The Chen kingdom youth looked at Yun Ruoyan and suddenly smirked as he walked forward slowly. “Haven’t your two dear cousins had the chance to tell you that their bodies were slathered with a paralyzing venom? Now you’ve been poisoned, too.”

Yun Ruoyan’s heart thumped. She tried to mobilize her spiritual energy, but a numbing sensation quickly spread all over her body, and she stumbled.

“Sister… Ruoyan…!” Lin Qingchen and Lin Qingxue tried to help her up, but all three of them barely avoided falling down together.

The chubby youth and Rong Yueshan began laughing uproariously.

“Miss Rong, your paralyzing venom is truly quite useful, haha,” the chubby youth exclaimed.

Rong Yueshan didn’t hide her own laughter. “Naturally! This paralyzing venom was something that my father specifically had concocted for targets with a higher cultivation.”

“Truly shameless and despicable!” Yun Ruoyan glared at Rong Yueshan and the chubby youth before turning to the latter. “Especially for those from the Chen kingdom, who are well-known for their righteousness!”

The chubby youth blushed under Yun Ruoyan’s fiery gaze. The Chen kingdom was close to the sea. Even their hooligans and thieves fought and robbed head-on, rarely using as crude a method as poison.

Rong Yueshan snorted. “You killed my sister, and then Zhao Ming. What’s wrong with seeking revenge on their behalf? Who cares what methods we use?”

“Right! As long as I can avenge my dead brother, I don’t mind using an underhanded trick or two,” the chubby youth replied in accordance with Rong Yueshan’s tone.

Clearly, she had brainwashed him quite completely.

Rong Yueshan turned to the youth. “Now that she’s powerless, do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”

“I’ll do it!” The chubby youth stepped forward. “I have to avenge my dead brother myself.”

“Alright.” Rong Yueshan clasped her hands behind her back. “You can kill her for revenge, but her head’s mine. I promised my father that I would bring her head back as a sacrifice for my sister, who died by her hands.”

“No problem.”

The two of them quickly came to an agreement: the chubby youth would kill Yun Ruoyan himself, and Rong Yueshan would take her head.

With a grim smile on his face, the chubby youth stepped forward toward the three girls like a small mountain.

“Sister… Ruoyan… run away!” Lin Qingxue tugged on Yun Ruoyan’s sleeve and called out. “We’ll block him for you!”

Lin Qingxue and Lin Qingchen both stepped forward unsteadily.

“Stand back!” Yun Ruoyan, however, also took a step forward, continuing to shield both of them.

The chubby youth was almost right in front of them. As he walked, he said, “Oh, showing off your sisterly love now? Yun Ruoyan, when you killed my brother, why didn’t you think about whether he had any siblings, or how sad they would be? Today, right in front of you, I’ll kill both your sisters and let you experience this pain for yourself!”

Yun Ruoyan continued shielding her two cousins as she stepped back. “I didn’t kill your brother, and I don’t want to kill you. If you let us go, I won’t hold anything against you.”

“Won’t hold anything against me?” the chubby youth scoffed, as though he had just heard a marvellous joke. “I’m the one about to kill you!”

Yun Ruoyan and the Lin sisters had already retreated to the edge of the forest, and they had nowhere else to go. As they stopped moving, the chubby youth looked as though he were a wild beast about to strike at them at any moment.

At the same time, Zhuo Yifeng had nocked a tiger-canine arrow and was prepared to shoot it at him. As the youth slowly walked toward the three girls, he entered Zhuo Yifeng’s range. Just as the youth was about to pounce on Yun Ruoyan, exposing his neck to Zhuo Yifeng, he pulled his bow taut.

But just as he was about to shoot, Yun Ruoyan shook her head at him. Zhuo Yifeng frowned. Although he didn’t know why Yun Ruoyan had done so, the tacit understanding between them caused Zhuo Yifeng to drop his bow. No matter when and where, Zhuo Yifeng would always choose to believe in her.

“Qiuqiu,” Yun Ruoyan called out.

“Mistress, I’m here!”

“Prepare the intoxicating fog.”

“Yes, Mistress!” Within the pocket dimension, Qiuqiu unsealed a bottle of intoxicating fog, which slowly seeped into the air.

The chubby youth stopped in front of the three girls and faced Lin Qingxue, who stood to Yun Ruoyan’s right. “I’ll start with you!”

Without giving the girls any opportunity to react, he extended a coarse arm and clawed at Lin Qingxue. However, Yun Ruoyan had already been prepared. With the flip of a hand, she brought some of the pocket dimension’s air into the real world and waved it at the youth.

