Xuan Ji saw that Wei Yun looked like he had been struck by lightning.

He immediately rushed into the inner room, diving headfirst into the pile of documents and muttering to himself as he frantically searched through them.

Xuan Ji circled around him for a while, only hearing him muttering incomprehensible words like "same origin" and "sacrificial furnace".

He couldn't understand a single word, so he nervously watched his expression. The flickering candlelight illuminated Wei Yun's face, which looked as ugly as a corpse that couldn't afford a burial plot.

After combing through the entire collection of books, Wei Yun seemed to have finally come to a conclusion.

He collapsed onto the ground in despair and struggled to speak, "Tong... Your Highness, are you there?"

Xuan Ji immediately approached and asked eagerly, "What have you discovered? Tell me!"

Wei Yun's gaze pierced through him and stared straight at the shadow on the wall, making the candlelight uneasy and causing the shadow to appear ghostly and eerie.

"Come on, Wei Yun, please just tell me," Xuan Ji was about to burst into flames from the pressure.

"I..." Wei Yun's voice was barely audible. "I can't save you."

Xuan Ji was suddenly silenced.

Although he often wished he had never been born when he felt the pain of the emperor, he was still conscious and aware.

Hearing this verdict caught him off guard and made his heart skip a beat.

But it was only for a moment, and Xuan Ji quickly regained his composure.

Slowly sitting down across from Wei Yun, Xuan Ji smiled and said, "Oh... looks like you've finally come to your senses."

Wei Yun placed the small oil lamp in his hand down and illuminated the silk at his feet. He used his hands, calloused and scarred, to stroke a section of mountain text on it.

"When the senior who successfully 'resurrected' the sword spirit reforged the thousand-year-old iron sword, he used materials from the rabbit demon spirit twice. But we overlooked one thing - rabbits are different from the Vermilion Bird. The rabbit clan bears live young, the Vermilion Birds bear eggs. It seems that the reason why our attempts to reforged the Heavenly Demon Sword failed several times is because of this difference."

Xuan Ji listened with confusion, "Although I never thought about it... but that's a bit harsh, my friend. Are oviparous creatures really inferior?"

"When a fetus leaves the mother's body, it is considered a stillborn and not a 'heavenly spirit.' Therefore, in order to refine the Rabbit Demon Heavenly Spirit Sword, the fetus must be in the mother's womb, and the mother must be sacrificed in the sword furnace," said Wei Yun.

"The 'creation' of the refining process is not a natural birth. To keep the stillborn in the world, an equivalent exchange must be made. One life must be exchanged for another. The Rabbit Demon Heavenly Spirit Sword was refined twice and created twice, and there is a secret to it. Both times, a live mother Rabbit Demon was sacrificed in the furnace."

Xuan Ji furrowed his brow.

He was raised by humans and had all the necessary humanity.

Upon hearing this "life for a life" concept, his heart couldn't help but waver.

His initial reaction was, of course, "It's unreasonable to use someone else's life to exchange for your own."

However, other thoughts quickly flooded his mind... What if they used those death row inmates, those who committed heinous crimes?

"Anyway, they're all going to be executed..."

He himself was forged into the Heavenly Demon Sword, and during the human race's grand gambling ceremony that shook the heavens and earth, didn't he also bear the weight of eighty-one lives?

Wei Yun and Xuan Ji remained silent for a while, each digesting their own thoughts.

After a long moment, the lamp flickered in the unbearable silence, and Xuan Ji came back to his senses, muttering to himself, "Let's not talk about this anymore."

He couldn't choose his own birth when he was young, and could still be considered innocent and ignorant.

"Now I have to watch as they sacrifice a living person in the furnace, it's just too much... Even if I could survive, it would be a curse. I probably wouldn't dare to touch the Lingyuan for the rest of my life," Xuan Ji paused for a     moment, then chuckled self-deprecatingly, a cloud of melancholy settling over his brow.

"On the other hand, even if I wasn't cursed, I still wouldn't dare... It's not so bad to just stay by his side and guard him. I'll stay until the day I naturally disappear. When I feel like I can't go on anymore, I'll sneak a peek at him while he's changing or bathing. He won't even know," Xuan Ji said, jokingly.

