Ye Huohuo had to admit that the millennium charm before her possessed absolute enchanting power. If she unleashed her full might, let alone Li Mohan, even she, as a woman, would find it difficult to resist.
As for Li Mohan, though she felt resentful, she had already let go. Ye Huohuo was never one to cling to what she couldn't have, but she couldn't stand by and watch him have his essence drained by Fang Fang.
Yes, regardless of anything else, Li Mohan had helped her before; he was half her benefactor. She couldn't let someone else bully him.
Suddenly, a spark flashed in Ye Huohuo's eyes. Although it was only for a moment and no one else saw it, Fang Fang was very close, close enough to count her eyelashes. Naturally, she saw the spark flash in her eyes and couldn't help but shiver.
"I told you, don't touch him, or don't blame me for turning ruthless!" Ye Huohuo narrowed her eyes, looking at Fang Fang, staring intently into her eyes, word by word. Although her voice was low, it was like needles, piercing Fang Fang's ears one by one. "If I want to, I can use all my strength to cripple your millennium of cultivation. Want to try?"
Fang Fang was actually stunned by her ferocity at this moment. "You're willing to risk your life for this man?"
"That's my business. You just need to remember, you're not allowed to touch my friends."
The two spoke in very low voices, and no one else could hear them except for the two of them. They were also very close, almost face to face. From the outside, it was impossible to tell they were arguing; it looked more like... flirting!
Li Mohan watched Ye Huohuo and Fang Fang with furrowed brows. Although he knew Fang Fang was a woman, the atmosphere between the two made him very uncomfortable.
He walked up to Nie Ming, lowered his voice, and leaned in to say, "You just said that woman is a charm. What exactly is a charm? Can it turn into a man?"
Nie Ming was taken aback by his question. "This... Actually, my understanding of charms is also limited to legends. This is the first time I've seen one, but books say that charms are formed from the spirits of beautiful women who live forever by absorbing the essence of men. However, they are soul bodies and need to change bodies periodically. Therefore, many charms, to avoid being discovered, directly change their identities when they switch bodies.
As for whether they can turn into men? Theoretically, it should be possible. If they enter a man's body, wouldn't they become men!"
Nie Ming was a typical scholarly type. He usually stammered when speaking, but once it came to theoretical knowledge, he became eloquent.
After Li Mohan listened to Nie Ming, his gaze towards Fang Fang became wary.
At this moment, after a few brief exchanges, Ye Huohuo and Fang Fang had simply reached an agreement. Fang Fang guaranteed that she would not make a move on Li Mohan while Ye Huohuo was present.
After all, there were more important matters at hand. Ye Huohuo didn't want to get entangled with Fang Fang over this issue, so she had to agree for now, planning to find a way to resolve it later and dispel Fang Fang's intentions.
However, she didn't notice the fleeting cunning in Fang Fang's eyes.
Ye Huohuo glanced at the time on her phone. It was almost one in the morning, and midnight was about to pass. Time was running out.
She looked up at the moon and stars, found a spot not obscured by leaves, and drew a circle on the ground with a branch. She asked A Cheng to help her pull out the grass within the circle and level the ground.
Ye Huohuo spread Li Mohan's clothes on the ground, then forcefully ran her right index and middle fingers along the blade of A Cheng's dagger.
The blade was immediately stained with a smear of crimson, and a drop of blood hung precariously at the tip of the blade.
Ye Huohuo wasted no more time. Enduring the pain from the wound on her backside, she squatted down and quickly drew on the snow-white clothes with the blood flowing from her fingertips. In less than a minute, an extremely complex talisman was drawn.
Under the pale moonlight, the blood-red talisman on the snow-white fabric was as dazzling as flowing blood.
The talisman was not small, so it naturally required a lot of blood. Ye Huohuo's already pale face, due to her injury, turned even paler.
When she stood up, she even staggered. Fang Fang, with quick hands, supported her. "Are you okay!" Her voice now lacked the earlier teasing and was filled with a hint of worry.
Li Mohan, who had just reached out to help Ye Huohuo, abruptly stopped his hand in mid-air, awkwardly clenched it into a fist, and retracted it. The cold aura around him intensified.
A Cheng beside him saw his actions and sensed Li Mohan's displeasure. He didn't move his body but shifted his feet slightly to the side, cautiously, afraid of disturbing Li Mohan.
However, he happened to step on a dry branch on the ground, which made a piercing sound in the quiet night. Li Mohan glanced at A Cheng, immediately making A Cheng break out in a cold sweat. He forced a wry smile. "It was an accident!"
Ye Huohuo didn't realize anything was wrong. The stumble had aggravated her wound. She grimaced and took a long time to recover. "This is really bad luck. I thought..."
But halfway through her sentence, she suddenly remembered that Li Mohan was standing nearby and stopped speaking. Instead, she looked at A Cheng and changed the subject. "After a while, I'll break their formation here. You take your men in and charge into the Tianji Palace first. Bring out all the heads inside, destroy the source of the malevolent energy in the formation, and then enter the Tianshu Palace. Put this piece of clothing on the corpse inside, and then move the corpse out.
Remember, you must be fast. With my current stamina, I can only hold on for half an hour at most. If I can't hold on, and the formation closes, you will be trapped. Given the viciousness of this formation, you'll all be dead within fifteen minutes.
So, the success of this operation depends on whether you can bring out the corpses and those heads from inside within half an hour."
Ye Huohuo said this and looked at Fang Fang. "I need to resist the formation here to buy time for those going in. Can you lead them in?"
Fang Fang stared into Ye Huohuo's eyes for a moment. "Can you hold on? Half an hour, that's your limit, right!"
"Don't worry, I'll hold on for you even if I die before half an hour is up!" Ye Huohuo tilted her chin arrogantly.
Fang Fang's expression also became unusually serious. She raised her right hand and placed it on Ye Huohuo's shoulder. "I'll be as quick as I can. If you can't hold on, don't force yourself! I won't blame you."
Ye Huohuo looked into Fang Fang's eyes. She didn't know if it was her illusion, but Fang Fang seemed like a different person now. There was no trace of feminine charm, but rather a man's resilience and decisiveness.
What was going on?
She blinked. When she looked at Fang Fang again, she had already reverted to her naturally charming appearance, her eyes and brows exuding allure. Was she hallucinating?
Ye Huohuo shook her head, dispelling her absurd thoughts.
Standing within the circle she had just drawn, she extended her right hand straight forward, holding A Cheng's dagger tightly, but she was gripping the blade, not the hilt.
Instantly, blood seeped from between her fingers.
Li Mohan gasped, "You..."
He was about to reach out to stop her when Fang Fang, who was beside him, grabbed his sleeve. Her grip was so strong that he couldn't extend his hand any further. "Don't disturb her! Otherwise, she'll go berserk! She knows what she's doing."
Fang Fang's voice was surprisingly deep, sounding somewhat like a man's.
Li Mohan looked at Fang Fang, this woman who was half a head shorter than him, yet he saw a dominance in her that he had never seen in anyone else.
He couldn't help but pause. "Who exactly are you?"
In the blink of an eye, Fang Fang returned to her demure maiden demeanor, smiling charmingly, her voice also soft and delicate. "Mr. Li, who do you think I am?"
It was as if everything that had just happened was Li Mohan's hallucination.
Was it really a hallucination?
As Li Mohan was conversing with Fang Fang, the fingers of Ye Huohuo's hand holding the blade were overflowing with blood. The blood dripped down the dagger, gathering at the tip into a drop that hung as if about to fall to the ground.
As this drop of blood landed on the ground, a strange thing happened...