Chapter 185 [Alien] Heart-illuminating Array
Hua Jin raised his eyes, and the scarlet moon was reflected in his black pupils, like two frozen wells, so cold that it was soul-stirring.
Zuo Qianqian's laughter was stuck in her throat, and after a while she slowly closed the folding fan, a faint blue phosphorescent light seeping from the fan ribs.
"When did you find out?"
"It's not difficult to find out," Hua Jin looked at him with a complicated expression, "Zuo Qianqian, I treated you as a friend, and you actually lied to me like this."
Zuo Qianqian didn't answer immediately. Instead, he rubbed the fan's bones with his fingertips. The faint blue phosphorescence moved along the bones like a living thing, making his fingertips pale as paper. After a long moment, he let out a low laugh, a strangely hoarse sound, like iron scraping across ice.
"Friends?" He raised his eyes, the cinnabar mole at the corner of his eye red as if dripping blood. "Hua Jin, you are much smarter than I thought, but we can't be considered friends. You look like you really want to know why."
Hua Jin nodded.
"Let me tell you a story from two thousand years ago." Zuo Qianqian snapped her folding fan shut, and the faint blue phosphorescence instantly extinguished, leaving only a wisp of green smoke rising, like a severed soul thread. "A thousand years ago, demons were rampant, and there were very few people practicing Taoism. Hmm, how can I explain it? I need to think... Back then, there was only one sect—the Forget Worry Sect. I guess you all don't know about it."
Hua Jin had indeed never heard of it, nor had he heard anyone mention it.
"This is a small, forgotten sect, with not many people who have forgotten their worries. Thousands of years ago, the cultivators were stubborn and self-willed, disdaining to form cliques and factions. Most of them were independent cultivators, and how could they defeat those monsters and demons? They were blindly confident and all went to die. However, there were also powerful independent cultivators. He killed my mother, and my mother fought to protect me, so I had a chance to survive. He met someone as powerful as the murderer of my mother. He was my master - Dongfang Liu. He didn't despise me for being a monster, and we were together for a hundred years. He taught me how to practice and helped me to seek revenge. I am very grateful to him and I like him very much. He also likes me. Who would care about the relationship between master and disciple at that time? Everyone was busy with their own affairs, so we were together openly. You are very curious, why did Song Cisheng keep saying that he wanted to see my master?"
"Oh, my master was a very famous person. He died in a great battle, and that's how I learned that he was the Nether King. Everyone has forgotten him, but I haven't. I searched for him for a thousand years and found his reincarnation." At this point, Zuo Qianqian's eyes suddenly turned as blood red as the sky. "Just like those people, he forgot himself and me, and was with Song Cisheng. How could I bear this? I killed Song Cisheng, but he wanted to kill me. I didn't want to live anyway, so he might as well have killed me, but I didn't die. Later, I met Song Cisheng again. It seems that the Nether King brought us together."
"Song Cisheng doesn't remember anything, but I detected the ghostly aura of the Nether King in him." Zuo He took a deep breath. "How much did he love Song Cisheng? He even resurrected him regardless of the laws of nature. Come to think of it, Song Cisheng is a good person. If he hadn't met me, he would definitely be waiting for him to come home in the courtyard where they lived. Unfortunately, there are no assumptions in this world. Song Cisheng can't blame me. He can only blame us for loving the same person."
If a person can say that his love rival is good, then there is really nothing wrong with him.
Zuo Qianqian asked himself, he was a very bad person, but he only wanted Dongfang Liu from the beginning to the end.
"You know what? When I saw you and your master, I thought of Dongfang Liu and I, but you and I are different after all." Zuo Qianqian opened his fan and fanned towards Hua Jin. "The formation is complete, the blood moon is in the sky. I'm not afraid of you knowing that you can't beat me."
This fan suddenly made Hua Jin sober up, and he realized that he had been deceived. He trusted this friend so much, but he was told that this friend was fake, not only fake, but also deceived him. They were not friends at all, but enemies.
How could he accept this?
"you……"
"Why are you looking at me like that? Now that you know the truth, are you going to kill me?" Zuo Qianqian raised the corner of his mouth and swung his fan, sending Hua Jin flying. "It's too late. You couldn't kill me before, and you can't kill me now either."
Hua Jin struggled to get up, but before he could recover for long, he clearly saw the flag transformed into a soul-eating evil ghost and crawled out from the ground.
