The car ran smoothly, yet the mood inside was strangely hard to name. Bai Yuanzhao noticed none of it and gave all his attention to driving.
From the passenger seat, Sun Jiajia watched Huang Tian through the rearview mirror. That gaze was too heated, too obvious, as if she were not the least afraid of being noticed and earning his disgust.
Huang Tian thought, This woman has something wrong with her.
Leave aside whether an ordinary woman would dare stare so fixedly at a man she had only just met. The mere fact that Bai Yuanzhao and Sun Jiajia had come together was astonishing enough.
He was born to the Bai family of Yuzhou, young and rich, and not bad-looking himself. Sun Jiajia was neither pretty nor possessed of any presence, and her family circumstances were plainly ordinary. There was clearly no question of a marriage alliance between families. On what grounds had the two of them ended up together?
Could it be that, having eaten his fill of rare delicacies, he simply had to try a plain side dish for a change of taste?
He thought for a moment. That gaze was still burning into him. Huang Tian stirred his will and at once cast an illusion technique on Sun Jiajia, meaning to make her confess everything outright. Yet when the illusion technique fell upon her, Sun Jiajia's expression did not change. She felt nothing at all, and did not even frown.
With my strength as it is now, almost no one on Canxing can break free of my illusion technique, let alone slip it as easily as she did. Huang Tian's mind moved. So—an oddity!
Sun Jiajia possessed an oddity!
One of its properties was immunity to attacks on spirit and will, which was why the illusion technique had done nothing.
Not only that, it ought also to be able to affect another person's soul and spirit. Bai Yuanzhao had very likely fallen under its control.
Guessing at this, Huang Tian took out his phone and gave the screen a casual swipe. A small orb of light appeared on it at once. It was the Brain of Light.
Huang Tian typed, "Little Light, look into Sun Jiajia's background and history, especially how she and Bai Yuanzhao came to know each other."
"Yes, Master!" The Brain of Light bounced up and down on the screen, then vanished.
About ten seconds later, the Brain of Light popped back out. "Master, it's all arranged. The relevant documents and videos have been sent to your phone."
Huang Tian opened a document, and Sun Jiajia's file came up.
"Sun Jiajia, female, twenty-two, from Liangwen City in Yuzhou, height 161.3—"
When he had read it through, he understood her better. Sun Jiajia had indeed been born to an ordinary, even poor, family. On top of that she was rather ugly, and from childhood she had been deeply insecure and quite withdrawn.
After she tested into Longjiang University in Yuzhou, she remained the same. Day to day she came and went alone, rarely went out with her roommates, and got along only passably with her roommates and classmates.
Two years of ordinary, solitary days passed just like that. When her junior year began, Sun Jiajia happened to hear her roommates talking about Bai Yuanzhao, who was in the same college. She vaguely learned that his background was considerable, and since he was also fair and clean-featured, she began to pay attention to him.
But attention was only attention. Sun Jiajia knew herself—or rather, she was unwilling to lose face. She knew that someone like Bai Yuanzhao could never take a liking to her, so she only ever watched him from afar. The two of them had never exchanged a single word.
A month and a half ago, however, things changed. For reasons unknown, Bai Yuanzhao suddenly added Sun Jiajia on Feixin of his own accord, invited her to meals and outings, and bought her many precious pieces of jewelry. After a month of pursuit, Sun Jiajia finally agreed to be with him. The two made the relationship official in their friend circles, and it caused an immediate uproar.
Bai Yuanzhao's friends were utterly astonished, and privately remarked that a rich man's taste was a peculiar thing.
Sun Jiajia's roommates and classmates were envious, jealous, and resentful. They felt Bai Yuanzhao must simply have gone blind—
Yet whatever the outside world thought, the two had come together just like that. They had been dating for half a month now, and it was burning hot.
So the crux was that turn a month and a half ago. Had Sun Jiajia obtained the oddity then?
Thinking this, Huang Tian opened a video. It was the scene of Sun Jiajia and Bai Yuanzhao's first conversation.
On the campus the sun was bright, the sky clear and the air fresh. Bai Yuanzhao strolled unhurriedly along a small path. A little tired, he sat down on a roadside bench to rest, leaned his head back against the back of the bench, narrowed his eyes, and lazily basked in the sunlight.
Just then, not far off, a girl with several books hugged in her arms came this way. It was Sun Jiajia. She walked slowly, and when she reached the bench, what she was holding suddenly scattered onto the ground. One book even struck Bai Yuanzhao's calf.
"Sorry, sorry." Sun Jiajia spoke as if embarrassed.
Though he had been disturbed, Bai Yuanzhao said nothing. Instead he bent down to help pick the books up. "Here. These are yours."
"Thanks."
Sun Jiajia took them from his hand. Their fingers touched, and it was as if a current passed between them. Bai Yuanzhao's whole body jolted. He lowered his head to look at Sun Jiajia, and his gaze gradually grew heated.
