Mini Theater Time
"Will you… come see me again today?" Han Ling asked softly, a hint of unease flickering in his eyes.
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Just when everyone had finished their preparations and was ready to move, nothing happened—Chen Qiyue didn't make a single move. That night, Han Ling borrowed Gu Xingxi's Yin-Yang puppet, intending to approach and investigate Ning.
They gathered in the apartment right next to Ning's. Leander had bought the place just yesterday at a hefty price, which impressed Han Ling with his efficiency. Once everything was in place, Han Ling took action.
But something strange happened... the puppet he used couldn't get anywhere near Ning!
"What's going on?" Jiang Mingyao asked anxiously.
"Not sure yet. Some sort of spell must have been set… Looks like the Yin-Yang puppet won't work here." Han Ling handed the puppet to Jiang Mingyao.
He stood by the window, gazing at the moon hanging high in the night sky. His expression turned grave as he finally decided to probe the area using his divine sense.
Silently, Han Ling released a strand of divine sense, attempting to penetrate the barrier surrounding Ning's apartment. A formation of this level—constructed with a fusion of modern tech and spiritual arts—shouldn't have been a major obstacle. But just as his divine sense touched the outer layer of the energy field, a subtle backlash struck back immediately! It didn't carry killing intent, but it was highly targeted—almost as if it had been lying in wait for his touch.
Han Ling's heart clenched. He quickly withdrew his divine sense, his gaze growing darker.
He wasn't hurt, but he could tell that the force wasn't just a typical repulsion—it was a specially designed anti-detection array. It reminded him of an ancient technique known as the "Tail-Biting Divine Sense Spell," capable of precisely detecting and countering any external probing.
This place… had been tampered with long ago.
Han Ling lowered his gaze in thought, then lifted a finger and drew a few invisible spiritual sigils in the air, sealing off his aura and the lingering ripples of his divine sense. Although the formation here was concealed, its spiritual pattern structure was completely different from mainstream cultivation styles. It wasn't something an average alchemist or artifact forger could've created—meaning the mastermind behind this base was definitely no ordinary figure.
Suddenly, Han Ling let out a muffled grunt. Leander, startled, wrapped his arms tightly around him in concern. Han Ling patted him gently to reassure him. "I'm fine. It's not enough to harm me," he said—but it was likely they'd already alerted the other side.
The mastermind had already acted when Ning first became pregnant, embedding a strand of divine sense within her fetus through spell fusion, forming the heart of a spiritual formation inside the womb.
This technique, which used a piece of one's own divine sense to reside in the unborn child, created a divine-sense surveillance array. If anyone tried to peer in with divine sense, the person who implanted it would be immediately alerted and could retaliate using the fetus as a spiritual anchor.
"Get out of here—now!!" Han Ling warned. Before they could move, he sensed someone approaching.
As Han Ling retrieved his divine sense, a glint of cold light flashed in his eyes. The space had been sealed with forbidden arts; someone was using divine-sense hooks to monitor the area. A single misstep would allow them to trace his aura back.
With a flick of his finger, Han Ling quietly unleashed a severing sigil, like an invisible blade, cutting off all cause and effect between him and that strand of divine sense.
"Seal of Breath Suppression—activate."
Two golden seals appeared like spirit snakes and pressed onto the chests of Leander and Jiang Mingyao, sealing off their spiritual presence. Han Ling ordered, "For thirty breaths, no talking, no channeling qi, no divine sense probing—we're being watched."
He forgot something—neither of them fully understood what it meant to avoid "channeling qi" or probing with divine sense. Misunderstanding, they simply covered their mouths and held their breath...
Han Ling's expression turned solemn as he stared toward the door. Suddenly, someone was standing there—completely still. A moment later, a powerful wave of divine sense swept into the apartment through the door!
The room fell deathly silent, save for the low hum of the air conditioning. The high-rise apartment was shrouded in night, and mischievous clouds outside the window occasionally blocked the moonlight.
"…He's here," Han Ling said via divine sense.
