306: Chapter 306 The True Face

"Senior Sister!"

Bai Nianci's pretty face changed.

Liu Qing shook her head desperately at her, her lips moving as she silently said: Leave.

But Bai Nianci's feet had already landed back on the ground.

In the end, she still did not leave; the thought of abandoning her fellow sect master and fleeing alone was no different from killing herself.

"Come here."

Bai Nianci took a deep breath, and the rapid breathing in her chest was slowly suppressed.

She loosened her clenched fists, put down the last few medicine needles in her sleeves, and walked forward step by step.

"Do not harm Senior Sister Liu. I am the Valley Master's Personal Disciple, and I will be your hostage."

At a distance of less than three feet, Bai Nianci raised her head, her gaze locking directly onto those pitch-black eyes.

Chen Ran loosened his hand resting on Liu Qing's back neck and lifted it.

His fingertips gently pinched Bai Nianci's cheek.

Bai Nianci was forced to raise her face slightly, her gaze meeting his.

"Ciyin Medical Valley,"

Chen Ran lowered his head to look at the woman before him, his voice soft and gentle,

"Where is its specific location?"

Bai Nianci did not answer immediately.

But at this moment, her attention was abruptly seized by something else.

That was an aura.

The moment Chen Ran's fingertips touched her skin,

a rich, sluggish Devilish Qi, surging like the depths of the nine nether abysses, poured into her entire body.

But beneath that Devilish Qi, something else was hidden.

An extremely massive Evil Qi, stronger than anything she had ever seen in her life.

Bai Nianci recognized this Evil Qi, and instantly her eyes widened abruptly.

On that day, on the pulse gate of that "Young Master Chen", the first thing she felt was this marrow-deep Evil Qi.

At that time, she diagnosed that this person's body was heavily afflicted with Evil Poison, with a lifespan of no more than ten years.

Back then, she even felt pity and specially concocted medicine for him to suppress the spread of the Evil Poison.

She had even conversed happily with him in the teahouse, feeling that although this person had a rugged fate, his conversation was extraordinary and he was a good person.

A good person.

Bai Nianci's thoughts felt as though they had suffered a violent impact,

and slowly, bit by bit, she compared the face of the person before her with the gentle and courteous Young Master Chen in her memory.

Facial features.

Outlines.

They seemed entirely different.

But those pitch-black, icy eyes gradually achieved Fusion and overlapped with that person!

Bai Nianci abruptly snapped to her senses.

Although this person's face differed from that day in the teahouse, that Evil Qi could not deceive anyone.

There would not be a second person in the world carrying such a heavy, unique mark of Evil Qi.

Why did she save him, yet he turned around to scheme against them?

Why did her kindness exchange for such a result?

Bai Nianci's pupils constricted bit by bit, and finally she spat out a few words in a murmur:

"Why."

Chen Ran was slightly stunned.

The fingers pinching Bai Nianci's cheek paused slightly, and a trace of extremely faint surprise flashed across his pitch-black eyes.

"You are very smart."

He raised his eyes to look at Bai Nianci, a trace of genuine praise in his tone,

"To be able to recognize me solely by the Evil Qi, the medical skills of Ciyin Medical Valley truly live up to their reputation."

Bai Nianci did not speak, only looking blankly at the youth before her, her eye sockets gradually turning red.

"But you are too naive."

Chen Ran's voice was flat, yet like a sharp blade in the cold wind, each sentence stabbed into Bai Nianci's heart.

"That day in the teahouse, who first brought up the trip heading south?

Who told me which day the medical valley Disciple would set off and which waterway they would take?"

"It was you."

"Bai Nianci, you told all the information to a complete stranger, simply because he looked gentle, courteous, and not long for this world."

"Today's entire situation was delivered right to my hands by you yourself."

Bai Nianci's body trembled slightly.

She remembered.

That day in the teahouse, she sat opposite him, smiling brightly as she spoke of many things to that "Young Master Chen".

She had never imagined that those casually spoken words would turn into the knife stabbing at her and her fellow peers tonight.

Bai Nianci's complexion turned alternately pale and blue.

Her mind was violently shaken, as if something deeply rooted was shattering piece by piece.

She was a healer.

A healer had a benevolent heart, saving countless people and never harming anyone.

Yet the person she saved turned around and trampled everything she cherished underfoot.

"You..."

Bai Nianci bit her silver teeth tightly, two faint flushes rising on her cheeks—the color that only appeared when she was extremely angry.

She took a deep breath, clenched her fists tightly, and forced the words out word by word from between her teeth:

"You are shameless."

Having said this, water light was already welling up in Bai Nianci's eye sockets, yet stubbornly she refused to let a single drop fall.

Chen Ran glanced at the shattering young girl before him.

He neither refuted nor defended himself.

He merely picked up his wine cup, took a gentle sip, and then shifted his gaze outside the window.

The night was deep, the river surface as pitch-black as ink, and only the white foam churned up as the ship's hull cleaved the water was faintly visible in the dark.

The candlelight swayed gently in the wind.

No one spoke inside the ship hall.

Only the sound of river water beating against the ship's hull, thump after thump, continued endlessly.

The crowd did not know what exactly had happened between the two.

But from those fragmentary words, they could also sense that this Personal Disciple of Ciyin Medical Valley had once had some ties with the youth named Mountain Lord.

After the members of the Red Lotus Demonic Cult present controlled everyone, seeing this scene,

a tall and sturdy man walked out, knelt on one knee on the ground, and spoke respectfully:

"Lord, what are the arrangements for the next step?"

"Lock these people up first."

Chen Ran casually glanced at the controlled passengers on the ground and spoke indifferently.

With a single wave of his hand, a True Qi shackle bound Liu Qing up.

As the Martial Artist with the highest cultivation in the entire ship, it was still necessary to apply some restrictive measures.

After finishing all this, he cast his gaze toward the young girl before him.

At this moment, the young girl's white clothes were still stained with dust, her hair half-loose on her shoulders, and her entire person was filled with a sense of shattered fragility.

Her own kindness had instead become the foreshadowing of the attack.

Being backstabbed by a trusted person—this feeling was definitely not pleasant.

Chen Ran stared at the pitiable and lovely woman for a moment, sighing leisurely in his heart:

"I wonder what kind of thoughts Lin Wan will have after discovering my true identity."

Even Bai Nianci, a friend he had only met a few times, would have her mind suffer such an impact upon learning the true news.

Let alone the capital's famous catcher whose goal has always been to hunt down Mountain Lord.

If she truly learned that the opponent she was hunting down turned out to be the person dear to her heart by her side, she would probably...

Chen Ran's eyelids lowered, somewhat emotional.

As his strength improved step by step, it was impossible for him to always show himself with a hidden face.

One day, he would descend upon the world in his full glory.

"Forget it, why think so much about this."

As the saying goes, when the boat reaches the pier-head, it will naturally straighten with the current,

many times, a seemingly distant and unimaginable future will ultimately have the most suitable answer when that day truly arrives.