The youth, so focused on attacking Lin Qingxue, couldn’t dodge Yun Ruoyan’s hands in time. The colorless, scentless intoxicating fog wafted into the youth’s nose and mouth.

Fearful that he had just been poisoned, the youth quickly reared back and tried to dispel the air that he had just breathed in. Very quickly, however, it became apparent to him that he didn’t seem to be poisoned, and he felt no trace of discomfort on his body.

The chubby youth then turned to look suspiciously at Yun Ruoyan, but his eyes widened as he did so: the Yun Ruoyan in front of him had transformed into Zhao Ming!

“Brother, Brother Zhao!” the chubby youth looked at Yun Ruoyan with a complicated mixture of shock, excitement, and confusion.

Lin Qingchen and Lin Qingxue were both still looking at the chubby youth with strange expressions on their faces. What had just happened? Yun Ruoyan didn’t explain. Instead, she looked severely at the chubby youth and called out, “Do you still consider me your brother?”

“Of course! You’ll always be my big brother, Brother Zhao!” the chubby youth exclaimed.

“Then are you going to listen to me?”

“Of course!” the chubby youth replied, his eyes reddened. “I might not have parents anymore, but I still have you, big brother! As long as you’re alive, as long as you’re back, I’ll do whatever you tell me to!”

“Good! We’re not brothers for nothing. Now, hand over the antidote to the Lin sisters’ paralyzing poison.”

“It’s not with me.” The chubby youth frowned. “The antidote is with Miss Rong. I’ll ask her for it—”

The chubby youth was right about to turn back to Rong Yueshan when Yun Ruoyan called out, “Wait!”

“What’s the matter, brother?”

“Come over here.”

Yun Ruoyan waved at the youth, and he obediently walked up to her. After inhaling the intoxicating fog, Yun Ruoyan’s appearance seemed to have turned into that of his brother, Zhao Ming.

“I’m telling you, that Rong Yueshan’s a malicious character. She tried to kill me and blame my death on Yun Ruoyan. Luckily, I discovered her intentions in time and barely avoided dying at her hands,” Yun Ruoyan murmured. “She’s trying to make use of you to kill the Lin sisters and Yun Ruoyan, so if you ask her for the antidote so directly, she surely won’t hand it over!”

“What a vicious woman!” The chubby youth believed in his brother’s words without any hint of doubt. “To set all this up, she sacrificed four of her own team members. She even wanted me to assign two of our teammates to guard the Lin sisters, but I refused. Her team members are the only ones who are dead right now.”

“Good! You’re truly my little brother. Now, turn back, get close to Rong Yueshan, kill her directly, then bring us back the antidote.”

“Got it, brother!” The chubby youth turned back to Rong Yueshan, who frowned at him.

“Why didn’t you kill her? What did Yun Ruoyan tell you?”

The chubby youth had had his back to Rong Yueshan the entire time, and their conversation was carried out in a hushed tone. Although Rong Yueshan wasn’t standing too far away, she was still unable to overhear their conversation. However, she did notice that their posture seemed rather unusual.

“What did you say?” As though he couldn’t understand Rong Yueshan’s words, the chubby youth continued walking closer and closer to her.

Her brows furrowed, Rong Yueshan walked forward and asked more loudly, “What were you and Yun Ruoyan talking about?”

“Oh, we were… I told her that…” As the youth spoke, he suddenly clawed at Rong Yueshan’s neck. He had imbued a significant amount of spiritual energy into his palm, and it was strong enough to smash even a wolf’s throat in one strike. Rong Yueshan felt as though a gust of wind was rushing at her neck, so quickly that she didn’t even have time to step back.

A pained groan rang out. Lin Qingchen, Lin Qingxue, Yun Ruoyan, and even Zhuo Yifeng, lying in ambush, widened their eyes—because the pained groan came not from Rong Yueshan, but instead from the chubby youth.

Just as his claw had landed on Rong Yueshan’s neck, a dagger had been thrust into his chest. Although the youth’s cultivation wasn’t weak, he hadn’t been prepared for Rong Yueshan’s attack at all, and she had managed to score a direct hit.

“If you want to survive in this world, you need both brawns and brains,” Rong Yuehong whispered sweetly to the chubby youth before slowly removing the dagger from his chest.

The youth turned back to Yun Ruoyan. The illusion of Zhao Ming dissipated, revealing Yun Ruoyan’s original appearance once more.

“Brother, are you dead or alive?” This was the only question the chubby youth had time to mutter out before he slumped to the ground.

“You’ll find out in the netherworld!” Rong Yuehong scoffed, kicked his prone body aside, and gazed at Yun Ruoyan once more. “Yi Qianying told me you were familiar with demonic arts. I hadn’t believed her at first, but now it seems that I have no choice but to do so.”