Chapter 191
The Demon-Subduing Prison Lord dismissed all the prison guards and ghostly attendants, gently cradling Jian Yunlan in his hands as he walked deeper into the Jun Tian Prison.
The further they went, the darker and quieter it became. As they ventured further, the light grew dimmer, and the only sound that could be heard was the rumbling of the Demon-Subduing Prison Lord’s footsteps. But soon, even that sound seemed to be swallowed by the endless darkness, leaving only silence.
No one spoke.
The Demon-Subduing Prison Lord remained silent, his expression solemn, and there was no eye contact between him and Jian Yunlan. His enormous eyes flickered with various complex emotions.
Jian Yunlan sensed something was off, but his anticipation to meet Taotie soon overwhelmed any unease.
He wasn’t sure how long they had been walking in the darkness, but eventually, after passing through a red barrier that seemed like a boundary, the Demon-Subduing Prison Lord stopped.
“This is it,” he said in a heavy voice, bending down and placing Jian Yunlan on the ground.
Jian Yunlan anxiously scanned his surroundings.
Unlike the stone cell he had seen before, the one holding Taotie felt like an isolated little world, darker and more enclosed. Three thousand iron chains made of mysterious iron and chaotic stones were gathered at the center, designed to keep the prisoner securely locked.
But at that moment, the center of the cell was empty.
Where was Taotie?
The thought barely crossed his mind when suddenly, a flash of golden light appeared before him, and his vision blurred for a moment before clearing up again.
The familiar scent of sandalwood filled his nose.
…In that instant, time seemed to freeze.
All the noise around him faded away, leaving only the sound of his own heartbeat. The anxiety and restlessness that he had suppressed for days surged up, turning into a warm rush in his chest.
Jian Yunlan’s fingers trembled. He lifted his gaze and saw a pair of familiar dark golden eyes.
— Taotie lazily yawned:
“Human, what do you want?”
Jian Yunlan didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he carefully examined him.
He wasn’t sure if time passed the same way between the mortal realm and the upper world, but although two days had passed in the mortal world, Taotie looked just the same as when they parted in the apocalyptic world not long ago.
He was still dressed in his Warring States robe, with bone shoulder armor, his silver hair tied into a ponytail. He looked like someone who hadn’t fully woken up.
He gave Jian Yunlan a steady look, and his gaze flickered slightly, but it quickly returned to calm. With a tone that seemed a bit impatient, he asked again, “I said, what do you want?”
Jian Yunlan answered naturally, “I’m here to find you.”
Taotie seemed even more impatient now: “What do you want with me?”
“……” Hearing that, Jian Yunlan became slightly displeased. He immediately pulled out the contract he had prepared in advance, clearly written in black and white. “Did you forget? We made an agreement, and we even signed a contract. Lord Taotie, are you going to breach the contract? This contract doesn’t have any breach clauses, it’s enforceable—”
Taotie: “……”
His head buzzed slightly.
With a gentle flick of his finger, Taotie made the contract float from Jian Yunlan’s hands, bringing it up to his eyes.
— Just like the contract Jian Yunlan had seen before, the term written on it was “ten million years,” and the signatures were the two of them interlocking their pinky fingers.
Taotie lowered his gaze to the contract, and it was hard to read the emotions in his eyes.
However, from Jian Yunlan’s observations over time, he felt that Taotie had seemed to smile for a moment, but quickly suppressed it, replacing the smile with a neutral expression.
After a long pause, Taotie spoke coldly.
“It’s not valid.”
Jian Yunlan: “Huh??”
“I told you, this contract isn’t valid,” Taotie yawned again, and in the next moment, Jian Yunlan watched in disbelief as a pale flame flickered at Taotie’s fingertip.
Before Jian Yunlan could stop him, the flame quickly consumed the entire contract, reducing it to ashes in the blink of an eye!
“……” Jian Yunlan remained silent for a moment.
A trace of hurt appeared in his deep blue eyes.
Taotie, pretending not to notice, stole a glance at his expression. He pressed his lips together, his palm clenched tightly as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to do so.
Until the next moment—
Jian Yunlan sighed and suddenly pulled out another identical contract from somewhere. “Fortunately, I have a backup, haha, the one you just burned was a copy!”
As a competent and unscrupulous boss, how could he not have a backup for such an important document?
Taotie was just a millennia-old beast.
Compared to a seasoned corporate worker like Jian Yunlan, he was still lacking!
Taotie: “……”
Taotie moved his fingers again, retrieving the contract from Jian Yunlan’s hands and burning it.
Jian Yunlan remained quiet for a while, then pulled out another identical contract. “Haha, a copy!”
Taotie’s forehead twitched with veins, and he continued to burn it.
Jian Yunlan kept pulling out more. “Haha!”
Taotie burned.
Jian Yunlan pulled more.
Burn.
Pull.
*
After several rounds, Taotie could no longer endure and shouted angrily, “Enough!!”
Jian Yunlan: “……”
He angrily stuffed the contract halfway into his pocket.
“Lord Taotie, please don’t be mad at me,” he softened his tone and walked toward Taotie, looking up into his eyes. “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”
They were very close now, almost sharing the same breath. A breeze, seemingly from nowhere, blew Taotie’s silver hair across Jian Yunlan’s ear.
