Faced with Feng Qi's threat, Yin Ling's expression changed sharply.
The look she gave him was filled with killing intent.
But when her eyes shifted to her brother Yin Xiao, who was being held by the throat and struggling desperately, yet utterly unable to break free from Feng Qi's grasp, a sigh echoed in her heart.
Just as Feng Qi had said, she no longer had the initiative in this negotiation.
The plan had been completely exposed, and strength-wise, she was also completely inferior to this mysterious figure.
She had no other options.
Sure, going down with the ship was still technically a choice, but what would be the point? Better to yield for now, figure out the truth behind all this, and understand what exactly this man in front of her was trying to achieve.
With that in mind, Yin Ling reached out and picked up the memory vial on the desk. She removed the protective cap on the needle and stabbed it into her neck.
The liquid was swiftly injected into her bloodstream as the plunger pressed down.
The cold fluid made her shiver involuntarily.
Almost immediately, overlapping images began to appear before her eyes—layers upon layers of visual hallucinations stacked on top of one another. The blurry, distorted scenes sent a wave of nausea surging through her.
Yin Ling instinctively stumbled back into her chair.
As her eyes slowly closed, the overlapping images faded. The blurry visuals gradually became clear.
What she was seeing came from an edited memory fragment of Feng Qi's.
To Yin Ling, this wasn't just watching a film—it was far more immersive than any movie. She was inside the memory, experiencing everything with full emotional and sensory weight.
The fragmented scenes flashed and gradually pieced together into a full, seamless narrative.
It began with Feng Qi and the Mist Lord drafting a plan to sacrifice the Silver Moon Clan. As the memory advanced, a series of coordinated actions played out.
Dismantling the Silver Moon Clan's grip on the Western District, taking over the energy infrastructure, setting ambushes for Yin Ling and other vanguard warriors of the Silver Moon Clan.
And at the very end, a colossal spatial array.
The spatial array was deployed outside Star City, and the resulting rift looked like a massive mouth slowly opening, as if it would swallow the world whole.
A familiar spatial channel rapidly formed inside the rift—leading directly to the Domain World.
Beneath the array, hidden from view, was a sacrificial formation arranged by the Mist Lord and his blood-refined warriors.
As the Silver Moon warriors received the signal and descended through the spatial channel, they were caught in a trap. The blood-refined warriors, working in sync with the Mist Lord, activated the sacrificial array like a giant millstone—grinding down the arriving Silver Moon warriors.
Their blood surged into the formation and condensed into bloodstones, which rained down like crimson hail onto the earth.
The scene shook Yin Ling to her core.
A bone-chilling dread crept over her.
Through these images, she realized this mysterious man knew far more than she had imagined.
He even knew how they communicated with their kin and the precise spatial coordinates of their home territory. It was precisely because he had all this information that the Silver Moon Clan had fallen into the trap with zero awareness.
Even if it hadn't happened yet, everything felt frighteningly real.
It was as if the event was fated to occur in the future.
And she had no doubt—if this man truly wanted to make it happen, he absolutely could.
The spatial array, the coordinates, the contact methods... everything they had used to secure their plan was already in his hands. They had no secrets left.
Killing her clansmen would be effortless for him.
The final memory image showed the Silver Moon Clan wiped out as the spatial rift above them shrank and closed.
When Yin Ling opened her eyes again, she couldn't hide the fear in her gaze toward Feng Qi.
But what she couldn't understand was—how could something that hadn't yet happened be shown so clearly? How had he created such vivid, immersive memory footage?
Taking a deep breath, Yin Ling forced herself to suppress the panic rising inside. She looked up at Feng Qi and asked:
"What exactly is this? Is this… really going to happen in the future?"
"You can think of it as a vision of the future that I have the ability to see. This was what I saw when you refused to cooperate with me. I then extracted that memory and made it into this memory vial."
As he spoke, Feng Qi gently released Yin Xiao.
"Cough, cough…"
Now free, Yin Xiao coughed violently, his face flushing red. Then he suddenly raised his jade flute, ready to attack Feng Qi, and shouted:
"What do you want from us!"
"Xiao!"
Yin Ling snapped sharply at him.
Yin Xiao froze mid-swing.
"Sis…"
"Shut up. Stand over there."
Though he looked frustrated and unwilling, Yin Xiao obediently stepped aside.
