Moonset Cool Night (4)
After the frantic whispers of the first few pages came even more scribbling.
"Lately, I've been having other people's memories, and my body has become more restless. The world has completely changed in my eyes."
"Am I going to be trapped here forever?"
"Why am I losing memory and having less and less time to be awake?"
"Am I going to be trapped here forever?"
The handwriting became increasingly illegible, and one could only see that Lou Daoyan's emotions were becoming increasingly out of control. Some papers were even torn off roughly, presenting a state of disordered madness.
"I dreamt of a man who sealed me in a coffin. Years later, I finally saw the light again. Who was this man? Why do I have this memory? I'm not him!"
"Am I going to be trapped here forever?"
"I'm not him!"
"Am I going to be trapped here forever?"
Li Zhaoyue could feel Lou Daoyan's fear at that time.
"I am him, I am him! I want to get out! I want to get out!"
"Am I going to be trapped here forever?"
"I want to go out! I want to go out!"
Bang! The notebook was covered with force. Li Zhaoyue gasped, his chest heaving violently. With trembling hands, he drew a talisman and sealed the notebook again.
The only certainty now was that the living Lou Daoyan was no longer Wei Zhegu's former apprentice, but the man-eating monster who had appeared in her dreams and had been sealed within the Lou family for nearly a century—the Lou family's young master. Following this astonishing fact, deeper secrets began to surface.
The function of this formation is definitely more than just preventing the fall.
In Zhu Ming's memory, she was summoned when the formation was first activated. Yue Jinhuan also said that she was a deity. The curse that had plagued the Lou family for centuries, and the curse that had plagued the artifact's owners for centuries, all came from the gods.
That is, from her.
A very scary answer slowly emerged in my mind.
They stole the formation, most likely to summon the gods. Now it seems that only gods can break the curse and prevent the fall of the floating island.
If her guess was correct, then their next step would be to lure her into the game. Using the formation to supplement her missing divinity, they could help them lift the curse and avoid the crisis.
But whether she was absorbing the formation or being absorbed by the formation, only they knew the answer.
"What's wrong with you?" Yue Jinhuan asked, noticing something was amiss. Li Zhaoyue shook her head, but in her heart she was pondering Yue Jinhuan's origins. Everything was too coincidental. She had been pushed into this by a pair of invisible hands. Could Yue Jinhuan also be that "coincidence"?
She slowly became alert and asked tentatively, "When did you find me?"
Yue Jinhuan said: "To be precise, it was the day you and Xu Xing met."
"Why?" she asked again.
The meeting was also designed with ulterior motives, so why?
She doesn't understand.
Yue Jinhuan refused to say anything, but just emphasized: "You will know when the time comes."
It was a long night, and after this incident, Li Zhaoyue couldn't sleep well no matter what. She asked Yue Jinhuan several times in a roundabout way, but Yue Jinhuan discovered her real purpose and she returned empty-handed.
"You always liked to ask me questions like this before. I know you too well. Now, as soon as you open your mouth, I can roughly know your purpose." Yue Jinhuan said.
Well, Li Zhaoyue thought, Yue Jinhuan's performance really had no flaws, at least for now, they were not enemies.
She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. The dark and quiet environment did not calm her down, but instead brought on a wave of intense unease.
Perhaps, the moment of knowing the truth is coming soon.
*
Two years later——
"Senior sister, the compass here shows abnormal energy. We have been searching here for a long time, but we can't find the evil spirit." A man wearing the Yiziyuan disciple talisman said respectfully to a woman.
The woman wore a goose-yellow dress, her jet-black hair flowing freely, partly held back by a matching headband, gently swaying in the breeze. Her skin was pale, yet with a hint of pink. Her face was adorned with large, bright eyes, bringing joy to those who looked at them. The small mole between her eyebrows, faintly visible in the sunlight, added a touch of tranquility to her lovely face.
The disciple always glanced at her secretly while she was talking, and his ears turned red.
"I understand. You guys stay here and don't move. I'll go take a look." Li Zhaoyue patted his shoulder and said softly.
The disciple suddenly turned red like a prawn accidentally caught in a frying pan. As Li Zhaoyue lifted her hand and left, a fragrant breeze blew, making him feel a little distracted.
Snap—a gust of cold wind suddenly hit his left cheek. The disciple cried out and covered his face. Another blow, this time it was his forehead.
He looked around frantically but saw nothing.
A few days ago, the floating island sank further. A small village called Huayu Village, nestled right on the edge of the island, unexpectedly fell into the netherworld and was invaded by spirits. Yiziyuan quickly dispatched personnel, including Li Zhaoyue, who had been on the rise in recent years. Since Zhu Ming's death, she seemed to have suddenly awakened her spiritual veins, and in just two years, she had become the most powerful swordsman in the world of immortal cultivation.
The disciples secretly watched Li Zhaoyue's departing figure with envy, but they couldn't help but feel a little worried. As soon as Li Zhaoyue arrived, the spirits were defeated and fled. They chased them all the way to this dilapidated house, but they couldn't get in.