"Wei Yun, your tribe is full of barbarians who don't know any better. You came all the way to the Central Plains to be civilized, but you better think twice before going back... Just kidding, I know you're a good person. Maybe you should report to Lingyuan directly and save yourself from the blood oath. He... he should know me..."

Then Wei Yun started muttering to himself, "His Majesty, with his immense wealth and power, should not have difficulty finding a sacrifice."

Xuan Ji quickly interjected, "Stop talking nonsense, or Lingyuan really will chop your head off."

But Wei Yun didn't hear the warning and continued to mutter to himself, "But after this senior succeeded, he tried to repair a qin that was originally a nine-tailed fox spirit. Nine-tailed foxes are too rare, so he used a snow fox instead, but it ended in failure."

Xuan Ji was initially confused, but then suddenly realized something and floated up from the ground, exclaiming, "Wait, are you saying..."

"I'm not refusing to save you, it's just that... I'm afraid this sacrificial furnace requires blood from a source that shares the same origin as the sword spirit," Wei Yun said.

"Highness Tong, you were born in the Heavenly Demon Sacrifice. The eighty-one cultivators who offered the sacrifice back then were offering it to the Heavenly Demon, not to you.

"To give birth to the Vermilion Bird Heavenly Spirit, they killed either someone else or a half-human, half-demon little prince. He died, and his heavenly demon body was born, and they used his half-demon body to grant birth to you... If His Majesty has an heir and he is willing to sacrifice a bloodline for you... perhaps you can be reborn."

Xuan Ji's eyes turned red in an instant, unable to distinguish which of the two things, "killing his child as a sacrifice" or "Lingyuan having a child with someone else," would anger him more.

"Excuse me, could the masters of your clan please read more books when you're not forging iron? What you said is..."

Unaware that he was being cursed at, Wei Yun stared blankly at his own shadow and muttered, "But the Heavenly Demon is destined to have no descendants, just like the Chiyuan."

Xuan Ji was suddenly stunned.

"When His Majesty died, you were born. If we want to refine the Heavenly Demon Sword again...if we want to refine the Heavenly Demon Sword again...we must nail His Majesty to the sword furnace again and let him die once more. If it's really like this...I'll know once I try...Yes! I have a blood oath. If I conceal this from His Majesty's and avoid death... "

Wei Yun had taken a blood oath and could not betray the Emperor.

If he deceived the Emperor, the moment the lie was spoken, he would be struck by the blood oath.

Unless the blood oath determined that his "deception" was to protect his master.

If the blood oath did not strike back, it would prove that his guess was correct.

As Wei Yun presented the words prepared by Dan Li, deceiving the emperor that "the heavenly demon sword spirit is dead and cannot be resurrected," the blood oath had no reaction.

Dan Li was right.

He always seemed to be right.

But the emperor didn't want to listen - because of the blood oath, he couldn't afford not to believe it.

He was almost deceiving himself by not listening, and his once rock-solid rationality was reduced to nothing by the sword furnace.

So Wei Yun had to entrust the Bifang clan and secretly obtain a ball of Chiyuan Fire. During the final re-forging, he mixed the Chiyuan Fire into the sword furnace.

The sword was contaminated by the Chiyuan Fire, and the resentful soul of the Chiyuan, which had been suppressed by the heavenly demon sword spirit, struggled and roared inside the sword.

The three-foot inferno was like a concentrated purgatory, burning down the sword furnace.

The sword shattered, breaking before it could form a connection with him. On the ground, Wei Yun knelt like an old dog with its tail between its legs, his hair burnt and disheveled.

Sheng Lingyuan remained silent for the duration of a stick of incense before calmly dismissing Wei Yun and closing the furnace, meticulously collecting every scrap of iron and shard of metal that had fallen onto the bricks and pottery.

He worked tirelessly from dawn until dusk, with Xuan Ji by his side, holding him and whispering, "That's enough."

How many times have you tortured yourself?

I only...liked you, even though I may have had selfish desires at times.

But throughout it all, it was just within the realm of human nature. You shouldn't have to suffer like this.

If you keep this up, I will start to hate you.

For a moment, Sheng Lingyuan remained motionless, half-kneeling on the ground. His eyes flickered as if he had heard something.

