Chapter 17: Only by holding my little pink bunny can I dare to close my eyes.

The dim Barbie-pink fluorescence spread like a living virus.

Starting from Su Jin’s wrist, it raced across his entire body at a terrifying speed visible to the naked eye.

In the space of a few short moments, his black nightwear had completely lost its purpose as a disguise.

From head to toe, he had transformed into a gigantic, blindingly bright pink human-shaped lightbulb!

The dazzling pink glow illuminated every corner of the Zhaoyang Palace.

The heaps of gold and silver treasures piled on the bed were all cast in a rosy halo.

Even Su Jin’s long, sleek black hair stood straight up strand by strand, radiating an eye-searing pink light.

The terrifying, sinister hannya mask covering his face—complete with its blue visage and savage fangs—looked inexplicably adorable under the pink fluorescence.

“You’re courting death!”

Su Jin was so mortified and furious that he nearly lost his mind. He was the Crown Prince of Dayuan, the Eastern Palace’s Living Yama—how could he possibly endure such humiliation?!

He raised his hand, preparing to smash the little wild girl’s skull with a single palm strike.

But the instant his foot touched the floor, Su Jin discovered in horror that his legs were no longer obeying him!

The toes of his left foot touched the ground as his right foot slid smoothly backward.

Then the toes of his right foot touched the ground as his left foot slid smoothly backward.

In the silent bedchamber of the Crown Princess, the most ruthless killer in the entire Dayuan Empire was gliding backward.

He was doing the moonwalk!

“What... what is going on?! My legs!”

Su Jin slid across the floor, roaring in despair.

He wanted to move forward and snap the little girl’s neck, but his body insisted on going in the opposite direction.

Paired with the eye-searing Barbie-pink glow covering his entire body, the sight was so ridiculous that Su Yaoyao sat on the bed, clutching her stomach and laughing until tears nearly streamed from her eyes.

[Oh my gosh, the Frenzied Dance Fruit really is as incredible as they say!]

[That silky-smooth moonwalk, that perfectly timed gliding! What a waste—he should’ve debuted in a boy band!]

[The cold-blooded killer can dance? The contrast is adorable! Keep sliding, keep it coming!]

Just as Su Jin was moonwalking and questioning every decision that had led him to this moment, a series of hurried, heavy footsteps sounded outside the Zhaoyang Palace.

It was Su Zhen.

Although he had returned to the imperial study, Su Zhen was still worried about his precious daughter.

He was too excited to sleep anyway, so he had simply taken his sword and gone for a stroll around the Zhaoyang Palace.

The muffled roars coming from inside the palace immediately set his keen senses on edge.

“Damn it! An assassin!”

Su Zhen’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. He had only just managed to find his precious money tree of a daughter—there was no way he would let anything happen to her!

Without calling for anyone, he drew the Longquan sword from his waist.

Then he strode toward the entrance of the Zhaoyang Palace and kicked the doors with all his might.

Bang!

The heavy palace doors were kicked to pieces, sending splinters flying everywhere.

“What scoundrel dares to assassinate My Crown Princess?! Prepare to die!”

Su Zhen roared with earth-shaking force, his imperial killing aura surging violently as he charged inside.

He never could have imagined that what awaited him would be a flood of Barbie-pink light pollution so intense it made his retinas want to kill themselves.

The moment the doors opened, the dense pink fluorescence poured out of the palace like a flash flood.

Caught completely off guard, Su Zhen was stabbed by the light until his vision went black.

He raised his broad sleeve to shield his eyes, and tears sprang from them.

“What kind of demonic magic is this?! What in the world is that thing?!”

Forcing himself to endure the stinging pain, Su Zhen peered through the gap in his sleeve and finally saw what was happening inside.

Then—

the well-traveled Emperor of Dayuan turned to stone.

An assassin covered in pink light and wearing a hannya mask was gliding backward with a bizarre gait that Su Zhen had never seen in his entire life.

When Su Jin saw his father charge in with a sword, the humiliation burning inside him reached its peak.

He wanted to explain. He wanted to say that he was the Crown Prince, not some assassin.

But the Truth Serum had taken effect!

The truth serum from the interstellar era did more than force people to tell the truth. It also magnified their inner weaknesses and their urge to pour out their feelings without limit.

Su Jin moonwalked all the way to the middle of the hall, where he reached a coiled-dragon pillar.

He could no longer hold himself back. He threw his arms around the thick golden nanmu pillar.

He clung to it desperately, like a drowning man grasping a lifeline.

