"Where's my sword?"
The man looked at her, his eye sockets bulging with bloodshot due to suffocation, but his mouth was grinning in a sick smile, and he forced out two words: "Please, me."
Xu Shulou understood what he meant from his eyes - it's useless to threaten someone with his life. If you want to know the whereabouts of the sword, come and ask me. If you kill me, you will be trapped to death on the mountain by two puppets.
Xu Shulou was not used to begging when she had the upper hand. Besides, she didn't believe that he would let her go just by asking him.
There is not much spiritual power left in the golden elixir, and Xu Shulou has no way to retreat. If he stops to interrogate now, it will only lead to more trouble. Besides, he has made it clear that interrogation is useless. Even if he is forced to use his life to force him to order the puppet to release the people, who knows what instructions he will give to the puppet at that time with his fickle temperament?
This was an opportunity that the senior had bought with his life. Xu Shulou didn't want to gamble. Even if she couldn't escape, she couldn't give this man another chance to harm others. She couldn't let him see the puppet again and have another chance to give any instructions. Should he be killed or not? Xu Shulou smiled and said, "It depends on God's will."
Xu Shulou pinched the man's neck with his right hand, and his left hand, which was holding the golden elixir, moved as fast as lightning, striking the man's meridians several times in a row, sealing his spiritual power.
However, since she was holding the golden elixir in her hand, it was inconvenient to use her fingertips to seal the opponent's spiritual power, so she basically just punched forward.
The man spat out several mouthfuls of blood after being gouged. Xu Shulou continued to activate the golden elixir. The hand that was pinching his neck could feel the man's spiritual power gradually weakening. She looked at him quietly. At the moment when the spiritual power contained in the golden elixir was exhausted, if he could survive, he would accept the judgment of the world. I believe that the Qingcheng Sect would take good care of him. If he was strangled to death, Xu Shulou would not feel sorry, but the nameless bones in the small garden would probably be a lonely ghost forever.
There was not much spiritual power stored in the golden elixir, and it was used up after a while. Xu Shulou let go of his weak hand and let the man slide to the ground.
She went forward and checked his breath. He was still breathing. What a pity.
While the two puppets were being driven away by the man, Xu Shulou wrapped him in a quilt and dragged him all the way to the small garden.
She had just used her spiritual power to break free from the shackles, which were now locked on the man.
Xu Shulou dug a deep pit in the small garden, tied the hands and feet of the unconscious man, gagged him and threw him in, then filled it with soil, leaving only a hole for him to breathe.
She couldn't risk him coming into contact with the puppet, so she decided to hide him here.
If he remains unconscious, he will be lucky. If he wakes up halfway, he will have to experience what it feels like to be buried alive.
After burying the person, Xu Shulou began to observe the movements of the puppets. He found that they had not seen the man, but they had no intention of looking for him either. They just followed his previous instructions to watch over her every day.
The problem Xu Shulou has to face is how to leave here.
The barrier in the mountains was very delicate, and Xu Shulou couldn't find a way to break through it for a while, at least not with her current weak spiritual energy. It seemed that the only way down the mountain was through the mountain gate guarded by two puppets.
She tried to strip off the man's clothes and put them on herself, and changed her hairstyle to be similar to his, in an attempt to get away with it, but unfortunately the two puppets were not so stupid.
She got the man's storage ring. She guessed that her Quexie should be in it, but the ring was branded with the spiritual mark of the original owner. Moreover, this man had probably stolen his master's things and had learned to be on guard against thieves all day long as a thief himself. He was very defensive and added several mechanisms to the ring, making it impossible for her to crack it.
What else can I do?
She had tested her range of activity and found that as long as she was in the mountains, the puppets would not interfere with her, but as long as she stepped out of the range, she would be attacked by the puppets.
She was trapped here, without magic weapon, without Quexie, without strength, and without help.
However, it was far from time to despair. Xu Shulou calmed down and thought that the fact that she could only mobilize a trace of spiritual power every day did not mean that she would never be able to break through. She continued to input spiritual power into her golden elixir every day and stored it. The rest of the time, she ignored the pain in her dantian and forced herself to mobilize spiritual power for cultivation.
If the spiritual power she can mobilize now is equivalent to that of a cultivator in the Qi Refining stage, then she will practice slowly, practicing Qi, building the foundation, golden elixir, and Nascent Soul... At worst, she can start over again step by step.
She searched the entire villa but didn't find any suitable weapon. In the end, she could only pick up a rusty kitchen knife from the kitchen, which she sharpened herself with a whetstone.
She missed Quexie, but she never gave up hope just because she left her weapon.
There is a small waterfall in her activity area, where Xu Shulou often practices.
The years in the mountains are long, spring brings about summer, autumn passes and winter comes, and in the blink of an eye, another year has passed.
Every time she gained some spiritual energy, she would try to challenge the puppets. They would stop at the right time every time, and would beat her until she was seriously injured, vomited blood, and fell to the ground, and then put a bottle of medicine in front of her and walked away. After all, their original order was to watch over her, not to kill her.
But later, when the medicine ran out, they didn't understand and always put an empty bottle in front of Xu Shulou.
Xu Shulou had rarely suffered such a beating, but she asked for it every now and then.
Fortunately, the beating was not in vain. She gradually summed up the rules of the puppets' attacks and was familiar with the rhythm and speed of their attacks.
