Chapter 803: Doesn’t It Look Good When Smiling?

"It’s all in the past now. Dreams are always the opposite of reality," Ye Qianning said. She guessed that Four-direction Mountain had left a deep shadow over him. The horrors of childhood, if not overcome, would occupy the softest part of one’s heart. They would quietly surface in the dead of night... She had experienced it too. It was a terrible memory.

Sang Zhi did not answer. He covered his eyes with one large hand, while the other tightly gripped her small hand.

"Don’t use calming incense anymore." Prolonged use of this kind of aromatherapy might feel relaxing at first, but over time, it could easily cause hallucinations during sleep.

Sang Zhi lowered his hand and sat up on the soft couch, his red eyes staring at her.

Seeing that he had recovered, Ye Qianning withdrew her Inner Strength. "Why were you sleeping here?"

"I came looking for you, but you weren’t here." Sang Zhi paused before asking, "Are you very busy?"

"I’ll be very busy for the time being. The desert and the Northwest still need observation. The Four Countries Chamber of Commerce is also just days away. I might be even busier after that."

Sang Zhi frowned slightly. "Do you plan to travel for business with Mr. Gu in the future?"

"Half and half, I suppose." Ye Qianning pulled her small hand from his grasp and stood up to light the candle on the stand.

The dim room instantly brightened. She extinguished the calming incense, then turned to open the window. A sea breeze blew in, scattering the lingering smoke.

"What do you want?" Sang Zhi asked after a moment of hesitation.

Hearing this, Ye Qianning turned to look at him. He sat quietly on the soft couch. His red eyes looked eerie, but they lacked their previous gloom and wickedness. Looking at him now, he seemed like a completely different person from when she first saw him.

"What are you smiling at?" Sang Zhi asked in confusion.

"I think you look a bit like how you did when you were a child."

Sang Zhi furrowed his brows, his words laced with deep disgust. "I hate my childhood."

Ye Qianning gave a seemingly helpless smile but said nothing.

"What are you smiling at now?"

"Isn’t my smile pretty?" Ye Qianning walked toward him, her smile growing even more brazen.

Sang Zhi blinked. "It is."

Ye Qianning sat on the soft couch and cupped his slightly dazed face with both hands, staring intently into his eyes.

With her stunning face reflected in his eyes, Sang Zhi’s heart skipped a beat and began to race.

"Your eyes are a bit strange. Don’t move." Ye Qianning freed one hand and took out a small bottle from her spatial domain. "This might hurt a little. Bear with it."

"Mhm." Sang Zhi used his Inner Strength to suppress the aura within his body.

Ye Qianning dripped the potion into his eyes. The liquid gradually seeped in, and the scarlet in his eyes instantly deepened until his entire eyes turned blood-red. She had noticed it the first time she saw him that day: Sang Zhi’s red pupils were incredibly strange. They looked like a living creature—something terrifying.

Sang Zhi’s body trembled slightly, and the skin around his eyes twitched instinctively.

"Endure it a little longer."

Ye Qianning stared fixedly at his eyeballs. They were as red as blood. She took out a Luminous Pearl from her space and held it up to his face. Under the blinding light, the scarlet color gradually transformed.

She wondered, "Are they afraid of light?"

"How did your eyes turn red in the first place?" she asked.

The blood-red hue in his eyes quietly receded when exposed to the piercing light, reverting to their original red shade.

"I only know that I was unconscious for a long time. When I woke up, they had turned red."

Red was a color that instilled far more fear than gray.

Hearing this, Ye Qianning guessed that perhaps Sang Zhi’s emotions and his prolonged coma had triggered the true color of his eyes. They feared intense light, meaning the extended period of darkness had awakened the Gu worms in his eyes. Scarlet... She wondered, "Could it be that these inherited Gu worms are fundamentally sustained by blood?"