Chapter 214 Life and Death Without Blame (Part 11)
Qu Fengyu turned around and glanced at Jiang Gu.
"You, my maid, can wait outside the door," Song Chongshi urged her. "Hurry up and follow me."
Qu Fengyu said, "No, I want to take him in with me."
“I can only bring one person in at a time,” Song Chongshi said. “Besides, what would you do with her in there? It’s not a good place.”
"So you knew this wasn't a good place after all," Qu Fengyu said with a smile. "Then can I go and say a few words to him?"
"Hurry up," Song Chongshi said impatiently.
Qu Fengyu walked unhurriedly to Jiang Gu. Because she couldn't transmit her voice in the malfunctioning array, she smiled slyly and triumphantly: "Sister Ling'er, Young Master Song can only bring one person in at a time. I'm really sorry, I originally wanted to bring you in to broaden your horizons."
Jiang Gu glanced at her, raised his hand and touched the ghost mark on his wrist, then subtly handed it to Qu Fengyu under the guise of bowing.
Qu Fengyu calmly adjusted his sleeves, chuckled, and turned to walk towards Song Chongshi.
When Song Chongshi brought her in, he was extremely puzzled: "Since you don't like this maid, why do you insist on bringing her with you?"
Qu Fengyu gave him a cool look: "Stop pretending. Can't you see she likes you? I just want to deflate her arrogance. Who dares to steal my man?"
Upon hearing this, Song Chongshi said awkwardly, "Don't flatter yourself. If it weren't for Wu Hezhi—"
"I understand." Qu Fengyu shrugged indifferently. "I'm happy to do it, what's it to you?"
Song Chongshi felt a sudden tightness in his chest.
Wei Feng was forcibly torn off by Jiang Gu and handed to Qu Fengyu. Feeling aggrieved, he still couldn't help but secretly peek out a ghost pattern from Qu Fengyu's sleeve.
Jiang Gu stood there alone, his expression indifferent, as the distance between them grew further and further away. As the vermilion gate slowly closed, Jiang Gu completely disappeared from his sight.
A deep sense of unease suddenly welled up in Wei Feng's heart.
With no one around in front of the Zhu Sha Gate, Jiang Gu found a secluded spot, took out a piece of human skin paper, and followed Wu Hezhi's instructions to put a drop of cinnabar on the paper's forehead. The paper quickly swelled into the shape of a young girl, and the eyebrows and eyes, which were originally just ink, became indistinguishable from those of a living person.
Wu Hezhi turned his stiff neck and laughed, "Seventh Young Master is indeed a man of his word."
"I hope that Master Wu will keep his word," Jiang Gu said.
“Naturally.” Wu Hezhi seemed very familiar with the place. He took out two pieces of human skin paper covered with cinnabar from his pocket and said, “Song Shijun has set up a spirit-dispelling array around the Golden Spirit Pagoda. Apart from having someone with Song family blood lead the way, there is no other way.”
Jiang Gu took the bright red human skin paper. Although there were fresh cinnabar particles on the surface, it looked very old. He said, "This human skin paper was made by the Song family."
“Clever.” Wu Hezhi smiled. In front of Jiang Gu, he seemed to still maintain the demeanor of the Yanghua Sect Master, gentle and polite. “We can attach our primordial spirits into this human skin paper and then enter the tower smoothly.”
Jiang Gu said, "You had a chance to take Qu Fengyu away just now."
Wu Hezhi smiled and said, "I'm not that stupid. Making a move at Song Shijun's doorstep is the best course of action for me to break the contract."
The two people's primordial spirits attached themselves to the cinnabar human skin paper. Wu Hezhi led the way, and the cinnabar gate was pushed open with an extremely tiny crack. The two human skin papers floated in silently.
Upon entering, one is greeted by a spacious hall. In the center of the hall stands a colossal statue of a goddess cradling an infant. On either side of the hall are staircases without railings, ascending one after another to the dome, seemingly without end. At each turn of the staircase is a tiny door, from which the cries of infants emanate. The hall is filled with elderly women, their backs hunched, their expressions numb as they carry naked infants, moving between the staircases as if they have repeated this scene a thousand times.
“They are all mortals without any cultivation, they can’t see us.” Wu Hezhi led Jiang Gu up the stairs and whispered, “I was also born here.”
Jiang Gu wasn't interested in his background, but Wu Hezhi didn't stop: "I was only twelve when I was able to leave the building. I sneaked back then to find the woman who gave birth to me. According to the Pingze Continent, I should call her Mother."
The paper effigy stopped in front of a narrow doorway above the main hall. He chuckled self-deprecatingly, “I went through so much trouble to find her, only to find her eyes filled with hatred as she looked at me, wanting to strangle me. She had no cultivation and was no match for me. I didn’t originally intend to kill her… But strangely enough, when I killed her, she smiled at me.”
It's like a liberation.
Wu Hezhi pushed open the door and turned to look at Jiang Gu: "I've always felt that for the people in the tower, death is a better destination than living such a humiliating and hopeless life."
His face, covered in vermilion paint, obscured his expression, but he simply stared at Jiang Gu for a moment before stepping through the door.
Upon entering, a thick aura of resentment assaulted his senses. Jiang Gu instinctively tried to use his spiritual power to resist it, but then remembered that the surrounding area was filled with spirit-disrupting arrays. He forced himself to endure the discomfort and went inside.