He summoned the Bodhi Sword.
Zuo Qianqian fixed him in place.
"You lied to me, you made me do all this, you made me set up the formation myself, my master will hate me to death!"
"I lied to you? You have your own selfish motives. Don't think I don't know. You told that little witch and the Marquis of Zhenbei about our plan. You dare to say it, don't you? Now that the formation is complete, no more words will be of any use!" Zuo Qianqian looked at the soul-devouring evil ghost with satisfaction. He cut his palm and fed it with blood. "The tiger talisman is cracked, the northern border is in chaos, the heart is burning, and the old friend has returned!"
As soon as he finished speaking, a huge disc appeared in the sky.
At the same time, the Star Pavilion began to collapse, forming a crack at the bottom, and the dark passage led to an unknown place.
Dongfang Qiao ran over, holding a pair of cakes that had just been brought to him by an unknown palace maid. He looked at them curiously.
He is Song Cisheng's apprentice. He has been an orphan since childhood and has followed his master.
Suddenly a ghost hand stretched out from the dark passage.
This scene did not scare Dongfang Qiao. He just walked away calmly, calling "Master".
"Master, the formation you set is wrong again!"
What he didn't know this time was that the formation was correct, and that hand was not an illusion, but a real evil spirit.
The evil spirit crawled out and reached out to Dongfang Bridge, but was bounced back.
Dongfang Qiao looked at it in confusion, almost dropping the cake in his hand, and shouted, "Master! There is a monster!"
More and more evil spirits crawled out of the dark passage. They were unconscious, but instinctively rushed towards the only light - the Eastern Bridge.
But just as the ghost claw was about to touch him, a red-gold talisman array exploded from under his feet, like a scorching sun falling into the underworld.
The runes rotated, and the golden light turned into chains, binding the evil spirit layer by layer and dragging it back to the depths of the rift.
Dongfang Qiao turned around suddenly and saw a master in white standing on the ruins of the Star Pavilion.
"Princess, take him away first." Mu Chi said. When he woke up from the bumpy ride on horseback, he had already arrived at Yandu. He wanted to go find Hua Jin, but suddenly the ghost aura he sensed in the underworld came from not far away.
Ye Ying'er carried Dongfang Qiao and left.
"Don't look back." Ye Ying'er shouted in a low voice, but her voice was shaking so much that it almost broke in the wind.
Dongfang Qiao leaned over her shoulder, clutching a half-eaten piece of osmanthus cake, the sticky sugar stains rubbing against her shoulder. He watched, eyes wide open, as the golden chains slid deeper into the evil spirit's throat, slicing like red-hot wire through frozen meat, making a sizzling sound. Mu Chi didn't move.
He stood at the edge of the dilapidated building, his wide sleeves fluttering like a sword blunted by time but still refusing to be sheathed. The golden light of the talisman array illuminated his pale face, making the cinnabar mole at the corner of his lip almost transparent.
Mu Chi's fingertips hovered over the last rune, and golden light flowed along his wrist bones, as if to burn through his blood vessels as well.
The passage to the underworld, the gate to the underworld was opened, and he had no ability to close it. He could only make the gate to the underworld smaller to prevent the evil ghosts and spirits inside from coming out to cause trouble.
"Seal!" Mu Chi shouted, and blood spurted from his fingertips and fell in the center of the last rune.
The red-gold talisman array suddenly closed, like an inverted golden bell, tightly clamping the entire crack.
But from the depths of the crack came a "crack" sound——
It was as if someone had pried open the coffin lid with their fingernails. Then, a pale hand emerged from the gap in the talisman array. Its fingers were long, their joints distinct, and a circle of extremely fine silver bells adorned its wrist. The bells rang without wind, yet the sound seemed to come from underwater, carrying a wet echo.
Mu Chi's pupils suddenly shrank.
"...Master?" He practically squeezed the words out through his teeth. He would never mistake this voice. He was Lin Shiyi's first disciple and had been by his side the closest. This voice could wake him up even from his dreams.
He walked out of the Nether Gate.
He wore black clothes, had black hair, and a little red on his head.
Lin Shiyi lowered his eyes, picked up a wisp of faint blue phosphorescence with his fingertips, and blew gently. The phosphorescence transformed into a butterfly shape, fluttering into the night sky and landing on the blood moon.
