Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Shanyulai Inn (I): One Bed Qiao Ying resigned herself to following Cen Yunyu out through the gates of the Cen Residence. Behind them stretched an endless succession of pavilions and towers. With their carved beams and painted rafters standing silent beneath the moonlight, they resembled a gigantic tomb. Cen Yunyu paused before the threshold. Turning around, he raised a hand and drew a line through the air with his fingertip. A ghostly blue flame sprang into existence from nothing. The fire was strange. It made no sound, yet surged forward like a living creature. In the blink of an eye, it leaped onto the eaves and devoured the beams and pillars, wrapping the entire estate in a raging sea of flames. The flames shifted from blue to red, illuminating half the night sky. Waves of heat struck her face, and Qiao Ying instinctively retreated two steps. There was no crackling, no cries of anguish—only the silence of the flames consuming everything. In an instant, this century-old merchant residence, along with all the bodies strewn about inside, was reduced to charred black ashes. The night wind swept past, lifting a cloud of black dust and scattering it into the boundless darkness. Cold sweat seeped from Qiao Ying’s palms. Erasing all traces of the bodies—so clean and decisive. No wonder this was the handiwork of the villain who would destroy the world. “My beloved wife.” Cen Yunyu turned to look at her. The lingering firelight danced in his eyes, making those black eyes seem bottomless. “Since you know the future, you must also know where I’m going next.” Qiao Ying’s heart tightened. Was he… still testing her? She steadied her breathing and met his gaze. “Naturally. You should go to the Qingling Sect to seek revenge.” Several months ago, a group of cultivators had arrived in this remote border town. It had not been a coincidence. An Elder had observed the heavens that night and divined that “an evil spirit will descend upon the world and bring calamity to the Three Realms.” The seven great sects had therefore sent their most outstanding disciples down the mountain to eliminate the evil. They had come to the Cen Residence and joined forces with Cen Yunyu’s father to “slay” Cen Yunyu, then departed in high spirits, believing their merit complete. Little did they know that their attempt to exterminate him had instead broken the last seal on Cen Yunyu. Once the evil spirit awakened, the first thing he did was slaughter all his blood relatives. The second, naturally, was to settle accounts with those so-called “immortals.” He would not spare a single one of the seven great sects. And the first to bear the brunt would be the current leader of the cultivation world—the Qingling Sword Sect. At her words, Cen Yunyu raised an eyebrow, a trace of interest passing through his eyes. “The one who knows me best is my wife.” Qiao Ying’s scalp prickled at the repeated “wife” and “my wife.” Bracing herself, she said, “Since you don’t have any feelings for me yet, and we haven’t formally married, calling each other that feels rather awkward. Why don’t we just use our names? I’m Qiao Ying—Qiao as in Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao, Ying as in the oriole.” Cen Yunyu readily agreed. “All right. Then I’ll call you A Ying.” The words “A Ying” left his lips with a lingering, almost tender intonation. A chill ran down Qiao Ying’s spine. She resisted the urge to rub her arms and forced herself to nod. It was still better than “wife.” She had just said, “Then I’ll call you Young Master Cen,” when Cen Yunyu spoke up. “Wouldn’t it seem too distant for A Ying to call me Young Master?” Qiao Ying widened her almond-shaped eyes and lied without the slightest change in expression. “There’s something you don’t know. Before we were married, I always called you ‘Young Master Cen.’ To me, that form of address carries many memories.” After all, she couldn’t exactly call him the Great Demon King. Cen Yunyu smiled faintly, the corners of his eyes curving. “I’ll do whatever A Ying wishes.” His smile was clean and pure, and paired with his stunningly beautiful features, he looked utterly harmless—just like any other young man. Qiao Ying, however, did not relax her vigilance. Instead, every alarm bell in her head began ringing. The original novel had made it perfectly clear: this evil spirit was best at pretending. Relying on his beautiful face, he would smile and make pleasant conversation with you, only to turn around and drive a knife straight into your heart. Dealing with a tiger was already dangerous enough. If she actually trusted his seemingly gentle exterior, she would truly have a death wish. Still, there was one thing she simply could not understand. Even if Cen Yunyu believed her nonsense and truly took her for his future wife, he had no feelings for her at present. Why was he in such a hurry to perform the Red Thread Binding and force her to remain at his side? Could it be… An absurd thought suddenly flashed through her mind. Could this evil spirit have fallen in love with her at first sight? Qiao Ying immediately stamped out the delusion. Leaving aside what this face of hers actually looked like, the fact that she had been a nameless cannon-fodder character in the original novel was enough to tell her that she was absolutely no match for that aloof