Sun Jiajia seemed frightened. She brushed at her hair, her face red, and hurried off in small steps. Bai Yuanzhao sat blankly where he was, watching her until she was far away, lost in a daze for a long time.
Huang Tian's brows lifted slightly. He rewound the video and watched again as the two of them picked up the books and spoke.
After another viewing, he had the measure of it. This oddity could make a person feel love. Was the condition that there had to be contact of the body? Or contact of the fingers?
Beep-beep—
While he was still weighing it, the car honked several times in a row, threaded through the fairly crowded traffic and pedestrians, and pulled up beside an ordinary breakfast shop.
"This is the place. Don't be fooled by how small it is. I've eaten here several times, and the food is quite good." Bai Yuanzhao said it cheerfully, got out, walked around to the right side of the car, and opened the door. Sun Jiajia took his arm and stepped down.
Huang Tian got out on his own and followed them into the shop. There were quite a few people inside, but some seats were still empty. After they ordered, the three walked to the innermost table. Bai Yuanzhao and Sun Jiajia sat across from Huang Tian.
"Once we've had breakfast, I'll take you to where you're staying. Oh—and after that, do you want to go to Longjiang first and see Grandfather? He actually misses you quite a bit." Bai Yuanzhao asked.
Longjiang City was the central city of Yuzhou. The headquarters of Hengming Group, which Bai Zhenxiong had founded, was in Longjiang.
Huang Tian considered, then said, "Next time. We'll leave it until New Year."
He was not the original body. He felt no particular fondness or anger toward Bai Zhenxiong. He simply would not go to meet him, so as to avoid trouble.
"All right." Seeing this, Bai Yuanzhao said no more. He turned his head to chat and laugh with Sun Jiajia. She answered only now and then, and instead kept staring at Huang Tian, as if sizing up a piece of prey.
"Excuse me, coming through~" The woman who ran the shop brought the breakfast over, and only then did Sun Jiajia draw her gaze back and begin to eat with great relish.
Huang Tian tasted a few bites at random and then ate no more. Bai Yuanzhao ate at an unhurried pace.
After a good while, breakfast was finished, and the three walked outside. Bai Yuanzhao took out his phone to pay. Sun Jiajia walked beside Huang Tian and suddenly cried, "Aiyo," as if she had twisted her ankle. Her body tipped sideways, about to fall, both hands flung open as if to catch hold of something.
Huang Tian turned aside and watched, expressionless.
Thud—
Sun Jiajia had not expected him to stand there and watch her fall. For a moment she was dazed, and several red scrapes marked her palms.
"Hey—how did you fall? Does it hurt?" Bai Yuanzhao, who had just finished paying, heard the noise, turned, and at once grew frantic. He hurried over and helped Sun Jiajia up with particular tenderness.
"I'm fine. I was just careless." Sun Jiajia stood, looking at Huang Tian with a rather angry gaze.
Huang Tian's expression remained calm. He knew that a trace of his soul's essence could render him immune to oddities that twisted spirit and will, and that the oddity Sun Jiajia possessed had no effect on him. Even so, he still did not want to touch her. It was simply revolting.
"Come on. I'll help you to the car so you can rest a moment." Bai Yuanzhao said, supporting Sun Jiajia's right arm.
"Mm." A surge of anger was pent up in Sun Jiajia's chest, and she answered in a sullen voice.
But the next moment—
Snap—
Huang Tian snapped his fingers. The surroundings seemed to change all at once. To her terror, Sun Jiajia found that Bai Yuanzhao, who had been supporting her, seemed to have been caught by an illusion technique. He got into the car supporting a mass of empty air!
"Bai Yuanzhao!" she called. Bai Yuanzhao did not seem to hear her at all. He sat in the car, chatting and laughing toward the empty passenger seat.
"What's going on?" She was completely at a loss.
The next moment, Huang Tian, who had walked off to one side, moved his will. The soil at the roadside rapidly piled up and gathered, condensing into a human form. Features took shape. A height of a full two meters twenty gave off an extremely strong pressure.
The earthen figure walked step by step up to Sun Jiajia. Frightened, she kept retreating and screamed, "What kind of thing is that? Bai Yuanzhao! Huang Tian! Can't you see? There's a monster here!"
No one answered. She turned to look at the people around her. "Are you blind? There's a monster here! A monster made of dirt!"
Still no one answered. The passersby went off about their own business.
"How can this be? Am I dreaming?" Sun Jiajia was both terrified and bewildered.
What she did not know was that Huang Tian could not cast her, who possessed an oddity, into an illusion, but he could cast other people into one.
That was right. Across this whole stretch of ground now, aside from Huang Tian, only Sun Jiajia was normal. Everyone else had fallen into an illusion and perceived nothing of what was happening here.