"He… is he scanning this room?" Jiang Mingyao bit his lip, eyes full of panic and pressure. He had never encountered a situation like this before—and with his low cultivation, the oppressive force nearly overwhelmed him.
It felt like he was suffocating. His five senses seemed to peel away, the air lost its warmth, and the walls felt like they were flowing. His heartbeat echoed as if it came from someone else's chest.
He dared not move, dared not even think, yet one thought screamed in his mind: We've been discovered.
He instinctively leaned toward Han Ling—only to realize even Han Ling's body temperature had dropped noticeably.
"Not just a scan," Han Ling whispered, face grave. "There's already a divine-sense monitoring tendril buried in this building. It's now using the ripple I left behind to trace us. This wasn't a random sweep… It's a trap."
Jiang Mingyao clenched his fists, forehead drenched in sweat, but didn't move an inch.
Before the divine sense could reach their corner, Han Ling's fingertip flicked again, releasing a faint silver light that rippled through the room like water, forming a barrier.
"I set up a soul-hiding formation. It'll cover our spiritual presence… but only for three minutes. If the probing lasts longer, we're screwed. Also—close your eyes."
"Even the eyes can leak spiritual energy." Everyone held their breath. Han Ling forced his spiritual flow back into his dantian, even suppressing his natural qi circulation.
Second by second ticked by. The probing pressure from outside loomed like an invisible blade, slicing through ceiling, wall, and floor—straight through the heart.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the divine sense receded. Han Ling slowly opened his eyes.
"He didn't find us… but he knows someone's been snooping around this building. We can't stay—" Before he could finish, Han Ling turned and saw Jiang Mingyao's face red like a pig's from holding his breath too long.
Han Ling: …
Thankfully, Leander had basic training and was fine. "The formation's still active for a bit longer. I'm worried he might've left part of his divine sense searching outside. Since he didn't find anyone, he'll probably get anxious."
Jiang Mingyao stored the puppet into his storage pouch and followed behind Leander and Han Ling. Sure enough, just as Han Ling opened the door, a sliver of divine sense was still monitoring—but once they reached the elevator, the pressure finally lifted.
"Definitely someone above the Nascent Soul stage," Jiang Mingyao finally dared to speak once inside the elevator. "I nearly pissed myself."
"This confirms our suspicion. The mastermind probably tampered with Ning's pregnancy." Han Ling nodded. At least they weren't completely in the dark anymore.
The three left the residential zone and boarded a spacecraft, heading directly for the Special Division. Everyone happened to be present, so Han Ling took the chance to report everything that had just occurred, including their previous suspicions.
They gathered around a circular table.
"Director wasn't here that day, but it doesn't matter—you would've told him anyway. It seems we were on the right track," someone said.
"But I'm certain this isn't the work of a group—it's planned by one person," Han Ling said, trusting his instincts.
"Why do you think that?" Hang Zhongxuan raised a brow, while Cen Wenyu rolled his eyes beside him.
"It's one person's plan—but more than one person knows about it. Otherwise, Chen Qiyue wouldn't have been helping him… And someone in the resting area of the Hunting Grounds picked him up…"
"Maybe this person hit a cultivation bottleneck at the Tiangang stage. The problem's been around for a while—and now he's running out of time…"
"You might need to investigate whether anyone's hiding their true cultivation level. If they're powerful enough, even concealment might not help you spot them."
"…My head hurts." Hang Zhongxuan sighed, dreading dealing with those old snakes.
"We still have time. Right now, the key issues are the child in Ning's womb and—where is Lingzhao?" Han Ling spoke as he gently rubbed Leander's thigh.
"I checked next door just now—no sign of Lingzhao's soul."
"What's even stranger is… I found signs that his soul is stabilizing, as if he's recovering somewhere safe." At least Lingzhao wasn't in immediate danger—they still had time.
"But he's just a mortal, right? Why would his soul stabilize? Did someone save him?" Cen Wenyu wondered aloud.
