Chapter 51 Becoming an Apprentice "That old bastard really deserves to die."...
Xiao Jiang released all the children who had been lured there, and then opened the door to the underground palace using the method the scarred middle-aged man had used to unlock it, just as he remembered. The people in the blood pool were gone, leaving only countless fat Gu worms, each one round and bulging as if about to burst.
A dark figure descended from Xiao Jiang's body. The gluttonous demon, who had just finished a hearty meal, lazily spoke, "So many spiritual essences, are you really willing to destroy them like this?"
Xiao Jiang paused, holding the torch. "Take it if you want."
The gluttonous demon's androgynous voice rang out again, chuckling, "You're really generous... I have no physical form, so these things are useless to me. But they're of great benefit to you."
Xiao Jiang didn't answer. Instead, he threw a torch into the blood pool and activated the spiritual power he had just inherited from the Gluttonous Demon. The flames instantly spread, burning the Gu worms in the pool until they twisted and deformed. A strange fragrance gradually filled the air, making people want to smell it again and again.
Wisps of black energy gathered at her drooping hand, and the gluttonous demon licked her palm, which had been cut by a blade. "This body was specially chosen for you by someone with excellent spiritual roots. It's just a pity that she died before she could embark on the path of immortality. If you don't cherish it, she will die too, and when the body dies, your soul will also be scattered."
"Why did you have to catch it with your hands? You could have used the power I gave you to crush those people's hearts, wouldn't that have been better?"
The wounds licked by demonic energy gradually healed, restoring them to a completely unharmed state.
Is it good? Is it not good?
It's certainly good to kill someone easily.
Xiao Jiang raised her healed hand; the soft palm and slender fingers were very different from her once rough and calloused hands.
From the moment she killed her first person until now, she has lost count of how many people's blood is on her hands.
She no longer recognizes herself, neither on the outside nor on the inside.
She heard her own weary voice say, "Why are you still following me? I have nothing left to trade with you."
"Hahaha... Of course it's because you're so interesting, more interesting than that body. Do you know how delicious it is when all those struggles, decisions, cruelty, compassion, ruthlessness, and tenderness are mixed together?"
The Nightmare Demon chuckled softly, smacking its lips as if savoring something, "Unfortunately, as a human, you'll never know."
Black energy swirled around her, and the gluttonous demon's deep voice was almost touching her face, "Sometimes, I really want to devour your soul, to eat it all in one bite. Tsk tsk, that feeling... But thinking about eating you, this boring world would lose one less interesting person."
The underground palace was filled with fire, the flames imbued with spiritual power, which scalded the blood to boiling point. The warm, stench carried a hint of sweetness—the taste of death.
"...You will come looking for me later."
With the demon gone, Xiao Jiang felt a sense of lightness in his body.
She set the entire manor ablaze, along with the mural of the mermaid goddess. The human-bodied, fish-tailed deity gradually disappeared in the flames, turning to ashes along with the faith of the past.
Standing outside the firelight, Xiao Jiang felt a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time.
Something drifted down; at first she thought it was ashes from a fire, until she felt a cold substance on her hand.
She stretched out her hand, and white fluff landed in her palm, as clear as salt, melting instantly upon touch. She remembered hearing about snow before—was this snow?
The white fluff drifted and fell in abundance between heaven and earth.
*
At dawn, which should have been the darkest hour, the snow that had fallen all night reflected a cold light, turning the world into a gloomy gray.
The cold wind, carrying snowflakes, lashed against the faces of pedestrians, covering two figures walking on the road in a silver coat.
Zhang Zhenyang had anticipated the snowfall, so he and his apprentices rushed to the suburban manor before dawn to cover their tracks with snow as soon as possible, so that no one would notice anything later.
But what he didn't expect was that the manor had become a ruin.
"Have we gone to the wrong place?" Zhang Zhenyang asked his apprentice uncertainly.
The boy beside him stared in shock, his mouth agape, and the blade of grass he had been holding fell out of his mouth.
It's all gone, everything's gone...
The entire manor, including the deep pool beneath the house, was scorched by a fire.
Not only was Zhang Zhenyang dumbfounded, but the boy was also stunned.
There's only one manor in this area, so it can't be wrong. But how could such a large manor, expanded from the old temple, be reduced to ruins overnight? Did the buyer arrive before them, take the goods, and then destroy the evidence?
What about the people inside?
The master and apprentice approached and saw several charred corpses lying haphazardly inside, their limbs scattered and their heads separated. It was immediately clear that these people had not died in the fire, but had been murdered first and then the scene burned down.
This method of killing is clearly not the work of someone from a cultivation sect. Killing someone like this would be too strenuous, and people from cultivation sects would not need to do it this way.
The modus operandi was quite cunning and cruel, and the fact that he was able to kill so many vicious criminals at the same time suggests that the murderer must be a strong man with high martial arts skills.