In this way, there is no need to recover all the spiritual power. As long as you use the right moves, you can break the puppet's moves.
After storing some spiritual power in her golden elixir again, when she had enough spiritual energy in her body, she officially launched the attack.
According to the moves he learned from being injured again and again over the past year, Xu Shulou could almost dodge the umbrella sword with his eyes closed. A puppet is still a puppet after all, and its reaction is not as fast as that of a living person.
The Hunyuan Hammer will attack from the left, and the umbrella tip will be pointed upwards. Xu Shulou silently recites the next move, and then the sword in the umbrella is coming towards his heart. He should jump to avoid it, but he cannot avoid the next hammer, so he must take it.
Xu Shulou used a kitchen knife to block the Hunyuan Hammer, barely delaying the attack of the hammer, but it could only delay it for a moment. She watched helplessly as her left arm was fractured again.
She took a deep breath, luckily it wasn't the first time, she was used to having her bones broken, and even though her left arm was injured again and again, she managed to keep her right hand intact.
She took the opportunity to pounce on Yu Qishuang, who opened her Hanmei umbrella to block her attack. The moment it opened, the flower buds painted on the umbrella turned into blooming flowers, which looked very beautiful, in sharp contrast to the kitchen knife in Xu Shulou's hand. However, she had no intention of appreciating it, and she flashed behind the puppet according to the action she had calculated long ago.
After countless rehearsals, it had almost become her instinct.
The next sword was an oblique thrust. Xu Shulou gritted his teeth and took the initiative to find an angle to meet it, letting the rapier pierce his body and get stuck between his ribs. Yu Qishuang couldn't recall her weapon for a moment, so she had to let the rapier drop from her hand and put away her umbrella to stab her with the tip of the umbrella. The next hammer was about to swing over and hit her legs, but she could dodge it by jumping.
Xu Shulou jumped onto Yu Qishuang when she was closing her umbrella.
The puppets probably had no intention of not hurting each other. Seeing Xu Shulou jump onto Yu Qishuang, another puppet smashed towards both of them with a hammer.
Yu Qishuang would naturally hide. The puppets seemed to be able to handle only one thing at a time. If she wanted to hide, she would temporarily ignore Xu Shulou.
At this moment, Xu Shulou's intact right arm wrapped around the puppet's head, which was their weakness.
She did not hesitate when she twisted off the head. The current situation did not allow her to hesitate. Yu Qishuang was gone, and the puppet in front of her was just a form. She should not be soft-hearted towards it.
With a quick and decisive twist, the headless puppet body instantly stopped all movements and stood stiffly in place.
Xu Shulou looked at the puppet that used the Hunyuan Hammer, whose name she still didn't know. After Yu Qishuang was gone, her pressure was reduced. She raised her hand and pulled out the rapier stuck between her ribs. This weapon was much more handy than a kitchen knife. She fought with the remaining puppet for another half an hour, and finally seized the opportunity to twist off his head in one go.
When the battle was finally over, she collapsed to the ground, feeling pain even in breathing. She looked at the puppet beside her which was no longer making any noise, and finally fainted with relief.
When she woke up again, it was raining, and the cool raindrops fell on her face, awakening her mind. There was a pool of water on the ground, mixed with her blood.
Beside her were two stiff headless bodies, standing straight, like two straight pine trees that would never fall. Xu Shulou climbed up, moved their bodies and the fallen heads to the shelter under the eaves, arranged them neatly, and then limped to the small garden.
She dug the man out of the ground. It was unknown how long the man had been awake. Perhaps the experience of being buried in the ground and unable to move had left a huge shadow on him. At this moment, he looked dazed. When Xu Shulou spoke to him, it took him a long time to react.
Xu Shulou waited patiently for half a day before he barely recovered to normal. After cursing loudly and being frightened by her action of filling the soil again, he learned to speak normally again.
"You solved the puppet? Did you get the Spirit Gathering Pearl? No, that's not right," the man was still confident in the prohibition on his storage ring, "Have you cultivated to this level again? What kind of monster are you?"
Xu Shulou looked down at him and said, "You once accused us of being able to advance so easily. You boasted about your diligence, but is that rare? Don't I have it? Why do you think that people with talent don't know how to be diligent?"
“…”
Xu Shulou suddenly became curious: "How far have you cultivated in this year?"
"I, I just woke up a short time ago. How can I force myself to practice when I'm tied up and my spiritual power is sealed?"
Xu Shulou smiled somewhat sarcastically: "How on earth can you compare to those favored ones of heaven that make you jealous and hateful?"
The man seemed to be stimulated by her again and fell silent.
Xu Shulou raised his hand and prepared to knock him unconscious.
"...Wait!" The man finally couldn't help asking, "I only left you a trace of spiritual power at that time, how on earth were you able to resist me?"
"Haven't you figured it out yet?"
"You said it was because of one's character, but what does this have to do with one's character?" The man narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "Could it be that one's character can be transformed into cultivation?"
"..." This outrageous speculation made Xu Shulou silent for a moment.
"Yes, no wonder some people in the cultivation world say that one must cultivate the mind before becoming an immortal. It must be that the big sects have researched a method to transform the mind into cultivation, but they are hiding it and are unwilling to tell little people like us!"
Xu Shulou was stunned, and after a while he laughed: "You probably can't guess it, because they are the kind of people you can never understand or reach."
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