Chapter 621: Chapter 559: Caught in One’s Own Trap_2

She rarely allowed the look of confidence to shine in her eyes, but Baili An knew she was a person of extreme pride and assurance.

She could calculate each step with precision, grasp the stance, thoughts, and emotions of everyone to just the right extent, and then utilize these deductions for her own benefit.

It was as if she were walking on a tightrope thousands of feet in the air, maintaining a kind of precise and faultless balance.

Provided her calculations were correct, she was confident she could traverse this perilous mountain peak without falling into the Abyss, to shatter into pieces.

But in this world, what true balance exists? Even if she could measure everything accurately, and grasp the human heart thoroughly, high winds might still arise in the skies.

Humans are but specks in the vast sea, and how could drifting be enough to shake the heavens?

If her steps were truly so exact, why then did she find herself in such a bedraggled state again, spitting blood and gravely wounded?

He didn’t believe Ning Feiyan had failed to see her current predicament, much like a wolf that had been starving for a long time, with broken legs, thrown into the den of a tiger, with enticing meat under the drowsy tiger’s claws, making her mistakenly believe that as long as she was careful and calculated properly, she could steal the food from the tiger’s mouth.

Little did she know, she was, in fact, the prey about to be fed to the tiger.

She knew this was a trap, yet still chose to jump.

Baili An faintly guessed the reason, hence he found the woman before him particularly pitiable.

He looked at her and said earnestly, “You can’t beat Zangxin today, and you don’t even have the right to challenge him, let alone you. In adversity, what you grasp might not necessarily be hope; it’s likely to be a knife that turns on you.”

Ning Feiyan looked into his eyes, hearing the implications of his words.

The cool, thin smile on her lips slowly dissipated, as if she had suddenly realized something, and her fingers delved into her Qiankun Bag.

Baili An clearly saw her wrist stiffen and tremble slightly.

She slowly withdrew her fingers and then massaged her temples, before laughing with self-mockery and strong unwillingness. Those eyes, so naturally affectionate and expressive, became void and ash gray in an instant.

“So that’s it,” Ning Feiyan said in an extremely light voice, faint despair and fatigue discernible in her tone.

Baili An internally uttered ‘as expected’.

Today, in the Female Demon Lord’s embrace, he had clearly seen the six mysterious boxes on the imperial desk.

In the first, second, and fifth boxes, each quietly held a River Lord Battle Order.

Ning Feiyan aimed for the Erhe, so it was reasonable for the second box to contain a Battle Order.

But the Battle Orders in the fifth and first boxes appeared incredibly strange.

Shu Ci was ranked as Shouhe, immortal since ancient times, with strength rivaling the Demon Lord, second only to one, above ten thousand in the Demon World. The other five rivers had no reason to provocatively challenge her needlessly.

Challenges among the other Mohe required victory to replace the River Lord.

But challenging Shu Ci was a rule of sheer arrogance and pride: to survive her attack was to become a higher-ranking River Lord without the need for victory.

Survive without being defeated.

With such a rule in place, Baili An felt that even Erhe Zangxin wouldn’t dare to casually throw his Battle Order into the box belonging to Shu Ci.

Regarding the Battle Order in the box of Wuhe Su Xi, it was even more mysterious. Only a Lower Demon River could challenge a higher one, and below Wuhe, only the Lord of Six Rivers remained.

But the Lord of Six Rivers was himself, Baili An, who could indeed Summon his own Battle Order within the Demon World’s domain.

However, he had never summoned it, so… whose was the Battle Order in the fifth box?

Just then, Baili An’s chin was suddenly seized by a pale, ice-cold hand. A pair of loving eyes drew near, their gazes meeting sharply.

Ning Feiyan’s ink-black hair fell beside her cheeks, the light and shadow in her dark pupils like shattered glaze, yet she exuded an unfathomable chill without a hint of a ripple.

With a firm squeeze of her fingers, the tips of their noses touched due to the already minimal distance.

