Chapter 57
Chapter 57: Terror in the Dungeon (Part 1)
“You’ve changed.”
“Changed?” Mo Ting Feng gave a hollow laugh. “The man you saw tonight—trapped by love, anxious, reckless—that’s probably the real me.”
“If she truly is Sang Pu,” Bei Hua Shan said carefully, “would you abandon everything to be with her? Especially with that restriction on you…”
Mo Ting Feng paused with the cup at his lips.
His mind flashed an image of Song Wei Chen in Gu Cang Yue’s arms.
Bitterness flooded his mouth. He downed the wine and, unsatisfied, tipped the jug and drank straight from it.
Seeing his answer in his silence, Bei Hua Shan didn’t push.
Instead, she changed the subject with a knowing smile. “Where’s Brother Ji? When do I get to drink your wedding wine?”
Mo Ting Feng forced his expression smooth. “He’s been busy lately?”
Bei Hua Shan sighed, pipe between her fingers. Another phantom miss appeared to pour wine. “He’s been coming and going like a ghost, saying he’s preparing a surprise. If I didn’t know he looks down on ordinary women, I’d start worrying he’s keeping someone outside.”
“He’s the type who’d rather quit the Dust Warden Office than settle down with you,” Mo Ting Feng said dryly. “Yet he still stays in a place cold enough to freeze your legs off, and he still gets teased like this. Men in love are pitiful.”
“Maybe,” he added, lifting a brow, “he’s secretly preparing your wedding.”
Bei Hua Shan’s smile turned sultry, dangerous.
The sky began to pale. Mo Ting Feng finished his cup and rose to leave. Bei Hua Shan walked him out, slow and graceful.
“The thing you care about,” she said, “I’ll find out as soon as possible.”
She stopped beneath a plaque that read: No-Thought Manor.
Mo Ting Feng disappeared into the mist.
Bei Hua Shan watched the direction he’d gone, her expression shifting into something thoughtful. With a turn of her wrist, a drop of blood appeared above her fingertips—the one he had given her.
With her other hand, she formed a second drop. Its barrier shimmered with pale blue light, clean as ice—the blood Gu Cang Yue had extracted from the hairpin.
“Why,” she murmured, “do the two of them seem to be tracing the same person?”
The blood vanished. And then Bei Hua Shan dissolved into smoke, as effortlessly as the phantom misses she summoned.
At the Dust Warden Office, Song Wei Chen woke still weak, still drained. She remembered the interrogation and forced herself up, arriving at the dungeon early.
It wasn’t what she’d imagined. The place was clean, orderly, without the stink of blood or filth. But it never saw sunlight, and the cold lived in the stone.
Mo Ting Feng was already there, seated at a massive evidence table, flipping through case files. It was still too early for anyone else.
“Morning, Boss.”
He didn’t look up. Just a brief nod—cold, distant.
His moods really did change like the weather, she thought sourly. Last night he’d been tropical heat. Today he was a Siberian front.
She had no idea that after she entered, he hadn’t read a single word. It wasn’t indifference. It was fear—fear that if he spoke, everything he’d been forcing down would spill out.
She didn’t know he’d been to Venerable Manor at first light, asking after her night, arranging two medicinal-cuisine masters to handle her daily meals.
She only knew the dungeon felt damp and punishing, and she didn’t have the strength to deal with him.
So she retreated to the far corner of the table and closed her eyes, trying to rest.
Across the files, Mo Ting Feng watched her without seeming to. She looked small, pale, curled tight against the chill.
And then, without a word, warmth settled over her shoulders.
She opened her eyes to find his black cloak draped neatly around her.
At some point he had moved to sit beside her. He still stared at the files, face unreadable. When she looked up at him, he didn’t speak—only reached for her hand and held it in his palm, warming her fingers with quiet patience.
The gesture stole the air from her lungs.
Her heart started pounding too loud, too fast. Looking at his sharp profile in the cold light, she suddenly understood Ruan Mian Mian all too well.
Neither of them spoke. But something trembled between them anyway, soft and dangerous.
The others arrived soon after. Ding He Ran hurried over the moment he saw her, asking about her injuries. Song Wei Chen quickly withdrew her hand. Mo Ting Feng stood to prepare for the interrogation. No one mentioned what had just happened, as if it had never existed.
A soul-binding barrier activated in a sealed section of the dungeon.
Bao Er slowly appeared within it.
Heaven Net Earth Net restrictions still shrouded her. She sat slumped in a chair, head lowered.
Even through the barrier, Song Wei Chen could see the frightening cracks in Bao Er’s lips, the bruised, purpling shadows on her cheeks. Nian Niang had been riding her for nearly two days. The child was barely holding on.
“Bao Er!” Song Wei Chen called, panic rising.
Bao Er lifted her head.
The expression on her face was wrong—wicked, delighted, a terrible contrast to the death creeping through her body.
“Good thing you didn’t die,” she said brightly. “When you weren’t here, no matter what I said, they couldn’t understand. Boring.”
“Now they understand,” Ding He Ran cut in. “You know we care about this child. If you stall any longer, she dies. You’re using that to bargain.”
Bao Er smiled. “Remove Heaven Net Earth Net.”
Mo Ting Feng snapped his fingers.
The restrictions shattered.
Bao Er rolled her shoulders like she’d just been freed from a pleasant stretch. “Decisive as always, Dust Warden Official.”
“Leave the child’s body,” Mo Ting Feng said, voice flat as steel.
“And if I do,” she asked sweetly, “will you let me go?”
“No.”
Nian Niang threw back her head and laughed. “I like your temperament, Dust Warden Official. Just like Master said.”
“Master?” Ye Wu Jiu repeated, and the word hit the room like a blade.
The grievance-breakers’ faces tightened. Even Song Wei Chen felt a cold sweat rise.
Chaos wraiths were vicious, but predictable. Big fish ate little fish; little fish ate shrimp.
Nian Niang was terrifying because she was a chaos wraith with will—one that could restrain hunger, plan, and wait.
But “Master” meant something worse.
It meant organization. Obedience. Collective purpose.
It meant the big fish were no longer eating the little fish…
They were going to eat people.