Then, with a loud sob, the Eastern Palace’s Living Yama—the man who killed without batting an eye—began wailing like a three-year-old child who had been deeply wronged.

Tears streamed down from beneath his terrifying mask like beads from a broken string.

“Waaah... Father!”

Su Jin hiccupped between sobs, forced to shout at the top of his lungs.

Though his voice was thick with tears, his internal energy carried it clearly throughout the hall.

Su Zhen’s hand froze in midair, still clutching his sword. His jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

That voice, that figure...

Why did they look so much like his cold-blooded, heartless Crown Prince?!

“Father! I never wanted to kill anyone! Waaah!”

Su Jin hugged the pillar and cried his heart out.

“Those human-skin lanterns were fake! They were made from pigskin! I’m even afraid to kill a chicken!”

“I pretend to be the Living Yama every day because I’m too scared to talk to other people!”

His words crashed into the Zhaoyang Palace like thunder from the heavens.

The Longquan sword slipped from Su Zhen’s hand and clanged against the floor.

He stared, dumbfounded, at the pink glowing figure sobbing uncontrollably around the pillar.

Afraid to kill a chicken?!

This was the God-of-Slaughter Crown Prince of Dayuan, the one who had shaken the neighboring kingdoms and commanded a massive army?!

But the power of the truth serum didn’t end there.

Su Jin’s urge to confess continued to surge wildly, and his mouth simply refused to stop.

“Waaah... I don’t want to go fight at the frontier either! I get dizzy when I see blood!”

“When I sleep at night, I can’t fall asleep if there’s no light in the tent!”

“Every night, I have to hug my pink little bunny plushie before I dare close my eyes!”

“Waaah, Father! My little sister bullies me! She made me drink poison and turned me into a giant lightbulb!”

Silence.

A deathly silence.

The only sound echoing through the hall was Su Jin’s heart-rending wailing.

At some point, Su Yaoyao had acquired a handful of sunflower seeds. Sitting on the bed, she cracked them with great relish.

[Holy crap! This is explosive!]

[The legendary Eastern Palace’s God of Death is actually a coward who’s terrified of everything—and a severe social-phobe who has to hug a pink little bunny plushie to sleep?!]

[Were people in ancient times really this good at pretending?]

Hearing Su Yaoyao’s thoughts, Su Zhen finally came back to himself.

He looked at his son, who was hugging the pillar, glowing all over with pink light, and crying like a complete idiot.

Su Zhen’s face shifted from green to white and back again. In the end, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Pfft!

The Tyrant of Dayuan burst out laughing in front of both his children.

“Hahahaha! A pink little bunny?!”

Su Zhen laughed so hard he could barely straighten his back. “You little rebel! You’ve pretended to be cold and ruthless for over a decade!”

“I thought you were truly a heartless God of Death! Who would’ve guessed you were just a scared little bunny who’s afraid of the dark!”

The more Su Zhen thought about it, the more absurd it seemed, and the louder he laughed. He was even happier than he had been earlier, when he had seized eight hundred thousand taels of silver.

“That pink glow suits your little bunny perfectly!”

Listening to his father’s completely unrestrained mockery and his sister’s nonstop mental barrage of ridicule, Su Jin’s heart shattered into dust.

He felt as though his soul had already left his body.

Perhaps leaving this glowing shell behind was for the best.

He released the pillar. His legs went weak, and he slid down along it.

Under the lingering effects of the potion, he split his legs on the smooth golden-brick floor.

Su ​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​​​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌‌​​​​‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​‌‌‌‍Jin lay sprawled on the ground in a full split, his entire body still glowing Barbie pink.

Beneath the mask, his eyes were utterly devoid of hope, as if he had seen through the mortal world and was ready to ascend into nirvana on the spot.

He had it so hard.

The terrifying image he had painstakingly cultivated for more than a decade...

Was utterly—completely—ruined tonight!

A tearing pain shot through his inner thigh, but compared with the devastation to his dignity, this bit of physical pain was nothing.

To salvage the last shred of dignity he possessed as the Crown Prince of Dayuan, and to make this heartless father and daughter stop laughing,

Su Jin bit through the tip of his tongue, using the sharp pain to briefly suppress the effects of the truth serum.

He raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot as he glared at Su Zhen, gritting his teeth before roaring,

“Imperial Father, stop laughing!”

“I secretly returned to the capital this time because I intercepted an extremely confidential report!”

“Someone in the imperial court has colluded with foreign enemies. In three days, during the Mid-Autumn night banquet, they intend to use ten cartloads of black gunpowder...”

“To blow the Taiji Hall sky-high!”