Chapter 36 The Judge of Life and Death: The judge decides life and death; the innocent live…
Whether the one who was chasing the current was a ghost or not, Lin Jianyu didn't know, but she still resolutely pulled her arm away from his embrace and left him.
Zhu Liu watched her retreat several meters without stopping, and said coldly, "You dare to abandon me and see what happens!"
Lin Jianyu had nothing she wouldn't dare to do, provided that she could really abandon him.
“Sir… there’s a grievance with a vengeance and a debt with a debtor. We were just passing by and didn’t mean to bother you. Could you please let us go?”
"No," the woman in blue refused.
"Can't you just let me go?" Lin Jianyu persisted.
"No," came the stream of life. "If we're going to die, we'll die together."
"Who wants to die with you!" Lin Jianyu didn't want to die, and of course, she didn't want him to die either. "Can you run away?"
"No." Even though the woman in green only lightly placed her hand on his shoulder, his body was completely immobilized. Otherwise, Lin Jianyu wouldn't have been able to break free from his restraints so easily.
"Then I'll run first." Lin Jianyu said, and without giving him a chance to react, turned and ran.
She knew she probably couldn't escape, but she didn't expect that she would end up back in front of Zhuliu and the woman in green. Thinking back to the "ghost wall" she had encountered before, she suspected that all of this was the work of the woman in green.
"Why are you back again?" Zhu Liu hadn't even recovered from the shock of her abandoning him when he saw her running back towards them.
"I'm trapped in a maze, there's no escaping it." Lin Jianyu caught her breath and found a nearby tree to lean against. She was exhausted and didn't want to struggle anymore; the worst that could happen was death.
Of course, it would be best if we could survive.
She didn't think the woman in green looked like she wanted to kill them, otherwise she wouldn't have waited until now.
What do you plan to do with us?
"Eat it," said the woman in blue.
Lin Jianyu thought of the "person" who had said he would eat her, who had now become their mount.
Do you know Qianli?
"The little Kunpeng that was with you?" The woman in green vaguely remembered that the other party's name was Qianli.
"It seems they know each other."
"So what if we know each other? So what if we don't?" the woman in green asked.
"Not really." Lin Jianyu was wondering if she and Qianli would have a chance to work together in the future, but she didn't dare to say it out loud for fear of being beaten to death. "Are you a cultivator from Gouqu Mountain?"
"no."
Lin Jianyu wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but she felt that her tone had turned colder when she said that, as if she didn't like the cultivators from Gouqu Mountain, or perhaps... "Do you have a grudge against them?"
"Not really." The woman in green simply disliked the cultivators of Gouqu Mountain; there was no real enmity between them.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Lin Jianyu said to himself as if he hadn't heard her. "My name is Lin Jianyu, and the one you've captured is my junior brother, Zhuliu."
The woman in green: "..."
If she remembers correctly, she said it wasn't really friendship, so how did they become friends?
“I have no grudge against them,” she emphasized.
“Just because we don’t have any grudges now doesn’t mean we won’t have any in the future,” Lin Jianyu said. “The cultivators of Gouqu Mountain are all so hated by everyone, who knows when we might become enemies. We can be friends first.”
The woman in green neither agreed nor refused, but changed the subject, asking, "Is the merman with you a shaman of the merman race?"
"You know a big shot?" Lin Jianyu was a little surprised; she had always thought the other person was a ghost.
"Lu Jiao?" The woman in green was not very sure.
"It seems you really know each other."
"I don't know him." The woman in green only knew that Lu Jiao was a shaman of the merfolk, but she had never seen him before, let alone knew him.
"But you want to get to know him, right?" Lin Jianyu said. "I can introduce you to him. I know him very well."
The woman in green did indeed want to get to know Lu Jiao; otherwise, she wouldn't have approached them.
What is your relationship with him?
Good question.
Lin Jianyu couldn't answer for a moment, but that didn't matter; she could make it up.
"My relationship with him is like... well, inseparable, like a scale that can't be separated from its weight."
The woman in green looked puzzled, clearly not understanding what she meant.
Upon seeing this, Lin Jianyu could only say, "To put it simply, no one can live without the other."
The woman in green understood, and immediately asked a new question: "You are not together now."
"It's just a temporary separation," Lin Jianyu said. "It won't be long before the big boss comes to find us after he's dealt with those cultivators from Gouqu Mountain."
"What if he doesn't come?"
"If he doesn't come, we'll go back to find him; it's not far." If it weren't for the ghost wall, she would have run back to Lu Jiao's side long ago.
Thinking of being trapped in a maze, Lin Jianyu subconsciously focused his gaze on the fish that looked anything but ordinary, and asked the woman in green, "Is that the spirit you keep?"
"No," the woman in blue shook her head.
Lin Jianyu hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Can you control him?"
"Um."
How to control it?
"You can't learn it."
"Oh." Lin Jianyu was a little disappointed, but not too disappointed. "Aren't you tired of standing? Would you like to sit down and talk?" Her intention was to ask them to sit down on the spot, but the woman in green sat down in front of her with Zhu Liu.
After sitting down, she stopped clinging to Zhu Liu's shoulders. Zhu Liu took the opportunity to climb to her side, hugged her arm tightly, and trembled.
Lin Jianyu tried to pull away twice but failed, so she let him hold her.
