Your Eyes Are Beautiful

The firelight grew closer and closer, and she could even hear the harsh "rustling" sound of the household servants roughly pushing through the wild grass. This sound was magnified infinitely in the silent night; every snap of a weed was like a heavy hammer slamming into Jiang Ying's already tightly strung nerves.

"Quick! Over there! Search carefully!" The leading steward's shouts seemed to be right beside her ear.

"Please..."

These two words squeezed out of Jiang Ying's dry throat, which was almost sealed shut by fear, carrying a desperate finality. She did not kneel, nor did she cry and beg for mercy like the maids who had made mistakes in the Jiang family. She simply lifted her head and "looked" in Pei Ji's direction with her unfocused eyes. Even though she could not see anything, even though all she saw before her was an empty blackness, she still struggled to keep her back straight. This was the only way she had learned to protect herself in these twelve long years of darkness.

Survival was not shameful. But she could not bring herself to beg for mercy before the evil people who trampled on her dignity.

Pei Ji stared at her for a while. This blind woman, who was trembling all over from fear, her teeth chattering, possessed a tenacity that ordinary people could hardly match. Like a weed growing in a barren rocky crevice, beaten by wind and rain, ruthlessly trampled, but as long as she was given a little sunlight—even just a sliver of light leaking through the cracks—she would cling to life desperately and greedily.

This kind of look, this almost stubborn will to survive, he had not seen for a very long time. So long that he had thought that everyone in this world, when faced with absolute death and despair, would only show greedy ugliness and cowardly wailing. That was how those people a thousand years ago were, and these people a thousand years later, who had sent her as a sacrifice for profit, were no different.

"Remember what you said today."

Pei Ji gave a cold snort, his voice sounding as if it had been tempered in icy water. He suddenly reached out and wrapped an arm around her impossibly slender waist. It was so thin that he felt he could snap it with just a little force.

Jiang Ying only felt a violent dizziness, and in an instant, the wind roared past her ears, stinging her cheeks. By the time she came to her senses, her feet had lost the reassuring sensation of standing on solid ground. The intense feeling of weightlessness made her instinctively close her eyes—though it made no real difference, her subconscious still controlled her body.

"Ah!"

She let out a short cry, and her hands, as if grasping the last lifeline, desperately and recklessly wrapped around Pei Ji's neck. His body was as cold as a piece of ice that had been soaking in the deep sea for a thousand years, without a trace of living warmth, without the rise and fall of a heartbeat. But in this pitch-black night, this body that made her shiver with cold was the only "living thing" she could rely on.

Pei Ji's speed was extremely fast, beyond ordinary imagination, even exceeding the laws of physics. He carried Jiang Ying through the night, as if he himself were part of the boundless darkness. The wind was torn apart around them, and the firelight and noise behind them seemed to be pulled away, blurring rapidly until they could no longer be heard at all.

Half an hour later.

Pei Ji landed with Jiang Ying in front of a dilapidated Mountain God Temple. The place was remote and had been abandoned for many years; even the incense offerings had ceased for who knew how many seasons. Wild grass grew all around, waist-high, and the air was thick with the smell of moldy, rotting wood and the dampness of a place that had not seen sunlight for years.

With a dull thud.

Pei Ji let go without any gentleness, and Jiang Ying was thrown to the ground like a tattered rag doll.

"Cough, cough..." Jiang Ying landed heavily on the bluestone slab covered in dust and gravel, wincing in pain. The burning sensation on her knees and shins told her they were definitely scraped raw. She did not bother to pat off the dirt, nor to straighten her disheveled wedding dress. Struggling to sit up, like a startled little animal, she pricked up her ears warily, listening to the sounds around her.

"No need to listen. There are no living people here except me and those wandering ghosts." Pei Ji's voice echoed in the empty, dilapidated temple, carrying a trace of undisguised mockery. His voice bounced off the broken walls, producing an unsettling echo.

Jiang Ying breathed a slight sigh of relief, her tense shoulders dropping a little, but her nerves were still as taut as a drawn bowstring. Having escaped the clutches of the Jiang family, she had fallen into the hands of an even more terrifying, unpredictable Ghost King. The future was uncertain, life and death unpredictable—she had merely traded one prison for another, even more dangerous abyss.

"General, what are your plans for bringing me here?" she asked tentatively, trying as hard as she could not to reveal the panic in her heart.

Pei Ji did not answer immediately. He paced about the temple, his footsteps so light they were almost inaudible, only the faint rustle of his robes occasionally brushing the floor. He was assessing his current strength. A thousand years of sealing, though Jiang Ying's blood carrying Pure Yang energy had torn open a crack and allowed him to escape, had left him with less than a tenth of his full power. Even maintaining this physical form was somewhat difficult.

He needed to recover. And for a Ghost King, the quickest way to recover was to absorb pure yin energy.