“This is where they process defective products; no one usually comes here,” Wu Hezhi said. “I once set up a teleportation array here that doesn’t require spiritual power. Do you know Qu Fengyu’s location now?”
Jiang Gu asked, "Are you confident you can take her away?"
"I'll give it my all," Wu Hezhi said. "Once she falls into Song Shijun's hands, I'm finished."
The ancient magic circle was hidden among a pile of rotting corpses. Two paper figures jumped in, a faint light flashed, and then the surroundings fell silent again.
At the end of the teleportation array was a dark-colored palace. Countless boxes hung densely from the ceiling, their bottoms shimmering with different colored lights, some light and some faint. The patterns on them looked somewhat familiar. It wasn't until he took a few more steps forward that Jiang Gu remembered where he had seen them before—the Heavenly Secret Box that Jiang Yinzhong had used to store that small piece of his primordial spirit.
Compared to the Jiang family's Heavenly Secrets Box, these boxes are much more exquisite and larger in size. If these boxes were enlarged several times, they would be coffins used by mortals to collect corpses.
"Song Shijun did indeed bring Qu Fengyu here... These boxes contain the shards of the Moon Gazing cultivators." Wu Hezhi's weak voice was exceptionally clear in the deathly silence. "You should have guessed by now, every child born in the Golden Spirit Pagoda leaves behind half of their primordial spirit when they leave. Those primordial spirits are placed in these Heavenly Mystery Boxes. Once they perish outside, this half of their primordial spirit will take their place. However, these shards are nurtured in the Heavenly Mystery Boxes for years without the nourishment of a body, so they become exceptionally turbid and filthy. And the other half of their primordial spirit was already corrupted by the Golden Spirit Pagoda when they were separated, so it's hardly clean either..."
“The control that Yanyu Terrace exerts over cultivators goes far beyond simply planting life-and-death contracts. Many cultivators outside have actually died once, but they themselves are unaware of it.” Wu Hezhi looked at Jiang Gu. “Therefore, Jiang Xiangyun’s attempt to use the tenth level of his cultivation to help the people of Fentai Hall and the Eight Pavilions break the life-and-death contracts is a joke. The reason why Xiao Dan is so calm is because your actions pose no threat to him whatsoever.”
"As for your idea of using the Golden Spirit Pagoda, the Eighteen Cages, and the Mirror Flower Scroll to open the Boundary Realm, that's utter nonsense." Wu Hezhi stared at him and laughed, "These divine artifacts have each recognized their own masters. How can you guarantee that you will kill them one by one before Xiao Dan arrives? Besides, the owner of the Mirror Flower Scroll is Xiao Dan."
"How did you know?" Jiang asked.
"Yanyu Terrace has summoned the Eight Pavilions and Ten Towers to annihilate you within a month," Wu Hezhi laughed. "Don't waste your time, hurry up and escape."
“You don’t need to tell me all this.” Jiang Gu glanced at him.
"Just consider it me meddling in other people's business." Wu Hezhi tossed out a piece of human skin paper, which silently disappeared into the small box above his head.
The tightly closed palace doors slowly opened.
The ground was empty. Jiang Gu hid on the nearest box. The cardboard figure was so thin that it was impossible to see from underneath. He tilted his body slightly and saw who it was.
It was Qu Fengyu and Song Chongshi, and walking at the front of them was a young man in a black robe. His eyebrows and eyes were somewhat similar to Song Chongshi's, so it should be Song Shijun.
Song Shijun stood in the center of the hall and said to Qu Fengyu with a gentle smile, "Miss Qu, Wu Hezhi's avatar is right here. We'll find out if you've formed a Daoist partnership with him."
A hint of surprise flashed in Qu Fengyu's eyes, "Distracted?"
"These are just life-saving measures. Chong'er, go and remove Wu Hezhi's divided spirit."
"Yes, brother." Song Chongshi glanced at Qu Fengyu, formed an extremely complex hand seal, and the bottom of a box in the air flickered twice before slowly falling down and hovering in mid-air.
Song Chongshi walked over and had just touched the box when Song Shijun behind him suddenly shouted coldly, "Chong'er, get out of the way!"
Before Song Chongshi could react, Song Shijun ripped the box open with a single palm strike. The box in mid-air suddenly exploded, and a paper doll jumped out, firmly attaching itself to Song Chongshi's back. It then gradually expanded and transformed into a living human.
Wu Hezhi grabbed Song Chongshi's vital point, slowly raised his head, and smiled eerily: "Lord Song, it's been a long time."
Song Shijun's expression darkened: "Wu Hezhi, what do you mean?"
"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" Wu Hezhi's gaze passed over him, landing on Qu Fengyu, then suddenly withdrew, and he sneered, "So what if this woman has formed a Daoist partnership with me? You want to use a split soul to turn me into your puppet, and then take over Qiankun Tower in a perfectly reasonable way? That's a bit too ambitious of you."
Song Shijun said, "Release Chong'er, and I will return this woman to you."
“Lord Song, you’re joking. This Golden Spirit Pagoda is full of malfunction arrays you’ve set up. Even if you hand her over to me, we won’t be able to escape. In the end, we’ll still be at your mercy.” Wu Hezhi looked up at the box above. “Fellow Daoist Jiang, stop watching the show up there. You should come down and lend me a hand.”
A piece of paper slowly fell to the ground and transformed into a human shape.
Wei Feng, hidden in Qu Fengyu's sleeve, transformed into black mist and silently slid to the ground.
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