The thunderous roar of the door lock shattering splintered the deathly silence of the bamboo forest.
In the end, Leng Heng failed to stop Yunsong. As the blade of the sword known as "Frostfall" cleaved through the wood, Leng Heng's usually unflappable face twisted into a mask of frenzied malice.
"Yunsong, you will regret coming in here," Leng Heng's voice was a low hiss, a curse forced through gritted teeth.
Yunsong didn't listen. He stumbled into the room, fueled by a sense of duty and an unidentifiable, gnawing anxiety only to freeze like an ice sculpture at the sight before him.
There were no lights lit in the room. Only the moonlight filtered through the ornate screen, casting cold, silvery patterns across the floor.
Li An was sprawled on the freezing emerald-brick floor, his ink-black hair splayed out and covering most of his thin, trembling back. The torment of the medicine had flushed his skin with an unnatural crimson glow. His snowy tiger ears drooped weakly among his tresses, twitching sporadically in distress.
But what struck Yunsong with the most visceral horror was the silver chain vanishing into the shadows around Li An's ankle and the vivid, painful red marks on the youth's skin where he had struggled against the jade mat.
"Li... An?"
The hand holding Yunsong's sword shook violently. In his memory, Li An was a lowly "medicinal primer," yet he was always pristine, ethereal, and cold like a handful of snow that would never melt.
But now, that snow had been crushed. He had been defiled and deliberately branded with the mark of another man's possession.
"Leng Heng... you actually locked him here like a common beast?" Yunsong turned his head, his eyes bloodshot as his sword intent erupted. "He carries the blood of a Divine Beast! He is the sect's sacred treasure, not a plaything for your private lusts!"
"Sacred treasure?" Leng Heng walked slowly into the room. He reached back and pulled the broken door shut, and though the lock was gone, his overwhelming spiritual pressure sealed the space as tight as a tomb.
He walked over to Li An's side and, right before Yunsong's eyes, leaned down with sickening intimacy. His long fingers threaded through Li An's sweat-soaked hair, forcing that exquisite, pale face upward.
"How noble you sound, Immortal." Leng Heng's eyes were abyssal. His thumb maliciously traced the corner of Li An's eye, which was blurred with drug-induced tears. "The sect wants his flesh and blood for their cauldrons, while I... I only want him to live. Tell me, which of us is truly more cruel?"
Li An's consciousness was drifting, but he could feel the two powerful auras clashing above him.
He forced his eyes open, his gaze lingering on Yunsong's grief-stricken face for half a second before he curled his lip in a silent, mocking smirk.
Kindness, he thought, is such a cheap currency.
[Host! Yunsong's 'Blackening Value' is skyrocketing! He wants to take you by force!] The System's voice carried a hint of excitement.
True to the warning, Yunsong moved.
His blade leveled, Frostfall darted toward Leng Heng's wrist. "Release him!"
Leng Heng pivoted, the last of his civility crumbling. He yanked hard on the silver chain. Li An let out a tiny, stifled whimper as he was jerked into Leng Heng's embrace.
"He goes nowhere." Leng Heng buried his face in the crook of Li An's neck, inhaling deeply of the scent—a mixture of medicinal herbs and feral musk. It was a poison he was now addicted to.
He stared at Yunsong, his voice dripping with a terrifying possessiveness. "Immortal Yunsong, do you really think you can save him? Look at him... he cannot survive without my medicine, and he cannot survive without... my touch."
As if to prove his point, Leng Heng's fingers accurately squeezed Li An's sensitive tiger ears.
Li An's body jolted. The "beast instinct" that had been artificially coaxed out caused him to let out a faint, involuntary moan. Even his snowy tail reflexively coiled around Leng Heng's waist.
This sight was the final straw for Yunsong's sanity.
He couldn't believe his eyes. The noble, cold youth of his heart was showing such a decadent, dependent posture in another man's arms.
"You... you drugged him..." Yunsong's voice trembled with more than just rage; it was the bitter sting of jealousy and betrayal.
As the three remained in a deadlock, the sound of more enforcement disciples echoed outside.
Leng Heng's laugh grew more arrogant. He suddenly lowered his head and, under the glare of Li An's golden eyes filled with hatred, kissed those cold lips in a blatant act of provocation.
"You want him? Then step over my corpse."
