"No..." A single word, accompanied by a mouthful of blood, gushed down.
Mo Sheng clenched his small fists.
He resisted? He resisted! He actually resisted his soul-capturing technique with all his might!!
Mo Sheng had never seen anyone with such a strong will as Cen Ji, who, while deeply under the spell of the Soul-Seizing Technique, still struggled fiercely!
Helpless, Mo Sheng had no choice but to change the subject, "Brother Cen."
Cen Ji clenched his teeth.
Do you love Miss Wen?
“I…” Cen Ji began to tremble, the trembling was very slight, like the shivering that comes when one is resisting the cold snow and fierce wind, or like one is suffering extreme pain.
"……like."
Mo Sheng reached out and gently touched the blood flowing from Cen Ji's nose.
He bit his lower lip and said, "Tell the truth."
“…Love.” Cen Ji’s mouth and nose were full of blood, and the pungent smell of blood made Mo Sheng feel dizzy.
"Tell the truth!" Mo Sheng's eyes widened, his obsidian-like pupils fixed on Cen Ji without blinking.
He wanted to watch Cen Ji lose all resistance, watch him drop all his defenses in front of him, and watch the unwilling struggle in his eyes be strangled to death by him!
Cen Ji's upright figure resembled a precariously crumbling boulder.
"Tell the truth!"
Mo Sheng in Cen Ji's eyes gradually magnified.
"Do you love Miss Wen?" Mo Sheng's voice became ethereal and elusive, impossible to grasp.
Cen Ji trembled as he opened his lower lip, the breath escaping from between his lips like blood-red butterflies, silently stirring the bloody stench in the air. After a long while, he managed to speak, "...love."
Then, as Mo Sheng watched Cen Ji's eyes slowly drip blood.
If I keep asking, will he die?
Mo Sheng was disappointed. He had never doubted his soul-capturing technique. Yet now he was encountering unprecedented resistance.
A wicked thought arose in his mind: Kill him! Kill this man with an iron will before him, and no one in the world will be able to withstand the Soul-Seizing Technique!
Mo Sheng sneered, his eyes showing no mercy whatsoever; his expression was no longer that of a ten-year-old child.
He frantically activated the Soul-Seizing Technique, his body gradually becoming unbearably hot, as if a small beast about to burst out of his chest was roaring restlessly.
Mo Sheng, barely able to contain his breathing, asked, word by word, "You love Ban Lan, don't you?"
"Is that right?!" Mo Sheng shouted.
Cen Ji tilted his head back, and a thick mist of blood splattered all over Mo Sheng's face and body.
She's really stubborn.
Mo Sheng was furious. He stretched out his slender, thin hands and gripped Cen Ji's shoulders tightly.
"If you want to die, I will grant your wish!" Mo Sheng's face was ferocious, like a demon tearing off a mask.
When Cen Ji was carried in, Chu Ba did not smile.
It's rare for him not to smile on the eighth day of the lunar new year. For him, smiling doesn't necessarily mean happiness; he believes that people don't necessarily have to express their emotions with a certain facial expression.
So he was always smiling on the eighth day of the lunar month. There were only two situations in which he wouldn't smile: when his parents passed away, and when Wen Moyin got angry.
The one truly in charge of Kongshan Ridge was Wen Moyin. Therefore, Chu Ba was fully aware of Wen Moyin's methods. He just didn't understand why a woman as unfathomable as Wen Moyin would put on such a vulnerable appearance in front of Cen Ji.
There are too many things in the world that we don't understand, and we don't necessarily need to understand everything. So even if he really didn't understand, Chu Ba still had a smiling face.
But no matter how brightly he smiled, he dared not smile again once Wen Moyin was truly angry.
For example, this time.
Cen Ji lay on the bed, his mouth, eyes, and nose filled with blood, which had already congealed.
His upright posture resembled that of a sculpted stone statue.
His eyes were closed, and his thick eyelashes were covered with scabs of blood.
Chu Ba secretly glanced at Wen Moyin and saw that her face was solemn, without joy or anger. Her pale yellow gauze dress swayed to the ground, but it was filled with layers of murderous aura.
"Where is Mosheng?" After a long while, Wen Moyin finally spoke.
Chu Ba hurriedly stepped forward and replied, "Mo Sheng's soul-capturing technique has been broken, and he has suffered a backlash. He is currently unconscious."
"He wants to kill Cen Ji?" Wen Moyin's icy voice was more chilling than the frost in the twelfth lunar month.
On the eighth day, a cold sweat broke out instantly.
If he says no, the evidence is conclusive, and Mo Sheng's interrogation has injured five of Cen Ji's seven orifices; if he says yes, Mo Sheng will be doomed, and Wen Moyin will certainly not let him go.
"The eighth day?" Wen Moyin's voice rang out again, reminding Chu Ba of the death knell.
"I don't know about Chu Ba. Let's wait until Cen Ji wakes up before we discuss it," Chu Ba said meekly.