and stunningly beautiful heroine who captivated everyone. And Cen Yunyu was the only man in the entire novel who was immune to the heroine’s halo. Cold-blooded and heartless, with no interest in women—how could he possibly fall for a minor cannon-fodder like her? Qiao Ying sighed. If only she had known, she would have invented an identity as the “future number-one loyal servant.” A subordinate would have been much easier to get rid of than a wife. She was merely an unambitious parasite whose ideal life was to eat her fill and wait for death—not to follow the villain in some grand undertaking to “make an enemy of the entire world.” As she pondered this, the two of them arrived before an inn. Its black signboard swayed gently in the wind, bearing the three characters “Shanyulai.” The Cen Residence had been reduced to scorched earth, so they obviously could not stay there. Although Cen Yunyu was an evil spirit, he had only just completed the fusion of his soul and needed time to recover. As for Qiao Ying, the body she occupied was that of an ordinary mortal. After enduring a ghost marriage, near-death experience, massacre, and the burning of an entire residence in succession, she was already exhausted in both body and mind and desperately needed a bed to collapse onto. The moment the two entered the inn, they became the center of attention. It was partly because of their striking appearances, and partly because of the cold, gloomy aura surrounding the great villain Cen Yunyu, which made the spines of anyone who approached them prickle with unease. But more than anything, it was because their clothing was simply too eye-catching— Qiao Ying wore a bright-red wedding gown, with her silver crown askew and her hair falling loose. Cen Yunyu was also dressed in red wedding robes, and the black umbrella patterned with red designs at his waist was impossible to miss. Standing together, they looked exactly like a pair of lovers who had eloped to escape their wedding. If Qiao Ying had known what everyone was thinking, she would have sighed: Escape a wedding? That’s not all—we’re escaping a ghost marriage. She looked around first. The inn’s main hall was spacious, with seven or eight square tables arranged throughout. The paint on the wooden pillars was mottled, and rain capes and bamboo hats hung on the walls. The air carried the scents of alcohol and food, mixed with the faint mustiness of decaying wood. It was rougher than the settings in television dramas, but much more real. The innkeeper came forward with a broad smile. “Are the two honored guests here for a meal or a room?” Qiao Ying cleared her throat and imitated the manner of speech from period dramas. “A room. Two superior rooms.” “Coming right up!” the innkeeper replied readily, turning to leave. “Wait.” Cen Yunyu spoke. His voice was clear and cool, yet carried an undeniable pressure. The innkeeper turned around. Meeting those pitch-black eyes, he inexplicably felt a chill shoot up from the soles of his feet. He forced himself to keep smiling. “Does the honored guest have any other instructions?” “One superior room will be enough.” Cen Yunyu smiled and looked at Qiao Ying. “Does my wife intend to sleep in a separate room from her husband?” The corners of Qiao Ying’s mouth twitched. She forced a smile. “Of course not. I was only worried that… my husband might feel uncomfortable.” The innkeeper tactfully asked no further questions. He nodded and bowed. “Certainly, one superior room! However, our establishment requires a deposit for superior rooms.” Qiao Ying came back to herself and instinctively reached for her pocket. It was empty. She had no phone, no wallet, and certainly none of the copper coins or silver ingots used in this era. She finally remembered what she had forgotten when leaving the Cen Residence: she had not taken any of the Cen family’s gold or silver with her. The Cen Residence belonged to a famous wealthy merchant family in the area. It surely contained plenty of money. To have missed out on a huge fortune of gold and silver like that was absolutely heartbreaking. She could only look toward Cen Yunyu with a pleading gaze. Cen Yunyu smiled faintly and raised his hand. Qiao Ying thought he was about to take out a money pouch, but instead he reached toward her hair. She instinctively leaned back, but when she met his deep gaze, she awkwardly stopped. Cen Yunyu pulled a silver hairpin from beside her temple. The hairpin was slender, its tip carved into an oriole with outstretched wings and set with a pale blue gemstone no bigger than a grain of rice. He casually tossed it to the innkeeper. “Is this enough?” The innkeeper caught the hairpin, weighed it in his hand, then examined the quality of the gemstone. His eyes lit up. “Enough? It’s more than enough!” Qiao Ying stared at him, dumbfounded. That worked too? The Cen Residence truly was the richest family in the area—what astonishing wealth. Even the jewelry provided for a ghost-marriage bride was made of genuine materials. She touched the silver crown on her head and suddenly realized that if she exchanged all these ornaments for money, wouldn’t she be able to make a fortune? However, the joy of getting rich did not last long. When the shop assistant led them upstairs and pushed open the door to their room, Qiao Ying looked at the single carved wooden bed inside. Her smile froze.