So, like a long-suffering frog jumping into a deeper fryer, he slowly hopped out of the circle.
Once he was out, he had no hope of getting back in. Agile as a specter, Linguang-Jun grabbed him with one hand. “What’s the use of you coming out alone? Withdraw the fire!”
In fact, Linguang-Jun was also a touch flustered. He didn’t know how long it would take Mobei-Jun to suppress that bit of demonic energy. If he was able to do so before the Black Sun fire burned out and finished digesting that martial aspect, today’s rebellion would be nothing more than a giant farce.
“I only know how to set fires, not put them out,” said Shang Qinghua.
“Then make him come out!”
“Well… My lord, look at the state of him. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t move.”
Linguang-Jun sneered, putting his hand on Shang Qinghua’s solar plexus. “Then say,” he said amicably, “if your heart were to start freezing over, would he have the sudden impulse to come out?”
“If that kind of thing can be broken through on ‘sudden impulse,’ I recommend my lord try having a ‘sudden impulse’ to see if he can do just tha—”
And then he couldn’t get out another word.
Linguang-Jun quietly hummed an ice spell, his tune cheerful yet malicious. “Mobei, ah, your uncle really didn’t expect you to have a dog who refused to betray you, even in these circumstances. Wouldn’t it be a pity if you were to lose such a good hound?”
Near his heart grew a field of ice and snow.
Shang Qinghua, lips turning purple, raised his hand. “M-m-my lord.”
“Speak.”
“If you’re going to…f-f-freeze my heart like this, I-I-I can’t scream aloud. It doesn’t s-s-sound miserable enough—you won’t g-g-get the ‘sudden impulse’ that you want from him. I advise…advise you to hit me instead. I promise I’ll do my best to scream, scream very miserably.”
“Oh. But I’m very heavy-handed. If I can’t control myself and beat you to death, what then?”
“I-I-It’s no problem, I can take it. I’m used to it, after s-s-suffering your nephew’s—”
Before he could finish speaking, Shang Qinghua personally experienced how heavy Linguang-Jun’s hands could be.
He didn’t use demonic energy, preferring to rely entirely on physical strength to attack. However, Shang Qinghua clearly heard the sound of his every broken rib, as well as the sound of his throat hissing like it was leaking air after spitting up too much blood.
As his back teeth started to faintly loosen, Shang Qinghua decided that, compared to his uncle and other demons, Mobei-Jun was goddamn fucking gentle, even amiable—practically a little angel.
The longer he dragged this out, the more Linguang-Jun’s impatience inched toward fury. He stepped firmly on Shang Qinghua’s back and wrenched up one of his arms, grinning savagely. “Didn’t you promise you would try your best to ‘scream, scream very miserably’? And yet your mouth is so secure that you haven’t let out a single sound.”
This position had some extremely bad associations for Shang Qinghua. He hurriedly spat out the bubble of warm blood held in his mouth and screamed with great sincerity.
Linguang-Jun hummed. “Not bad. It’s a pity, but that’s still not miserable enough. I’ll help you out.”
From Shang Qinghua’s shoulder came the terrible pain of flesh and tendons ripping. He opened his mouth, letting fear drown him, but he found he couldn’t make a single sound.
Yet this pain didn’t develop into an unsalvageable outcome. Suddenly, the arm that had been yanked behind him drooped limply down.
A corner of a deep-blue robe flapped in front of him, its collar billowing with wind and snow.
Mobei-Jun had caught them off guard, diving out of the fire circle to land a palm squarely on Linguang-Jun’s solar plexus.
After being waylaid by this strike, half of Linguang-Jun’s chest collapsed, demonic energy streaming out of it like a giant hole had been punched through his whole body. His heart chilled. This youngster’s prior ability and the power in that strike could not be spoken of in the same breath. The delay had been long enough; Mobei-Jun had absorbed all the martial aspect the Mobei clan had passed down over generations.
On top of that, he no longer feared the Black Sun Immortal Fire. He’d leapt straight through it!
Though Linguang-Jun was full of dissatisfied resentment, he was by this point likely no match for Mobei-Jun. He could only hurriedly use ice to seal his own wounds, transform into a stream of black wind, and steal out of the ice fortress.
Shang Qinghua, lying with his face pressed to the ground, didn’t see any movement for a long while, and no one came to help him up. Is he still mad? he mourned internally. No matter how you look at it, I was beaten to a pulp for you. And you’re not even helping me up! This is just inexcusable!
Then he heard a heavy slam.
Grimacing in pain, and with incomparable difficulty, Shang Qinghua turned over.
Mobei-Jun had collapsed too.
Two figures, fallen in different postures beside a raging circle of fire, lay quietly, quietly, collapsed like dead NPCs.
Shang Qinghua finally realized that Mobei-Jun most likely had, in fact, not finished absorbing his clan’s martial aspect, nor had he suppressed Linguang-Jun’s demonic energy. Moments ago, he really had been taken by “a sudden impulse” and fought with all his strength to scare Linguang-Jun away at the last moment. Now Mobei-Jun had exhausted his final ounce of energy, and had moreover been roasted to a crisp by the terrifying Black Sun Immortal Fire, so he…had collapsed like a dead NPC.
Though Mobei-Jun was lying straight and stiff on the ground, unable to move even a finger, his eyes were still forcefully glaring at Shang Qinghua.
Under that stare, Shang Qinghua was no longer able to continue lying there at ease. He could only open his mouth to say, “That is, my king, you, ah—don’t struggle, just lie down and slowly absorb it. The combined power of lords accumulated over generations isn’t the sort of thing you can swallow down in a single gulp.”
That gaze didn’t subside in the least. Shang Qinghua’s heart pounded like he was being showered with a rain of needles. He finally managed to catch his breath and sit up, already trembling like a Parkinson’s patient.
Now Mobei-Jun would finally have to listen to him. He took a deep breath. “Uh, my king, in fact, in the first place, I didn’t want to leave at this sort of time. I really didn’t know that it just so happened to be the key moment when you were about to succeed your father’s position. Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier, when it was something so important?”