Midnight Meeting

Outskirts of Shengdu Village

An hour past midnight

~

A few yards away from the Chen Manor, near the outermost circle of the deep mountains, a tall figure stood while facing the Manor that was mostly surrounded by darkness just like the rest of the village. His face was hidden under the hood of the dark crimson cloak he was wearing over his black clothes.

It was quite hard to describe his presence. One moment, he appeared an extremely powerful force who stood higher than the entire mountain range but at the very same time, his presence blended so well in the shadows of the night that anyone could hardly notice him.

Two more figures materialized behind him. They bowed their heads to greet the man in the red cloak. One of them was a man in black robes while the second one was a woman dressed in dark purple robes.

"My Lord, as you ordered, we went to the neighboring village to find out about the recent fire and there is indeed demonic energy present there." The man in black informed the hooded man.

The man in the red cloak turned sharply to glare at the other two, causing the latter to shiver in fear. They both knew that one wrong word or move and they could lose their lives.

"Who were those demons?" The man in red asked. His deep voice was even darker than the shadows surrounding them.

This time, it was the woman who answered - "We are currently delving deeper into this matter, My Lord. Our resources have confirmed that these demons don't belong to the Capital City. Either they are rogue or something deep is going on behind the scenes."

The man in the red cloak turned his attention toward the woman and asked - "Are you saying that someone is trying to create trouble for the demons on purpose?"

The woman smiled softly before she humbly bowed and answered, "Those words carry way too much weight that I don't dare to be careless. But there's no denying that something is indeed not right about this whole scenario. They chose this very moment to create trouble when the Lords are away and the demonic energy in that village is just so overwhelming as if it was done on purpose. It's almost like they were luring the Immortals."

The man in red stayed silent for a while as if he were lost in thoughts. After certain long moments had passed, he finally addressed the two - "Keep looking. You must find out who is behind all this. If it's only the rogues, get rid of them for the good and if it's someone else, bring them to me."

"Yes, My Lord."

Both the man in black and the woman in purple, accepted the order together before their silhouettes disappeared into thin air just as quickly as they appeared.

The man in the red cloak stayed standing there all alone in silence before he let out a sigh and removed the cloak with a mere click of his fingers. The very next moment, he also disappeared into thin air, leaving behind a silent scene of night.

* * *

Xiang Ling opened her eyes and blinked a few times to adjust her eyesight. She tried to move her body and immediately groaned when she felt how sore her upper body was.

Her hands were freezing, her neck was sore and so was her spine because of the uncomfortable position she had been sleeping for hours.

Suppressing the unpleasant sounds that were threatening to spill past her lips, she stretched her limbs to get them working. As she raised her hands, something slipped past her shoulders and fell around her waist. She grabbed the cloak and pulled it closer to her eyes to look at it.

A cloak? Who put it on her?

She looked around her on instinct as if to find the person who was the owner of that cloak. She tried to guess who could be this kind to her but no one came to her mind. The men around her hated or suspected her way too much to do something this sweet.

Maybe it was Fu Xiao - this was her final conclusion.

Letting go of the matter of the cloak, she checked the time and realized that it had been slightly over four hours since she left Li Xian to bathe in the herbal bath.

She carefully wrapped the cloak and put it on the table before standing up and heading toward her bedchamber which had been occupied by her second husband. Stepping inside, she was greeted by silence and the warm glow of candles that were filling the entire chamber.

"Ah Xian."

She called out to the man, deciding to address him sweetly as a wife should do. Yet, she got no response.

She contemplated her options before deciding to just go and find him. As she walked past the partition and her gaze landed on the man still sitting inside the bathtub, she found him deep asleep. A smile unconsciously bloomed on her lips and she walked closer to the man, her traitor eyes betraying her as they scanned his broad shoulders and smooth collarbone before moving down to his chest, the only parts of his body that were visible above water's surface.

The water had turned completely black, signifying that the herbs had successfully detoxified his body.

She reached for his hand that was placed on the rail of the bathtub and read his pulse again. A sigh of relief left her lips when she found out that his body was fully detoxified.

Once she was done reading his pulse, she wanted to let go of his hand but was unable to. Despite cursing the previous owner of her body for her lecherous personality, there was no denying that she found all her husbands extremely handsome and tempting.

Her eyes took in his soft expression as he continued to sleep without any worry in the world and her gaze landed on the loose strand of hair that was covering his right eye.

Without even realizing it, her fingers reached out to push the strand away only for her hand to be caught in a tight grip as those dazzling sapphire eyes flew open!