She stopped just a few inches away from him, leaning forward to intentionally give him a perfect view of her deep cleavage. Her eyes, normally a dark brown, were now glowing with a swirling, mesmerizing pink light.
It was the Heavenly Fox Charm Art. A high-tier soul manipulation technique.
"You played a very cruel trick on Manager Qian today," Su Mei whispered, reaching out to gently trace a manicured fingernail down the lapel of Yan Shuo's white robes. "Everyone in the city thinks you are just a foolish, spoiled boy who hides behind a terrifying wife."
She leaned in closer, her lips hovering just inches from his ear.
"But your wife isn't here right now, is she?" Su Mei smiled, a dangerous, cunning light flashing in her eyes. "She left you all alone. A handsome, fifteen-year-old boy, locked in a room with me."
Su Mei exhaled, blowing a soft puff of sweet, pink Qi directly into his face.
This wasn't just a seduction. This was a highly calculated assassination tactic. Hidden within the intoxicating aphrodisiac of the Fox Qi was a microscopic, invisible Soul-Binding Thread. The Righteous Alliance knew they couldn't bankrupt the Azure Sword Sect today, so they moved to their backup plan.
How predictable.
Su Mei was ordered to seduce the boy, lower his mental defenses, and plant the tracker deep into his soul. With that thread, the Alliance could instantly paralyze Yan Shuo from miles away, using him as a perfect hostage to force the Saintess into submission.
Su Mei waited for his eyes to glaze over. She waited for the youthful impulses to flood his brain and make him completely docile.
Instead, a slow, deeply amused sigh escaped his lips.
"Miss Su," Yan Shuo said. His voice wasn't the lazy drawl of a spoiled brat anymore. It was cold, heavy, and ancient.
He casually reached up and caught her wandering wrist between his two fingers. He didn't squeeze hard, but his grip was like an immovable band of divine iron.
The pink glow in Su Mei's eyes violently flickered.
"Your charm art is incredibly sloppy," Yan Shuo stated mildly, completely ignoring her cleavage as he easily pushed her hand away. "You disguised a soul-tracker inside an aphrodisiac. It's a decent trick for catching arrogant young masters, but you project too much Yin energy outward, leaving your own spiritual sea completely unguarded."
Su Mei froze. The confident, seductive smirk vanished from her face.
A sudden, bone-chilling terror spiked through her veins. The boy wasn't charmed. He wasn't even slightly affected. He was looking at her with the bored, critical eyes of a grandmaster evaluating a clumsy toddler.
Instinctively, Su Mei flared her Heavenly Fox Vision, trying to see the boy's spiritual sea to figure out why her spell failed.
The moment she looked into his soul, she didn't see the bright, pure foundation of a fifteen-year-old righteous disciple.
She saw a towering, bottomless abyss. She saw a mountain of rotting corpses, rivers of blood, and a terrifying, ancient demonic shadow that looked back at her with the weight of a hundred slaughtered sects.
"GACK!"
Su Mei violently choked, stumbling backward as if she had been physically struck. She crashed into the mahogany table, knocking a tray of premium spirit tea to the floor with a sharp porcelain shatter. Her pink eyes were wide with sheer, unadulterated horror.
"Y-You..." Su Mei gasped, pointing a trembling finger at him. "You're not a righteous disciple! That soul pressure... you are a Demonic Lord! Who are you?!"
Yan Shuo didn't answer. He casually walked over, sidestepping the spilled tea, and tossed a small pouch of low-grade spirit stones onto the mahogany table to cover his earlier purchases.
"I'm just a boy on a date with his wife," Yan Shuo said, his voice dropping into a terrifying whisper. "Now, start talking. Why is the Golden Dragon Pavilion trying to plant a soul-tracker on me? Manager Qian is too stupid to come up with that."
Su Mei swallowed hard, her fox instincts screaming at her to submit to the apex predator in the room. She realized instantly that the Righteous Alliance had made a catastrophic mistake. They thought they were hunting a pampered sheep. They had actually locked themselves in a cage with a monster.
"I-It wasn't Qian," Su Mei stammered, abandoning all pretense of seduction. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest, shivering. "It was the Alliance Patriarch! The auction was just a stage to keep you distracted!"
Yan Shuo's eyes narrowed. "Distracted from what?"
"From the ambush," Su Mei whispered, her voice shaking. "The Patriarch knows the Saintess is too strong to fight head-on. But you are in the Central Continent now. This is their home turf. Right now, four Nascent Soul Grandmasters have activated the Heavenly Net Array around the borders of the city."
She looked at the locked mahogany doors, her face pale.
"They are waiting for your flying ship to take off. I was supposed to plant the tracker on you so they could paralyze you mid-flight, separate you from the Saintess, and use you to force her to surrender. You can't leave this building, Lord Yan. If you step on that ship, they will kill you."
The room went dead silent.
Yan Shuo stood there, digesting the information. Four Nascent Soul Grandmasters. A city-wide trapping array. They had turned the entire Golden Dragon City into a massive kill box, and he and his wife were standing right in the center of it.
If this were his past life, he would have simply laughed, drawn his Abyssal Dragon Spear, and slaughtered his way out. But right now, he only had the raw power of an Early Foundation Establishment cultivator. And while Tantai Zhi was a god of war, she couldn't protect a massive flying ship from a synchronized assault by four Grandmasters without him getting caught in the crossfire.
The Righteous Alliance had finally played a smart move.
Yan Shuo let out a slow breath. He looked at the terrified fox spy cowering against the table.
"Miss Su," Yan Shuo said, a dark, brilliant, incredibly dangerous smile slowly spreading across his face.
Su Mei flinched. "Y-Yes?"
"I am going to leave this building. I am going to walk out to the plaza, I am going to hold my wife's hand, and we are going to get on that ship," Yan Shuo instructed softly. "And you are going to help me completely shatter their little ambush."
Su Mei stared at him in disbelief. "Me?! How?! If the Alliance finds out I betrayed them—"
"If you don't help me, I will tell my wife you tried to forcefully kiss me," Yan Shuo interrupted cheerfully.
Su Mei's face drained of all color. The image of the Saintess's world-ending, bloody rage flashed in her mind.
"I'll help," Su Mei said instantly, completely abandoning the Righteous Alliance. "What do you need me to do?"