Footsteps echoed outside the room again. Jun Yelan maintained his previous posture, not even lifting his head.
Ever since he returned, he had been confined here. Pavilion Master Bai visited daily to train him.
The cell door opened, and Pavilion Master Bai walked in, staring at Jun Yelan before him. He let out a cold snort. "Jun Yelan, you are the sharpest blade in our pavilion. If you willingly hand over the list, I will show you leniency."
Jun Yelan clenched his fist, feeling the lingering scent of Lan Yan on the necklace, filling him with more strength than usual. "I will not give it to you."
He had considered using the list to bargain with Pavilion Master Bai before. Now, having learned Lan Yan's identity, he was even less likely to hand it over.
If Hua Pavilion were to be attacked, and he was still imprisoned here, he would be unable to protect Lan Yan.
"Seeking death!" Rage blazed in Pavilion Master Bai's eyes. He raised the whip in his hand and struck Jun Yelan. Seeing Jun Yelan remain silent, he dipped the whip into the brine in a bucket and continued to lash him fiercely.
Jun Yelan gritted his teeth, refusing to make a sound, further provoking the man before him. His skin was torn and bleeding. His eyes remained as cold as ever, their depths unfathomable as he stared at the man in front of him.
Pavilion Master Bai looked up and met those eyes, his pupils contracting slightly. The hand holding the whip faltered. Jun Yelan had changed; he was no longer under his control and was now resisting him!
He could not allow such a thing to happen. He turned and picked up other torture implements, using them on Jun Yelan one by one.
Jun Yelan was covered in blood, his body without a single intact piece of flesh. His face was as pale as paper. He gasped weakly, his mind holding onto only one thought: survive.
He could not break the promise he made to Lan Yan.
This left Pavilion Master Bai at a loss as to how to deal with Jun Yelan, and he angrily asked, "You insist on not giving up the list, do you want to die!"
"No, I want to live," Jun Yelan murmured. He wanted to live more than anyone, but he also needed to protect the person he cared about.
Pavilion Master Bai was momentarily stunned. The child he had personally trained, yet he didn't understand him. Perhaps he had never truly understood Jun Yelan, and he was more stubborn than he had imagined.
"Jun Yelan, this list is useless in your hands. Give it to me. I will allow you a good period of rest in recognition of your great service this time." This was his bottom line.
But Jun Yelan remained unmoved, refusing to believe his words. Given Pavilion Master Bai's character, he would surely eliminate all threats, leaving both him and Lan Yan in peril.
"Do you think I don't know my own physical condition! Over the years, to train me into the strongest assassin, you've pushed my body to its limits. My body is already close to collapse."
He hadn't thought about living well before, so he hadn't cared. But now he did. At the very least, he wanted to ensure Lan Yan's safety.
Pavilion Master Bai froze. He had indeed done so over the years, and he hadn't expected Jun Yelan to know, but what of it? "Without the pavilion, you would have died long ago."
"I have killed many people for the pavilion over the years. That is enough." Jun Yelan no longer wished to kill innocent people. He feared that his hands would be stained with blood, and he would not be able to go to the same place as Lan Yan after death.
Seeing Jun Yelan's defiance, Pavilion Master Bai thought of the woman Jun Yelan had been looking for earlier and sneered, "I should have trained your emotions from the start. To turn into this state for a woman, it's truly detestable."
"Hmph," Jun Yelan scoffed. "Isn't this exactly how you trained me! You told me again and again that I am just a killing weapon, undeserving of my own emotions. You stripped me of all choices just to make me kill obediently."
But Lan Yan's appearance had shown him that he was a living, breathing person who could also make choices.
Confronted by Jun Yelan's questioning, Pavilion Master Bai dared not look him in the eye for the first time. He had indeed done so. He should have kept Jun Yelan firmly in his grasp, but Jun Yelan had betrayed him!
Thinking of the shame of betrayal, he raised the whip again and struck Jun Yelan's wounds, not stopping this time.
Jun Yelan's consciousness grew increasingly blurred. Lan Yan's image seemed to appear before his eyes. He saw Lan Yan's smile and reached out to grasp it, but caught nothing. He then fainted.
Seeing this, Pavilion Master Bai angrily threw down the whip, now stained black, and left the cell.
Jun Yelan's breathing grew weaker, and he mumbled a name, "Lan Yan."
At this moment, Lan Yan was tidying up a cabinet in Hua Pavilion when she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She clutched the cabinet tightly, gasping for air before feeling slightly better.
"Jun Yelan?" She had seemed to sense Jun Yelan just now, but how could Jun Yelan be here? She smiled wryly, perhaps missing him too much.
The system in her mind remained silent. In reality, it was Jun Yelan's sensations being transmitted to Lan Yan. This kind of shared consciousness and feeling only occurred when the host and the target had a deep enough emotional connection.
"Host, why don't you rest for a while? Your complexion looks a bit pale."
Lan Yan shook her head. "I'm fine, perhaps I'm just too worried. Speaking of which, it's all your fault, you unreliable system. You have no functions at all, forcing me to worry blindly like this."
In Hua Pavilion, she only needed to organize intelligence daily. But after Jun Yelan returned, she was sure he would suffer.
Before, Jun Yelan would always return with injuries after going back for training. Although Jun Yelan refused to tell her, she knew.
The system said, "Host, there's nothing I can do. Even with an upgrade, I wouldn't be this powerful." Moreover, the system's abilities were tied to the host. Seeing how tired the host was, it decided not to complain.
"Forget it, I didn't expect much from you anyway." Lan Yan closed the cabinet and walked forward, suddenly collapsing to the ground, clutching her chest tightly. Her heart was pounding like a drum, making her feel unbearably ill, as if she were about to faint.
Earlier, she had thought it was an illusion, but this time she truly felt an emotion, a feeling of sadness mixed with persistence. "Sys...tem!"
The system also panicked, not expecting it to be so serious, and quickly checked the interface. "Host, my display shows the target is very weak and in life-threatening danger."
"Quickly... think of a way," Lan Yan's face contorted, her hands pressed to her chest, her voice becoming intermittent. https:/
The system was at a loss. It remembered that it could connect to dreams and called out, "Host, I will send you to Jun Yelan's dreamscape. You can comfort him there."
Lan Yan was in too much pain to refuse any method. "Hurry up." At a critical moment, the system had to be reliable.
So, the system quickly activated, sending Lan Yan into Jun Yelan's dreamscape. Lan Yan's body appeared as if she had fallen asleep.
"My goodness, what is this place?" Lan Yan waved her hand, dispersing the thick fog before her, and walked forward. "It seems this is Jun Yelan's dreamscape. Where is he?"
She could only continue walking and suddenly saw a boy about eight years old, with a striking resemblance to Jun Yelan. She murmured, "Is this Jun Yelan?"