Evil Mage Cultivation: The Immortal Enslavement Path-Chapter 88: Two Cohorts

"Alright, that’s enough." Han Suwen gently pushed Luo Lan out of the hug.

She stepped back and shot Hong Qing a plain smirk. She had stopped being sad some time ago. She had simply wanted to hold on longer than necessary, because who knew when this demon would decide to be gentle again.

Luo Lan looked him up and down, trying to make sense of it. Wu Han’s face, now Han Suwen’s name. "What should I call you?"

"Han Suwen, for now."

She tilted her head. "For now? You’re going to change again?"

"Yes."

Both girls went quiet, turning it over. Was he planning to die again?

"Is that why you wanted me to kill you?"

"Not exactly." Han Suwen considered how to put it. "I didn’t intend to lose. I just wanted to see how far you were willing to go."

Luo Lan listened without interrupting, her eyes tracking every word.

"Can you teach me how to do it?" The curiosity in her voice had an edge to it, a specific kind of interest. If she could learn body transfer, she could escape her cursed body entirely.

Han Suwen caught it immediately.

He flicked her forehead. Hard enough to leave a small red mark blooming on her pale skin.

"Don’t ever think about easy escapes," he said. "Death should always be the last way out."

"Says the man who died," Luo Lan said, rubbing her forehead and glaring at him with immediate grievance.

"I didn’t die. My body stopped working. Those are very different definitions."

She accepted that with a short exhale through her nose, followed by an eye roll.

"So, have you decided yet what you’re going to do?" Han Suwen asked.

The casual manner they spoke in might fool an outsider, but Han Suwen meant every word of it seriously. Waiting any longer would cost her something she couldn’t buy back.

"I.... let me see how things go first, then I’ll decide," Luo Lan said. She still couldn’t bring herself to commit either way.

Hong Qing stood slightly to the side, following the conversation the way you follow someone speaking a language you half-know. She caught the words but kept missing the meaning underneath them.

Luo Lan, for her part, was aware of this, and found the lack of Hong Qing’s awareness quietly satisfying.

Han Suwen turned to Hong Qing.

"You must be confused about what we’re talking about, right?"

"Yes!" Hong Qing blurted, relieved he had finally acknowledged her. She had started to feel like some kind of decoration. "You’re acting like you didn’t just sleep with me not long ago."

The words earned her a bloodied glare from Luo Lan.

Han Suwen broke into sweat and laughed. "Later, we’ll discuss this later, I promise."

That was apparently too much.

Without another word, Luo Lan stepped outside to collect herself, leaving the two of them alone in the house.

"That woman." Han Suwen shook his head, still smiling. "I suppose that’s what a life in solitude does to a person."

He turned to Hong Qing, who was waiting with patience.

"You’ve figured out by now that I’m planning something big. But I’m curious, what did you think my plan was?" He watched her face.

He wanted to know how well her instincts had been paying attention.

"Hmm...." Hong Qing took her time and began piecing together what she had gathered.

He hated his body, so his goal was to create a new one.

He had claimed to be a miracle doctor’s disciple, but at this point that was certainly a lie.

What about the Wu clan massacre? That was probably his doing too.

He had sold healing potions and antidotes to people, that part was real enough, but stacked against everything else he had done, calling him a good person was a stretch...

There was a lot she had learned about him.

Even before she had slept with him, she had been watching him, picking up every detail she could, but it all pointed toward something she couldn’t tell.

She could follow the why well enough, but the how kept slipping away from her.

"Your goal is a new body, but how exactly.... I can’t work it out."

"Come on, a guess is fine," Han Suwen said. He knew how closely she had been watching him all this time.

It was unsettling to think about, if he was being honest, but if he could point that obsessiveness in a useful direction, Hong Qing might turn into something remarkable.

She thought it over carefully.

His distribution of potions, the wealth and influence he had been quietly building, and the recent event he had sparked that set the war in motion.

Potions. Lives. War. Death.

Creation didn’t come from nothing.

The only conclusion that fit all the pieces was, "You’re going to kill everyone and use them as material?"

Han Suwen’s eyes lit up as he clapped slowly. "Correct!"

The silence that followed had weight to it.

Hong Qing’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

She had known his ambitions were large, had sensed from the beginning that the man she had chosen operated on a scale most people couldn’t imagine.

But this was something else.

Six million lives.

A number with faces attached to it, each one carrying their own history and future.

People she had grown up beside, bought food from, passed on the street her entire life.

"Let me clarify something so you understand my action." Han Suwen raised his voice slightly, enough that Luo Lan, who was still sulking behind the window, could hear every word too.

"I hate using other people’s bodies."

His tone carried the flat distaste of someone describing an ill-fitting coat.

"Every body I use will always be borrowed time. The only way I can stop body hopping is to build something of my own, even a fraction of my original form, because anything is better than continuing to jump between shells like this."

Hong Qing steadied herself. "What kind of body needs six million lives as tribute?"

That was the question that had been gnawing at her for some time now. She knew he was someone powerful reborn, but how powerful was something she still couldn’t measure.

"A passable one," he said simply.

The word hit her harder than the number had.

Six million lives, and that only got him to passable.

"If we’re talking about my real body, the number of lives required would be so large it loses meaning. Even a functional version of that would require billions."

He sighed. A vessel capable of containing his full strength was near impossible to build, requiring the equivalent of entire existences as raw material.

"What I’m building here is temporary. Something to use while I work toward the rest."

Luo Lan started to giggle.

Now that she had finally heard the real reason behind it, she felt a faint warmth settle in her chest. So they were connected after all, bound by something she hadn’t quite been able to name until now.

She wanted out of her cursed body, wanted to be free of it. He wanted into something more comfortable, something that actually fit. The parallel was so clean it made her heart beat a little faster. Yin and Yang. Two halves of the same problem facing opposite directions.

"Hehe~" Her quiet laugh drifted in through the open window.

Hong Qing took a slow breath and straightened. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"Will you still follow me, now that you know the truth?" Han Suwen asked her.

Hong Qing sat with it for a moment, digesting everything, then let out a breathless laugh that was half disbelief and half something else.

She thought about her life choices, all the turns that had led her here, and in the end it was still her choice to make.

What surprised her most was that her body had started trembling slightly, not from fear, but from thinking about the sheer scale of what he was going to do.

"Of course. I’ll do anything you ask." She meant it, and the warmth behind it surprised even her.

She had found the most ambitious and capable man she could have ever dreamed of. How could she refuse when he was everything she had ever wanted?

"Good girl." Han Suwen glanced between them and smiled. Both of his cohorts were in line after all.

He had been slightly worried he would need to kill Hong Qing to keep Luo Lan satisfied.

It would have been a waste, getting rid of her before she had realized her full potential.

"Now that we’re on the same page, I have errands to run." He informed both of them.

"You two stay put and don’t kill each other while I’m gone."

Hong Qing grabbed his sleeve.

"What if someone comes back to check on you?" Her concern was valid. He was the most wanted man in town.

Han Suwen laughed. "Luo Lan is a perfect alibi, so if anyone comes, just make something up. Think of this as a great opportunity for you two to learn how to work together."

"I didn’t choose to stay and be left with this bit— this woman," Luo Lan cut in sharply.

"Hey! It’s not like I wanted this either, I just want to be near him as much as you do!" Hong Qing caught the hostility in Luo Lan’s tone immediately and fired back.

Both girls turned to stare at him.

Han Suwen, being the man that he was, patted both their heads and laughed it off.

"Bye~"

He waved goodbye and slipped into the secret passage he had used to bring Feng Zhou in, leaving the two of them alone to argue it out.