"That's possible. What matters is—he's safe. If his fate were absorbed, the world might fall into chaos." Han Ling reminded them. Lingzhao bore the Tian De Zi Wei fate—likely someone who had saved countless lives in past reincarnations, beloved by the heavens. If his fate were consumed and someone broke through, a calamity could follow.
"We just investigated several 'Living Corpse' cases. People died simultaneously, around 3 to 4 each day. Total now: 16 with identical symptoms. And…"
Lan Qihan, dressed in a white qipao with her long hair pinned up, stood and handed out documents. She then inserted a stylus into the table's projector.
A hologram projected the victims from their last case. "This one—the young adults nailed alive to become formation cores—was just a real estate tycoon cursing a rival."
"The formation was too complex, so we asked for help. Then we received a taunting letter."
"And there's one similarity between that case and this one…" Lan Qihan asked them to turn the page.
They saw a symbol—maybe even a glyph.
"This was found on a victim's hand in the last case," she pointed out. "It was also on the taunting letter. And in this new case—" she waved her hand to show another photo.
"It was carved into the victim's tongue." The symbol was so faint no one noticed at first. Only after Han Ling asked did Lan Qihan and Gu Xingxi re-examine the body and photos to spot it.
"We had experts examine it, but none could identify it. Possibly an ancient script—thousands of years old."
Han Ling stared at the glyph, feeling it grow more familiar by the second… but he couldn't recall where he'd seen it. Leander noticed his discomfort and quietly held his hand.
"We should consider the possibility of an outsider cultivator," Lan Qihan suggested.
Silence fell over the room.
"But if one person is behind all this, they'd have to know formation crafting, soul manipulation, and womb-based spiritual arrays… Do we know anyone like that?" Cen Wenyu questioned.
"Or maybe," Han Ling replied, "they're someone with immense cultivation—or as the Deputy Director said, someone from another realm."
Hang Zhongxuan flipped through records, suggesting the name of an ancient sect lost thousands of years ago. Everyone looked grim.
"I don't think it's that. Earth Blue barely survived an apocalypse not long ago—most people wouldn't have made it," Jiang Mingyao said, unconvinced.
As the meeting ended without a definitive answer, the group disbanded.
Leander held Han Ling's hand as they returned to his spaceship. Once inside, he locked in the Han family's coordinates and pulled Han Ling into his arms. Han Ling didn't resist—his mind still on that familiar glyph.
"What is it?" Leander played with Han Ling's silky hair, impressed by its softness and shine.
"That glyph… It looks so familiar…" Before Han Ling could finish, Leander tilted his chin and kissed him deeply.
Leander's hands slid under Han Ling's clothes, caressing his smooth, sensitive waist. Han Ling cursed his own overly responsive body.
He trembled, letting out a quiet gasp. Dissatisfied, Leander moved to Han Ling's spine, drawing a sharp moan that pleased him greatly.
He kissed down to Han Ling's throat, lips grazing his Adam's apple. Han Ling couldn't hold back any longer—grabbing Leander's shirt, he moaned, "Le… Leander… mm… what are you doing…"
"What else? Kissing you, my sweet baby," Leander growled, silver eyes burning with desire. Neither of them noticed the soft fragrance in the air thickening with every touch.
Han Ling's breath grew disordered, finally realizing the scent was seeping from Leander's skin—starting as light jasmine, but morphing into something richer: night-blooming flowers mixed with sandalwood and a heat he couldn't name.
He tried to speak—but Leander sealed his lips again, and that strange "guiding" force stirred Han Ling's spiritual energy restlessly.
"This scent… something's off." A possibility flickered through his mind, but his body reacted faster than his thoughts.
Leander's hand slid deeper, his voice husky, "You taste so sweet… Did you use some kind of treasure?"
Han Ling bit his lip, refusing to answer. He wasn't sure was the scent an external spell? Or… had something sealed inside him been activated?
He couldn't be blamed for not knowing the truth was, Han Ling's parents had simply forgotten to tell him the secrets of their bloodline before they left. Had they remembered, maybe he would've been more prepared for what was to come. But now… ever since meeting his destined partner, Han Ling's nights had become unexpectedly colorful.