His footsteps stopped, and his gaze, as solid as a physical presence, fell coldly on Jiang Ying.

Jiang Ying felt a tangible, icy gaze roam over her body, from head to toe, as if appraising a prey to be slaughtered, or a commodity to be priced. The feeling was like being stared at by a highly venomous, cold-blooded snake—it made her skin crawl and her hair stand on end. She subconsciously shrank back until her back hit the cold base of the shrine, with nowhere left to retreat.

"You're afraid of me?" Pei Ji walked up to her and looked down at her. His voice was soft but carried an oppressive weight that could not be ignored.

"You are a ghost, General, and I am a human. Isn't it natural for a human to be afraid of a ghost?" Jiang Ying answered, feigning composure, but her fingers were twisted tightly together beneath her sleeves.

"Heh. When you begged me to take you away just now, you didn't think I was a ghost." Pei Ji suddenly crouched down, and his long, ice-cold fingers pinched her chin, forcing her to lift her face toward him.

Although she could not see, Jiang Ying could clearly feel the temperature of his breath on her face. It was a coldness thick with yin energy, as if from the deepest bowels of hell, freezing the fine hairs on her cheeks so they stood on end.

"I saved your life, General, and you helped me escape the Jiang family. I think... we're even, aren't we?" Jiang Ying said boldly. She did not want to have anything more to do with this dangerous monster. Even if she had to fend for herself in these desolate mountains, it was better than staying with a monster who might drain her blood at any moment.

"Even?" Pei Ji looked as if he had heard the most absurd joke. His fingers suddenly tightened, squeezing her jaw until the bone ached. "Do you think that just because you broke the seal, you can walk away so easily?"

He leaned close to her ear, and his cold voice pierced into her ears like poisoned needles: "You drank the nuptial wine. You bear my mark. For life after life, you are mine, Pei Ji's woman."

Jiang Ying's heart sank heavily, as if falling into an bottomless abyss. The nuptial wine... that cup of wine, with its earthy taste that had made her choke with tears! So it wasn't just wine forced down her throat by the Jiang family to complete the formality of the ghost marriage—it was...

"It was... a ghost marriage blood pact?" she finally realized, her voice trembling uncontrollably. Though she was blind, during her years surviving in the Jiang family's side courtyard, she had occasionally heard the servants talk about strange folk tales.

"It seems you're not completely stupid." Pei Ji was pleased with the look of terror that flashed across her face. This feeling of total control gave him back a bit of the dignity he had once had as a great general. "This blood pact is bound by your soul, formed with that cup of wine mixed with grave soil. Once it is formed, unless I am utterly destroyed, body and soul, you will never be able to shake me off. Even if you flee to the ends of the earth, I can follow this blood pact and find you."

Jiang Ying felt a suffocating despair. She had just escaped the wolf's den, only to enter the tiger's mouth. And this time, even her soul was locked away in utter hopelessness. She had originally thought that as long as she escaped, even if she was blind, as long as she could beg for food or do hard labor, she could survive somehow. But now, she did not even own her own soul.

"What do you want?" she asked, biting her bloodless lips, struggling not to cry in front of this monster. Tears were the most useless thing.

Pei Ji watched her stubbornly holding back her tears, and a strange sense of spite rose in his heart. He reached out, his cold fingertips gently stroking her closed eyes.

These eyes, though unfocused like a pool of dead water, were extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyelashes were long and thick, like a butterfly's wings; the corners of her eyes tilted slightly upward, carrying a natural charm. If they were open, if they were lively, how captivating they would be. Pity they were blind.

"Your eyes are beautiful," he said abruptly, out of nowhere. His tone held no praise, only a condescending assessment.

Jiang Ying's whole body stiffened. This was the first time in twelve years that anyone had complimented her eyes. Ever since she lost her sight at age six, the Jiang family had only called her a useless blind girl, a burden who wasted food. Those contemptuous, disgusted looks, even if she could not see them, she could feel them clearly.

"Too bad they're blind," Pei Ji added, twisting the knife. He loved this game of giving hope and then crushing it with his own hands.

The faint, strange feeling that had just risen in Jiang Ying's heart was immediately doused by a bucket of ice water. "If you only want to mock me, General, there's no need. I am blind—that is a fact."

Pei Ji ignored her coldness, or rather, he simply did not care about the feelings of his prey. He stood up, walked to the center of the broken temple, and his voice returned to its usual coldness and authority, brooking no refusal: "My power has not fully recovered yet. You need to stay by my side and use your pure yin energy to help me cultivate. That is your... duty as my wife."

"What if I refuse?" Jiang Ying countered.

"You have no right to choose." Pei Ji sneered. "Don't forget, you are my prey now. I can crush you anytime I like, like an ant. But that would be too boring. Keeping you around might provide some entertainment."