Both of them had roughly drawn a picture of the murderer in their minds.
I wonder who this group of people has offended in secret.
These people deserve to die, but the problem is, without them, who will contact the upstream buyers? What's the point of all their days of tracking and lurking?
Does my youngest apprentice love acting?
Zhang Zhenyang was nine-tenths broken down and one-tenth stunned.
The boy frowned, but didn't seem too disappointed. He simply said, "Unfortunately, they escaped again this time."
Zhang Zhenyang was displeased and pulled out a bamboo flute to hit him, saying, "You little brat, are you hoping they'll be alright?"
The boy jumped and dodged, saying, "You can't wrong me, old man. I have nothing to do with that place anymore."
Zhang Zhenyang was already seething with anger and nowhere to vent it, and seeing that he still dared to hide made him even angrier.
"Master, Master, stop hitting! Look, what's that?" The boy dodged and jumped onto a broken wall, his gaze suddenly stopping on the stone steps that used to be at the entrance to the ruins.
The object covered in snow on the stone steps stirred, the snow falling off to reveal a face as white as snow, with two dark eyes still sleepy, looking over hazily.
It turned out to be a young girl.
Those eyes, which had been dazed, suddenly turned cold when they fell on the boy's face, and attacked him like a bristling little beast.
The boy was startled by the sudden attack, but having cultivated for many years, he quickly immobilized the man with a single spell. "Wait... wait, who are you? Why are you here the moment you see me..."
Suddenly, the boy remembered something. He had come today to blend in with the human traffickers, and he was even using the face of that young human trafficker. So he pointed to his face and asked the girl, "Is it because of this?"
Xiao Jiang looked at him coldly, "You liar, you deserve to die just like them!"
"Have I ever lied to you?" The boy frowned and thought for a while. He had only lied to two people from beginning to end, and those two people were still missing.
He brushed the snow from her hair, trying to see her face clearly.
She suddenly opened her mouth and bit his hand.
The boy, instead of crying out in pain after being bitten, suddenly brightened up. He had been bitten in the same way last time.
"Oh, it's you! I'm so glad you're still alive. By the way, where did you go that day? I couldn't find you at the mass grave."
"I didn't lie to you on purpose, no, I did. No, no, no, I did it to infiltrate them. I didn't want to kill you. It's a long story. Anyway, I'm not a bad person."
Seeing her increasingly puzzled look, and unable to explain it clearly in a short time, the young man simply used his other hand to cast a spell, transforming his ordinary face into a handsome and otherworldly one. "Look, this is my true appearance."
His gaze fell on her face again, and it was a completely different face from the one he had seen in the underground palace, only her eyes were the same cold and stern look.
"How did you end up like this?" He pinched her cheek; it was soft, real flesh. "Where's your original face?"
Xiao Jiang didn't answer, spat out his hand, frowned, and asked, "Who exactly are you?"
"I am Kun..." the boy blurted out, about to introduce himself.
"Cough cough..." Seeing this, Zhang Zhenyang quickly coughed loudly to remind her, and pinched his disciple's ear. Although this little girl had an innocent look on her face, what she said and how she acted were very suspicious. How could this brat forget himself so quickly?
"You are immortals of Kunlun."
Zhang Zhenyang's fake cough was suddenly interrupted by a gust of wind and snow, and now it was a real cough. He took a moment from his busy schedule to glance at his disciple, wanting him to quickly question him.
But the apprentice didn't have time to pay him any attention. Not only did he not question him, but he also immediately lifted the immobilization spell and stared intently at the girl, his eyes shining like a thief who had seen a treasure.
Only the boy knew his true feelings. He had thought he had accidentally caused the death of an innocent person, but now that person had reappeared before him, perfectly fine. How could he describe it? Was it a loss that had been recovered? But something seemed off. Anyway, he was very happy.
"Do you know what happened here last night?" Zhang Zhenyang had no choice but to take matters into his own hands since his disciple was so useless.
"I burned it."
"Those...those people?"
"I killed him."
"You, how did you kill him?"
"They used their hands, and they also used weapons."
"Are you alright?" A worried question suddenly broke in, and the boy's gaze swept over her carefully.
Thankfully, there were no wounds.
Zhang Zhenyang took a deep breath, wishing he could shut his cheap disciple's mouth and eyes to stop him from talking and looking nonsense!
"You mean you killed them all by yourself and set the entire manor on fire?"
Xiao Jiang nodded.
Zhang Zhenyang carefully examined the little girl in front of him, placed a hand on her head to probe her spiritual root, and pondered for a moment, "She's a good prospect."
Suddenly sensing something, his gaze turned piercing. "It's a pity you've strayed from the righteous path and instead mingled with demons! If you dare to kill again, the immortal sect will never let you go."
"I just made a deal with it," Xiao Jiang said candidly.