Glancing at him, Feng Qi shook his head inwardly.
Compared to his shrewd and far-sighted sister, Yin Xiao was clearly a few steps behind—or rather, just too naive.
That had already been proven in the timeline where the Silver Moon Clan was sacrificed. No wonder Yin Ling had kept him close, instead of sending him to manage other energy branches like the other Silver Moon vanguard warriors.
The reason was obvious—Yin Xiao simply wasn't fit to take on important responsibilities. He was better suited to be a front-line warrior.
With how easily Yin Xiao wore his emotions on his face, it'd be all too easy for him to expose his identity and ruin the Silver Moon Clan's entire operation.
"May I ask a few questions before we talk further about cooperation?" Yin Ling suddenly interrupted Feng Qi's train of thought.
Feng Qi gave a calm smile and nodded.
"Go ahead."
"Which race or force do you belong to?"
"Human," Feng Qi replied without hesitation.
"Human?"
Yin Ling couldn't help but repeat, eyes full of disbelief.
She had considered countless possibilities but had never imagined that the mysterious man in front of her could actually be human.
Even the scenes shown in the memory vial contradicted the idea that he was from the human race.
For example, the physical amplification ability—this was definitely not something that existed in humanity's current cultivation systems.
She was sure of that.
After all, she had spent years embedded in human society and had studied their growth system thoroughly in the academies. She knew very well how shallow humanity's cultivation framework still was.
In the memory scenes, this mysterious man's body expanded in combat and his power surged dramatically. That looked far more like a racial talent than any ability requiring conscious activation.
And there were many other details in the memory footage that didn't match what a human could possibly achieve.
So when Feng Qi claimed he was human, her first reaction was to assume he was messing with her.
"You didn't mishear. I'm human. The same humans your people want to invade and enslave."
"I know you're quite familiar with the human race. You even studied materials science at the Old Day Academy, laying the groundwork for the Silver Moon Clan's infiltration of Star City. You've prepared thoroughly. But what you know is only a part of humanity—there's a lot more you haven't seen. Like me."
Hearing this, Yin Ling's expression changed subtly.
She started to believe what Feng Qi said.
Although there was no direct evidence proving he was human, she felt that he had no reason to lie about this. Whether or not he was human didn't change the fact that the situation was entirely under his control.
Seeing that, Yin Ling didn't press the issue further. Instead, she shifted the topic.
"You said what I saw was a future you foresaw—so that means the Silver Moon Clan's plan must've succeeded once, right? Otherwise, how could you possibly know all of it?"
Feng Qi nodded with a faint smile.
"You're sharp. In several timelines I foresaw, your plan succeeded. On that day, Star City's entire energy grid was cut off. You tore open a spatial rift above Star City, and the entire Silver Moon Clan arrived. It nearly brought total disaster to Star City. Though we ultimately pulled through, the cost was immense."
"You mean even if our plan succeeds, the war with Star City still ends in failure?" Yin Ling frowned, visibly doubtful.
"That's right."
Feng Qi wasn't trying to hide anything.
Although he hadn't seen the battle between Tian Shu and the Silver Moon Clan himself, he had pieced together how brutal it was from later intel. That was why he couldn't provide a memory image for it.
But the Silver Moon Clan's failure was a fact.
After a moment of silence, Yin Ling asked again,
"So as long as the Silver Moon Clan chooses to be humanity's enemy, failure is inevitable?"
"Correct."
The Silver Moon vanguard's plan had indeed succeeded multiple times, but each time they ran into something—either Suction Cup or Tian Shu. Even if their infiltration succeeded, they still lost the war.
So unless the Silver Moon Clan chose to cooperate with humanity, their ultimate fate in every normal timeline was the same—extinction.
Feng Qi's decision to approach Yin Ling now, proposing an alliance, wasn't just about giving humanity a path forward. It was also a rare opportunity for the Silver Moon Clan to escape their destined destruction.
After hearing this, Yin Ling fell into deep thought.
After a long silence, she looked up again and asked,
"One more question. You must be in possession of a Miracle Artifact, right? The ability to foresee future events is definitely not something a human cultivation system could produce. Not even the strong races have that kind of ability. It all points to you having a Miracle Artifact."
"You can think of it that way. But now it's time for you to answer my question—will you or will you not cooperate with humanity?"
