Chapter 19
Ling Xu stood at the tavern's doorway, her robe damp with sea mist, her eyes fixed on Huan Zheng with a mixture of worry and disappointment she could not hide.
"We are not here to have fun, Huan Zheng," she said softly, her voice nearly drowned out by the clinking of glasses and the laughter of other patrons.
"I need to ascend to the Twenty-Second Level of the Singular Star. Or even the Supranatural Star. I can't—"
"You can't what?" Huan Zheng cut in suddenly, his usually lazy voice now sharp like a freshly honed blade, his half-lidded eyes snapping open as he stared at Ling Xu with something he had never shown before—anger.
"You think you're my superior? You think you can control when I sleep and drink just because we're traveling together?"
He stood up, the wine glass in his hand trembling, then pointed at Ling Xu with a shaking finger.
Not out of fear, but because of anger that had been buried for far too long.
"Remember this, Miss Poison. There is no bond of friendship between us, let alone any senior-junior relationship. You are merely a Young Master I obey under an undeniable bond. I obey not because your authority holds weight before me, but solely because I allow myself to submit—not because you have the right to command me."
Ling Xu stepped back.
Not out of fear, but because she no longer recognized the man before her—the man who had walked beside her for months, who slept on an ox cart while snoring loudly, who slaughtered dozens of enemies with a single kick without changing his lazy expression, now standing with a flushed face from wine and anger, his eyes glistening as if he were trying to forget something too heavy to bear.
"You are at the Eighteenth Level of the Singular Star, Ling Xu," Huan Zheng continued, his tone mocking yet strangely sounding like he was convincing himself rather than her.
"Eight hundred thousand shards in your chest. The Cancer Plague spreading through every pulse of those shards—no one dares approach you. No one can harm you. You think you need to ascend that quickly? You think this world is as dangerous as you imagine?"
He laughed—a bitter, dry laugh, like brittle wood snapping in a silent forest—then drained the rest of his wine in one gulp.
"You're too paranoid, Miss Poison. Too consumed by revenge. Too—"
"Too what?" Ling Xu cut in, her voice no longer soft, no longer gentle, but cold like the depths of an ocean untouched by sunlight.
"Too eager to live? Too desperate to avenge my mother's death? Too determined to make sure I won't die at the hands of the same humans you once called friends?"
She turned, leaving the tavern with firm steps, and behind her, Huan Zheng stood frozen with an empty glass in his hand.
That night, as Ling Xu meditated in the shell pavilion, a maid with a half-fish body arrived carrying a tray of warm ginger tea and a letter sealed with green wax—the color used only by high-ranking officials for urgent matters.
"From the City Defense Commander, Miss," the maid said in a trembling voice, her eyes not daring to meet Ling Xu's.
"He invites Master Huan Zheng to drink wine at his residence tonight. A special invitation. Only for the two of them."
Ling Xu looked at the letter, then at the maid, and for a moment, she felt something strange—something she could not explain, like when she was a child and her mother once said:
'If someone is too kind to you without reason, check whether there's a dagger behind their back.'
"Tell the Commander that Huan Zheng is asleep," Ling Xu replied flatly, but the maid shook her head quickly—too quickly, like someone trained to give a specific response.
"The Commander insists, Miss. He says… he says this is a matter of life and death. That if Master Huan Zheng does not come tonight, then… the protection of the sea city over you will be withdrawn."
Ling Xu fell silent.
She looked up at the open ceiling of the pavilion, where the bioluminescent light of marine plankton still drifted in like falling stars—but this time, the light no longer seemed beautiful.
It looked like the eyes of a thousand insects watching her from the darkness, waiting, lurking, ready to strike.
She stood, took her robe, then walked toward Huan Zheng's room without knocking—and there, behind the slightly open door, she saw him already standing in neat clothing, his hair combed for the first time in weeks, and in his hand, he held a small dagger.
Not for attacking, but for… enjoyment?
"You're not going, right?" Ling Xu asked, her voice trembling despite her effort to stay calm, but Huan Zheng only smiled—the same smile from when he first offered her poison in that cave, too calm, too lazy, too… wrong.
"I'll go, Miss Poison," he replied, "because if I don't, we'll be expelled. And you don't want that, do you? You still need to ascend. You still need to investigate something about this city. I'll just drink for a while. There's nothing to worry about."
Ling Xu grabbed Huan Zheng's wrist at the pavilion's threshold, her cold fingers gripping with a strength she had never shown before.
Not to hurt, but to restrain, to prevent, to stop the foolish man before her from stepping into the abyss she had sensed from afar.
"This is a trap, Huan Zheng," she said, her voice hoarse like someone screaming in a nightmare without sound.
"I don't know what they want from you. I don't know what accusations they're digging from your past. But I know—I can feel it—that tonight, if you go, you won't come back."
Huan Zheng turned, his usually lazy eyes now burning with a strange fire.
Not the fire of passion, but the fire of stubbornness long buried beneath his indifferent mask.
"You always see traps everywhere, Miss Poison," he said coldly, dismissively, like swatting away an annoying fly.
"Not everyone wants to kill you. Not every smile hides a dagger. Maybe—"
He pulled his wrist free with a rough motion, far too rough for someone usually too lazy to move.
"Maybe you're the one who's too paranoid. Maybe you're so consumed by revenge that you've forgotten this world also has a place for laughter and wine and—"
"And what?" Ling Xu cut in, her voice suddenly exploding like waves crashing against rocks after being suppressed for too long.
"And death? You think the high officials of this city invited you because they like you? You think those fishermen and merchants sit beside you every night because they see you as a friend?"
She stepped forward, staring directly into Huan Zheng's eyes—eyes that began to waver, to crack, to reveal doubt he refused to acknowledge.
"Huan Zheng, listen to me. It's time for us to leave. Now. Before—"
"Enough!" Huan Zheng snapped, and for the first time, his voice truly trembled.
Not from anger, but from something deeper, older, more painful.
"You know nothing about me, Ling Xu. You don't know what I'm looking for in this place. You don't know—"
He stopped, swallowing his own words, then turned and walked out of the pavilion without looking back, leaving Ling Xu standing at the doorway with her hand gripping empty air, her heart pounding in rhythm with the Cancer Plague in her chest—beating faster, louder, more frantic—like a final warning before the storm.
To be continued…