After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

As the Gu worm left her body, the violent backlash made Xiao Rou feel a sweet taste in her throat, and the sprayed blood mist dispersed in the cold air.

She knelt on the ground covered in rust and mud, her black veil disheveled, her bare feet stained with dust.

But those eyes were frighteningly bright.

"bride price?"

"You're not going to kill me?" Xiaorou's voice trembled with excitement.

Zhou Ran didn't answer, but just looked at her with the kind of eyes that assess goods.

"From the first time you met me at the Valley of Ten Thousand Medicines, you never intended to really take my life."

Xiao Rou's body stiffened slightly.

"You used witchcraft, set up a trap, and dragged in that bunch of junk from the Black Dragon Society to put on such a grand show."

Zhou Ran walked up to her, slowly squatted down, and looked her in the eye.

"But your poison has never been aimed at my vital points."

He stretched out a finger and pointed it in the air, as if he were taking inventory.

"The Gu poison from Wanyao Valley, when implanted in Su Qingling's body, is targeting the Tide Saint Body; it has nothing to do with me."

"Zhang Xuansu's demonic Gu is aimed at Longhu Mountain. It's the Taoist sect's doing that's dirty, it has nothing to do with me."

"What's on Xiao Hongli is even more laughable; it's an aphrodisiac that doesn't even give her the will to kill."

Zhou Ran's tone was calm, yet it struck Xiao Rou's heart like a series of heavy blows.

"You just want me to see you."

Xiao Rou's pupils went out of focus for a moment.

She opened her mouth, but her throat felt like it was filled with lead, and she couldn't make a sound.

It was neither a backlash from the poison nor a suppression by demonic energy.

Once someone has seen through you completely, even the last shred of your dignity is torn away, leaving you nowhere to hide.

"The Holy Maiden of Black Witch Village, born with a Gu body, has been regarded as a vessel for the 'Heavenly Demon' to descend since she can remember."

Zhou Ran's voice was devoid of warmth, as if he were reading a file that had nothing to do with him.

"The people around you are either afraid of you or they use you; none of them treat you like a human being."

"So, you want to find someone who isn't afraid of you."

Zhou Ran brought his face closer, his breath icy cold.

"Something...that can scare you."

A tear slid down Xiao Rou's cheek without warning.

Then came the second drop, and the third drop.

Silently, large drops of blood fell onto the back of my hand, leaving a dark, blurred mark.

She had killed people and been hunted down; she was used to pain, used to betrayal, and used to arming herself with madness.

But she had never been used to being stripped bare like this by someone.

"What...right do you...?"

"Want to know?"

Zhou Ran stood up and casually put the golden pill, which still retained some residual energy, into his pocket.

He leaned against a broken steel pillar, the moonlight casting a cold, silvery glow on him.

"Okay, I'll grant your wish."

The sorrow on Xiaorou's face froze instantly.

Because Zhou Ran's tone changed.

It was a mechanical calm, completely devoid of all emotion.

"I knew about the demonic curse you planted on Xiao Hongli the moment I touched her."

Xiao Rou's fingers instinctively curled up.

"You think that after the lovemaking is over and the curse is removed, you'll have gained nothing?"

Zhou Ran opened his palm, flipped it over, as if to show the non-existent lines on his palm.

"No."

"As I crushed it, I followed the thread of cause and effect and found you."

"That power...follows the causal lines..."

Xiao Rou's throat was dry and tight, and every word sounded like it had been sanded out.

"right."

"Then, I left something in your meridians."

These words struck Xiaorou, causing her pupils to shrink sharply.

She instinctively covered her lower abdomen.

There, that wisp of primordial essence, so faint it was almost nonexistent, which she had always treasured and was reluctant to refine...

It's not a remnant of war spoils!

It's a brand!

It's a dog leash!

"From that moment on, your location, your heartbeat, who you've met, and what you've said."

"Every acceleration of your blood and energy is a letter to me."

Zhou Ran's tone was completely flat; he was simply stating a fact.

"Song Zhentian entered your room at 1:17 AM."

"You talked for thirteen minutes, and his knife was on his left thigh."

