The next few seconds felt as though time itself had frozen.

  Neither side moved. Neither spoke.

  A storm of complicated emotions flashed through Mo Ying’s eyes.

  “That's rather…an unique way to greet someone,” Mo Ying said calmly, showing no fear at all despite the handgun pressed against the back of her head.

  “It’s been four years,” the man shrugged. “I was worried you might’ve forgotten me, so I wanted to leave a strong impression. Is that not allowed?”

  Mo Ying turned around. “Yan Yuhuai, you should know better. This can’t kill me.”

  “I don’t want to kill you. I never have.”

  There was the faintest trace of grievance in his voice.

  Grievance? How rare.

  “You may not want to kill me, but I don’t share that trust.”

  Bang.

  The gun suddenly exploded in Yan Yuhuai’s hand, shattering into fragments. He sensed it just in time and threw it aside before it blew up completely—otherwise, his hand would have been severely injured.

  Mo Ying looked at the wreckage with mild disappointment. “Too bad it didn’t blow you up.”

  “Your way of saying hello is just as special,” Yan Yuhuai said, staring at the remains of the gun.

  “So,” Mo Ying asked coldly, “what do you want? Don’t tell me you came here to beg me to take you back.”

  They both knew it was impossible for their relationship to ever return to what it once was.

  They also knew this meeting had nothing to do with their past.

  “Is that really not an option?” Yan Yuhuai asked anyway.

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  Mo Ying didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped closer and looked straight into his red eyes, studying him with a seriousness that felt almost intimate—as if she were carefully examining how much he had changed in four years.

  The sudden closeness made a flicker of panic flash through Yan Yuhuai’s eyes.

  She reached out, gently brushing his cheek. Then she lifted his chin, turning his face from side to side, before sliding her fingers down to his throat.

  Yan Yuhuai froze, stunned by the unexpected contact.

  Click.

  Something snapped shut around his neck, instantly destroying every trace of intimacy in the air.

  A black collar.

  Mo Ying stepped back and nodded in satisfaction. “It suits you.”

  Yan Yuhuai touched it. It wouldn’t come off.

  “An Artisan-made artifact?” he asked calmly, though his smile had faded. “What does it do?”

  The Artisan Affinity allowed its users to imbue the items they created with extraordinary powers.

  “Nothing special,” Mo Ying replied lightly. “I just have to think, and you die.”

  “…Figures,” Yan Yuhuai muttered.

  “You said you wanted to help me, but your credibility with me is already at negative infinity,” Mo Ying said as she walked past him. “I needed some insurance.”

  After what you did, the fact that I didn’t cut you down the moment I saw you is already a mercy.

  Her tone was cold, as though he were a stranger rather than someone she had once loved. The intimacy just now had clearly been nothing more than a pretext to put the collar on him.

  “Where are you going?” Yan Yuhuai asked.

  “To visit a friend,” Mo Ying replied without stopping as she left the cemetery.

  Yan Yuhuai rubbed the collar around his neck as his phone rang.

  “I’m at the cemetery,” he said after answering.

  “You met her?” a woman’s voice asked. It was like a xylophone made of ice—clear, beautiful, and utterly devoid of warmth.

  “I did. And she put a remote-controlled death device on my neck.”

  The woman laughed softly, full of schadenfreude. “Serves you right, you accomplice. Still… I think you actually enjoy this, don’t you?”

  Yan Yuhuai curled his lips into a smile. “Of course. Doesn’t it mean I belong to her now? Sounds wonderful.”

  “Tch. Pervert.”

  “But now I can finally work with you in peace, Yuhuai. Other things aside—and what you did to her aside—at least when it comes to hating those self-righteous old bastards, we’re on the same side.”

  “Of course, YiNing,” Yan Yuhuai replied. “Plenty of people despise them.”

  “Good. Get over here. In two hours, we have to attend a meeting hosted by those very people.”

  “A meeting full of their nonsense… got it.”

  After hanging up, Yan Yuhuai sighed. “I’m almost jealous of her. She doesn’t have to attend meetings.”

  And with that, he left the cemetery.