Chapter 62: Night Visit (2)

Xue Yin gently placed the stack of contracts on the desk.

The ink was both fresh and old, but every single one bore the triple wheat-ear seal of the Cloud Ruins Bazaar.

“This was never just about the five missing people from the Slag Highlands.”

Her tone grew heavy as she pressed her fingertip against the edge of the topmost contract.

“This is a web, something that existed long before now. You used the Cloud Ruins Bazaar’s workshops as bait. Ordinary people signed those contracts to work, trading their labor for a meal. But if someone had a rare bloodline—even if they didn’t know it themselves—the runic mark at the end of the third page resonated with the caster.”

“People disappearing in the Demon Realm might be common, but Lord Ryan cares about every one of his subjects. He secretly investigated what all the missing people had in common. That was probably an unexpected variable you never anticipated.”

Xue Yin tapped the top page, where a faint dark-red pattern was visible on the reverse side.

“Once these people signed, they were marked. So what happened to all those rare-blooded marked ones from before?”

Bai Li was startled by Xue Yin’s sudden move and even forgot to deny it.

She asked nervously, “Where did you get those?”

“Third secret room on the west side of the steward’s hall.”

Xue Yin revealed Bai Li’s purpose.

“The intel you gave the Magic Association was nothing but a decoy to mislead the investigation. The one who actually filtered bloodlines, marked targets, and arranged handovers—was you yourself.”

“The five missing people are just the latest batch. But every sheet in this stack represents a vanished person.”

She flipped through contract after contract.

“They came to Cloud Ruins Bazaar seeking a way to live. You gave them hope, then personally sent them down another path to death.”

Bai Li closed her eyes.

It was a long time before she spoke, and her voice unconsciously dropped.

“If I don’t hand people over, the entire Cloud Ruins Bazaar will be wiped out.”

“Who?”

Xue Yin pressed immediately, not giving Bai Li any room to breathe.

“Who exactly would make the entire Cloud Ruins Bazaar a wasteland?”

“…Someone you shouldn’t ask about.”

Bai Li shook her head.

“You’ve already saved five people—that’s the limit. If you dig any deeper, more than a few will die.”

“So you chose silence, covering your crimes with good deeds. You turned the corporation into a giant atonement machine to soothe your own conscience?”

Xue Yin stared at her.

Bai Li’s eyes shot open.

For the first time, a trace of long-lost anger flickered in them—

Adeep disgust with herself.

She suddenly coughed violently, her body trembling uncontrollably as she shouted hysterically, “Do you think I wanted this?! Only people with a way out can afford to be noble—because they have the power to choose!”

“No.”

Xue Yin shook her head, her tone unwavering.

“I know you had no other choice. But having no choice doesn’t make it right.”

Just then, steady footsteps came from outside the door.

He Lian stood at the entrance, his tall frame nearly filling the door.

It was unclear when he had arrived, how long he had stood there, or how much he had heard.

He didn’t speak.

He only looked at Bai Li quietly.

There was no accusation in his gaze, no anger, not even disappointment.

Only silence that saw through everything, and a kind of clarity that bordered on pity.

That clarity was the last straw that broke Bai Li.

She suddenly staggered back a step, clutching the corner of the desk.

When she spoke again, her voice had shed its usual calm and restraint:

“You… all think Cloud Ruins Bazaar is what?”

She gave a bitter laugh, her eyes red.

Her voice was nearly shattered.

“A black market? An intelligence station? Or some gray hub?”

She jerked her head up, as if gathering her last shred of courage, and stared straight at He Lian.

“No! It was never a place for people to survive. It’s an altar! From the moment the first miner discovered that thing underground, from the first day the mine was abandoned, Cloud Ruins Bazaar was built and developed for sacrifice. I founded this corporation not to protect the people—only to… screen the offerings.”

Bai Li had completely crumbled.

Trembling, she pointed at the stack of contracts.

“Those people came begging for a way to live. I gave them hope, but then I turned around and personally offered up their names as sacrifices.”

Tears finally spilled over.

She covered her face, her shoulders heaving violently.

“So I did good deeds not for them, but for myself. I wanted to lie to myself: ‘See, I still saved people… I still deserve to live…’ When those people died on the altar, my hands were stained with their blood. Do you understand?!”

He Lian finally spoke.

“So what I once saw you burning alone in the backyard were those contracts?”

Bai Li’s whole body trembled.

She slowly lowered her hands and looked at He Lian.

“Some of them were just children… I really couldn’t bear it… But I couldn’t… I couldn’t save everyone…”

Xue Yin quietly retreated to the door, wanting to give them some time alone.

Bai Li was in no state to be interrogated further.

She would leave the rest to He Lian.

They could question Bai Li in detail after she calmed down.

Just as she was about to leave, Bai Li suddenly asked in a hoarse voice, “But that secret compartment… I set a magical alarm. If anyone touched the hidden documents, I would have sensed it immediately. When you took the contracts, why didn’t it go off?”

Xue Yin slowly drew the Moonlight Staff from under her cloak.

The staff was long, silver-white, with a gentle glow flowing from its head.

In an instant, a thin mist of silver light bloomed and then retracted.

Where it passed, the air froze and the candle flames stood still.

Xue Yin stood at the center of the silver mist.

Her waist-length silver hair stirred without wind, revealing her delicate pointed elf ears.

The refracted light played across her fair skin, outlining her slender and upright silhouette.

Within this High Elf’s Moon Court Domain, the rules of reality had changed.

The trigger condition for the magical alarm had never existed from the start.

Bai Li’s voice faltered.

“A magical girl with High Elf bloodline?! Are you saying… when you took the contracts, you used an elven realm technique to block the magical alarm?”

“Yes.”

Xue Yin met Bai Li’s gaze calmly.

“The Moon Court Domain isolates inside from outside. It cuts off magical traces. The laws have changed. Your alarm couldn’t sense me.”

Bai Li turned deathly pale.

Her knees gave way, and she collapsed to the ground.

“It’s over… there’s no time left. You can indeed prevent me from noticing, but you cannot stop… the master of this land.”

“The master of the land?”

Xue Yin’s heart tightened.

The strange feeling that had lingered since her first day in Cloud Ruins Bazaar suddenly swelled in that moment.

Bai Li lifted her head, her eyes filled with despair and tears.

“High Elf bloodline… magical girl… Creation Power… You are the perfect vessel it has been waiting for for decades.”

A chill ran down Xue Yin’s spine.

She suddenly remembered that when she first set foot in Cloud Ruins Bazaar, the eerie ‘cleanliness’ that her Domain String had caught.

At the time, she thought it was a deliberate erasure of traces.

Now she understood: it was the altar breathing.

The moment that thought flashed through Xue Yin’s mind—

A whisper rose from deep within the earth:

“Forbidden Spell—The Moment of a Thousand Bonds Returning to One.”