"Are you also a member of the Mountain and Sea Clan who has awakened from slumber?"
"Sort of." But not entirely.
Lin Jianyu ignored the uncertainty in her words and asked again, "Then do you know what a hybrid is?" She had asked Qianli this question before, and Qianli didn't know.
"Mongrel?"
“The big boss… is Lu Jiao. He called me a bastard, but I don’t know what a bastard is. Do you know?” Lin Jianyu explained.
Are you sure he wasn't insulting you?
Lin Jianyu: "..."
Lin Jianyu was not quite sure.
"Besides calling me a bastard, is there nothing else you mean by 'bastard'?"
The woman in green moved her lips as if she wanted to say something, but hesitated to speak. After a long while, she finally uttered two words: "Forbidden Technique."
Upon hearing the word "forbidden technique," Lin Jianyu immediately thought of the unknown forbidden technique Lin Jinshui had used to save her, and hurriedly asked, "What forbidden technique?"
“I don’t know what the forbidden technique is called. It was already forbidden when I was born, and it only exists in legends,” the woman in green said. “It is said that the shamans of the Merfolk once created a technique that could change the original bloodline of the Mountain and Sea Clan. Those Mountain and Sea Clan whose bloodline was changed through this technique were called hybrids.”
"Could this shaman of the merfolk be Lu Jiao?"
“It’s him.” The woman in green nodded, then added, “It’s just a legend.”
“It’s not just a legend,” Lin Jianyu said. “I did indeed use this forbidden technique to change my bloodline.”
"You transformed yourself from a member of the Mountain and Sea Clan into a human?" the woman in blue asked.
"No, they transformed from humans into the Mountain and Sea Clan," Lin Jianyu corrected.
"But you are clearly pureblood... Hmm, you don't seem to be a pureblood human. You have some kind of sea creature bloodline, like a hybrid, but not quite." The woman in green became interested, looking her up and down, and even raised her fingertip as if to touch her forehead, but for some reason withdrew her hand when she got close. "The legends I've heard say that bloodlines altered by this forbidden technique are completely changed, not like yours. Did you fail to change your bloodline, or is the rumor wrong?"
"The rumors should be true. I haven't failed either. It's just that due to my physical condition, I can't fully transform yet. Once I fully transform, I will become a pure-blooded sea creature."
"I see," the woman in green said, suddenly understanding.
"Do you know why this art of divination became a forbidden art?" Lin Jianyu remembered that Shen Siming once said that all forbidden arts have immeasurable consequences.
The woman in green shook her head: "Why don't you just ask that fish shaman?"
"I asked him, but he won't tell me," Lin Jianyu sighed.
She kept thinking about what Lu Jiao had told her not to regret it, and always felt there was some hidden danger.
"Was the boss very powerful back in your time?"
"More than impressive." When she was born, Lu Jiao was already an insurmountable figure.
"Tell me more about it."
"Aren't you very familiar with him?"
“I’m only familiar with him now, I don’t know him from the past,” Lin Jianyu said honestly. “Tell me about him from the past, and I’ll help you understand him now.”
"Most of what I know about him is hearsay, and it may not be accurate."
"It doesn't matter, just treat it as listening to a story. We're just killing time anyway." Lin Jianyu wasn't particularly interested in learning about Lu Jiao's past; she was just stalling for time until Lu Jiao came to them.
“*#*&&#…” The woman in blue spoke a sentence in an ancient language.
Lin Jianyu couldn't understand, so she asked Zhu Liu, "What is she saying?"
“The language of ancient times,” Zhu Liu said.
"Translate it."
"No." Although Zhu Liu had studied ancient languages, he only learned the basics and was not capable of translation.
Lin Jianyu didn't have high hopes for him, and instead focused her gaze on the woman in blue, repeating, "Translate it."
The woman in green hesitated for a moment before saying, "The Judge."
"What do you mean?" Lin Jianyu still didn't understand.
“Besides being a mermaid shaman, Lu Jiao has another identity: the judge,” the woman in green explained. “When the Mountain and Sea Clan mentions Lu Jiao, they refer to him more as the judge than the mermaid shaman.”
"The Judge decides life and death; the innocent live, and the guilty die. No one of the Mountain and Sea Clan can escape the Judge's judgment, not even a god."
"Even God can't do that?" Lin Jianyu thought it was a bit of an exaggeration.
“Yes, even God can’t.” The woman in blue spoke with certainty.
"Does God exist in this world?" Although Lin Jianyu's world is fantastical, he is still an atheist.
“There was one before, before I was born,” the woman in blue said. “Back then, the temple controlled the realm of mountains and seas. Later, blasphemers appeared, the gods fell, the divine realm was decimated, and the Court of Judgment was born. The judges judge life and death.”
"Are these all just legends?" Lin Jianyu asked.
"No," the woman in green shook her head. "These are all facts. I won't say anything without factual basis." She was afraid of offending Lu Jiao.
Are there many judges?
“No, there is only one judge, and that is Lu Jiao,” the woman in green said.
"A commander without an army!"
"It's not a lone commander. The court has not only judges, but also adjudicators, usually the high priests or shamans of each tribe, and sometimes individual tribal chiefs. They are all under the jurisdiction of the judges."
"Is this guy really that awesome?" Lin Jianyu realized that she had underestimated Lu Jiao before.
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