Chapter 245: Wang Dong'er's Rampage, Confronting Tai Tan and Niu Tian
By the time Wang Dong'er stepped beyond the perimeter of Sea God Lake, the sky had already bruised into a deep, twilight purple. She bypassed her dormitory entirely. The cafeteria was equally ignored. A singular, burning drive propelled her forward—she needed to return to the Clear Sky Fortress immediately.
Her pace was relentless. The crisp night wind whipped against her, sending her skirt billowing and snapping loudly in the quiet air. Her fingers were locked in a death grip around the letter in her hand, crushing the parchment until the once-neat paper was a crumpled, unrecognizable wad.
Her mind flashed back to Huo Yuhao's appearance just moments ago. His face had been drained of all color, as pale and fragile as rice paper. His lips had trembled uncontrollably, and the Lovesick Heartbroken Herb clutched in his grasp swayed erratically with his shaking frame. Standing there, hollow and broken, he looked as though his very spine had been ripped from his body.
She had never seen him like that. Never.
The image of the thick bandages wrapped tightly around his chest burned into her memory, along with the raw, unhealed blood scabs marring his forehead. His voice, usually so warm, had been reduced to a dry, agonizing rasp.
He had told her how he plunged a blade directly into his own chest just to coax a drop of heart's blood onto that herb. He told her how the blood had frozen solid, refusing to melt no matter how desperately he tried. He told her how he had thrown himself into a boiling hot spring, enduring the agony of nearly burning to death.
Wang Dong'er's eyes stung, rimmed with a fierce, burning red, but her footsteps did not falter. She refused to stop, and she refused to wipe the moisture away.
Her thoughts shifted to Liu Yuan. That enigmatic youth she had only encountered a handful of times, someone she had barely exchanged a dozen words with. If Liu Yuan had not intervened—if he hadn't used his chains to physically drag Yuhao out of that lethal hot spring—and if the Snow Empress hadn't manifested to strip the encroaching ice from his dying body... what would have been left of him?
She didn't dare dwell on the horrific possibility.
She forced her legs to move faster, breaking into a sprint. Dense, ancient forests flanked the winding mountain path. Pale moonlight bled through the canopy of leaves, scattering a mottled, shifting pattern of light and shadow across the dirt trail. She traveled relentlessly for several hours through the biting cold of the night. Finally, the imposing silhouette of an ancient stone citadel loomed in the distance.
The Clear Sky Fortress.
Its stone walls towered into the night sky, impenetrable and cold. The main gate was forged from massive slabs of solid wood, heavily studded with thick copper nails. Wang Dong'er marched straight up to the entrance. She didn't bother to knock. She didn't announce her arrival. Instead, she raised her leg and delivered a vicious, aura-infused kick directly to the center of the door.
It wasn't locked.
The heavy wooden gates burst inward with explosive force, slamming violently against the interior stone walls. A dull, thunderous boom echoed through the silent courtyard, shattering the tranquility of the fortress.
Deep within the main hall, Tai Tan and Niu Tian sat leisurely around a carved wooden table, enjoying a late-night pot of tea. Both men had just raised their porcelain cups, the fragrant steam curling in the air. Before the rim could even touch their lips, the violent crash outside startled them. They looked up in unison.
Tai Tan's massive hand jerked, sending scalding tea sloshing over the rim and splashing onto the back of his hand. His thick brows furrowed into a deep scowl. He slammed the cup down onto the table and glared toward the entrance. Niu Tian merely turned his head, his calm, deep gaze piercing through the length of the hall to lock onto the stark white figure standing in the doorway.
Tai Tan's initial scowl of astonishment quickly melted into confusion, which then morphed into a cautious, restrained concern. He pushed his massive frame up from the chair, rounded the table, and took two heavy strides toward the open doors.
"Dong'er? Why are you back here?" His booming voice softened considerably. "It's so late... who made you this angry?"
Niu Tian rose gracefully to his feet, stepping up to stand beside his sworn brother. His expression remained far steadier than Tai Tan's, yet a subtle, obvious tension tightened the corners of his eyes.
Wang Dong'er remained frozen at the entrance. The pale moonlight spilled in from behind her, stretching her shadow long and dark across the polished stone floor of the hall. She squeezed the crumpled letter in her hand, her knuckles turning a bloodless white from the sheer force of her grip. She refused to step inside. She merely stood on the threshold, her cold gaze fixed on the two men who had raised her.
"See for yourselves."
With a flick of her wrist, she hurled the crumpled ball of paper forward. Infused with a trace of her soul power, the letter shot through the air, unfolding mid-flight before fluttering down to land squarely on the table in front of Tai Tan.
Tai Tan glanced down. The moment his eyes registered the contents, his expression shifted drastically. He recognized the parchment. He recognized the heavy, bold handwriting scrawled across it. He had penned it himself, agonizing over every single word. Slowly, his large fingers picked up the wrinkled paper. He scanned the familiar lines, placed it back onto the table, and looked up at Wang Dong'er. His lips parted, opening and closing, but no sound managed to escape his throat.
Niu Tian's gaze also fell upon the letter. His brow creased slightly, though his stoic demeanor remained largely intact. He cast a brief, sidelong glance at Tai Tan before returning his attention to the furious girl at the door. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly level, attempting to project a soothing calm.
"Dong'er, listen to our explanation."
Wang Dong'er still didn't cross the threshold. She stood like a statue, her eyes burning into them.