However, upon closer inspection, it was only the lingering light of the setting sun that danced in his eyes, like the fleeting moments of time that eventually faded away with the sinking sun.

He turned around, holding onto the remaining scraps of metal, and sealed the furnace with his own hands.

With nothing left to tie him down, he set off towards the Chiyuan, leaving behind a trail of dust.

The Heart Demon's miasma thickened, as if it could drip black blood.

"What's going on? Four sub-bureaus in the Jiangzhou area have lost contact simultaneously..."

"Quick, look at the satellite map!"

The black miasma that shrouded Jiangzhou suddenly exploded, expanding rapidly to cover more than half of the area, even swallowing up the provincial capital.

"Has the road been closed off? Hurry! The situation in the public surveillance feed is not optimistic."

"After being affected by the demonic miasma, ordinary people's mental states are not quite right."

For some reason, those who were afflicted with the demon's miasma were more violent than the agents themselves - they rarely slept and even fewer could sit still and stare off into space.

Those with milder symptoms would curse loudly on the side of the road, while others would smash windows, cars, and even fight each other. There were even those who would carry oil drums and set fires along the streets, or brandish knives and attack anyone in sight...

The most dangerous place was the highway, where a group of crazed individuals would recklessly drive their weapons of destruction, causing chaos and turning all the roads and bridges into a mess.

As a transport truck carrying hazardous materials was about to crash into a gas station, the situation was critical.

In a split second, the vehicle suddenly lost control and the driver had to hit the emergency brakes, leaving a white mark on the ground as the truck dragged its large oil tank behind it.

A helicopter flew overhead and several steel plates from a nearby construction site flew towards them. The plates quickly deformed and wrapped around the car, layer upon layer.

Yan Qiushan, who was on the helicopter, was sweating profusely.

He dropped a piece of chocolate twice before he managed to tear open the packaging and swallow it without much chewing.

Meanwhile, the first batch of Wind God reinforcements arrived.

Each person was wrapped in a protective film of water or metal and carried an oxygen supply.

Two plant-type specialists worked together to make the aquatic plants under the bridge grow wildly, weaving a large net to catch the bus that had flipped over from the bridge.

A water-type specialist rode a motorcycle to put out fires along the street, and the last water-type specialist caught the arsonist with a water ball.

As Yan Qiushan passed through, dangerous metal objects like knives and iron bars that could kill people were all bent out of shape.

The ones who were left pulling hair, tearing faces, and biting with their teeth were too busy to bother with.

Those who couldn't be killed in a moment were left to fight it out slowly.

"This won't work," Yan Qiushan said in a hoarse voice, catching his breath. "Jiangzhou is too big, and we don't have enough people. Even if we move all the special forces' field agents here, it won't be enough. We've already encountered several people who want to target gas stations along the way. Gas stations are just the beginning. We need to immediately control all the places where dangerous goods are gathered, such as chemical factories, flammable and explosive warehouses, high-voltage power grids... Mr. Sheng..."

"Wait, I'm thinking of a solution," Sheng Lingyuan's voice came through the communication device, still calm and collected, as if even if the sky were falling, he wouldn't be out of breath.

Gu Yuexi glanced over and saw Sheng Lingyuan weaving incomprehensible spells with black mist.

"Senior, is this a witch's curse?" she asked.

"Mm," Sheng Lingyuan continued to modify the content of the spell, as if drafting.

He didn't even lift his head. "Turn left at the intersection ahead and head west."

Gu Yuexi obediently turned the steering wheel, observing his actions with trepidation. "Senior, you...you're not making up spells on the spot, are you?"

"The great saints of the witches don't have this ability, let alone me, an outsider. You're overestimating me," Sheng Lingyuan explained leisurely.

"I just slightly modified the existing Heart-Piercing Grass curse - it's done, how do I do it be like that unknown friend earlier, broadcasting it with the phone?"

Gu Yuexi: "..."

Can you believe that Director Xuan hasn't taught him how to use a phone?

She quickly kept half of her attention on driving, took out her phone, snapped a picture of the string of witch spells, and sent it out.

