Jun Yelan came to the back mountain, where small grave mounds were scattered. He buried Nie Qing beside a mound.
Lan Yan stood by, gazing at the grave mounds. They were likely the children who had died in the dark chamber years ago. She watched Jun Yelan quietly, saying nothing.
After a long while, Jun Yelan spoke, "In my childhood, every month, children would die. They had no names or parents and were discarded here. After I became the City Lord, I made this place their sanctuary."
He gave a bitter smile. "These trainings and competitions were never what a child would want."
"But you had no choice back then," Lan Yan said with a heavy heart.
Jun Yelan looked at Lan Yan, a flicker of warmth in his eyes. "But the people in this dead city don't know this. They only want to cultivate the strongest, a powerful puppet to deter the righteous factions who covet the dead city."
"Every City Lord dies an unnatural death, either killed by the next City Lord or assassinated by so-called righteous faction assassins. Do you know how I came to power?"
Lan Yan shook her head; even Lü Qi didn't know about this.
Jun Yelan recalled the past and chuckled self-mockingly. "The previous City Lord liked to use children to refine his power, killing many of the children I trained."
"That day, he chose me. When I approached him, I killed him in a brutal manner. From then on, my notorious reputation spread, becoming the nightmare of the entire dead city."
He still remembered that day when he dragged out the City Lord's corpse, the astonishment of those below. It was also that day he became the new City Lord, ushering in another day of hell.
Lan Yan looked at the smile on Jun Yelan's lips and couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy. Jun Yelan didn't want this; everything he did had a purpose.
Jun Yelan noticed Lan Yan's gaze and turned to say, "Actually, it's all in the past. For some reason today, I suddenly felt like saying it. Just forget these words as if they were carried away by the wind."
"City Lord, I want to hear these things. I want to understand you better." This was Lan Yan's true feeling. She had always regarded Jun Yelan as a living person, not a cold mission objective.
Jun Yelan was taken aback and didn't shift his gaze from Lan Yan's face. He looked at her like that and spoke about himself and Nie Qing. "The Saintess just said one thing correctly; Nie Qing and I were good friends among those children."
"But being alive changes everything. On the eve of the competition, he poisoned my food. Because he knew I was stronger than him." However, Nie Qing didn't know that his body already contained poison; such a minor poison meant nothing to him.
The moment he stood on the competition stage, he unhesitatingly thrust his blade into Nie Qing's chest.
After saying these words, his face showed no expression; he no longer cared about these matters. However, someone suddenly lunged into his arms, catching him off guard.
Lan Yan hugged Jun Yelan's waist tightly, burying her head in his chest, and murmured, "City Lord, they were all bad. Don't think about them anymore. I will treat you well from now on and will never treat you like this."
Her eyes gradually welled up with tears.
Jun Yelan's pupils trembled slightly, and his hands moved, stroking Lan Yan's back. He greedily absorbed the warmth of the person in his arms to warm his heart.
His heart began to beat again, and he tightened his arms around Lan Yan.
Lan Yan stayed quietly in Jun Yelan's embrace.
As night fell, Lan Yan did not return to her room. Instead, she secretly went somewhere. Carrying a sign, she boldly approached the entrance of the Saintess Hall and planted the sign on the ground.
It read, "No one is allowed to enter or exit."
She deliberately made the characters larger and hammered the sign firmly into the ground.
The Saintess inside was annoyed and ordered her maid, "Go and see what's happening outside the door?" She lay on the bed, pressing her temples.
Today, she was already vexed by Jun Yelan and the other person, and now at night, there was this irritating noise.
The maid had no choice but to go to the door. Seeing Lan Yan diligently hammering the sign, she froze. She made eye contact with Lan Yan, who was holding a hammer and staring at her with terrifying eyes. The maid shivered and left.
Lan Yan: "...The people in the Saintess Hall are truly strange." She continued hammering.
The maid returned to the Saintess and reported tremblingly, "It's Lan Yan, nailing a sign outside the door, preventing anyone from entering or leaving."
"What!" The Saintess pounded the bedboard heavily, feeling pain in her palm. She clenched her fist, and a fire of rage ignited in her eyes. "How dare this Lan Yan do such a thing? It must be Jun Yelan's doing."
The thought of Jun Yelan's current prestige only fanned the flames of her anger. "Go, tell her to finish quickly and scram."
With a thud, the maid knelt on the ground and cried, "Your servant dares not."
The Saintess's headache immediately worsened. She collapsed onto the bed, looking angrily at the canopy above. What a cursed fate! She shouldn't have kept Jun Yelan in the first place, leading to this situation.
Now with Lan Yan added, these two together were completely unrestrained.
However, she refused to believe she couldn't deal with these two in the future. She hadn't forgotten that she still held Jun Yelan's medicine. With this thought, she laughed maniacally. "Jun Yelan, no matter what you do, you can't overturn the heavens."
Seeing this, the maid dared not say more and silently withdrew. As she passed the window, she saw a pigeon fly to the windowsill. She skillfully removed the letter from the pigeon's leg and, seeing that the Saintess was uncomfortable, placed it by the bedside.
Only the Saintess remained in the room, still cursing.
Lan Yan stood up, patted the sign in front of her, and nodded with satisfaction. "I'll rely on you to deter them from now on." She certainly wouldn't let the Saintess continue to cause trouble. With a smile, she carried the hammer back.
She placed the hammer in a corner of the hall, tiptoed into the room, and looked at Jun Yelan, who had already lain down on the bed. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad she hadn't been discovered.
Happily, she lay down in her spot, pulled the quilt over her head, and drifted off to sleep.
After she fell asleep, Jun Yelan opened his eyes; he hadn't been sleeping at all. He got up, walked to Lan Yan's bedside, helplessly pulled the quilt down, and stared at her small face as usual.
Lan Yan was not yet fast asleep. She wanted to drink some water and suddenly sat up from the bed, bumping into something. Rubbing her forehead, she looked at Jun Yelan before her and asked in confusion, "City Lord?"
Jun Yelan was momentarily stunned, not expecting Lan Yan to wake up so suddenly. He saw that Lan Yan's forehead wasn't red from the bump and breathed a sigh of relief, saying, "Sleep."
"Oh." Lan Yan lay back down, completely forgetting her original intention. She felt a sense of security with someone beside her and fell asleep soundly.
Jun Yelan did not leave; he continued to stay there.
He had initially stared at Lan Yan out of curiosity, but now, doing so made him feel like a person. He leaned down, gently touched Lan Yan's forehead with his hand, and returned to his own bed.
This was enough!