“I’m not cunning! Really! I’m an honest kid, not cunning at all! Please don’t eat me! I beg you, stop eating me! You’ve already eaten so much! No more!” The white mist wailed.
“Shut—*hic*—up!”
A-Dai bellowed in a gruff voice, but the simple command to “shut up” was awkwardly interrupted by a loud hiccup, instantly ruining any intimidating aura he might have had as the victor.
“I’ll give you the antidote ingredients, but you have to promise not to eat me!” The white mist lowered its voice, still desperately trying to negotiate for its survival.
“You talk too much!” Yun Qingxue seemed to have lost all patience.
“Here’s the antidote!” The white mist didn’t dare argue further and tossed out two black pills.
Just as before, Yun Qingxue opened two small gaps in the barrier and retrieved the pills.
This time, however, she didn’t immediately feed them to Daise and Liuli.
“Is this the full antidote now?” she asked the white mist.
“Yes, yes!” The white mist nodded frantically. “I just beg you, sister, don’t let that snake ancestor eat me anymore!”
With the antidote in hand, Yun Qingxue ignored the white mist and walked straight to Daise and Liuli, personally feeding them the pills.
After administering the medicine, she stood there motionless, watching them intently.
The antidote took effect quickly, and the two soon regained consciousness, standing up from the ground.
“Master, we’re sorry! We were useless!” Daise and Liuli hung their heads in shame.
“It’s not your fault. I was careless too. This time, we owe it all to A-Dai.” Yun Qingxue cast a praising glance at A-Dai.
“Thank you, Brother A-Dai,” Liuli immediately chimed in with a sweet smile.
“*Hic*! No need!” A-Dai tried to sound proud and aloof, but his attempt was once again ruined by another hiccup.
“Um… now that you’ve been cured, can you let me go?” The white mist inside the barrier asked meekly.
“Master, what is this?”
The white mist’s voice immediately drew Daise and Liuli’s attention.
“He’s the one who drugged us earlier,” Yun Qingxue explained.
The looks in Daise and Liuli’s eyes instantly shifted from curiosity to hostility.
The white mist shivered and forced an awkward chuckle. “I was just playing a little prank earlier! No hard feelings, okay?”
……
Daise and Liuli’s expressions remained cold—clearly, they didn’t believe a word of it.
“Pretty sister~” The white mist turned to Yun Qingxue. “I already gave you the antidote… can you let me go now?”
“No!” Yun Qingxue refused bluntly.
“You—you can’t go back on your word!” The white mist whined indignantly. “I gave you the antidote, and now you’re breaking your promise? Aren’t you afraid of being laughed at?”
“How am I breaking my promise? If I were, do you think you’d still be here chattering away?”
Yun Qingxue found a relatively clean spot to sit down and surveyed their surroundings.
The vast field of peonies they had seen earlier was now completely gone, leaving only desolation.
“Hey,” Yun Qingxue turned to the trapped white mist. “Was everything we saw earlier your doing?”
“Mmm—” The white mist grumbled.
“Then who are you?” Yun Qingxue pressed.
“Let me go, and I’ll tell you!” The white mist tried bargaining again.
“Fine, don’t tell us!” Liuli rolled her eyes, still fuming over the earlier humiliation.
The white mist deflated and muttered, “If I’d known you wouldn’t let me go, I wouldn’t have given you the antidote. At least then I could’ve taken two down with me!”
“Keep talking nonsense, and I’ll have Brother A-Dai eat you right now!” Liuli glared fiercely.
“Master, what should we do with it?” Daise asked quietly.
Yun Qingxue’s calm gaze settled on the white mist trapped in her barrier.
“Do you want freedom?” she asked.
“Of course!” The white mist answered eagerly. “Just let me go, and I promise I’ll never bother you again!”
“Letting you go isn’t impossible,” Yun Qingxue said.
“Really?” The white mist perked up.
“Of course,” Yun Qingxue nodded solemnly. “Answer my questions truthfully, and I’ll let you go. Deal?”
“Deal! Deal!” The white mist spun excitedly inside the barrier. “Ask away! Hurry up!”
“Who are you?” Yun Qingxue posed the first question.
“Me?” The white mist paused, then repeated the exact words Yun Qingxue had heard before passing out:
“I can be whatever you want me to be!”
“What kind of answer is that? Do you even want us to let you go?” Liuli was the first to protest.
The white mist whined again, “I answered seriously!”
“But you’re not being sincere,” Yun Qingxue countered.
The white mist huffed. “How am I not sincere? I really am answering your question!”
“Hiding in that mist and refusing to show yourself—that’s your idea of sincerity?” Yun Qingxue challenged.
The white mist fell silent, hesitating. After a long pause, it asked cautiously, “If I show my true self… will you really let me go?”
“As long as you’re honest, answer my questions properly, and promise not to harass us again, I’ll release you,” Yun Qingxue said firmly, her tone leaving no room for doubt.
The white mist deliberated a little longer before finally relenting. “Then… you have to keep your word!”
“Naturally,” Yun Qingxue nodded.
“Fine!”
The white mist seemed to steel itself and began shrinking rapidly inside the barrier.
Most of its mist had already been devoured by A-Dai, so it didn’t take long for it to shrink to the size of a three-year-old child, then further down to that of a newborn.
Finally, it stabilized at the size of a bowl.
The surrounding white mist dissipated, revealing a dazzling, multicolored flower inside the barrier.
Its shape closely resembled a blooming red spider lily, though its hues were far from the blood-red of its counterpart.
Unlike the spider lily, whose flowers and leaves never meet, this one had two large blue leaves, each a different shade—one as bright as a clear sky, the other as deep as the moonlit sea.
The flower itself shimmered like sunlight on soap bubbles, ethereal and dreamlike.
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