"Miss Tang, did you truly say that Ma Chunwei summoned... something? A physical manifestation?" Lou Liwei asked.

"Yes. I saw it with my own eyes, and it is an image I shall not soon forget." Yu Qi nodded, her expression grim.

Lou Liwei frowned deeply upon hearing that confirmation, his fingers gripping the edge of the table.

"What exactly did he summon? I need you to describe it in as much detail as possible." Lou Liwei asked, his voice low and urgent.

"It was dark, almost like a living, breathing shadow that defied the light. It was large, too... probably around three feet tall, though it seemed to expand and contract. You could not clearly see its eyes. If it even had any, but somehow you could still feel its malevolent gaze staring directly into your soul. It was extremely unsettling, a presence of pure cold." Yu Qi calmly described the black creature she had witnessed that fateful day. "However, if you are asking me for its exact biological or spiritual name, then I am sorry. I do not know what that abomination was."

"Dark like a shadow... consuming the light..." Lou Liwei muttered under his breath, his face suddenly turning a ghostly, sickly shade of pale.

"Master, are you alright? You look as though you have seen a ghost." Chang Shuchun quickly asked, leaning toward him after noticing the sudden, alarming change in his complexion.

"I am fine, Shuchun. I am fine." Lou Liwei nodded, though his hands were visibly trembling and his face remained noticeably bloodless. "Ghost would be better."

"It seems that you already know exactly what kind of creature Ma Chunwei summoned into our world." Yu Qi observed quietly, her sharp eyes missing nothing.

"Yes... God help us, I do." Lou Liwei admitted with a heavy, pained nod of his head.

"May I know the name of this entity?" Yu Qi asked, her curiosity piqued.

"It was a demon." Lou Liwei finally revealed the secret, his voice grim and heavy with dread. "A specific type of high-level demon that feeds exclusively upon a person’s luck and their very destiny."

"Oh... No wonder it felt so predatory..." Yu Qi narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, recalling the way the creature had lunged for the spiritual threads.

"The pact is simple but deadly. He would offer the creature a sacrifice of pure luck in exchange for having his most twisted wishes granted. When the amount of luck offered was substantial enough, the creature could even be summoned temporarily from its realm into the mortal world. The summoner would then be allowed to ask for a boon in return for the feast." Lou Liwei explained, his voice shaking. He paused briefly before looking directly at Yu Qi with a newfound sense of awe. "However, I never expected anyone in this era to actually succeed in summoning it. The amount of luck required to act as a beacon must be extraordinarily pure and vast. Very few humans in history possess such a mountain of fortune."

But there was another, far more sinister condition as well, one that Lou Liwei hesitated to mention. The target whose luck was being stolen usually needed to have experienced immense, soul-crushing tragedy in their life, such as being brutally murdered or driven to the brink of suicide, in order to generate the specific type of negative spiritual resonance required to attract the favour of such a demonic creature.

Lou Weizhe had thoroughly investigated every corner of Yu Qi’s background before arranging this secret meeting, and Lou Liwei had also personally reviewed the extensive reports regarding her past. On the surface, Yu Qi’s life could indeed be considered a tragedy of the highest order. She had grown up as a lonely orphan and had suffered greatly at the hands of those who should have cared for her throughout her youth. However, Lou Liwei was certain that such common human experiences alone should not have been enough to attract a demonic creature of that terrifying calibre.

Either the intelligence reports about Yu Qi were woefully incomplete... or Yu Qi had truly experienced something far darker, more ancient, and more agonising than anyone in this world could possibly imagine.

What Lou Liwei did not know and what Yu Qi would never tell him was that the creature had indeed been drawn to her for another reason entirely. Aside from her immense fortune and her strong spiritual energy as a reawakened cultivator, Yu Qi had once truly walked through the gates of death. Back when she was Qin Yue, she had personally detonated her own spiritual core in a catastrophic act, destroying her very existence in a final, scorching blaze of defiance. The lingering, ghostly aura of a soul that had successfully returned from the absolute void itself was an irresistible, intoxicating bait to a demon that fed upon the high-stakes essence of destiny and fortune. To the creature, she was not just a meal. She was a miracle of survival that it craved to consume.

"If the creature was summoned, then how did it suddenly turn against its summoner, Ma Chunwei, and devour him instead?" Lou Weizhe asked, his voice sharp and demanding, still unwilling to let the matter rest until every logical inconsistency was accounted for.

"I have my own guardian, one that does not take kindly to intruders." Yu Qi replied calmly, her voice dropping into a tone that suggested secrets far older than the men sitting before her. "Its presence alone terrified the creature. The shadow-thing wanted nothing more than to flee back to its own world immediately, but Ma Chunwei, in his blind and arrogant desperation, tried to force it to remain through sheer willpower. It was a fatal mistake... but if you choose not to believe my account, then there is really nothing more I can say to convince you." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

***This novel is a contracted work with w e b n o v e l. c o m. If you do not read this novel on w e b n o v e l. c o m, that means it has been stolen. Thank you, from your shameless author, ZerahNeko***