"An explanation." Her voice was eerily quiet, devoid of its usual warmth. "I'm listening."
Tai Tan sucked in a deep breath, his massive chest expanding. He pressed his hand flat against the table and finally found his voice. It sounded tight, strained, as if every syllable had to be dragged out of him and weighed carefully before being spoken aloud.
"This was... a test. A test we arranged for Huo Yuhao. We needed to know if his feelings for you were truly sincere."
Wang Dong'er stared at him in absolute silence. The redness in her eyes had faded, replaced by a chilling, hollow clarity. There were no tears. No hysterical sobbing. She simply watched him, her gaze so intense and unblinking that it felt like a physical weight.
Tai Tan shifted uncomfortably under that piercing stare. He cleared his throat, his booming voice dropping to a low, defensive rumble. "He is still young, Dong'er. We didn't fully understand his character or his true nature. What if he treated you poorly in the future? We couldn't risk that... so we devised this method to test his resolve. We needed to see if he was willing to brave true danger for your sake. To see if he would actually put his life on the line for you."
Niu Tian nodded in agreement, his posture rigid. "We did it for your own good, Dong'er. Don't let your thoughts run wild over this."
Wang Dong'er absorbed their words in silence. Her facial expression remained terrifyingly blank, but her hand slowly slipped from the wooden doorframe, dropping to her side. Her slender fingers curled inward, joint by joint, until they formed a trembling, white-knuckled fist.
"For my own good?" she repeated. The volume of her voice hadn't increased, but the sheer venom dripping from each heavily emphasized syllable made the air in the hall drop several degrees.
Tai Tan and Niu Tian exchanged a quick, uneasy glance. Neither dared to speak.
Wang Dong'er locked eyes with them, the volume of her voice inching upward. It still wasn't a shout; it was a suppressed, agonizing interrogation, delivered word by agonizing word.
"Do you have any idea that he almost died at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well?"
Tai Tan's lips parted, a reflexive defense rising to his tongue.
Wang Dong'er didn't give him the chance. She finally crossed the threshold, taking a single, heavy step into the hall. The moonlight shifted, illuminating the stark, furious contours of her face. The redness had returned to her eyes, burning with a mix of grief and rage, yet she fiercely refused to let a single tear fall.
"He drove a knife directly into his own chest just to extract his heart's blood!" Her voice cracked, the raw emotion finally bleeding through. "The blood froze solid. It wouldn't melt, no matter what he did. So he threw himself into a boiling hot spring and nearly burned himself alive! He knelt on jagged rocks and kowtowed until the skin on his forehead split open and blood covered his entire face! What do you think he did all of that for? He thought I was dying! He thought I needed that herb to survive! He was trading his very life for mine!"
Her voice began to tremble violently, vibrating with a sorrow so deep it threatened to shatter her, yet her eyes remained stubbornly dry.
"And you stand there and tell me this was a test? You used his life—his actual, fragile life—just to measure the sincerity of his heart?"
Tai Tan lowered his massive head, unable to meet her gaze, his broad shoulders slumping under the weight of her accusation. Niu Tian remained silent, his jaw clenched tight.
Wang Dong'er drew in a ragged breath, forcing her trembling shoulders to steady.
"If you wanted to test him, fine. If you felt the need to probe his character, fine. But why keep me in the dark? Why leave me completely blind to it all? While he was out there bleeding and burning, risking his very soul in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, I was sitting comfortably at Shrek Academy, completely ignorant! I didn't even know where he had gone. I didn't know why he had left. Did either of you ever stop to think about what I would do if he had actually died down there? I wouldn't have even known why he died!"
Tai Tan jerked his head up, his eyes filled with a desperate need to explain himself. He opened his mouth, the words forming on his tongue, but the moment he saw the absolute devastation etched into Wang Dong'er's pale face, the excuses died in his throat. He swallowed hard, forcing the words back down.
Wang Dong'er stared at him for several long, suffocating seconds. When she finally spoke again, her voice had lost its tremor. It was quiet, cold, and forged from absolute iron.
"In the future, do not ever interfere in the matters between me and Huo Yuhao again."
Tai Tan stiffened, utterly stunned by the finality in her tone.
Wang Dong'er didn't blink, enunciating every single word with lethal clarity. "From this day forward, you are not allowed to go behind my back and arrange these sick tests for him. You are not allowed to forge letters in my name to manipulate him into risking his life. You are not allowed to hide things from me, and you are not allowed to do anything related to him without my knowledge."
Tai Tan's expression turned incredibly ugly, a mix of hurt pride and guilt warring on his rugged features. He opened his mouth to protest the harsh boundaries, but Niu Tian subtly reached out from behind, giving the fabric of his sleeve a sharp, warning tug. Tai Tan snapped his jaw shut, exhaling a heavy breath through his nose.
Wang Dong'er let the silence stretch, ensuring her demands had fully sunk in. She looked at the two men who had been like fathers to her, her eyes devoid of their usual affection.
"I will remember what happened this time," she finalized, her tone chillingly flat. "If there is a next time... do not blame me for turning my back on you forever."
She didn't wait for Tai Tan or Niu Tian to offer an apology or a defense. She spun on her heel, her white skirt flaring, and marched straight back out through the shattered main gates of the Clear Sky Fortress.
The bitter night wind howled through the courtyard, catching the hem of her dress as she stepped over the threshold. Without a single backward glance, her slender figure dissolved into the suffocating darkness beyond the walls, leaving the two mighty sect masters standing in absolute, stunned silence.
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