28: Chapter 28 Overthinking is an illness, it needs treatment!

The Zhenguo Marquis Mansion was bathed in moonlight that spilled down like water.

Tang Xiaowu stood before Chen Shanzhi's door, taking a deep breath as if bracing herself mentally before raising her hand to knock.

"Creak—"

Unexpectedly, the door opened first.

Chen Shanzhi, dressed in fine silk, played with his folding fan as he leaned against the doorframe with a smirk.

"There's still half an hour until midnight, yet the beautiful Miss Tang is already here.

It seems Miss Tang missed me quite a bit."

Tang Xiaowu's hand froze in mid-air, a flash of annoyance crossing her cold, elegant face.

Ignoring Chen Shanzhi's flirtatious words, she lowered her hand and said coldly, "Enough nonsense. Where is the Secret Realm? Take me there."

Seeing her aloof and distant demeanor, Chen Shanzhi knew exactly why.

It was likely because of what he had said to Tang Liu when he visited her place during the day.

It seemed the two had gotten into an argument after he left.

Chen Shanzhi smiled inwardly with a sense of triumph, unbothered by the cold expression on Tang Xiaowu's face.

After all, for a female lead like Tang Xiaowu who had someone else in her heart...

No matter the method, as long as he made her remember him, he was already halfway to success.

And this time, she had come for this Secret Realm.

In the future, she would come back for other matters concerning the Wu Clan.

This was called boiling a frog in lukewarm water.

After all, for some things, it's either zero times or countless times.

"Fine, since Miss Tang is so impatient, let's go."

Chen Shanzhi tucked away his folding fan and took the lead, walking outside.

As he passed Tang Xiaowu, he paused slightly and lowered his voice, speaking in a tone only the two of them could hear.

"Follow me, and don't get lost."

His warm breath brushed against Tang Xiaowu's ear, causing her to instinctively shrink her neck back.

Tang Xiaowu didn't say a word; she just glared at him fiercely and followed behind with a cold face, intentionally maintaining a distance of several steps.

One after the other, they traversed the intricate corridors of the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion.

In the dead of night, most of the servants had already retired. The surroundings were silent, save for their light footsteps.

Chen Shanzhi walked ahead, humming an unknown little tune.

Tang Xiaowu followed behind, looking at his back with a mix of complicated emotions.

About fifteen minutes later.

Chen Shanzhi stopped in front of a rockery and a pond.

"We're here."

Chen Shanzhi pointed to the solitary stone pavilion in the middle of the pond.

Tang Xiaowu stopped, her gaze scanning the scene before her.

Jagged rockeries, deep pond water, and a stone bridge connecting the shore to the pavilion in the center of the lake.

Under the moonlight, the scenery was somewhat elegant.

However...

Tang Xiaowu's brow furrowed sharply.

As the Saintess of the Witch Clan, her perception of spiritual energy far exceeded that of ordinary people.

Generally speaking, near the entrance of a Secret Realm, there would be subtle spiritual energy fluctuations caused by spatial folding.

But now, no matter how hard she tried to sense it, she found no sign of any spiritual energy fluctuations whatsoever!

To her, this was just a very ordinary back garden!

Looking at the setting again...

Rockeries, a pond, a stone pavilion...

How similar was this to the scene of their date in Yiyuan Garden a few days ago?

Her brow knit slightly as a strange feeling rose in her heart.

She remembered Chen Shanzhi's ambiguous attitude when he spoke during the day.

Coupled with this intentionally chosen late-night hour and such a similar setting...

Tang Xiaowu thought to herself: So he didn't call me here for the matter of the Secret Realm?

Thinking of this, countless thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.

What did he want to do by bringing her here?

Was he trying to remind her of the act she had to put on with him in Yiyuan Garden to save Brother Liu?

Was he threatening her that even if Brother Liu was rescued, it was impossible for the two of them to become strangers?

That it was impossible for her to return to the way things were with Brother Liu?

A complex mix of emotions flashed through Tang Xiaowu's eyes.

There was humiliation, anger, and more than anything, the grievance of being toyed with.

Then, she took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing these emotions and turning them into her usual coldness.

Tang Xiaowu stopped and looked coldly at Chen Shanzhi, who was standing on the stone bridge, her voice like eternal ice.

"Chen Shanzhi, that's enough!"

Chen Shanzhi had just stepped onto the stone bridge. Hearing this, he turned back in confusion.

"Huh? What's enough?"

"Stop pretending."

Tang Xiaowu sneered, her beautiful eyes full of disappointment and disdain.

"What happened between us in Yiyuan Garden was just an act to get Brother Liu out."

"Are you trying to remind me of something by bringing me to a place like this?

Or do you want me to continue playing those nauseating scenes with you in the future?"

"I'm telling you, the act we put on was just a transaction.

Please don't be naive enough to think that anything really happened between us.

And don't think that bringing me here will give me any ideas about you.

Or that you can threaten me into continuing to see you behind Brother Liu's back!"

Chen Shanzhi: "..."

