CHAPTER 130: 130- SEVEN RING LOTUS (BONUS)

They pushed through the curtain of thick, hanging moss that veiled the grove like a funeral shroud.

The air shifted instantly.

The cloying sweetness intensified, almost sickening now, layered with the heavy rot of damp earth and something faintly metallic.

And there, at the heart of a murky clearing fed by a sluggish, black-watered stream... it bloomed.

The Seven-Ring Lotus.

Whole and vibrant, rooted deep into the mud as if it had always been there.

Lin Zhaoyue tilted her head, voice silk-smooth but laced with thorns.

"Didn’t you say you dug a hole and hid it?"

Du Juan froze. Her thoughts scrambled.

"I... I’m sure I..." Her words trailed off, caught in the impossible sight.

She turned to Zhaoyue slowly, eyes wide.

"Do you think the beasts... could be smart enough to plant rare herbs?"

The silence that followed felt colder than the swampwater at her ankles.

Lin Zhaoyue’s head tilted slowly, like a serpent considering prey.

Her voice slid through the air, a low, melodic purr laced with something unhinged:

"Oh, Little Sister... are you suggesting beasts tend gardens? How delightfully naïve."

She glided forward, each step barely brushing the ground, silk robes whispering like secrets across the damp earth.

Then came the weight.

Nascent Soul pressure unfurled from her like a coiled serpent, silent and suffocating. The air crackled. The black swampwater trembled.

And Du Juan suddenly felt very, very small.

"Plants grow. Beasts hunger. That is the only truth here."

Her fingers brushed a nearby vine, which instantly withered to ash. "But you... you buried a treasure meant for my husband."

Her smile widened, revealing too-perfect teeth.

"Did you think to steal it? To offer it to him yourself? Hoping he’d glance your way? Tch. "

She flicked her wrist dismissively. "A weed like you could never bloom in his shadow."

Suddenly, she seized Du Juan’s chin, her grip ice-cold.

"But I am merciful. Tell me, truthfully: Where. Is. The. Hole? Or did you leave it unburied... instead inviting thieves?"

Her gaze sharpened, pupils dilating like a cat’s. "Speak carefully, Little Cuckoo. Lies taste bitter... and I always know."

Du Juan’s heart slammed against her ribs.

Is this woman insane?! The Clan Head sent us to retrieve the Seven-Ring Lotus, the one I buried and risked my life for! What more does she want? Does she think I—

She bit back the panic clawing up her throat.

No.

Don’t provoke her. You’re still injured. One wrong word and she’ll easily be able to snap your neck.

Her lips trembled, but she forced them into a steady line.

Her voice, barely a whisper, came out coated in diplomacy.

"Matriarch Fang," she said, bowing her head slightly, "I... I must’ve misplaced the spot. This swamp—" she gestured feebly to the mist-choked bog, "—it twists memory. But look!"

She pointed to the lotus blooming beside them, its seven radiant rings glowing faintly in the dim light.

"It’s unharmed! Ripe, perfect for you to gift him. Imagine his joy..."

She smiled weakly, praying the matriarch’s hunger for favor outweighed her thirst for punishment.

Lin Zhaoyue’s grip loosened.

Her eyes lost their edge, softening as they drifted to the lotus.

"...Yes. He’ll smile. Just for me."

She released Du Juan like a discarded doll and floated toward the flower, silk sleeves trailing behind her like ribbons of poisoned mist.

"Such a pretty thing... He’ll weave it into my hair when we wed."

Du Juan remained frozen, her breath caught in her throat.

In truth, Fang Yuan had already made his decision. That lotus wasn’t for love, and certainly not for ceremony.

He would commission Pill King Tushan to refine it into a dantian-repairing pill—

One for Du Juan.

And one for her little sister, whose fragile dantian cracked more each day.

Du Juan’s hands curled into fists at her side.

If she finds out the truth... I’m dead. Not just me. My sister too. That flower is our lifeline.

And yet, all she could do was bow her head and murmur,

"Yes, Matriarch. He’ll be... overjoyed."

Inside, her soul screamed. But on the surface, she smiled.

Lin Zhaoyue plucked the lotus with terrifying gentleness, as if cradling a promise of love while Du Juan’s thoughts tore through her mind like wildfire.

The hole... it never existed?

Her gaze darted to the disturbed earth, perfectly formed, as if someone had just now placed the lotus there.

No. I buried it myself. I marked the ground. I remember the shape of the roots, the tilt of that stone—

But the scene was too pristine. Too precise.

Something unearthed it... and replanted it?

Her breath hitched.

No beast should have been able do that. No wild beast has that kind of cunning.

Her heart pounded as a new, chilling possibility bloomed:

Was it meant to lure me back? To watch me? To toy with me?

She glanced at the mist curling around the edges of the swamp. It felt too quiet.

Lin Zhaoyue spun back, the Seven-Ring Lotus cradled against her silk robes like a sacred infant.

Her smile was a fractured mirror, radiant, yet reflecting only the jagged edges of her obsession.

"Come, Little Sister! We’ll tell my husband you helped me find it! He’ll reward you..." She leaned in, her breath a winter kiss against Du Juan’s ear, the promise turning venomous: "...if I let you live that long."

Then she was moving, skipping through the murk like a phantom bride, humming a discordant wedding march.

The lotus pulsed in her hands, a captured star promising only Fang Yuan’s fleeting approval.

Du Juan remained frozen, knee-deep in dread and sucking mud, her breath shallow rasps against the oppressive silence.

But then, Zhaoyue stopped.

Before her, coiled in the gloom like a fallen constellation, stood a flower.

It dwarfed the lotus in her grasp, its petals radiating an ethereal, hypnotic light, breathtaking and otherworldly.

Yet it wasn’t the beauty that froze Du Juan’s blood.

The flower was moving.

No... it was slithering.

Thick, root-like tendrils dragged through the mire with eerie silence, propelling the monstrous bloom forward.

Its petals quivered, not in a breeze, but with palpable, unnatural hunger.

Du Juan’s throat unlocked in pure, animal terror. "Matriarch Fang—RUN!"

The scream tore through the silence, raw and cracking.

And just at that moment a thought appeared in Lin Zhaoyue’s mind.

Why not let it take Du Juan? One less pretty bird fluttering near my Fang Yuan. The swamp swallows everything... who would know?

(8/9 BONUS)