No longer searching, Qin Qin glanced around. She noticed nothing particular about this place, which was supposedly forbidden; it was just an ordinary wooden table, a couch, and some moderately sized carved wooden cabinets. However...
Her gaze suddenly shifted to two candle holders on the left side of the wooden hut’s wall. The entire wooden hut was illuminated by Luminous Pearls—why were there additional candle holders?
Qin Qin stepped forward to try moving the candle holder on the left but it didn’t budge. She then tried the right candle holder, pulling it downward. As she did, the wooden table in the center was pushed aside, revealing a dark hole. Startled, Qin Qin approached the table and peered down into the somewhat dark cave, hesitating for a moment before entering the cavity.
The cave was quite deep, roughly a hundred steps down. The darkness couldn’t obstruct her sight; although it was somewhat blurry, she could still make out her surroundings.
Once she descended the steps, the place grew brighter. There were still Luminous Pearls here, larger and brighter than those outside, illuminating the entire underground space as if it were daylight, allowing her to clearly see everything.
This was a sealed secret room, roughly a hundred square meters. There was nothing inside, except for a bed as cold as ice in the center and several paintings on the walls.
Qin Qin’s gaze was drawn to the paintings on the wall, both shocked and awed. She had never seen such a beautiful woman before, one that even she couldn’t compare to by a fraction of a percent.
In the first painting, the woman possessed a beauty that could overturn the heavens and shatter the earth, her skin like creamy jade, eyebrows arched elegantly, eyes like autumn waters with ripples of light, lips naturally red without adornment, slightly upturned. She wore a flowing white gauze dress that trailed on the floor, her delicate jade-like hand gently raised as if dancing, her long black hair only slightly tied with a butterfly tassel, with the excess locks fluttering in the air. She seemed like a fairy from the heavens, untouched by the mortal world, ethereal, as if she might turn into an immortal and vanish any second.
In the second painting, the lady had her jade hand placed by her left cheek, her long neck slightly tilted, her delicate lips slightly apart, and her eyes water-like, looking towards something at a distance, as if gazing at her lover, filled with deep passion.
Qin Qin was captivated by the beauty in the painting, unable to look away.
She never imagined that such a peerless beauty could exist in this world, such that even as a woman, she couldn’t take her eyes off her. The strangest thing was that upon seeing her, an odd feeling surged in Qin Qin’s heart.
Before she could look at the third painting, footsteps came from behind. Qin Qin turned around in alarm.
Qi Tianshang stood not far from her, still wearing a mask. He stepped past Qin Qin to look at the painting behind her, his lips curving slightly, "You shouldn’t have come here, Qinqin. If it were anyone else, they would have died before even approaching the hut, you know?"
He knew she would come here and had ordered the Hidden Guard not to stop her. She would find out eventually, so he didn’t intend to prevent her.
Qin Qin’s heart tightened but she said nothing.
Qi Tianshang stood in front of Qin Qin and took her hand, directing her gaze to the woman in the painting. Qin Qin pulled her hand away, but Qi Tianshang didn’t mind. Instead, he walked up to the painting, glanced at Qin Qin, then said in a low voice, "Don’t you want to know who she is?"
Qin Qin was startled. The woman in the painting actually existed? She had thought that a celestial being like that couldn’t be of this world, perhaps just a figment of Qi Tianshang’s imagination. She hadn’t anticipated that the woman really existed.
"It has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to know. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going back now."
As Qin Qin turned to leave, a cold and deep voice came from behind her.
"What if I told you that the person in the painting is related to you?!"
Qin Qin turned back to face Qi Tianshang, her brows knitted together, "What are you talking about? How could I possibly be related to her?"
Qi Tianshang’s eyes locked onto Qin Qin, and he smiled slightly, "You will become her one day, I believe."
He had always been waiting, waiting for the moment she would fully return to him.
"That’s nonsense, Qi Tianshang. You really should see a psychiatrist," she retorted coldly.
Qin Qin turned coldly away, unwilling to stay any longer with Qi Tianshang, who bizarrely spouted things she couldn’t understand. What did he mean by saying she would become her?
Watching Qin Qin leave, Qi Tianshang stood still, his gaze fixating on the heavenly and stunningly beautiful woman in the painting. A look of obsession flashed through his eyes, turning into coldness after the obsession.
A surge of darkness suddenly rose in Qi Tianshang’s body. His calm expression turned fierce, his eyes behind the mask turning a blood red mixed with a hint of black.
Qi Tianshang clutched his aching heart and walked towards the chilly ice bed at one side. This bed, crafted from millennium-old ice, was specially brought in hopes of controlling the Demonic Qi within his body.