Standing on the bridge, looking at the righteous Tang Xiaowu who seemed to have suffered a great grievance, he was completely dumbfounded.

Wait, my beautiful Miss Tang.

Isn't your imagination running a bit too wild?

This is just an ordinary pond in the Marquis Mansion's backyard!

If my aunt hadn't told me that this was the entrance to the Secret Realm, I wouldn't have brought you here.

So if I didn't bring you here, should I have taken you to the latrine to open the Secret Realm?

"Miss Tang, what on earth are you rambling about?"

Chen Shanzhi scratched his head in confusion and looked at her with an innocent face.

"I'm taking you to the entrance of the Secret Realm.

What 'acting,' what 'happened before'?

What 'threatening you'?"

"You couldn't be... still reminiscing about what happened in Yiyuan Garden, could you?"

"You!"

Tang Xiaowu was choked with rage, her cheeks instantly flushed—whether from anger or embarrassment.

"Still pretending! There are no spiritual energy fluctuations here at all. Where is the Secret Realm?"

"You're clearly just..."

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Chen Shanzhi interrupted her tirade and shook his head helplessly.

"Miss Tang, overthinking is a disease, and it needs to be treated."

With that, he stopped explaining and turned to walk to the stone table in the center of the pavilion.

He pulled out the bronze key Chen Rou had given him and tossed it onto the stone table.

"Watch closely, and don't blink."

"Clang!"

A crisp sound of metal striking stone rang out.

The next moment.

The previously unremarkable bronze key suddenly burst into a piercing green light the moment it touched the surface of the stone table!

Hum—

The bronze key trembled violently as if drawn by some force, slowly floating up from the stone table and hovering in mid-air.

Immediately following that.

A visible ripple radiated outward from the key.

The pond, which had been as still as dead water, suddenly broke into layers of ripples.

An ancient, vast spiritual energy fluctuation, moving with a rhythmic pulse, instantly filled the entire space!

However, after exceeding the boundaries of the pond, it weirdly dissipated.

If one wasn't near the pond, they wouldn't be able to sense the fluctuations of the Secret Realm opening at all.

"This..."

Tang Xiaowu was stunned.

She stared blankly at the floating key, feeling the rhythmic spiritual energy fluctuations.

She was like someone whose pressure points had been struck, frozen in place.

This really... was the entrance to a Secret Realm?

So the reason there were no spiritual energy fluctuations just now...

Was because the Secret Realm had been sealed and hidden by an expert, and only this key could activate it?

Then the words she had just said, those righteous accusations...

Those analyses about Yiyuan Garden and the acting...

Boom!

Tang Xiaowu felt a surge of shame rush to the top of her head. Her cheeks instantly became burning hot, turning as red as a ripe apple.

How humiliating!

It turned out that from beginning to end, she had been the one letting her imagination run wild, adding unnecessary drama to herself!

He didn't mean that at all, yet she had rattled off a bunch of nonsense, thinking she had seen through everything.

At this moment, Tang Xiaowu wished she could find a hole to crawl into.

She didn't even dare to look up at Chen Shanzhi's current expression.

"It seems Miss Tang has a very deep impression of our experience in Yiyuan Garden."

Chen Shanzhi's teasing voice floated over at the perfect time.

"To even associate an ordinary pond like this with that place... Tsk tsk, it seems my charm is just too great."

Tang Xiaowu's body trembled. She bit her red lip and kept her head down, not saying a word.

She now only wanted to enter the Secret Realm as quickly as possible to escape this massive social death scene.

"Alright, no more joking."

Chen Shanzhi quit while he was ahead and lightly tapped the floating key.

"Open!"

Rumble!

Accompanied by a dull, heavy sound.

The bronze key suddenly exploded, turning into countless green points of light.

These light points danced and intertwined in the air, finally sketching out a light gate three zhang high!

Inside the light gate was a deep vortex, rotating slowly and emitting a heart-palpitating aura.

"Let's go, Miss Tang."

Chen Shanzhi turned back and beckoned to the figure still acting like an ostrich.

"What are you standing there for? Do you want me to carry you in?"

Hearing this, Tang Xiaowu looked up instantly like a startled rabbit.

Her face had already returned to its cold appearance, but the lingering flush on her earlobes betrayed her current inner panic.

"Hmph."

She gave a cold snort, walked quickly across the stone bridge without even looking at Chen Shanzhi, and dove straight into the light gate.

Chen Shanzhi watched her slightly flustered back, a successful smile curling his lips.

"That poem 'little pond' is so popular in the capital now.

And the more widely that poem spreads in the capital, the deeper the impression of that day's events will be in Tang Xiaowu's heart.

Looking at it now, just a similar scene can make her imagine so much.

As expected, literary types still need to be cured with literature."

He shook his folding fan and didn't linger any longer, taking a step forward as his figure vanished into the light gate.

Hum!

With the entry of the two, the light gate flickered a few times before rapidly shrinking, eventually turning into a streak of green light and dissipating into the air.

