They say women can be terrifying when jealous—but men are no different, are they?
In the animal kingdom, two, three, or even more males will often fight viciously for the right to mate, and only the ultimate victor earns the female’s favor.
The losers? Minor injuries at best, death at worst. Brutal stuff.
Humans aren’t all that different sometimes.
As Blake vanished into the darkness, his mind was already racing with ways to win Vail back.
Not just her body—but her heart too.
He was the Chosen One of the God of Night, and in the darkness, he was especially formidable. After a few heaving breaths, his chest suddenly stilled, and a cold killing intent bled from his icy eyes.
“Just you wait, Su Mo. I’ll make you pay for your arrogance.”
His voice faded as his figure dissolved into the dark.
…
Two days later.
Apart from Sato Mima, who arrived fashionably late, the other eight—including Gen Tenxiu—had all gathered early at the altar he’d described.
Just as he’d said, there was a mechanism at the center of the altar—a Nine-Palace Grid.
The nine palaces corresponded to the eight directions: Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, and Kun, with the Central Palace sitting squarely in the middle.
Earlier, there had been eight people total. Now, with Gen Tenxiu added, there were exactly nine. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was the Central Palace—which was why he’d been able to enter the core secret realm ahead of everyone else. The so-called “core” essentially meant “Central Palace.”
“Now that we’re all here, you’d better explain what’s going on before you expect any of us to bleed into that thing,” Lei Wu Yinuofu said reluctantly.
The others felt the same way, and since he’d voiced it, no one else bothered to repeat it.
Gen Tenxiu smiled. “That’s only fair.”
He pointed at the Nine-Palace Grid and began explaining—mostly basic stuff about the Eight Trigrams and Nine Palaces, along with the patterns from each previous realm and how they connected to the trigrams.
Su Mo pretended to listen attentively, but he already knew all of it inside out.
Yeah right. If Qin Xun’s disciple didn’t know this much, the great Tianquan Elder would lose all face.
Sato Mima, Sakurai Mii, and Kusanagi Kou had all received training on this, and aside from Sakurai Mii, the other two were veterans, so they were familiar with it too.
Ye Qingyi, being from Xia Country and close to Su Mo, also had at least a basic understanding.
The other three, however, were completely lost. Lei Wu Yinuofu in particular had already started scratching his head.
What the heck is all this?
Vail was fairly knowledgeable about Xia culture. Even if she didn’t fully understand, she could still more or less follow along.
Blake… well, he didn’t understand a word of it, but he put on a face that suggested he did—looking far more composed than Lei Wu Yinuofu, at any rate.
“So, you think the appearance of this Nine-Palace Grid here means the altar holds some hidden secret?” Ye Qingyi asked.
“Exactly. You’ve all gone through eight realms of competition and each have your own trigram codenames, which you used to form the formation and enter the core secret realm. But I’m different. Even though I’m the Central Palace, my role hasn’t actually been used for anything yet. But just as you were all entering, I happened to discover the truth…”
He trailed off, but the implication was clear.
No one had anything to say to that—except Sato Mima, who chose that moment to ask, “I have a question, if you don’t mind answering, Young Envoy.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why is this year’s temple secret realm so different from previous years? So many things have changed drastically.”
Gen Tenxiu answered unhurriedly: “Even games get version updates. There’s nothing strange about a secret realm going through some changes. Besides, this time around, the changes clearly benefit those of us who made it to the end. So why complain?”
Sato Mima raised no further objections to his explanation.
Gen Tenxiu swept his gaze across the group. “If no one has any other questions, shall we begin?”
“Hold on.” Su Mo stepped forward, locking eyes with Gen Tenxiu. “Ever since I entered the core secret realm, I’ve felt something off about my body—like some mysterious force is affecting me. Do you know what that might be, Young Envoy?”
Gen Tenxiu’s pupils darted instinctively, then he replied calmly, “It’s not unusual to feel some discomfort now and then—there’s bound to be residual will from the Eight-Headed Serpent God lingering in the core realm.”
“I see…” Su Mo nodded knowingly, then pressed on: “There’s one more strange thing. On my way here, I ran into a ton of snakes—they were practically throwing themselves at me to die. And after they died—”
He paused mid-sentence, glancing at Gen Tenxiu out of the corner of his eye. The man’s eyelashes twitched, and his expression turned a little unnatural. Then Su Mo continued with a puzzled look: “What happened after that?”
Su Mo grinned. “I forgot!”
That earned him a chorus of complaints from the others, who all assumed he was messing around.
After all, they’d encountered snakes too, but none of them had noticed any reaction after the snakes died.
Su Mo ignored their stares, quietly piecing things together in his head.
Truth was, he’d lied just now. He hadn’t felt anything unusual at all. But when he brought it up, Gen Tenxiu had made an involuntary micro-movement—which meant something was likely off.
And when he’d paused mid-sentence, the other man seemed tense too. Though, to be fair, Gen Tenxiu was a Young Envoy—if Su Mo hadn’t been paying extremely close attention and hadn’t had such sharp perception, he’d never have caught it.
Of course, these were still just suspicions. Nothing confirmed.
Just then, Blake suddenly spoke up: “Nonsense. I didn’t have any snakes chasing me.”
Lei Wu Yinuofu chimed in: “Yeah. Sure, there were snake attacks, but nothing like what Chiba Zhenxiang described—they weren’t throwing themselves at us. As long as I didn’t enter their territory, they left me alone.”
Sato Mima and Sakurai Mii exchanged glances, feeling their experience was similar to Lei Wu Yinuofu’s. Kusanagi Kou also pursed her lips and nodded.
Vail wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but she knew these people were all fishing for information. So she just stood by in silence.
Ye Qingyi was the same. With Su Mo around, she generally didn’t bother using her brain unless she had to.
At this point, Su Mo and Blake were both smirking inwardly—because they were about to get exactly the answer they wanted.
Su Mo turned to Gen Tenxiu, a look of keen interest on his face. “So, Young Envoy—did you run into any snakes yourself?”
Blake’s gaze shifted to the envoy as well.
Gen Tenxiu hesitated briefly. “Of course… I did. But only a few. Nothing like the suicidal chasing you described.”
“Oh, well then I must have remembered wrong…” Su Mo gave a strange little smile, then looked at Sato Mima, as if to say: I’ll defer to you.
As the leader of the Bushi group, Sato Mima was naturally the one to call the shots.
But thanks to Su Mo’s subtle provocation, regardless of what anyone else was thinking, they were all starting to view Gen Tenxiu with suspicion.
Truth be told, this was also thanks to Blake’s quick thinking.
When Su Mo said the snakes were relentless in chasing him, most people’s expressions told him it wasn’t that extreme—but Blake and Vail had actually experienced the same thing. So he had reason to suspect that maybe only the Chosen Ones were affected—hence he deliberately claimed he hadn’t encountered any.
The problem was, Gen Tenxiu’s hesitation and his final answer didn’t add up.
Because under normal circumstances, he should have either been chased like Blake—or encountered nothing at all. After all, this was the Eight-Headed Serpent’s secret realm. It would make sense for the domain to be lenient with its own successor, but treating others equally wouldn’t be out of line either. Yet his answer fell neatly into neither category.
Heh…
Those snakes were definitely suspicious, and the Nine-Palace Grid was absolutely not just some simple opportunity.
