Qin Qingwan and a big white goose each held a skewer of candied hawthorn as they walked down the street, eating as they went.
Every time Qin Qingwan bit into a hawthorn, her beautiful peach blossom eyes would squint from the sourness, and her fair, slender neck would shrink slightly—just like when she was a child.
It was at moments like these that Xu Ming would find traces of the familiar little girl in this now gracefully grown young woman.
"Is it good?" Xu Ming asked.
"Of course!" Qin Qingwan nodded, then held her skewer of candied hawthorn up to his mouth. "Do you want to try?"
Xu Ming: "..."
This girl... You've already eaten it, and now you're offering it to me? As a man?
"Thank you for your kindness, Miss He, but I'm not a big fan of sour things," Xu Ming replied, shaking his head, deliberately ignoring the intimacy in her gesture.
"Fine, your loss." Qin Qingwan quickly pulled back the skewer, her cheeks tinged pink. "I wasn't going to let you eat it anyway~"
Xu Ming changed the subject. "Miss He, what connection does this candied hawthorn have to the array materials you're planning to buy?"
"Everything, of course!" Qin Qingwan hummed and raised her chin proudly. "You see, I have this trait—when I'm in a good mood, I have better control over my spiritual power, and my thinking becomes clearer. Surely you don't want me to fail the array because of a bad mood, right, Young Master Xu?"
Xu Ming: "..."
"What? Am I wrong?" Qin Qingwan asked.
"You're right." Xu Ming nodded.
From when we were kids, everything you said was always right.
"Hmph~~" Satisfied by his answer, Qin Qingwan continued walking. "By the way, Young Master Xu, do you know what Senior Sister Qin's favorite food is?"
Xu Ming nodded. "If I remember correctly, it's the candied hawthorn you're holding."
Hearing his accurate response, Qin Qingwan felt a wave of joy but didn't show it. "Oh, so Senior Sister Qin likes candied hawthorn too."
"She sure does," Xu Ming replied with a smile. "When she was little, even though she had cavities, she still insisted on eating candied hawthorn. I used to sneak it to her. Once, Madam Qin caught us. She quickly handed me the skewer and claimed it was mine, but she hadn't even wiped the hawthorn residue off her lips."
"..." Qin Qingwan's cheeks flushed as she muttered, "Why do you remember everything from when we were kids so clearly?"
Xu Ming glanced at the girl beside him. "Because everything someone does can be worth remembering."
"Ugh, so corny! I'm going to tell Senior Sister Qin what you said!"
Qin Qingwan's face turned even redder as she hurriedly walked ahead to avoid letting Xu Ming see her expression.
The big white goose glanced at Xu Ming.
Xu Ming looked back at the goose. "What?"
The big white goose: "Honk (You're so cheesy, it's unbearable.)"
Xu Ming: "..."
What Xu Ming actually meant was, "I don't have many friends, so everything they do, I remember."
But somehow, his words had come out differently. As he debated whether to explain himself to Qin Qingwan, she suddenly came back, tugging on the corner of his robe with one hand while pointing at a pastry shop in the distance with the other.
"Young Master Xu, I want to eat that!"
"Alright."
Xu Ming didn't refuse.
As for explaining himself earlier... Forget it. She seemed pretty happy anyway.
For the next half hour, Xu Ming accompanied Qin Qingwan as they visited shop after shop, indulging in treats.
This wasn't about buying array materials at all—it was clearly just a food street tour.
"You know, when I was a kid, I had a dream," Qin Qingwan said cheerfully. "I wanted to walk down an entire street, eating whatever I wanted, free of anyone's rules."
"That dream should be easy enough to achieve, right?" Xu Ming asked.
"Not as easy as you'd think~" Qin Qingwan replied, her long legs striding forward beneath her flowing dress. "Back then, my family was really strict. I wasn't allowed to wander too far, and I definitely wasn't allowed to eat random street food."
Xu Ming: "And when you grew up?"
"When I grew up…" Qin Qingwan stopped walking and spun around on her left foot, arms outstretched. Her skirt flared slightly, like a blooming blood-red lotus. "I still never went on a food tour."
Xu Ming: "Because you were busy cultivating?"
Qin Qingwan: "That's part of the reason, but it's not the main one."
Xu Ming: "Then what's the main reason?"
"I'm not telling you~" Qin Qingwan turned away again, skipping forward with a smile.
"Idiot," she thought to herself, sneaking a glance at Xu Ming behind her. "Can't you guess? It's because, in my dream, you were there too."
---
Bang!
Bang!
Roar!
Roar!
Outside the city of Baiwa, deep within the mountain, lay a hollowed-out molten heart cavern.
Inside this vast lava cavern, the walls were lined with hundreds, if not thousands, of cages. Each cage contained a bound magical beast, their limbs shackled by heavy chains.
The beasts struggled ceaselessly, trying in vain to break free of their restraints.
At the center of the cavern stood a massive lava platform connected by eight stone bridges. Below the platform, molten lava formed a churning, seething sea, its heat and fury unrelenting.
Beams of light shot out from a magic array in the center. Several cloaked cultivators worked quickly, manipulating the array to extract one after another of the missing cultivators from Baiwa City.
These cultivators appeared translucent, as if caught between having physical bodies and being mere souls.
One of the cloaked cultivators walked forward, grabbed one of the extracted figures, and tossed them onto the array in the center of the platform.
At a signal from the leading cloaked figure, several of the magical beasts in the wall cages were released.
The cloaked cultivators dragged one of the beasts to the array.
"AAAAAAHHHH!"
"ROAR!!"
As the array activated, both the human cultivator and the magical beast let out agonized screams.
The translucent human and the beast began to fuse. Their bloodlines intertwined, their bones joined together.
Their flesh first disintegrated, then merged.
Boom! With a deafening explosion, the human and the beast simultaneously burst into a cloud of blood mist!
"Next," the leader of the cloaked cultivators said impassively.
The failure of the fusion didn't bother him.
One pair of human and beast after another was thrown into the array. Ten pairs. Twenty pairs. Each attempt ended in failure, leaving only annihilation.
The cavern echoed with screams of agony, the sound reverberating endlessly in the oppressive heat.
"Monsters! You'll pay for this! You animals! You—!"
Across the platform, a woman who had witnessed everything screamed hoarsely, her voice raw, her eyes bloodshot.
The lead cultivator walked over to her and grabbed her hair, forcing her to meet his gaze.
"Don't say that," he said coldly. "This array—you created it."
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