Just then, an unusual noise came from outside the broken temple.

"Rustle... rustle..."

It sounded like something dragging through the wild grass, or countless feet scraping against the ground.

Jiang Ying's ears twitched. Because of her lack of sight, her hearing was far sharper than ordinary people's. She immediately recognized that it was definitely not the sound of wind stirring the grass. The sound was dense, rising and falling, and it was getting closer, surrounding the broken temple from all directions.

"What is that sound?" she asked nervously, her body involuntarily shrinking back.

Pei Ji's expression also changed slightly, his brow furrowing. He could sense a dense mass of resentment gathering outside. The resentful energy was not strong individually, but there was a great quantity of it.

"It seems we have guests," he said coldly, a glint of bloodlust flashing in his eyes.

As soon as the words left his mouth, the already dilapidated door of the temple was smashed open with a bang. One of the door panels crashed heavily to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. A gust of yin wind, mixed with a nauseating stench of decay, swept in, and the temperature dropped by more than ten degrees.

"Woo woo woo..."

A piercing ghostly wail echoed through the temple, like fingernails scraping against glass, utterly grating.

Though she could not see, Jiang Ying could feel the temperature around her plummet. This kind of cold was even more unsettling than Pei Ji's. It was a cold filled with malice, greed, and a desire to devour the living.

"They are the wandering ghosts from nearby. They have caught the scent of your living energy." Pei Ji's voice sounded in the darkness, carrying a detached mockery. "A pure yin body is a great tonic for them. It seems you are even more popular than I thought."

"H-help..." Jiang Ying finally could not help letting out a terrified cry for help. She could feel those cold things approaching her. Something wet and slimy touched her ankle, as if some sort of mollusk was crawling up her leg.

"If you want to live, stay right there and don't move."

Pei Ji left these words behind, his form flickering as he transformed into a black shadow and charged forward.

Though his power was severely weakened, he was still a thousand-year Ghost King after all. Dealing with these ordinary, unformed wandering ghosts was well within his ability. In the darkness, shrill screams and the sound of tearing cloth rang out continuously. It was the sound of yin energy being forcibly dispersed.Jiang Ying curled up in the corner, hugging her knees tightly, burying her head between her arms and covering her ears as hard as she could. The air around her was thick with the pungent smell of blood and some indescribable stench of burning, making her feel nauseous.

This was an invisible slaughter, and also the most terrifying night she had ever experienced in her life.

About the time it takes to brew a cup of tea passed.

The screams around gradually faded, and that suffocating chill slowly receded as well.

"Are they dealt with?" Jiang Ying asked tentatively, her voice as faint as a mosquito's hum.

No answer. Only the howl of the wind passing through the leaky roof of the ruined temple.

"General?" she called out again, bolder this time, raising her voice a little.

Still no response.

A sense of foreboding spread through her heart like poisonous weeds. Could something have happened to him? Those wandering ghosts were weak, but there were so many of them—many ants could kill an elephant. He had just broken free from the seal and had fled such a great distance with her... If he died, here in these desolate mountains, facing the remaining specters, she would have no chance of survival either.

Jiang Ying gritted her teeth, plucked up her courage, stretched out her hands, and began crawling forward, feeling the ground.

Her hands felt around on the dusty, gravel-strewn floor until suddenly she touched something cold and hard.

"Hiss—"

She sucked in a breath of cold air. It wasn't fabric, but... a broken stone slab.

Then, she heard faint, labored breathing—extremely heavy, like a worn-out bellows being pulled.

"General, is that you?" She groped in the direction of the sound and finally touched a cold body.

Pei Ji lay on the ground, his breath weak. The fight just now, though it had dealt with the wandering ghosts attracted by Jiang Ying's life force, had completely drained the pitiful amount of power he had only just recovered. Now, he could barely maintain even his basic form, and his body had begun to grow translucent and ethereal.

"You fool... don't touch me..." He gritted his teeth and forced out a few words with effort. Even at a time like this, his tone still carried that ingrained arrogance and resistance. He would not allow anyone to see him in such a disheveled and weakened state.

Jiang Ying's hand stopped midair. She didn't know how badly he was injured, but she could feel his originally powerful yin energy rapidly dissipating, like a leaking waterskin.

"You need blood," she suddenly recalled what had happened earlier in the stone coffin. Her blood had helped him break the seal; it should also help him recover his strength.

Without hesitation, she raised the rusty iron nail she had been clutching tightly in her hand. She took a deep breath and aimed at her freshly scabbed, still aching palm, then slashed down fiercely.

Deeper than the last time. Warm blood instantly gushed out, dripping through the gaps between her fingers.

She groped in the darkness and found his cold, tightly shut lips. She pressed her bleeding palm against them, not allowing him to refuse.

"Drink," she said.