Volume One, Chapter 18: The Pursuit

The night was as dark as ink.

Su Haoming tossed and turned in bed, twisting the blankets into a tangled mess.

Sleep eluded him completely.

His temples throbbed relentlessly.

That damned "tick-tock" sound echoed again.

He abruptly sat up, irritatedly running his fingers through his hair.

Last night, he had smashed an incense burner, thinking it would bring peace.

Yet today, he found one under the bed, another wedged in the window frame, and even one hidden in a corner of the outhouse!

These restless spirits refused to leave!

This was definitely no coincidence.

The system panel’s upgrade progress crawled forward like a snail, inching from 5.1% to 5.2%.

The glaring red warning remained: Unknown observers detected near the host’s location.

Observers? Were those things the observers?

"Damn it!" Su Haoming cursed under his breath, barefoot on the floor, a chill shooting up from his soles.

He wrapped himself in a jacket and paced irritably around the room.

The alchemy had succeeded during the day, but the reactions from Liu Ruoxi and Lin Feixue... were far too off.

Especially the fleeting glance they exchanged when seeing the purple pill — it was as if they were confirming something.

The Cold Moon Alliance? Lord Zijin? Lin Feixue’s secretive mission... what was Liu Ruoxi involved in?

And the system was stubbornly upgrading, utterly useless at this critical moment!

“Tick-tock…”

The sound seemed pressed right against his ear.

Su Haoming spun around suddenly, overturning the clutter on the bedside table.

Nothing.

He bent down and groped in the darkness beneath the bed, his fingertips touching something icy cold and rough with carved marks.

Pulling it out, he caught the faint moonlight filtering through the window.

A palm-sized bronze plate lay in his hand, etched with twisted runes.

At the center of the plate, a tiny red dot blinked stubbornly in time with the "tick-tock" sound, emitting an icy chill.

“Got you, you bastard.”

Just as Su Haoming prepared to summon his primordial energy to crush it, his movement froze abruptly.

Wait...

One incense burner, three little devices, and now an eight-trigram plate...

If this were just surveillance, would it require such elaborate measures?

Unless...

Damn!

His heart skipped a beat, a surge of cold dread exploding through him.

He set down the bronze plate and began inspecting the entire room frantically, using both hands and feet.

Fine needles were embedded in the floor gaps.

Jade pieces concealed deep within the wood grain of the walls.

Even the ceiling seams were coated with a gelatinous substance pulsing faintly with spiritual energy...

At least a dozen! No, more than a dozen!

All cleverly disguised in various forms.

There was no way this was the work of a single person—there had to be an organization behind it!

As this thought crossed his mind, the system interface suddenly flashed with a red warning:

[Warning! Detection of spiritual energy resonance in the environment! Multiple sources attempting to forcibly locate and analyze host’s origin!]

Origin?

It wasn’t just surveillance on him—it was targeting the system itself?

Cold sweat soaked his back instantly, his fingertips tingling numb.

“Damn... I’ve really screwed up this time…”

Amid his chaotic thoughts, faint sounds of fabric brushing and muffled footsteps on the muddy ground drifted from the courtyard.

Who?

Su Haoming held his breath, moving stealthily to the window and squinting through the crack.

A slender black figure, swift and catlike, slipped along the wall to the other side of the yard—right in front of Lin Feixue’s door.

It was Liu Ruoxi!

Dressed in tight, practical nightwear for ease of movement.

She raised her hand and tapped rhythmically on the door: three knocks, pause, then two more.

A signal?

The door silently opened just a crack.

Lin Feixue, also clad in black, peeked out and quickly pulled Liu Ruoxi inside before closing the door again.

“What the hell are those two women up to in the middle of the night?” Su Haoming cursed inside.

They had seemed off all day, and now they were sneaking around furtively.

The system was being targeted, and they were meeting secretly at this moment... there was definitely something going on!

Clenching his teeth, a surge of rebellious fire flared up.

The system warning flashed before his eyes: [High-risk behavior detected! Potential exposure risk: 87%!]

“Exposure my ass! I want to see what the hell you’re up to!”

Determined, Su Haoming slowly pushed open a nearly invisible crack in the window latch.

Focusing intently, he summoned his meager divine sense, stretching it out like an invisible tendril toward Lin Feixue’s room.

Faint, fragmented voices drifted through intermittently:

“…time is running out... the Cold Moon Alliance’s tracking order has been issued...” Lin Feixue’s voice, low but impatient.

“…the core artifact is inside him... Lord Zijin was right...” Liu Ruoxi’s voice followed, confirming something.

“…must act at the conference... can’t delay any longer…”

“…the energy within him matches exactly what’s recorded in the ancient texts... it might just be the legendary one…”

Su Haoming’s heart clenched as if gripped by an invisible hand, twitching painfully.

They were talking about him!

Core artifact? Inside his body? Could they mean the system?

The voices blurred suddenly, as if filtered through a watery veil, buzzing faintly.

They seemed to have moved deeper into the room, their speech blocked by something.

Damn it!

Anxious, Su Haoming instinctively tried to deepen his divine sense to listen more clearly.

But just as he did, a fierce pain twisted his dantian!

“Ugh!”

The sudden agony hit like a burning iron rod stabbing inward.

He groaned softly, clutching his belly, nearly falling from the windowsill, cold sweat instantly soaking his inner clothes.

[Energy reflux! Divine sense locked! Cease detection immediately!]

The system warning glowed violently red, nearly leaping off the panel!

Weak and trembling, Su Haoming scrambled back to his bed, leaning against the wall, gasping heavily, his whole body uncontrollably shaking.

Damn! The price of eavesdropping!

His divine sense was too weak; it was no match for those two women.

Any attempt to use it was immediately detected and met with backlash.

What chilled him even more was that they had surely noticed his spying, yet continued to calmly discuss such deadly secrets.

Did they not regard him as a threat, thinking he couldn’t stir up trouble?

Or... were they deliberately letting him overhear part of it?

That thought sent a shiver down his spine.

...

Dawn broke faintly.

With dark circles nearly touching his chin, Su Haoming pushed open the door.

Liu Ruoxi was already busy in the courtyard, sorting through a pile of medicinal herbs.

Seeing him emerge, she paused, a touch of perfectly measured concern on her face.

“You look terrible,” she said, handing him a cup of still-warm tea from the nearby stone table.

“Didn’t sleep well,” Su Haoming replied, feeling the warmth of the cup’s surface but inwardly chilled.

He took a small sip; the tea was slightly bitter.

Liu Ruoxi rested her elbow on the stone table, tilting her head casually.

“Had a nightmare last night?”

Su Haoming’s fingers tightened abruptly around the cup.

Was that just a casual question, or a pointed remark?

Had she already suspected he’d been eavesdropping?

“Yeah, dreamed I was being chased by ghosts,” he forced a crooked smile, more pitiful than comforting, and quickly changed the subject.

“We still practicing that purple pill today?”

Liu Ruoxi nodded lightly. “Junior Sister Lin will be here soon. We discussed last night—maybe we can improve it.”

Last night? Discussed?