Taotie’s ears turned slightly red. “Where do you want to go?”
“The Jian family villa,” Jian Yunlan said, “I’ll make you a Man Han Quanxi.”
Taotie’s pupils contracted. “…!!!”
This was really hard to refuse!
His eyes flickered with complexity as he hesitated, seemingly about to say “yes.”
Until—
Jian Yunlan quietly extended his hand, wanting to take Taotie’s hand.
But his outstretched hand passed through Taotie.
…Taotie was clearly standing in front of him, Jian Yunlan could feel his warmth and smell the sandalwood on him, but his hand passed through Taotie as if it were a shadow, touching nothing.
What virtual idol, Hatsune Taotie?
No, no.
Jian Yunlan shook off the random thoughts in his head and was about to try again when Taotie suddenly stepped back.
Taotie’s eyes completely froze.
His dark golden gaze swept over Jian Yunlan indifferently, and he spoke with no emotion:
“Human, I wasn’t serious about our previous agreement, so it doesn’t count anymore.”
Was it as simple as that? Jian Yunlan was about to pull out the contract again when his eyes met Taotie’s.
Jian Yunlan’s heart skipped a beat.
Taotie had never looked at him like that before.
Previously, whether in the beginning or later, Taotie’s eyes held anger, impatience, indulgence, or tenderness, but never had they been like this.
It was a gaze as if he were looking at someone completely irrelevant to him, indifferent and emotionless.
This time, Taotie seemed serious.
Jian Yunlan opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
But Taotie interrupted him, continuing: “Don’t come looking for me again. Go open your little food stall as you said, and spread it across all the realms. Hu Danggui and Niu Tou will help you. As for me…”
Taotie paused, and a fluffy white dog-shaped doll flew into Jian Yunlan’s view.
The doll looked like a miniature version of Mao Mao, with a large golden chain around its neck.
But as Jian Yunlan held the doll, he felt uneasy.
Taotie continued.
“This is a doll infused with my working memories, no, a dog doll,” Taotie smirked. “It can fulfill the contract and continue working at your food stall. If you don’t need it, you can destroy it.”
“Employees, you can have as many as you want, right? So many people are fighting to work for Boss Jian, one more or less doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t need the Man Han Quanxi anymore.”
In that moment, for some reason, Jian Yunlan felt…
It was as if Taotie was speaking his last words.
His expression remained indifferent, his eyes showing no emotion, but for a few brief moments, it seemed like a smile, as if he was still the Taotie who was once with Jian Yunlan. But when Jian Yunlan focused on it, it felt like an illusion.
After speaking, Taotie turned and walked away.
Jian Yunlan immediately tried to follow him, but as soon as he moved, the entire world suddenly spun, and a strange sense of weightlessness and dizziness overtook him.
The pitch-black darkness once again enveloped Jian Yunlan.
Along with the darkness came many fragments of memories.
Endless rain poured down, the sky seemed to be leaking, each breath was sharp with pungent spiciness; the wet cloak clung to his body, the damp cart loaded with goods pressed heavily on his shoulders as he walked through the streets, calling out to sell; he heard the heavy breaths of someone dying, the bloody wounds, the warmth of food in his palm…
And, in the tide-swollen cave, those gentle eyes belonging to a ferocious beast.
The fragments of everything couldn’t form a coherent line, like waves suddenly surging over his head, passing through Jian Yunlan’s body. It felt as though he momentarily remembered something from long ago, but as the tide receded, it slowly drifted away.
Jian Yunlan was in a daze.
Until a voice called out near his ear.
“Jian Yunlan, Jian Yunlan!” The voice was heavy and anxious, like thunder ringing in his ears, accompanied by violent shaking. “Wake up quickly, that world isn’t real, don’t get trapped!”
So noisy.
So noisy.
He wanted to continue sleeping.
But…
—”Didn’t you want to find Taotie?!”
The sharp questioning made Jian Yunlan suddenly freeze. A rush of heat flooded his forehead, and he suddenly didn’t want to sleep anymore.
Under the repeated urging of the voice, Jian Yunlan struggled to open his heavy eyelids.
What met his eyes were the enormous eyes of the Demon Prison Lord.
Seeing Jian Yunlan wake up, the Demon Prison Lord breathed a sigh of relief, wiping his sweat. “Good, you finally woke up.”
“Where is this?” Jian Yunlan looked around and realized he was lying on a cliff outside the Jun Tian Prison. The gray mist that had been around them had dispersed at some point, revealing the vast starry sky.
Jian Yunlan anxiously asked, “Where’s Taotie? He was just here.”
Hearing this, the Demon Prison Lord was stunned.
He didn’t answer, instead asking Jian Yunlan:
“You saw Taotie just now? That’s impossible…” The Demon Prison Lord murmured for a while, then asked, “How did you see him? What did he look like?”
Jian Yunlan roughly explained what had just happened.
After hearing this, the Demon Prison Lord’s expression became even more complicated, and he looked at Jian Yunlan with sympathy in his eyes.
Jian Yunlan couldn’t wait any longer, a fire burning in his heart. He asked, “What exactly is going on?”
The Demon Prison Lord paused for a moment, then sighed.
“What you saw just now was probably a remnant soul left by Taotie for you.”
“As for his real body…”