Li Zhaoyue walked to the overgrown doorway and drew the First Sun Sword. The First Sun Sword, the sword of the utmost yang of heaven and earth, was the object most feared by spirits. Sure enough, the spiritual energy that had been causing the compass to spin wildly vanished. Holding the sword in front of him, Li Zhaoyue cautiously entered.
The room was dim, littered with cobwebs and rotting wood. In the center of the room sat a statue of a god. It was incredibly well-made, gleaming with gold, a sight that seemed out of place in this dilapidated temple. Li Zhaoyue, with his keen senses, immediately sensed something was amiss and charged at the statue with his sword drawn.
As expected, just as the Churi Sword was about to strike the statue's eyes, it was deflected by a powerful force. A stream of black energy shot out from the statue's eyes, and within moments, the spirit was dead in the corner.
The spirit was immortal. What was going on? Li Zhaoyue immediately went to investigate. Unexpectedly, the spirit was feigning death, reaching forward for a sneak attack. Li Zhaoyue quickly retreated, raised his hand, and swung the blade in his hand, pinning the dark spirit to the wall.
After inspecting the ruined temple once more, Li Zhaoyue confirmed that there was no danger, and then he passed the message outside. Not long after, several disciples from the Yizi Academy came in one after another.
This place was in the wilderness, the nearest town dozens of miles away, and it was getting late, so Li Zhaoyue suggested that everyone rest in the dilapidated temple for the night. At first, everyone was a little scared, but seeing the half-dead spirit nailed to the wall by the Churi Sword, their doubts gradually dissipated. Some even playfully teased it, but the spirit wanted to fight back but had no strength, so they could only glare at the person.
They built a fire, and Li Zhaoyue sat beside it in meditation while the other disciples chatted.
"Hey, do you smell a sweet scent?" a female disciple asked.
"No way! Did you smell it wrongly?" asked a disciple.
"No, I have always had a very good sense of smell. Can you smell it again?"
"Junior sister, are you too hungry and greedy?"
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone burst into laughter. The female disciple's face flushed, and she turned away angrily, not saying anything more. As the sky darkened, the few of them closed the door together, and the entire wooden house was suddenly plunged into darkness, with only the light of the fire left.
At this moment, Li Zhaoyue, who was concentrating on meditation, suddenly smelled a strange fragrance. It was like the scent of tea, but also like the scent of flowers. She opened her eyes and locked her gaze on the statue.
The statue opened its eyes and looked at her with a smile.
There were no spiritual fluctuations. She felt relieved. But this statue, upon closer inspection, had something… something indescribable. She couldn't put her finger on it for a moment, so she sat back down.
Just as she was about to enter her cultivation state again, she felt a sudden chill on her cheek. Then, the disciples screamed in fear, and a gust of evil wind blew into the room, extinguishing the blazing fire.
Li Zhaoyue raised his left hand and lit several lighting talismans, illuminating the entire wooden house as if it were daytime.
unmanned.
She frowned and turned to look at the closed door.
There is no wind either.
"Ahhhhh!" someone suddenly screamed. Li Zhaoyue looked at the disciples' increasingly terrified faces, slowly clenched his fists, turned around, and slapped behind him.
A chill radiated from her hands, and an invisible but exceptionally powerful current neutralized her attack. Li Zhaoyue leaped back and, with incredible swiftness, affixed a teleportation talisman behind everyone. A blue light shone, and the talisman dissipated into ash. All the disciples were transported away. She spun and leaped, pulling the sword from the wall. She then drew a formation around the escaping spirit, then leaned sideways and struck another sword at the current.
The sword was silent and Li Zhaoyue jumped lightly to the other side. The sword light flashed and formed a protective circle around her.
What on earth could this thing be? She suppressed her suspicions and began to probe its location with her sword strikes.
Strangely, it didn't move, nor did it resist after being attacked by Li Zhaoyue. The light of the Churi Sword grew brighter and brighter. Li Zhaoyue put the sword on his back and was about to speak when there was a light knock on the door.
Ding Dong—Ding Dong—
Li Zhaoyue was still unsure whether the thing inside the room was friend or foe, so he naturally didn't dare to open the door. But the thing outside seemed to have determined that there was someone inside, and the knocking on the door suddenly became louder.
Knock, knock, knock—one sound after another, like a wild beast scratching the door.
Just as the worn wooden door was about to give way, the cold force suddenly moved and held it in place. The knocks intensified, but miraculously, the force held the door steady, scaring the creature away in the process.
There was a faint smell of blood in the air. Li Zhaoyue put down the Chu Ri Sword, walked to the door, and looked out quietly. He happened to see the back of that thing leaving, and felt a little scared.
That creature was a demon that monks feared and hated the most, called a soul-seeking ghost. These demons often stalked monks, absorbing their spiritual energy. The more timid ones would only steal a monk's clothing or personal belongings, absorbing the spiritual energy from them. The bolder ones would directly kill the monk and devour his flesh. The latter often cultivated faster and stronger than the former.
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