Wen Kexing smiled, but once his mouth curved, he felt the mask on his face wrinkle a little and threaten to fall off. By hastily reaching up to press it in place, he started to appear strange to the onlooker. In reply, he asked, “Why, then, is Lord Zhou so concerned about whether that little tyke lives or dies?”

Zhou Zishu said, “He is my disciple.”

Wen Kexing continued, “Your disciple is my disciple, between the two of us, who’s following who?”

Zhou Zishu said, “…Between the two of us, you’re following me—cut the nonsense out, are you aiming to gain some information from that little tyke?”

“Give me a kiss and I’ll tell you.” Wen Kexing leered at him. Unfortunately, the human skin mask on his face was too unseemly to be human; what he thought to be a flirtatious, charismatic gaze he was shooting at Zhou Zishu was truly bone-chilling.

Zhou Zishu snapped his head around silently, repulsed. Feeling that he brought this upon himself, he asked, “Are you not afraid that you’ll grow sores?”

Wen Kexing replied shamelessly, “I’ll be completely satisfied even if they become infected.”

Zhou Zishu ignored him once again, pondered for a moment, then said, direct, “Looking at the origins of Rong Xuan and the Ghost Valley, the place where the five major clans retrieved the Lapis Armour from should be within the Ghost Valley. With news of the Lapis Armour leaking this time round, no jianghu person would miss out on clamouring for this opportunity. Don’t tell me that some Ghost was mortally tempted, and left the Valley of his own accord? Don’t tell me that he coincidentally has something to do with the extermination of the Zhang family…don’t tell me that you feel the same way as the Delighted Mourning Ghost, that Zhang Chengling ‘coincidentally managed’ to see that audacious Ghost?”

Wen Kexing paused, then asked, “You tell me, then; if he doesn’t know, who else can I ask?”

Zhou Zishu turned back abruptly to look at him, asking, “Unless there are some other grave going-ons in the background that have even startled the Master of the Ghost Valley, who lives deep in obscurity and rarely ventures out?”

Wen Kexing did not say anything. He merely extended a finger, a cheeky smile on his face, and pointed at his own lips, looking at Zhou Zishu very expectantly.

Zhou Zishu pretended that he had not seen anything, contemplated for a while, and asked, “If you do find this person, what will you do?”

Lightly, with a hint of a smile, Wen Kexing said, “Flay him, strip his tendons from him, and subject him to a million cuts.” Seeing Zhou Zishu look at him with a complicated expression, Wen Kexing laughed again, and said in a manner that made one’s fists itch to punch him, “—I’m just saying it to scare you.”