What makes a mortal capable of making a deal with a demon?
Both master and disciple were puzzled.
The boy suddenly remembered the person he had pulled from the pool of blood, and his previously unanswered question was now answered: "Your original body... was it given to a demon?"
Seeing her head bowed and silent, the boy thought he had touched on a sore spot and comforted her, "It's okay, this one is fine too."
"Body swap? You can actually endure the pain of a body swap." The disciple didn't know, but Zhang Zhenyang knew very well what kind of pain a living person undergoing a body swap had to endure.
The reason this is an evil technique that has always been forbidden is because separating the soul from the body requires first creating an exit within the original body, allowing the soul to enter and exit. Even the most composed person would go mad watching their body tear apart; some, unable to bear the pain, experience their souls dissipate in the very first step. The subsequent process of separating the soul is like tearing apart two perfectly bonded objects; the long and arduous process is an inescapable torment.
Xiao Jiang looked at him with surprise, as if to say, "How did you know?"
Zhang Zhenyang understood immediately and sighed inwardly.
She's a pitiful person too.
He and his disciple had been down the mountain for months, hoping to finally find evidence of those who cultivated with evil methods and abused mortals, thus ruining their reputation in the immortal sects and subjecting them to punishment by the Immortal Alliance. But then a young girl suddenly appeared and ruined all his plans. It was understandable that she wanted revenge, even if her methods were a bit cruel. But someone who was so ruthless to herself would also be ruthless to those who harmed her.
What else could he possibly pursue? He could only blame fate for being too lenient and biased towards that family.
"Let's go, kid, it's time to go back." Zhang Zhenyang patted his apprentice, sighed, and turned away helplessly.
The boy kept turning back, looking rather reluctant to leave.
"etc!"
Zhang Zhenyang looked at the person at his feet who was pulling on his clothes.
“Take me as your disciple.”
"No, why should I?"
"You forbid me from killing again, but I can't do it on my own. You either kill me or take me as your apprentice."
So, if he doesn't accept the offer, she'll continue killing?
Heavenly Venerable One, the world has truly changed.
For the first time, Zhang Zhenyang felt as if someone had a sword pressed against his neck, forcing him to take on a disciple. He had never felt so humiliated before.
But then he thought of her extraordinary temperament and her excellent physical constitution. Rather than having one more evil spirit in the world, it would be better to have one more Kunlun cultivator with righteous thoughts.
So Zhang Zhenyang decided to admit defeat this time. "You are too bloodthirsty. If you want to join Kunlun, you must abandon your past affairs, uphold righteousness and goodness, and not interfere in worldly matters. These three rules are set. Can you abide by them?"
The people on the ground remained silent for a while.
"able."
Upon hearing this response, Zhang Zhenyang snatched back his clothes, clapped his hands, and left without looking back.
Xiao Jiang lay on the ground, completely bewildered.
So, were you rejected?
The boy followed Zhang Zhenyang for a few steps, then, realizing that Xiao Jiang hadn't caught up, he jogged back to her. He crouched down, his gaze intense.
"My name is Wen Yizhan. Wen as in warm wine, and Yizhan as in a cup of wine. What's your name?"
Xiao Jiang met his bright eyes, "Jiang Yuhuo."
"Jiang in river, Yu in fishing and hunting, Huo in flames."
The young man with sword-like eyebrows and bright eyes held a sword in one hand and reached out the other to Xiao Jiang, his smile enthusiastic.
"Come with me, junior sister."
*
As dawn approached, the wind and snow had not yet stopped.
A small troop of people galloped along the long street of Pinghai County, their hooves splashing snow and mud as they headed straight for the outskirts of the city.
When they arrived at the manor, it was already a snow-covered ruin.
One person dismounted to investigate, while the others stood before the ruins.
The horse seemed unwilling to stay still, restless in place. A pale, slender hand emerged from the heavy cloak and patted the horse's back reassuringly.
After a while, the man returned and clasped his hands in a fist salute to the man on horseback: "Reporting to the young master, Wu Laosi, who was in charge of the delivery, has been killed, and the blood pool gu worms, along with the spiritual marrow... have all been destroyed."
The attendant spoke cautiously, but received no response from the person on horseback for a long time. A low sob came from above, and the attendant looked up to find that the person was actually laughing.
The laughter grew louder and louder, and the man on horseback was laughing so hard he could barely stand up straight.
As he moved, his hood fell silently, and in the instant he looked up, a face as beautiful as a peach blossom was revealed, which, in the biting wind and snow, was even more beautiful than the clouds of spring.
The man's peach blossom eyes were now glistening with tears as he wiped away the tears that had welled up in his eyes from laughing. "Hahaha... even the heavens aren't on his side, hahaha..."
"That old bastard really deserves to die."
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Author's Note: Young Master, did you thank our Xiao Jiang? [doge emoji]
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