Wen Moyin did not refute. The most important thing right now was not Mo Sheng's motives, but Cen Ji's life or death.
"What did the doctor say?" Wen Moyin walked over, sat down by Cen Ji's bedside, and gently wiped the blood off his face.
Chu Ba bowed and said, "The doctor said it was very dangerous. If Cen Ji is interrogated again, he will probably die on the spot."
Wen Moyin pursed her lips tightly, her bright almond-shaped eyes narrowing into slits, like a blade that had been sharpened to an extremely thin edge.
"What did Mo Sheng ask?"
"Well, I don't know," Chu Ba honestly shook his head.
Wen Moyin waved his hand, and Chu Ba bowed and withdrew.
She looked down at Cen Ji, her fingertips tracing his lean profile.
Suddenly, she stood up, flicked her sleeves, and left.
Mo Sheng was indeed unusually thin.
As Doctor Sun took his pulse, he would occasionally glance at him incredulously. Doctor Sun had seen all sorts of strange people and illnesses before. But this child was terribly thin, clearly born with a deficiency; in his opinion, the child's mother must have given birth to him before eight months of gestation.
Dr. Sun sighed. It's truly remarkable that this child survived.
Mo Sheng's pulse was extremely strange. Doctor Sun's eyes were half-closed, his expression focused. He had been practicing medicine for over ten years, and this was the first time he had seen someone suffer from the backlash of a soul-capturing spell, and also the first time he had seen someone who had suffered from the backlash be a mere child.
What he found even more unbelievable was that he discovered there were actually people in the world who could break the Soul-Seizing Technique!
Doctor Sun became curious, because he wanted to know who could still lie when faced with soul-capturing magic. And lies, precisely, were the nemesis of soul-capturing magic.
After examining Mo Sheng, Doctor Sun prescribed a remedy.
Wen Moyin stood at the door, neither going in nor leaving. Only when Doctor Sun got up and came over did she indifferently ask, "How is he?"
Who? That child? Doctor Sun was extremely dissatisfied with Wen Moyin's indifferent attitude.
Doctor Sun folded his hands and said, "His life is not in danger, but the child encountered strong resistance when the spell was cast, so the powerful control of the Soul-Capturing Technique backfired on him."
"And then?" Wen Moyin raised her chin slightly, rarely glancing at Mo Sheng on the bed.
Doctor Sun continued, "I'm afraid this child will never be able to use the Soul-Capturing Technique again."
"It's ruined?" Wen Moyin frowned.
Dr. Sun nodded. "That's right."
"You may leave." After dismissing Doctor Sun, Wen Moyin slowly walked to Mo Sheng's bedside, a smirk playing on her lips, and said indifferently, "Stop pretending, you brat."
Mo Sheng suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze like an arrow, shooting straight at Wen Moyin.
Wen Moyin lowered her head, looking down at Mo Sheng with disdain in her eyes: "From the moment you opened your eyes until now, you have had two murderous thoughts."
Wen Moyin could see Mo Sheng's slightly protruding cheeks, and she could even feel Mo Sheng grinding his back teeth.
"You should have heard that. You can no longer use the Soul-Capturing Technique," Wen Moyin said calmly.
Mo Sheng said, "Perhaps this is a pity for Kongshanling."
“Perhaps,” Wen Moyin said, “but in this world, no one else knows the art of soul-capturing.”
Mo Sheng shifted unconsciously. He had lost the only thing that could protect him.
Mo Sheng closed his eyes in pain.
It's all because of Cen Ji! It's all because of him!
Wen Moyin's voice rang out again, "Why did you kill Cen Ji?"
Mo Sheng turned his head toward the wall, refusing to answer.
Wen Moyin snorted coldly, "I could guess even without you saying it! You brat, if Cen Ji is safe and sound, you can stay in Qingluan Forest with your mother, and I won't hold it against you. But if anything happens to him..." Wen Moyin slowly leaned down, grabbed Mo Sheng's chin, and said fiercely, "I'll make you wish you were dead!"
Mo Sheng bit his lower lip so hard that it left a row of teeth marks.
“And another thing,” Wen Moyin shook off Mo Sheng’s chin and began to interrogate, “what did you ask Cen Ji?”
A smile finally appeared on Mo Sheng's tense face, a smile mixed with a strange sense of pleasure.
I asked him if he loved you.
"What did he... say?"
He said, "Love."
Wen Moyin secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Then he started bleeding." With that, Mo Sheng burst into uncontrollable laughter: "Haha... I've never seen such self-deception..."
His thin body trembled and curled up into a ball. As he laughed, he began to gasp for breath, and his face turned deathly pale.
Wen Moyin's pale yellow silhouette instantly hardened, becoming even more lifeless than a mud-brick wall.
She knew that if she lied to someone using soul-capturing magic, she would pay a bloody price.
It turns out he no longer loved her, but he kept believing he did. As he desperately tried to stay sober, he maintained the lie of "loving her."
Wen Moyin tightened her grip on her hands.