"What's the direction of this cooperation? I don't understand what value the Silver Moon Clan has in your eyes. I just saw you refining the entire Silver Moon Clan into bloodstones in that memory. What could be more valuable than turning us into a resource stockpile? Or do you plan to enslave us instead?"
Facing the question, Feng Qi smiled and shook his head.
"I've never had any intention of enslaving the Silver Moon Clan. What I value is your clan's engineering technology."
Hearing this, the tension in Yin Ling's heart finally eased a little.
After watching the memory footage, she already understood that this mysterious man before her held the power to decide the fate of the Silver Moon Clan—life or death.
But if they chose life, there would naturally be a price to pay.
She had believed the most likely price would be enslavement, like the way stronger races raised weaker ones as livestock—reduced to laborers at the bottom of society.
Yet when Feng Qi said he only sought their engineering knowledge, Yin Ling let out a long breath of relief.
And in that moment, she suddenly understood why the mysterious man had come.
Clearly, he had seen the Silver Moon Clan's massive contributions to Star City's development in his visions of the future.
The very development blueprints she had crafted as preparation for the Silver Moon Clan's eventual occupation of Star City.
She had designed them with care.
Star City, after all, was meant to be the first crucial step in their plan to build a cultivation-system-based city.
And she knew perfectly well—the Silver Moon Clan had the capability to construct such a city. What they lacked was resources.
The strength and technology they possessed did not match the actual resources at their disposal.
That imbalance was the reason the clan leaders opted for steady, conservative growth.
The so-called "pioneer warriors," like herself, only mastered the most basic forms of Silver Moon engineering. Back in the clan, there were many true masters of the craft—their capabilities far exceeded hers.
She never expected the Star City energy blueprint she drafted would turn out to be the Silver Moon Clan's saving grace.
It was easy to imagine—if not for those design plans, the mysterious man before her would have seen the Silver Moon Clan as nothing more than a future threat and crushed them without hesitation.
The reason they were now sitting here and negotiating was because he saw their engineering expertise as something that could help humanity grow.
Now that she understood Feng Qi's intent, the fear in Yin Ling's heart began to fade.
She still had no choice, of course.
But at least, in this mysterious man's eyes, the Silver Moon Clan had value. They had the knowledge he needed. That alone ensured they would be treated as assets.
"Yin Ling, do you know where your clan's engineering technology actually came from?"
At Feng Qi's question, Yin Ling nodded.
"Of course. It was developed by our ancestors. But there was a point in our history where we suffered several disruptions. The historical records we could trace showed that our clan once reached an era of glory and peak advancement—only to lose much of it due to war or other external factors. Our knowledge and tech were mostly lost during that time, and our clan's strength severely declined."
"You're mistaken. That technology wasn't developed by your Silver Moon Clan. It came from a powerful civilization once known as the Silver Serpent Empire, and your clan was just a sub-branch of that great empire. After the empire collapsed, your people inherited some of its legacy and became a wandering force."
Seeing the disbelief in Yin Ling's eyes, Feng Qi continued,
"Yin Ling, I can promise you—if the Silver Moon Clan genuinely helps humanity grow, and shows enough sincerity, I will give you a gift. A gift from the lost history of your people—the ultimate legacy left behind by a once-glorious empire."
"How do you even know all this? You're telling me your ability to foresee the future can also let you access historical information you've never encountered?" Yin Ling exclaimed.
"That's not something you need to worry about. What you do need to know is that this could be the gift I offer your clan—but whether you get it depends on your sincerity. What I can promise for now is this: if the Silver Moon Clan never betrays humanity, humanity will never raise a blade against you."
As he spoke, Feng Qi's gaze shifted to the second vial of memory fluid on the desk.
"Yin Ling, aren't you curious about the contents of this one?"
"What's in it?"
"It's not my memory, but it's related to you. It contains the exact reason why the Silver Moon Clan's secrets were exposed—details that weren't in the previous memory. More importantly, it might give us a good starting point for cooperation between our two races."
"I don't understand what you mean."
"You've studied human history, right? Then you should know that marriage alliances have long been used as a very effective diplomatic method to strengthen relations between two sides… Honestly, I'm not sure what's going on with your people…"
As he spoke, Feng Qi picked up the vial and placed it in front of the puzzled Yin Ling.
"Take a look for yourself. You'll understand."