Old Ma, still kneeling on the ground, looked as though he had been dragged out of a river. 老马还跪在地上,一副从河里拖出来的样子.
His face was ashen, his entire body limp as wet clay, without even the courage to lift his head and look toward the seat of honor again.他脸色苍白,全身瘫软得像湿粘土,甚至没有勇气抬起头,再朝荣誉的座位看一眼.
Lin Mu understood perfectly. This old fox — who normally called the shots across the Grey Street — was completely useless in the presence of a true Rank 4 Demonic Path titan. 林木心知肚明.这个通常在灰街那边发号施令的老狐狸在一个真正的4级恶魔之路巨人面前完全没用.
The dead end before him could only be broken by Lin Mu himself.他面前的死胡同,只能由林木自己来打破.
Facing Wuxiang's languid scrutiny, Lin Mu's mind plunged into a frantic, desperate war with itself.面对吴湘慵懒的审视,林木的内心陷入了一场疯狂的,绝望的自我战争.
Should he sell her some Blood Path inheritance or the hidden opportunity of some distant faction from the original work — just to get through this moment?他是应该卖给她一些血脉之路的继承权,还是卖给她原作中某个遥远派系的隐藏机会,只是为了度过这一刻?
But with this Rank 4 demoness's sharpness, could something that vague and intangible actually buy him the Sparse Shadow Gu's concrete protection?但以这个四级魔女的犀利,某种模糊而无形的东西,能给他换来疏影姑的具体保护吗?
Or... did he truly have to invoke the forbidden intelligence surrounding the Black Bone King?
On the cushioned seat, Wuxiang was in no hurry whatsoever.坐在坐垫上的吴湘一点也不着急.
She propped her chin on one hand, those soul-stealing eyes narrowing slightly — as though admiring a delicate work of art teetering on the edge of collapse, or gazing at a supreme delicacy about to be placed before her.
She watched Lin Mu with unhurried, playful fixation.
Beside him, Old Ma didn't dare breathe.
The outside world only knew that the Grey Street had a leader.
Who could have imagined that this figure — with eyes and hands reaching into every corner — was not only a Rank 4 powerhouse, but a woman this beautiful, this erratic, and this vicious?
Old Ma knew her methods all too well.
If the boy failed today — if he couldn't produce something that satisfied her — the two of them would walk in on their own feet and be carried out flat.
There wouldn't even be a whole corpse left.
After an agonizingly long silence —
Lin Mu finally drew a slow, deep breath and expelled every last trace of stale air from his lungs.
He raised his head slightly. His voice came out with a deliberate, faint tremor.
"My lord... this one does, in fact, know intelligence regarding the Black Bone King's inheritance."
"What?!"
Those words struck like a thunderclap from a clear sky.
Old Ma — who had been playing dead with his face pressed to the floor — snapped his head up so fast his one cloudy eye nearly bulged clean out of its socket.
A storm of shock and fury raged through him.
He wanted nothing more than to curse the boy out loud right then and there: You treacherous little bastard! So while I was pouring my heart out in that secret passage, teaching you how to fabricate an excuse — you were playing me the whole time? You actually know something like this?!
But with Wuxiang's terrifying pressure permeating every corner of the room, Old Ma didn't dare make a sound.
He shot Lin Mu a vicious glare and pressed his head even lower.
On the cushioned seat, Wuxiang raised one elegant brow. The languid expression that had settled on her face finally showed the faintest ripple.
She sat up straight.
Her face was full of amusement as she adopted the posture of a girl in exaggerated surprise, raising one pale jade hand to lightly cover her lips.
"Oh? You actually have something? Go on then, little one — I'm listening."
Lin Mu set his jaw and threw himself forward with the air of a man who had nothing left to lose.
"It is precisely because I stumbled upon this earth-shaking secret that I made an irreconcilable enemy of White Bone Stockade's Patriarch Li Mang — and have been hunted by him ever since."
Lin Mu's voice rang through the dim inner chamber, each word landing with deliberate weight.
"To speak plainly — that Bone Scepter Li Mang guards with his life, never letting it leave his side, the one capable of activating White Bone Mountain's grand formation... it is no mere magical artifact."
"It is one of the core tokens of the Black Bone King's inheritance from that era. It is the inheritance key representing the Black Bone King's 'spine.'"
The moment those words left his mouth, Lin Mu lowered his head completely, closed his eyes, and assumed the posture of a man baring his neck to the blade — utterly resigned, awaiting whatever judgment came.
He was gambling on this Rank 4 Demonic Path cultivator's absolute hunger for a Rank 5 inheritance.
You want intelligence on the Black Bone King? Then I'll point you to the fattest piece of meat there is.
As long as Wuxiang's interest was captured, she would inevitably turn her attention toward Li Mang and his scepter. And once that happened, the Sparse Shadow Gu's protection would follow as naturally as water finding its course.
"My..."
After hearing the "classified secret" Lin Mu had thrown out, Wuxiang parted her cherry lips slightly, her face a picture of performed shock and wide-eyed innocence.
She pressed one hand lightly to her heaving chest and broke into a swaying, delighted laugh.
"Really? Is that so? That old ghost Li Mang hid it that deep, did he?"
"Little one, you'd better not be making up stories just to save your own skin."
"Every word is true."
Lin Mu couldn't read this demoness's unpredictable temperament. He had no choice but to grit his teeth and hold his ground.
"If my lord does not believe me, you are welcome to investigate White Bone Stockade yourself — or wait three days for Li Mang to enter Black Blood Stockade and verify it in person."
"Heh heh heh..."
Wuxiang's laughter drifted through the small building — melodious, yet carrying an undercurrent of something inexplicably strange.
But in the instant Lin Mu's words fell —
The languid, bewitching quality that had defined Wuxiang as she lounged on her cushioned seat shattered completely, collapsing in a single moment.
Boom.
A savage, suffocating Rank 4 pressure — like a solid black tidal wave — came crashing down on Lin Mu with the force of mountains.
Lin Mu's pupils contracted to their absolute limit.
He felt the back of his neck go ice-cold in an instant, as though those invisible, sticky, densely-woven spider threads from before had wrapped around him again and pulled tight.
What made his skin crawl even more was the sensation — faint but unmistakable — of something hairy, barbed, and lethally venomous crawling with glacial slowness down his spine, moving beneath his skin.
Whoosh.
Wuxiang's figure blurred into a faint afterimage where she had been sitting, crossing more than ten paces of space in an instant, appearing directly in front of Lin Mu without any warning.
This time, that breathtakingly beautiful face was nearly pressed against his ear.
A wave of lethal, intoxicating fragrance and warm breath struck his cheek directly.
Yet the words that slipped from those vivid red lips were like a cold wind blowing up from the depths of the nine hells — carrying a merciless mockery that felt like falling into a bottomless abyss.
"Heh heh... what a beautifully crafted little scheme — drive the wolf to swallow the tiger. Clever, little one."
Wuxiang pressed close to his ear and gave the faintest, deliberate bite of her teeth.
Those eyes — once languid and hazy — now burned with a cruel, piercing clarity that cut through everything.
"But what if I told you... that I have long since known about Li Mang holding the 'spine token'..."
Her voice dropped lower and lower, until it became a lethal murmur that only Lin Mu could hear.
"And that you — you little upstart — have secretly inherited the Black Bone King's 'heart'..."
"I know that too."