On top of that, the Brain of Light was controlling every camera nearby. No one at all could know what was happening here—
Dong! Dong!
Heavy footfalls sounded. The earthen figure stopped before Sun Jiajia, raised a palm as broad as a palm-leaf fan, and swung it savagely down at her face, bringing a shriek of wind.
Sun Jiajia retreated in panic, but accidentally tripped over her own foot and fell to the ground. "Don't come over! Don't come over!"
The earthen figure paid her no mind. It took two steps forward, lifted a foot, and stamped hard toward her abdomen.
Sun Jiajia's face went pale. She rolled wretchedly across the ground.
Dong!
The ground trembled faintly, and a light haze of dust rose.
The stamp had missed. The earthen figure kept stepping after her.
Sun Jiajia gasped for breath, her hair in disorder and covering most of her face. Watching the tall earthen figure come after her, she hardened her heart, clenched her teeth, and instead of retreating she advanced. Her round body lunged forward and wrapped around the earthen figure's left leg. The ring on the index finger of her left hand released an extremely fine glimmer.
The next moment, the earthen figure's movements locked stiff. It stood where it was and did not move.
Huang Tian, who had been watching the fight the whole time, tried to drive the earthen figure on to keep chasing and striking Sun Jiajia, but a resisting feeling came back from it. It lowered its head and looked at Sun Jiajia with "tender affection," its eyes brimming with affection.
After contact of the body, even an earthen figure could be made to feel love?
Huang Tian was thoughtful. This oddity's property was indeed overbearing.
"Protect me properly!" Seeing that the "treasure" had taken effect even on the earthen figure, Sun Jiajia let out a long breath and barely managed to prop herself up.
Just as she was about to take the earthen figure and find out what on earth had happened, Huang Tian, not far off, flicked a finger. A streak of flowing light struck the earthen figure. It immediately collapsed where it stood and turned back into a pile of soil. With another movement of his will, a new earthen figure was born.
"Die!" The earthen figure lowered its head to look down at Sun Jiajia, raised a palm high, and struck down viciously!
Sun Jiajia's eyes bulged round. She hurriedly urged the treasure's power. The earthen figure's movement stopped at once, and its killing intent turned to love.
Whoosh—
The earthen figure collapsed. A new one was born, and another palm came striking!
She was nearly in despair, and could only use the treasure again.
The earthen figure scattered once more, but this time no new one condensed. Still shaken, she slumped to the ground, wiping away sweat and gasping.
What she did not see was that a black patch the size of a child's palm had surfaced on her right cheek. The black patches on her abdomen, back, and calves were larger and darker, sunk into flesh and blood. Even if the skin were torn away, the black patches would not fade.
A look of understanding showed on Huang Tian's face. "So the cost of use for this oddity is to make a person ugly!"
An oddity that could make people feel love, and its cost was to make the user uglier still. In other words, the more times she activated the oddity, the more people would love her, and the uglier she would become. In that case, the people who loathed her would also grow more numerous. After all, no one liked contact with an ugly person—
What was more, an oddity did not abide by reason. When you thought ugliness had a limit, it could make you uglier still, and even give off, from the inside out, an air that made people loathe you, so that everyone dreaded nothing more than failing to get away.
Truly—an absurd property, and an absurd cost.
Huang Tian shook his head slightly, flicked a finger, and a streak of flowing light struck Sun Jiajia on the head and knocked her unconscious. Then he raised a hand and beckoned, and the ring on her left hand appeared in his own.
Thirty seconds later, the ring vanished into thin air, and a point of light drifted into his body.
In the instant the ring disappeared, inside the car, Bai Yuanzhao—who had all along been chatting and laughing at empty air, that is, at the Sun Jiajia within the illusion—gave a jolt. He instinctively leaned back, his expression changed drastically, and he blurted, "What an ugly pig!"
Having said it, he fainted on the spot.
Huang Tian nodded. "It seems that once the oddity vanishes, the effects it produced vanish as well."
His gaze swept over Sun Jiajia, collapsed on the ground, then turned again to Bai Yuanzhao. After a moment's thought, he cast a spell that completely erased Sun Jiajia's memories of the earthen figure. Then he raised a hand and drew, and Sun Jiajia flew up and dropped into the car's back seat. Ten minutes from now, the two of them would wake at the same time. By then—
Though Bai Yuanzhao was usually open and generous, quite easygoing, in his bones he was still unyielding and proud. Once he came to, he would certainly be furious to the extreme. Sun Jiajia would, at the very least, take a savage punishment. Still, it was all what she deserved. She had done the thing; she had to bear the consequences that came with it.
Huang Tian could not be bothered to get involved. He shouldered his bag, booked a car on his phone, and at the same time sent Bai Yuanzhao a message: "I'm heading home first. Contact me if anything comes up."
The car arrived. He got in and left without a backward glance.
Chapter 242