Chang Yuan shook his head: “Not hungry.” After a moment’s silence, he suddenly said, “The people here seem to fear me greatly. I am indeed not human. If you’re also afraid…”

Before he could finish, Er Sheng suddenly gave him a coy look: “Husband, you don’t need to test me like this… I, I’m already yours.” She touched her bottom as she spoke.

Chang Yuan promptly closed his mouth and resumed meditating.

Er Sheng moved closer to his pillow, looking left and right, waiting for Chang Yuan’s response. After a long time with no change in his expression, Er Sheng lowered her head disappointedly. But then she suddenly heard him say quietly: “If you want to stay, I won’t drive you away.”

Almost instantly, Er Sheng’s eyes brightened. She moved her head close to Chang Yuan’s cheek and planted a quick kiss, then rubbed her head against his face shamelessly: “Husband, husband!”

Chang Yuan didn’t find Er Sheng’s actions strange at all. After all, when she was still Siming, she had also rolled back and forth on his dragon form in the Void of Ten Thousand Heavens, acting spoiled and willful, rubbing against his dragon horns and shouting: “Big black dragon, big black dragon!”

What Er Sheng was doing now wasn’t fundamentally different from what Siming did then.

That’s what he thought.

Er Sheng spent the whole afternoon in Chang Yuan’s room taking care of him. Near dusk, she suddenly felt the entire room shake twice. Looking out the window, she saw that a huge blue membrane had appeared in the sky at some point, covering the entire town like a net.

Er Sheng turned to look at Chang Yuan, her eyes showing some unease about the unknown.

Chang Yuan shook his head: “It’s nothing, just a containment spell.”

Though Er Sheng didn’t understand what a containment spell was, she understood the meaning of “nothing,” so she sat back down beside Chang Yuan, looking down at her palm where something was slowly turning black.

Soon, there was a commotion outside.

Er Sheng went to check and found that Ji Ling had returned with the Wufang immortal masters. They all wore white robes with blue flowers and looked exhausted, completely unlike the fierce appearance Er Sheng had seen this morning. As soon as they entered the inn, they each found places to sit, their expressions somewhat grave.

Seeing their masters’ poor mood, the young disciples didn’t dare speak. After looking around at each other, Chen Ru finally stepped forward: “Master-Aunt, didn’t you say you were just walking around town? Why did you return with everyone?”

Ji Ling kept her cold expression and furrowed brows, not answering. The disciples looked at each other for a while, their anxiety growing. Suddenly, a burly man slammed the table angrily: “We should just fight it out with those inhuman monsters! Maybe we could cut a bloody path through!”

“Senior Brother, don’t be rash.” Another elegant immortal lady said, “The jiangshi this time seem somewhat different from those we’ve encountered before. They… they’re smarter…”

“Not smarter,” Ji Ling spoke up. “They have a purpose.”

Everyone was stunned for a moment before someone suddenly realized: “Right, like they have a purpose. Before they appeared scattered, but now they’re gathering like an army, moving toward somewhere.”

As the masters discussed heatedly, the young disciples became even more confused. The round-faced girl who stayed with Er Sheng pulled her master’s sleeve: “Master, what are you talking about? We don’t understand.”

The master sighed and said: “The jiangshi in the northern villages have all been burned. We should have been able to return this afternoon.” Hearing this, Er Sheng’s body stiffened, and she retreated further into the corner. He continued, “But on our way back, we discovered a large number of jiangshi suddenly surging from the south, all advancing north. This town is a necessary passage to the north. If we let those jiangshi pass through, no one in this town will survive. And under the assault of that overwhelming corpse poison, we can’t fly our swords south to return to Wufang.”

Everyone’s faces suddenly turned pale. This meant battle was inevitable, and they could only win, not lose.

Though Chen Ru felt some fear, he was still like a newborn calf unafraid of tigers—his desire to prove himself outweighed his fear. He asked: “About how many jiangshi are there?”

“Who the fuck knows?” The muscular immortal snorted coldly. “My hands are tired from killing, and there’s still a dark mass of them. You expect me to count them one by one?”

Chen Ru pouted and didn’t dare speak again.

Ji Ling waved her hand: “Enough for today. We’ve jointly created a barrier that will keep the town safe for now. Everyone rest well—we’ll return to battle tomorrow.” After speaking, she named several disciples to accompany them tomorrow.

Chen Ru was among them, and he was naturally excited, rubbing his hands together.

That night, the town was even quieter than during the day.

Er Sheng couldn’t sleep despite tossing and turning in bed. She kept feeling a cold energy rushing from her back to her head, and her palm, which had grown black spots during the day, became itchy and painful at night. She resisted scratching it, closing her eyes trying to fall asleep.

But once she closed her eyes, images involuntarily flashed through her mind—The teacher’s head rolling at her feet, the jiangshi whose head she had exploded, the rotting person Ji Ling had killed with a wave of her hand.

With the cold penetrating to her bones, she got up, grabbed her bedding, and ran to Chang Yuan’s room. Without knocking, she burst in, put her pillow and blanket next to Chang Yuan, and nimbly climbed onto his bed.

“Er Sheng?”

“Mm, I’m cold.”

“…Men and women should keep their distance.” Rubbing against him was one thing, but sleeping together was another—Siming had told him many times that this was something that could create life…

“Just don’t think of me as a woman. Besides, aren’t you already my husband? Mother told me when I was little that you can only sleep with men who are your husband. It’s fine for us to sleep together.”

He had grown used to being called “husband.” Chang Yuan thought, since he was destined never to take a wife if calling him that made Er Sheng happy, he’d let her.

Given the premise of being a “husband,” Chang Yuan found Er Sheng’s logic reasonable. Besides, he wouldn’t do anything to her, so he allowed Er Sheng to move from her blankets into his.

They closed their eyes, but after a while, Chang Yuan opened his again and suddenly asked: “Er Sheng, were you bitten by a jiangshi today?”

Er Sheng was silent for a moment before answering: “No, but I got splattered with their brain matter on my face.”

Chang Yuan made a sound of acknowledgment and closed his eyes again.

“Chang Yuan?”

“Mm.”

She hesitated for a long time before calling again: “Chang Yuan…”

“Mm.”

“I… what if I become a jiangshi?” This was the first time Er Sheng’s voice trembled today, revealing the fear and panic she had been desperately suppressing. Chang Yuan’s fingers twitched, meaning to pat her head, but Er Sheng grabbed his hand tightly. “Don’t abandon me! I’ll control it, I won’t bite people like the others! I won’t become like that… I’ll be good, don’t reject me!”

“Er Sheng, I won’t reject you.”

Chang Yuan said: “Don’t be afraid. I won’t reject you, won’t abandon you.”

Er Sheng’s eyes reddened, and she blinked quickly to disperse the tears, but still held Chang Yuan’s hand tightly, refusing to let go.

Er Sheng was just like Siming—one suppressing festering emotional wounds behind an unrestrained exterior, the other suppressing hysterical fear behind rebelliousness, fear of loneliness.