"Before you bit your finger to draw the talisman, your heart rate jumped from 72 beats per minute to 210 beats per minute."

He paused, then gave her a cruel conclusion.

That's not fear.

"It's excitement."

"You're gambling, gambling that his artificial golden pill can hurt me."

"I'm betting that your Obsessive Poison can lock it in at the last minute."

"You're still gambling, gambling that I'll actually look at you differently after being 'moved' by your clumsy act."

The color drained from Xiaorou's face inch by inch.

Like a sand painting washed away by the tide, only a pale white background remains.

She finally understood.

From the moment she was on the hotel waterbed, pierced by that mental shock, and plunged into her own "mental climax"—

She was already a puppet being held on strings.

All her clandestine spying was a performance staged under the noses of others.

All her scheming and plotting was just a joke with a pre-written script.

"you……"

"They've been watching me."

The words were squeezed out of her throat, and they were no longer coherent.

“‘Looking’ is secondary,” Zhou Ran corrected her.

"The main thing is to confirm one thing."

He crouched down again to be at her eye level.

The appraising gaze in those purple-gold demonic eyes was even more chilling than pure killing intent.

"Let's see if your dog's life is worth keeping."

These words, like a poisoned ice pick, pierced the deepest part of Xiaorou's soul.

"Holy Maiden! Do not be deceived by his wicked words!"

Deep inside the workshop, the remaining witch could no longer restrain himself, and the snake-faced witch's hand reached for the gu pouch at his waist.

Zhou Ran didn't turn around, but simply held up two fingers.

"You have twelve dogs, two choices."

"First, make them lie down."

Second, I told them to lie down.

"And then what happens after you lie down?" Xiaorou's lips trembled.

"Do me a favor."

"What is it?"

"A dragon swims in the Yangtze River."

These four words pierced Xiaorou's ears like a thunderclap.

"How could you—"

"I know everything about the Pai Sect's intelligence, the Black Dragon Society's plans, and what kind of pie your Black Witch Village wants to get a share of."

Zhou Ran interrupted her, stood up, and looked down at her without any emotion.

"You think I came to this run-down factory to kill you?"

He paused for a moment, giving her no time to catch her breath, and then dropped the final straw.

You don't deserve it.

These words are heavier than any form of torture.

Xiao Rou's body swayed violently, her lips opened and closed, but no sound came out.

Zhou Ran had already turned his back and was walking towards the restless witches.

His voice echoed through the empty ruins, cold and uncompromising.

"Three seconds."

"Make your men kneel down."

"Otherwise, you'll be heading back to Southern Xinjiang tonight with twelve bodies filled with cement inside."

In the shadows, the snake-faced witch's fingers had already activated the mechanism of the gu sac.

Xiao Rou closed her eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, the morbidity, madness, and scheming in those eyes had all been crushed and reshaped.

Only a deeper, purer, almost pilgrimage-like distorted light remained.

"Everyone—kneel down."

Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried the unique divine imprint of the Holy Maiden's Decree, piercing through the consciousness of every witch.

Boom-!

Boom!Boom!Boom!

The twelve figures, as if their spines had been broken by an invisible giant hammer, knelt down in unison, their foreheads slamming into the glass-sharded ground.

Zhou Ran continued walking, stepping over rubble and pools of blood, until he finally stopped in front of Xiao Rou.

His gaze swept from her bare ankles to the mud-stained hem of her skirt, and finally landed on the dried blood at the corner of her mouth.

"One last thing."

He took out his phone, and the light from the screen illuminated Xiaorou's deathly pale face.

"Make a phone call."

He dialed Chen Ya's number and handed it to her.

"Tell her all the spies that Black Witch Village has planted in the waterways of Tianjin, their names, locations, and contact information."

"Not one, not one missed."

Xiaorou took the phone.

The cold metal body burned her fingertips.

This is not a phone call.

This is a pledge of allegiance.

Use the blood of her entire village to dye her name red, and present it to this man.

She dialed the number.

"Hello, my name is Xiaorou."

Her voice had regained its unique softness and sweetness characteristic of girls from southern Xinjiang.