Sheng Lingyuan said, "Besides the curse of evil, the threshold for ordinary witch spells is very low. Anyone can use them, even ordinary people who come across them. This was modified based on Heart-Piercing Grass Spell. I have never encountered such a situation before, and it is purely for emergency use. Please make do with it for now."

Thinking back to when he was in power, the productivity was so low. The barren mountains were miles away from the city walls, and only a few large carriages could walk side by side on the stone slabs of the imperial capital.

In war, everyone had to rely on their own abilities, and having a few blunt axes and knives at home was considered impressive.

Who would have thought that three thousand years later, with such a large population, ordinary people would still create a bunch of things that could blow themselves up into the sky?

"The Heart-Piercing Grass spell requires puppets, but making puppets takes too much time and we don't have enough time. You can sprinkle the copied spell into something of the same lineage as yourself - water-type people can find a river, metal-type people can find iron. You can make a few temporary puppets, depending on your personal endurance. Do what you can, and each temporary puppet can last for a moment. Separate and act independently."

"This is great, Mr. Sheng is amazing! I was just thinking that the plant-type comrades could use plants instead of real people, and now even the water-type and metal-type people can do it!"

The core members of the aftermath department had just returned from Yuyang's place and were immediately called into the meeting room to help.

Yang Chao held a stack of walkie-talkies and applied for a signature from Chief Huang.

"Leader, please sign here. We have already sent out the equipment at the fastest speed."

The Bureau had a mature emergency mechanism in place.

Although caught off guard, a group of elites were quickly dispatched to the scene. Water-types, metal-types, and plant-types each with their own spells, swiftly infiltrated the community where the crowd had gathered.

The special forces elites were able to handle more than ten puppets each at once, and the number of special agents in the Jiangzhou area increased tenfold, quickly bringing the situation under control.

At the same time, the first batch of Echo Sound radios were airlifted in and dropped on the edge of the spreading Black Miasma. They played music from the spiritual genre, which had a calming effect on the mind, attempting to awaken those who were trapped by the demonic miasma.

It was a case of fighting poison with poison, trying to awaken those who had fallen under the spell of the miasma.

The entire team of the aftermath department was busy as bees, sending out urgent press releases and blocking off the surrounding traffic.

Every time something like this happened, their department's Director, who was like a temporary worker, would be borrowed by the field agents and disappear without a trace.

As the most experienced one, Luo Cuicui was forced to take on the task, feeling like his lonesome hair was about to die for it.

Gu Yuexi was driving at 100% over the speed limit, and the GPS in her car notified her that she had entered Qingping City. The visibility around her had decreased to the point where she needed X-ray vision to see the road.

Gu Yuexi turned on the laser light on the field vehicle and shone a beam of light to guide her colleagues on the helicopter.

"Something's not right about this place. It's too quiet, and the surroundings... hiss!" Gu Yuexi slammed on the brakes, her body almost cut in half by the seatbelt.

Her pupils shrank into thin lines like a cat's as she saw something flash across the windshield.

With her dynamic vision, she was one hundred percent sure it was a person, but she didn't feel the car hit anything.

In the rolling black fog, there were many figures floating in mid-air.

There were naked women and young boys with guns, and a skinny man suddenly split in half, revealing a dinosaur-like monster that howled to the sky, angry and crying at the same time.

Sheng Lingyuan said, "Close your eyes."

Gu Yuexi thought her ears were playing tricks on her.

"Huh?"

A hand reached out and covered Gu Yuexi's penetrating eyes that could see through walls and miasma.

Gu Yuexi's eyelids drooped involuntarily, forced to close.

"But I'm driving..." she protested.

The hand covering her eyes tapped her forehead, making a sound like a finger snap.

"The blue sky is vast, the clouds do not flow," the man said in a low voice, like the night wind blowing over a deserted wilderness for miles. "The wind shakes, the rain sends, and the tips fall."

A white light began to spread from her forehead, and she "saw" a blurry circle in front of her eyes.

Then, Gu Yuexi realized that it was the steering wheel.

She was surprised that her X-ray vision had penetrated her own eyelids for the first time!

"The crying bird returns to its nest, but I am alone."

"I am alone..."

"Alone..."