The stone pavilion returned to its peaceful state, the rockery remained as it was, and the pond water was without a ripple.

It was as if everything that had just happened was merely an illusion.

...

Shortly after the two figures disappeared.

At the outer wall of the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion.

A blood-colored shadow slid silently along the base of the wall like a ghost.

Tang Liu hid in the shadows, following the route in his memory, avoiding the patrolling guards and sneaking toward Chen Shanzhi's courtyard.

Naturally, he was going to see if that bastard Chen Shanzhi had done anything excessive to Xiaowu.

If he really had, a trace of Killing Intent appeared in Tang Liu's eyes.

However, the very moment he stepped into the backyard and that Killing Intent surfaced...

"Hmph! To think that just as Shan'er said, a rat would sneak in tonight."

An angry shout exploded in his ears like a thunderclap.

The voice wasn't loud, but it contained an indescribable, terrifying pressure.

The air within a ten-zhang radius seemed to freeze in that instant.

An invisible wave, like a raging sea, swept over from the depths of the courtyard!

"What?"

Tang Liu, in his blood-shadow form, underwent a drastic change in expression.

He felt an overwhelming force crash into him.

It felt like an ant facing a collapsing mountain!

Before this pressure, his body actually began to tremble uncontrollably.

"Is this the Life Fire Realm?"

"No, this is definitely not just an ordinary Life Fire Realm!"

Tang Liu was horrified.

In Four Seas Academy, he had seen those teachers in the Life Fire Realm take action.

But not one of them had ever brought him such a terrifying sense of oppression.

The thickness of this aura was like a deep abyss or a vast ocean, unfathomable.

This was likely a powerhouse at the Peak of the Life Fire Realm!

But why wasn't he discovered the last time he came?

And what did this person mean?

Was someone specifically waiting for him here?

How did this person know he would come? Could that playboy Chen Shanzhi really have guessed he would show up?

The only one who knew him so well was...

Could it be???

No, impossible, it definitely wouldn't be!

As soon as this thought appeared in Tang Liu's mind, he immediately suppressed it.

But once some suspicions arise, they are hard to get rid of.

Tang Liu forced himself to calm down; he knew the situation was critical.

Facing a powerhouse of this level, he didn't even have the qualification to resist.

"Puff!"

Without hesitation, he bit the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of essence blood onto the stone pendant on his chest.

Hum!

The pendant erupted with a faint red light, instantly enveloping him.

With a whoosh, Tang Liu turned into a streak of blood-light, his speed increasing several-fold.

Yet, his movement remained silent.

In an instant, he fled toward the outside of the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion.

The very next breath after Tang Liu fled.

"Swish!"

A shapely and elegant figure appeared out of thin air where Tang Liu had been standing.

This person was none other than Chen Rou.

At this time, she was wearing a simple and elegant nightgown, with her long hair loosely scattered over her shoulders, yet it couldn't hide her noble and graceful temperament.

However, at this moment, her face, which usually wore a gentle smile, was covered in a layer of frost.

While resting in her room, she had suddenly sensed a trace of Killing Intent.

Had Shan'er not reminded her before, she never would have thought someone in the Profound Gate Realm would dare to sneak into the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion.

Furthermore, this person in the Profound Gate Realm was actually able to hide their aura so well that even she hadn't noticed until now.

Therefore, the moment she sensed the Killing Intent, she rushed over immediately.

"He ran quite fast," Chen Rou snorted coldly.

She didn't give chase because Shan'er was still in the Secret Realm; she couldn't easily leave the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion.

Chen Rou stood in place, her beautiful eyes narrowing as she carefully sensed the bloody aura and spiritual energy fluctuations that hadn't completely dissipated in the air.

She reached out and made a grasping motion in the air, seemingly capturing the residual aura.

"This spiritual energy aura..."

A flash of doubt crossed Chen Rou's eyes, and then, as if she had thought of something, her pupils shrank sharply.

"The blood Qi is thick, yet it doesn't carry any evil nature... instead, it has a familiar scent."

"How is this possible?"

A trace of shock flashed through Chen Rou's beautiful eyes.

"This Cultivation Technique... is someone from the Xuangui Sect?

But the Xuangui Sect plotted treason back then.

Weren't they surrounded and completely wiped out by the Marquis himself decades ago?"

"Now, decades later, how can there still be someone with this Legacy?"

She stood in place, silent for a long time, the night wind blowing her skirt, making her look exceptionally cold.

Chen Rou looked in the direction Tang Liu had fled, a murderous intent appearing in her eyes.

"This person sneaked into the Marquis Mansion and went straight for Shan'er's courtyard. What was their intent?"

"Could it be that these remnants want to come to the Zhenguo Marquis Mansion for revenge?"

Thinking of this, a strong sense of unease welled up in Chen Rou's heart.

Shan'er had just entered the Secret Realm when this person arrived; this was definitely no coincidence!

"No, this matter must be thoroughly investigated!"

Chen Rou's figure flashed and she instantly disappeared from the spot.