The scarlet moon seemed to be corroded into a hole, and sticky silver paste dripped from the edge.
"Xiao Chi," the man called him softly, "Long time no see." His voice was clear, but with a smile, like a crack in the ice that suddenly appeared in the snowy night.
Mu Chi's Adam's apple moved, and just as he was about to ask, Lin Shiyi disappeared right before his eyes. He hurried forward to check, but there was no trace of her.
The Netherworld Gate slowly gathered together, but did not close completely, leaving only a small gap.
Mu Chi looked up at the sky and hurried towards the hunting ground.
He remembered that behind the Heart-illuminating Array was the underworld, and the person who walked out of the Netherworld Gate was Lin Shiyi, his master. So the person Zuo Qianqian wanted to see was his master?
The wind from the hunting grounds carried the smell of rust and scorched earth, causing the flags to flutter.
By the time Mu Chi arrived, the blood moon was already high in the sky, like a scimitar dripping with silver, splitting the earth in two: one half was the still-rotating Heart-Illuminating Formation, the other a charred chasm engulfed by dark blue phosphorescent fire. Zuo Qianqian stood at the center of the formation, his black robe fluttering, his fingertips wielding a streak of blood as he added the final strokes to the Soul-Devouring Banner at the center of the formation.
The banner fluttered, as if countless human faces struggled beneath its skin, yet uttered no sound. Mu Chi immediately saw Hua Jin—he was pinned to the banner, his Bodhi sword shattered into three pieces, the tip of the sword sinking into his shoulder bone. Blood dripped down the sword's spine, but strangely flowed back into the formation pattern, as if being force-fed by some hungry beast.
Hua Jin's eyes were empty, his lips opened and closed silently, repeating only two words over and over again: "Master... Master..."
Zuo Qianqian heard the noise and turned her head. The cinnabar mole at the corner of her eye looked weird under the blood moon.
"Xiao Jin!" Mu Chi supported Hua Jin and pulled him behind him, "What did you do to my disciple!"
"He did it himself. He did all of this. It has nothing to do with me. I just want to borrow his immortal bone to ascend to heaven."
Zuo Qianqian had achieved his goal and expressed his thoughts without hesitation. In his opinion, he was now a winner.
In the past, he wanted to ascend to heaven because he thought that immortals could enter the underworld. However, after a few days, he found that this guess was not true at all. No one in this world could ascend to become an immortal, and no living person could enter the underworld. His guess was wrong, so he wanted to activate the Heart-Illuminating Array. He wanted to ascend to become an immortal and meet Dongfang Liu with a completely new identity.
He wants to restore all of Dongfang Liu's memories.
Mu Chi looked closely and saw that Zuo Qianqian was maintaining the formation with his right hand, while his left hand was holding...
"Give me back the immortal bone!" Mu Chi's voice was torn into pieces by the wind in the hunting ground, but it still sounded like a thunderclap in Zuo Qianqian's ears.
Zuo Qianqian chuckled softly, her knuckles slightly bent, and the jade-white bone in her palm floated up. The bone was covered with golden runes, like glass burned by a fierce fire, ready to shatter into dust at any moment.
"Return?" He raised the corner of his eye, his cinnabar mole red as if it was about to bleed. "Hua Jin's consciousness has been trapped in the Heart Illumination Formation. Even if you take the immortal bone back, what can you do? He won't wake up."
"Then let's give it a try." Mu Chi bit his tongue, spitting blood onto his palm. The golden talisman instantly ignited into a crimson flame, crawling along his wrist bones like countless tiny fire snakes, burrowing into Zuo Qianqian's formation. The blood moon trembled violently, and from the depths of the chasm came the loud sound of iron chains dragging, like the wailing of thousands of ghosts.
Zuo Qianqian's expression suddenly changed. With a snap, her folding fan unfolded, and a dark blue phosphorescent flame transformed into a giant python, swooping down at Mu Chi. However, the moment it touched his brow, it was shattered by a silver bell that appeared out of nowhere. The ringtone was crisp, yet carried a chill that pierced the soul—it was the same ring on Lin Shiyi's wrist.
The silver bell rang again, and it was as if an invisible hand had ripped off a corner of the blood moon, and silver liquid poured down onto the Soul Devouring Banner. With a hissing sound, the banner ignited with pale flames.
Zuo Qianqian's arms hung down. He looked at the person who appeared and breathed a sigh of relief.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
