Seven days passed in a flash.
There were less than five hours left until the highly anticipated Top 8 ranking matches.
By the time Mo Fan finished another day of training and returned from the back mountain to his hut in the servant quarters, it was already deep into the night.
He was currently sitting cross-legged on his bed. Using the light of a bean-sized oil flame, he held a piece of rag, carefully wiping the [ Pale Bone Scepter ] in his hand.
Although the public opinion outside had been hyping up his "forbidden love" with Shen Qiu into a blood-soaked storm over the past few days, he, the instigator, slept more soundly than anyone else.
At this moment, his brain was conducting its final "dress rehearsal."
"Go on stage tomorrow. First, swing the stick around pretentiously a few times to show the brainlessness of a brute."
"Then, deliberately expose a flaw in my lower stance, letting her whip land on my left calf. Remember to drop the Skeletal Armament defense, otherwise, I won't bleed."
"Next, fall to the ground, clutch my chest, and look at her with that 'Even though I've been defeated by you, I still love you' humiliated yet deeply affectionate gaze."
"Finally, smile tragically, proactively surrender, and roll off the stage..."
Mo Fan deduced his "getting beaten posture" and "blood-spitting timing" countless times in his mind. He even performed precise physics calculations on the angle of his fall.
"Perfect. Simply flawless."
Mo Fan placed the scepter by his hand with satisfaction, preparing to blow out the lamp and sleep.
Suddenly, his hand wiping the scepter paused abruptly.
There were no abnormal spiritual fluctuations around.
The [ Death Vision ] that had been in a state of passive alert hadn't issued any glaring red warnings, and there wasn't a shred of killing intent in the air.
However, Mo Fan felt an extremely strong, bone-deep ominous premonition.
This wasn't a cultivator's Divine Sense warning.
This was an extremely pure, masculine sixth sense—just like sneaking out of the lab to play games in his past life, only to feel a pair of eyes (the advisor's) staring at his back the moment he launched the game.
It made his hair stand on end.
Tap, tap, tap.
Right at this moment, in the silent midnight, someone knocked on his dilapidated courtyard door very lightly and rhythmically three times.
The hairs all over Mo Fan's body stood up instantly.
"In the middle of the night... who is it?"
Old Lü? Impossible. The old man's snoring could be heard through the wall.
Steward Wang? That fat bastard always kicked the door open.
Mo Fan slid off the bed silently, casually hiding the Pale Bone Scepter behind the door.
His other hand clasped a few bone darts quenched in Corpse Poison. Like a ghost, he stuck to the base of the wall and edged behind the door, peering out tremblingly through the cracks in the wooden planks.
Under the cold moonlight.
A figure stood outside the door.
The person wore an extremely loose gray-black hooded cloak, clearly meant to hide their identity, with most of their body hidden in the shadows.
Seeming to sense the movement behind the door, the person slowly raised a hand and pulled back the hood.
Moonlight poured like water over that face.
Aloof, flawlessly beautiful, with a hint of arrogance between the brows that warned strangers to keep away.
But at this moment, that arrogance was mixed with obvious suppressed anger, constraint, and discomfort.
BOOM!
The moment he saw that face clearly, Mo Fan's brain directly short-circuited. He even almost dropped the bone darts in his hand.
"Holy shit!"
Mo Fan let out a deafening roar in his heart.
"Why isn't this woman following the tropes?! What happened to the unreachable ice goddess? What happened to looking at me with absolute disdain?"
"What is a heavenly proud daughter of the inner sect doing running to the broken yard of a male servant in the middle of the night? Coming for an IRL PK in advance?!"
Even though Mo Fan's skin was usually as thick as a city wall and he schemed against people's hearts as easily as drinking water...
Facing the victim showing up at his door, the little remaining conscience and guilt in his heart actually gave him the panic of a thief caught red-handed.
After all, he was the one who played the hooligan first, using her reputation to divert the sect's attention.
"Open the door."
A crisp female voice came from outside, suppressed extremely low, yet carrying a tone of gritted teeth.
He couldn't hide.
Mo Fan took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing his wildly beating heart. He piled an innocent and confused expression onto his face and slowly pulled open the broken wooden door.
Creeeak—
The door opened.
Shen Qiu stood outside.
Actually, even she herself hadn't figured out why she ran to this dirty and smelly servant quarters in the middle of the night.
She just felt suffocated.
Holding in her anger for seven whole days, plus her parents' urging these past few days—which was full of "disappointment mixed with gossip"—had completely messed up her Dao Heart.
