He didn't look like someone courting her; he looked more like an overly attentive waiter in a high-end restaurant. Even Song Wanníng couldn't help feeling puzzled by his erratic behavior. Was this how people in the Mùsù star system pursued someone? It felt a bit too humble, lacking the dignity one would expect from a powerful cultivator.
The two of them chatted and laughed as they walked along the mountain paths, their voices echoing through the quiet valleys. From time to time, Song Jing would even lift his hand, his fingers hovering in the air as he clearly expected her to hold onto him for support. On the surface, she kept smiling, her expression polite and demure, but inside she was completely speechless.
They were both immortals capable of flying through the clouds and shattering boulders with a thought. What was there to support while walking up a gentle slope? Worse still, he kept trying to take advantage of her throughout the journey, crossing the line with small, inappropriate moves, a brush of the shoulder here, a lingering touch there, every now and then.
She didn't agree to any of it, skillfully stepping away or shifting her position before he could make contact. That only made Xiao Jin despise him even more, the spirit shouting in her sea of consciousness that tearing him to pieces wouldn't be nearly enough to vent the anger it felt toward this lecherous invader.
Night finally fell, casting long shadows over the peaks, and they stopped in a secluded clearing in the mountains. He hunted some local prey and started roasting the meat over a crackling fire, the scent of fat dripping into the embers filling the air.
She took out a jar of fine wine and a few spiritual fruits she had gathered earlier. They talked happily under the starlight, and after drinking several cups, he grew far less restrained with his words, his posture slumping as the alcohol took hold.
That was when she began probing him, casually and deliberately, her voice dropping to a confidential whisper. She mentioned that she had recently been attacked by strange people who called themselves invaders, barely escaping with her life several times. That was why she had been so angry and defensive when she first saw him at the lake.
"What? There are other invaders too?" His face was flushed dark from the alcohol as he asked, his voice thick and sounding quite drunk.
"Yes. They all call themselves transmigrators or something like that. Anyway, they kept shouting about killing me," she said, putting on a frightened expression and huddling slightly closer to the fire. "I don't even know what kind of place the Mùsù star system is, or what it told them, to make them come after me so desperately. I don't even know what I did wrong to deserve this."
As she spoke, her eyes reddened, shimmering with unshed tears in the firelight. That near-tearful look instantly went to his head, clouding what little judgment he had left.
He said angrily, his hand slamming down on the grass, "That Mùsù star system is really not a thing! How could it bully a weak woman like you? I can't figure out why it targeted you either. It even told me to drain your Luck, said it would let me become its breakthrough point in a future world war. But I love you so much. How could I ever do that to you?"
"Don't worry," he continued, leaning toward her. "With me protecting you, I won't let the Mùsù star system hurt you even a little. As for those other invaders, none of them are going to end well. I'll take care of them for you." He patted his chest, bragging shamelessly about his supposed power. He thought he was giving her endless security, and that this was the perfect chance to strike while she was vulnerable and seeking comfort. Women were most fragile when they were afraid, were they not?
"Oh? Drain my Luck? How would that work?" her eyes flickered, a trace of cold light surfacing within them that he was too intoxicated to notice. So the Mùsù star system still hadn't given up on its ultimate goal. It didn't just want her dead; it wanted to strip her of her merit and destiny too. How greedy and parasitic.
"Uh… it gave me some kind of incantation. Said I could only use it after killing you…" his voice trailed off as he tried to remember the complex runes. "But don't worry, baby. I would never use it on you. We're going to build a family together in this world. We're family now. What the hell is the Mùsù star system anyway? It's nothing to us."
His head was spinning, the alcohol making his temples throb with a dull rhythm. She had drugged the wine with a potent spiritual suppressant. All he felt was a sudden, crushing weakness spreading through his body, his vision blurring until the trees seemed to melt into the dark. He couldn't even clearly hear what he was saying himself anymore. Soon, double images appeared before his eyes, the fire splitting into two dancing ghosts.
He vaguely saw her stand up, a sword appearing in her hand, the blade gleaming silver. He reached out with a trembling hand and grabbed her silk skirt to steady himself. Lifting his head, he shook it hard, trying to clear the fog.
"Wanníng, I really like you. Will you be my girlfriend?" he asked, his voice slurring. "I swear I will treat you well for the rest of our lives." Even now, facing her cold silence, he was still confessing to himself, lost in his own fantasy.