It was clearly a secretive and suggestive move, yet the surrounding atmosphere was tinged with a slightly indiscernible intensity of suspicion, doubt, and the intent to kill.

She smiled half-truly, half-deceptively, so close that he could even sense the subtle sweet taste of her breath from the candy in her mouth.

“Kitten, you play a good game. I didn’t realize when you stole my Battle Order. If my guess isn’t wrong, the one in Shu Ci’s box must be my fourth Battle Order, right?”

Baili An was not surprised by her guess.

The relationship between the two of them had always involved mutually restraining and utilitarian cooperation, steeped in poison.

Ning Feiyan was naturally suspicious by nature. Since her injury, he had been with her night and day.

Not to mention distant matters, on that night of illusion when she passed out from blood loss, he was the one by her side.

Several Purple Butterflies danced around, lingering at Baili An’s neck, hovering ceaselessly.

He looked into those affectionate yet ice-cold eyes and sighed inwardly, maintaining a calm exterior as he said, “If I had stolen your Battle Order, why would I notify and remind you earlier?”

Ning Feiyan narrowed her eyes, inspecting him, “Perhaps you stole my Battle Order precisely to force me out of Ming Continent’s Royal City. You don’t want me to compete with Erhe.

Because if I die, there’s no one to check for the Disaster Beast within Mi Lu’s body.

If I live and defeat Erhe to replace him, I’m of no further use to you, and you can discard me at will. You need me alive, yet not too strong.”

Her analysis was rational, and the relationship of interests indeed pointed to the crux of survival in the Demon World’s illusionary environment.

She had never trusted him from the beginning—it was inevitable.

Baili An had given his response; she didn’t trust him, and he didn’t persist in explaining, pulling away Ning Feiyan’s fingers.

He took a half-step back, letting the wings of the Purple Butterfly grazing against his skin at the back of his neck.

Baili An chuckled softly, “What’s the point in delving into these matters now? If you don’t leave, it’s nothing but a dead end.”

Ning Feiyan watched the blood slide down from the cut on his neck, staining the white collar of his shirt red, and laughed along with him.

“No wonder Shu Ci said I wouldn’t survive the day. It turns out everything was premeditated. I pride myself on being clever, yet the Demon Lord had even considered the strategies at Xuanting Cave. I thought you were the sword to break my situation, but it turns out I was just entangled in a fool’s net all along.”

Her pride was great, but it was this very pride that made it all the more unbearable to realize, at the moment she believed she could change her fate, that she was merely a chess piece meticulously designed and casually played by others on their chessboard.

She took pride in being able to control her destiny, yet she had always been in the palms of others.

The more prideful she was, the more painful and unbearable it was.

Ning Feiyan always laughed with a gentle and steady demeanor, but now her smile blazed wildly, as though burning the last furiously bright fire of her life. For a moment, her beauty was astonishing.

Yet that smile also carried a hint of sadness as if it scorched the last of her pride and confidence to ashes.

In all of the Demon World, aside from the Demon Lord, no one could survive the hands of Shu Ci, not even Zangxin.

Baili An watched her and asked again, “Not leaving?”

Ning Feiyan’s smile remained, her gaze icy with a trace of madness, “Not leaving.”

Baili An ruthlessly spoke of the harsh reality, “You don’t have the ability to save yourself.”

Why not accept your fate?

The wind stirred the curtains, creating overlapping silhouettes between them. Ning Feiyan withdrew her Demon Butterflies, her face pale and desolate, “Nor is there anyone to save me.”

She loved to laugh, whether when her plots succeeded or in moments of desperation and defeat. Her smile had somewhere become a protective coloring.

Baili An had never seen any of her smiles reach the depths of her eyes.

In the end, Ning Feiyan skirted around the curtains away from him. Her crimson cloak concealed the fresh wound, claiming she came here to change clothes but would return without doing so, her sleeve still stained with blood.

Baili An turned to watch the figure disappearing into the daylight, the same question in his mind.

What, exactly, was she holding on to?