She was truly curious: exactly what kind of scoundrel, thug, and ugly freak dared to shamelessly profane her in front of tens of thousands of people in the sect?
On her way here, she had even sketched an image in her mind.
A crude, reckless brute with a face full of aggressive flesh, greasy hair, and incredibly lecherous eyes. She was fully prepared to whip his teeth out directly if he dared to speak insolently.
However.
When this broken door truly opened, and when she used the moonlight to clearly see the man named "Lu Xiaoqi" standing behind the door, she froze.
There was no deliberately faked blood and grime like on the arena stage, nor the crude wildness put on to build a persona.
The youth before her wore a washed-out, thin undershirt. His facial features were handsome, his nose straight.
The most striking feature was those eyes—profound and clear, like a bottomless ancient well, completely lacking the sleaziness and wicked thoughts she had imagined.
And beneath that healthy, restrained bronze skin, there faintly radiated an extremely steady, profound, and bizarre temperament.
That sense of precipitation from experiencing life and death was even a few degrees heavier than those arrogant true legacy disciples of the inner sect.
Th-This... How is this a lust-addled, mud-legged hooligan?
"You..."
The ten thousand words of questioning and cursing Shen Qiu had prepared in her stomach seemed to get stuck in her throat at this moment.
Her red lips parted slightly, but she couldn't utter a single sentence.
And Mo Fan, facing this "fall guy" he had screwed over so miserably, had absolutely no idea what expression to make to welcome his guest.
The night wind blew past.
The two of them simply stood separated by the threshold of a broken wooden door, under the cold moonlight.
You looking at me, and me looking at you.
The air seemed to freeze.
This bizarre dead silence, lasting for half a minute and awkward enough to make one's toes curl hard enough to excavate a three-bedroom apartment in the floorboards...
It made even the thick-skinned Mo Fan feel his scalp tingle.
"This won't do. If we keep staring like this, something's gonna happen."
It was still Mo Fan, the "street-smart veteran" who had suffered the beatings of the corporate world in his past life, who reacted faster.
He broke the ice first, making a fist and pressing it against his lips, deliberately coughing dryly twice.
He tried to regain control of the conversation, conveniently dropping a hint for her to mind the optics:
"Ahem... May I ask why Miss Shen has visited my humble abode late at night?"
Mo Fan put on the posture of an upright gentleman, lowering his voice and speaking earnestly.
"Tomorrow is the quarterfinals. In the dead of night, a lone man and a lone woman... if those shadow-chasing paparazzi and people with ulterior motives see the two of us meeting here... I'm afraid it will breed much more trouble, and it's not good for Miss's reputation."
Mo Fan's original intention with this sentence was to quickly persuade this troublesome goddess to leave.
But he underestimated the minefield of a woman.
If he hadn't mentioned this, it would have been fine.
But bringing it up directly ignited the frustration, grievance, and the momentary shock Shen Qiu had suffered over the past seven days like a powder keg!
"You actually know it will breed more trouble?!"
Shen Qiu's aloof fairy disguise instantly broke.
Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her willow brows shot up with anger, her chest heaving violently. She took a sudden step forward, almost pressing against the tip of Mo Fan's nose.
She lowered her voice, but the fury in her tone felt like it wanted to burn right through Mo Fan:
"Since you were afraid of breeding trouble, then what were you spouting nonsense about in broad daylight at the martial arena that day?! Are you deliberately looking for trouble?!"
This undisguised straightball attack smashed solidly into Mo Fan's face.
Mo Fan was rendered speechless.
What he excelled at most was plotting in the dark and scheming in the shadows. What he feared most was this kind of unreasonable, unconventional face-to-face questioning!
He couldn't possibly look into her angry eyes and confess honestly:
"Yeah, I was deliberately looking for trouble. Because I'm actually a Necromancer, and to use you, the ice queen, to divert the higher-ups' attention and forge a brainless brute persona for myself, I forcefully clout-chased you, right?"
If he really said that, the other party would absolutely pull out her whip and eliminate a menace for the people on the spot.
"I..."
Mo Fan opened his mouth.
That silver-tongued scammer who could usually talk a dead man back to life in the market, who could make crooked merchants nod repeatedly, was actually completely jammed at this moment.
Looking at the flawlessly beautiful face so close at hand, made even more vivid by anger, his mind went blank.
For a moment, he actually had no idea what kind of excuse to fabricate to cover up this massive plot hole he had dug with his own hands.