The man's gentle voice seemed to suddenly echo countless times, as if he had awakened ghosts in the darkness who were now reciting in confusion: "The boundless sea is ever-changing; the mermaids weep, unsure of where to return; the southern tower stands tall, yet I am lost..."

"Lost..."

"Wandering..."

The ancient lamenting song pierced through Gu Yuexi's eardrums, coming from all directions and engulfing her in a moment, bringing her back to her childhood when she had nowhere to go and no place to stand.

The hand that was hovering over her forehead touched the space between her eyebrows once again and said, "All-seeing eyes, open."

Gu Yuexi shuddered and then came to her senses. Suddenly, her 'vision' became incredibly clear - even though her eyes were closed, she could see the road, buildings, and obstacles with perfect clarity.

What she saw was subtly different from what she saw when her eyes were open, and she couldn't quite describe it, but she felt like many inanimate objects had come to life in her eyes.

The chaotic shadows that had been dancing in the air just a moment ago were all gone, and the yellow and white lines of the Jiangzhou earth veins were as clear as if they had been painted on the ground. She had the illusion that she could see through the earth veins with just one glance and see all the way to the end.

"What is this?"

"This is the ancestral ability of your family, the all-seeing eye," Sheng Lingyuan withdrew his hand and gestured for her to continue driving.

"Your ancestors have the bloodline of the Southern Crown Monkey, so they were born with the ability to see through things. However, the bloodline has become too diluted over time, and your eyesight is not impaired, so your all-seeing ability has not been activated. I just sealed your eyesight, so your ability will not be deceived by illusions. Now, you can drive with peace of mind."

Gu Yuexi shuddered. She didn't know if it was because of her ability, but she felt very cold.

She turned the car's heater to the maximum, but it couldn't dispel the bone-chilling coldness.

'All-seeing eyes' was superior to the naked eye. For the first time in her life, Gu Yuexi saw the world so clearly, but inexplicably, an overwhelming sense of loneliness rushed over her.

Those eyes that could penetrate everything tore apart her thin connection with the world.

Gu Yuexi unconsciously tightened her grip on the steering wheel, her breathing becoming rapid, and a taste of blood filled her mouth as she realized she had bitten her tongue.

She was originally a quiet person who didn't like to chat, but at this moment, she urgently wanted someone to talk to.

To prevent herself from being overwhelmed by that sense of loneliness, Gu Yuexi asked Sheng Lingyuan without any particular topic, "Senior, does this mean that I can improve my ability to see through things in the future? How should I design my training?"

"What kind of training? For your all-seeing eyes?" Sheng Lingyuan was amused by her question. "Don't let others hear you say that. Thousands of years ago, the Southern Crown monkeys were willing to exchange their lives to swop their all-seeing eyes for a pair of skills."

"Why?"

"Because the all-seeing eye is an ominous thing, little girl. People who see too clearly have bad luck. It's just a special situation now, and I used a secret method to open it for you for a while."

Sheng Lingyuan noticed her suppressed impatience.

"Don't you feel uncomfortable now? Don't worry, I only opened your the all-seeing eye for a moment. If it lasts too long, you'll go crazy."

Subconsciously, Gu Yuexi turned her head to look at him, but with just one glance, she was almost shocked into opening her eyes wide.

She stepped on the gas too hard, and the car jerked forward like a wild horse.

She finally "saw clearly" what she had missed last time in Dongchuan Forest Park - the mysterious sword spirit's heart was actually a mass of black gas, entangled to form a heart-like shape, but it was empty inside.

The "flame color" at the heart's mouth was not a blood vessel, but... a hideous wound.

It seemed like something that was originally there had been stripped away.

He... he had no heart. Literally!

"Tsk tsk, young people, why so restless?" Sheng Lingyuan reached out and tapped her on the back of her head.

"Look at the road, why are you looking at me? You're deviating from the earth's veins."

Gu Yuexi panicked and quickly turned her head forward.

Despite being known for her composure, she took several deep breaths and swallowed twice, almost missing the calls from Zhang Zhao and the others.

After stuttering and confirming their location with Zhang Zhao, she just put down the walkie-talkie when she heard a man next to her say slowly, "It's just one less heart than others, it won't affect anything if it's gone. Don't be afraid."