Leng Heng's fingers greedily traced the side of Li An's neck, his expression one of manic obsession. However, he failed to notice that the single drop of essence blood Li An had forced from his tongue to escape was undergoing a terrifying qualitative change. Reacting with the "Breath-Veiling Pill" and "Beast-Spirit Agent" that Leng Heng had previously forced down his throat, the blood became a volatile catalyst.
The drugs, originally meant to suppress his scent, were transformed by the surge of a Divine Beast's survival instinct into a massive amplifier of his bloodline's power.
As the blood dripped from the corner of Li An's lips onto the floor, the once-impenetrable soundproof barrier let out a sharp, brittle crack. An invisible, dark-red ripple—carrying the crushing pressure of an ancient Divine Beast—erupted from the apothecary, expanding across the entire Valley of Ten Thousand Medicines in a great, sweeping ring.
This aura was brighter and more piercing than any distress signal.
Deep within the Valley, several forbidden stone gates that had remained silent for centuries trembled violently. At that moment, several terrifying spiritual consciousnesses awakened in unison.
"Is this... the Crimson Essence of the Heavenly White Tiger?"
Above the firmament, the moon—once shrouded by heavy clouds was instantly replaced by a blinding golden radiance. Then came the tolling of a heavy, divine bell that shook the very heavens the "Mountain Locking Bell", which only rang when the Valley sensed the emergence of a supreme sacred treasure.
Dong—!
The chime dispersed the clouds and violently shattered the blood-red barrier Leng Heng had just raised.
"Leng Heng! You have secluded a Sacred Treasure do you plead guilty?"
A weathered, booming voice squeezed in from all directions. Accompanied by a pressure as heavy as a falling mountain, the shock forced a surge of blood to Leng Heng's throat, leaking from the corner of his mouth.
Leng Heng's face turned deathly pale. He realized that Li An's act of self-mutilation had flipped his entire chessboard. But he refused to yield. His fingers dug into Li An's shoulders, his nails nearly piercing the skin, as he roared at the sky: "He is mine! I was the one who saved him! No one takes him away!"
Squelch—!
At the very moment Leng Heng was shaken by the heavenly pressure and his mental defenses were at their weakest, Li An who had been as submissive as a doll finally bared his fangs.
Li An's golden slit-pupils were terrifyingly cold. Exhausting the last shred of strength the System had forcibly channeled into him, his right hand moved like a viper, snatching a gold needle from Leng Heng's belt the very tool used to restrain his movements.
Without a moment's hesitation, he plunged the long needle ruthlessly into his own agonizing pressure point.
It was the most excruciating point on the human body. The searing jolt of pain made Li An's frame convulse, but it was that very agony that forcibly overrode the numbing effects of the drugs.
Before Leng Heng's horrified eyes, Li An erupted with a fierce burst of spiritual energy, pushing Leng Heng back three feet with sheer, desperate force!
"Ngh!" Caught off guard, Leng Heng stumbled backward.
Seizing the split-second opening, Immortal Yunsong unleashed Frostfall. A torrential barrier of frost-breath sword qi instantly severed the connection between Leng Heng and Li An.
"Go!" Yunsong shouted, intending to grab him, only to find that the floor beneath Li An had collapsed into a massive, dark abyss a result of the clashing pressures of the two powerhouses.
It was a derelict drug-transport passage beneath the apothecary, leading to the forbidden grounds where no light ever reached.
"Leng Heng... Yunsong..."
Li An fell backward, letting gravity pull him into the gloom. He curled his lips and silently mouthed a few words. Before the darkness swallowed him whole, he left behind a gaze of absolute mockery.
He was saying: Rot.
Leng Heng's eyes nearly bled from rage. He leaped to follow, but several streaks of golden light the Soul-Binding Chains of the Sect Enforcement Elders slashed across his path.
"Get back! All of you, GET BACK!"
Completely manic, Leng Heng was forced to battle both Yunsong and the Council of Elders, who possessed a higher cultivation realm than his own. His figure was slowly pushed back into the depths of the bamboo forest by the chaotic ripples of magic, fading until he vanished.
The apothecary collapsed into a cloud of dust and debris.
Immortal Yunsong stood at the edge of the ruins, staring at the bottomless hole now buried by fallen stones. His sword hit the ground with a heavy clatter.
The youth whom the entire world coveted had, right before their eyes, buried himself in a darkness where no one could ever find him.