She looked down at him, her eyes as cold as the mountain moon. "You like me? What do you like about me?" she asked. He hadn't even seen her true self, let alone understood the weight of the burdens she carried or who she really was as a cultivator. And yet he claimed to like her based on a pretty face and a few days of travel.
"I… I like… like…" he almost blurted out that he liked her face and the way her robes hugged her curves, then quickly stopped himself as a flicker of survival instinct kicked in. "I… of course I like everything about you. Your soul, your spirit…"
"Heh." She let out a short, dry laugh. She kicked him away with a sharp blow to the chest, twisted her long sword in a practiced motion, and slashed down at him. Sword light flashed like a bolt of lightning, and his heart jolted as his eyes widened in sudden, sober terror. The next instant, the blade was already upon him.
His drunkenness vanished in an instant under the threat of death. He tried to fight back, reaching for the core of his power, only to realize that the immortal power inside him was gone, completely gone, blocked by the toxins in his blood.
"You… you drugged me?" he gasped, staring at her in utter shock. But the sword light was already there, filling his vision. Panicking, he tried to open his storage ring with a mental command to take out a defensive treasure to block the attack.
But with his immortal power gone, the ring wouldn't open; it remained a silent band of metal on his finger. Crushed by the overwhelming pressure of her aura, he couldn't move at all, forced to watch the cold edge of the sword descend toward his brow.
Boom.
The sword cleaved down violently, the force of the strike shattering the ground beneath him and splitting him straight down from the center of his head. His body was cut cleanly in two, falling to either side of the blade's path.
At the same time, a shimmering Primordial Soul burst out from the ruined sea of consciousness. It was that remnant soul he had harbored. It flashed forward with incredible speed and lunged straight toward her sea of consciousness. She seemed completely unaware of the threat, standing still and letting the spirit enter her mind.
Outside, on the grass, he was dead. His last trace of vitality had already dispersed into the night air. His corpse lay split in half, his own Primordial Soul shattered by the physical blow, dead in an instant. She had originally planned to search his soul for information, but after noticing something off about his spiritual signature during their walk, she abandoned the idea.
Sure enough, she had been right to wait for him to reveal his hand. There really was a hidden problem deep in his sea of consciousness. If she had searched his soul directly while he was alive, that hidden entity would have taken advantage of the connection to invade her own sea of consciousness instead.
Inside the golden expanse of her mind, her Primordial Soul stared calmly at the intruding soul, her lips curving slightly in a cold smile. "So it was you all along."
The entity before her was the white-haired man who had previously worked with the host to put on that act in the farmhouse. Only a remnant soul remained, hiding in the host's sea of consciousness like a parasite. No wonder it hadn't been found by her initial sweeps.
"You really are clever," the white-haired man said, looking at her golden form. Admiration flashed in his eyes, devoid of the host's clumsy lust. That idiot host really had been hopelessly stupid to the very end. To be fooled so thoroughly, even dying like this without realizing his lover was his executioner, he didn't deserve any sympathy from anyone.
"Are you an invader too?" curiosity flickered in her eyes as she asked, her spiritual form radiating power.
He lifted his eyelids slightly and replied flatly, "No. I am not the same as that kind of idiot. And that so-called Mùsù star system isn't anything good either." Even as a mere remnant soul, he was still a native of this world, a relic of an older age. Dead or not, he would never truly side with the Mùsù star system against his own realm.
So when he realized her true intentions during the dinner, he didn't warn the host. That idiot really did fall for the trap, dying so easily at her feet. No wonder he had been treated as simple cannon fodder by the masters of the star system.
"Oh? Then what are you after? Why stay within him?" she asked, genuinely surprised now. She had assumed the remnant soul was also an invader, which was why it had cooperated with the host's plans.
The remnant soul's lips curled with a hint of coldness that reached his eyes. "What am I after? Of course, it is for you."
Letting the invader seize that body back then had not been an act of generosity or a failure to defend himself. He simply had not thought much of the invader's potential. With that kind of mediocre aptitude, back in the day when he was at his peak, that man would not even have been worthy of carrying his shoes.
It was only that the physical body was somewhat special, possessing a unique lineage that was enough to let his remnant soul survive for a while longer in the material world.